Alia Braley: The power of non-violent action

“When I was younger, know­ing that my grand­par­ents were involved in the Amer­i­can Civ­il Rights move­ment of the 1950s and 1960s was inspir­ing to me,” said Alia Bra­ley, who has been work­ing as a researcher and advo­cate of strate­gic non­vi­o­lent action for the past three years, cur­rent­ly with the Albert Ein­stein Insti­tu­tion.  

For her TED Talk, Bra­ley will dis­cuss the mas­sive impact of strate­gic non­vi­o­lent action in the world today, from the pro-democ­ra­cy protests in Hong Kong in 2014 to the anti-cor­rup­tion protests of Guatemalans in late 2015, where pro­test­ers in both the cities and coun­try­side came togeth­er to orga­nize a gen­er­al strike that crip­pled the gov­ern­ment and led to the prompt res­ig­na­tion of sev­er­al lead­ers includ­ing the pres­i­dent.

To be clear, non­vi­o­lent action is not the same as paci­fism. It is a form of con­duct­ing con­flict that is often used for prag­mat­ic rea­sons — because it is pow­er­ful and it works.  It also should not be con­fused with civ­il dis­obe­di­ence, which has a pre­cise def­i­n­i­tion as a sub­set of the infi­nite tac­tics avail­able to non­vi­o­lent activists.

“Non­vi­o­lent action is basi­cal­ly the abil­i­ty of diverse peo­ple to active­ly engage in struc­tur­al change in their soci­ety on their own terms” she said.

The aca­d­e­m­ic study of non­vi­o­lent action is only just in its infan­cy accord­ing to Bra­ley, but the use of non­vi­o­lent action goes back to ancient times. His­to­ry holds many famous exam­ples of suc­cess, includ­ing the strug­gle for inde­pen­dence in India asso­ci­at­ed with Gand­hi, as well as less­er known exam­ples, like the Baltic resis­tance against Sovi­et inva­sion in the 1990’s.

Rig­or­ous study of non­vi­o­lent action is impor­tant, she said, in order to assess and improve its effec­tive­ness. Today, more soci­eties are using non­vi­o­lent action than ever before, but often with mixed results.  The cas­es often cit­ed include the rise of author­i­tar­i­an­ism in Egypt, and the desta­bi­liz­ing blood­shed and dis­place­ment caused by the Syr­i­an civ­il war.  How­ev­er, it should be not­ed, she says, that the trou­ble in Egypt and Syr­ia has arisen as a result of vio­lent actors that dis­rupt­ed the ini­tial suc­cess of non­vi­o­lent move­ments.

Through con­nect­ing with orga­ni­za­tions like the Albert Ein­stein Insti­tu­tion, non­vi­o­lent activists are able to access the resources and knowl­edge that may help them to plan effec­tive­ly and avoid some of the most com­mon pit­falls.

Despite the vio­lence preva­lent in today’s news, non­vi­o­lent action is a dri­ving force in domes­tic and inter­na­tion­al rela­tions, Bra­ley said.  For an exam­ple of a suc­cess­ful non­vi­o­lent move­ment with max­i­mal­ist goals, she sug­gests that peo­ple learn about the move­ment that over­threw Slo­bodon Milo­se­vic in the for­mer Yugoslavia as depict­ed in the doc­u­men­tary Bring­ing Down a Dic­ta­tor.

“So many of the dev­as­tat­ing and heart­break­ing prob­lems in the world today come from polit­i­cal vio­lence and the threat of polit­i­cal vio­lence,” she said.  But although peo­ple know their needs, they often feel pow­er­less to cre­ate change.  “Learn­ing about how strate­gic non­vi­o­lent action works helps indi­vid­u­als and groups put their knowl­edge they already have about their soci­ety into action that can cre­ate real and last­ing change.”

 

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