There have been some successful non-violent revolutions in history
I’m pretty sure that if you dig into the details of a lot of those, you’ll find that the purported success of the non-violent movement strongly correlated with the existence of a not-so-non-violent movement as the alternative.
For example, your article lists the Salt Satyagraha and the Quit India Movement as being non-violent revolutions responsible for the decolonization of lndia. But if you look at what actually ended up happening, such as the partition of India and establishment of Pakistan, it’s pretty clear that the not-non-violent All-India Muslim League had a pretty big influence in achieving that result.
Folks like Gandhi and MLK may tend to end up getting the credit for these sorts of societal changes, mainly because The Powers That Be have a vested interest in “the absence of tension” and thus engage in a bit of revisionist history, but it’s the presence of folks like AMIL and Malcolm X sitting in the background threateningly waving a stick that enabled them to be effective.
(That said, the collapse and liberalization of the Warsaw Pact are probably legitimate examples where the presence of a violent radical flank really wasn’t much of a factor… but I’m pretty sure that’s because Gorbachev’s heart wasn’t really in stopping them to begin with.)
I hate this argument. Every mass civil resistance movement carries an implicit threat of violence. That doesn’t mean you have to follow through on the violence in order for the movement to succeed
There’s a reason most democracies enshrine the right to assemble in their constitutions, and it’s because the act of assembly scared the shit out of the ruling classes that stood in the way of republicanism, so they made sure to punish it severely.
I’m pretty sure that if you dig into the details of a lot of those, you’ll find that the purported success of the non-violent movement strongly correlated with the existence of a not-so-non-violent movement as the alternative.
For example, your article lists the Salt Satyagraha and the Quit India Movement as being non-violent revolutions responsible for the decolonization of lndia. But if you look at what actually ended up happening, such as the partition of India and establishment of Pakistan, it’s pretty clear that the not-non-violent All-India Muslim League had a pretty big influence in achieving that result.
Folks like Gandhi and MLK may tend to end up getting the credit for these sorts of societal changes, mainly because The Powers That Be have a vested interest in “the absence of tension” and thus engage in a bit of revisionist history, but it’s the presence of folks like AMIL and Malcolm X sitting in the background threateningly waving a stick that enabled them to be effective.
(That said, the collapse and liberalization of the Warsaw Pact are probably legitimate examples where the presence of a violent radical flank really wasn’t much of a factor… but I’m pretty sure that’s because Gorbachev’s heart wasn’t really in stopping them to begin with.)
I hate this argument. Every mass civil resistance movement carries an implicit threat of violence. That doesn’t mean you have to follow through on the violence in order for the movement to succeed
There’s a reason most democracies enshrine the right to assemble in their constitutions, and it’s because the act of assembly scared the shit out of the ruling classes that stood in the way of republicanism, so they made sure to punish it severely.
It doesn’t really matter if you hate it or not; it’s how the world works. If the implicit threat isn’t credible, they’re going to ignore you.