The practicality of nonviolent civil resistance
Very interesting stuff. Although I have a hard time understanding how the process of change in Serbia was non-violent.
Erica Chenoweth in this TED talk says that in the past 50 or so years, nonviolent civil resistance (or, as I prefer to call it, mass defiance) has a better track record of success than violent struggle for overthrowing oppressive governments and resisting conquest.
I am not a pacifist, but in recent years I have gotten out of the mindset that says that war is the baseline answer to oppression and aggression, and it is only the alternatives to war that must justify themselves.
The aim of your oppressor is to compel you to obey him. The oppressor is defeated when he comes to realize that your obedience cannot be compelled. The effective way to do that is to join with others in mass defiance. To me, violence or the lack of violence are not the most important things. The most important thing is a population that shows it cannot…
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