A call for localism in nonviolent campaigns

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Local action in Metta's own backyard -- the budget protests at UC Berkeley. Local action in Metta’s own backyard – the UC Berkeley campus protests, October, 2009

Metta Center wishes to give voice to people who are fleshing out the fine points of nonviolent theory (and subsequent nonviolent action), by sharing thoughtful commentary on this topic when it comes our way. Here is a post from fellow peacemaker Barry Gan, which he recently shared with us and agreed to post to this blog. He’s asking us all to put our heads together to find collective, locally enacted solutions to our challenges, so see what comes to your mind as you read this, and feel free to share.

 Thank you, Barry, for your thoughtful work!

“This past weekend I delivered a presentation to a group of Concerned Philosophers for Peace gathered together for our annual conference, this year at the University of Dayton. My topic was “Principles for Successful Activism,” but really the talk was about how the progressive movement in this country (I don’t like the term “progressive,” but oh, well) has failed in developing successful activism.

I examined successful activism by reference to King’s and Gandhi’s most well-known successes and failures. Here is what I came up with.

First, we should not aim for national campaigns, which are generally too difficult to manage, but instead should promote well-designed local actions that are easily replicable so that they can become national in scope.

Second, we should not equate arrests and lawbreaking with genuine civil disobedience, that is to say, with noncooperation with a particular law or policy, a more effective tactic and strategy.

Third, our goals should be well defined. Ideally, they should entail the establishment of viable alternatives to the status quo, what Gandhi called constructive programs, so that, in the end, the goals are met whether or not the adversary yields.

Fourth, the (local, replicable) campaign should capture the public imagination by offering the adversary a choice: “Do as we wish, or make us suffer” and tailoring that choice in such a way as to create cognitive dissonance among those one opposes and, more importantly, among the undecided members of the population who usually comprise the vast majority of people. One creates cognitive dissonance by tailoring the local action in ways that appeal to the strongest values in the silent majority, values that conflict with what one’s adversary will be forced to do if they don’t acquiesce.

What these suggestions mean, concretely, is a tricky and creative matter. I don’t have any ideas yet, but I offer these observations in hopes that some of us might put our heads together to devise a local, replicable strategy to achieve a well-defined goal via constructive programs that create cognitive dissonance and launch a powerful local movement that will spread from city to city and thereby become national.”

Barry Gan is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Nonviolence at St. Bonaventure University. In 2005, along with Robert L. Holmes, Barry Gan published “Nonviolence in Theory and Practice” (Second Edition).