Brigades of Zapatistas reconstruct school destroyed by paramilitary groups. Demotix/ Debora Poo Soto. All rights reserved.Imagine that you live in a country with a repressive government, such as South Africa under apartheid or Burma under the generals. You are part of a resistance movement, seeking to overthrow the government or to obtain independence for your oppressed people. What is the best way to go about it? Diplomatic efforts, education, protest, noncooperation or armed struggle?
Research shows that a movement using primarily nonviolent action — methods such as rallies, strikes, boycotts and alternative government — is more likely to be effective than armed struggle. So you choose to join a nonviolent movement. So far so good. But there’s a complication. There’s already an active armed movement with the same goals as you, and you think this movement’s violent acts are hurting the resistance. The government calls them ‘terrorists’ and uses their violence as a pretext for arrests, torture, killing and removal of freedoms. Your nonviolent movement is paying part of the price. So you set yourself a task. You want to convince members of the armed opposition to switch to a strategy built around nonviolent action. How do you go about it?
If you are academically inclined, you should immediately consult a new book edited by Véronique Dudouet titled Civil Resistance and Conflict Transformation (Routledge, 2015). The term ‘civil resistance’ means nonviolent action and ‘conflict transformation’ means changing the nature of the conflict from one form to another. The subtitle is more revealing: Transitions from armed to nonviolent struggle.
