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I think history contradicts that. I mean, blatantly and overtly I think history contradicts that.
Let's look at the United States for a second. Let's begin our nonviolent history, say, you know,
in the 1700s prior to the first shots being fired at Concord and Lexington and the Revolutionary War.
There was 10 years of nonviolent resistance which included the Boston Tea Party,
refusal to pay British taxes, tariffs. Refusal to go to British courts
and so the people tried to set up alternative means of dispute resolution.
Attempt by colonists to establish an alternative economy so they weren't dependent on the British.
There's 10 years of nonviolent organizing against the Stamp Act, the Townsend Act, the Coercive Acts,
that led the way, of course we're never taught it at school,
for a great deal of independence from the British.
If you want to look at recent American history,
look at Women's right to vote, the Labor Movement in this country, the Civil Rights movement.
Some of the accomplishments and growth we've done as a nation
have come from nonviolent movements that have fought against a status quo that was
willing to use all the power that it had to try to oppose those people.
And the status quo still had to change.
So, when someone says, Well, nonviolent action just reinforces the status quo
I think the burden of proof is on them to say that. Because the history, to me, is very clear.
Certainly can in a sense. I mean, you can get new leaders at the end of an armed insurrection.
Often times, what you don't do is you don't change the concentration of power in a society.
So, if the root of oppression is an imbalance of power,
where your power holders have this much and your general society is disorganized
or doesn't know how to resist or isn't networked enough and has this much power,
there's a discrepancy. And this is what enables the oppression to happen.
But if they succeed in changing the government,
the resulting systems are so frequently authoritarian, so frequently don't respect the rights
of the people - sometimes the rights of the people the armed insurgency claimed to represent.
Because, a lot of times, those people
didn't get involved actively.
They might have acquiesced to the armed insurgency. They might have even supported it.
But they didn't get involved in mobilizing themselves in the way they do in civil resistance.
Nonviolent action gets rid of a lot of that risk.
Because, in fact, through the course of the conflict people increase their power relative to the status quo holders.
And after transition they're much more able to say,
Hey, we're going to have a say in how our new society is shaped
and how our government serves us.