Venezuela – Engaging Peace

This is the first of three posts comprising Part III of a series of posts in which Dr. Ian Hansen shares his thoughts on nonviolence.

Protestors responding to tear gas in peaceful anti-government protest in Venezuela, March 12, 2014.
Photo by Daga95.

In a previous post, I ended by discussing the dubiousness of partially nonviolent revolutions that result in the coup-like overthrow of deeply flawed but democratically-elected governments—like the Yanukovich government in the Ukraine and the Morsi government in Egypt.

Sometimes, of course, the system of elections is too broken or corrupt for there to be any hope of reflecting the popular will, in which case a popular nonviolent revolution can present a tempting alternative to just tinkering around with a broken or rigged system. But any such revolution should be undertaken carefully to facilitate a better and more equitable system of government accountability than the one it overthrew, and to do so quickly. It is a rare occasion when unelected revolutionary leaders make better decisions than the democratically-elected leaders they overthrow.

I am not cheered by the post-democratic governments of Egypt and Ukraine, and I think the fragile corrupt democracies overthrown by the partially nonviolent coups should probably have been given more time to work. Now that these nascent democracies have been replaced by coup leaders of very mixed political extractions (including fascists in Ukraine and aficionados of torture and military dictatorship in Egypt), the people in the streets cheering the revolutionary downfall of the leaders they elected face an uncertain and probably darker future. And I am nervously watching developments in Venezuela.

Ian Hansen, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Behavioral Sciences at York College, City University of New York. His research focuses in part on how witness for human rights and peace can transcend explicit political ideology. He is also on the Steering Committee for Psychologists for Social Responsibility.

By guest author Dr. Michael Corgan

National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance whistle-blower Edward Snowden is in limbo, unable to return to the U.S. Might Iceland offer asylum as payback for the way the U.S. treated Iceland in 2006?

Hong Kong protest in support of Snowden. Photo by Voice of America, in public domain.

The Bush administration in 2006 arbitrarily and unilaterally pulled all U.S. forces out of Iceland even while the State Department had a negotiator at the prime minister’s office supposedly talking about how many U.S. forces we would keep there.

Of course a good number of Icelanders never wanted the U.S. there in the first place and were opposed to NATO membership altogether. The majority, however, did favor a U.S. presence, and the sitting government was led by the rightist, pro-U.S., Independence Party. The prime minister (PM), David Oddson, had been in power for 13 years, longer than any other European PM. His response to the pullout: “We’ll be the only NATO capital without air defense.”

Thus the U.S. treated Iceland rather dismissively as the tiny state it was. Many politicians who had long careers supporting U.S. positions were at least embarrassed.

Would taking in Snowden be a chance for Iceland to show it is still a sovereign state and can make that status count on occasion? Most of my sources said no. Among other things, too much trouble.

Some outside journalists made comparisons to Iceland’s granting citizenship to chess champion Bobby Fischer against U.S. desires–but remember, Fischer put Iceland on the map in 1972.

Everyone spies on everyone else. But so far Snowden (and Julian Assange of Wikileaks) are mostly leaking American secrets. The U.S. government has been warning others to mute their outraged reactions since, I am sure, we could reveal what others have been up to.

Mr. Snowden is a hot potato and carries much more baggage with him than his inside information. Russian leader Vladimir Putin won’t give Snowden citizenship unless he stops spilling secrets. After all, who would be next? Nevertheless, word is out that Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua—all of which have their own reasonable gripes against the U.S. government–have extended invitations to him. Tensions run high.

Does Nonviolent Resistance Work? Part 3a

Iceland: Unlikely haven for whistle-blower Snowden