All through history people have struggled against the rulers or the governments, some turned sour and failed some succeeded but created dictators that were far worse than the original ruler, some took the peaceful approach and some chose the armed and violent approach. Looking back at these struggles, what was the percentage of success of each approach and how to measure this success?
Prof. Erica Chenoweth from
the University of Denver's Josef Corbel School of International Studies answers
these questions and more in her award-winning book " Why civil resistance
works ", she defines the civil resistance as " a method of conflict
in which unarmed civilians uses tactics like strikes, protests, boycott and
other methods without physically harming their opponents, which could be more
effective than armed conflicts in removing a leader or creating an independent
territory".
The study explores the strategic effectiveness between violent and
non-violent campaigns from 1900 till 2006, and came up with some amazing facts:
1 – Non-violent campaigns have scored 53% success rate compared to
violent campaigns that only scored 26% success
2 – Repressive regimes are 12 times more likely to grant the
non-violent campaigns some concessions more than the violent campaigns.
3 – Defections of security forces are more than 4 times more likely
in non-violent campaigns
4 – Non-violent campaigns are 6 times more likely to fulfill
complete success against repressive regimes.
5 – Non-violent campaigns are 4 times larger because all ages could
participate thus reducing the risk calculation of security forces which will
eventually lead to unlikely violent outcome.
6 – The non-violent campaigns could get the support of big
corporates and investors which could lead to a faster compromise from the
regime.
3 images of world's greats whom led non-violent campaigns and
succeeded, Prof. Chenoweth added that behind such successes came important
reasons:
1 – Their commitment to non-violent campaigns enhanced their
domestic and international legitimacy and encouraged more people to participate
thus increasing the pressure on their governments which then started thinking
about the economic and security impacts.
2 – Against violent movements the governments easily justify their
violent moves, whereas against the non-violent movements, it could easily back
fire on that particular government
3 – International condemnation could be an immediate result and
that exactly what happened with South Africa which eventually gave in.
4 – leading a non-violent movement keeps the door open to negotiations,
since these governments never sensed a threat towards their lives, and what
better story regarding this point than Gandhi's refusal to go violent even
after the Brits turned the Ameristar demonstrations into a massacre killing
hundreds in 1919 and imprisoning him in 1922 and later the massive
imprisonments of 60,000 people after the famous 1930 salt marsh were he and his
followers covered walking as a protest to salt tax a distance of 241 miles,,,,,
but finally the Brits gave up and signed the famous Gandhi -Irwin pact which
basically Britain agreed to free all the political prisoners in return for the
suspension of civil disobedience.
I could not help thinking while reading this great book, about
Syria, 207,000 civilian deaths and 11 million left their homes to settle
elsewhere , what if Condoleezza Rice did
not bring up the " New Middle-East idea" which sprung the Arab spring
which resulted in a million deaths across the Arab world and is still harvesting
lives, what if the Saudis, Turks, Qataris and Israelis did not arm the
rebellion, and what if AL Assad forces did not use excessive force on the first
day,,,,,the what if's could have been stopped if the people were more educated
to learn from both studies and history that NON-VIOLENT resistance works better
during and after the confrontations.
