In today's news, there was a report about the Turkish protestors who choose to express their opposition to the government by standing still and keeping quiet in a novel form of protest. Turkish anti-government demonstrators adopted a new type of protest Tuesday - silence. Hundreds of people joined performance artist Erdem Gunduz, who stood still and silent in Istanbul's Taksim Square for hours.
Nonviolent resistance (or nonviolent action) is the practice of achieving goals through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation,satyagaha, and other methods, without using violence. The modern form of non-violent resistance was popularised and proven to be effective by the Indian leader Mohandas Gandhi in his efforts to gain independence from the British. Major nonviolent resistance advocates include Leo Tolstoy, Martin Luther King, Jr, James Bevel, Václav Havel, Andrei Sakharov, and Lech Wałęsa. From 1966 to 1999 nonviolent civic resistance has played a critical role in 50 of 67 transitions from authoritarianism. Recently, nonviolent resistance has led to the Rose Revolution in Georgia and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. Current nonviolent resistance includes the Jeans Revolution in Belarus, the "Jasmine" Revolution in Tunisia, and the fight of the Cuban dissidents. Many movements which promote philosophies of nonviolence or pacifism have pragmatically adopted the methods of nonviolent action as an effective way to achieve social or political goals.
The March 1st Movement is frequently cited as having inspired one of the most famous nonviolent demonstrators of all time: Mohandas Gandhi. Gandhi led a nonviolent resistance movement in India, which was occupied by imperial Britain at the time. The Dandi March of 1930 is the quintessential event of this movement. During the march, Gandhi and nearly 100 of his followers marched to Dandi, one place where salt makers were being oppressed by the Empire. They were greeted by a crowd of 100,000 people, and thus began a long trend of civil disobedience. This movement is important in the history of nonviolent revolution because it was one of the first times that, in order to maintain its public image, the government adopted a noninterference policy with the protesters, refusing to meet their peaceful demonstration with massacre or violence.
Although Gandhi's civil disobedience movement, called the Salt Satyagraha, did not have much of a lasting effect on the status of India or its treatment by the British Empire, it set a precedent that allowed nonviolent protests and revolutions to occur more frequently and with greater success around the world. Nonviolent protest movements such as that led by Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as wholesale revolutions such as the Velvet Revolution, owe much, both conceptually and tactically, to the March 1st Movement and to the Salt Satyagraha.
One particular method of nonviolent action action – the strike, in all its many varieties – has been the classic weapon of labour and socialist movements. Typically, of course, the strike has been used against employers for economic ends, but overtly political strikes have a long history. And one particular school of socialism, syndicalism, developed the notion that socialism would be achieved by a general strike, in the course of which the workers would take over the factories, mines and workshops, dispossessing the capitalists. The essentially nonviolent character of this notion is conveyed by the syndicalist symbol of the study proletarian standing upright but with folded arms; and also by the name originally given to the general strike by its Owenite inventor, William Benbow, 'The Grand National Holiday'.
(i) nonviolent protest and persuasion
(ii) nonviolent noncooperation, and
(iii) nonviolent intervention.
Nonviolent resistance (or nonviolent action) is the practice of achieving goals through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation,satyagaha, and other methods, without using violence. The modern form of non-violent resistance was popularised and proven to be effective by the Indian leader Mohandas Gandhi in his efforts to gain independence from the British. Major nonviolent resistance advocates include Leo Tolstoy, Martin Luther King, Jr, James Bevel, Václav Havel, Andrei Sakharov, and Lech Wałęsa. From 1966 to 1999 nonviolent civic resistance has played a critical role in 50 of 67 transitions from authoritarianism. Recently, nonviolent resistance has led to the Rose Revolution in Georgia and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. Current nonviolent resistance includes the Jeans Revolution in Belarus, the "Jasmine" Revolution in Tunisia, and the fight of the Cuban dissidents. Many movements which promote philosophies of nonviolence or pacifism have pragmatically adopted the methods of nonviolent action as an effective way to achieve social or political goals.
They employ nonviolent resistance tactics such as: information warfare, picketing, vigils, leafletting, samizdat, magnitizdat, satyagraha, protest art, protest music and poetry, community education and consciousness raising, lobbying, tax resistance, civil disobedience, boycotts or sanctions, legal/diplomatic wrestling, sabotage, underground railroads, principled refusal of awards/honours, and general strikes. Nonviolent action differs from pacifism by potentially being proactive and interventionist.
Peaceful protest has not always been so quietly accepted by those in power, however. For most of human history, any form of protest against the status quo, including peaceful protest, was likely to be met with violence of one sort or another. For this reason, public demonstrations have only recently become common ways of registering disagreement with the government. In the past, overthrowing or radically changing a government was almost certain to involve bloodshed, so those opposed to the existing powers made sure to arm themselves in advance to prepare for revolutionary war.
One of the first examples of a successful peaceful demonstration with wide-ranging effects is the March 1st Movement, which took place in Korea in 1919. At that time, Korea was occupied by imperialistic Japan. The Japanese regime treated the Korean people with brutality and widespread injustice. In 1919, a group of Korean nationalists drafted a declaration of Korean independence, citing a number of grievances with the Japanese occupation. After the declaration was read, crowds of Koreans marched through Seoul, and soon demonstrations spread throughout the country. Although the Japanese had no compunctions about massacring a large number of Korean protesters, the protesters themselves remained nonviolent, and as a result of the March 1st Movement, the situation in Korea vastly improved.The March 1st Movement is frequently cited as having inspired one of the most famous nonviolent demonstrators of all time: Mohandas Gandhi. Gandhi led a nonviolent resistance movement in India, which was occupied by imperial Britain at the time. The Dandi March of 1930 is the quintessential event of this movement. During the march, Gandhi and nearly 100 of his followers marched to Dandi, one place where salt makers were being oppressed by the Empire. They were greeted by a crowd of 100,000 people, and thus began a long trend of civil disobedience. This movement is important in the history of nonviolent revolution because it was one of the first times that, in order to maintain its public image, the government adopted a noninterference policy with the protesters, refusing to meet their peaceful demonstration with massacre or violence.
Although Gandhi's civil disobedience movement, called the Salt Satyagraha, did not have much of a lasting effect on the status of India or its treatment by the British Empire, it set a precedent that allowed nonviolent protests and revolutions to occur more frequently and with greater success around the world. Nonviolent protest movements such as that led by Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as wholesale revolutions such as the Velvet Revolution, owe much, both conceptually and tactically, to the March 1st Movement and to the Salt Satyagraha.
One particular method of nonviolent action action – the strike, in all its many varieties – has been the classic weapon of labour and socialist movements. Typically, of course, the strike has been used against employers for economic ends, but overtly political strikes have a long history. And one particular school of socialism, syndicalism, developed the notion that socialism would be achieved by a general strike, in the course of which the workers would take over the factories, mines and workshops, dispossessing the capitalists. The essentially nonviolent character of this notion is conveyed by the syndicalist symbol of the study proletarian standing upright but with folded arms; and also by the name originally given to the general strike by its Owenite inventor, William Benbow, 'The Grand National Holiday'.
It is only in very recent years, however, that academic researchers have begun to make a serious study of nonviolent action as an unconventional political technique intermediate between constitutional action, on the one hand, and violent revolutionary action, on the other. They are now classified in three broad categories:
(ii) nonviolent noncooperation, and
(iii) nonviolent intervention.
The first includes actions which are mainly symbolic in character, such as mass demonstrations, marches, vigils, and teach-ins. The second includes actions which involve the withdrawal of particular types of cooperation with the opponent. Examples, in addition to strikes and boycotts, are mass voluntary emigration, tax refusal, and abstention from elections. In the third category fall those methods which intervene in the situation either, negatively, by disrupting established patterns of behaviour or, positively, by creating new ones. Actions of this kind are the most radical of all and are exemplified by fasts, sit-ins, work-ins, and the establishment of alternative or parallel governments.
Tapasya plays an important role in the mechanism of satyagraha. First, it demonstrates to the opponent one's seriousness of purpose, indicating that one's opposition is not frivolous, and constituting a guarantee of one's sincerity. Secondly, it shows the opponent that one is completely fearless. Since the sayagrahi is prepared to suffer even unto death, this nonviolence cannot be dismissed as the act of a weak and cowardly person. In this way, the opponent is reluctantly compelled to respect the person. And, thirdly, in Gandhi's words, 'it open the eyes of understanding'. It constitutes a way of reaching the opponent's heart when appeals to his head (rational argument) have failed. It is an element in what Gregg has called 'moral jiu-jitsu'. The act of not striking back, turning the other cheek, accepting injury without retaliation, has the effect – so it is claimed – of pulling up the opponent sharply in his tracks, leading him to reconsider his position as a prelude to joining the satyagrahi in a common pursuit of truth.
The three elements of Gandhi's philosophy of action - Truth, Nonviolence and Self-suffering – enable us to pinpoint his contribution to nonviolent action considered as a political technique. From the perspective of political thought, Gandhi may be seen as the polar opposite of Machiavelli, the thinker who ushers in the period of modern politics. With his conception of real politik and his notion of raison d'état, with the end justifying the means, Machiavelli insisted that the realm of politics must be separated from the realm of ethics. Gandhi explicitly refused to make such a separation, insisting that there is only one realm of reality, and that 'what is morally right cannot be pragmatically wrong or politically wrong or invalidated on grounds of apparent futility' . Beneath the stark difference in the thinking of the two men, there is an underlying common thought: the practice of power politics cannot by any logic be reconciled with the precepts of ethics. To this Machiavelli responds: So much for the ethics! But Gandhi responds: So much the worse for power politics! And he proceeds to attempt to transcend power politics and to pioneer a new kind of politics – the politics of truth and love.
To tough-minded politicians, Gandhi's attempt appears absurd, an impossible enterprise. But to such people Gandhi had an answer which may contain more insight than the trite formula 'politics is the art of the possible'. 'Our task', he said, 'is to make the impossible possible by an ocular demonstration in our own conduct'.
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