User:Ocaasi/notes

Question: Was the Egyptian revolution of 2011 nonviolent? Can it be added to Category:Nonviolent revolutions?

A maximally exclusive definition of nonviolence is one in which any violence disqualifies it, regardless of who starts it, where it happens, and why it happens. A google news search between 1/1/2011 and 2/18/2011 returns 6000 articles linking the terms Egypt and violence, some very directly. There were several hundreds of deaths, gunfire, tear gas, batons, men on camels with swords, some beatings, some riots, some buildings taken by force. There was violence in Egypt. Therefore, the revolution by the simple definition was not non-violent.

A more commonly employed, and reasonable definition of a nonviolent revolution is one in which the vast majority of protesters are nonviolent, in which the majority of success is attributed to nonviolent tactics, in which organizers describe and implement non-violent ideology and tactics, and in which the violence that does occur is relatively small, isolated, or prompted by regime forces. By this definition, Egypt is sufficiently nonviolent--and recognized as such by reliable sources--to be included in the category.

Admittedly, not every source called the revolution nonviolent, bar-none. Some said it was 'mostly' nonviolent, or 'relatively' nonviolent. This is sufficient for inclusion in a category, which after all, is not definitional, but organizational. If many sources identify what happened in Egypt as nonviolent, and if they discuss its events among others which used nonviolent tactics, the category belongs.

Training

Sources

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20110313/ARTICLES/110319778/1350?Title=Egyptians-revolt-was-organized-non-violent-SSU-prof-says Observers worldwide were captivated in February as millions of Egyptians overthrew President Hosni Mubarek, who has been in power since 1981. Many also described it as spontaneous. It wasn’t, said Cynthia Boaz, a political scientist at Sonoma State University. She met with some of the students who became its leaders in 2008, at a workshop co-organized by the Washington-based nonprofit where she is a paid consultant, the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict. They discussed the lessons and methods of nonviolent mass civil resistance, and the skills it requires. Boaz remains in contact with them and said that what is now known as the January 25 Movement, while sparked by a similar revolt in Tunisia, was anything but impromptu. “I didn’t know they were planning ... to start on Jan. 25,” she said, “but I knew the movement had planned for a major action. It’s an organized, planned, disciplined movement.” Despite the scattered violence that continues, the revolution was overwhelmingly peaceful, waged not with weapons but with voices and placards and mass gatherings. Boaz, 40, is an expert in nonviolent struggle who consults with educators, activists and students from countries ranging from Spain to Iran. She said toppling repressive regimes is a milestone in the capacity of organized civil resistance movements. “What happened in Egypt represents a systemwide demand for a new alternative,” she said. “It’s not just about removing the old system from power. It was important to get something new for Egyptians, and that really is about democracy.”...Libya is an exception because “it’s not organized, there’s not a coherent, unified message,” she said. “It’s not disciplined, and it’s not non-violent.” Egyptian activists worked for years to identify and neutralize the sources of power in the nation of 83 million. Their effort extended to having coffee with members of the Army. “It’s a very nuanced divide and conquer strategy,” Boaz said. “You genuinely build real relationships with people, and you begin to help them question the legitimacy of the ruler and the system they’re upholding.”

Q: The revolution is often described as a spontaneous event ignited by the events in Tunisia. To what degree was it organized and why does it matter?

A: This question represents a common and unfortunate misconception about nonviolent action, which is that when you see it, it’s ad-hoc, it’s spontaneous; people just decide to show up in the city square and protest. But that takes away credit from the activists. When nonviolence succeeds ... it’s planned, organized and disciplined.

Q: Is it significant that the Egyptian revolution was largely nonviolent?

A: What’s won through violence has to be sustained through violence, so the only truly legitimate way to create democracy is through a bottom-up, nonviolent process. Also, the long-term consequences of a nonviolent victory in Egypt are that it really increases the credibility of nonviolence. Young people who are natural bases of recruitment by terrorist organizations are now seeing another option for pushing their grievances — nonviolence.

A: Mass non-violent action is relatively new, since the beginning of the 20th Century. It was really perfected by Ghandi ...and (the Egyptians) were also looking at Eastern Europe and what happened there in Serbia and Ukraine.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2062308,00.html#ixzz1ICWA9sr1 Fadi Quran is the face of the new Middle East. He is 23, a graduate of Stanford University, with a double major in physics and international relations. He is a Palestinian who has returned home to start an alternative-energy company and see what he can do to help create a Palestinian state. He identifies with neither of the two preeminent Palestinian political factions, Hamas and Fatah. His allegiance is to the Facebook multitudes who orchestrated the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and who are organizing nonviolent protests throughout the region.

http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20110327/OPINION03/103270309/Following-Egypt-s-lead?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CHome%7Cs Egypt has taken the first of many steps toward a democratic transition. On Jan. 25, the Egyptian people spoke out. They demanded a change in leadership, and asked that an autocrat of 30 years step down. Their actions were largely peaceful, and they used the tools of non-violent resistance.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-d-hirst/when-nonviolence-isnt-eno_b_837167.html Most recently, the Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak was ousted by a Jasmine Revolution. These revolutions differed from the other, bloodier revolutions of the past in that the revolutionaries did not use armed uprisings, guerrilla tactics or terrorism to free themselves from their oppressors. Instead, they adopted a series of tactics which have come to be referred to as "non-violent resistance". This resistance involves a series of techniques used to expose dictators and wrest legitimacy from their authoritarian regimes. They are meant to force capitulation which eventually leads to a democratic transition.

http://exponent.uah.edu/?p=3435 What do you think the geopolitical impact is of what has happened in Egypt? Egypt is such an important country that it carries a lot of sway both as a political model [and] as a model for the capacity of the citizens to confront a long-standing authoritarian leader. Egypt proved this could be done in a relatively non-violent way and in a short timeframe.

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/arts-and-entertainment/How-to-Remove-a-Dictator-117614514.html Popular social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, were instrumental in organizing the non-violent protests that led to the resignation last month of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Some people in Egypt and other parts of the world have also been using other media for ideas on how to remove a dictator. This includes watching TV documentaries on civil disobedience created by a private video company in Washington. The company has also produced video games on ways to use non-violent tactics to enact change.

http://www.illumemag.com/zine/articleDetail.php?Unless-the-Women-of-Egypt-Rise-There-Was-No-Revolution-13498 Over the recent weeks, many people around the world have been shocked and inspired by the non-violent revolution in Egypt. I’m sure it drove neo-conservatives mad having to admit that the face of the new generation of Islam got rid of their corrupt regime without making violence the focus. But indeed that's what happened.

http://m.timesofindia.com/PDATOI/articleshow/7680692.cms Nothing succeeds like non-violence: The rebellion in Libya stands out among the recent unrest in the Middle East for its widespread violence: unlike the protesters in Tunisia or Egypt, those in Libya quickly gave up pursuing non-violent change and became an armed rebellion...What's more, oppressive regimes need the loyalty of their personnel to carry out their orders. Violent resistance tends to reinforce that loyalty, while civil resistance undermines it. When security forces refuse orders to, say, fire on peaceful protesters, regimes must accommodate the opposition or give up power - precisely what happened in Egypt...This is why the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak took such great pains to use armed thugs to try to provoke the Egyptian demonstrators into using violence, after which he could have rallied the military behind him.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5hBNxbdz9R8WlrZdHAiZJKifqApDg?docId=6342022 "I think there are any number of possible outcomes [in Libya] and no one is in a position to predict them," Gates told reporters in Egypt, where a largely non-violent rebellion ousted an autocratic ruler within a few weeks earlier this year. One possibility, he said, is that Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi could see more major defections from within his ruling circle or more divisions within his family.

http://www.indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/132818/india/rebuilding-egypt-will-need-time-elbaradei.html Gandhi an inspiration to Egyptian revolution, says ElBaradei: Egyptian presidential candidate Mohamed ElBaradei on Friday said that Mahatma Gandhi's civil disobedience movement helped him plan Egypt's political transformation." I told protesters about Gandhi and the way he took on the British colonial rulers. Gandhi's non-violent struggle helped us in our journey to freedom," ElBaradei said...

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/0ad005b4-5043-11e0-9ad1-00144feab49a.html#axzz1ICThMjcQ When [Mohammed] Adel returned to Cairo, he brought more copies of Bringing Down a Dictator subtitled in Arabic, and the Canvas textbooks. He then passed on the word. Shortly before the fall of Mubarak, a pamphlet largely modelled on the Canvas teachings was printed in Cairo, the main point being, as Popovic points out, “to fraternise with police and maintain non-violent discipline”. “It took Gandhi 30 years to overthrow the regime; it took us 10 years; it took the Tunisians a month and a half; and it took the Egyptians 19 days,” says Popovic. “This is democratic blitzkrieg.” Later that day, we head to Belgrade University to see the department they are setting up where graduate students will be able to study for an MA in strategy and methods of non-violent social change. Popovic, a visiting professor, drives me to the campus in his cluttered green Mercedes with the licence plate 007. A friend told me she saw Popovic recently at a friend’s birthday party and he spent the whole night in front of the TV watching the Egyptian demos with a huge smile on his face. When it works, it really works, he tells me.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-jackson/the-professors-of-protest_b_842255.html Increasingly attention is focusing on the Centre for Applied Non Violent Action and Strategies (CANVAS), in Belgrade. It was established by the leaders of Otpor, who helped to bring down Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. After their success, they wanted to support others attempting to overthrow authoritarian regimes around the world with strategies that would increase their chances of winning. Activist from over fifty countries including Burma, Ukraine, Lebanon and Egypt have worked with CANVAS. After training they return to do considered and determined battle with their recalcitrant autocrats. One of their most celebrated alumni is Mohamed Adel, who trained with them in 2009 and then returned to Egypt to teach others in the April 6th movement. They, together with the Kefiya (Enough) coalition, were instrumental in organizing action against the Mubarak regime...Srdja Popovic, a former Otpor leader and Founder of CANVAS will be speaking at Columbia University next week on the strategy and organization of non-violent revolution. I asked him if anything stood out about the Egyptian revolution. He had many suggestions, but on the speed of its success he said: "It took Gandhi 30 years to walk across India and spread the spirit of satyagraha, the Serbs 10 years to remove Milosevic, the Georgians and Ukrainians two to three years to win, the Tunisians a month and a half, and the Egyptians 19 days -- a real nonviolent blitzkrieg!" He attributes the Egyptian's winning formula to unity, planning and non-violent discipline combined with the speed of today's digital communications.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/02/16/revolution_u Facebook could bring together tens of thousands of sympathizers online, but it couldn't organize them once they logged off. It was a useful communication tool to call people to -- well, to what? The April 6 leaders did not know the answer to this question. So they decided to learn from others who did. In the summer of 2009, Mohamed Adel, a 20-year-old blogger and April 6 activist, went to Belgrade, Serbia. The Serbian capital is home to the Center for Applied NonViolent Action and Strategies, or CANVAS, an organization run by young Serbs who had cut their teeth in the late 1990s student uprising against Slobodan Milosevic...In Belgrade, Adel took a week-long course in the strategies of nonviolent revolution. He learned how to organize people -- not on a computer, but in the streets. And most importantly, he learned how to train others. He went back to Egypt and began to teach. The April 6 Youth Movement, along with a similar group called Kefaya, became the most important organizers of the 18-day peaceful uprising that culminated in President Hosni Mubarak's departure on Feb. 11. "The April 6 Movement and Kifaya are the groups that have led the charge in actually getting protesters organized and onto the streets," a Feb. 3 report from the geopolitical analysis group Stratfor said. The tactics were straight out of CANVAS's training curriculum. "I got trained in how to conduct peaceful demonstrations, how to avoid violence, and how to face violence from the security forces … and also how to organize to get people on the streets," Adel said of his experience with the Serbs, in an interview with Al Jazeera English on Feb. 9. "We were quite amazed they did so much with so little," Srdja Popovic, one of CANVAS's leaders, told me. As nonviolent revolutions have swept long-ruling regimes from power in Tunisia and Egypt... Better than other democracy groups, CANVAS has built a durable blueprint for nonviolent revolution: what to do to grow from a vanload of people into a mass movement and then use those masses to topple a dictator. CANVAS has figured out how to turn a cynical, passive, and fearful public into activists. It stresses unity, discipline, and planning -- tactics that are basic to any military campaign, but are usually ignored by nonviolent revolutionaries. There will be many moments during a dictatorship that galvanize public anger: a hike in the price of oil, the assassination of an opposition leader, corrupt indifference to a natural disaster, or simply the confiscation by the police of a produce cart. In most cases, anger is not enough -- it simply flares out. Only a prepared opponent will be able to use such moments to bring down a government...The Serbs never met Adel again, but their young Egyptian student kept emailing, occasionally pointing out mistakes in Arabic translations of CANVAS materials. He had gone home with copies of Bringing Down a Dictator subtitled in Arabic and continued to download books. He conducted miniature versions of the CANVAS workshop in Egypt, stressing unity, nonviolent discipline, the importance of clear goals, and keeping members engaged. Just after the Jan. 25 protests began a 26-page pamphlet called "How to Protest Intelligently" -- authored anonymously, but widely attributed to the April 6 group -- began circulating in Cairo. It laid out the goals of the protests: taking over government buildings, winning over the police and Army, and protecting fellow protesters. It instructed people to carry roses, chant positive slogans, gather in their own neighborhoods, and persuade policemen to change sides by reminding them their own families could be among the protesters. It also gave practical advice on what demonstrators should wear and carry to protect themselves from tear gas and police batons. It suggested that they carry signs reading "Police and People Together Against the Regime." The protests were a model of unity, tolerance, and nonviolent discipline. The different groups put aside their individual flags and symbols to show only the Egyptian flag and to speak, as much as possible, with one voice. Protesters swept the square clean and protected shops, detaining looters and making them give back the stolen goods. Coptic Christians in Tahrir Square formed ranks to protect the Muslims while they prayed; when the Christians celebrated Mass, the Muslims formed a ring around them. Together they embraced soldiers and faced the police with roses. They sang songs and wore silly hats. It had an authenticity that was uniquely Egyptian, but it was also textbook CANVAS. CANVAS has worked with dissidents from almost every country in the Middle East; the region contains one of CANVAS's biggest successes, Lebanon, and one of its most disappointing failures, Iran. Popovic wonders whether Iran could turn out differently next time: What would happen if the Green Movement were to organize not around election fraud, but staged a Salt March instead, focusing on unemployment, low wages, and corruption? Iran is like Tunisia and Egypt were: a young, relatively well-educated population and a corrupt authoritarian government dependent on fear to keep people in line. "Governments that rely for decades on fear become very inflexible," said Popovic. "The pillars of the regime support it out of fear. The moment the fear factor disappears and people are fearless with the police and hugging the military, you have lost your main pillars." Hosni Mubarak no doubt would have ruefully observed the same thing. In Burma, it is hard to imagine what can vanquish that fear -- what can turn people from passive victims into daring heroes -- unless people like Pink Shirt do it themselves. In the Middle East, however, the fear is already crumbling, and the heroism is infecting country after country. This is a huge advantage. But for dictatorship to fall throughout the region, the protesters must catch more from Egypt than audacity.

http://www.npr.org/2011/03/31/134982528/arab-revolutions-inspire-afghan-youth "We have seen increasing debates among the youth on Facebook. More than 50 Facebook groups have been created under different titles calling for peaceful protests," he says. "The interesting point is that all of the debates online call for nonviolence and peaceful protests. Nonviolence is a new thing in Afghanistan, and the debaters seem to be educated and well-informed. Watching the overthrow of the regimes in Tunisia and Egypt, many Afghans have realized that nonviolence and peaceful protests can bring about a revolution."