Egypt: Lessons in Democracy

Life as a Human February 3, 2011. Also in Common Dreams
Together, the unarmed insurrection that overthrew the Ben Ali regime in Tunisia and the ongoing uprising in Egypt have dramatically altered the way many in the West view prospects for democratization in the Middle East. The dramatic events of recent weeks have illustrated that for democracy to come to the Arab world, it will come not from foreign intervention or sanctimonious statements from Washington, but from Arab peoples themselves…

Interview: MSNBC Q&A on Egypt

Americans for Peace Now, January 30, 2011 By Lara Friedman
… I recommend this MSNBC post, Q&A with Professor Stephen Zunes
A: “Most Arab countries share these problems. However, some are more susceptible to these kinds of uprisings than others. For example, in Syria, civil society is weaker and the secret police are stronger. In Saudi Arabia and the smaller emirates of the Gulf, they can buy off much of the opposition. However, I would not be surprised to see an upsurge in pro-democracy protests in Yemen, Sudan, Jordan, Algeria and Morocco…”

Interview: All eyes on Egypt’s military: How will it respond?

Yahoo!News/The Lookout January 31, 2011 Interview with Dr. Stephen Zunes
As mass demonstrations continue to threaten Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s grip on power, the country’s powerful military is emerging as perhaps the crucial player in determining the course of events in the Middle East’s most populous nation… The Lookout asked Stephen Zunes about how the Egyptian military might respond, and how that response might influence events…

Obama’s Shift on Egypt

Truthout January 31, 2011; Also in Huffington Post
The administration has yet to issue an explicit call for the authoritarian President Hosni Mubarak to step down, at least in public. However, yesterday, for the first time, Secretary of State Clinton and other officials began calling for “an orderly transition” to democracy. The apparent change in the administration’s approach comes from the belated realization that nothing short of a Tienanmen Square-style massacre would probably stop the protests…

US Continues to Back Egyptian Dictatorship in the Face of Pro-Democracy Uprising

Truthout January 27, 2011. Also in Huffington Post
Washington’s continued support for the Egyptian dictatorship in the face of massive pro-democracy protests is yet another sign that both Congress and the Obama administration remain out of touch with the growing demands for freedom in the Arab world. Just last month, Obama and the then-Democratic-controlled Congress approved an additional $1.3 billion in security assistance to help prop up Hosni Mubarak’s repressive regime.

The United States and the Prospects for Democracy in Islamic Countries

Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies January 21, 2011. Also in Common Dreams and Eurasia Review
Many in the West are familiar with the way unarmed pro-democracy insurrections have helped bring democracy to Eastern Europe, Latin America, and parts of Asia and Africa. But they discount the chances of such movements in Islamic countries, despite Tunisia being far from the first. Meanwhile, the United States… continues to actively support authoritarian governments…

Tunisia’s Democratic Revolution

Whether the overthrow of the corrupt and autocratic Ben Ali regime in Tunisia in a mass civil insurrection will lead to a stable, just and democratic order remains to be seen, but the dramatic events in that North African country underscore a critical point: Democracy in the Arab world will not come from foreign military intervention or sanctimonious lecturing from Western capitals, but from Arab peoples themselves.

While the rioting and other spontaneous violence would seem to differentiate these recent events from the overwhelmingly nonviolent movements that brought down dictators in the Philippines, Serbia, Poland, Chile, and elsewhere, it was the nonviolent aspects of the uprising that proved most decisive. The general strike, the peaceful protests, the refusal to obey curfew orders, the explosion of alternative media, and other acts of nonviolent resistance were far more critical in the downfall of the regime than the violent mob actions, which make for such exciting imagery in the international media, but which were not representative of the movement as a whole.

While the movement was impressive in the way that it was able to transform inchoate populist anger into regime change, effectively employing mass-based tactics to destabilize an autocratic government does not necessarily lead to democracy. Recent history has shown that in such situations, the chances of bringing about a genuine democratic transformation are increased if it comes from a more protracted movement with a comprehensive strategic vision, which seeks to represent the widest range of society and maintains a more conscious nonviolent discipline. The lack of a clear, cohesive leadership group may be partly responsible for the chaos that has followed Ben Ali’s departure. Still, the movement was impressive regarding the way it eventually encompassed diverse elements, which transcended the nation’s religious and political divides, the level of tactical coordination between groups and the way they were able to bring together people of all ages and educational levels out onto the streets. And they did so in the face of severe repression; more than 100 people were killed by government forces over the past four weeks.

Demonstrations began on December 17. Originally led by unemployed youth, the protests were joined a week and half later by professional groups and trade unions, which many thought had been successfully co-opted by the regime. These peaceful demonstrations were violently broken up by security forces as well. On January 6, a general strike by lawyers was 95 percent successful. The following day, the regime arrested a number of prominent journalists, bloggers, activists and musicians. Over the next three days, dozens of protesters were shot dead by security forces, and the nation’s universities were ordered closed by the regime. On January 13, as protests gathered momentum, Ben Ali announced unprecedented reforms and promised not to seek re-election in 2014, but these concessions failed to quell the insurrection. Indeed, the trade union federation issued a formal call for a general strike. The following day, the government imposed a state of emergency and banned gatherings of more than three people, threatening that “arms will be used if orders of security forces are not heeded.” As thousands defied the regime, bravely marching upon the dreaded Interior Ministry and the general strike effectively shut down the country, Ben Ali fled on January 14.

One important aspect of what some have labeled the “Jasmine Revolution” is the role of the Internet. Ben Ali had imposed some of the heaviest press censorship in the Arab world, leading to an unprecedented level of reliance on the Facebook, Twitter, and other social media. Whenever the government tried to block access, ways were found to bypass the censors. (Among the signs at demonstrations was “Freedom From 404” – the Internet error code for “File Not Found.”) Hacktivists retaliated by jamming government web sites. While it is important not to overemphasize this aspect – it was people on the streets who made the uprising possible – it is a reminder of the possibilities available for social movements even in countries under repressive regimes.

With unemployment as high as 30 percent among youth, including those with college educations, frustrations at the economic situation were a major focus of the grievances. While the economic issues were clearly important, they were directly related to the lack of democracy. As the US Embassy acknowledged some months ago, “many civil society activists speculate that corruption – particularly that of First Lady Leila (Trabelsi) Ben Ali and the broader Trabelsi clan – is the fundamental impediment to meaningful political liberalization.”

As when the Iranian regime was faced with a similar mass uprising after the apparently-stolen Iranian presidential election in 2009, the Tunisian regime blamed the uprising as the work of extremists and foreigners. This was clearly a homegrown affair, however, with a strong cultural component. Tunisian artists and musicians played a seminal role, including the popular rapper, Hamada ben Amor, also known as El General, who was arrested last week in response to a widely-circulated anti-government song and video.

The chaos which has taken place since Ben Ali fled the country could be a bad sign of things to come. There are reports that certain security forces loyal to the ousted dictator are largely responsible for the burning and looting after Ben Ali fled the country, thereby giving the Army an excuse to assert its power in the streets that, until recently, were controlled by civilians. It is unlikely that the Tunisian people will allow this to happen, however, having tasted their new-found power. In the best case scenario, this empowerment from having overthrown a dictator ensconced in the presidential palace for 23 years could lead to a dramatic growth in civil society and civic engagement in a society which had known little but authoritarian rule since independence, and, prior to that, an often oppressive French colonialism.

The Unhelpful US Role

In the course of some similar civil insurrections, like those in Iran and Burma, Washington has strongly condemned the regime and provided strong words of encouragement for the pro-democracy activists challenging their repression. In a couple of cases, like Serbia and Ukraine, the United States and other Western countries even provided limited amounts of economic assistance to pro-democracy groups. Most of the time, however, particularly if the dictatorship is a US ally like Tunisia, Washington has either backed the government or largely remained silent.

Indeed, rather than praise Tunisia’s largely nonviolent pro-democracy movement and condemn its repressive regime, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the Tuesday prior to the regime’s overthrow expressed her concern over the impact of the “unrest and instability” on the “very positive aspects of our relationship with Tunisia,” insisting that the US is “not taking sides” and that she will “wait and see” before even communicating directly with Ben Ali or his ministers. Clinton acknowledged the economic problems besetting Tunisia and its neighbors by noting that “one of my biggest concerns in this entire region are the many young people without economic opportunities in their home countries.” Rather than calling for a more democratic and accountable government in Tunisia, however, her suggestion for resolving the crisis is that the economies of Tunisia and other North African states “need to be more open.”

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In reality, however, Tunisia – more than almost any country in the region – has followed the dictates of Washington and the International Monetary Fund in instituting “structural adjustment programs” in privatizing much of its economy and allowing for an unprecedented level of “free trade.” These policies have increased rather than decreased unemployment while enriching relatives and cronies of the country’s top ruling families. The US has also been backing IMF efforts to get the Tunisian government to eliminate the remaining subsidies on fuel and basic food stuffs and fuel and further deregulate its financial sector. Adopting this neoliberal model also grossly exacerbated inequality between the coastal areas and the interior and southern regions, where the December protests originated.

A 2009 State Department cable recently released by WikiLeaks described Tunisia as a “police state, with little freedom of expression or association, and serious human rights problems” and that “President Ben Ali is aging, his regime is sclerotic and there is no clear successor.” The country’s elites were described as almost Mafia-like in their complex networks of control, ripping off enormous wealth from almost every sector of the economy, and a series of WikiLeaks documents vividly described the extravagant lifestyle and related egregious behavior by the families of the president and his in-laws.

Some American pundits have tried to portray the uprising as the “WikiLeaks Revolution,” implying that the leaks somehow sparked the revolution. However, none of this was news to the Tunisian people. Indeed, as the US ambassador put it in one of these same documents following a lavish dinner hosted by the president’s son-in-law and heir apparent, “The opulence with which El Materi and Nesrine live and their behavior make clear why they and other members of Ben Ali’s family are disliked and even hated by some Tunisians. The excesses of the Ben Ali family are growing.” More importantly, this seems to be yet another effort by Westerners to deny agency to an Arab people who bravely faced down the tear gas and bullets for their freedom.

At least Obama’s appointees in the embassy had a more realistic grasp of the situation than under the Bush administration. In preparation for then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s visit in 2008, the US ambassador spoke in glowing terms about Ben Ali’s dictatorship. A memo read, “Tunisia styles itself ‘a country that works,'” adding, “While Tunisians grumble privately about corruption by the first lady’s family, there is an abiding appreciation for Ben Ali’s success in steering his country clear of the instability and violence that have plagued Tunisia’s neighbors.” According to Bush officials, “the lack of Tunisian political activism, or even awareness, seems to be a more serious impediment. While frustration with the First Family’s corruption may eventually lead to increased demands for political liberalization, it does not yet appear to be heralding the end of the Ben Ali era.”

Apparently, neither administration shared its concern over the regime’s persistent pattern of gross and systematic human rights violations. Indeed, Tunis became the home of the Middle East Partnership Initiative, a regional office for the State Department’s democratic reform program. US policy was justified in the name of the “war on terror,” even though radical Islamist movements are weaker in Tunisia than in practically any other Arab country. Ben Ali’s regime assisted the United States in “extraordinary rendition,” where suspected Islamist radicals captured by US forces or kidnapped by intelligence services were brought to Tunisia for torture. Tunisia was also one of the governments more willing to cooperate with the US Africa Command (AFRICOM) in its efforts to extend US military operations and military relations with African countries.

As the popular uprising against the Ben Ali dictatorship commenced last month, Congress weighed in with support of the regime by passing a budget resolution that included $12 million in security assistance to Tunisia, one of only five foreign governments (the others being Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Colombia) provided direct taxpayer-funded military aid in the foreign appropriation bills. Tear gas canisters lobbed at pro-democracy demonstrators were inscribed with the words “Made in USA,” a reminder of whose side Washington was on in the struggle against the dictatorship.

After official silence following more than two weeks of protests and savage repression by the government, the State Department began to issue some mildly-worded rebukes over the police attacks against demonstrators. Even though most of the protests had been nonviolent, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley chose to represent the movement as its most unruly components, stating that the Obama administration was “concerned about government actions, but we’re also concerned about actions by the demonstrators, those who do not have peaceful intentions.”

US policy began to shift as the pro-democracy movement gained momentum, however. Just two days after the interview in which she appeared to back the Ben Ali regime, Clinton took a more proactive stance at a meeting in Qatar, where she noted that “people have grown tired of corrupt institutions and a stagnant political order” and called for “political reforms that will create the space young people are demanding, to participate in public affairs and have a meaningful role in the decisions that shape their lives.”

Then, on Friday, as Ben Ali was fleeing the country, President Obama came forward with the most pointed declaration in support of democracy in the Arab world since he became president:

“I condemn and deplore the use of violence against citizens peacefully voicing their opinion in Tunisia, and I applaud the courage and dignity of the Tunisian people. The United States stands with the entire international community in bearing witness to this brave and determined struggle for the universal rights that we must all uphold, and we will long remember the images of the Tunisian people seeking to make their voices heard. I urge all parties to maintain calm and avoid violence, and call on the Tunisian government to respect human rights, and to hold free and fair elections in the near future that reflect the true will and aspirations of the Tunisian people.

“As I have said before, each nation gives life to the principle of democracy in its own way, grounded in the traditions of its own people, and those countries that respect the universal rights of their people are stronger and more successful than those that do not. I have no doubt that Tunisia’s future will be brighter if it is guided by the voices of the Tunisian people.”

There has long been a sense of fatalism in the Arab world that they are simply passive victims of outside forces. While it is easy to dismiss Obama’s comments as simply a matter of throwing support to the winning side at the last minute, this shift is indicative of the significance of what has happened in Tunisia: rather than Washington controlling the course of events impacting the Arab street, the Arab street is impacting policies emanating from Washington.

A Precedent?

All this inevitably raises the question as to whether Tunisia will spark pro-democratic contagion throughout the region. Tunisia’s small size; relatively large, educated middle class; absence of a strong right-wing Islamist influence; and other factors make the country unique in a number of ways. Certainly, popular pro-democratic movements in Eastern Europe and Latin American swept through those regions in rapid succession in the 1980s, sweeping entrenched dictatorial regimes from power. Vicarious fascination with the Tunisian events in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and other US-backed authoritarian regimes in the region is indicative of the hope, whether realistic or not, that democratic forces in these country could emulate their Arab brethren in Tunisia. Mohammed al-Maskati, a blogger in Bahrain, Twittered, “It actually happened in my lifetime . An Arab nation woke up and said ‘enough.'”

Despite some recent claims in US media outlets to the contrary, this is not the first time popular protests have brought down an Arab or North African government. In Sudan, in both 1964 and 1985, popular, largely nonviolent, mass protests brought down dictators in those countries. The 1985 overthrow of the US-backed dictator Jafaar Numeiry resulted in Sudan becoming the most democratic government in the Arab world for the next four years, only to be tragically cut short in a 1989 military coup. In Mali in 1991, a nonviolent revolution overthrew the Traore dictatorship despite the shootings of hundreds of peaceful protesters. Even though Mali is one of the world’s poorest countries, it has remained the most democratic county in northern or western Africa ever since.

The people of Tunisia have demonstrated their power to oust a dictatorship. The coming period will tell if they can actually build a democracy.

U.S. Backs Tunisian Dictatorship in Face of Pro-Democracy Uprising

The regime, U.S.-backed Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has been the target of a nationwide popular uprising in recent weeks, which neither shooting into crowds of unarmed demonstrators nor promised reforms has thus far quelled. Whether this unarmed revolt results in the regime’s downfall remains to be seen. In recent decades, largely nonviolent insurrections such as this have toppled corrupt authoritarian rulers in the Philippines, Serbia, Bolivia, Ukraine, the Maldives, Georgia, Mali, Nepal and scores of other countries and have seriously challenged repressive regimes in Iran, Burma and elsewhere.

On the one hand, the Tunisian opposition seems rather disorganized and the protests largely spontaneous. The lack of a stricter nonviolent discipline at some of the demonstrations, which at times have deteriorated into full-scale riots, has given the regime the political space for increased repression. At the same time, the dissatisfaction with the regime is widespread and growing.

In the course of some civil insurrections, like Iran and Burma, Washington has strongly condemned the regime and provided strong words of encouragement for the pro-democracy activists challenging their repression. In a couple of cases, like Serbia and Ukraine, the United States and other Western countries even provided limited amounts of economic assistance to pro-democracy groups. Most of the time, however, particularly if the dictatorship is a U.S. ally like Tunisia, Washington has either backed the government or largely remained silent.

Indeed, rather than praise Tunisia’s largely nonviolent pro-democracy movement and condemn its repressive regime, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has instead expressed her concern over the impact of the “unrest and instability” on the “very positive aspects of our relationship with Tunisia,” insisting that the U.S. is “not taking sides” and that she will “wait and see” before even communicating directly with Ben Ali or his ministers.

In addition, as the popular uprising against the Ben Ali dictatorship commenced last month, Congress weighed in with support of the regime by passing a budget resolution that included $12 million in security assistance to Tunisia, one of only five foreign governments (the others being Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Colombia) provided direct taxpayer-funded military aid.

Along with limited political freedom and government accountability, the poor economic situation in Tunisia has been the major focus of the protests, particularly among unemployed educated youth. Clinton acknowledged this issue in noting that “one of my biggest concerns in this entire region are the many young people without economic opportunities in their home countries.” Rather than calling for a more democratic and accountable government in Tunisia, however, her suggestion for resolving the crisis is that the economies of Tunisia and other North African states “need to be more open.”

In reality, however, Tunisia — more than almost any country in the region — has followed the dictates of Washington and the International Monetary Fund in instituting “structural adjustment programs” in privatizing much of its economy and allowing for an unprecedented level of “free trade.” These policies have increased rather than decreased unemployment while enriching relatives and cronies of the country’s top ruling families. This has been privately acknowledged by the U.S. embassy in a recently-released Wikileaks cable, which labeled the U.S.-backed regime as a “kleptocracy.” The U.S. has also been backing IMF efforts to get the Tunisian government to eliminate the remaining subsidies on fuel and basic food stuffs and fuel and further deregulate its financial sector.

Rather than anti-American extremism in the Arab world being a result of hostility towards “our freedoms,” it is such policies backing such corrupt authoritarian regimes as Tunisia which have alienated so many young Arabs from the United States. As John F. Kennedy once warned, “Those who make peaceful evolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.”

Upsurge in repression challenges nonviolent resistance in Western Sahara

Open Democracy November 17, 2010
On November 8, Moroccan occupation forces attacked a tent city of as many as 12,000 Western Saharans just outside of Al Aioun, in the culminating act of a months-long protest of discrimination against the indigenous Sahrawi population and worsening economic conditions. Not only was the scale of the crackdown unprecedented, so was the popular reaction: In a dramatic departure from the almost exclusively nonviolent protests of recent years, the local population turned on their occupiers, engaging in widespread rioting and arson. As of this writing, the details of these events are unclear, but they underscore the urgent need for global civil society to support those who have been struggling nonviolently for their right of self-determination and to challenge western governments which back the regime responsible for the repression…

Israel’s Latest Violation

Every time Israel’s right-wing government engages in yet another outrageous violation of international legal norms, it is easy to think, “No way are they going to get away with it this time!” And yet, thanks to the White House, Congress and leading American pundits, somehow, they do.

Israel’s attack on an unarmed flotilla of humanitarian aid vessels in the eastern Mediterranean — resulting in more than a dozen fatalities, the wounding of scores of passengers and crew, and the kidnapping of 750 others — has so far not proven any different.

Violation of Maritime Law

The bottom line is that under no circumstances does Israel, or any other country, have the right to board humanitarian aid vessels, guns blazing, in international waters. By most definitions, this is piracy, pure and simple. International maritime law gives the crew of ships attacked in international waters the right to defend themselves. Certainly it would have been better if the largely Turkish crew of the ship where most of the fatalities took place had not fought back. But it was well within their legal right to do so.

Israel’s actions raise a number of questions. Why didn’t the Israelis simply disable the rudders and guide the ships to port? Why did they have to board the ships with the guns blazing — according to eyewitnesses, before some members of the crew picked up their “weapons” of wrenches and poles — unless they intended to kill people?

Read the rest at Foreign Policy in Focus:
http://www.fpif.org/articles/israels_latest_violation

The Other Occupation: Western Sahara and the Case of Aminatou Haidar

Aminatou Haidar, a nonviolent activist from Western Sahara and a key leader in her nation’s struggle against the 34-year-old U.S.-backed Moroccan occupation of her country, has been forced into exile by Moroccan authorities. She was returning from the United States, where she had won the Civil Courage Award from the Train Foundation. Forcing residents of territories under belligerent occupation into exile is a direct violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, to which both the United States and Morocco are signatories.

Her arrest and expulsion is part of a broader Moroccan crackdown that appears to have received the endorsement of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Rather than joining Amnesty International and other human rights groups in condemning the increase in the already-severe repression in the occupied territory during her visit to Morocco early this month, she instead praised the government’s human rights record. Just days before her arrival, seven other nonviolent activists from Western Sahara – Ahmed Alansari, Brahim Dahane, Yahdih Ettarouzi, Saleh Labihi, Dakja Lashgar, Rachid Sghir and Ali Salem Tamek – were arrested on trumped-up charges of high treason and are currently awaiting trial. Amnesty international has declared them prisoners of conscience and called for their unconditional release, but Clinton decided to ignore the plight of those and other political prisoners.

Almost exactly one year ago, Haidar was in Washington D.C. receiving the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights award. The late Senator Ted Kennedy, while too ill to take part in the ceremony personally, said of Aminatou Haidar, “All who care about democracy, human rights, and the rule of law for the people of the Western Sahara are inspired by her extraordinary courage, dedication and skilled work on their behalf.”

Patrick Leahy, speaking in place of Kennedy, praised Haidar’s struggle for human rights against Moroccan repression and promised that, with the incoming Obama administration, “Help was on the way.” Unfortunately, Obama ended up appointing Clinton, a longtime supporter of the Moroccan occupation, to oversee his foreign policy.

It is not surprising that Morocco sees Haidar as a threat and that Clinton has not demanded her right to return to her homeland. Not only is her nonviolent campaign an embarrassment to a traditional American ally, but having an Arab Muslim woman leading a mass movement for her people’s freedom through nonviolent action challenges the widely held impression that those resisting U.S.-backed regimes in that part of the world are misogynist, violent extremists. Successive U.S. administrations have used this stereotype to justify military intervention and support for repressive governments and military occupations.

Moroccan Occupation

In 1975, the kingdom of Morocco conquered Western Sahara on the eve of its anticipated independence from Spain in defiance of a series of UN Security Council resolutions and a landmark 1975 decision by the International Court of Justice upholding the right of the country’s inhabitants to self-determination. With threats of a French and American veto at the UN preventing decisive action by the international community to stop the Moroccan invasion, the nationalist Polisario Front launched an armed struggle against the occupiers. The Polisario established the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic in February 1976, which has subsequently been recognized by nearly 80 countries and is a full member state of the African Union. The majority of the indigenous population, known as Sahrawis, went into exile, primarily in Polisario-run refugee camps in Algeria.

By 1982, the Polisario had liberated 85 percent of the territory, but thanks to a dramatic increase in U.S. military aid and an influx of U.S. advisers during the Reagan administration, Morocco eventually was able to take control of most of the territory, including all of its major towns. It also built, thanks to U.S. assistance, a series of fortified sand berms in the desert that effectively prevented penetration by Polisario forces into Moroccan-controlled territory. In addition, in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, Morocco moved tens of thousands of settlers into Western Sahara until they were more than twice the population of the remaining indigenous Sahrawis.

Yet the Polisario achieved a series of diplomatic victories that generated widespread international support for self-determination and a refusal to recognize the Moroccan takeover. In 1991, the Polisario agreed to a ceasefire in return for a Moroccan promise to allow for an internationally supervised referendum on the fate of the territory. Morocco, however, refused to allow the referendum to move forward.

French and American support for the Moroccan government blocked the UN Security Council from providing the necessary diplomatic pressure to force Morocco to allow the promised referendum to take place. The Polisario, meanwhile, recognized its inability to defeat the Moroccans by military means. As a result, the struggle for self-determination shifted to within the Moroccan-occupied territory, where the Sahrawi population has launched a nonviolent resistance campaign against the occupation.

Nonviolent Resistance

Western Sahara had seen scattered impromptu acts of open nonviolent resistance ever since the Moroccan conquest. In 1987, for instance, a visit to the occupied territory by a special UN committee to investigate the human right violations sparked protests in the Western Saharan capital of El Aaiún. The success of this major demonstration was all the more remarkable, given that most of the key organizers had been arrested the night before and the city was under a strict curfew. Among the more than 700 people arrested was Aminatou Haidar, then 21 years old.

For four years she was “disappeared,” held without charges or trial, and kept in secret detention centers. In these facilities, she and 17 other Sahrawi women underwent regular torture and abuse.

The current Sahrawi intifada began in May 2005. Thousands of Sahrawi demonstrators, led by women and youths, took to the streets of El Aaiún protesting the ongoing Moroccan occupation and calling for independence. The largely nonviolent protests and sit-ins were met with severe repression by Moroccan troops and Moroccan settlers. Within hours, leading Sahrawi activists were kidnapped, including Haidar, who was brutally beaten by Moroccan occupation forces. Sahrawi students at Moroccan universities then organized solidarity demonstrations, hunger strikes, and other forms of nonviolent protests. Throughout the remainder of 2005, the intifada continued with both spontaneous and planned protests, all of which were met with harsh repression by Moroccan authorities.

Haidar was released within seven months as a result of pressure from Amnesty International and the European parliament. Meanwhile, nonviolent protests have continued, despite ongoing repression by U.S.-supported Moroccan authorities. Despite the continued disappearances, killings, beatings and torture, Haidar has continued to advocate nonviolent action. In addition to organizing efforts at home, she traveled extensively to raise awareness internationally about the ongoing Moroccan occupation and advocate for the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination. For this reason, she has been forced into exile from her homeland.

U.S. Increases Backing for Morocco

As the repression grew, so did U.S. support for Morocco. The Bush administration increased military and security assistance five-fold and also signed a free-trade agreement, remaining silent over the deteriorating human rights situation in the occupied Western Sahara while heaping praise on King Mohammed VI’s domestic political and economic reforms.

However, the occupation itself continues to prove problematic for Morocco. The nonviolent resistance to the occupation continues. Most of the international community, despite French and American efforts, has refused to recognize Morocco’s illegal annexation of the territory.

As a result, the Moroccan kingdom recently advocated an autonomy plan for the territory. The Sahrawis, with the support of most of the world’s nations, rejected the proposal since it is based on the assumption that Western Sahara is part of Morocco, a contention that the UN, the World Court, the African Union, and a broad consensus of international legal opinion have long rejected. To accept Morocco’s autonomy plan would mean that, for the first time since the founding of the UN and the ratification of the UN Charter more than 60 years ago, the international community would be endorsing the expansion of a country’s territory by military force and without consent of the subjected population, thereby establishing a very dangerous and destabilizing precedent.

In addition, Morocco’s proposal contains no enforcement mechanisms, nor are there indications of any improvement of the current poor human rights situation. It’s also unclear how much autonomy Morocco is offering, since it would retain control of Western Sahara’s natural resources and law enforcement. In addition, the proposal appears to indicate that all powers not specifically vested in the autonomous region would remain with the kingdom.

Despite this, Secretary of State Clinton appeared to endorse Morocco’s plans for annexation under the name of autonomy. In an interview during her recent visit she refused to call for a referendum on the fate of the territory in accordance with a series of UN Security Council resolutions. Instead, she backed Moroccan calls for “mediation,” which would not offer the people of the territory a say in their future, as required by international law and reaffirmed in the case of Western Sahara by a landmark opinion of the International Court of Justice.

Meanwhile, key House Democrats have weighed in support of Morocco’s right of conquest as well, with Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-NY, who chairs the Subcommittee on the Middle East, joining Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-MD signing a letter endorsing Morocco’s autonomy plan. Prominent Republicans signing the letter included Minority Leader John Boehner, R-OH; House Republican Whip Roy Blunt, R-MO; and former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-IL. Indeed, more than 80 of the signers are either committee chairmen or ranking members of key committees, subcommittees and elected leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives; yet another indication in this post-Cold War era of a growing bipartisan effort to undermine the longstanding principle of the right of self-determination.

It is particularly ironic that Morocco’s autonomy plan has received such strong bipartisan support since the United States rejected a more generous autonomy plan for Kosovo and instead pushed for UN recognition of that nation’s unilateral declaration of independence. This double standard is all the more glaring given that Kosovo is legally part of Serbia and Western Sahara is legally a country under foreign military occupation.

Next Steps

Given the reluctance of the Obama administration to publicly demand that the Moroccans end their forced exile of Aminatou Haidar and release political prisoners, their freedom may depend on the willingness of human rights activists to mobilize on their behalf. Indeed, this may be the only hope for Western Sahara as a whole.

Western Sahara remains an occupied territory only because Morocco has refused to abide by a series of UN Security Council resolutions calling on the kingdom to end its occupation and recognize the right of the people of that territory to self-determination. Morocco has been able to persist in its defiance of its international legal obligations because France and the United States, which wield veto power in the UN Security Council, have blocked the enforcement of these resolutions. In addition, France and the United States served as principal suppliers of the armaments and other security assistance to Moroccan occupation forces. As a result, nonviolent action by the citizens of France, the United States and other countries that enable Morocco to maintain its occupation would be as least as important as the Sahrawis’ nonviolent resistance against Morocco’s occupation policies. Such campaigns played a major role in forcing the United States, Australia and Great Britain to cease their support for Indonesia’s occupation of East Timor. Solidarity networks in support of Western Sahara have emerged in dozens of countries around the world, most notably in Spain and Norway, but not yet in the United States, where it could matter most.

A successful nonviolent independence struggle by an Arab Muslim people under Haidar’s leadership could set an important precedent. It would demonstrate how, against great odds, an outnumbered and outgunned population could win through the power of nonviolence in a part of the world where resistance to autocratic rule and foreign military occupation has often spawned acts of terrorism and other violence. Furthermore, the participatory democratic structure within the Sahrawi resistance movement and the prominence of women in key positions of leadership could serve as an important model in a region where authoritarian and patriarchal forms of governance have traditionally dominated.

The eventual outcome rests not just on the Sahrawis alone, but whether the international community, particularly those of us in the United States, decide whether such a struggle is worthy of our support.

http://www.alternet.org/story/144334/the_other_occupation%3A_western_sahara_and_the_case_of_aminatou_haidar/

Lessons from the Velvet Revolution

The 20th anniversary of the 1989 Velvet Revolution that overthrew the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia was one of the most impressive civil insurrections in history. It was not the military might of NATO, but the power of nonviolent action by ordinary citizens which brought down the system. The popular uprising against the repressive system that had ruled their country for much of the previous four decades — along with comparable movements, which came to the fore that year in Poland, Hungary and East Germany — marks a great triumph of the human spirit.

These movements were largely led by democratic socialists who mobilized workers, church people, intellectuals, and others to face down the tanks with their bare hands. Yet here in the United States, we are told that it was a result of President Reagan’s militarism and the supposed inherent superiority of capitalism. It is this false narrative that has played such a major role in shifting discourse to the right in subsequent decades and has been used to discredit those struggling for a more just and egalitarian economic system and a more sane and less imperialistic foreign policy.

President Reagan’s verbal support for democracy had little credibility in many of these countries. For example, while he denounced Poland’s martial law regime, he was a strong supporter of the more repressive martial law regime then in power in NATO ally Turkey and scores of other dictatorships. In challenging left-wing governments in the Third World, Reagan gave little credence to nonviolent action and instead backed insurgents with ties to U.S.-backed dictatorships and — in the case of Afghanistan — even Islamic fundamentalists.

While Reagan was certainly capable of inspirational leadership and personal charm, to claim that he is responsible for the downfall of Communism and the end of the Cold War is a disservice to the millions of Eastern Europeans and others who struggled against great odds for their freedom. For it was not American militarism, but massive nonviolent action — including strikes, boycotts, mass demonstrations, and other forms of noncooperation — which finally brought down these Communist regimes. Indeed, the Charter 77 movement in Czechoslovakia and the Solidarity movement in Poland emerged during the period of U.S.-Soviet détente prior to Reagan taking office.

It is very much in the interest of those in the foreign policy establishment to downplay the role of ordinary citizens making revolutionary change. The overthrow of the Soviet-styled Communist regimes of Eastern Europe were part of the pro-democracy movements that were also then sweeping Latin America and parts of Africa and Asia during this same period. Nonviolent “people power” movements similar to those in Eastern Europe were then bringing down a series of U.S.-backed dictatorships in the Philippines, Chile, Bolivia, Haiti, Mali, and elsewhere. In more recent years, such nonviolent pro-democracy struggles have triumphed in Indonesia, Serbia, the Maldives, Ukraine, Nepal, and other countries.

As with these other successful nonviolent revolutions, the Eastern European struggles were for freedom, not capitalism. While the post-Communist Polish government forced adoption of neo-liberal shock therapy, Solidarity’s original manifesto called for worker control of industry, a far more authentic version of socialism than the bureaucratic authoritarianism of the supposed “worker’s state” that resulted. The leading dissidents in East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Hungary also came out of the democratic left.

For this reason, there was little support in Washington for the bearded counter-culture dissidents of Eastern Europe, whose Western mentors were more likely to be John Lennon and Frank Zappa than Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. Following a meeting with leading Hungarian dissidents in July of 1989, President George H.W. Bush told his aides, “There really aren’t the right guys to be running the place.” Rather than back the socialist intellectuals of Poland’s Workers’ Defense Committee and other pro-Solidarity groups, Bush encouraged Wojciech Jaruzelski — the general who had seized power in the 1981 coup, declared martial law, banned Solidarity and jailed hundreds of leading dissidents — to run for president in the semi-free 1989 elections, all in the interest of “stability.”

Rather than being inspired by Reagan’s call to “tear down that wall” or a desire to emulate Western-style consumerism, the weakness of the Soviet-style system itself accelerated its demise. A centralized command economy can have its advantages at a certain phase of industrialization, when large “smokestack industries” — from machine tools to tanks — dominate manufacturing. Such a system, for a time, made the Soviets a formidable military power, but was totally incapable of satisfying consumer demand. Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev’s famous line in the late 1950s that “we will bury you” was not a threat of war, but a reflection that — over the past few decades up to that time — the Soviet economy was growing faster than its Western capitalist counterparts and was projected to surpass that of the West within a couple of decades.

However, as the new wave of industrialization based upon information technologies took off, the economy of the Eastern Bloc stagnated. Totalitarian systems cannot survive without being able to control access to information, with serious cracks in the system becoming apparent as early as the 1970s. The only nominally communist governments that still exist are those like China and Vietnam, whose economies have largely gone capitalist, and Cuba, which has decentralized and democratized segments of its economy.

Even these inherent weaknesses of their system would not have been enough to have caused them to collapse, however. They needed to be pushed. It took the general strikes, the popular contestation of public space, and other forms of massive non-cooperation to make these countries fundamentally ungovernable and force the regimes to their knees.

Nor were Reagan’s military buildup and bellicose threats against the Soviets a factor. Indeed, such threats may have allowed these regimes to hold on to power even longer as people rallied to support the government in the face of the perceived external threat from the U.S. High Soviet military spending, in part as a reaction to the American military buildup which began in the latter half of the Carter Administration, certainly hurt their economy, as it did (and is still doing) ours. This was, however, a minor factor at most.

Indeed, none of the extensive archival evidence that has emerged in the past 20 years gives any indication that the United States can take any credit (or blame) for the events of 1989. As Timothy Garton Ash, the most respected Western chronicler of that period notes, “the United States’ contribution lay mainly in what it did not do.”

Instead of using the 20th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution and the fall of the Berlin Wall as a rationalization for global capitalism, the supposed triumph of the neo-liberal Washington consensus, and a celebration of Cold War militarism, the real lesson from that autumn is that civil society utilizing mass strategic nonviolent action has the power to bring down an oppressive hegemonic order.

Perhaps this is something that needs to be emulated here as well.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-zunes/lessons-from-the-velvet-r_b_366054.html

The Power of Nonviolent Action in Honduras

The decision by Honduran coup leader Roberto Micheletti to renege on his October 30 agreement to allow democratically-elected president Manuel Zelaya to return to power was a severe blow to pro-democracy forces who have been struggling against the illegitimate regime since it seized power four months ago. The disappointment has been compounded by the Obama administration’s apparent willingness—in a break with Latin American leaders and much of the rest of the international community—to recognize the forthcoming presidential elections being held under the de facto government’s repressive rule.

Still, there are reasons to hope that democracy can be restored to this Central American nation.

The primary reason the de facto government was willing to negotiate at all was the ongoing nonviolent resistance campaign by Honduran pro-democracy forces. The role of popular nonviolent action has not been as massive, dramatic, or strategically sophisticated as the movements that have overthrown some other autocratic regimes in recent decades. There were no scenes of hundreds of thousands of people filling the streets and completely shutting down state functions, as there were in the people power movements that brought down Marcos in the Philippines or Milosevic in Serbia.

Nevertheless, the nonviolent struggle has been of critical importance.

The sustained nonviolent resistance movement has prevented the provisional government, which was formed after the June 28 coup, from establishing a sense of normalcy. What the movement has lacked in well-organized, strategic focus, has been made up for with feisty and determined acts of resistance that have forced the provisional government into clumsy but ultimately futile efforts at repression—exposing the pretense of the junta’s supposed good intentions.

Sometimes a resistance movement just has to stay alive to make its point. Day after day, thousands of Hondurans from all walks of life have gathered in the streets of Tegucigalpa and elsewhere, demanding the restoration of their democratically-elected government. Every day they have been met by tear gas and truncheons. Over a dozen pro-democracy activists were murdered, but rather than let these assassinations frighten people into submission, the opposition turned the martyrs’ funerals into political rallies. Their persistence gradually has torn away the outlaw regime’s claims of legitimacy. Rather than establishing themselves as a legitimate government, de facto president Micheletti and his allied military officers have been made to look like little more than a gang of thugs who took over an Old West town and threw out the sheriff.

Since the return of the exiled President Zelaya to Tegucigalpa (he successfully sought refuge in the Brazilian embassy), the pro-democracy movement has surged. Micheletti and his henchman initially panicked—suspending basic civil liberties, shutting down opposition radio and television stations, and declaring a 24-hour curfew. This disruption caused the business community’s support for the de facto government to wane; the Obama State Department, which had been somewhat timid in pressing the junta up to that point, began to push harder for a deal.

It has been a great credit to the pro-democracy forces that, save for occasional small-scale rioting, the movement has largely maintained its nonviolent discipline. It would have been easy to launch a guerrilla war. Much of Honduras consists of farming and ranching country where many people own guns. The neighboring countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua have experienced bloody revolutionary struggles in recent decades. Yet, despite serious provocations by police and soldiers loyal to the provisional government, the movement has recognized that armed resistance would have been utterly futile and counter-productive. Indeed, they recognize that their greatest strength is in maintaining their commitment to nonviolence.

Those who have engaged in these courageous acts of resistance will feel betrayed, however, if the Obama administration is indeed ready to defy the international community by allowing Micheletti to stay in office and to recognize the results of an election held under such repressive conditions. The United States does have the power to force the illegitimate regime out and to facilitate the return of the country’s democratically-elected president to power if the Obama administration chose to use it. Indeed, there are few countries in the world as dependent on trade with the United States as Honduras.

As for those of us in the United States, it is not enough to cheer from the sidelines at courageous acts of nonviolent action by the people of Honduras. We must be willing to challenge our own government—through engaging in nonviolent direct action ourselves, if necessary—to support democracy in Honduras.

However, even if the Obama administration refuses to take a more responsible position and the coup is allowed to stand, the struggle will not have been for naught.

The Honduran opposition movement consists of a hodgepodge of trade unionists, campensinos from the countryside, Afro-Hondurans, teachers, feminists, students, and others who, along with insisting on the right of their elected president to return to office, are determined to build a more just society. Prior to the coup this summer, there had never been a national mobilization in Honduras lasting for more than a week, much less four months. The protracted struggle against Micheletti may have served as a vaccination: Popular forces may now have developed the antibodies to engage in a sustained struggle for social justice, deepening the capacity for radical change in a society that has a rather weak tradition of social movements relative to much of the rest of Latin America.

Regardless of who occupies the Honduran presidential palace, there is a critical need to replace the old constitution, imposed by the outgoing military junta in 1981, which minimizes the participation of ordinary citizens in political decisions and effectively suppresses popular social movements. It must be replaced by one in which members of the country’s poor majority will have more of a say in determining their future. It was the movement for a popular, non-binding referendum to gauge support for a Constitutional convention that prompted the coup last June.

This struggle may be only the first chapter of an important and prolonged struggle for justice in one of Latin America’s poorest and most inequitable countries. It is important that the people of North America become engaged as active allies.

http://www.yesmagazine.org/peace-justice/the-power-of-nonviolent-action-in-honduras/

The Indigenous Roots of Nonviolent Struggle: A Reply to Steve Weissman

Steve Weissman’s article “How Washington Learned to Love Nonviolence” which recently appeared on this web site [After Downing Street] is filled with misrepresentations, omissions, and just plain falsehoods.

Though Washington’s notorious willingness to intervene in the internal affairs of foreign nations is manifold and transcends the party in power, the examples put forward in this article are misleading and inaccurate.

For example, the student movement Otpor!, which led the popular uprising in Serbia against Milosevic in 2000, did receive some funding from Western sources, but the claim that it was “stage-managed by Washington” is ridiculous. Indeed, this is as simplistic as claiming that the Central American revolutions, because of their limited financial support from the Eastern Bloc, were stage-managed by Moscow. In both cases, these movements developed their strategies and tactics on their own and were motivated by the oppression and injustice within their societies, not because a foreign super-power directed them. The brief meeting Weissman cites between some Otpor activists and a retired U.S. army officer in Hungary took place well after their movement was already engaged in strategic nonviolent against the Milosevic regime and hundreds of their supporters had been jailed. While Western aid was certainly useful in Otpor’s growth and development, it was not critical; it was Otpor’s message – developed by the young student leaders at its helm – not Western assistance, which captured the imagination of the Serbian population angered by years of war, corruption, oppression and international isolation. And there was no outside support or facilitation for the uprising itself, which actually took Western leaders by surprise.

Indeed, Otpor’s leaders tended to be decidedly left-of-center Serbian nationalists who vehemently opposed the 1999 NATO bombing of their country and were and continued to be sharply critical of U.S. policy in the Balkans and beyond. They not only opposed the policies of the Milosevic regime and the U.S. government, but the traditional opposition parties as well. The success of the populist groundswell they generated forced the once-feuding opposition groups to unite behind a single opposition candidate, which made Milosevic’s defeat in the election possible and, when the incumbent tried to steal the election, they were able to organize the successful uprising which forced him to honor the election results. Rather than being American agents, the Otpor leadership had also been in opposition to Milosevic back when the United States was supporting him in the years immediately following the Dayton Accords in 1995.

Interviews with CANVAS leaders reveal their contempt for National Endowment for Democracy and other U.S. –funded entities which they see as undermining pro-democracy struggles around the world due to its “clear political agenda” on behalf of the U.S. government. Indeed, their hostility toward U.S. foreign policy dates back to the counter-productive U.S. policy toward the Balkans in the 1990s. For example, as Srdja Popovich – whose mother, a senior editor for Serbian state television, narrowly escaped death when U.S. forces bombed the building in 1999 – puts it, “Do you think I would ever collaborate with the government that tried to kill my mom?” Popovich has spoken out against the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, against U.S.-led covert action and other forms of U.S. imperialism, and gave an impassioned speech at a recent anti-war rally in Portland denouncing American militarism. Similarly, his colleague Ivan Marovic was recently in Honduras co-leading a workshop for Zelaya supporters to assist the nonviolent resistance struggle against the coup. Yet Weissman tries to portray them as U.S. puppets.

It should also be noted that not all CANVAS trainers are Serbs, but include veterans of other nonviolent struggles, such as former anti-apartheid activists from the UDF and ANC.

Weissman also implies that CANVAS is only involved doing workshops for opposition movements challenging regimes the U.S. opposes. In reality, they have worked with at least as many pro-democracy groups challenging regimes supported by the U.S. government, as demonstrated by their workshops for Palestinians, Egyptians, Western Saharans, West Papuans, Azerbaijanis, and Guineans, among others. Indeed, CANVAS trainers have led workshops in the United States for peace activists, immigrants rights activists, and others. This is all on the public record, but Weissman selectively cites only the workshops done for groups challenging regimes opposed by the United States as part of a disingenuous effort to malign CANVAS and their work.

Though CANVAS has not used sufficient discernment, in my view, of what kind of groups they work with, they have turned down requests for workshops from right-wing Bolivians and others whom they recognize as being undemocratic in nature. And there is no way a “color revolution” could succeed in Bolivia, Ecuador, or Venezuela in any case, since such uprisings have only succeeded in situation where a regime has lost legitimacy with its own people. Weissman should be reminded that – unlike Serbia, Ukraine, Nepal, Maldives, and other recent examples of nonviolent overthrows of governments – these Latin American countries have democratically-elected leaders who still has majority support.

Weissman then goes on to claim that the United States was somehow behind the recent uprising against the right-wing clerical regime in Iran, despite the fact that it was led by the strongly nationalist and anti-American opposition. In reality, uprisings like the one witnessed back in June have occurred with some regularity in Iran since the late 1800s. Indeed, the idea of Americans having to teach Iranians about massive nonviolent resistance is like Americans teaching Iranians to cook fesenjan.

Iranians successfully rose up against economic concessions to the British in 1890. The Constitutional Revolution of 1905 against the corrupt rule of the Shah and regional nobles led to the emergence of an elected parliament and financial reforms. The uprising against the U.S.-backed Shah in the late 1970s brought down that autocratic monarchy. In each of these cases, the tactics were remarkably similar to those used in the weeks following the contested elections: strikes, boycotts, mass protests, and other forms of nonviolent action. The Iranians are learning from their history, not from Americans.

Though the subsequent Islamist regime has proven to be at least as repressive, the legacy of the largely nonviolent overthrow of the Shah remains an inspiration for Iranians still struggling for their freedom. Indeed, the current movement has consciously adopted many of the symbols and tactics of the 1978-79 period. There is the use of green (the color of Islam) as the movement’s identifying color. Demonstrators in Tehran, Tabriz, Mashhad, Isfahan, Shiraz, and other cities gathered at the same locations of anti-Shah rallies. As in 1978, protesters chanted “Death to the Dictatorship” during demonstrations and shouted “Allah Akbar” (God is Great!) from the rooftops and demonstrators placed their palms in the blood spilled by a killed or injured comrade and pressed the red palm print on a nearby wall as a sign of martyrdom.

Weissman even claims that the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict — for which I and a number of other prominent anti-imperialist scholars serve as academic advisors — has funded the Iranian opposition. This is a total lie. Such funding is against the charter of the organization and no such financial support for the Iranian opposition or any other group has ever taken place.

There are many manifestations of U.S. imperialism and intervention that need to be exposed and challenged. It is a distraction and disservice to the struggle to engage in sectarian attacks against progressive NGOs and to falsely accuse genuine pro-democracy movements as lackeys of Washington.

For more information on strategic nonviolent struggles, check out the section of my web site addressing this phenomenon here.

Stephen Zunes is a professor of Politics at the University of San Francisco and senior analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus.

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/46995

Weapons of Mass Democracy

On the outskirts of a desert town in the Moroccan-occupied territory of Western Sahara, about a dozen young activists are gathered. They are involved in their country’s long struggle for freedom. A group of foreigners—veterans of protracted resistance movements—is conducting a training session in the optimal use of a “weapons system” that is increasingly deployed in struggles for freedom around the world. The workshop leaders pass out Arabic translations of writings on the theory and dynamics of revolutionary struggle and lead the participants in a series of exercises designed to enhance their strategic and tactical thinking.

These trainers are not veterans of guerrilla warfare, however, but of unarmed insurrections against repressive regimes. The materials they hand out are not the words of Che Guevara, but of Gene Sharp, the former Harvard scholar who has pioneered the study of strategic nonviolent action. And the weapons they advocate employing are not guns and bombs, but strikes, boycotts, mass demonstrations, tax refusal, alternative media, and refusal to obey official orders.

Serbs, South Africans, Filipinos, Georgians, and other veterans of successful nonviolent struggles are sharing their knowledge and experience with those still fighting dictators and occupation armies.

The young Western Saharans know how an armed struggle by an older generation of their countrymen failed to dislodge the Moroccans, who first invaded their country back in 1975. They have seen how Morocco’s allies on the U.N. Security Council—led by France and the United States—blocked enforcement of U.N. resolutions supporting their right to self-determination. With the failure of both armed struggle and diplomacy to bring them freedom, they have decided to instead employ a force more powerful.

The Rise of Nonviolence

The long-standing assumption that dictatorial regimes can only be overthrown through armed struggle or foreign military intervention is coming under increasing challenge. Though nonviolent action has a long and impressive history going back centuries, events in recent decades have demonstrated more than ever that nonviolent action is not just a form of principled witness utilized by religious pacifists. It is the most powerful political tool available to challenge oppression.

It was not the leftist guerrillas of the New People’s Army who brought down the U.S.-backed Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines. It was nuns praying the rosary in front of the regime’s tanks, and the millions of others who brought greater Manila to a standstill.

It was not the 11 weeks of bombing that brought down Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, the infamous “butcher of the Balkans.” It was a nonviolent resistance movement led by young students, whose generation had been sacrificed in a series of bloody military campaigns against neighboring Yugoslav republics, and who were able to mobilize a large cross-section of the population to rise up against a stolen election.

It was not the armed wing of the African National Congress that brought majority rule to South Africa. It was workers, students, and township dwellers who—through the use of strikes, boycotts, the creation of alternative institutions, and other acts of defiance—made it impossible for the apartheid system to continue.

It was not NATO that brought down the communist regimes of Eastern Europe or freed the Baltic republics from Soviet control. It was Polish dockworkers, East German church people, Estonian folk singers, Czech intellectuals, and millions of ordinary citizens.

Similarly, such tyrants as Jean-Claude Duvalier in Haiti, Moussa Traoré in Mali, King Gyanendra in Nepal, General Suharto in Indonesia, and, most recently, Maumoon Gayoom in the Maldives were forced to cede power when it became clear that they were powerless in the face of massive nonviolent resistance and noncooperation.

The power of nonviolent action has been acknowledged even by such groups as Freedom House, a Washington-based organization with close ties to the foreign policy establishment. Its 2005 study observed that, of the nearly 70 countries that have made the transition from dictatorship to varying degrees of democracy in the past 30 years, only a small minority did so through armed struggle from below or reform instigated from above. Hardly any new democracies resulted from foreign invasion. In nearly three-quarters of the transitions, change was rooted in democratic civil-society organizations that employed nonviolent methods. In addition, the study noted that countries where nonviolent civil resistance movements played a major role tend to have freer and more stable democratic systems.

A different study, published last year in the journal International Security, used an expanded database and analyzed 323 major insurrections in support of self-determination and democratic rule since 1900. It found that violent resistance was successful only 26 percent of the time, whereas nonviolent campaigns had a 53 percent success rate.

From the poorest nations of Africa to the relatively affluent countries of Eastern Europe; from communist regimes to right-wing military dictatorships; from across the cultural, geographic and ideological spectrum, democratic and progressive forces have recognized the power of nonviolent action to free them from oppression. This has not come, in most cases, from a moral or spiritual commitment to nonviolence, but simply because it works.

Why Nonviolent Action Works

Armed resistance, even for a just cause, can terrify people not yet committed to the struggle, making it easier for a government to justify violent repression and use of military force in the name of protecting the population. Even rioting and vandalism can turn public opinion against a movement, which is why some governments have employed agents provocateurs to encourage such violence. The use of force against unarmed resistance movements, on the other hand, usually creates greater sympathy for the government’s opponents. As with the martial art of aikido, nonviolent opposition movements can engage the force of the state’s repression and use it to effectively disarm the force directed against them.

In addition, unarmed campaigns involve a range of participants far beyond the young able-bodied men normally found in the ranks of armed guerrillas. As the movement grows in strength, it can include a large cross-section of the population. Though most repressive governments are well-prepared to deal with a violent insurgency, they tend to be less prepared to counter massive non-cooperation by old, middle-aged, and young. When millions of people defy official orders by engaging in illegal demonstrations, going out on strike, violating curfews, refusing to pay taxes, and otherwise refusing to recognize the legitimacy of the state, the state no longer has power. During the “people power” uprising against the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines, for example, Marcos lost power not through the defeat of his troops and the storming of the Malacañang Palace but when—due to massive defiance of his orders—the palace became the only part of the country he still effectively controlled.

Furthermore, pro-government elements tend to be more willing to compromise with nonviolent insurgents, who are less likely to physically harm their opponents when they take power. When massive demonstrations challenged the military junta in Chile in the late 1980s, military leaders convinced the dictator Augusto Pinochet to agree to the nonviolent protesters’ demands for a referendum on his continued rule and to accept the results when the vote went against him.

Unarmed movements also increase the likelihood of defections and non-cooperation by police and military personnel, who will generally fight in self-defense against armed guerrillas but are hesitant to shoot into unarmed crowds. Such defiance was key to the downfall of dictatorships in East Germany, Mali, Serbia, the Philippines, Ukraine, and elsewhere. The moral power of nonviolence is crucial to the ability of an opposition movement to reframe the perceptions of the public, political elites, and the military.

A Democratizing Force

In many cases, armed revolutionaries—trained in martial values, the power of the gun, and a leadership model based upon a secret, elite vanguard—have themselves become authoritarian rulers once in power. In addition, because civil war often leads to serious economic, environmental, and social problems, the new leadership is tempted to embrace emergency powers they are later reluctant to surrender. Algeria and Guinea-Bissau experienced military coups soon after their successful armed independence struggles, while victorious communist guerrillas in a number of countries simply established new dictatorships.

By contrast, successful nonviolent movements build broad coalitions based on compromise and consensus. The new order that emerges from that foundation tends to be pluralistic and democratic.

Liberal democracy carries no guarantee of social justice, but many of those involved in pro-democracy struggles have later played a key role in leading the effort to establish more equitable social and economic orders. For example, the largely nonviolent indigenous peasant and worker movements that ended a series of military dictatorships in Bolivia in the 1980s formed the basis of the movement that brought Evo Morales and his allies to power, resulting in a series of exciting reforms benefiting the country’s poor, indigenous majority.

Another reason nonviolent movements tend to create sustainable democracy is that, in the course of the movement, alternative institutions are created that empower ordinary people. For example, autonomous workers’ councils eroded the authority of party apparatchiks in Polish industry even as the Communist Party still nominally ruled the country. In South Africa, popularly elected local governments and people’s courts in the black townships completely usurped the authority of administrators and judges appointed by the apartheid regime long before majority rule came to the country as a whole.

Recent successes of nonviolent tactics have raised concerns about their use by those with undemocratic aims. However, it is virtually impossible for an undemocratic result to emerge from a movement based upon broad popular support. Local elites, often with the support of foreign powers, have historically promoted regime change through military invasions, coup d’états, and other kinds of violent seizures of power that install an undemocratic minority. Nonviolent “people power” movements, by contrast, make peaceful regime change possible by empowering pro-democratic majorities.

Indeed, every successful nonviolent insurrection has been a homegrown movement rooted in the realization by the masses that their rulers were illegitimate and that the political system would not redress injustice. By contrast, a nonviolent insurrection is unlikely to succeed when the movement’s leadership and agenda do not have the backing of the majority of the population. This is why the 2002–2003 “strike” by some privileged sectors of Venezuela’s oil industry failed to bring down the democratically elected government of Hugo Chavez, while the widely supported strikes in the Iranian oil fields against the Shah in 1978–1979 were key in bringing down his autocratic regime.

Homegrown Movements

Unlike most successful unarmed insurrections, Iran slid back under autocratic rule after the overthrow of the Shah. Now, hard-line clerics and their allies have themselves been challenged by a nonviolent pro-democracy movement. Like most governments facing popular challenges, rather than acknowledging their own failures, the Iranian regime has sought to blame outsiders for fomenting the resistance. Given the sordid history of U.S. interventionism in that country—including the overthrow of Iran’s last democratic government in 1953 in a CIA-backed military coup—some are taking those claims seriously. However, Iranians have engaged in nonviolent action for generations, not just in opposition to the Shah, but going back to the 1890–1892 boycotts against concessions to the British and the 1905–1908 Constitutional Revolution. There is little Americans can teach Iranians about such civil resistance.

Citing funding from Western governments and foundations, similar charges of powerful Western interests being responsible for nonviolent insurrections have also been made in regard to recent successful pro-democracy movements in Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine.

However, while outside funding can be useful in enabling opposition groups to buy computers, print literature, and promote their work, it cannot cause a nonviolent liberal democratic revolution to take place any more than Soviet financial and material support for leftist movements in previous decades could cause an armed socialist revolution to take place.

Successful revolutions, whatever their ideological orientation, are the result of certain social conditions. Indeed, no amount of money could force hundreds of thousands of people to leave their jobs, homes, schools, and families to face down heavily armed police and tanks and put their bodies on the line. They must be motivated by a desire for change so strong they are willing to make the sacrifices and take the personal risks to bring it about.

In any case, there is no standardized formula for success that a foreign government could put together, since the history, culture, and political alignments of each country are unique. No foreign government can recruit or mobilize the large numbers of ordinary civilians necessary to build a movement capable of effectively challenging the established political leadership, much less of toppling a government.

Even workshops like the one for the Western Saharan activists, usually funded through nonprofit, nongovernmental foundations, generally focus on providing generic information on the theory, dynamics, and history of nonviolent action. There is broad consensus among workshop leaders that only those involved in the struggles themselves are in a position to make tactical and strategic decisions, so they tend not to give specific advice. However, such capacity-building efforts—like comparable NGO projects for sustainable development, human rights, equality for women and minorities, economic justice, and the environment—can be an effective means of fostering inter national solidarity.

Back in Western Sahara, anti-occupation activists, building on their own experiences against the Moroccan occupation and on what they learned from the workshop, press on in the struggle for their country’s freedom. In the face of severe repression from U.S.-backed Moroccan forces, the movement continues with demonstrations, leafleting, graffiti writing, flag waving, boycotts, and other actions. One prominent leader of the movement, Aminatou Haidar, won the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award last November, and she has been twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Those in the Western Sahara resistance are among the growing numbers of people around the world struggling against repression who have recognized that armed resistance is more likely to magnify their suffering than relieve it.

From Western Sahara to West Papua to the West Bank, people are engaged in nonviolent resistance against foreign occupation. Similarly, from Egypt to Iran to Burma, people are fighting nonviolently for freedom from dictatorial rule.

Recent history has shown that power ultimately resides in the people, not in the state; that nonviolent strategies can be more powerful than guns; and that nonviolent action is a form of conflict that can build, rather than destroy.

http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/learn-as-you-go/weapons-of-mass-democracy/

Iran’s Do-It-Yourself Revolution

[Huffington Post, August 1, 2009; Updated May 25, 2011]Facing an unprecedented popular uprising against his autocratic rule and his apparently fraudulent re-election, Iran’s right-wing president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has attempted to blame the United States. A surprising number of bloggers on the left have rushed to the defense of the right-wing fundamentalist leader. Citing presidential directives under the Bush administration, they argue that the uprising isn’t as much about a stolen election, the oppression of women, censorship, severe restrictions on political liberties, growing economic inequality, and other grievances, as it is about the result of U.S. interference. [FULL LINK]

A Response to Steve Weissman’s “Nonviolence 101”

Steve Weissman’s article “Iran: Nonviolence 101” was profoundly inaccurate and misleading, particularly in regard to the role of Peter Ackerman and the organization he co-founded, the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC), for which I chair the committee of academic advisers.

All of Weissman’s arguments against US government involvement in training and related support for nonviolent resistance movements in Iran, which he put forward in his article, would be quite valid – if they were true.

They are not, however.

First of all, while the US has armed and supported Kurdish and Baluchi guerrillas in Iran and has funneled money to some other rather dubious opposition groups (primarily consisting of exiles with virtually no popular support within the country), I have never seen any evidence whatsoever of any US government involvement in the training of Iranian dissidents in strategic nonviolent action.

Secondly, while ICNC has facilitated some seminars and workshops which provide generic information on the history, theory and dynamics of strategic nonviolent action – including one in Dubai for Iranians four years ago – there was no training in Hushmail or any communications technology, as Weissman alleges, nor was any other specific training or applications part of that or any other workshop.

More significantly, ICNC’s charter prevents it from accepting any government funding. Furthermore, ICNC’s charter specifically forbids providing any guidance, direction, money or material assistance to any individual or group.

Similarly, Dr. Ackerman has never worked for the US government and does not provide that kind of practical support either. All his presentations on the topic – as with all the educational projects of ICNC, like the Dubai workshop – have simply entailed generic information on the history, theory and dynamics of strategic nonviolent action, and have not included any specific advice or any kind of logistical support.

Furthermore, no one associated with ICNC to my knowledge has ever had any conversations about “regime change” in Iran with anybody, certainly not with anyone affiliated with the US government.

Despite Weissman’s claims that Ackerman and ICNC only work with those who oppose governments Washington doesn’t like, ICNC has supported at least as many seminars and workshops for those challenging US-backed governments, including West Papuans, Western Saharans, Guineans, Azerbaijanis, indigenous Guatemalans as well as immigrants rights activists here in the United States, among many others. And, despite Weissman’s insistence to the contrary, ICNC has also worked with those engaged in nonviolent resistance in Egypt, Colombia and the Israeli-occupied territories. Dr. Ackerman himself has been to Cairo and Ramallah to speak to Egyptian and Palestinian activists on nonviolent resistance. By contrast, he has never been to Iran or engaged in workshops with Iranians.

Meanwhile, while the US government has directly and indirectly funded opposition groups in various countries, it has never provided “training for non-violent revolutions.” The US government doesn’t know the first thing about nonviolent revolutions. The US government knows a lot about invasions, coups, and other violent means of intervention, but I’m yet to find any major US official who knows anything about how to foment a successful nonviolent revolution.

Weissman’s depiction of Dr. Ackerman simply as a “Wall Street whiz kid” is rather misleading, given that he is best known for his scholarly work on strategic nonviolent action, the topic of his doctoral dissertation. His books “Strategic Nonviolent Conflict: The Dynamics of People Power in the Twentieth Century” and “A Force More Powerful: A Century of Non-Violent Conflict” are among the best in the field, the latter of which became a three-part PBS special, which is used in peace studies programs across the country. Similarly, while quite wealthy, Ackerman is certainly not a billionaire, as Weissman claims. Personally, I’m glad someone with money has been willing to put part of his wealth into promoting the understanding of strategic nonviolent action as an alternative to both passivity and war.

Weissman quotes from Ackerman’s 2006 op-ed from the International Herald Tribune are so highly selective as to be misleading. He did not provide a link to it in his article, but if you actually read the original op-ed, you’ll find that it actually comes out against “external intervention.” While it calls on governments to try to pressure the Iranian regime to stop oppressing its people, it says that only NGOs should be involved with actively supporting Iranian civil society groups. The op-ed also stresses that these NGOS should only provide support for what the Iranians are already doing, as opposed to providing them direction or strategic advice. This is no different than what women’s groups, environmental groups, human rights organizations, trade unions, and other groups are doing in support for their counterparts in countries all around the world. Yet, Weissman makes it sound like it’s some kind of conspiracy.

In addition, rather than being part of the “hot-bed of neo-con support for American intervention” at Freedom House, Dr. Ackerman actually battled the neocons within that 68-year old organization in what was apparently an unsuccessful effort to separate it from the US government and partisan politics.

It’s also clear from his article that Weissman does not know much about the recent history of pro-democracy uprisings. Despite his claims to the contrary, there has never been an attempted “color revolution” in Venezuela. There was a short-lived military coup in 2002, which soon collapsed due to an outpouring of support for the democratically-elected government of Hugo Chavez; there was a temporary shut down of the oil industry a couple of years later, which folded for lack of popular support; and, there have been occasional small protests. There has never been anything like the popular nonviolent uprisings, which have resulted in the downfall of autocratic governments in the Philippines, Chile, Serbia, Mali, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Indonesia, Georgia, Nepal, Ukraine, the Maldives, and other countries over the past couple of decades.

In any case, despite Weissman’s insinuations to the contrary, neither Ackerman nor ICNC had any connections whatsoever with Georgians prior to their 2003 uprising against the corrupt and unpopular Shevardnadze regime. ICNC has provided some videos, books and simulation games to some Venezuelans and Ukrainians who requested them, as they have for Palestinians, Egyptians, Western Saharans, West Papuans, Guineans, Burmese, and people from scores of other countries, without asking any questions about their politics. The only time ICNC ever sent someone to Venezuela was when they supported a trip by me and radical pacifist David Hartsough to the World Social Forum in 2006; while there, we met with some Venezuelan government officials about how strategic nonviolent action could be used to resist a possible coup attempt against that country’s democratically-elected government, not foment one.

Not only does Weissman not know his facts, he did not even bother to interview Dr. Ackerman or anyone affiliated with ICNC in putting together his article to see if they were correct. If he had, he would have known the assertions he makes in his article are totally groundless.

Similarly, if he had bothered to do his research, he would have noted that ICNC advisers and consultants consist of such radical scholars and activists as Sonoma State political science Professor and Truthout contributor Cynthia Boaz; the noted anarcho-pacifist Swedish scholar of resistance studies Stellan Vinthagen; the veteran peace activist and sociologist Les Kurtz; Canadian activist Philippe Duhomel, a principal organizer of the anti-FTAA demonstrations in Quebec City; South African leftist Janet Cherry, a veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle in both the ANC and UDF; and, the prominent progressive New Zealand peace scholar Kevin Clements. These are hardly the kinds of people who would work with the government to advance US imperialism in Iran or anywhere else.

It is also bizarre to imply that the United States has anything to do at all with the uprising in Iran, given that the opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi and the vast majority of his supporters are strongly nationalist, anti-American, anti-imperialist and would neither desire nor accept US support. Indeed, the last thing the United States would want is a popular and legitimate Islamist government in Iran, which is why neoconservatives and other hawks were hoping for an Ahmadinejad victory. It also ignores the longstanding Iranian tradition of such largely nonviolent civil insurrections against imperialist powers and autocratic rulers and that, given this history, no outside power is needed to convince the Iranian people to rebel.

With all the very real manifestations of US imperialism and interventionism out there, it is rather bizarre that Weissman would choose to write about a phony one.

http://www.truthout.org/062909A

The Iranian Uprising is Home Grown, and Must Stay That Way

The growing nonviolent insurrection in Iran against the efforts by the ruling clerics to return the ultra-conservative and increasingly autocratic incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinjead to power is growing. Whatever the outcome, it represents an exciting and massive outpouring of Iranian civil society for a more open and pluralistic society.

Ironically, defenders of Ahmadinejad’s repression are trying to blame everyone from the U.S. government to nonviolent theorist Gene Sharp to various small NGOs engaged in educational efforts on strategic nonviolent action as somehow being responsible for the popular uprising in Iran. It appears to be based upon the rather bizarre assumption that millions of Iranians would somehow be willing to pour out onto the streets in the face of violent repression by state security forces only because they have been directed to do so by people from an imperialist power which overthrew their last democratic government and subsequently propped up the tyrannical regime they installed in its place for the next quarter century.

Even putting aside the bizarre spectacle of self-proclaimed “leftists” coming to the defense of a right-wing fundamentalist autocratic like Ahmadinejad, this claim ignores several key factors:
1) Neo-conservatives and other American hawks were hoping for a victory by the hard-line incumbent to justify their opposition to President Barack Obama’s tentative steps at rapprochement with the Islamic Republic.

2) Opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi and the vast majority of his supporters are strongly nationalist, anti-American, anti-imperialist, and would neither desire nor accept U.S. support.

3) There has been a longstanding Iranian tradition of such largely nonviolent civil insurrections against imperialist powers and autocratic rulers and no outside power is needed to convince the Iranian people to rebel.
The Neo-Cons Supported Ahmadinejad

The only people happier than the Iranian elites over Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s apparently stolen election win Friday, were the neoconservatives and other hawks eager to block any efforts by the Obama administration to moderate U.S. policy toward the Islamic republic.

Since he was elected president in 2005, Ahmadinejad has filled a certain niche in the American psyche formerly filled by the likes of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi as the Middle Eastern leader we most love to hate. It gives us a sense of righteous superiority to compare ourselves favorably to these seemingly irrational and fanatical foreign despots.

Better yet, if these despots can be inflated into far greater threats than they actually are, these supposed threats can be used to justify the enormous financial and human costs of maintaining American armed forces in that volatile region to protect ourselves and our allies, and even to make war against far-off nations in “self-defense.”

The neocons have not been subtle about their desire for Ahmadinejad to continue playing this important role. For example, right-wing pundit Daniel Pipes, at a panel discussion at the Heritage Foundation just before the election, said that he would vote for Ahmadinejad if he could, because he prefers “an enemy who is forthright, blatant, obvious.”

Last week, just two days before the Iranian election, Congressional Republicans — in an apparent effort to provoke a nationalist reaction which would enhance the chances of Iranian hard liners – tried to push through a floor vote to strengthen U.S. sanctions against Iran.

It is interesting how some of the very foreign policy hawks who just last week were dismissing Mir Hossein Mousavi’s expected victory as irrelevant since, in their view, there was essentially no meaningful difference between him and Ahmadinejad, are now among the most self-righteous in denouncing the apparent fraud and the most outspoken in their pseudo-outrage at the results.

Their worst-case scenario for these American hawks would be a nonviolent insurrection that would topple Ahmadinejad and allied hard-line clerics and the development of a more pluralistic and representative Islamic Republic in Iran. . Neither the neocons nor Iran’s reactionary leadership want to see that oil-rich regional power under a popular and legitimate government. Indeed, the neocons and Iranian hard-liners need each other.

The Nationalist Nature of the Opposition

Mousavi – despite his disagreements with Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over the years — has been very much part of the establishment. Indeed, Mousavi would not have even been allowed to run for president otherwise, since the Council of Guardians routinely forbids anyone who is seen to not sufficiently support the country’s theocratic system to participate.

Yet, Mousavi attracted a large and enthusiastic following during the course of the campaign which may have led the ruling clerics to fear that the momentum of his incipient victory could result not just in limited reforms, like those attempted under former president Mohammed Khatami, but revolutionary change. The size and intensity of Mousavi’s final campaign rally, in which he referred to Ahmadinejad as a “dictator” — which, by extension, implied an indictment of the system as a whole — may have tilted the clerics into believing they could not take the risk of allowing the anticipated results to be verified. Despite his candidacy displaying a personality and style closer to Michael Dukakis than Barack Obama, Mousavi came to represent the change so many Iranians, especially young people, desperately desired and appeared determined to make happen.

Even among Iranians dedicated to the principles of the Islamic Republic, many now see their country essentially as a police state, recognizing that Ahmadinejad and the ruling clerics are little more than corrupt self-interested politicians who have manipulated their people’s religious faith for the sake of their own power.

However strong their opposition to the current regime, the democratic and reformist opposition simply does not trust the United States, which overthrew Iran’s last democratic government in 1953, armed and trained the Shah’s brutal security apparatus, backed Saddam Hussein in his bloody war against their country, imposed strict economic sanctions on their country, and has hypocritically obsessed about their civilian nuclear program while supporting such neighboring states as Israel, Pakistan and India despite their developing nuclear arsenals.

While Congress in recent years has approved millions of dollars in funding to support various Iranian opposition groups to promote “regime change,” most of these groups are led by exiles who have virtually no following within Iran or any experience with the kinds of grassroots mobilization necessary to build a popular movement that could threaten the regime’s survival. By contrast, most of the credible opposition within Iran has renounced this U.S. initiative and has asserted that it has simply made it easier for the regime to claim that all pro-democracy groups and activists are paid agents of the United States.

Feeling pressure from Iranian democrats and major Iranian-American groups regarding such counter-productive efforts, Obama and the Democrats have since ended this controversial program. Ironically, Republicans are now attacking the administration for having somehow abandoned Iran’s pro-democracy struggle while Ahmadinejad and his supporters are citing the now-discarded effort as proof of U.S. complicity in the current uprising.

Generations of Struggle

Most Iranians – who have traditionally been very proud of their political, social and cultural history – would find it rather bizarre to learn that some Western bloggers, ignorant of that very history, are insisting that the recent protests are a result not of their own anger at an apparent stolen election and continued autocratic rule, but simply because some Americans have told them to.

In reality, uprisings like the one witnessed in recent days have occurred with some regularity in Iran since the late 1800s. Indeed, the idea of Americans having to teach Iranians about massive nonviolent resistance is like Americans teaching Iranians to cook fesenjan.

In 1890, unpopular concessions on tobacco and other products to the British led leading Shia clerics to call for nationalist protests and a nationwide tobacco strike, which succeeded in forcing the Shah to cancel the concession in early 1892.

In 1905, in opposition to widespread corruption by the Qajar dynasty and allied regional nobles and a series of other concessions to Russian and other foreign interests, an uprising initially led by merchants and clergy ensued which would continue for the next six years. In what became known as the Constitutional Revolution, many thousands of Iranians engaged in peaceful protests, boycotts and mass sit-ins, along with occasional riots and scattered armed engagements. The result was significant political and social reforms, including the establishment of an elected parliament to share power with the Shah and anti-corruption measures.

A CIA-sponsored coup in 1953 ousted the elected nationalist prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh and his nationalist supporters and returned the exiled Shah to power as an absolute monarch. Through mass arms transfers from the United States, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi built one of the most powerful armed forces ever seen in the Middle East. His American-trained secret police, the SAVAK, had been thought to have successfully terrorized the population into submission during the next two decades through widespread killings, torture and mass detentions. By the mid-1970s, most of the leftist, liberal, nationalist, and other secular opposition leadership had been successfully repressed through murder, imprisonment or exile, and most of their organizations banned. It was impossible to suppress the Islamist opposition as thoroughly, however, so it was out of mosques and among the mullahs that much of the organized leadership of the movement against the Shah’s dictatorship emerged.

Open resistance began in 1977, when exiled opposition leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called for strikes, boycotts, tax refusal and other forms of noncooperation with the Shahs regime. Such activism was met with brutal repression by the government. The pace of the resistance accelerated as massacres of civilians were answered by larger demonstrations following the Islamic 40-day mourning period. In the months that followed, Iranians employed many of the methods that would be used in the unarmed insurrections that toppled dictatorships in the Philippines, Latin America, Eastern Europe and elsewhere in subsequent years: mass demonstrations, strikes, boycotts, contestation of public space, and the establishment of parallel institutions.

Despite the bloody image of the revolution and the authoritarianism and militarism of the Islamic Republic that followed, there was a clear commitment to keeping the actual insurrection largely nonviolent. Protestors were told by the leadership of the resistance to try to win over the troops rather than attack them; indeed, thousands of troops deserted, some in the middle of confrontations with crowds. Clandestinely smuggled audio cassette tapes of Ayatollah Khomeini speaking about the revolution played a key role in the movement’s mass mobilization, and led Abolhassan Sadegh, an official with the Ministry of National Guidance, to note that “tape cassettes are stronger than fighter planes.” Ayatollah Khomeini’s speeches, circulated through such covert methods, emphasized the power of unarmed resistance and noncooperation. In one speech, he said, “The clenched fists of freedom fighters can crush the tanks and guns of the oppressors.” There were few of the violent activities normally associated with armed revolutions such as shooting soldiers, setting fires to government buildings or looting. Such incidents that did occur were unorganized and spontaneous and did not appear to have the support of the leadership of the movement.

In October and November of 1978, a series of strikes by civil servants and workers in government industries crippled the country. The crisis deepened when oil workers struck at the end of October and demanded the release of political prisoners, costing the government $60 million a day. An ensuing general strike on November 6 paralyzed the country. Even as some workers returned to their jobs, disruption of fuel oil supplies and freight transit, combined with shortages of raw materials resulting from a customs strike, largely kept economic life in the country at a standstill.

Despite providing rhetorical support for an improvement in the human rights situation in Iran, the Carter administration continued military and economic support for the Shah’s increasingly repressive regime, even providing fuel for the armed forces and other security services facing shortages due to the strikes.

Under enormous pressure, the oil workers returned to work but continued to stage slowdowns. Later in November, the Shah’s nightly speeches were interrupted when workers cut off the electricity at precisely the time of his scheduled addresses. Massive protests filled the streets in major cities in December as oil workers walked out again and an ongoing general strike closed the refineries and the central bank. Despite thousands of unarmed protesters being killed by the Shah’s forces, the protesters’ numbers increased, with as many as nine million Iranians taking to the streets in of cities across the country in largely nonviolent protests. The Shah fled on January 16, 1979, and Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile two weeks later. He appointed Mehdi Bazargan prime minister, thus establishing a parallel government to challenge the Shah’s appointed prime minister Shapur Bahktiar. With the loyalty of the vast majority clearly with the new Islamic government, Bahktiar resigned February 11.

One element that contributed to people’s willingness to mobilize under harsh repression was the value of martyrdom in Shia Islam. The movement’s emphasis was to “save Islam by our blood.” Indeed, there are interesting parallels between the legacy of martyrdom inspired by early Shia leader Imam Hossein with the Gandhian tradition of self-sacrifice. As demonstrated by their subsequent rule, the Iranian revolution’s leadership – unlike Mohandas Gandhi – clearly did not support nonviolence as a principle, but recognized its utilitarian advantages against the well-armed security apparatus of the Shah’s regime.

While the revolution had the support of a broad cross-section of society (including Islamists, secularists, nationalists, laborers, and ethnic minorities), Khomeini and other leading Shia clerics strengthened by a pre-existing network of social service and other parallel institutions consolidated their hold and established an Islamic theocracy. The regime shifted far to the right by the spring of 1981, purging moderate Islamists including the elected president Abolhassan Bani-Sadr and imposing a totalitarian system.

A New Revolution?

Now, a new generation of Iranians is rising up in the tradition of previous generations using largely nonviolent tactics to challenge their oppression. Those out on the streets in Tehran, Isfahan, Tabriz, and other cities are not just middle class intellectuals but also represent a broad cross-section of the poor and working class and include both the majority Persians as well as other ethnicities.

It is not clear whether the opposition can successfully organize a “people power” revolution of the kind which have succeeded in ousting autocrats who attempted to steal elections in such countries as the Philippines in 1986, Serbia in 2000, or Ukraine in 2005 or whether – as in Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Mexico – the regime will remain in power.

In any case, it is clearly a home-grown indigenous struggle. Any effort by the United States (which has allowed one –and possible two–stolen elections to stand in recent years) to intervene will only hurt the pro-democracy movement. Given the history of U.S. interventionism in Iran, Obama’s cautious approach will do more to help those in the current popular struggle than anything more explicit, despite Republican demands to the contrary.

The future of Iran belongs in the hands of the Iranians and the best thing the United States can do to support a more open and pluralistic society in that country is to stay the hell out of the way.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/06/19