YSK: Non-violent protests are 2x likely to succeed and no non-violent movement that has involved more than 3.5% of the country population has ever failed

Comments

• JustJack23@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Why Civil Resistance Works the book that 2x figure comes from has been implicated in cherry picking data.

  If peaceful protests worked (as good as this article suggestions) the BBC wouldn’t be writing about them.

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  • jonne@infosec.pub ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Yeah, look at the Iraq war protests, they didn’t amount to anything because they were peaceful and easily ignored by the media.

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    • Sylence@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      This was going to be my counterexample too. Millions protested in the US, UK, Australia, and elsewhere before any troops were committed and it still didn’t help. I dont have solid numbers but I’d be shocked if less than 3.5% of people were involved. They were the biggest protests ever at the time.

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    • finitebanjo@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I personally feel like a lot came out of it, though. The USA left Iraq for example.

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  • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Peaceful protest works great under two conditions:

    1. Just a metric fuckton of participants

    2. The implicit threat of violent protest (e.g. Malcom X behind MLK)

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    • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      3. Your opposition has empathy

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  • favoredponcho@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Claims without any supporting evidence aren’t that interesting.

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    • JustJack23@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      How to blow up a pipeline has a chapter on the topic.

      You can also read the original book and check the examples.

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  • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    The article pointedly says that non violent protests were more successful because a lot more people were involved than in the violent protests.

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• Seasm0ke@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  This is actually rewriting history.

  The Philippines had multiple militant movements but notably the Reform the Armed Forces which had orchestrated and abandoned a coup that had popular support kicking off the protest movement.

  Sudan was a military coup that overthrew bashir and then massacred protestors and was actually backed by American OSI NGOs.

  Algiers street protests were illegal and they combined general strikes with police clashes and riots even though they were subjected to mass arrests.

  For Ghandi MLK jr and others mentioned there were armed militant groups adding pressure. My take away is you need both approaches.

  Without demonstrating the ability to defend your nonviolent protest with devastating results it just gets crushed. If you are militant with no populist public movement backing your ideals you get labeled as terrorists and assinated by the feds.

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  • pineapplelover@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    And you need backing of the mass public. Keyboard warriors who sit on their ass and don’t get out there won’t work.

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  • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    are 2x more likely

    Meaning, there can be instances where it’s true or not true.

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    • spankmonkey@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      66% of the time it works every time.

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  • Lowpast@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    This is a really common misunderstanding of how nonviolent movements actually work, and frankly gets the causality backwards.

    You’re right that successful movements often have both violent and nonviolent wings - but the nonviolent components don’t succeed because of the violent ones. They succeed despite them. The research is pretty clear on this: nonviolent campaigns are actually more likely to achieve their goals than violent ones, and they’re more likely to lead to stable democratic outcomes.

    Nonviolent movements get labeled as extremist precisely when they’re associated with violence, not when they’re separate from it. The Civil Rights Movement’s greatest victories came when they maintained strict nonviolent discipline - Birmingham, Selma, the March on Washington. Every time violence entered the picture, it gave opponents ammunition to dismiss the entire movement.

    The “good cop/bad cop” theory sounds intuitive but doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. What actually makes nonviolent resistance effective is mass participation, strategic planning, and moral leverage - not the threat of violence lurking in the background.

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    • queermunist@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      You talk about research, so I’m curious: has any nonviolent campaign succeeded without an accompanying violent campaign?

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    • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      The research is pretty clear on this:

      Lol. What was the methodology on this “research”?

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• DerArzt@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Okay but who’s the one defining a protest as violent? You get enough people together and you’re going to have some aseholes that damage property but are the minority. If chocolate can have 5% bugs, then protests should be able to have 5% violence and still be called peaceful.

  Or heck, if people react when police instigate, should that be called a violent protest?

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  • bobs_monkey@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I’ll give you a hint, it rhymes with cocks

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    • neukenindekeuken@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Socks?

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    • al_Kaholic@lemmynsfw.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      It’s it wrong to throw rocks when people are shooting you with rubber bullets?

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    • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Rocks?

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    • shalafi@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      The guys with Glocks? Agreed.

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  • Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Cops are great at making any protest violent.

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  • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    This is an important question. I believe the research in question was defined by the predominant tactic used, even if there was a small amount of violence.

    So protests like the anti-ICE ones in LA would probably count as non-violent in the research.

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    • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      History is written by the victors.

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  • lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Okay but who’s the one defining a protest as violent?

    From the article

    Perhaps most obviously, violent protests necessarily exclude people who abhor and fear bloodshed, whereas peaceful protesters maintain the moral high ground.

    Chenoweth points out that nonviolent protests also have fewer physical barriers to participation. You do not need to be fit and healthy to engage in a strike, whereas violent campaigns tend to lean on the support of physically fit young men. And while many forms of nonviolent protests also carry serious risks – just think of China’s response in Tiananmen Square in 1989 – Chenoweth argues that nonviolent campaigns are generally easier to discuss openly, which means that news of their occurrence can reach a wider audience. Violent movements, on the other hand, require a supply of weapons, and tend to rely on more secretive underground operations that might struggle to reach the general population.

    Violent protests seems to mean a violent campaign of armed, planned attacks.

    I doubt that would include unplanned outbreaks of violence from people not organized for that purpose.

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  • itsgroundhogdayagain@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    We can have a little violence. As a treat!

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  • merc@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Okay but who’s the one defining a protest as violent?

    The same people who write the history books. History is written by the winners, and when they write those books the protests that led to them winning are written up as being non-violent. It’s like “terrorists” vs. “freedom fighters”. If they succeed, they get to write the history books and they’re freedom fighters. If they lose, the other side writes the history books and they’re terrorists.

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  • ragingHungryPanda@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I don’t want to ask about the chocolate

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  • callouscomic@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Are you arguing “it’s just a few bad apples” in defense of protests?

    This is awkward.

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    • anton@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      YES, protesters are freely associating members of the general public, whereas the police are vetted and trained professionals, payed by taxes to “uphold the law”.
      They should be held to a higher standard!

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    • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I assume you’re comparing this to rhetoric around cops. Cops are ideologically and organizationally unified with top down command structure and they protect one another even in cases of wrongdoing or violence.

      Most modern protests are just random people who chose to show up. These are totally different situations.

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    • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      You’re right. We should fire the bad protestors.

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    • MotoAsh@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      What us awkward is how you failed to realize how insanely dumb and context-free your logic is to come to such an assinine conclusion…

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• M0oP0o@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  YSK, This is blatant propaganda

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  • annie@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    by a state broadcasting org published by the state that held onto its colonial possessions until it was literally untenable without violence.

    Nelson Mandela: “Choose peace rather than confrontation, except in cases where we cannot move forward. Then, if the only alternative is violence, we will use violence.” (I feel like a boomer posting azquotes but people are going to keep erasing recorded history so I might as well try)

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    • M0oP0o@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Also to note, that potential violence is still violence. “peaceful” protests with over 3.5% of the total people generally do as well on the implied potential violence. Movements that will never go hot have no power.

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  • LuigiMaoFrance@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    100% agreed, this line of arguing is how they’re trying to keep us docile.

    This book changed my opinion on non-violent resistance movements a few years ago. Highly recommended.

    How Non-Violence Protects the State (Peter Gelderloos)

    Ebook: theanarchistlibrary.org/…/peter-gelderloos-how-no…

    Audiobook: youtu.be/CSo1PGWojxE

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  • BestBouclettes@jlai.lu ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    What do you mean ! Women got the right to vote by asking nicely, so did workers when they got the 40h work week. Same for black people and civil rights, all was achieved by gently kissing the ruling class boots.

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    • hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      And now in June, we celebrate the queer community’s liberation, which totally happened by walking up to a politician and asking “hey can we please not get assaulted and thrown into prison or a mental ward for existing? 🥺”, to which the politician responded “oh, I’ve spent my entire life thinking you guys were perverted mentally ill sinners that should be drawn and quartered, but sure! ☺️”

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  • MangioneDontMiss@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    bingo.

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  • aceshigh@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Winner winner chicken dinner!

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• dom@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Is this why the opposition always tries to escalate the peaceful movement into a violent one?

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  • Nemo@midwest.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    That, and so they have an excuse to incarcerate or kill the leadership, see: Haymarket 7, Joe Hill, &c

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  • merc@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    No, it’s because the opposition is the establishment, and violence is a tool the establishment uses to… well, stay established.

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• barneypiccolo@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  American Revolution. French Revolution. Iranian Revolution.

  Just a few very violent, and successful, revolutions.

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  • hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I don’t really know if I’d consider the French revolution very succesful, considering the fact that the Bourbon dynasty was restored after only 16 years.

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    • cabillaud@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      For how long? Irrelevant answer. The French Revolution was about shifting the ruling from nobility to bourgeoise and it’s exactly what happened. Valid to this very day.

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    • pyre@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I’d argue the French revolution is probably one of the most successful.

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  • Hawanja@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Who’s going to fight in your violent revolution? You? We couldn’t even get all the people who voted for Biden to Vote for Kamala. Right now a large portion of African Americans are refusing to join the protest movement against encroaching fascism because Trump is somehow a “white people problem.” How do you think a revolutionary army or even an insurrection of sufficient strength to challenge the United States Government would ever take hold when there is zero solidarity among the left? Pure Fantasy.

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• brandon@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I heard a saying once (I cannot remember the provenance) that could be paraphrased like: "The liberal is someone who is for all movements except the current movement; against all wars except the current war."

  There are two important points:

  1. Every major movement in history has incorporated elements of violence;
  2. Which movements we retroactively consider as violent is determined by sociological consensus.

  For example, the American civil rights movement is today considered by people to have been largely non-violent. However at the time the movement's opponents definitely thought of, and portrayed it as a violent enterprise.

  Opponents of a movement will always portray that movement as violent. The status-quo consensus perspective on historical protests is written by the victors. Therefore, the hypothesis that "non-violent" protests are more likely to succeed than "violent" ones is self-fulfilling. When protest movements succeed we are less likely to consider them "violent".

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  • qevlarr@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Climate protesters in Britain got years in jail for even planning to peacefully protest on a motorway. Fascism is already here, folks. And fuck The Sun

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• SexualPolytope@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Non violent protests only work when there’s a threat of violence backing it.

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  • sqgl@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    eg Ghandi in India succeeded for this reason.

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    • throwawayacc0430@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      “Our words are backed by nuclear weapons”

      -Mahatma Gandhi, Circa 2010

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  • Valmond@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Yeah, it gets violent because the power in place provokes it, either directly or inderectly (like not letting people protest).

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• sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  “There weren’t any campaigns that had failed after they had achieved 3.5% participation during a peak event,” says Chenoweth – a phenomenon she has called the “3.5% rule”.

  Me scatching my head thinking,“10% of Hong Kong protested and still got stomped by China’s boot.” I suppose it could be argued that it’s not the same thing.

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  • yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Maybe you’d need 3.5% of China’s population? Or are we counting Hong Kong as a military occupation? Well, I doubt if 3.5% of Ukrainians protested that Russia would just leave, so external occupations probably don’t count.

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    • M0oP0o@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      the Arab spring also springs to mind.

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  • M0oP0o@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    3.5% of the people work all the time if you cherry pick your data.

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  • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I think the research was done prior to that event. It’s fairly old at this point.

    Also, it’s a bit ambiguous how to count Hong Kong as a semi-autonomous region in China. Should you measure by percentage of Hong Kongers or percentage of Chinese? I might think the latter, since they’re subject to the force of that nation.

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    • fodor@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I don’t think we can accept your argument, because in point in fact Hong Kong was an independent country. Certainly trying to disagree but now we’re getting into a definition question, but if that’s going to stop us from applying the proposed principle, then we can do that in every situation.

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    • threeganzi@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Hong Kong was supposed to be free to control itself until 2048, democracy and free speech etc. China the decided that Hong Kong was starting to getting a little too free and started to tell the sitting president to shut the protests down.

      China eventually took back control and instituted a national security law that could be used for pretty much anything after the crackdown didn’t quell the unrest.

      I was actively following it live as it unfolded. It was very sad to see how much young people fought for basic freedoms and still lost it.

      I remember being torn between my general non-violence stance and also understanding the protestors reciprocating the police violence.

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• hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  my fucking ass 👅🥾

  Bolsheviks, Stonewall riots, suffragettes, all famously peaceful movements that got their rights by staying on their knees and asking nicely.

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  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Those are successful, yes. But then you have Arbenz’s Guatamala and the FARC in Columbia and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka and democratic revolts in Hong Kong and Kashmir and the French Revolution and the Polish Resistance and the failures of socialist revolts across Africa and the Middle East.

    I think part of the problem is how we define “successful”. Because it’s easy to see how the Spanish Anarchists failed to defeat Franco. Meanwhile, we largely consider the Civil Rights Era in the United States a success, despite many of its leaders being assassinated and its efforts quashed and undo under the Nixon/Reagan Era.

    Militant insurgencies end when they are crushed by police/military. Peaceful protests don’t “fail” nearly so dramatically, they just fade away.

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    • FeatherConstrictor@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Psst, just a friendly reminder: it’s Colombia with two O’s and no U :) just a little pet peeve of mine.

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    • Bloomcole@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      democratic revolts in Hong Kong LOL you mean the CIA paid failed attempt at destabilisation?

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• outhouseperilous@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  So how do you keep the police from making it violent?

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• Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Let me know what all the peaceful protests on climate change did leading up to and since the Paris Agreement.

  Civil disobedience, including violent action, absolutely has a place in changing the policy of the state.

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• threeganzi@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Tell that to Hong Kong demonstrators on June 16, 2019, with estimated by organizers at 2 million people marching. Hong Kong had a population of 7.5 million at the time.

  Sure there was violence both before and after that protest, but mostly caused by violent crackdown by police.

  But did it fail because there was violence or was violence a sign of stronger opposition? Causation vs correlation and all that.

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• perestroika@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  There’s a book on the subject written by Srdja Popovic.

  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blueprint_for_Revolution

  Summary: protests that start (and try to remain) non-violent have a greater chance to succeed, because they can attract more people to their cause.

  Critique: with some regimes, it’s not possible to non-violently protest. For non-violent protest to work, the environment must respect a minimum amount of human rights.

  Case samples:

  • US in the sixties: yes
  • USSR under Gorbachev: yes
  • Serbia under Milosevic: yes (Popovic was there doing it)
  • Israel under Netanyahu: probably yes
  • China under Xi: practically no (not for long)
  • Iran under Khamenei: only if you’re doing a bread riot
  • Russia under Putin: no, don’t even hold a blank sheet of paper
  • Saudi Arabia: no

  …etc. In some places, you can’t organize. Then your only option is to fight. As long as you can publicly organize, definitely do so - it’s vastly preferable. :)

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• ikidd@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  General strikes accomplish a fuck of a lot more in a shorter amount of time. When the owners of the administration can’t get their poptarts to the stores to be sold, the bank calls their loans and shit gets real.

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• Ougie@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Well that’s total bs, in Greece there’s been dozens of non-violent protests far exceeding 3.5% that have failed spectacularly.

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• EldenLord@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Non-violent protests still need to come with a credible threat of becoming violent if the protesters’ safety is being attacked or if their human rights are compromised.

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• MetalMachine@feddit.nl ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  This sounds like propaganda

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• vivendi@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Bourgeoisie propaganda

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• ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Image

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• 10001110101@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Liberal three-percenter lore?

  I mean, I do think non-violent disobedience can be effective, but the state usually makes it violent. State sanctioned protests where most obey most of the rules isn’t disobedience. Is a good start though, and I hope things progress (in a good way).

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• Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I have never known a protest to succeed at anything in my life

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• agent_nycto@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Considering the UK’s biggest export is independence days, it’s kind of hard to think that all of those were solved through non violent means.

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• gabbath@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Didn’t BLM 2020 protests have over 3.5%? I don’t think they accomplished much except put pressure to prosecute Chauvin. Like literally just that one guy.

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• Doorbook@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Data presented to you by BBC the same network that lied to you about WMS in Iraq, genocide of the Palestinians people, and most likely more.

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• Jimmycakes@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Who wrote this article? Fairy tale bullshit??

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• AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  George Floyd protests had more than that (closer to 8%) and they didn’t really change anything.

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• Pringles@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  The cries for violence here are quite disgusting. I understand our American friends are frustrated, but violence is only going to get you killed. The police in the US have been receiving military gear for decades now. If you want violence, you will get it.

  Then there are some major misconceptions about the 3.5% rule. That is for persistent non-violent protests. Week in, week out, for months at a time, before this yields results. Violent protests drive away many of the people you need on board to achieve genuine change and make it exponentially harder to get to your 3.5%. Try getting a grandma or a family with kids to join when molotov cocktails are being thrown around.

  So for everyone here calling for violence, you are idiots and you won’t achieve a damn thing.

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• AntiBullyRanger@ani.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  STOP SPREADING THIS FUCKING LIE.

  KING JUNIOR WAS DISLIKED DURING HIS NONVIOLENCE PROTEST.

  IT IS PRECISELY VIOLENCE THAT THE STATE ENACTS THAT LEAD TO TRUMP’S REELECTION.

  IF YOU WANT CHANGE, BE MORE UNGOVERNABLE THAN MAGA.

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