Powerful nonviolent resistance to armed conflict in Yemen admin, April 11, 2015January 21, 2025 While media coverage of the tragic situation unfolding in Yemen in recent months has focused on armed clashes and other violence, there has also been widespread and ongoing nonviolent civil resistance employed by a number of different actors. Continue Reading
How to discredit your democratic opponents in Egypt admin, February 17, 2014August 15, 2024 The brutal crackdown on both Islamist and secular oppositionists by the US-backed Egyptian military junta has taken on a bizarre twist: using government-controlled media to promote long-discredited conspiracy theories originally put forward by ultra-left fringe groups. Continue Reading
Mandela’s utilitarianism and the struggle for liberation admin, December 13, 2013June 21, 2024 In the time since his death at age 95, Nelson Mandela’s thinking on the strategic direction of the liberation struggle in South Africa has been oversimplified by proponents of nonviolent and armed resistance alike. His leadership in the relatively peaceful end to the brutal apartheid system was indeed critical, as was his leadership three decades earlier in the shift from nonviolent to armed resistance by the African National Congress (ANC). Yet many analysts have largely ignored the critical events in South Africa which took place in between, during his nearly three decades in prison. Continue Reading
Ruthless regimes not impervious to civil resistance: A reply to Maged Mandour admin, November 1, 2013January 21, 2025 A response to Maged Mandour: There is little systematic evidence to suggest that “ruthlessness” is, in and of itself, a critical variable. Continue Reading
The Maldives: a serial coup in progress? admin, October 15, 2013July 8, 2024 Should Britain, the United States and others who claim to be concerned, stand by and allow reactionary forces to stage-manage a phony election, this sends yet another inconsistent and disheartening message to those struggling for peaceful democratic change in the Islamic world and beyond. Continue Reading
On Syria, most thoughtful people are torn admin, October 5, 2013January 21, 2025 openDemocracy Foreign military intervention would prolong the war and increase the carnage still further. But this does not mean that the US in conjunction with others, including Syrian civil society, cannot do anything to help the situation. Reply to Nader Hashemi. Continue Reading
Opposition to intervention in Syria utilitarian, not ideological admin, September 23, 2013January 21, 2025 In this reply to a critique by Nader Hashemi, Dr. Zunes explains that: “Whether or not a movement is primarily violent or nonviolent, what is important is whether it employs strategies and tactics that can maximize its chances of success. “ Continue Reading
Apparent Fraud in Maldivian Elections Threatens Prospects for Democracy admin, September 16, 2013June 23, 2024 Dr. Zunes talks about a number of troubling indicators that major fraud may have occurred in the election held on September 7, which raises questions regarding the integrity of the September 28 runoff. Continue Reading
The ongoing attack on democracy in the Maldives admin, October 11, 2012August 15, 2024 A political struggle now under way on a tiny island nation in the Indian Ocean has huge implications for the global struggle for democracy and human rights. Western powers which profess to support democratic and accountable governance need to act decisively to prevent this Muslim nation, whose protracted nonviolent freedom struggle was an important precursor for the Arab Spring, to continue its slide back into authoritarianism. Continue Reading
Sudan’s protests become civil insurrection admin, July 6, 2012August 15, 2024 A growing anti-government movement consisting of nonviolent demonstrations as well as scattered rioting is beginning to threaten the Sudanese dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir, an indicted war criminal, who has ruled this large North African nation for twenty-three years. Beginning as protests against strict austerity measures imposed three weeks ago, the chants of the protesters have escalated to “the people want to overthrow the regime,” the line heard in recent uprisings in other Arab countries, including Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Bahrain and Syria. Continue Reading
Egypt’s pro-democracy movement: The struggle continues admin, February 8, 2011September 12, 2024 Despite the natural subsidence of dramatic demonstrations on the streets of Cairo and other Egyptian cities, as many protesters return to jobs and catch their breath, there is little question that the pro-democracy struggle in Egypt has achieved lasting momentum, barring unexpected repression. As with other kinds of civil struggles, a movement using nonviolent resistance can ebb and flow. There may have to be tactical retreats, times for regrouping or resetting of strategy, or a focus on negotiations with the regime before broader operations that capture the world’s attention resume. Continue Reading
Upsurge in repression challenges nonviolent resistance in Western Sahara admin, November 17, 2010January 21, 2025 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. Continue Reading
More harm than good admin, July 18, 2007 The failure of the Kingdom of Morocco and the Polisario Front to agree on the modalities of the long-planned United Nations-sponsored referendum on the fate of Western Sahara, combined with a growing nonviolent resistance campaign in the occupied territory against Morocco’s 31-year occupation, has led Morocco to propose granting the former Spanish colony special autonomous status within the kingdom. Continue Reading