NEWS FEATURE: TV Documentary Traces History of Nonviolent Movements

c. Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ They were unlikely victors: Polish factory workers stifled by communism, South Africans in the grip of apartheid, Indians shackled by British rule. Their weapons of choice _ boycotts, sit-ins and strikes _ were unlikelier still, but in the hands of the freedom-starved those tools forged nonviolent resistance movements capable […]

c. Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ They were unlikely victors: Polish factory workers stifled by communism, South Africans in the grip of apartheid, Indians shackled by British rule.

Their weapons of choice _ boycotts, sit-ins and strikes _ were unlikelier still, but in the hands of the freedom-starved those tools forged nonviolent resistance movements capable of crippling oppressive governments around the globe.


The story of how nonviolent struggles conquered injustice in the last century is told in “A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict,” a PBS documentary slated for broadcast in two 90-minute segments on Sept. 18 and Sept. 25 (check local listings).

“These stories are fascinating because they involve something that is counterintuitive _ the idea that ordinary people without access to the usual levels of power that generals or heads of state possess could nevertheless prevail,” said the film’s producer and writer, Steven York.

Tracking nonviolent struggles across five decades and four continents, the film traces Mohandas Gandhi’s campaign for Indian independence from Britain, the sit-ins for desegregation during the 1960s in Nashville, Tenn., and a 1984 anti-apartheid boycott in South Africa.

The latter half of the documentary examines Denmark’s resistance to Nazi occupation during World War II, the defeat of Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile and the 1980 shipyard strike in Gdansk, Poland, that birthed the Solidarity trade union also is profiled.

“We wanted to show that nonviolent methods are effective virtually in every time, in every place, in every circumstance and against a variety of adversaries _ from the British Empire down to Soviet-style communists to Nazis to a dictator as brutal as Pinochet,” York said.

Narrated by actor Ben Kingsley, who won an Academy Award in 1982 for his portrayal of Gandhi, the film offers a peek at the construction of nonviolent resistance movements, with firsthand accounts from movement architects like the Rev. James Lawson, who studied Gandhi’s nonviolence tactics in India and helped organize the Nashville sit-ins.

Their accounts highlight the significance of strategy in nonviolent struggles, York said.

“I think there’s little understanding that Gandhi and the others were deeply aware of the need for strategy _ they would never have set off without having thought a plan through,” he said. “The protesters in Nashville were thinking way ahead. They had already decided that when they got arrested they wouldn’t post bail because they didn’t want that money to support the very system that oppressed them. They also anticipated being physically attacked, so they had people nearby who carried medical emergency phone numbers in their pockets and had nickels and dimes to call for ambulances if they were needed.”


Noting that nonviolent struggle and passive resistance are frequently confused, York said such detailed strategy is what distinguishes the two.

“The idea of passive resistance is that you simply don’t do anything, and that is not the case with nonviolent resistance,” he said. “Boycotts and strikes are not passive. To set out to intentionally break the law with the purpose of getting arrested to call attention to injustice is not passive at all. In fact, Gandhi himself stopped using the term passive resistance _ you can hardly describe what he did as passive.”

Though almost always out-armed and out-muscled by their oppressors, protesters in nonviolent struggles have successfully trumped military might again and again partly because nonviolent resistance can engage every member of society, York said.

“Only a very small percentage of a society can actually pick up a rifle and be a soldier in an armed struggle, but you don’t have to be young or able-bodied to be in a boycott or a strike or other forms of noncooperation,” York said. “Virtually every single human being can be involved in a nonviolent struggle, and that’s something that’s very difficult for a tyrant to counter. It’s much easier for them to target a military uprising.”

Jack DuVall, executive producer of the documentary, agreed.

“Any government with a majority of weapons at its disposal can easily deal with 5,000 or 10,000 rebels, but it cannot deal with an entire population’s nonviolent resistance,” DuVall said. “That’s why at least as much political change took place as a result of nonviolent conflict as armed conflict, if not more.”

In engaging an entire population in a battle for justice, nonviolent struggle subverts the very power base of an oppressive regime, York said.


“No tyrant can remain in power for long without the cooperation of the society that’s being oppressed,” he said. “That’s because in many ways the maintenance of that tyrant’s power depends on the cooperation of the vast majority of citizens. Even tyrants need people to deliver mail and drive trains, all the things that keep a government in operation. If that cooperation is withdrawn then the oppressive system cannot continue.”

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Gandhi and those who adopted his methods of nonviolent struggle “had the genius to understand that they had the ability to deprive the existing system of its ability to continue with the status quo,” DuVall said. “They recognized they could remove the props of support the oppressive government needed to stay in operation.”

Decades after Gandhi first adopted methods of nonviolent resistance to battle the British, his methods and lessons of nonviolent struggle remain as relevant as ever, DuVall said, citing conflicts between Russia and separatists in Chechnya as evidence. He and Peter Acherman, the documentary’s series editor, co-authored a book that expanded on the documentary’s theme.

“The principles of nonviolent resistance are never outdated,” Duvall said. “And when you consider that we Americans have a lot of members of our own armed forces involved in multinational peacekeeping efforts, you realize that we have a real interest in promoting nonviolent conflict resolution as a matter of national policy. In our culture there’s such an automatic response to call in the troops whenever there’s a conflict, but we have to show people that nonviolent resistance can work and has worked. Violence doesn’t have to be a first resort.”

DEA END DANCY

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