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

by Mark Engler

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