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

by Mark Engler

Many of the critical advances of the last century and a half—the end of slavery, women’s suffrage, the restriction of child labor and implementation of workplace safety standards, and the outlawing of many forms of discrimination—owe less to the legislative endgame that formalized acceptance of these causes and much more to the social movements that put them on the map.

Successes

mass mobilizations owe more to the zeitgeist of an era than to calculated human effort.

Zeitgeist

Many new activists are drawn into politics through the energy of a mass mobilization but are disappointed when their movement experiences an abrupt decline.

Movement decline

they spent a lot of energy fighting each other. A lot of energy was wasted that way.”

Wasted energy

These were not the type of nonviolence trainings typically seen in the United States: short, two- or three-hour affairs intended to prepare people for a single demonstration. Instead, they were courses of ten hours or more, designed to empower participants to operate in their own autonomous, local chapters.

Training

“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.”

Nature of power

the past century’s major gains around women’s suffrage, economic justice, and civil rights did not emerge from a strategy of triangulation.

Triangulation

“If you want to move the center, you have to pull from one end.”

Overton window

In the future, the severe storms, floods, and ecological dislocations resulting from global warming are set to cause untold billions of dollars in damages. For this reason, there are economic forces lined up on each side of the climate dispute; as the impacts grow ever more extreme and costly, the economic calculus of complying with movement demands continually changes.

Climate crisis

If there is a common trait in the most prominent movements of the past century—whether they involved efforts to end child labor, redefine the role of women in political life, or bring down an apartheid regime—it is that they took up causes that established powerbrokers regarded as sure losers and won them by creating possibilities that had not previously existed. As the pillars give way, barriers long seen as too daunting to be overcome suddenly appear surmountable.

Unsurmountable is doable

the ability of nonviolent demonstrators to benefit from the zealousness of authorities is a well-studied occurrence within the field of civil resistance. This phenomenon is commonly described as “political jiu-jitsu.”

Repression backlash.

there is a rich history of repression serving as a turning point for movements promoting change.

Repression

past movements which were able to overcome despondency ended up seeing many of their once-distant demands realized.

Despondency

While protesters aim to generate popular support, protests themselves can be very unpopular.49

Popularity

broad-based support is vital if campaigns of civil resistance are to prevail. And yet many of the tactics of nonviolent disruption tend to be unpopular.

Unpopular

“Silence = Death”

Slogan

The major social movements of the past two centuries have consistently proven wrong the advice that activists do better to appear civil and minimize confrontation.

Maximise confrontation

On the positive side, Sharp noted, “As tension increases, morale rises and large numbers of formerly passive people become determined to take part in the coming struggle.” Unfortunately, there are less desirable consequences as well. The “previous period of indifference,” Sharp noted, is replaced by one where there is “active antagonism.” Reactionaries who are opposed to the movement’s cause will rise to defend the status quo, mobilizing a backlash. In instances when the backlash is powerful, it can look like activists are worse off for having picked a fight—especially if vocal opposition is accompanied by repression from the state.

State repression

Egypt shows that widespread revolts can do amazing things, but uprising alone is not enough. From Gandhi, to US labor unions in the 1930s, to the civil rights movement, to ACT UP, organizers using nonviolent escalation have grappled with how to put in place lasting mechanisms that can sustain the progress generated by their most high-profile campaigns. This is the challenge of institutionalization. In addressing it, these activists have found that the talent for creating mass unrest must be combined with the skills and perspectives of other organizing traditions in order to formalize and protect the gains won by popular mobilizations.

Sustaining the gains

context

Since when was the US democratic?