Nonviolent resistance

Nonviolent resistance (or 'nonviolent action') is the practice of applying power to achieve socio-political goals through symbolic protests, economic or political noncooperation, civil disobedience and other methods, without the use of physical violence. The guiding principle is nonviolence.

Description

Like other strategies for social change, nonviolent action can appear in various forms and degrees. It may include information wars, protest art, lobbying, tax refusal, boycotts or sanctions, legal/diplomatic wrestling, material sabotage, underground railroads, principled refusal of awards/honours, picketing, vigiling, leafletting, and/or general strikes.

Some scholars of nonviolence, arguing that many movements have pragmatically adopted the methods of nonviolent action as an effective way to achieve social or political goals, distinguish the methods of nonviolent action from the moral stance of nonviolence or non-harm towards others.

Gene Sharp has identified 198 methods of nonviolent action which may be used to defend countries from invasion, undermine dictatorships, block coups d'etat or challenge unjust social systems. They include:

symbolic protests
hunger strike
paralysis of transportation
social boycotts
specific and general strikes
civil disobedience
economic shutdowns
political noncooperation
"disappearance" under false identity
economic boycotts
public demonstrations
slow-downs
publication of banned newspapers
deliberate inefficiencies
assistance to persecuted people
broadcasts about resistance on radio and television
judicial resistance
defiance by the government
denial of legitimacy to the usurpers
non-cooperation of civil servants
legislative procrastination and delays
declaration of defiance
persistent continuation of old policies and laws
student defiance
children's demonstrations
individual and mass resignations
refusal of collaboration
maintenance of autonomy of independent organizations and institutions
subversion of the usurpers' troops, and incitement to them to mutiny

Examples of nonviolent resistance

A list of current and recent nonviolent resistance organizations

Nonviolent resistance in colonial India

to be written: see Mahatma Gandhi

Nonviolent resistance in communist Poland

to be written: see Waldemar Frydrych (Orange Alternative), Solidarity

Nonviolent resistance in segregated US

to be written see also Martin Luther King Jr.

Nonviolent resistance in segregated South Africa

The ANC and allied anti-apartheid groups initially carried out non-violent resistance against the apartheid government in South Africa, see Defiance Campaign. However, events such as the Sharpeville Massacre led ANC activists like Nelson Mandela to believe violent (or armed) resistance was necessary. He founded Umkhonto we Sizwe (the Spear of the Nation). It initially carried out acts of sabotage but later expanded to guerrilla warfare against the South African security forces, including the use of car bombs. The PAC and other groups carried out violent acts against the government. The South African Truth Commission accused all anti-apartheid groups of killing civilians in violent acts. The PAC's armed wing was accused of deliberately killing white civilians and blacks who co-operated with the government. The apartheid government considered all violent acts by anti-apartheid groups to be acts of terrorism.

needs expanding see also Nelson Mandela

Nonviolent resistance in Israel

While Palestinian Arab resistance often carries connotations of terrorist attacks and of suicide bombers in particular, efforts have also occurred to use non-violent resistance to oppose Israeli control of the territories.

see also: Mubarak Awad

Nonviolent resistance in Denmark during World War II

When the Wehrmacht invaded Denmark in 1940, the Danes saw that military confrontation would change nothing except the number of Danes left to be occupied. The Danish government therefore adopted a policy of official co-operation (and unofficial obstruction) they called "negotiation under protest."

On the industrial front, Danish workers subtly slowed all production that would feed the German war machine, sometimes to a perfect standstill. On the cultural front, Danes engaged in the symbolic defiance of organizing mass celebrations of their own history and traditions.

On the legislative front, the Danish government insisted that since they were officially co-operating with Germany, they had an ally's right to negotiate with Germany, and then proceeded to create bureaucratic quagmires which stalled or blocked German orders without having to refuse them outright. Denmark also proved to be conveniently inept at controlling the underground Danish resistance press, which at one point reached numbers equivalent to the entire adult population.

The Danish government also gave room (and even secret assistance) to underground groups involved in sabotage of machines and railway lines needed to extract Danish resources or to supply the Wehmacht. The classification of this kind of resistance as "nonviolent" is debatable, but it certainly proved less "violent" than engaging in or supporting terrorism directed at taking life or health from the occupiers.

Even when their government was dissolved entirely, the Danes managed to block German goals without resorting to bloodshed. Underground groups smuggled over 7000 of Denmark's 8000 Jews temporarily into Sweden, at great personal risk. Workers (and even entire cities like Copenhagen) went on mass strikes, refusing to work for an occupier's benefit on an occupier's terms. After an initial response of greatly increased repression, the war-distracted Germans abandoned strike-breaking efforts in exasperation.

The Danish resistance against the Nazis proved highly effective, but it raises characteristic questions about the efficacy of nonviolence. The Danes clearly lost very few lives, while annoying and draining their foreign occupiers. But people wonder if the Danish strategy might not have failed abysmally if applied in other occupied by Germany countries, ruled by naked terror.

It almost certainly would have proved a more painful strategy for Denmark in such a circumstance (as in the case of the successful but agonizing nonviolent resistance to apartheid in South Africa), but like the Gandhian solution of perfect global surrender to the Nazis followed by perfect global non-cooperation with them, many questions of efficacy remain in the realm of the hypothetical. And due to the decentralized and various nature of nonviolent advocacy, questions about possible compatibility with violent resistance, or even about precise definitions of "nonviolent tactics" have no categorical answers.

Nonviolent resistance of Larzac's farmers (France)

In 1971, the French government announced their intention to extend the military camp on the Larzac plateau, an arid area in southern France where they claimed that "almost nobody lived". Local farmers strongly disagreed with this assessment and, inspired by the example of Lanza del Vasto (a philosopher and follower of Mahatma Gandhi who had gone on hunger strike for two weeks in their support), they embarked on a campaign of non-violent resistance.

In 1972 (?), the farmers' struggle attracted world-wide media coverage when they brought their sheep to graze on the lawn under the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The issue became a famous cause among many groups, from ecologists to conscientious objectors, and in 1973 100,000 people attended a demonstration in Paris in support of the farmers of Larzac.

The fight lasted until 1981 when the new socialist government decided to abandon the project.