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Author : Peter Gelderloos
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[1] This argument is documented in How Nonviolence Protects the State. In sum, nonviolent organizations predicted, after the largest protests the world had ever seen, that their peaceful methods would prevent the war. When they were proven wrong, many people who believed in this nonviolent model for change became disillusioned and dropped out, whereas other people became frustrated with the enforcement of nonviolence and the parade-like, self-congratulatory character of the movement, as well as its refusal to express rage at mass murder or condone the sabotage of the war effort. The movement imploded and disappeared with spectacular speed.
[2] In Spain, self-appointed student leaders prevented a discussion of a diversity of tactics and physically ejected students who tried to mask up or practice self-defense in the protests. They organized a series of huge protests and university occupations in response to the privatization of higher education, and after the largest of these protests, strictly nonviolent, the movement swiftly disappeared (until reemerging with a strike and riots three years later). After the university occupations were evicted in Barcelona, a part of the students used direct action and combative tactics to occupy an empty building in the city center and set up a “Free University”. The space for self-organization and alternative education was won only because some students decided to practice combative street tactics. Thanks to this illegal experience, the student movement was kept alive, and the self-appointed leaders were no longer in control of it when it reemerged in 2012.
[3] All of these arguments are explained at length and documented in How Nonviolence Protects the State.
[4] One website, violentanarchists.wordpress.com, contains dozens of examples from multiple countries across the world showing how accusations of being provocateurs are made against anarchists with no evidence or contradictory evidence, how the mainstream media often promote these rumors, and how these rumors have sometimes resulted in people getting arrested.
[5] http://www.crimethinc.com/blog/2012/09/17/post-debate-debrief-video-and-libretto/
[6] The transcript of Harsha Walia’s part of the debate, and a link to a video of the entire debate, can be found at http://riselikelions.net/pamphlets/14/10-points-on-the-black-bloc.
[7] This is by no means a straw man: nonviolence is predominantly expressed not as the idea that sometimes we should use peaceful tactics but the idea that a movement must be nonviolent in its entirety. “A 99% commitment to nonviolence is not enough,” as some have said. The concept in its essence presupposes a division of all actions on the basis of the category of “violence”, a belief that the nonviolent actions are superior and that violent actions, even in small quantity, will corrupt or pollute the movement as a whole. To be a proponent of nonviolence is not to simply prefer peace, but to sign up to the peace police and attempt to determine the course of the whole movement.
[8] This detail is extremely significant, as it shows that if something is legal and therefore normalized by the State, it is less likely to be considered violent: in the US, carrying a gun in public is legal, whereas in Europe and South America, generally it is not.
[9] In How Nonviolence Protects the State, I document police manuals, FBI memos, military counterinsurgency experts, and studies of the police that show state attempts to convince social movements to be nonviolent, or evaluations that a popular nonviolent movement is less of a threat than a popular armed movement. A much more recent example occurred after the March 29, 2012 general strike in Spain, which led to heavy rioting in Catalunya. The Catalan Interior Minister Felip Puig (in charge of the police and public order) was fried by the media for losing control over the streets. A large part of his comprehensive response, the government's plan of repression, was to pressure organizations that plan protests and strikes to assume responsibility for security and peacekeeping, to criminalize the wearing of masks, to encourage “the citizens” not to stand by the rioters (during the day's events, even those who were not directly participating in the clashes stayed close to the riots, making it impossible for the police to counterattack), and to set up a public snitching website in the hopes that fellow protesters would reveal the identities of rioters who had been caught on camera.
[10] Which is to say that the company that produces green or worker-friendly products still contributes directly to exploitation and ecocide, because the commodity is simply not an earth-friendly or human-friendly form. The same company produces other products that are even more blatantly abusive, or if it's one of the few companies that only markets eco- and worker-friendly products, the profits it generates recirculates in the economy and goes on to fund all sorts of other activities.
[11] Pacifism as Pathology documents many examples of this tendency to blame the victims of repression or claim that repression is justified.
[12] Because not all of the 15th of May plaza occupation movement was nonviolent nor unified behind a progressive populism, I use the largely media-assigned label of “indignados” only to refer to those who saw themselves as peaceful citizens indignant with the direction their government was going in. Many other people in the movement believed in revolution and were beyond indignant.
[13] Chris Ealham, Anarchism and the City: Revolution and Counterrevolution in Barcelona 1898-1937 (San Francisco: AK Press, 2010).
[14] Both of these anonymous texts can be found on theanarchistlibrary.org
[15] Many proponents of nonviolence try to say, more pragmatically, that “violence” is simply less effective, but they have no historical revolutions to show, and therefore no basis for claiming effectiveness. When pressed to answer for the violent revolutions that were successful in overthrowing a particular government, they will almost always claim dissatisfaction with the revolution in question due to its authoritarianism, a quality they often blame on the means used to bring it about.
[16] See How Nonviolence Protects the State, particularly Chapter 1, for detailed arguments about how the Civil Rights movement, the Indian independence movement, and other supposed nonviolent victories did not actually achieve their long-term goals. The book is available for free on the internet, at theanarchistlibrary.org and zinelibrary.info.
[17] For more on counterinsurgency, see Kristian Williams, Our Enemies in Blue; or How Nonviolence Protects the State, p. 106.
[18] Just as the first edition of this book went into layout, there were major uprisings in Turkey and Brazil. Both of these demonstrated the collusion of police, politicians, and media in encouraging peaceful protest, contrary to pacifist claims that the authorities “want us to be violent.” In the case of Turkey, the media aggressively promoted the rather absurd “Standing Man” protest in a clear attempt to direct would-be rioters to harmless, symbolic, and spectacular forms of dissent. While the police and the politicians criminalized violent protest, the politicians and the media encouraged nonviolent alternatives. As Turkey's Minister of Foreign Affairs Ahmet Davutoglu stated to The Guardian, “all peaceful protests reflect our achievement in expanding democratic participation and debate”. Peaceful protests help governments mask their abuses by giving them the opportunity to bring popular rage into the terrain of civic debate, a terrain they fully control. As Davutoglu concluded, “Elections are the only way to change a democratically elected government.” A multifaceted movement that directly addressed problems of public space, commercialism, self-organization, surveillance, policing, and so much more has to reduce everything to election day issues that some political party is going to pretend to fix for them. Protesters who do not play by the rules will be demonized by the media, the politicians, and by fellow protesters. As rioters in Brazil jubilantly set fire to the state parliament in Rio (incidentally winning major reforms as politicians tried to buy them off, once again disproving nonviolence advocates who claim that “violence doesn't work”), the Brazilian president attempted the same trick, encouraging dialogue, applauding the peaceful protesters, and casting the violent protesters as somehow foreign and external to the very movement they started. Fighting uncompromisingly with the State, using violence, is a logical extension of the idea of “no demands, no dialogue with authority” that has infused social movements from the antiglobalization movement to Occupy. It sends the clear message—most importantly within our own circles—that we will not make deals with power. This is a threat to those who, through the vehicle of nonviolence, want to represent movements in order to get a seat at the negotiating table.
[19] The movement was not exclusively nonviolent, and the armed or riotous parts of the movement were an important force in convincing the British to leave. And while the ejection of the British was an important achievement, it was not a final victory. Furthermore, the British colluded with the nonviolent and dialogue-oriented segment of the movement to isolate and repress the “violent” radical currents so they could stage-manage a transition of power that would be favorable to British interests. They put Gandhi's disciple Nehru in power. In other words, we cannot talk about a meaningful victory in India, so much as a partial victory that was fully recuperated within the capitalist system. Whereas the combative part of the movement played a major role in forcing some kind of change, it was the nonviolent part that was most instrumental in the recuperation.
[20] For more on slave revolts and anticapitalist movements in Haiti, Jamaica, Suriname, and elsewhere, see Russell Maroon Shoatz’s short but succinct “The Dragon and the Hydra: A Historical Study of Organizational Methods” (2012). An important history of the Russian Revolution is Voline's The Unknown Revolution (1947). Sam Dolgoff's The Anarchist Collectives and Gaston Leval's Collectives in the Spanish Revolution both offer detailed accounts of the anarchist collectives in Aragón and elsewhere.
[21] Quotes from Maria J. Stephan and Erica Chenoweth, “Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Resistance” International Security, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Summer 2008). Footnote 41.
[22] The 1965 “Correspondent-Inference Theory” they cite explains how an observer infers the motivations behind an individual's choices. They do not mention the highly individualized scope of the study when they trot it out as proof for a geopolitical argument. Ironically, research around the theory demonstrates that observers often overlook or underestimate the situational, socioeconomic, and institutional factors that may constrain a person's choice.
[23] Erica Chenoweth, writing about a follow-up analysis of the same data set (with Kurt Schock), in “Armed Wing in Syria: To What Effect?” Rational Insurgent. 10 October 2011. https://rationalinsurgent.wordpress.com/2011/10/10/armed-wing-in-syria-to-what-effect/
[24] Those who are hopelessly attached to the concept of democracy can consider it in these terms. Voting for one's rulers, as opposed to legitimizing them through some other ritual ordained by law, is clearly a change, but it is not a change that has any bearing on a struggle for freedom, just as a blue t-shirt is obviously different from a red t-shirt, but a person is not more free wearing one t-shirt or the other. As long as one has rulers (and bosses, and creditors, and owners, and bureaucrats), one is not free. This is the difference between changing the process by which those rulers are legitimized, and wrestling some sphere of your life away from their control. Or, on a less liberatory, more slippery slope, forcing them to concede something that lessens their profits and decreases the economic pressure they can leverage against you.
[25] Warrior Publications, the source of this quote, “is published in occupied Coast Salish Territory on the Northwest Coast of ‘british columbia.’ Its purpose is to promote warrior culture, fighting spirit, and resistance movements.” warriorpublications.wordpress.com.
[26] Chris Hayes, MSNBC, 25 November, 2012. Hayes does try to make an argument for the inherent superiority of nonviolence, using a typically fear-based middle-class reasoning. With a shameless logical substitution that only a professional journalist could get away with, he attributes the Palestinians of the West Bank with nonviolent methods (if journalists based their authority on factual credibility, he would have lost it at this point, as Palestinian resistance on the West Bank is far from nonviolent) and the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip with violent methods. From there, he goes on to say that the quality of life is better in the West Bank than in Gaza, ipso facto people are more likely to be able to achieve a middle-class standard of life (he leaves this part of the argument implicit) using nonviolence. Here he has confused cause and effect. The Gaza Strip is basically the world's largest open air concentration camp. Residents have few if any opportunities for nonviolent action or nonparticipation. If the inhabitants of Gaza are known for more combative methods, it is because nonviolence is unthinkable in a concentration camp. Meanwhile, whatever quality of life can be claimed by Palestinians on the West Bank, they have defended over the years using a diversity of tactics.
[27] James Clark, The day the world said 'No' to war: looking back on February 15, 2003, http://rabble.ca/news/2013/02/day-world-said-no-war-looking-back-february-15-2003 (February 15, 2013).
[28] Interviews with participants in the insurrection and the forms of struggle that flourished afterwards can be found in AG Schwarz, Tasos Sagris, and Void Network (eds.), We Are an Image from the Future, the Greek Revolt of December 2008 (Oakland: AK Press, 2010).
[29] This exact causation is claimed by one of those media outlets, Free Malaysia Today, “An Uprising for a Better Malaysia,” http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/opinion/2013/01/15/an-uprising-for-a-better-malaysia/ (January 15, 2013).
[30] Lina Sinjab, “Syria Conflict: from Peaceful Protest to Civil War,” BBC, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-21797661 (5 March 2013). One has to take the article with a great deal of skepticism, as the BBC along with other Western media clearly favor regime change in Syria. However, as of March 2013 the rebellion is happening largely autonomously of NATO intervention. As for the accuracy of the description cited above, the historical record is abundantly clear about the increase in solidarity in situations of disaster as in uprisings.
[31] Dan Roberts, “ISIS jihadists and Assad regime enjoy 'symbiotic' relationship says John Kerry,” The Guardian, 17 November 2014.
[32] Everywhere except the US, libertarian means anarchist.
[33] “While the Iron is Hot: Student Strike and Social Revolt in Quebec, Spring 2012,” http://www.crimethinc.com/blog/2012/08/14/the-2012-strike-in-quebec-full-report/ (August 14, 2012).
[34] Andrew Gavin Marshall, “10 Things You Should Know About the Quebec Student Movement,” Counterpunch, May 23, 2012.
[35] Ali Bektaş, This Is Only the Beginning, anonymous publication, October 2013, p. 25 (second quote from p. 12).
[36] Peter Gelderloos, “The Battle of Burgos: In Spain, a Fight Against Gentrification Underscores a Growing Conflict,” Counterpunch.org 24 January 2014. http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/01/24/the-battle-of-burgos/
[37] All the quotes regarding Rojava are from Zaher Baher, “The experiment of West Kurdistan (Syrian Kurdistan) has proved that people can make changes,” August 26, 2014, libcom.org
[38] Though far outweighed by the thousands of articles and spots favoring peaceful protest, there were a couple articles, namely in Time and Rolling Stone, that expressed a limited sympathy with the rioters. As I argued in “Learning from Ferguson” (Counterpunch), it only became conceivable for the media to accept the legitimacy of rioting at a point when more and more people were starting to take guns to protests and shoot back at police.
[39] For example, many Mapuche in struggle reject the Marxist framework that sees indigenous people as peasants or members of the international working class. As some have expressed it, “we are not poor, we are a society apart.” For the Mapuche to accept the working-class identity and the narrative of progress fundamental to leftism, they would have already lost their struggle, as the colonial identity and political framework would have supplanted the indigenous one.
[40] In How Nonviolence Protects the State I argue why this view is flawed, but in basic terms, suffice it to say that the violence of the State is unilateral. Police shoot and torture people not because they have had rocks thrown at them, but because it is their job. Politicians rule and make decisions that kill thousands not because they were beaten as infants but because institutions of power manufacture their own interests and impose them on what might be considered human or biological interests. Cycles of violence do not explain oppression. The State is pyramidal and accumulative, not cyclical.
[41] In very broad strokes, the collective and the commune both subsist on the logic of the commons—that we are part of an interconnected web and nothing necessary for our survival and happiness should be enclosed or privatized—in contradiction to the logic of Capital—that everything must be reduced to its abstract monetary value, relations and beings processed and exploited to maximize their potential to produce value, and value employed to accumulate more value—but the idea of collectivization emphasizes a group of autonomous individuals who interact with the commons in different ways, as long as they do not privatize or destroy it, whereas the commune emphasizes cooperation and the elaboration of mutuality and shared relationships in the group's interaction with the commons.
[42] Runners up might include Genoa, Quebec City, or Heiligendamm, none of which were particularly nonviolent.
[43] See David Solnit, “The Battle for Reality,” Yes Magazine, http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/purple-america/the-battle-for-reality (July 30, 2008). A further irony is that in this same article, Solnit acknowledges that 52% of Americans polled as sympathetic with the Seattle protests. He claims this is “despite” the media portrayals, but he has no basis for arguing that popular support was not in some ways caused by the images of people smashing symbols of wealth and power. After all, those images, spread by the media accompanied by a disparaging or frightening tone, were the extent of the information most people had about the protests. And regardless of the game of majorities, it is a fact that there are a great many people who are more likely to sympathize with a struggle if they see people taking risks and fighting back than if they see people carrying giant puppets or dressing up like turtles. And this brings up the question, who would we rather have on our side? Those who want to fight back or those who just want theater? In any case, supporters of nonviolence have once again failed to back up the claim that “violence alienates people.”
[44] The quote is from an email from a friend who personally participated in the preparation for the Seattle protests.
[45] At the November 2001 protest against the School of the Americas, I overheard protest organizers talking about a more creative action plan designed to result in arrests and capture media attention. Later that same day, a large consensus meeting consisting of numerous affinity groups from all over the country and facilitated by Solnit coincidentally happened to formulate that exact same action plan, as though it were their own idea. The affinity group in which I was participating withdrew from the process, in part because the idea did not interest us and in part because the facilitation was manipulated. A couple times, for example, facilitator Solnit avoided a debate that was leading away from the predecided action, saying things like “We're getting stuck on this question, so let's put it aside for the moment and come back to it.” Naturally, the conversation was herded back towards its imposed destination and the point of debate was never retaken.
[46] Philip Bowring, “Filipino Democracy Needs Stronger Institutions.” International Herald Tribune January 22, 2001. Retrieved January 27, 2009.
[47] For a good history of this marriage, see Giovanni Arrighi, The Long 20th Century. New York: Verso, 1994.
[48] Lest anyone take this argument out of context, let me reiterate that tactics likely to be described as violent are a non-factor in a movement that only seeks political reform, according to all the criteria listed in the text.
In the pursuit of seizing space, self-defense, or interrupting a dominant social narrative, more forceful tactics are often more effective.
We can see this at the tactical level in how Kyrgyz protesters were unique in that they actually stormed government buildings and physically ousted the ruling party, whereas the peaceful protesters in Ukraine could only push the ruling party to agree to step down.
But to avoid prioritizing the forceful tactics over the peaceful ones, we should emphasize that where forceful tactics can be effectively coupled with creative and other non-combative tactics, movements are most effective in the long-term at sustaining struggle, surviving repression, and elaborating revolutionary social relations.
From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.
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January 21, 2021 : Notes -- Added.
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