This Is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century

by Mark Engler

In such writing, Sharp repeatedly challenged the notion that good intentions were sufficient to create change. As he wrote in one of his later books, “Feeling good, not engaging in violence, or being willing to die, when you have not achieved the goals of your struggle, does not change the fact that you have failed.”12 What was remarkable, from Sharp’s point of view, was the number of times nonviolent struggle had in fact prevailed, sometimes against hardened opposition. Advocates of principled nonviolence often talked of the goal of “conversion,” or winning over the heart of the enemy. Sharp contended that, although such changes of conscience may be desirable, they were not necessary. To win, activists did not need to express love for their adversaries or make hated opponents see the errors of their ways. In fact, insistence on converting the enemy could be counterproductive, Sharp believed. He argued that “the demand for ‘love’ for people who have done cruel things may turn people who are justifiably bitter and unable to love their opponents towards violence.”13 Once again, Sharp’s perspective would be far more practical. If a dictator can be made to resign through popular protest, the question of how this undemocratic ruler feels about losing his grip on power need not be a main concern of the social movements that compel his ouster. Sharp approvingly quoted civil rights leader James Farmer: “Where we cannot influence the heart of the evil-doer, we can force an end to t...

As sociologist P. David Finks writes, for him “the problem was not so much getting government off our backs as getting it off its rear end.”

Promoting what he has come to call the “social view of power,” Sharp argued that people have much more power than they typically realize. “Obedience is at the heart of political power,” he wrote. “Rulers or other command systems, despite appearances, [are] dependent on the population’s goodwill, decisions, and support.” Sharp’s idea was straightforward: if people refuse to cooperate with a regime—if civil servants stop carrying out the functions of the state, if merchants suspend economic activity, if soldiers stop obeying orders—even an entrenched dictator will find himself handicapped. And if popular disobedience is sufficiently widespread and prolonged, no regime can survive.5 Experience has shown that this message can be a powerful one for dissidents working on the ground. In the case of Serbia, many had taken it to heart. “Even a dictator can’t collect taxes on his own,” one Otpor activist told author Matthew Collin, giving voice to the social view of power. “He can’t deliver the mail, he can’t even milk a cow: someone has to obey his orders or the whole thing shuts down. The task is to convince them to disobey. When they change sides, the government starts to fall.”6

A third trait of active public supporters is that they persuade others. Whether they express their opinions on social media or argue with their relatives over Thanksgiving dinner, they attempt to influence the views of those around them. Finally, active supporters are the type of people who are moved to act independently to advance an issue within their social and professional spheres of influence. This might mean lawyers taking on pro bono work for a cause they believe in, musicians writing songs that celebrate protesters in the streets, teachers bringing lessons on the cause into the classroom, ministers making it the topic of their Sunday sermons, professional athletes or celebrities being spotted in T-shirts that express their beliefs, or store owners putting signs of support in their windows. Through this last type of advocacy, active supporters help move the pillars to which they are most closely tied. At the start, when an issue is still unpopular, their vocal stances will often earn them scorn from those who judge their passion to be impractical and their techniques to be misguided. The naysayers, however, overlook an important point: without impracticality, underdogs would never win.

Writing about climate strategy, environmental journalist David Roberts cites a simple maxim: “If you want to move the center, you have to pull from one end.” Advocates in this mode stake out highly principled positions that at first seem unrealistic, and then they work to rally the public behind their viewpoint. Momentum-driven organizing does not limit itself to the political confines dictated by transactional negotiations at any given moment. Instead, it seeks to create possibilities that those maneuvering within the constraints of the system are unable to imagine. It aims to change the terms of debate, creating a new baseline for what is considered politically feasible and expedient.48

One economics professor complained, “Anyone who speaks publicly against the Living Wage risks being demonized.”47 It would be more accurate, defenders of the campaign countered, simply to say that those who believed that the world’s richest university could not afford to pay more than poverty wages were losing. In the words of participant Ben McKean, the sit-in had served to demonstrate the “consensus of an entire community.” And that consensus won out.48

ACT UP, born of a crisis in which the consequence of silence was death, used vinegar rather than honey to change the course of the fight against AIDS. The civil rights movement ended Jim Crow by refusing to wait for “a more convenient season” to protest. And the DREAM Act students forced the hand of an administration that was fearful of losing the support of a polarized electorate. With the passage of time, successful movements are often celebrated as heroic and noble. But, while they are still active, their tactics are never beloved by all. Accepting that reality is part of using conflict and disruption as tools for change.

Once a movement accepts that gaining broad popular backing is essential to its success, a strong argument can be made for the effectiveness of maintaining strict nonviolent discipline. Many of the movements that adopt civil resistance as a means of struggle, especially those confronting authoritarian regimes, do so for a specific strategic reason: because they have determined that they cannot win through military conflict. Certainly, this was the case in Serbia, where Otpor activists saw that the Milosevic regime and its paramilitary allies would quickly wipe them out if they took up arms. In a US context, leftist author and activist Michael Albert puts it this way: “It’s really quite simple. The state has a monopoly of violence,” he writes. “What that means is that there is no way for the public, particularly in developed First World societies, to compete on the field of violence with their governments. That ought to be obvious. Our strong suit is information, facts, justice, disobedience, and especially numbers. Their strong suit is lying and especially exerting military power.” Although Albert rejects philosophical pacifism, he nevertheless concludes: “A contest of escalating violence is a contest we are doomed to lose. A contest in which numbers, commitment, and increasingly militant nonviolent activism confronts state power is a contest we can win.”30

It requires deliberate effort for movements to champion the story of what their struggle has made possible. But this effort is vital, because without it future victories are harder to achieve. In societies where history is a tale of presidents and senators, generals and CEOs, the social view of power too often remains in the shadows. The potential for what can happen when people refuse to obey must constantly be learned anew.