YSK: Non-violent protests are 2x more likely to succeed and no non-violent movement that has involved more than 3.5% of a population has ever failed
YSK: Non-violent protests are 2x more likely to succeed and no non-violent movement that has involved more than 3.5% of a population has ever failed
Nonviolent protests are twice as likely to succeed as armed conflicts – and those engaging a threshold of 3.5% of the population have never failed to bring about change.
This is actually rewriting history.
The Philippines had multiple militant movements but notably the Reform the Armed Forces which had orchestrated and abandoned a coup that had popular support kicking off the protest movement.
Sudan was a military coup that overthrew bashir and then massacred protestors and was actually backed by American OSI NGOs.
Algiers street protests were illegal and they combined general strikes with police clashes and riots even though they were subjected to mass arrests.
For Ghandi MLK jr and others mentioned there were armed militant groups adding pressure. My take away is you need both approaches.
Without demonstrating the ability to defend your nonviolent protest with devastating results it just gets crushed. If you are militant with no populist public movement backing your ideals you get labeled as terrorists and assinated by the feds.
Okay but who's the one defining a protest as violent? You get enough people together and you're going to have some aseholes that damage property but are the minority. If chocolate can have 5% bugs, then protests should be able to have 5% violence and still be called peaceful.
Or heck, if people react when police instigate, should that be called a violent protest?
I heard a saying once (I cannot remember the provenance) that could be paraphrased like: "The liberal is someone who is for all movements except the current movement; against all wars except the current war."
There are two important points:
- Every major movement in history has incorporated elements of violence;
- Which movements we retroactively consider as violent is determined by sociological consensus.
For example, the American civil rights movement is today considered by people to have been largely non-violent. However at the time the movement's opponents definitely thought of, and portrayed it as a violent enterprise.
Opponents of a movement will always portray that movement as violent. The status-quo consensus perspective on historical protests is written by the victors. Therefore, the hypothesis that "non-violent" protests are more likely to succeed than "violent" ones is self-fulfilling. When protest movements succeed we are less likely to consider them "violent".
It's also important to remember that non-violence serves the interest of entrenched power. The state is at its core a violence-control structure. When people excersize the power of violence in their own interests, the state must reassert it's dominion or risk collapse.
Non-violent requests can be accommodated without elites feeling like their ill-gotten power is threatened. But it's often the violent demands that scare them into doing so.
Tell that to Hong Kong demonstrators on June 16, 2019, estimated by organizers at 2 million people marching. Hong Kong had a population of 7.5 million at the time.
Sure there was violence both before and after that protest, but mostly caused by violent crackdown by police.
But did it fail because there was violence or was violence a sign of stronger opposition? Causation vs correlation and all that.
Bourgeoisie propaganda
Liberal three-percenter lore?
I mean, I do think non-violent disobedience can be effective, but the state usually makes it violent. State sanctioned protests where most obey most of the rules isn't disobedience. Is a good start though, and I hope things progress (in a good way).
Non-violent protests still need to come with a credible threat of becoming violent if the protesters' safety is being attacked or if their human rights are compromised.
STOP SPREADING THIS FUCKING LIE.
KING JUNIOR WAS DISLIKED DURING HIS NONVIOLENCE PROTEST.
IT IS PRECISELY VIOLENCE THAT THE STATE ENACTS THAT LEAD TO TRUMP’S REELECTION.
IF YOU WANT CHANGE, BE MORE UNGOVERNABLE THAN MAGA.
Considering the UK's biggest export is independence days, it's kind of hard to think that all of those were solved through non violent means.
The cries for violence here are quite disgusting. I understand our American friends are frustrated, but violence is only going to get you killed. The police in the US have been receiving military gear for decades now. If you want violence, you will get it.
Then there are some major misconceptions about the 3.5% rule. That is for persistent non-violent protests. Week in, week out, for months at a time, before this yields results. Violent protests drive away many of the people you need on board to achieve genuine change and make it exponentially harder to get to your 3.5%. Try getting a grandma or a family with kids to join when molotov cocktails are being thrown around.
So for everyone here calling for violence, you are idiots and you won't achieve a damn thing.
boot licker post
there has to be a big ass asterisk on his post. generally things like the civil rights movement got partially undone and then success can be nebulous since even in a movement there are subset of goals that might not have been achieved
600k Australians protested against the Iraq war in 2003.
The population was about 20m so 3.5% of that is 700k. So if another 100k had joined then the protest would have succeeded?
As a catalan actively involved in the 2012-2017 push for independence, I call bullshit.
This refers to Chenoweth's research, and I'm somewhat familiar with their work. I think it's good to clarify what non-violent means to them, as it's non-obvious. For example, are economic boycotts violence? They harm businesses and keep food of the tables of workers. I don't think that's violence, but some people do, and what really matters here is what Chenoweth thinks violence is, and what they mean when they say "nonviolent tactics are more effective".
At the end of "civil resistance: what everyone needs to know", Chenoweth lists a number of campaigns which they've marked as violent/nonviolent and successful/unsuccessful. Let's look at them and the tactics employed tonfigure out what exactly Chenoweth is advocating for. Please do not read this as a condemnation of their work, or of the protests that follow. This is just an investigation into what "nonviolence" means to Chenoweth.
Euromaidan: successful, nonviolent. In these protests, protestors threw molotov cocktails and bricks and at the police. I remember seeing a video of an apc getting absolutely melted by 10 or so molotovs cocktails.
The anti-Pinochet campaign: successful, nonviolent. This involved at least one attempt on Pinochet's life.
Gwangju uprising in South Korea: unsuccessful, nonviolent. Car plowed into police officers, 4 dead.
Anti-Duvalier campaign in Haiti: successful, nonviolent. Destruction of government offices.
To summarize, here's some means that are included in Chenoweth's research:
- throwing bricks at the police
- throwing molotov cocktails at the police
- assassination attempts
- driving a car into police officers
- destroying government offices
The point here is not that these protests were wrong, they weren't. The point is that they employed violent tactics in the face of state violence. Self-defense is not violence, and this article completely ignores this context, and heavily and knowingly implies that sitting in a circle and singing kumbaya is the way to beat oppression. It isn't.
This is complete utter propaganda, especially considering it's coming from the BBC. History has shown us time and time again that the ruling class never gives up its power peacefully.
A lot of violent protests have succeeded too. Such as the suffragettes gaining the right to vote for women or unions gaining the right to exist, and the 8 hour work day.
lol of course this garbage bootlicker propaganda is left up on .world, a classic example of their quality modding skills
glad to see the comments calling it out for what it is
Interesting how the paper picks East Timor/Indonesia as a case study but makes no mention of the massacres of the PKI and suspected communists, which the US was ambivalent, if not supportive about.
Any serious study of resistance movements around the world will paint a very different picture, one in which nonviolence is frequently met with slaughter, and people turn to violence specifically because nonviolence failed.
The fact of the matter is that people living in the imperial core cannot be well versed in the history of every country in the world (to the extent that we can even exert influence in the first place), and this allows the media to either ignore things like the massacres in Indonesia, or spin them in such a way to justify the preferred side through biased framing. The thing the paper cites as a major determining factor of success or failure is defections from security forces, but what if those security forces come from thousands of miles away?
Trying to assert a universal principle on a tactical level regarding such broad categories is kind of silly in the first place. It's too broad. You have to assess what you're trying to accomplish and formulate a strategy to get there based on the particular situation you find yourself in.
From "The Jakarta Method:"
This was another very difficult question I had to ask my interview subjects, especially the leftists from Southeast Asia and Latin America. When we would get to discussing the old debates between peaceful and armed revolution; between hardline Marxism and democratic socialism, I would ask:
“Who was right?”
In Guatemala, was it Árbenz or Che who had the right approach? Or in Indonesia, when Mao warned Aidit that the PKI should arm themselves, and they did not? In Chile, was it the young revolutionaries in the MIR who were right in those college debates, or the more disciplined, moderate Chilean Communist Party?
Most of the people I spoke with who were politically involved back then believed fervently in a nonviolent approach, in gradual, peaceful, democratic change. They often had no love for the systems set up by people like Mao. But they knew that their side had lost the debate, because so many of their friends were dead. They often admitted, without hesitation or pleasure, that the hardliners had been right. Aidit’s unarmed party didn’t survive. Allende’s democratic socialism was not allowed, regardless of the détente between the Soviets and Washington.
Looking at it this way, the major losers of the twentieth century were those who believed too sincerely in the existence a liberal international order, those who trusted too much in democracy, or too much in what the United States said it supported, rather than what it really supported—what the rich countries said, rather than what they did. That group was annihilated.
'France' has entered the chat
Based on the article "no non-violent movement that has involved more than 3.5% of a population has ever failed" has the caveat of "we only look at 3 of them, and those 3 worked".
So their overall sample size is small, and the 3.5% sample size is just 3. Further, those 3 had no idea someone in the vague future would retroactively measure their participation to declare it a rock solid threshold.
I think the broader takeaway is that number of people seems to matter more than degree of violence, and violence seems to alienate people that might have otherwise participated.
It's about resistance, not violence per we. Choosing the right kind of resistance for the situation is how change is made. Non violent protesting is for raising awareness and building solidarity. Violence is purely for defense and to show when a line has been crossed. Otherwise your movement will just become the next police state regime, if it doesn't get crushed outright. People advocating for violence on social media are either bots or bad faith actors trying to stop the movement. Anyone seriously considering violence against the state sure as shit aren't posting about it on Lemmy.
Phony liberal bullshit for controlling the masses.
edit: YSK this article is old and largely debunked.
Bogus unsupported stats
We're at that point and yet has Trump been impeached for denying due process and trying to create a process with ice to deport people without a trial to a foreign prison for life? Or for blatantly ignoring orders from federal courts and the Supreme Court?
Until Trump is in prison or tried for his crimes this article doesn't sway my opinion at all. Fact is too many loopholes exist in the rule of law in the usa. Only way to fix it is creating a new government with a new constitution. The executive branch as it is has way too much power consolidated. The current form of government cant go on as it is. Especially because of how much money and bribery is now involved.
I dont see this being resolved peacefully. Fascists never go peacefully. NEVER
The problem when it comes to the current situation in the US, is that these protests already came baked in to the Project 2025 plan from the start.
They're not going to change their minds on anything as a result of the protests because they already knew there'd be mass protests before Trump signed a single order.
bbc link
imagine my shock
what a fucking rag
no non-violent movement that has involved more than 3.5% of a population has ever failed
US police: hold my riot gear!
Thanks Bernie the sheepdog.
Make sure the sheep don't make waves.
And don't forget to say pissrahell has aright to defend itselfKeep Goodhart's law in mind:
"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure"
I honestly cant recall seeing any peaceful protest accomplishing anything of significance in my lifetime. Most successful protests I hear about are the French lighting up Paris when they try to raise the retirement age. They just try again 2 years later though.
Non-violent protest kinda imply that the receiving end doesn't react violently ehh. If they start sending riot police and water tank then it would 100% spiral.
Take your liberal propaganda and stuff it
How many of those were backed by much more powerful foreign powers?
🙄
The average person doesn't like violent civil unrest, shocking.
Also, I bet you can mess with the numbers to mean about anything you want by changing what classifies as "violent". A lot of people include property destruction in their definition of violence. But a lot of other people don't and only consider that property damage.
Also there was a study done of what outcomes violent protests have. You think you're going to make things better but usually violently instilled governments aren't good people no matter if you're left or right.
You end up instilling another extreme regime for the one you initially wanted to fight.
