BUCKNACKT'S SORDID TAWDRY BLOG
We should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive & well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate, bier or wein in hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WHOO-HOO, WHAT A RIDE!!!!!!"
THE Arab Spring started four years ago, and much of the Arab world is still in upheaval along with the civil war in Syria and political instability in Egypt. Here is a study from the University of Michigan of the public opinions on the changes that have taken place and the the desires of the people of Tunisia, where the Arab Spring started. See more at Why the next wave of Arab awakening
should be waged for pluralism & Tunisia struggles to reset its
democracy & Unlikely Heroes Of The Arab Spring 9JAN14&25NOV13
http://bucknacktssordidtawdryblog.blogspot.com/2014/01/why-next-wave-of-arab-awakening-should.html
Posted on
“Do
not put garbage in our mind,” reads graffiti printed on the wall of the
Roads Administration Office of Tunis City Hall at Fasqiah Warehouse,
which is in charge of road maintenance and cleaning.
ANN ARBOR—Public attitudes in Tunisia, the birthplace of the Arab
Spring, show strong support for secular politics and religious
moderation and tolerance, according to a University of Michigan survey conducted earlier this year.
The findings help to explain the political agreement just reached
between Islamists and members of secular groups to form a new Tunisian
coalition government.
The survey is part of the Cross-National Analysis of Religious
Fundamentalism Study, a systematic study of religious, liberal and other
cultural values in seven Middle Eastern countries with Muslim majority
populations: Tunisia, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and
Turkey.
“Religious tolerance is stronger in Tunisia than in the other six countries we’ve studied,” said Mansoor Moaddel, principal investigator of the study.
The results come from face-to-face interviews with a nationally representative sample of approximately 3,000 Tunisian adults.
“But despite public support for the kinds of values that are the basis
of American democracy, attitudes towards Americans, while more favorable
than in other Middle Eastern countries, have much room for
improvement,” said Moaddel, who is affiliated with the University of
Michigan Institute for Social Research and the University of Maryland.
Among the key findings of the survey:
Fully 76 percent believed that the Arab Spring was for democracy and
economic prosperity; only 9 percent said it was for the establishment
of an Islamic government.
More than 60 percent said that current political leaders made them
upset or angry and fully 86 percent said that government corruption was
common.
A majority of respondents said that life in Tunisia is better now than it was before the revolution.
More than 60 percent said the most important obligation for
Tunisians was to excel in science and technology, compared to 18 percent
who identified the top priority as applying sharia law.
Compared to the people of other countries studied, Tunisians were
much more likely to say that they would like to have Americans as
neighbors. And along with Pakistani and Turkish respondents, they were
much less likely than Egyptians, Iraqis, Lebanese and Saudis to support
attacks on U.S. civilians working for American companies in Islamic
countries. A major division in value orientations was between Tunisians,
Lebanese and Turkish, who were more liberal, and Egyptians, Iraqis,
Pakistanis and Saudis, who were more conservative.
The study is supported by the U.S. Office of Naval Research, Africom,
MITRE, Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, Eastern Michigan
University, University of Michigan and Göettingen University.
The
“Arab street” is a popular cliché used to describe what people are
thinking in the Middle East. But it’s rarely clear how opinions are
collected on this proverbial street.
One thing is obvious: There is serious need for a better
understanding of the public’s views in the Arab world as the region
copes with ongoing social, economic and political challenges.
The University of Michigan is making a significant contribution to
meeting this need. Partnering with Qatar University, U-M has helped
create an institute that is doing the most rigorous, state-of-the-art
social science research in the Arab Gulf. It’s also among the very best
research centers of its kind in the entire Arab region.
Morning in Souq Waqif, Qatar. Photo by Thinkstock.
“There’s no place that comes close to what we and our Qatari partners are doing,” said Mark Tessler, a U-M political science professor and one of the principal investigators in the initiative.
The surveys the institute conducts focus on governance, education,
youth, social values, identity, health, gender relations, labor and many
other important issues.
The center—called the Social and Economic Survey Research Institute—started
five years ago when Qatar University decided to enhance its social
science research capacity and began looking for partners. U-M was sought
out partly because the university is home to the Institute for Social
Research—the world’s largest academic social science survey and research
organization. Experience in conducting public opinion surveys and
training programs in the Arab world also led the Qataris to U-M.
It didn’t take the Qataris long to pick a partner.
“We gave them a plan about what we thought they needed to do, key
positions to fill, organizational structures and examples of worthwhile
projects,” Tessler said. “They took it to their board and came back in a
few months and said they wanted to work with us.”
Mark Tessler (left) with SESRI director Darwish Al-Emadi
U-M was impressed by the Qatari vision and the prospects for making a
significant contribution and readily agreed to the partnership, Tessler
said.
Before the 1930s, Qatar was impoverished and known mostly for pearl
trading. But the discovery of oil and gas has transformed the tiny Gulf
state on the Arabian Peninsula into one of the richest countries in the
world. And it’s investing heavily in education, including women’s
education.
“They’re creating a knowledge economy,” said David Howell, associate
director of ISR’s Center for Political Studies and also a principal
investigator in the initiative. “They could sit back and just take
advantage of their natural resources, but they’re reinvesting it to
understand their society better and make it a better place for the
people who live there. I think that’s impressive.”
Since beginning work in 2009, the institute has carried out about 30
national and regional surveys. Many focus not only on Qatari citizens
but also on the country’s huge expatriate community, which makes up more
than 80 percent of the population.
The studies have included an annual omnibus survey that tracks
continuity and change over time in people’s views and perceptions on key
issues such as education, media habits, gender relations and the status
of women.
Results from the 2012 omnibus survey included:
77 percent of Qataris believe it is “important” or “very important” to live in a country that is ruled democratically.
70 percent of Qataris said television was their main source of news.
The majority of male (58 percent) and female (68 percent)
respondents agreed or strongly agreed that men and women should share
equal status in society.
Tessler said that such surveys are vital for good governance.
“It’s important to know what people think and value,” said Tessler,
who also co-directs another multicountry survey project called the Arab Barometer
and who has organized survey research training programs in six Arab
countries.”We believe that policymakers and officials will be more
responsive if information about what the public wants and thinks is
available.”
All of the surveys are done face to face, not by telephone, by scores
of well-trained and experienced interviewers, Howell said. They use
laptops programmed to collect data and send it back to researchers in
real time so that the information can be monitored for quality.
“One nice thing is that, unlike Americans, Qataris are not used to
being surveyed all the time, so they’re not oversaturated,” Howell said.
Last November, U-M renewed its five-year partnership agreement with
Qatar University. One of the next objectives is to create a policy
center at the institute that will take greater advantage of the survey
data—not just for academic purposes but also to assist and better inform
the country’s policymakers, Tessler said.
“That’s important for planning, setting priorities and getting feedback on what seems to be working and not working,” he said.
Howell said the institute is an example of what U-M does so well
around the world: capacity building—creating infrastructure that is
sustainable and doesn’t depend on U-M to maintain it.
“This is something Michigan can pull out of at some point, and it
would still be great,” he said. “It would move on, survive well and be
high quality.”
INTERESTING poll from the Pew Research Center on public opinion of how women should dress in the Islamic world. I am sure there will be a lot of racist, Islamaphobic reactions to this report. Just keep in mind the restrictions some Christian sects, some Jewish sects and some mormon sects place on how women must dress in public.
A new report by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research has shed some light on how Muslim women should cover up. Looking at surveys from seven predominately Muslim countries the researchers found that most respondents thought women should bare their faces, but cover their hair -- completely.
The study centered on Tunisia, but included survey results from Turkey,
Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Pakistan, and Egypt. While researchers
investigated public perception of several hot-button issues including
gender relations, politics, and religious tolerance, one of their more
interesting findings had to do with veiling.
Participants were presented with six images of variously veiled women
(pictured above) and asked "Which one of these women is dressed most
appropriately for public places?"
Most respondents picked woman #4, whose conservative hijab covers her
hair and ears but not her face. Saudis were the primary outlier,
preferring option #2, a niqab that covers all but a woman's eyes. But
some of the results are counterintuitive to common veiling practices.
For instance, while option #3 -- a scarf that covers all but the face --
is heavily promoted by religious authorities and conservatives in
Lebanon, the majority of Lebanese respondents favored no head covering
at all (option #6).
The researchers also found that Tunisians were the most supportive of
women dressing as they wish, compared to 52 percent of Turks, 49 percent
of Lebanese, 47 percent of Saudis, 24 percent of Iraqis, 22 percent of
Pakistanis, and 14 percent of Egyptians.
The study's authors argue that these findings reflect "a country's
orientations toward liberal values as well as the level of freedom
people enjoy. In Lebanon, Tunisia, and Turkey, where people tend to be
less conservative than the other four countries, the preferable style
for women also tend to be much less conservative than the other four
countries."
Pew Research Center
- See more at:
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/01/08/survey_says_muslim_women_should_cover_their_hair_but_not_their_faces?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Flashpoints&utm_campaign=Flashpoints%2001-09-14%20-%20to%20Flashpoints%20list#sthash.raM2dKcn.dpuf
A new report by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research has shed some light on how Muslim women should cover up. Looking at surveys from seven predominately Muslim countries the researchers found that most respondents thought women should bare their faces, but cover their hair -- completely.
The study centered on Tunisia, but included survey results from Turkey,
Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Pakistan, and Egypt. While researchers
investigated public perception of several hot-button issues including
gender relations, politics, and religious tolerance, one of their more
interesting findings had to do with veiling.
Participants were presented with six images of variously veiled women
(pictured above) and asked "Which one of these women is dressed most
appropriately for public places?"
Most respondents picked woman #4, whose conservative hijab covers her
hair and ears but not her face. Saudis were the primary outlier,
preferring option #2, a niqab that covers all but a woman's eyes. But
some of the results are counterintuitive to common veiling practices.
For instance, while option #3 -- a scarf that covers all but the face --
is heavily promoted by religious authorities and conservatives in
Lebanon, the majority of Lebanese respondents favored no head covering
at all (option #6).
The researchers also found that Tunisians were the most supportive of
women dressing as they wish, compared to 52 percent of Turks, 49 percent
of Lebanese, 47 percent of Saudis, 24 percent of Iraqis, 22 percent of
Pakistanis, and 14 percent of Egyptians.
The study's authors argue that these findings reflect "a country's
orientations toward liberal values as well as the level of freedom
people enjoy. In Lebanon, Tunisia, and Turkey, where people tend to be
less conservative than the other four countries, the preferable style
for women also tend to be much less conservative than the other four
countries."
Pew Research Center
- See more at:
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/01/08/survey_says_muslim_women_should_cover_their_hair_but_not_their_faces?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Flashpoints&utm_campaign=Flashpoints%2001-09-14%20-%20to%20Flashpoints%20list#sthash.raM2dKcn.dpuf
A new report by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research has shed some light on how Muslim women should cover up. Looking at surveys from seven predominately Muslim countries the researchers found that most respondents thought women should bare their faces, but cover their hair -- completely.
The study centered on Tunisia, but included survey results from Turkey,
Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Pakistan, and Egypt. While researchers
investigated public perception of several hot-button issues including
gender relations, politics, and religious tolerance, one of their more
interesting findings had to do with veiling.
Participants were presented with six images of variously veiled women
(pictured above) and asked "Which one of these women is dressed most
appropriately for public places?"
Most respondents picked woman #4, whose conservative hijab covers her
hair and ears but not her face. Saudis were the primary outlier,
preferring option #2, a niqab that covers all but a woman's eyes. But
some of the results are counterintuitive to common veiling practices.
For instance, while option #3 -- a scarf that covers all but the face --
is heavily promoted by religious authorities and conservatives in
Lebanon, the majority of Lebanese respondents favored no head covering
at all (option #6).
The researchers also found that Tunisians were the most supportive of
women dressing as they wish, compared to 52 percent of Turks, 49 percent
of Lebanese, 47 percent of Saudis, 24 percent of Iraqis, 22 percent of
Pakistanis, and 14 percent of Egyptians.
The study's authors argue that these findings reflect "a country's
orientations toward liberal values as well as the level of freedom
people enjoy. In Lebanon, Tunisia, and Turkey, where people tend to be
less conservative than the other four countries, the preferable style
for women also tend to be much less conservative than the other four
countries."
Pew Research Center
- See more at:
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/01/08/survey_says_muslim_women_should_cover_their_hair_but_not_their_faces#sthash.MZrbPwAP.dpuf
A new report by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research has shed some light on how Muslim women should cover up. Looking at surveys from seven predominately Muslim countries the researchers found that most respondents thought women should bare their faces, but cover their hair -- completely.
The study centered on Tunisia, but included survey results from Turkey,
Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Pakistan, and Egypt. While researchers
investigated public perception of several hot-button issues including
gender relations, politics, and religious tolerance, one of their more
interesting findings had to do with veiling.
Participants were presented with six images of variously veiled women
(pictured above) and asked "Which one of these women is dressed most
appropriately for public places?"
Most respondents picked woman #4, whose conservative hijab covers her
hair and ears but not her face. Saudis were the primary outlier,
preferring option #2, a niqab that covers all but a woman's eyes. But
some of the results are counterintuitive to common veiling practices.
For instance, while option #3 -- a scarf that covers all but the face --
is heavily promoted by religious authorities and conservatives in
Lebanon, the majority of Lebanese respondents favored no head covering
at all (option #6).
The researchers also found that Tunisians were the most supportive of
women dressing as they wish, compared to 52 percent of Turks, 49 percent
of Lebanese, 47 percent of Saudis, 24 percent of Iraqis, 22 percent of
Pakistanis, and 14 percent of Egyptians.
The study's authors argue that these findings reflect "a country's
orientations toward liberal values as well as the level of freedom
people enjoy. In Lebanon, Tunisia, and Turkey, where people tend to be
less conservative than the other four countries, the preferable style
for women also tend to be much less conservative than the other four
countries."
Pew Research Center
- See more at:
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/01/08/survey_says_muslim_women_should_cover_their_hair_but_not_their_faces#sthash.MZrbPwAP.dpuf
A new report by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research has shed some light on how Muslim women should cover up. Looking at surveys from seven predominately Muslim countries the researchers found that most respondents thought women should bare their faces, but cover their hair -- completely.
The study centered on Tunisia, but included survey results from Turkey,
Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Pakistan, and Egypt. While researchers
investigated public perception of several hot-button issues including
gender relations, politics, and religious tolerance, one of their more
interesting findings had to do with veiling.
Participants were presented with six images of variously veiled women
(pictured above) and asked "Which one of these women is dressed most
appropriately for public places?"
Most respondents picked woman #4, whose conservative hijab covers her
hair and ears but not her face. Saudis were the primary outlier,
preferring option #2, a niqab that covers all but a woman's eyes. But
some of the results are counterintuitive to common veiling practices.
For instance, while option #3 -- a scarf that covers all but the face --
is heavily promoted by religious authorities and conservatives in
Lebanon, the majority of Lebanese respondents favored no head covering
at all (option #6).
The researchers also found that Tunisians were the most supportive of
women dressing as they wish, compared to 52 percent of Turks, 49 percent
of Lebanese, 47 percent of Saudis, 24 percent of Iraqis, 22 percent of
Pakistanis, and 14 percent of Egyptians.
The study's authors argue that these findings reflect "a country's
orientations toward liberal values as well as the level of freedom
people enjoy. In Lebanon, Tunisia, and Turkey, where people tend to be
less conservative than the other four countries, the preferable style
for women also tend to be much less conservative than the other four
countries."
Pew Research Center
- See more at:
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/01/08/survey_says_muslim_women_should_cover_their_hair_but_not_their_faces#sthash.MZrbPwAP.dpuf
I remember my Uncle Bud talking about his service in Vietnam as a Green Beret. He said when he would meet with village chiefs in the Highlands they would tell him they didn't care about the Viet Cong or the ARVN or U.S. troops. All they wanted to be left alone, to farm, send their children to school and hope for a better life for them. These two reports on the Arab Spring of 2010 show people across the Maghreb, the Middle East and the Persian Gulf want the same thing, and have overthrown the governments of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen in an attempt for freedom and democracy, economic freedom and human rights. They are still challenging the ruling powers in the four nations above as well as every government in the Arab world, tired of the corruption and repression that keep them in poverty and without rights. The hundreds of millions in the Arab world who have taken to the streets in nonviolent protest (and those fighting in Syria's civil war) want the same things the Vietnamese village chiefs wanted 40+ years ago, what people around the world want, to be able to work, provide for their families, educate their children, improve their lives and have freedom and their human rights protected and respected. From the PBS NewHour and the Free To Choose Network (click the where to watch link to see Unlikely Heroes Of The Arab Spring).....
SUMMARY
Marwan Muasher, the former deputy prime
minister of Jordan, thinks it was too simplistic for the world to
expect that the Arab Spring would so quickly evolve autocracies into
democracies. Margaret Warner sits down with Muasher to discuss his new
book, "The Second Arab Awakening: And the Battle for Pluralism."
GWEN IFILL: Finally tonight: What's become
of the Arab spring? In 2011, there was great hope that democracy would
replace authoritarian regimes in a number of countries in the Middle
East, but that's not exactly what happened.
Chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Warner explains why.
MARGARET WARNER: As the fourth year of the Arab spring begins, the Middle East is seeing fresh waves of violence of widening scope.
In Syria, Sunni-led rebels long fighting President Bashar al-Assad's
forces are now battling jihadi extremist units as well. In Iraq, where
Sunnis are protesting the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister
Maliki, militants linked to al-Qaida have seized key western cities. And
in Lebanon, spillover from the Syria conflict has triggered car bomb
assassinations of top Sunni figures and bombings of Shiite neighborhoods
in Southern Beirut.
Marwan Muasher, former foreign minister and deputy prime minister of
Jordan, takes a long view of all this in his new book, "The Second Arab
Awakening and the Battle for Pluralism."
We sat down for a conversation about it at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Marwan Muasher, thank you for joining us.
What you call the second Arab awakening has so far seemed to have
unleashed, basically, chaos and violence in Syria and in Libya, and new
forms of undemocratic rule in Egypt, even Tunisia. Why is that? MARWAN MUASHER, former Jordanian official: There is
no transformational process in history that occurred the course of a
short three years. The Arab world is no different.
The Arab world was living under a state of artificially induced
stability for a long time, non-democratic governments, an Islamic
opposition which promised the moon and did not -- was not put to the
test to deliver on any of its promises.
Now that the lid has been taken off, all kinds of issues are coming
out. So I think while it was simplistic to call it an Arab spring right
after it occurred, expecting, you know, autocracies to evolve into
democracies overnight, it is equally simplistic to think that this is an
Arab winter, and that this is necessarily how the process will end. MARGARET WARNER: So, do you think that this region will move to some sort of stable, but also open and democratic rule? MARWAN MUASHER: I think what we have already seen is
the bankruptcy of both the secular regimes and forces that are
attempting to rule without a system of checks and balances and of a
religious opposition which is promising the moon, but has not delivered
on results.
That vacuum, if you will, that bankruptcy of both the secular and the
religious forces has not been filled yet. Obviously, radical forces,
al-Qaida types in Syria and other places, are attempting to make use of
that to their own advantage.
So far, what we have not seen are third forces which are, you know,
for democracy, for pluralism, assert themselves in this new
transformation, and to present themselves as credible alternatives, both
to the religious opposition that is there in the Arab world and to the
secular, both regimes and forces who are also behaving in an
exclusionist manner, and not really putting in place institutions that
would assure a democratic and pluralistic culture. MARGARET WARNER: Do you think there's anything in
the sort of Arab culture or cultural DNA of this region that makes
whoever gets in power embrace a kind of zero sum game, exclusive form of
governing? MARWAN MUASHER: Absolutely not.
What we are witnessing is a direct result of an era in the Arab world
where democracy was not practiced nor encouraged, an educational system
which basically taught people just to blindly follow leaders without
critical thinking, without asking questions.
So, obviously, when this is disturbed, both the religious and secular
forces are behaving in nondemocratic ways. It's so far a
winner-take-all strategy. And as I say always, a zero sum game has meant
that the sum is zero so far.
Until both forces realize that this is not a battle between secular
and religious elements, until that becomes a battle for pluralism, where
everybody assures the right not only of themselves, but of others, to
operate in the political sphere, this second Arab awakening will not be
successful. MARGARET WARNER: But how do you foresee this battle
taking shape? I mean, for instance, in Egypt, the young people, the
middle-class people who came out to Tahrir Square demanding that Mubarak
go said this is what they wanted, and yet they proved incapable of
doing the hard work of building parties, and went -- and they lost the
election. MARWAN MUASHER: This is a natural process that will,
I think, take its course in Egypt, maybe 14, 15 years before we see
stability come again and before people realize that pluralism needs to
be the underlying foundation, the operating system for everything that
can be done. MARGARET WARNER: The other split, of course, we're
seeing -- and it seems to be growing wider and wider -- has been between
Sunni and Shia. Who's going to resolve that? How will that get
resolved? MARWAN MUASHER: Again, this is, I think, a result of
-- a direct result of the lack of pluralism, because the Sunni-Shiite
divide in the Arab world is not just a religious divide. It's all --
also a political divide. MARGARET WARNER: It's about power. MARWAN MUASHER: It's -- well, yes, and groups,
particularly Shiite groups in the Arab world have lived as second-class
citizens for a long time. They were not given equal rights.
In my view, if all the ethnic, religious, political groups in Arab
world are treated as equal citizens, a lot of these problems would just
disappear. But this is not going to be automatic or immediate. This is
going to take decades of work, in which you have to do things to the
educational system, the value system that exists in the Arab world. In
other words, there are no shortcuts to democracy. MARGARET WARNER: But, in the meantime as you pointed out, extremist elements, violent jihadi elements are taking advantage of this vacuum.
The U.S. has made clear it's not going to intervene in the classic
military sense. What will -- I mean, other than hoping that pluralistic
forces get their act together, what will bring this region to some sort
of stability? MARWAN MUASHER: I think the jihadi sort of phenomenon is transient in the Arab world.
The radical elements in Syria now are being fought by the moderate
Islamists themselves. This is a fight that needs to go on. But the
overwhelming majority of the Arab world do not subscribe to al-Qaida
types, do not subscribe to this jihadi radical thinking.
In the end, the street in the Arab world, just as the street in any
other place in the world, who cares about job, about improving their lot
-- they don't care about ideology and radical forces. MARGARET WARNER: And overcoming that has to be done by the people on the ground, not by outside powers. MARWAN MUASHER: Absolutely. This is a responsibility of Arabs themselves, no one else. MARGARET WARNER: Marwan Muasher, thank you. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/world/jan-june14/arabspring_01-09.html
Tunisia struggles to reset its democracy
Published on Nov 25, 2013
Nearly three years after Tunisia's
revolution inspired citizens across the region, the nation that sparked
the Arab Spring has struggled with the transition away from
authoritarian rule. Filmmaker Jessie Deeter filed this report, narrated
by Hari Sreenivasan, about the mounting pressures as the society tries
to find its way.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Now to an update from the birthplace of the Arab spring, Tunisia.
The North African nation has struggled with democracy since the
ouster of its former leader nearly three years ago. That struggle is not
unique among the region's new democracies, but its attempt to right its
course is without precedent in the new Arab world.
Producer Jessie Deeter recently visited the country and filed this report narrated by Hari Sreenivasan. ANIS MOEZ, Tunisia (through interpreter): When I
used to pray, they would stop me and take my taxi permit. But now they
give it back. And I went back to work. This is the only thing I gained
from the revolution. HARI SREENIVASAN: Anis Moez suffered under former
President's Ben Ali's dictatorship in Tunisia, when Muslims were not
allowed to show outward signs of their faith, including wearing head
scarfs.
Now, like many Tunisians, he's still searching for the great promise
offered by the revolution that kicked off the Arab spring nearly three
years ago.
Nabiha Ben Said is an unemployed seamstress who had high
hopes after the revolution, but has become disillusioned with the
ruling Ennahda party she helped vote into power. NABIHA BEN SAID, Tunisia (through interpreter): My
wish? That Tunisia would stop and go back to the way we lived before.
Life has gotten more expensive, too expensive in Tunisia. The population
can't handle freedom. It's true. I swear to God. Look what freedom has
done, where it's taken us. HARI SREENIVASAN: Tunisia's revolution gave hope to
the rest of the region that democracy was possible, but the transition
from decades of authoritarian rule remains difficult.
Over the summer liberal politician Mohamed Brahmi was assassinated.
It was the second murder of a political figure in a year. The killings,
combined with frustration over high unemployment and security concerns,
set off a month-long protest and calls for the ruling Ennahda party to
dissolve government. BEJI CAID ESSEBSI, Nidaa Tounes Party (through
interpreter): They haven't been able to achieve the goals of the
revolution, in other words, the unemployment, the poverty in the
marginalized regions. HARI SREENIVASAN: Former Tunisian Prime Minister Beji Caid Essebsi heads Nidaa Tounes, the secularist main opposition party to Ennahda. BEJI CAID ESSEBSI (through interpreter): There have
been serious incidents, assassinations of politicians, which have never
happened before in Tunisia. HARI SREENIVASAN: In an extraordinary move, Ennahda,
led by Rashid al-Ghannushi, agreed to exit, rather than experience the
fate of an ouster, like Egypt's Mohammed Morsi. RASHID AL-GHANNUSHI, Ennahda Party (through
interpreter): We in the Ennahda party have accepted to step down from
the government without elections and without a coup. We will just work
toward the transition and toward democracy.
Monica Marks studies Tunisia's political system at Oxford University. MONICA MARKS, Oxford University: They realize that's
probably the best strategic option for them, because they're sitting at
the helm of government at a time of great strife. MUSTAPHA K. NABIL, former Central Bank of Tunisia:
We're in a situation now where growth is very weak, job creation is very
weak and the social tensions are high. HARI SREENIVASAN: Mustapha Nabil is the former
governor of Tunisia's Central Bank. He fears that if a new transitional
prime minister isn't chosen soon, it will be hard for Tunisia to pull
back from the upheaval created by ongoing political uncertainty. MUSTAPHA K. NABIL: You have a balance of payment
under pressure. You have banking system under pressure. So, a lot of
these things are coming now to bear, and the risks of some slippage, of
some crisis, serious crisis, are there. TAREK SPIKA, Tunisia (through interpreter): I voted
for Ennahda. The next time, I'm going to cut off his finger, this finger
that voted for Ennahda. HARI SREENIVASAN: TAREK SPIKA is a shop owner from
Gabes, an industrial town in the south of Tunisia. He says that the
government hasn't helped him gain the work and security he sought by
moving to Tunis. TAREK SPIKA (through interpreter): Before the
revolution a woman could go out in the street around 10:00 or 11:00 at
night. Now no, because the country isn't safe. MONICA MARKS: The security situation makes a lot of
people nervous, because they are used to the eerie stability of a police
state, in which nothing really ever happened.
But, for average, Tunisians this is a fragile situation, but it's
also a frightening situation. And that kind of fear and feeling of
instability I think, make people very vulnerable to these discourses of
stability, of authoritarianism bringing more stability. HARI SREENIVASAN: The main alternative to Islamist
Ennahda is Nidaa Tounes. The party has been accused of having links to
dictator Ben Ali's old regime, which was notorious for torture and
corruption. It's alleged that much of the country's business community
had direct ties to the former president.
Nidaa Tounes leader Essebsi says that he and his party shouldn't be
judged by the transgressions of some in the pre-revolution government. BEJI CAID ESSEBSI (through interpreter): I have been
in politics since March 1956, independence day. I was here, and I'm
still here. But the old regime isn't all dirty, you know? There were two
million Tunisians with Ben Ali. We can't exclude them all. HARI SREENIVASAN: But the new government by its own admission has not held members of the old guard accountable for past crimes. RASHID AL-GHANNUSHI (through interpreter): We have
failed in some things. We didn't hold accountable those who were
corrupt. And so the protest against us are back because we were not
strong enough in punishing the corrupt individuals. HARI SREENIVASAN: Ennahda and its political
opponents are in gridlock over the country's future. And attempts to
agree on a caretaker prime minister have been delayed. A new election
won't happen until six or seven months after that leader is chosen. KACEM AFAYA, Workers Union of Tunisia (through
interpreter): We are currently pressuring them to convince them to reach
a consensus in order to save Tunisia.
Kacem Afaya of the UGTT union that is mediating negotiations between
the two parties is worried about the consequences of not reaching a
deal. KACEM AFAYA (through interpreter): It is critical
that we avoid a bloody confrontation. It is essential that we succeed in
bringing back safety and social stability. If we don't find a solution
in December, it will be the bankruptcy of this regime. HARI SREENIVASAN: The constituent assembly, the body
charged with rewriting Tunisia's constitution, is more than a year past
its mandated deadline and must wait until a new acting prime minister
is chosen to finish. But it, unlike other parts of the government, will
not be dissolved until the constitution has been completed.
Amel Azzouz is an Ennahda member and constituent assembly representative. AMEL AZZOUZ, Ennahda Party: We will dissolve the
government, but this constituent assembly will remain, because it the
center of democracy. It's the symbol of democracy. It's the symbol of
the will of people. And it is thanks to this assembly that we will
guarantee the movement or the transition to another period, to an
entrenched democracy and republic, a new republic. HARI SREENIVASAN: As difficult as this transition seems, experts like Monica Marks are still hopeful. MONICA MARKS: If Tunisia can pull through these next
number of years, if people can together work for compromise and have
that blitzkrieg mentality, we're going to get through this no matter
what, then Tunisia could become the first democracy in the Arab world,
and no longer can people say Arabs aren't ready for democracy. HARI SREENIVASAN: But the longer Tunisians like Anis Moez wait for the critical next steps, the further away the democracy becomes. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/world/july-dec13/tunisia_11-25.html
Presented
by the award-winning author and property-rights activist Hernando de
Soto, this public television special presents, for the first time, the
basic human and economic events that led to the Arab uprisings in the
Middle East and North Africa. The program shows that “The Arab Spring”
was less a political event than it was about the coming of the
industrial revolution to a region where over 90% of the population lives
and works outside the rule of law. De Soto shows us that this informal
economy is, however, the one common thread that can contribute to the
region’s growth and stability.
Amid provocative images of the Arab uprisings of 2010 and 2011,
De Soto introduces the people and events that recently rocked the Arab
world, sparked by the self-immolation of the poor, 26 year old street
vendor, Tarek Bouazizi. It was not the $225 lost from his fruit cart,
expropriated by the police, that transformed young Bouazizi into a
martyr and a symbol of the revolution — it was his similarity to the
180 million informal Arab entrepreneurs; many of them under 30 and
computer literate. Over 100 of them followed Bouazizi in acts of
self-immolation.
The history of business in the Arab world is highlighted in
sequences from Morocco, and the program demonstrates how business is
thriving along with Arab culture in the international business city of
Istanbul.
Traveling through the region, De Soto summarizes, “Throughout
the Middle East the story is the same. As the industrial revolution
comes to the Middle East, the true path to stability rests in the
region's single common denominator: the informal marketplace. The Arab
consensus ahead is about more than emancipating the entrepreneurial
spirit; it’s about resolving the institutional deficiencies that make
most Arabs desperately poor."
THIS article contains warnings for America. Warnings not about threat is hard line Islamist ruling Tunisia, but about the extreme right wing agenda, allegedly rooted in Christianity and the intent of our Founding Fathers, being legislated in communities and states and even at the federal level. Restrictions on access to birth control and safe, legal abortions, restrictions on voting rights, restrictions on free speech and freedom of expression by nonviolent protest, restrictions on construction of houses of worship and expansion of government surveillance all represent an assault on and erosion of basic American civil liberties, civil rights, human rights and the rule of law. The only difference between what is happening in the U.S. and in Tunisia and other newly liberated Arab countries is the religion of the extremist. Christian or Islamist, they are all perverting the true teachings of their faiths to impose the narrow minded beliefs of a minority on the majority. They are not representatives of democracy but of repressive theocracy, a serious threat to basic human rights in America and in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Yemen. This from the Washington Post....
By Marc Fisher,
Tunis — Outside the courthouse, 16 armed police officers screen all
comers, including hundreds of lawyers in flowing black robes. Beyond a
wall of barbed wire, a throng of bearded young men angrily shout
slogans. The scene sends a clear message: Could be trouble here.
The subject of all this attention is a short, hyperactive,
wise-cracking TV mogul who smokes fat stogies, has 25 bodyguards on his
payroll and is on trial over charges of libeling Islam.
Nabil Karoui owns the HBO of Tunisia, a satellite TV channel called Nessma (“Breeze”) that shows Hollywood movies and TV series.
A
week before Tunisians voted in the fall for their first freely elected
government since 1956, Nessma aired the French-language animated movie “Persepolis,”
based on an Iranian exile’s graphic novel about a girl who comes of age
during Iran’s 1979 revolution. In the weeks after the broadcast,
Karoui’s house was destroyed by a mob of vandals and Nessma’s offices
were repeatedly attacked — all because of a short scene in which the
girl imagines herself talking to God, who appears as an old man with a
long, white beard.
Now, Karoui’s on trial,
and so is Tunisia’s year-old revolution and the young democracy it has
wrought. For hundreds of years, Tunisia has boasted a complex blend of
Islamic and Western values, and now, having ousted their autocratic
leader, Tunisians are struggling to find the right balance. No part of
that wrenching, sometimes violent debate has been more divisive than the
issue of freedom of speech.
Last month, on this capital city’s
main boulevard, Islamist activists attacked actors who were celebrating
World Theater Day; Islamists smashed musical instruments and hurled
eggs. A hard-line preacher stood in front of Tunis’s Grand Synagogue and
called for the murder of Tunisian Jews. And a Tunisian philosopher who
showed up at a TV station for a debate on Islam was shouted down by
extremists, who said he was no scholar of the faith because he has no
beard.
In each case, calls for a state crackdown on offensive
speech banged up against cries for the government to defend even
unpopular expression. Karoui’s day in court became a nonstop, seven-hour
shoutfest that will determine whether he is fined, imprisoned, or
worse. A verdict is expected Thursday.
In Tunisia, defendants hire
a lawyer, but any lawyer in the land may join the prosecution or
defense, and those lawyers have the same right to argue in court as
hired attorneys. The result: a pulsating black mass of robed men (and a
handful of women) surging to the front of Courtroom 10, each with his
own view of what should be done to Karoui.
Shouldn’t the death
penalty be considered, asks lawyer Nasser Saidi: “Anything related to
God is absolute. This was a test of the Tunisian people’s ability to
defend God, and they have passed the test.”
No, five years max,
says Karoui’s chief attorney, Omar Labiadh. But how can this case even
be in court, he asks. Before the revolution, he says, “ ‘Persepolis’ was
broadcast at least five times on Tunisian TV.”
The two sides
argue as if they live in different galaxies. They cite different laws —
God’s and man’s. They base their arguments on different histories —
Western traditions of transparency and individual rights vs. Islamic
concepts of Koranic authority and the obligations of the community of
believers.
“These lawyers who speak against Karoui have no right
to base a case on public opinion,” says Karoui attorney Faouzi Ben Mrad.
To prosecute someone just for violating a religious commandment would
be folly, Mrad says. For example, Mohammed Bouazizi, who sparked the
Tunisian revolution by burning himself to death, “committed a sin by
committing suicide. Now he is the symbol of our revolution. Are you
going to prosecute him, too? This is Tunisia, not Kandahar or Pakistan.
From Carthage to Mohammed Bouazizi, Tunisia has a different history.” ‘It was hysteria, craziness’ Karoui thought
he had problems under the old regime. Tunisia’s longtime despot, Zine
el-Abidine Ben Ali, refused permission for a privately owned channel to
compete against state TV, so Karoui launched Nessma as a pirate station,
without a license. His billboards were defaced and his advertisers
harassed.
When Karoui finally won the right to broadcast from
Tunisia, he played it safe, steering clear of political content and
focusing on sports, television series such as “House” and music. But
when the revolution broke out about 17 months ago, Karoui defied Ben
Ali’s ban on political programming and switched to an all-news format.
Today, he has a mix of programs, a news staff
of 50 and a clear position: “We are modernists, not Islamists,” he
says. “We oppose sharia law and four wives. We show decolletage and
miniskirts, and the extremists hack our Web site to retaliate.”
Karoui,
48, offers programs that put a Western face on Tunisia — and draw big
ratings. “What we show, young people would watch even if we didn’t show
it, but they’d watch it on HBO or the French channels,” he says. “Our
vision is to push the country to be more modernist, but we understand
the limits — no nudity, because this is a Muslim country.”
The
decision to air “Persepolis” was very much about sending a message,
Karoui says. He saw the story of the Iranian revolution as a cautionary
tale for Tunisians “because every day in Iran, the Islamists took away
one piece of freedom, and after two years of that, they took over the
country.”
Before “Persepolis” aired, Karoui’s standards director
glanced over a few minutes of the film and said, “It’s okay, it’s a
cartoon.” The movie aired and got a lousy rating, no more than 50,000
viewers.
But as soon as the broadcast began, Nessma’s Facebook
page filled with rants calling the station traitorous and attacking
Karoui as a Jew and a Mason, neither of which he is. Two days later, 500
protesters arrived at the studios, threatening to burn the building.
“It
was hysteria, craziness,” says Karoui, who watched from his top-floor
office as protesters pushed toward his front door. “I understand that
some people were offended, but please: No one watched the movie!”
Karoui
went on Nessma to apologize to anyone who was offended, but on the
following Friday, clerics at some mosques urged worshipers to take their
anger to Nessma’s office. Police told Karoui that they could not
protect him and urged him to go into hiding.
The next day,
Karoui’s house was firebombed and trashed. “I had nothing left — no art,
no furniture, no glassware,” he says. Fourteen attackers were arrested
and fined $6 each.
Karoui has had to build a safe room in his house, stocked with a week’s worth of food.
“It’s
very weird: I’m a Muslim, I fast on Ramadan, but I can’t go to mosque
with my father and my son,” Karoui says. “I have 100 videos of religious
leaders saying, ‘You must kill Karoui, cut off his right hand and take
his eyes out.’ And the crazy thing is, I’m still optimistic about my
country.” Ruling coalition in a bind
The moderate Islamist party that leads Tunisia’s new governing
coalition would like the Karoui case and others like it to go away.
“It’s very difficult to put in place red lines on freedom of speech,”
says Rachid Ghannouchi, spiritual leader of the Ennahda party.
“Boundaries are set by society, and society changes. We are free to
believe what we want, but we are not free to speak against others’
beliefs.”
Ghannouchi says he thinks Karoui intentionally aired
“Persepolis” just before the elections to provoke violence by Islamist
extremists, thereby sullying the image of all Islamists. “But we didn’t
fall into this trap,” he says. “We defended his freedom of speech and
said there should be no prison sentence.”
That position does not
sit well with more hard-line Islamists, who want the state to silence
Nessma and punish what they view as hate speech.
“Each country has
its own view of free expression,” says Rafik Ghaki, a 33-year-old
lawyer who heads a coalition of ultraconservative Islamists known as
Salafists. “We do not oppose free expression, but it must have limits to
protect the beliefs of others. We are for freedom, but an organized
freedom.”
Ghaki argued against Karoui in court and organized a
street protest last month against a Tunisian man alleged to have flushed
pages from the Koran down the toilet.
That protest collapsed into violence, as Salafists attacked a crowd of actors celebrating World Theater Day down the street.
“The
problem is there is no communication between these two parts of
society,” Ghaki says. “We have youth in a new movement, and some of them
get overexcited. And then some of the elite is against religion and
Islam.”
It would be a mistake to expect Islamists to accept
Western notions of free speech, Ghaki says: Airing “Persepolis” “in a
very unstable period is not a patriotic act. As a civilized person, if
that happens, I will go to the law for redress.” Courtroom shoutfest
In Courtroom 10, anti-Karoui lawyer Seifeddine Makhlouf thunders
against the audacity of those who defend the broadcast of an image of
God: “Am I defending God here? Yes, because the Koran says if you
support God, He will support you.”
After three hours of such arguments against Karoui, his defenders get their turn. They, too, speak of God’s will.
“You
arrogantly claim to defend God,” roars defender Mourad Selimi. “No one
can defend God. He defends himself. No, this case must be dismissed.
This case will determine whether a revolution really happened here.”
But
by this point, the lawyers on the other side have left the room;
Karoui’s defenders shout only to one another and the judges, who stare
impassively, silent amid the cacophony of freedom. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/tunisian-court-case-exposes-rift-over-free-speech-in-new-democracy/2012/05/02/gIQAj4cexT_print.html
Americans fear the Islamist political parties because of ignorance and the hateful propaganda about Islam prominent since 9/11. Sharia law is described as repressive, abusive, and incompatible with democracy. What Americans fail to see, because of the logs in our own eyes, is the "reconstructionist" Christian philosophy of Ron Paul, the Mormonism of Mitt Romney, the extremely conservative Roman Catholic beliefs of Rick Santorum, and the manipulation of Christianity by extremist right wingers of the Republican party as seen in legislation introduced in the last Congress restricting the rights of and sometimes degrading American women (redefining rape is a good example) are a greater threat to American democracy than Islamist governments in the newly freed nations of the Middle East. American voters need to pay more attention to the threats to freedom, democracy and human rights by the current field of Republican candidates for president and worry less about Islamist politics in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and other nations of the Middle East.
By Olivier Roy
Everywhere, the Muslim Brotherhood is benefiting from a democratization it did not trigger. There is a political vacuum because the liberal vanguard that initiated the Arab Spring did not try, and did not want, to take power. This was a revolution without revolutionaries. Yet the Muslim Brothers are the only organized political force. They are rooted in society, and decades of opposition against authoritarian regimes gave them experience, legitimacy and respect. Their conservative agenda fits a conservative society, which may welcome democracy but did not turn liberal.
Under these circumstances, the ghost of a totalitarian Islamic state is raised, with the specter of imposing sharia and closing the short democratic parenthesis. But such an outcome is unlikely.
The Islamists have, in fact, changed: They are more middle-class “bourgeois,” and they benefited from the liberalization of local economies during the last decades of the 20th century, especially in countries with no oil rent. The Islamists have also drawn lessons from the failure of ideological regimes and from the success of Turkey’s AKP party. They are no longer advocating jihad and understand geostrategic constraints, such as the need to maintain peace, even a cold one, with Israel. Realism is the starting point of political wisdom.
The Islamists have been elected with a clear agenda: stability, good governance and a better economy. If they have been able to reach a larger constituency than the hard-core supporters of sharia, it is precisely because they can combine such a reformist agenda while talking about religion, values, identity and tradition. The Nahda party won the majority of the votes cast at the Tunisian consulate of San Francisco, although Tunisian expatriates in Silicon Valley are not known for their Islamic fundamentalism.
This mix of technocratic modernism and conservative values is their brand, and to turn their back on multipartism and legalism would alienate a large portion of their constituency, at a time when they have no means to confiscate power. They have neither military forces nor oil wealth to bypass the people: They have to negotiate and deliver. Their electorate wants stability and peace, not revolution.
They are stepping into a new political landscape: a democracy, although a fledgling and fragile one. The only way to maintain their legitimacy is through elections. Even if their pristine political culture is not democratic, they are formatted by the democratic landscape, much as the Roman Catholic Church ended up accepting democratic institutions. But it will take time.
Another important change, if we refer to the “revolutionary” period of the 1970s and 1980s, is that the Muslim Brothers do not monopolize Islam in the public sphere. In fact, the religious revival that has engulfed Arab societies led to a diversification and an individualization of the religious field. Religious state institutions such as Al Azhar, so recently discredited, are regaining autonomy after so recently being discredited. Al Azhar’s dean, Sheikh Ahmed Al-Tayyeb, openly spoke in favor of democracy and of separating religious institutions from the state. A new phenomenon is the decision of the Salafis, an ultraconservative Sunni sect, to establish political parties. On the one hand they will push for a more Islamic agenda, trying to outbid the Muslim Brothers on Islam, but this will force the Brotherhood to clarify its own position and to find a way to distance itself from the call for sharia.
To do that, the Muslim Brothers have to turn purely Islamic norms into more universal conservative values — such as limiting the sale and consumption of alcohol in a way that is closer to Utah’s rules than to Saudi laws and promoting “family values” instead of imposing sharia norms on women.
In the coming months the hot issue in Egypt, beyond the status of women, will be religious freedom. Not in the sense that Coptic Christians will have less freedom to practice — there were a lot of limitations under the so-called secular dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak — but in defining religious freedom as not merely a minority right but an individual human right, implying the right to convert from Islam to Christianity.
The issue is institutionalizing democracy, not promoting liberal policies. Democracy could take hold only if it is based in well-established values. Liberalism does not precede democracy; America’s Founding Fathers were not liberal. But once democracy is rooted in institutions and political culture, then the debate on freedom, censorship, social norms and individual rights could be managed through freedom of expression and changes of majorities in parliament. However, there will be no institutionalization of democracy without the Muslim Brothers.
THIS is a fascinating article from Sojourners on nonviolent protest and revolution and the success rate for these movements compared to the rate of failure for violent protest and revolutions. Nonviolence protest, resistance and revolution achieve the goals of the participants at a much higher percentage rate than those movements employing violence. A really inspiring part of the article is the story of the Rosenstrasse protest in Berlin in 1943 that resulted in about 2000 German Jewish men being saved from the gas chambers. We have witnessed the success of the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions this year, the ongoing revolution in Syria (where the assad government has finally started talking to the protesters who have been calling for freedom and democracy, while unfortunately continuing it's brutal repression of the protest), and the months long but largely peaceful protest for freedom and democracy in Yemen. We can take heart that with good organization, communication, inclusiveness, solidarity and the stamina to go the distance (keep the faith people of Syria and Yemen) most of these revolutions will succeed. Iran in 2009 and Bahrain this year are the disappointments because in the face of brutal, murderous repression the people backed down. When the desire for freedom is strong enough they will rise again, one can only hope they are better prepared to see the movement through. The revolution in Libya grinds on in violence with no end in sight, and whoever ends up in power will inherit a scared and damaged people......Be sure to check out the video at the end of this article.......
From Cairo, Egypt, to Madison, Wisconsin, civil society is fighting back through massive nonviolent resistance. But what makes for a successful campaign? The data is in. By Erica Chenoweth
On Jan. 25, 2011,mass protests erupted in Egypt, with cries of "Enough is enough!" and "Wake up, wake up, son of my country. Come down Egyptians!" Although there were violent crackdowns by the Egyptian government, the overwhelming majority of protest activism was nonviolent. Eighteen days later, President Mubarak, a dictator who held power for 30 years, stepped down.
A decade into the 21st century, successful "people power" revolutions in places such as Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon, Georgia, Ukraine, Nepal, and the Maldives have forced major changes to entrenched power by relying on "civil" resistance, a method of resistance in which civilians withdraw cooperation from oppressive regimes, often using a mixture of strikes, boycotts, sit-ins, stay-aways, and other acts of civil disobedience.
Civil resistance is not always the same as "nonviolence" -- a practice that often evokes images of Gandhi as its main advocate. Gandhi's approach to using mass civil resistance to oppose British dominion in the South Asian subcontinent possessed a strong moral dimension -- a principled aversion to using violence. But the history of nonviolent resistance reveals that many people have relied on civil resistance not for moral reasons, but because they thought it would be an effective alternative to violence in achieving their aims.
To find out whether civil resistance is generally a more effective option than violent resistance, between 2006 to 2008 I collected data from books, encyclopedias, news reports, archives, data sets, and scholarly journals to develop a new database of mass nonviolent resistance campaigns that involved demands for regime change or territorial independence. I looked at where and when the campaigns emerged, characteristics of the opponents they faced, and whether the campaigns succeeded or failed. I then compared these findings with data on the success rates of violent insurgencies.
The results were stunning. Among 323 major violent insurgencies and nonviolent mass movements that occurred from 1900 to 2006, nonviolent campaigns were twice as effective as violent insurgencies, succeeding more than 55 percent of the time. In fact, successful nonviolent mass action has occurred in countries as diverse as Serbia, Poland, Madagascar, South Africa, Chile, Venezuela, Georgia, Ukraine, Lebanon, and Nepal.
How do nonviolent civilian-led revolutions disrupt some of the most repressive dictatorships of our time? First, nonviolent campaigns typically attract far more participants than violent campaigns. The average nonviolent campaign has more than four times as many active participants (with about 200,000) as the average violent campaign (with about 50,000). This is because nonviolent campaigns appeal to a broader section of society than violent campaigns. Tactics such as strikes, boycotts, and go-slows are available to a diverse cross section of society, including young and elderly, men and women, rich and poor, and a variety of religious and political ideologies. There are fewer moral barriers to participating in a protest or demonstration that insists on peaceful (albeit forceful) methods. Moreover, participation in civil resistance does not require a person to go underground or sacrifice one’s daily life. Although often high-risk, participation in civil resistance can be more spontaneous and anonymous because of the numbers of people involved. On the other hand, violent campaigns typically require physical strength, endurance, and agility; the willingness to sacrifice one's day-to-day life; and the removal of any reluctance to take another life for the cause -- all qualifications that exclude a large proportion of any population.
Second, when large numbers of people peacefully mobilize against repressive regimes, they often neutralize major sources of power -- civilian bureaucrats, economic elites, and even the security forces.
For example, on June 5, 1989, half a dozen Chinese tanks rolled toward Beijing's Tiananmen Square to continue a days-long crackdown on thousands of protesters who were demanding economic and political reforms in the country's authoritarian regime. But as they approached Tiananmen, an unknown man stood, alone, in their path, holding a shopping bag in his hand. When it became clear that the man did not intend to step aside, the lead tank lurched to a stop just a few yards from the man. After a pause, the tank pitched to the right to pass the man; but the man sprang to his left, blocking its path. The tanks that trailed also stopped, and for a few moments, the man and the tanks stood motionless in the street, facing one another in an iconic image of civil resistance. Before Tank Man's act of noncooperation was cut short, his unarmed resolve confounded the military in ways that armed insurgents do not.
Nonviolent resistance campaigns are especially skilled at convincing security forces to stop their repression and -- in some cases -- to join the resistance. Because civil resistance typically includes a larger base of participants that represent a more diverse cross-section of society, security forces often identify with campaign participants through ethnic, religious, class-based, cultural, or even familial ties. Security force defections occurred in 54 percent of successful nonviolent campaigns.
Violent campaigns do not have a very good track record at convincing security forces to defect. The reason is intuitive enough. When security forces perceive a physical threat, they tend to unify to defend themselves. Imagine that Tank Man had procured a weapon from the shopping bag he was holding and fired upon the tanks as they began to move around him. No longer would Tank Man's image represent the legitimacy and courage of the pro-democracy cause in China. Instead, he would have confronted the military on its own terms, using a method in which the military has a decided advantage. He would have been just another anonymous rebel confronting violence with violence.
The ability to divide the regime depends on careful planning, organization, training, and unity within the opposition. But once the security forces refuse to repress peaceful demonstrators, regimes tend to accommodate protesters' demands. Note that this is not because of the moral superiority of nonviolent resistance. The reason people power works is not because the "good guys" always win. Instead, carefully planned civil resistance campaigns are able to leverage their broad participation to disrupt the regime in ways that are unavailable to smaller, violent insurgencies.
A common question that often arises is: Can civil resistance succeed even against brutal opponents? What about the Nazis? There are numerous examples of nonviolent resistance against the brutal genocidal methods of the Nazi regime during World War II. One example is the Rosenstrasse protest in Berlin in March 1943. Following Hitler's military defeat in the battle of Stalingrad, the Nazis accelerated their "final solution," hastening the deportation and killing of millions of Jews, Gypsies, prisoners of war, and others. In Berlin, SS paramilitary troops detained nearly 2,000 Jewish men who had previously been spared because their wives were non-Jewish Germans. Their wives began to gather outside of the building on Rosenstrasse where the men were detained. Day and night, the women occupied the streets and chanted "Give us our husbands back." Ultimately, hundreds -- if not thousands -- of people joined the protest, even as SS guards mounted machine guns and threatened to fire upon the protesters. The protest lasted a week. At the end of the week, the SS released the men. Almost all of the men lived to see the end of the war.
This remarkable event demonstrates the power of organized, nonviolent direct action -- even against the most brutal dictatorships. A simple inscription on the "Block der Frauen" ("Block of Women") memorial in Berlin bears witness: "The strength of civil disobedience, the vigor of love overcomes the violence of dictatorship. Give us our men back. Women were standing here, defeating death. Jewish men were free."
And, in fact, the overall trend suggests that even in situations where regimes used violence to crack down on resistance campaigns, 46 percent of nonviolent campaigns have prevailed, whereas only 20 percent of violent campaigns succeeded against these violently repressive states.
The data tells us a few things that we didn’t know before. First, there is little truth to the claim that insurgents must use violence in order to get what they want. Many observers maintain that people resort to violence when they are forced to do so -- by overly repressive circumstances, by injustices they can no longer tolerate -- and after exhausting all other means of political influence.
One hears this claim quite a lot from insurgents, scholars, and pundits, who argue that Sunni insurgents in Iraq, the Afghan Mujahideen, or even El Salvador's Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front had to choose violence to wage their struggles because it was the only way they had a chance to succeed. Gandhi himself -- the quintessential pacifist -- once articulated that "It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence." Contrary to these assumptions, nonviolent resistance has proved to be a much more powerful way to achieve political goals, even in brutally repressive environments.
Second, civilian-led nonviolent resistance can divide and topple regimes as security forces grow weary of repressing their unarmed compatriots. The more diverse the campaign, the more likely it is to produce security force defections. Any campaign that is overly homogenous (for example, relying on a strong religious component without wider appeal) will have difficulty succeeding because it will not attract a wide enough portion of the population to provide varied points of access to potential allies within the regime. For instance, an urban revolution often will gain little sympathy from regime functionaries who come from the countryside.
Third, and perhaps most surprising, material support from foreign states has little effect on the success of nonviolent campaigns. Only 10 percent of nonviolent campaigns have received direct material support from foreign governments, and in those cases, it may have caused disunity within the campaign or undermined the movement's legitimacy in the eyes of potential grassroots supporters. As national security expert Richard K. Betts said recently in response to how the U.S. security establishment should react to the protests in Egypt, "Popular revolutions can hardly ever be contained or channeled effectively by foreign forces." But moral support -- such as naming and shaming the oppressive regime's abuses, cutting off financial or military support to the regime, and making diplomatic statements in support of the movement -- can encourage participants to maintain enthusiasm and commitment.
Overall, the data provides hard evidence that nonviolent resistance is anything but passive or weak. Gandhi was right when he said, "Nonviolence is a weapon of the strong." As we watch events unfold in the Arab world and elsewhere, we should keep in mind that calls to use violence to confront oppressive regimes are almost never justified by necessity. Skillful applications of "people power" have been the most robust and reliable forces for change in the world since World War II, and this trend is likely to continue well into the 21st century. VIDEO PRESENTATION ON WHY NONVIOLENCE WORKS
Erica Chenoweth is an assistant professor of government at Wesleyan University and co-author with Maria J. Stephan of the forthcoming book Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict. In this video webinar for the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, Dr. Chenoweth presents arguments to prove that nonviolent resistance is a far more effective method for creating social change against repressive governments than violent resistance.
Erica Chenoweth is an assistant professor of government at Wesleyan University and co-author with Maria J. Stephan of the forthcoming book Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict.
People Power . By Erica Chenoweth. Sojourners Magazine, May 2011 (Vol. 40, No. 5, pp. 16). Cover.
