Extinction Rebellion protesters holding a NONVIOLENT banner during the February 2020 March along with Parents 4 Future
By JessicaGirvan1/Shutterstock.com
George Lakey’s new book is called How We Win: A Guide to Nonviolent Direct Action Campaigning. On its cover is a drawing of a hand holding up two fingers in what is more often considered a peace sign than a victory sign, but I suppose it is meant as both.
Perhaps nobody is better qualified to write such a book, and it’s hard to imagine one better written. Lakey co-wrote a similar book in the 1960s and has been studying the matter ever since. He doesn’t just draw lessons from the Civil Rights movement, wasn’t just there at the time, but was applying lessons from earlier actions to training activists at the time. His new book provides—at least for me—new insights even about the very most familiar and often discussed nonviolent actions of the past (as well as lots of new rarely discussed actions). I’d recommend that anyone interested in a better world get this book immediately.
However, out of the countless examples of past actions explored in this book, there are—as is absolutely typical—very few passing references to anything related to war and peace. There’s the usual complaint that marches have been tried when an (unspecified) targeted and escalating and enduring nonviolent action campaign might have had a better impact. There are two sentences praising the 12-year-long successful encampment at Greenham Common opposing a U.S. nuclear base in England. There are three sentences suggesting that a campaign that has protested Lockheed Martin’s manufacture of nuclear weapons for four decades has not known how to attract enough participants. There’s a portion of a sentence recommending the film The Boys Who Said NO! And that’s about it.
But can we read this wonderful book, and tease out some lessons that might apply to the work of ending war? Can we come up with actions that make clear to observers our goals and the case for them, that reveal secrets and expose myths, that target those who can make changes, that endure and escalate and appeal to wider participation, that are both global or national and local?
World BEYOND War waxay ka shaqeyneysay dhaqdhaqaaqa baabi'inta dagaalka iyadoo la adeegsanayo ololeyaal loogu talagalay in laga saaro hubka (oo leh xoogaa guulo ah) iyo xiritaanka saldhigyada (iyadoon wax badan lagu guuleysan weli saldhigyada xiritaanka, laakiin guusha waxbarashada iyo qoritaanka), laakiin World BEYOND War ayaa sidoo kale leh. waxay ka dhigtay qayb ka mid ah shaqadeeda soo bandhigida khuraafaadka ah in dagaalku noqon karo lama huraan, lama huraan, faa'iido leh, ama caddaalad ah. Ma isku dari karnaa waxyaalahan?
Dhowr fikradood ayaa maskaxda ku soo dhacaya. Ka warran haddii dadka ku nool Maraykanka iyo Ruushka ay awoodaan in ay u codeeyaan tiro aad u badan afti madax-bannaan oo loo sameeyay hub ka dhigis ama joojinta cunaqabataynta ama soo afjarida colaadaha iyo hadalada cayda ah? Maxaa dhacaya haddii koox ka mid ah Iraniyiinta iyo wakiillada Mareykanka iyo dalal kale oo badan ay ku heshiiyaan heshiis nabadeed oo abuurkeenna ah oo soo afjaraya cunaqabateynta iyo hanjabaadaha, ama heshiiska 2015? Ka warran haddii magaalooyinka iyo gobollada Mareykanka lagu cadaadiyo inay u jawaabaan dadweynaha oo ay diidaan cunaqabateynta?
What if large numbers of U.S. people, representing and communicating with localities back home, were to go to Iraq or the Philippines to join with the people and governments of those places in asking the U.S. troops to depart? What if exchanges, including student exchanges, were set up between the U.S. and the places where bases are protested, with the big message being, for example, “South Korea Welcomes Unarmed Americans!”
Maxaa dhacaya haddii degaannada la keeno si ay si rasmi ah u qaataan fasaxyo u dabbaaldegaya dagaallo aan dhicin, oo si weyn loo xasuusto dhammaan hal-ku-dhigyadii ku dhawaaqay dagaalladaas inay lagama maarmaan yihiin oo lama huraan ah? Ka warran haddii degaan kasta oo adduunka ah iyo agagaarka Maraykanka oo ay al-Qaacida wax ka qorshaysay ka hor 9/11 ay si rasmi ah u saxiixi lahayd raaligelin ay Afgaanistaan ka bixisay diidmada dawladda Maraykanku ay ku doonayso in bin Laden lagu maxkamadeeyo waddan saddexaad?
Ka warran haddii ololeyaasha maxalliga ah ay horumariyaan daraasado beddelaad dhaqaale (waxa dhammaan faa'iidooyinka dhaqaale ay noqon lahaayeen kuwo gudaha ah oo laga beddelayo dagaalka oo loo beddelo warshadaha nabadda, iyo laga bilaabo saldhig milatari oo gudaha ah oo la doorbido isticmaalka dhulkaas), shaqaaleysiinta xarumaha maxalliga ah iyo ganacsatada hubka, la qoro kuwa ka walaacsan saamaynta deegaanka, shaqaaleysiiyay kuwa ka walaacsan millatariga bilayska, qorteen loo-shaqeeyayaasha aan dagaal ahayn si ay shaqooyin u siiyaan shaqaalaha warshadaha dagaalka?
Demonstrators took to the streets at Times Square in New York City to protest war against Iran & Iraq on January 4, 2020.
By Ryan Rahman/Shutterstock.com
What if elaborately outfitted actors portraying such recipients of U.S. weapons, U.S. military training, and U.S. military funding as King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain, or His Majesty Paduka Seri Baginda Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah of Brunei, or President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, or President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea (there are dozens; you could have a new brutal dictator every week or month) were to show up at local branches of U.S. weapons companies, or at their alma maters where they were trained in brutality (the General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in the United Kingdom, the United States Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, etc.) and demand that the corporation or the school NOT endorse Congressperson Ilhan Omar’s Stop Arming Human Rights Abusers Act?
Are there ways, in other words, in which an antiwar effort that’s already dedicated to nonviolence and teamwork and sacrifice and education and broad appeal can succeed at being both global and local, at aiming for a world at peace but also at short-term achievable changes? I encourage reading George Lakey’s book with these questions in mind and reporting back here on your answers: https://worldbeyondwar.org/howwewin
The Publication of Origin for this article is World Beyond War.