The function of a civil resistance is to provoke response and we
will continue to provoke until they respond or change the law. They are
not in control; we are.
- Gandhi (1982)
As
with much of the dialog in Attenborough's film, I haven't seen such a
direct quote from the Mahatma's mouth or pen in his Collected Works,
but the line certainly reflects the spirit and intent of the raid on Dharasana
and his methods of nonviolence. In fact, Indian economist J. C. Kumarappa
wrote in Young India:
Dharasana raid was decided
upon not to get salt, which was only the means. Our expectation was that
the Government would open fire on unarmed crowds .... Our primary
object was to show to the world at large the fangs and claws of the
Government in all its ugliness and ferocity. In this we have succeeded
beyond measure.
That was the quintessential example
of a non-violent
raid. The Freedom Flotilla represents a related tactic, the non-violent
invasion:
In nonviolent invasion a group of
nonviolent volunteers deliberately and
openly enter a forbidden area in order to demonstrate their refusal to
recognize the right of the controlling regime or agency to exercise
sovereignty or control over that area or to use it for a particular
purpose. This method entails civil disobedience and the risk of severe
repression.
It's probably hard for people to
understand this method, as with most, thanks to our lack of education
about nonviolence (a Department of Peace sure would be handy). So in
the aftermath of the IDF's murdering the activists, I see people calling
the flotilla a provocation,
a setup,
a stunt.
Um...yes.
And?
Seriously, those words are used to diminish and denigrate
the action, but the whole point of such an invasion is to set up a stunt
that provokes the opponent. This serves to highlight the injustice of
the policies being protested, demonstrate the brutality used to defend
the indefensible, and to get the world to notice and apply pressure to
resolve the issue.
One of the reasons the IDF reaction is being
deemed such a blunder is because of something Gush
Shalom warned about a week before the massacre:
The
whole world is looking. The State of Israel has no interest in flooding
the international television screens with images of Israeli sailors and
naval commandos violently assaulting hundreds of peace activists and
humanitarian aid workers, many of them well-known in their countries.
Whose interest will it serve when hours long dramatic live reports
arrive from the Mediteranean, with the world's sympathy given to
hundreds of non-violent activists, on board eight boats, assaulted by
the strongest military power in the Middle East?
While
nobody on the flotilla, I'm sure, deliberately courted their own
murders, part of the exercise was in fact to "show to the world at large
the fangs and claws of the [Israeli] Government in all
its ugliness and ferocity." It put the IDF in a terrific bind because
it has no idea of how to deal with nonviolence.
Really, it's a
lose-lose-lose for Israel. They could have allowed the flotilla
through, as on previous
occasions, in which case they show just how much of a charade the
blockade is and give the activists and Gazans a major win by getting aid
where it needs to go. Or they can block it in a non-murderous
fashion, in which case they mitigate any real deterrent. Or they
can end up tactically
botching a violent raid and creating a tipping
point.
Predictably, Israel is following the repressive
playbook page by page. Brian Martin:
[It] is useful to
look at methods used by attackers that inhibit outrage. Examination of a
wide range of cases reveals a diversity of methods, which for
convenience can be grouped into five categories.
* Cover up
the attack, hiding it from observers.
* Devalue the target.
* Reinterpret the attack, describing it as something else or as someone
else's responsibility.
* Use official channels, such as
authoritative pronouncements or official inquiries, that give the
appearance of justice.
* Intimidate or bribe participants,
thereby discouraging action against those responsible for the attack.
Israel
did a fairly decent job of this regarding Gaza and Operation Cast Lead,
I think. They take advantage of a lot of ambiguity and have been aided
by Hamas' steadfast commitment to violence and stupidity. In this
case, however, they are rudderless because the people they attacked were
from the international community, in international waters, and clearly
on a humanitarian mission.
They certainly have tried hiding the
attack as much as possible, but their attempts have been short circuited
by ubiquitous cameras and social networking applications. Live tweets
and Youtube videos also make it hard for the IDF to devalue the target
(they're terrorists), reinterpret the attack (poor defenseless
commandos), use official channels (IDF Spokesperson vs Twitter
legion), and intimidate participants (they've given in on show trials
for the activists).
Further complicating things for Israel is the
fact that violent repression rarely has the intended effect. Generally
there is a backlash,
and this situation is no
exception. Beyond activists continuing the waves of aid missions, the
worst case has come true geopolitically because they have not been
able to spin their way out of the massacre:
*
Under severe
pressure, Egypt, which has blockaded Gaza by land for its own political
reasons, has opened its borders (at least for now), a move that is
likely to facilitate more weapons shipments than the most extreme
estimates of potential smuggling from the Mavi Marmara would have
supplied.
* Turkey, the only predominantly Muslim country
that regards Israel as an ally, has recalled its ambassador from Tel
Aviv amid massive anti-Israeli protests in the streets of Istanbul.
* Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was on his way to Washington
to discuss the resumption of Palestinian peace talks with President
Barack Obama, had to go home (for obvious reasons), and the prospect for
renewed diplomacy—which had gained much support in the region—has, to
say the least, diminished.
* The case for tighter sanctions
against Iran, to the extent that they involve sympathy with Israel's
security concerns, has been dealt a setback, just as the U.N. nuclear
agency has announced that Iran has enough fuel to build two A-bombs
(though the fuel still needs to be enriched).
* The U.N.
Security Council has condemned Israel's actions, and countless aid
groups, including no doubt several that are hostile to Israel, are
sailing toward Gaza, as if to dare the Israelis to fire on them too and,
in any case, to deal another blow against the legitimacy of the
blockade.
In sum, in order to keep one ship from delivering aid
directly to Hamas—and, as Ha'aretz put it, choosing "the worst of all
possible options" to do so—Israel has plunged itself into the deepest
state of isolation that it's experienced in years.
This
goes to show just what happens to a regime when it refuses to study
anything except violence. People talk a lot about "existential
enemies," but while they keep harping on provocative activists
delivering water purifiers and wheelchairs and Israel's need to
defend itself from such dangers, they miss the only real existential
enemy Israel has: itself.
ntodd
Failing to appreciate or plan for the possibility of repression was an error in itself, but it also freed the students to indulge in whatever provocative action seemed enticing. Inflammatory gestures such as erecting, opposite Mao's Mausoleum, a "Goddess of Democracy," a replica of America's Statue of Liberty, doubtless antagonized the regime while not changing any facts on the ground. In short, while the students were familiar with the most obvious forms of nonviolent action - occupying public spaces, hunger strikes and playing to the international media - their decisions in using these sanctions did not reflect "any significant degree of strategic thinking..."