Relevant Lessons from Strategic Nonviolent People’s Uprising-III

On February 16, 2011Tina Rosenberg wrote an extraordinary article for Foreign Policy Magazine under the title of: Revolution U: What Egypt Learned from the Students Who Overthrew Milosevic. The importance of this article, to our relevant lessons, is that the writer informs us about Egyptian activists who went to Belgrade after the April 6 2008 failed protest, Serbia to learn from Center for Applied Non Violent Action and Strategies (CANVAS).

According to Rosenberg:

“The botched April 6 protests, the leaders realized in their aftermath, had been an object lesson in the limits of social networking as a tool of democratic revolution. Facebook could bring together tens of thousands of sympathizers online, but it couldn't organize them once they logged off. It was a useful communication tool to call people to -- well, to what? The April 6 leaders did not know the answer to this question. So they decided to learn from others who did. In the summer of 2009, Mohamed Adel, a 20-year-old blogger and April 6 activist, went to Belgrade, Serbia.”

The real software of the Tahrir Revolution was the knowledge of Strategic Nonviolent Struggle. The Egyptian youth were modest enough to learn from others and apply the principle to the concrete reality of their country. The real story was not so much about Facebook and Twitter but about the need to come up with a nonviolent strategy: understanding how nonviolent revolutions are organized and managed.

Every discipline, be it marketing, architecture, astrophysics or nonviolence etc., has basic knowledge foundation or requirements without which advanced expertise and specialization cannot be built on. The discipline of Strategic Nonviolent Change is no exception.  As recent events are demonstrating nonviolent change is now becoming mainstreamed and almost universally accepted as the best means of transition to democratic governance. Without accessing this knowledge pool and deploying it at the service of the Eritrean people, it is unlikely that a measurable movement towards removing the isolated authoritarian system will take place.

There are of course, dwindling but outspoken contrarians who are still not willing to even entertain the very idea of nonviolent change. Strategic Nonviolence is now globally accepted as the best option to toppling anti-people regimes. For the Microwave revolutionaries and for those who want to consign the Eritrean struggle to external actors, the nonviolent strategy is too tedious and too nuanced. It demands lots of detailed work. Why not deploy other nation’s standing army to do our dirty homework and get done with it or keep the armed struggle rhetoric alive even though for over 20 years not a single Eritrean village has been liberated by the proponents of the armed struggle strategy. The concept of armed struggle and insurrectionary politics is now basically confined to the minds of Sub-Sahara African intellectuals and politicians.  Hopefully, in the next wave of revolution, the new generation (youth) will repudiate this relic technology and wholeheartedly embrace the nonviolent struggle as a way of life and political process.

Nowhere is the shift to Strategic Nonviolence Paradigm urgently needed than in the Horn of Africa. But as long as there are governments, in the region, that are willing to engage in proxy  warfare, support  and export armed struggle and all sorts of violence (as long as it does not apply to their own country)  to their neighbors  the challenge to democratize the region will be hampered and regional peace will be a dream  temporarily deferred.

Dr. Gene Sharp immense contribution in clarifying and advancing how to conduct knowledge based nonviolent struggle has given activists the science deeded to design and execute a well organized struggle for democratization. Dr. Sharp’s, the dean of nonviolent struggle, contribution starts by formulating a very dynamic interpretation of power- political power:

“Political power thus refers to the totality of authority, influence, pressure and coercion which may be applied to achieve or prevent the implementation of the wish of the power-holder” [1]

Those holding political power need some sort of institutional procedures or means to exercise their authority. They must have all sorts of means of rewarding in order to have maximum influence and last but not least, instruments of pressure to sanction negatively those who oppose their political power. Where the legitimacy of the ruling political elite is intact and the government has popular support, political power usually is exercised through less coercive or legitimate channels of authority. Whereas the regime has been totally discredited and has lost its legitimacy (credibility/ support base), it is prone to exercise sanction based power. Understanding political power, its mechanism and its components is indispensable for outlining a pragmatic Nonviolent Strategy.

When and if the activist’s rhetoric and approach is basically a reproduction of old recycled slogans and stock rhetoric without a detailed up-to-date knowledge on what is going within the camp of the political power holders the possibility of strategically winning over most of the potential allies will be difficult. To keep spouting the vintage “down with the tyrant” slogan when the regime and its leadership have lost legitimacy (credibility/support base) and the whole nation is looking for a well- framed alternative path to democratic transition is not the definition of transformative leadership. Confronting ruling elites on the basis of blind hatred, justified anger, recycled grudges and residual sentiments will not move the struggle forward.  

Power must be challenged and confronted with knowledge based nonviolent strategy: if the intended result is democratic transition. If the agenda is merely getting rid of a cruel tyrant by appealing to our expedient instincts that is nothing but using righteous indignation as a means of recycling the usual African mode of political change since decolonization: Getting rid of one tyrant and introducing another one with a well versed six month flashy rhetoric about democracy followed by years of dictatorship.

The other aspect of understanding political power is the urgent need to move away from the tendency to ascribe a monolithic nature to political power. Dr, Sharp’s incisive observation on this matter has “armed” all nonviolent activists with knowledge base to conduct a flexible struggle. It has totally shattered the simplistic “us versus them” modality and introduced the need to have an understanding of a differentiated pluralistic nature of power and power holders:

“Nonviolent action is based on the second of these: that governments depend on the people, that power is pluralistic, and that political power is fragile because it depends on many groups for reinforcement of its power sources. The first view –that people depend on governments, that political power is monolithic, that it can really come from a few men and that it is durable and self-perpetuating – appears to underlie most political violence.” [2]

The philosophical and political divide emanates from this fundamental difference on how to define, understand and confront political power.  Even under the most potent and hardened authoritarian system political power is not as solid as it looks. The nonstop spin and the constant media campaign to project solidly unified ruling elite standing firm like an unassailable solid fortress is part of the deliberate effort to mold the citizen’s perception by those holding power. Conceptually and practically this fallacy has been resoundingly repudiated. The tendency by the opposition to buy into this projected image and not dig enough to see emerging fissures within the ruling clique is one reason why their agenda is sterilized and unproductive. 

The paramount overarching responsibility of the practitioners of Strategic Nonviolence is to win over the overwhelming majority of the population to the peaceful democratic transition option. The second decisive task, next to informing, mobilizing and winning over the people, is the responsibility of methodologically taking advantage of the plurality (the differentiation/ fissure) within the government or the regime. When activists stop looking at the power holders as a monolithic political force they avail themselves the opportunity for a better understanding of the various components of the regime and work systematically to weaken the cohesiveness of the ruling elite. Finding the fault line within the ruling elites and leveraging it in favor of the process of change is an imperative task.

According to Robert L. Helvely:

“The identification and analysis of pillars of support are fundamental when opponents of the regime begin to think about nonviolent strategy. Until the primary pillars of the regime are undermined, neutralized or destroyed, there is little prospect of political reform or regime change. Those waging a nonviolent struggle against an authoritarian regime, therefore, must give keen attention to key institution and organizations.” [3] (emphasis mine)

Undermining the repressive system starts by having reasonable knowledge about its pillars of support: the Army, the police, the bureaucracy, news media, the security apparatus, the diplomatic core, teachers, etc and outlining well organized campaign plans, marketing and implementing the plan in a structured and focused way. The pillars of support, contrary to our regular diet of political hyperbole, are made up of blood and flesh- human beings from a diverse Eritrean society. The citizens working in these pillars can and must be won over so that the institutions they have been “assigned to” can be neutralized or rendered inoperative as our political crisis approaches critical mass. This is what irritates the apocalyptic dooms day prophets. This kind of task does not easily lend itself to bravado politics. It demands a scalpel than a hammer. In contrast to a rigid and inflexible authoritarian leadership it requires an outlook that takes into account the fact that institutions are not run by robots but thinking and feeling human beings. Human beings change their minds. 

Rosenberg, in her informative article, quotes Srdja Popovic, one of the leaders of CANVAS, as saying:

“Governments that relay for decades on fear become very inflexible. The pillars of the regime support it out of fear. The moment the fear factor disappears and people are fearless with the police and hugging the military, you have lost your pillars.”

Povovic, with Informed and experienced mind, has incisively summarized the essence of our third lesson.

When we do not confuse our opposition to the repressive institutions with our duty to win over most of the individuals within the institutions we can make concrete progress and shorten the days of the brutal regime. But this demands a different way of organizing and conducting our struggle.  At the minimum it demands a demilitarized mind. It demands a respect for life in the face of a regime that considers life an expendable political currency. It requires a mindset that takes into account the fact that every citizen has the potential to transform his or her thought process. It demands recognizing the people as the engine of change. The Yugoslavian, Tunisian, Egyptian and now the Yemen experience demonstrates the validity of this approach. When the target of the uprising is narrowly focused it allows the members of the Pillars of Power and at times even whole pillars to defect to the side of the revolution.

How does this apply to our struggle?

Our struggle is burdened with all sorts of rigidity. It is not forward looking. It seems to be stuck in the modalities of the 1960’s and 1970’s. It tends to focus on vertical relationships- power trickling from the top down. It frames the contest as a showdown between to two elite groups- one in power and the other doing everything to come to power. It’s obsessed with the desire to overly centralize –bring everyone under one leadership - outweighs the need to develop a broad horizontally coordinated working relationship that is conducive to democracy. It confuses generic opposing with being the political opposition. It cannot clearly differentiate between civic society and political opposition.  It confuses the role of the Diaspora with that of the citizens living under the brutal tyrant. It wants to usurp the fundamental rights and responsibilities that should be left to the Eritrean people and its elected future representatives. It squanders months and years bickering about subjects that have nothing to do with its role as agents of change.  Because of this kind of ongoing miscalculation our struggle keeps investing inordinate amount of time and talent on agendas that are still born.

Our brief experience has proven that many Eritreans who were part and parcel of the regime’s ruling party, media, diplomatic core, air force; army, education department etc have “defected” to the side of the people. Many more are also enduring “a schizoid survivable” within the pillars of power and waiting for the right circumstance and time to shift alliance. In a regime that is internationally and regionally isolated with a depleted internal and external legitimacy the potential for defection should be obvious. The allies of the revolution are in every Eritrean family, government office, church, mosque, school, and battalion, brigade etc. Only the most pessimist advocates of damn- the- consequences- by any means necessary – fail to grasp this dialectical process. When activists base their analysis on hyper-doomsday and apocalyptic narrative and scenarios they tend to grasp at straws and prescribe solution that will in the long run exasperate the national crisis as well as the post Isaias national recovery.

PFDJ is supposedly to have “conscripted” membership that is well over 3000,000 if not more. The membership ranges from PhD holding intellectuals to humble Eritreans who do not read and write. In this kind of organization to expect uniformity of idea on the present situation is not reasonable. The deepening economic crises and the suffocating political environment have marginalized many members.  The periodic freezing drama and erratic assignment to and shifting from positions have their negative effects.  All hearts and minds are not with the organization. The believers are very few and the drafted members who resent the organization and its suffocating culture are many. The latter are reserves and natural allies of the change agenda. How do we reach them?  By threatening to wage war or armed struggle? No. We win them over by way of new thinking and new approach. The old way just has not worked.

The other Pillar of Support is the EDF –Eritrean Defense Forces- since the great majority of the Eritrean Army is made up of conscripted youth- it does not take much imagination to strategically place this formidable force on the side of the change quadrant.  The campaign to win over this potent force cannot happen in a haphazard and opportunist way by still keeping the “armed struggle” as an option in the oppositions’ political platform. If we are to learn from the unfolding nonviolent revolution the side professing to represent the people’s agenda cannot have it both ways: You cannot call for Egyptian type people’s uprising while you are threatening to wage armed struggle. If anything is oxymoronic it is this kind of “strategy” and “leadership”.

We are lagging way behind other countries not only because we have a toxic authoritarian regime in power but also because the opposition leadership that has not been ready and willing to transform itself. The regime has been imposing draconian Sahel style conspiratorial “governance” on the people of Eritrea. The opposition has been working hard to defeat the regime by relying on the independence struggle technology. Why are not the people flocking towards the camp of the opposition? Succinctly put: the leadership is badly in need of a new strategy.  

Notes:

1.    Gene Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action-Part One- Power and Struggle (Boston: Porter Sargent Publishers, Inc Ninth reprent-2006) PP 7-8
2.    Ibid-  P-8
3.    Robert L Helvey, On Strategic Nonviolent Conflict :Thinking About The Fundamentals (Boston: Albert Einstein Institution -2004) P-9

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