Brian Martin - Technology for Nonviolent Struggle

However, the impact of guerrilla warfare as an oppositional strategy is limited by its use of violence. Nonviolent methods are more effective in winning support from the uncommitted population and in causing splits among the supporters of the regime. [15] . Stephen Zunes, “Unarmed insurrections against authoritarian governments in the Third World: a new kind of revolution,” Third World Quarterly , Vol. 15, No. 3, 1994, pp. 403-426.

Nonviolent methods are more participatory and democratic. To use violence usually means that only small numbers can be involved and that secrecy must be maintained. Nonviolent methods allow nearly everyone to be involved who wants to be. Because less secrecy is required, there can be more open discussion of goals and strategies, thus fostering a more democratic culture in the opposition movement. Thus, even if those cases where nonviolence does not undermine rulers as quickly in the short term as violence, activists with a priority on participatory democracy have good reasons for favouring nonviolent action.

By fostering greater participation and democracy in opposition movements, there is a greater chance that, after a dictatorial regime is toppled, the new society will be an improvement. A great danger in successful guerrilla struggles is that the secrecy, centralised command and violence — not to mention ruthless annihilation of factional opponents — will usher in a new regime in which secrecy, centralised command and violence continue to be used against opponents. Nonviolence, by allowing women to participate equally and by fostering a model of courage without violence, helps to undercut the mutually reinforcing package of violence and stereotypical masculinity. In addition, nonviolent methods provide a suitable means to oppose male violence against women.

Supporters of violence (even as a last resort) argue that the end — a better society — justifies the means. The contrary view is that the means become incorporated in the ends and that, for example, secrecy, centralised control and violence are likely to perpetuate rather than undermine themselves. Ensuring that the means reflect or incorporate the ends is a safer strategy for social change. If a nonviolent struggle for change succeeds, the methods used set a precedent for continuing their use in an ongoing fashion. If the struggle fails, at least in the short run, the process may still lay the basis for future nonviolent struggles.

Finally, nonviolent struggle is less likely than violence to lead to death and suffering along the way. Those who practise nonviolence do not cause death and suffering by their own actions, though it is always possible and sometimes likely that violence will be used against them. But because nonviolent methods are less of a threat and because it is harder to get soldiers or police to attack nonviolent resisters, there is usually far less violence from the other side. For example, in Algeria the guerrilla struggle for independence from France left a million people dead. The death toll in the largely nonviolent struggle for Indian independence was in the hundreds or thousands, out of a far larger population than Algeria.

Pacifists refuse to engage in warfare because they believe it is morally wrong. To use violence requires a certain arrogance, a belief in the righteousness of one’s cause that warrants the irrevocable step of taking another’s life. If one accepts the possibility that people — including oneself — might change their minds and that dialogue is a path for seeking the truth, then nonviolence is a suitable process for moral struggle. Violence, on the other hand, undermines and overwhelms dialogue.

Nonviolent action is compatible with a pacifist commitment, though not all pacifists support or engage in nonviolent struggle. [16] . Some pacifists oppose social defence because it perpetuates the idea of the enemy. They believe instead that the goal should be a cooperative society. Supporters of social defence accept that it is impossible (or even undesirable) to eliminate conflict and argue instead that the goal should be to wage conflict using nonviolent rather than violent methods. But to support nonviolent action it is not necessary to be a pacifist. Probably the majority of activists who choose to use nonviolent methods do so for pragmatic reasons, namely because they are believe nonviolent action will be more effective and more compatible with the sort of society they are seeking.

The question is, “what sorts of technology would aid nonviolent struggle?” Existing technologies have been massively shaped by military priorities. What would they look like if instead they were shaped by a priority on nonviolent struggle?

Most of the debate about defence policy is built around the assumption that defence means military defence, and usually the capacity for military offence as well. Quite a few supporters of nuclear disarmament want to retain so-called conventional weapons, such as tanks, submarines, aircraft and explosives. In the days of the cold war, a key decision in many countries was whether to be aligned with one of the two blocs led by the superpowers (the United States and the Soviet Union), whether instead to become or remain nonaligned, or whether to become neutral (like Switzerland). Many debates were carried out concerning these options. A few governments considered “defensive defence,” in which offensive weapons, such as bombers and long-range missiles, would be eschewed in order to reduce the threat posed to other countries. In the Third World, guerrilla struggles have been waged for decades and have been seen as a model by some revolutionaries in the rich countries.

Although many types of defence systems have been used and proposed, all but one of them ultimately rely on organised violence. For each of these, then, violence thus becomes a key motivator for technological development, as shown by the following table. Only social defence provides a fundamentally different incentive.

The following chapters focus on technology that can support a social defence system, namely a community defence system based on nonviolent action.

Sabotage includes such things as jamming factory equipment, destroying computer files and putting sand in a vehicle’s fuel tank. There is a long history of sabotage in the workplace, much of it due to workers being bored, alienated or seeking revenge on bosses. [17] . Pierre Dubois, Sabotage in Industry (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979). For numerous examples see Martin Sprouse with Lydia Ely (eds.), Sabotage in the American Workplace: Anecdotes of Dissatisfaction, Mischief and Revenge (San Francisco: Pressure Drop Press, 1992). There is also some use of sabotage in a more directed fashion to resist repression. For example, some workers in Nazi-occupied Europe slowed down factory production in various subtle ways, trying to hurt the Nazi war effort without being easily identified and consequently punished. There has been some debate among nonviolent activists and scholars about whether sabotage — violence against property — should be considered violent or nonviolent, as well as whether it is a good tactic. Here, though, I want to address a different issue: is sabotage a useful way to push for changes in technologies and the social arrangements associated with them?