Essay: The politics of peaceful change

Below is an article written by Edward Mortimer and published by the International Herald Tribune;

What determines the success or failure of a nonviolent resistance movement? Are violent and nonviolent resistance competing or comple[me]ntary strategies? How much does help from other countries matter?

And what constitutes success or failure? Is regime change enough, or can we only say a movement has succeeded if it leads to stable democracy, or to a lasting improvement in public morality?

These were among the questions debated at a four- day conference on "Civil Resistance and Power Politics" held last weekend at Oxford University.

It was unusual because the debate was not confined to scholars, or to one event. Participating scholars presented their analysis of resistance movements in different parts of the world, and then activists described how they had lived it at the time.

The premise accepted by most participants — and actively promoted by one of the conference's main sponsor, the Washington-based International Center on Nonviolent Conflict — was that nonviolent resistance is a strategic choice, and that those who use it can improve their chances of success by studying one another's experience. Czechs listened eagerly to Chileans, Poles to Portuguese, Iranians to Irish, South Africans to African Americans — and everyone wanted to hear about Mahatma Gandhi.

The historical detail was riveting. The conference rules don't allow me to quote speakers by name, but a leader of the "Velvet Revolution" in Prague described how she had learned from East German friends the trick of getting permission to hold a public gathering on an official Communist anniversary, then turning it into a massive demonstration — too big to be dispersed by baton charges — before the police realized its true purpose.

We heard that for Pope John Paul II nonviolence was a moral absolute — "defeat evil with good." Likewise, Gandhi's satyagraha was "not a political philosophy or technique, but a way of being in the world, at peace with oneself." Yet he also apparently felt that violent resistance, even if wrong, was at least preferable to cowardice.

For most of his followers, as indeed for John Paul's compatriots in Poland, nonviolence was above all a strategy. They saw that violence plays into the hands of rulers who have weapons and troops but need a plausible pretext to use them, whereas nonviolent action, skillfully deployed, can catch regimes on the wrong foot.

Weapons are of no use if the troops are unwilling to fire, as they often are when faced with a peaceful crowd, especially one including women and children.

In many cases, nonviolent tactics seem to be fatally sabotaged when others use violence in the same cause.

Israelis have few qualms about cracking down on peaceful Palestinian protest, so long as they feel threatened by suicide bombers. Yet in South Africa, it was argued, violence was "often extremely effective in creating the space into which activists could move." What eventually eroded white support for apartheid was the spectacle of "mounting disorder," both violent and nonviolent.

International isolation also played a part. And in more recent cases, such as the revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia, external encouragement, advice and money have played a significant role. Was that a splendid example of democratic solidarity, or an excessive interference by outsiders in states that were already at least semi-democracies?

Sadly, the attempt to bring democracy to Iraq through invasion has made it easier, especially in the Arab and Muslim worlds, to portray even peaceful efforts by nongovernmental groups as illegitimate.

Maybe some rules are needed. The world now recognizes, at least on paper, a collective responsibility to protect people threatened by genocide, ethnic cleansing and other crimes against humanity.

Could it also recognize a "right to help" — not so much a right of outsiders to interfere as a right of people facing oppression to receive help?

It's hard to see the United Nations making that leap, but in any event it would do so only at the end of a long process. But individuals who care about peace and freedom should start working on a code of conduct now.