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Nonviolent
Action: Why and How it Works
By Robert J.
Burrowes
January 25,
2017 "Information
Clearing House"
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Nonviolent action
is extremely powerful.
Unfortunately,
however, activists do not always understand why
nonviolence is so powerful and they design ‘direct
actions’ that are virtually powerless.
I would like to
start by posing two questions. Why is nonviolent action
so powerful? And why is using it strategically so
transformative?
When an
activist group is working on an issue – such as a
national liberation struggle, war, the climate
catastrophe, violence against women and/or children,
nuclear weapons, drone killings, rainforest destruction,
encroachments on indigenous land – they will often plan
an action that is intended to physically halt an
activity, such as the activities of a military base, the
loading of a coal ship, the work of a bulldozer, the
building of an oil pipeline. Their plan might also
include using one or more of a variety of techniques
such as locking themselves to a piece of equipment
(‘locking-on’) to prevent it from being used. Separately
or in addition, they might use secrecy both in their
planning and execution so that they are able to carry
out the action before police or military personnel
prevent them from doing so.
Unfortunately,
the focus on physical outcomes (including actions such
as ‘locking-on’ and its many equivalents), and the
secrecy necessary to carry out their plan, all
functionally undermine the power of their action. Why is
this? Let me explain how and why nonviolent action works
so that it is clear why any nonviolent activist who
understands the dynamics of nonviolent action is
unconcerned about the immediate physical outcome of
their action (and what is necessary to achieve that).
If you think of
your nonviolent action as a physical act, then you will
tend to focus your attention on securing a physical
outcome from your planned action: to prevent the
military from occupying a location, to stop a bulldozer
from knocking down trees, to halt the work at an oil
terminal or nuclear power station, to prevent
construction equipment being moved on site. Of course,
it is simple enough to plan a nonviolent action that
will do any of these things for a period of time and
there are many possible actions that might achieve it.
But if you
pause to consider how your nonviolent action might have
psychological and political impact that leads to lasting
or even permanent change on the issue in question but
also society as a whole, then your conception of what
you might do will be both expanded and deepened. And you
will be starting to think strategically about what it
means to mobilise large numbers of people to think and
behave differently.
After all,
whatever the immediate focus of your action, it is only
ever one step in the direction of more profound change.
And this profound change must include a lasting change
in prevailing ideas and a lasting change in ‘normal’
behaviour by substantial (and perhaps even vast) numbers
of people. Or you will be back tomorrow, the day after
and so on until you get tired of doing something without
result, as routinely happens in campaigns that ‘go
nowhere’ (as so many do).
So why does
nonviolent action work?
Fundamentally,
nonviolent action works because of its capacity to
create a favourable political atmosphere (because of,
for example, the way in which activist honesty builds
trust), its capacity to create a non-threatening
physical environment (because of the nonviolent
discipline of the activists), and its capacity to alter
the human psychological conditions (both innate and
learned) that make people resist new ideas in the first
place. This includes its capacity to reduce or eliminate
fear and its capacity to ‘humanise’ activists in the
eyes of more conservative sections of the community. In
essence, nonviolent activists precipitate change because
people are inspired by the honesty, discipline,
integrity, courage and determination of the activists –
despite arrests, beatings or imprisonment – and are thus
inclined to identify with them. Moreover, as an
extension of this, they are inclined to change their
behaviour to act in solidarity.
It is for this
reason too that a nonviolent action should always make
explicit what behavioural change it is asking of people.
Whether communicated in news conferences or via the
various media, painted on banners or in other ways, a
nonviolent action group should clearly communicate
powerful actions that individuals can take. For example,
a climate action group should consistently convey the
messages to ‘Save the Climate: Become a
Vegan/Vegetarian’, ‘Save the Climate: Boycott Cars’ and,
like a rainforest action group, ‘Don’t Buy Rainforest
Timber’.
A peace group
should consistently convey such messages as ‘Don’t Pay
Taxes for War’ and ‘Divest from the Weapons Industry’
(among many other possibilities). Groups resisting the
nuclear fuel cycle and fossil fuel industry in their
many manifestations should consistently convey brief
messages that encourage reduced consumption and a shift
to more self-reliant renewable energies. See, for
example, ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth’.
http://tinyurl.com/flametree
Groups
struggling to defend or reinstate indigenous sovereignty
should convey compelling messages that explain what
people can do in their particular context.
It is important
that these messages require powerful personal action,
not token responses. And it is important that these
actions should not be directed at elites or lobbying
elites. Elites will fall into line when we have
mobilized enough people so that they are compelled to do
as we wish. And not before. At the end of the Salt March
in 1930 Gandhi picked up a handful of salt on the beach
at Dandi. This was the signal for Indians everywhere to
start collecting their own salt in violation of British
law. In subsequent campaigns Gandhi called for Indians
to boycott British cloth and make their own khadi (handwoven
cloth). These actions were strategically focused because
they undermined the profitability of British colonialism
in India and nurtured Indian self-reliance.
A key reason
why Mohandas K. Gandhi
was that rarest of combinations – a master nonviolent
strategist and a master nonviolent tactician – was
because he understood the psychology of nonviolence and
how to make it have political impact. Let me illustrate
this point by using the nonviolent raid on the Dharasana
salt works, the nonviolent action he planned as a sequel
to the more famous Salt March in 1930.
On 4 May 1930
Gandhi wrote to Lord Irwin, Viceroy of India, advising
his intention to lead a party of nonviolent activists to
raid the Dharasana Salt Works to collect salt and thus
intervene against the law prohibiting Indians from
collecting their own salt. Gandhi was immediately
arrested, as were many other prominent nationalist
leaders such as Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel.
Nevertheless,
having planned for this contingency, under a succession
of leaders (who were also progressively arrested) the
raid went ahead as planned with hundreds of Indian
satyagrahis (nonviolent activists) attempting to
nonviolently invade the salt works. However, despite
repeated attempts by these activists to walk into the
salt works during a three week period, not one activist
got a pinch of salt! Moreover, hundreds of satyagrahis
were injured, many receiving fractured skulls or
shoulders, and two were killed.
But an account
of the activists’ nonviolent discipline, commitment and
courage – under the steel-tipped lathi (baton) blows of
the police – was reported in 1,350 newspapers around the
world. As a result, this nonviolent action – which
‘failed’ to achieve the stated physical objective of
seizing salt – functionally undermined support for
British imperialism in India. For an account of the salt
raids at Dharasana, see Thomas Weber. ‘“The Marchers
Simply Walked Forward Until Struck Down”: Nonviolent
Suffering and Conversion’
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0130.1993.tb00178.x/
If the
activists had been preoccupied with the physical seizure
of salt and, perhaps, resorted to the use of secrecy to
get it, there would have been no chance to demonstrate
their honesty, integrity, courage and determination –
and to thus inspire empathy for their cause – although
they might have got some salt! (Of course, if salt had
been removed secretly, the British government could, if
they had chosen, ignored it: after all, who would have
known or cared? However, they could not afford to let
the satyagrahis take salt openly because salt removal
was illegal and failure to react would have shown the
salt law – a law that represented the antithesis of
Indian independence – to be ineffective.)
In summary,
nonviolent activists who think strategically understand
that strategic effectiveness is unrelated to whether or
not the action is physically successful (provided it is
strategically selected, well-designed so that it elicits
one or other of the intended responses, and sincerely
attempted). Psychological, and hence political, impact
is gained by demonstrating qualities that inspire others
and move them to act personally too. For this reason,
among several others, secrecy (and the fear that drives
it) is counterproductive if strategic impact is your
intention.
If you are
interested in planning effective nonviolent actions, a
related article also explains the vital distinction
between ‘The Political Objective and Strategic Goal of
Nonviolent Actions’.
https://nonviolentstrategy.wordpress.com/articles/political-objective-strategic-goal/
And if you are
concerned about violent military or police responses,
have a look at ‘Nonviolent Action: Minimizing the Risk
of Violent Repression’.
https://nonviolentstrategy.wordpress.com/articles/minimizing-risk-violent-repression/
For those of
you who are interested in planning and acting
strategically in your nonviolent struggle, whatever its
focus, you might be interested in one or the other of
these two websites: Nonviolent Campaign Strategy
https://nonviolentstrategy.wordpress.com/
and Nonviolent
Defense/Liberation Strategy.
https://nonviolentliberationstrategy.wordpress.com/
And if you are
interested in being part of the worldwide movement to
end all violence, you are welcome to sign the online
pledge of ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent
World’.
http://thepeoplesnonviolencecharter.wordpress.com
Struggles for
peace, justice, sustainability and liberation often
fail. Almost invariably, this is due to the failure to
understand the psychology, politics and strategy of
nonviolence. It is not complicated but it requires a
little time to learn.
Robert
J. Burrowes has a
lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human
violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in
an effort to understand why human beings are violent and
has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the
author of ‘Why Violence?’
http://tinyurl.com/whyviolence His email address is
flametree@riseup.net and his website is here.
http://robertjburrowes.wordpress.com
The views
expressed in this article are solely those of the author
and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of
Information Clearing House. |
