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“People Power” in an Age of Terror? By: Maria J. Stephan (MALD ’02 and Student Director, Fletcher Colloquium on Strategic Nonviolent Action) This is a central question asked by members of the Fletcher community during the colloquium on “people power” at the Fletcher School. The 2001-02 Fletcher Colloquium on Strategic Nonviolent Action, sponsored by the International Security Studies Program, the Tufts Peace and Justice Program, and the International Negotiation and Conflict Resolution Club, has concluded a semester of lively debate on what Gandhi called “war without violence”. This 8-part colloquium series, taught by academics and practitioners in the field of nonviolent action, has opened a community-wide debate on the powerful potential of nonviolent action in a world that is rife with violence. Popular movements have used nonviolent “weapons” to overthrow dictators, thwart military invaders, and secure human rights in many countries around the world over the past century. Can it be used today? How is it already being used? A committed cadre of interested Fletcher, Tufts, and Harvard students and faculty have made “people power” a formal part of the Fletcher curriculum and a timely topic for a new age of global struggle. Why is “people power” worthy of study today? What does “strategy” have to do with nonviolent struggle? The first colloquium session on October 1st, an “Overview on Strategic Nonviolent Action”, brought Dr. Peter Ackerman (Fletcher PhD, Chairman, Fletcher Board of Overseers) and Dr. Karen Beckwith (Harvard Weatherhead Center) to ASEAN auditorium to kick off the dialogue. Ackerman, who wrote his Fletcher doctoral dissertation on the strategic principles of nonviolent conflict, showed highlights from the Emmy-nominated documentary film A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict that he co-produced. The film highlighted how ordinary people have used nonviolent sanctions – including strikes, boycotts, and civil disobedience – to end oppression and overthrow dictatorships. The anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, the Gandhi-led independence campaign in India, Solidarity’s defeat of Polish communism, and civic action to overthrow a Chilean dictator were a few of the examples of “people power” analyzed in the film. Ackerman cited strategic planning, discipline, and amazing creativity as keys to the success of these civilian struggles. Beckwith described how a group of gutsy women led a successful labor rights campaign at the Pittston coal mines, proving that nonviolent strategists can be women as well as men. For the second colloquium session, Fletcher hosted Dr. Gene Sharp, director of the Albert Einstein Institution and a pioneer in the field of nonviolent direct action. Sharp, author of a number of works on nonviolent action, most notably a three- volume trilogy entitled The Politics of Nonviolent Action, offered a riveting Saturday workshop on the theory and practice of nonviolent action. NONVIOLENT ACTION IS NOT ABOUT PACIFISM, Sharp emphasized, rather it is about using an arsenal of nonviolent tactics to target a repressive regime where it is most vulnerable. Nonviolent action builds on the strengths of ordinary people to dismantle the sources of power available to an oppressive ruler, institution, or regime. Understanding these sources of power is the key to developing strategy and to operationalizing the strategy by using at least two hundred different methods of nonviolent action – from sit-down strikes to street theatre to economic embargoes. Workshop participants challenged Sharp on his definition of “nonviolent”, about the interaction between violence and nonviolence, and about the relevance of nonviolent action to protracted conflicts. In a provocative closing session, Sharp’s discussed the relevance of “people power” in a post- September 11th world. The “Interplay Between Violence and Nonviolence in Indigenous Freedom Struggles” was the topic of the third colloquium session, held on November 14th. Aung Thu Nyein, Vice Chairman of the exiled Burmese Democratic Party for a New Society and Yasin Malik, Chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, shared powerful stories about their involvement in both militant and non-militant campaigns in Burma and Kashmir. Both Aung Thu Nyein and Yasin Malik were student activists and leaders of nonviolent movements that were suppressed violently by the state. The two men were both involved in violent phases of their respective freedom struggles, a violence they have subsequently renounced. The Burmese activist, who has received training from Gene Sharp and has led workshops on nonviolent action, expressed his hopefulness that a sustained nonviolent struggle would eventually overturn the military regime in Burma. The Kashmiri leader, however, was less optimistic, citing a media that thrives on violence and an international community that turns its back to suppressed as major obstacles to a successful nonviolent campaign. The fourth and final colloquium session of the semester, on “Leadership in Nonviolent Struggles”, took place on December 10th and featured Dr. Marshall Ganz, Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School and Cathy Hoffman, Director of the Cambridge Peace Commission. Ganz helped Cesar Chavez organize the United Farm Workers union and was a leader of the American Civil Rights Campaign. Hoffman was active in movements to stop US military intervention in Nicaragua, El Salvadore, Haiti, and the Middle East. Both activists talked about ways that effective leaders tap into the innate capacities of their communities to organize nonviolent struggles. They emphasized how personal transformation and interdependence pave the way for “people power”. The Colloquium on Strategic Nonviolent Action has launched “people power”, and the creative potential for nonviolent socio-political transformation, into the policy mainstream. The colloquium themes for the Spring 2002 semester include:
Special thanks to Dr. Richard Shultz, director of the International Security Studies Program and to
Dale Bryan of Tufts PJS for actively supporting this innovative year-long initiative. For more information about the colloquium or to become involved in planning for next semester, please contact
Maria J. Stephan, student director of the 2001-2002 Fletcher Colloquium on Strategic Nonviolent Action. |