Conclusion on "A Force More Powerful"

"Nonviolent resistance becomes a “force more powerful” to the extent that it takes away a regime’s capacity to assert control. To succeed, a nonviolent movement cannot simply take a principled stand for “nonviolence.” It has to devise a strategy for action. In turn, this strategy must broadly communicate goals, mobilize people and select sanctions to punish opponents. To shift the momentum of conflict in their favor, nonviolent resisters must diversify the scope and variety of these sanctions, defend their popular base against repression and exploit their opponents’ weaknesses and concessions. In this way they undermine the regime’s claim to legitimacy."

"Those who lead an authoritarian or unjust system will then lose support inside and outside the country. When they see they can no longer count on repression to maintain control, they will begin to realize that their prospects for staying in power are no longer favorable. The result may be that they surrender, or compromise with the nonviolent movement, or even forswear oppression and cede power to the resisters. Any outcome will ultimately have to be confirmed by the nonviolent movement."

"Many times in the twentieth century, movements that spoke for the people had occasion to choose between violent insurrection and nonviolent resistance as the way to seek power. Many were seduced by the romance of revolutionary violence, believing (in Mao Zedong’s famous words) 'power grows out of the barrel of a gun.' Although violence can instill fear for a time or destroy lives and property, it cannot force people to give its users their consent — something they need to maintain their position.
In the stability and endurance of democracies, the political philosopher Hannah Arendt saw a superior notion of power: 'when...the Romans spoke of the civitas as their form of government, they had in mind a concept of power and law whose essence did not rely on the command-obedience relationship.' In the eighteenth century, the leaders of the political revolutions in America and Europe resurrected this same idea in their republics, 'where the rule of law, resting on the power of the people, would put an end to the rule of man over man.'"

"By dissolving the people’s consent to authoritarian rule, nonviolent resisters throughout the twentieth century not only neutralized repression. They also established democratic rule in country after country. Thanks to their efforts, a robust alternative to violence as a way to advance great causes and overturn injustice exists in the twenty-first century."

Those words are spoken by those involved with the documentary. These words enforce what Gandhi taught in the early 1900s, what he taught to influence the next generation of nonviolent resistance. In the readings for class, we discussed the difference between violence and nonviolence and the process of a successful nonviolent resistance campaign. In the film, one gentlemen states that "nonviolence means fighting back. But you are fighting back with other weapons." In the documentary, these other weapons were protests, strikes, and noncooperation, something that both the readings and the discussions have discussed and viewed as a very successful method of nonviolent resistance. The documentary and the readings I have completed in the class have shown that nonviolent resistance can take power from authority and can bring the power back to the people. This documentary successfully showed how a variety of people in a variety of situations have been able to take power back and take back their countries.

This documentary not only helped to enforce my knowledge of nonviolent resistance, but opened my eyes to the variety of methods and the variety of possibilities that can be achieved by denouncing violence and adopting those methods that both Gandhi and King so deeply believed in. 

The most unsuccessful campaign, in my opinion

Out of the six campaigns discussed in "A Force More Powerful," the least successful campaign would be the Chilean campaign against General Augusto Pinochet. This campaign definitely went haywire and was a little off. Though extremist may exist in other campaigns as well, I feel like the extremists in this situation got a hold of the public and incited violence and the violent action that was brought against the other, peaceful opposition groups. Unlike the campaign held in Nashville, these members did not take the time to prepare. In fact, for their first campaign, they only took four days of preparation, allowing participants to learn by simply reading a paper telling them what to do and what not to do. This is probably why extremists got a foothold in Chile. The people were not prepared to take the brutality but not raise a hand in retaliation. The readings for class say that nonviolent resistance campaigns are defined as "an organized, purposeful action designed to use nonviolence to accomplish process, achievement and ultimate goals. They are usually organized on a geographic or issue oriented basis." Though the Chilean campaign had ultimate goals, the removal of the dictatorship, they lacked organization and lacked the ability to take minor steps to reach their larger goal.

The campaign would have been much more successful if they were better organized, choosing achievement goals that would slowly lead them to achieving their ultimate goal while maintaining the values of a nonviolent campaign. The campaign was focused on the ultimate goal, and while yes, this is an important step, it is not the only step in a nonviolent campaign. Those participating in the campaign should have been better prepared for the violence that would obviously be brought their way. They needed to understand better the philosophies of Gandhi and King before leaping into such a campaign.

The most successful nonviolent campaign, in my opinion

Out of the six episodes and nonviolent campaigns viewed in the documentary, I would have to say that the most successful nonviolent campaign would have to be the sit-ins performed by African-American students in Nashville, TN. In the readings completed for class, one of the steps stressed by Gandhi was preparation. This is something that the students did beautifully. They spent months in nonviolent workshops where they practiced being harassed, they learned how to resist the urge to fight back. The preparation taken by Lawson and the students he taught exceeded what was probably necessary. This preparation, however, prepared the students to be arrested, harassed, and taught the students that though they may be harassed and thrown into jail, that they are fighting for something that is more important than all that. The students dressed well, they behaved themselves, and the violence that met those students during those sit-ins opened the eyes of not only a city, but a nation. The persistence of the students, the peaceful form of protest, and the overall behavior of the campaign greatly benefited the students and the city of Nashville. The students protested in what I would consider one of the best examples of nonviolent action. They took the methods they learned from Lawson and from Gandhi and adapted them so that the methods fit their needs.

On the "A force more powerful" website, I think the author of the page puts why this campaign was successful in better words than I possibly could.

"The American civil rights campaigners of the 1960s contributed one other thing to the power of nonviolent resistance in the final third of the twentieth century. Because they were conscious that nonviolent sanctions had been successful earlier in history, and because they were convinced that the use of these sanctions had intrinsic advantages in resisting oppression, their success conferred on nonviolent action a new aura of effectiveness that it had never before possessed. Not only did the mass media popularize the story of what was done in the American South – they universalized the impression that nonviolent force could be more powerful."

"In the United States, that force transformed the social fabric and political direction of the nation. In Nashville and in other southern communities, the sit-ins separated white leaders who had no deep interest in preserving segregation from those who did; the most ambivalent elements of the old order were detached from the most intransigent. The Freedom Rides played out on a larger stage – the riders destabilized the balance of interests that kept the American system of apartheid in place, by provoking the national government to act against its institutions and practices. The quickest way for civil rights activists to make headway in the Deep South was to nationalize the struggle by igniting crises that would draw federal intervention. 'The key to everything,' Martin Luther King declared in the early 1960s, 'is federal commitment.'"

"The civil rights movement followed a simple logic: It mobilized black people behind nonviolent sanctions that compelled the nation to change. Martin Luther King's declaration on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 that he had a dream of racial equality capped the largest nonviolent demonstration of the postwar period in America, the March on Washington. In the wake of President Kennedy's assassination later that year, a white southerner, Lyndon Johnson, moved into the White House and drove the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into the annals of human liberation – as Dr. King and his legions drove their spirit outward to the world."

The sit-ins in Nashville didn't just desegregate Nashville, they were the catalyst to a slew of other nonviolent civil rights movements. It was their ability to prepare extensively and peacefully, even in the face of danger and violence, protest and earn their rights that makes this campaign, in my opinion, the most successful.


photo courtesy of: nyu.edu

Episode 2: India "Defying the Crown"

Episode two focuses on British rule over India and the methods to free Indians from the rule.

This episode begins with the famous Salt March put on by Gandhi and Indian followers. The Salt March of 1930 is one of the most famous and successful nonviolent marches in nonviolent history.
Gandhi leads a 250-mile march to the sea from his ashram, where he and thousands of protesters violate the law by making their own salt. Many compare the Indian Salt March to the American Boston Tea Party. Once Gandhi breaks the salt law, many follow him to the sea to break the law themselves and follow in his footsteps. His action had indeed sparked an entire country to follow him. Though Gandhi was arrested, civil disobedience spread, and the campaign grew to include the boycott of British cloth and the resignations of Indian officials that work for the British in government.

The boycotting put a great strain on the British, but the boycotting also welcomed brutal reprisals from the British rule. Indians were clubbed, arrested and had their land seized by the government.

"A mass of demonstrators approaching a salt depot in Dharasana is viciously beaten; thousands are arrested, the number of participants swells, and resistance stiffens. Overcrowding the country's jails is part of Gandhi's strategy to put a strain on British civil services, and the barbarism at Dharasana elicits worldwide support for the Indian cause. With India's infrastructure under strain, and world opinion turning against the Crown, Lord Irwin agrees to one-on-one negotiations with Gandhi in February 1931. While the social and legal concessions that he grants are more symbolic than concrete, the great Indian resistance of 1930-31 mobilizes the nation as never before to pursue independence, which it finally achieves in 1947...Although the campaign does not dislodge the British from India, it shatters the legitimacy of British control and rallies the Indian people to the cause of independence, which eventually comes in 1947." (aforcemorepowerful.org)

Though some thought that Gandhi had compromised and went out of his way and were not satisfied with the compromise, Gandhi stood by his belief that the movement wasn't in vain. He knew that you couldn't have everything in one try, that it would take many steps to reach the final goal. He had, in fact, given people the power to achieve their own independence and made them realize that they had the power to make change.

 

INDIA TIMELINE:

1906    Gandhi leads nonviolent campaign against anti-Indian laws in South Africa.

1915    Gandhi returns to India from South Africa.

1920    Gandhi leads first of his all-India campaigns against the British Empire.

March 12, 1930    Gandhi and his followers begin salt march, which launches the civil disobedience campaign for independence.

April 6, 1930    Marchers arrive at coast and make salt; civil disobedience begins to spread across India.

May 4, 1930    Gandhi is arrested.

January 1931    Gandhi and other Indian leaders are released from prison.

February 17, 1931    Gandhi-Irwin talks begin, resulting in "truce" and suspension of civil disobedience.

January 1, 1932    Civil disobedience resumes.

August 1947    India gains independence from British Empire.

Below is a video from  Jorge Gidi from the World March for Peace and Nonviolence in Canada and the Vishnu Mandir Temple, who meet for the Gandhi Walk in commemoration of the anniversary of the 1930 Salt March.





photo courtesy of: aforcemorepowerful.org
video courtesy of: jorgegididelgadillo via youtube.com