Twenty-four years ago tomorrow the four-day nonviolent People Power Revolution began in the Philippines. I find it a curious historical coincidence that Thursday--the day Obama is holding his "bipartisan" HCR summit--marks the anniversary of the people's victory over the dictator Marcos.
The spark that set it all off was a corrupt snap election called to prop up Marcos' hold on power. All regimes require the consent of the people and crave the veneer of popular legitimacy. The tyrant fraudulently declared victory over his opponent, Corazon Aquino (who died last August), and that was his undoing:
After the election Cory Aquino spoke to a crowd of one million people at a rally in Manila. She proposed a seven-part program of nonviolent resistance, including a one-day work stoppage and a boycott of Marcos-controlled banks, stores and newspapers. She urged people to "experiment with nonviolent forms of protest" and declared: "...if Goliath refuses to yield, we shall keep dipping into our arsenal of nonviolence and escalate our nonviolent struggle." The revolution had begun.
On February 22, 1986, Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and Deputy Chief of Staff Fidel Ramos defect from the Marcos government. Enrile and Ramos barricade themselves in the Defense Ministry headquarters in Manila, along with a small group of sympathetic troops. They say they are prepared to die rather than continue supporting the corrupt Marcos regime.
The revolution employed a variety of Methods, including some I've been discussing in the context of healthcare reform: withdrawal of bank deposits, boycotts and strikes. Success was also made possible by the mutiny of regime officials.
Of course it started with 47. Assemblies of protest or support:
Opposition to the policies or acts of an opponent, or support for certain policies, may be expressed by public assembly of a group of people at appropriate points, which are usually in some way related to the issue. These may be, for example, government offices, courts, or prisons. Or people may gather at some other place, such as around the statue of a hero or villain. Depending on the particular laws and regulations and on the general degree of political conformity, such an assemblage may be either legal or illegal (if the latter, this method becomes combined with civil disobedience).
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In Berlin in 1943...about six thousand non-Jewish wives of arrested Jews assembled outside the gate of the improvised detention center near the Gestapo headquarters demanding release of their husbands. And in the entry for March 6, 1943, Goebbels wrote in his diary: "Unfortunately there have been a number of regrettable scenes at a Jewish home for the aged, where a large number of people gathered and in part even took sides with the Jews."
One of the most common objections when I bring up nonviolent action is that the apathetic/corrupt/rightwing media won't give us coverage, so there's no point to the exercise. Global protests of the Iraq War are often used as proof of the folly.
That, however, is based upon a few faulty assumptions: media doesn't cover such assemblies (yes, they do), coverage is supposed to generate sympathy/shame within the regime (it isn't necessarily), without coverage it's a tree falling in the woods (depends on the type and goal of the action). If you consider the Filipino example, nobody was trying to somehow get Marcos to give up power simply by getting a million people to show up on TV.
The point was to rally the troops, as it were--to inspire, to encourage them to not only resist but do so nonviolently, and to demonstrate that it was a collective effort so no individual should be afraid of going alone. It would be great if we could effect social or political change just by holding up a bunch of signs, but entrenched interests are not going to be swayed by news reports of even the largest "focus groups" without follow-up and real consequences.
That's not to say having coverage, especially positive coverage, isn't welcome. Any channels of communication to a larger audience is helpful to the cause, of course. But folks do tend to notice the impact of action if it's massive enough (e.g., snarled traffic, lost revenue) all by themselves, so let's not grant the media some magical powers without which we would never experience reality.
Aquino educated her audience, provided them with a strategic framework and specific tactics. Her appeal was to the people, not her opponent. Even had there been no media coverage of that event, she reached a million citizens directly and launched a successful revolution.
The Filipinos could have reacted completely passively, just accepting the old dictatorship and the games Marcos played in stealing the election. Or they could have opted for violence. Instead, they doubled their chance of victory by resisting nonviolently:
Our findings [using data on major resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006] show that major nonviolent campaigns have achieved success 53 percent of the time, compared with 26 percent for violent resistance campaigns.
There are two reasons for this success. First, a campaign’s commitment to nonviolent methods enhances its domestic and international legitimacy and encourages more broad-based participation in the resistance, which translates into increased pressure being brought to bear on the target. Recognition of the challenge group’s grievances can translate into greater internal and external support for that group and alienation of the target regime, undermining the regime’s main sources of political, economic, and even military power.
Second, whereas governments easily justify violent counterattacks against armed insurgents, regime violence against nonviolent movements is more likely to backfire against the regime. Potentially sympathetic publics perceive violent militants as having maximalist or extremist goals beyond accommodation, but they perceive nonviolent resistance groups as less extreme, thereby enhancing their appeal and facilitating the extraction of concessions through bargaining...We assert that nonviolent resistance is a forceful alternative to political violence that can pose effective challenges to democratic and nondemocratic opponents...
There is never a guarantee of success in any endeavor, nor is there such a thing as a risk-free revolution. Yet I'd rather use a combination of the 198 different tactics we cover here as part of a strategic nonviolence campaign than picking up the proverbial pitchforks and torches.
Just look at the odds. Violence dramatically favors the house. If you go with nonviolence most of the time you beat the house and walk away from the table much, much richer.
Now we're not trying to overthrow a government when it comes to healthcare, but we are rebelling against a ruthless corporatist regime that keeps us down whilst increasing its own wealth. We can beat the insurance companies and their thralls in DC if we extrapolate from the victorious movements that rid themselves of the worst tyrants. No need for bulldozers or airplanes, just people.
We can begin with some assemblies on the 25th to reach out, to educate our fellow citizens and elected employees in person. We probably can't achieve reform as quickly as the Filipinos got rid of a dictator, and a few "street summits" probably won't create enough space for Congress and the President to give us the single-payer system we need, but that's okay. You have to start somewhere.
So no more trying to come up with reasons why nothing will work, reasons why we shouldn't try. Instead, imagine how we can make People Powered Reform happen, andlet's get to it.
ntodd
(Post at Pax Americana, Dohiyi Mir, Green Mountain Code Pink, and Daily Kos.)