Defining Non-violent Resistance

1. What are the conditions that enhance the possibility for success of a nonviolent movement?   If the social conditions are not right, can any amount of good strategy bring success? 

2. Defining Non-violent Resistance Nonviolence is an umbrella term for a range of different methods: -Non-resistance -Passive resistance -Nonviolent Direct Action -Tactical/ Strategic campaigns

3. What counts as success in a nonviolent movement? According to Gene Sharp: • Coercion • Accommodation • Conversion • Disintegration

4. Mass participation Higher levels of participation contribute to a number of mechanisms necessary for success. These are: • Enhanced resilience • Higher probabilities of tactical innovation • Expanded civic disruption • KiranSexena- ‘Gandhi’s advocacy of non-violence created favourable conditions for mass participation in all the movements he launched.’ • Boycott in Nashville (US) and Port Elizabeth (S Africa) received 100% compliance • Chenoweth & Stephan – ‘nonviolent campaigns fail to achieve their objectives when they are unable to overcome the challenge of participation, when they fail to recruit a robust, diverse, and broad-based membership that can erode the power base of the adversary and maintain resilience in the face of repression.’

5. Religion • Moral conviction • Provides communication networks • Provides shelter and support Argentina - Hebe de Bonafini- ‘In the face of increased persecution, we felt obliged to be in church more than ever.’ US Civil Rights – SCLC, King, Lawson

6. Nature of the state • A movement can fail if the state is not receptive to change • Violence is more likely to be used by a state that is undeterred by international opinion • Removal of consent is difficult in an authoritarian regime

7. Free media • Uncensored media is important to the success of a nonviolent movement • Nashville Tennessean Newspaper • Support can be generated through the use of media

8. Serbia • Otporuse media effectively • Leaflet drops – NATO anniversary 50,000 leaflets in one hour • Recognisable symbol • English and Serbian website • Television adverts • Election posters

9. Argentina La Prensa – 5 October 1977 ‘We do not ask for anything more than the truth’ 1978 Football World Cup International solidarity Hebe de Bonafini, ‘We sent hundreds of letters to foreign politicians, and we sought interviews with different world TV networks’. Renee Epelbaum appeared on America’s ‘60 Minutes’

10. The economic impact of a movement The removal of buying power- Nashville • The white shop owners were almost completely reliant upon black shoppers. • The withdrawal of the Black population’s buying power and custom gave them an economic leverage. • Khadi- cloth boycott in India, Gandhi made everyone wear this.

11. The Anti-Apartheid Movement: • There lay a major fault line with-in the Apartheid regime that failed to recognise its economic dependency lay almost entirely upon non-white labour. •  While the regime was incredibly rich in resources and powerful in terms of it’s military and police security forces, it’s reliance on the labour of the non-white population to maintain a functioning, efficient, and beneficial economy was extremely vulnerable. • The aim of these strikes and stayaways was to highlight just how dependent white businesses were upon the black population, and to make them realize the need to end the repressive Apartheid regime for it now seriously affected them too.

12. Leadership • Even in those movements that appear to have a single national leader, there are many forms of other leadership that are of equal importance too. • The Civil Rights Movement best highlights the powerful impact that local leaders and individuals of smaller communities can also have in preparing the way for the success of a nonviolent movement. Examples: • Grensboro Sit-ins and The Montgomery Bus Boycott

13. If the social conditions are not right, can any amount of good strategy bring success? Nazi invasion in Denmark and the Netherlands: • Both in Denmark and the Netherlands, resistance movements took the offensive against occupying forces. Thorough symbolic and cultural protests, they asserted their right to govern their own lives in their own country, and that strengthened public morale- which inspired bolder resistance. • The Nazi’s will to violence was notorious. But superiority of military force did not make them invulnerable. They were frightened of protest at the seat of their power. This is exactly what had been achieved by the occupied people of Denmark and the Netherlands.

14. Student movements • A lack of a national umbrella organisation • Disarray in organisation. • A failure on the students’ part to coordinate any support they did get from other sectors of society • A distinct lack of leverage • Lack of ties to elites and other social groups • Students became isolated from other social groups and Tiananmen Square became a moral crusade that not everybody could identify with.

15. Serbia and Nashville • Not all student led movements are unsuccessful – student movements that are able to capture the attention and support of other parts of society such as Otpor in Serbia or the Nashville Students in America are far more likely to succeed. • Nashville students gain support of other black people • Otpor gains support of wider society and bolsters DOS support.