“Power is never the property of an individual; it belongs to a group and remains in existence only so long as the group keeps together. … Violence appears where power is in jeopardy, but left to its own course it ends in power’s disappearance.” — Hannah Arendt

Hosni Mubarak has just used the last tool in his tool box in a desperate attempt to cling to power. First, like all dictators, he attempted to use the security forces most loyal to him – the special police and security forces – to intimidate and disperse the protestors. Through tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition, the protestors stayed. Next, Mubarak sent out the Army. The protestors had prepared for this and embraced the army with a “hug a soldier” strategy that eventually won a pledge from the army to not stop the protests.

When the use of formal violence did not work, Mubarak tried carrots. He appointed a new government and vice president and promised not to run in the next elections, but the former only affirmed that he was capable of doing whatever he wanted to do and the latter would allow him to set the terms of that election and potentially retain power informally through the NDP. So the protestors stayed and the world watched and waited for Mubarak to crack.

Now we get the last gasp of desperate regimes: the use of thugs and violence outside of the formal levers of power to sow chaos. The key here is that the power that the nonviolent activists have exercised in recent days cleared away the fear that had characterized Egyptian society for three decades. Without such fear, the corruption and violence of authoritarian governments can no longer function. But Mubarak has calculated that if he cannot retain power based on the fear the Egyptian people once felt toward him, he will at least take away the power the protestors have created by making them scared of their fellow citizens. Indeed, employing his baltageya is a tactic with which Egyptians are all too familiar.

Unfortunately, this final strategy of Mubarak has met with some success, or at least the sort of perverse “success” that dictators like Mubarak rely upon. This is partly due to an unfortunate inability of some reporters to distinguish the players here (Facilitated by the fact that the press was directly targeted by the thugs as well, forcing many reporters to flee). Headlines such as “Protests Turn Violent” and “Violence in Cairo” portray the events in a way that the casual observer might think that all sides are instigating violence, or that the protestors became so frustrated that they gave up nonviolent means. Instead, even in the face of violence today there were reports of the anti-government protestors maintaining discipline and chanting “peacefully, peacefully.” But they also broke on occasion, despite a valiant effort ot maintain nonviolence, either defending themselves from the thugs who descended on Tahrir or, in some cases, attacking those who had attacked them. This was a major victory for Mubarak, especially in his attempt to hang on to the military.

Past nonviolent movements would suggest that there are two crucial things for the anti-government protestors to keep in mind. First, the organizers must find a way to creatively channel the anger and fear that their fellow protestors felt in the assault today. Doing so may be difficult and it may require new and innovative strategies. Even at this late stage this is not impossible, because NBC and other outlets are reporting that amidst the chaos of the last day the organizers are still finding ways to effectively communicate with people in the city and the Square.

Second, they must be sympathetic to the military and work hard to communicate with them. The ordinary soldiers in Tahrir Square are under extraordinary psychological pressure being caught between their duty to the people of Egypt, orders they are receiving from commanders and pro-Mubarak thugs. Although the organizers have pledged to continue protests until Mubarak falls, from a strategic standpoint and a practical standpoint they simply cannot lose the support of the military that they worked so hard to win. Both Gandhi and Dr. King were very keen to stop protesting and have cool down periods. In Dr. King’s case, this was sometimes with the explicit purpose of not forcing the National Guard to have to act, but instead avoiding bloodshed by delaying a protest until another day.

It may or may not be time for this in this case, but what is certain is that in order to maintain control of the narrative, the protestors now need to show that they can let the regime overplay its hand without being drawn into the vortex of violence that is its only hope for survival.

A few weeks ago I asked whether or not the Tea Party is a nonviolent movement. I noted that the vast majority of the actions taken by those who support the Tea Party and helped the Republicans make such significant gains in Congress are consistent with nonviolence (rallies, speeches, voter turnout efforts, etc.). However, the attempted assassination of Representative Giffords, the killing of 6 others and the wounding of 19 in Tucson has led many on the left to spotlight the violent rhetoric of the Tea Party and the politicians and pundits associated with it, Sarah Palin being foremost among them.

The examples are numerous and stunning and there is evidence that right wing violence in general is on the rise. From the perspective of the left, it appears that Republican politicians are winking at nut cases. The memory of the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers and Dr. King has meant that almost everyone on the left I know has, at some point, seriously considered the possibility that President Obama will be assassinated and my conservative relatives have joked on Facebook about him meeting an untimely death.

Yet, I find the reaction to the Tucson shootings somewhat disingenuous and puzzling. No one is arguing or believes that the Tea Party movement is actually planning to mount an armed insurgency. It is certainly the case that of late the right has been more apt to use violent rhetoric. This is at least in part attributable to President Obama’s extraordinary legislative successes. That is, political victories tend to inspire anger and frustration in one’s political opponents, which we often express by talking violently. Let’s be honest: One would be hard pressed to find a committed liberal who at some point in George W. Bush’s presidency did not ponder how the country might be better if he were to die or be killed. In longer perspective, the left has been no less apt to use fiery rhetoric and, indeed, similarly blamed for inspiring assassinations.

President Obama’s speech in Tucson made a plea for elevating the national conversation. To his credit, the President opened up the possibility that we might use this moment to think about our core beliefs. But honesty about our own propensity for violence will be required to do so. The American double standard when it comes to condemning violence is so rich that it can perhaps only be understood in absurdist or comedic terms. The President upheld this double standard, arguing that some events are inexplicable and, quoting Job, that evil simply happens. His biblical reference underscores a core belief held by most Americans: an armed citizenry, a robust military and a punitive criminal justice system are the necessary and just buffers against inevitable evil.

The President also offered beautiful and touching remembrances of those who lost their lives and a moving call for us to live up to the vision of citizenship we teach 9-year olds such as Christina Taylor Green. But one wonders how he would have explained to her that he will return to the White House to approve drone strikes that kill people with equally inspiring and heart-rending stories. What Lauren Berlant calls “infantile citizenship” will not cut it in this case because citizenship means having a realistic understanding of the problems and possibilities of human life so that deliberation can take place. The President’s message in Tucson, asking us to reexamine our beliefs about violence, can be sharply contrasted with his Nobel lecture where he asked us to accept that evil requires us to respond to violence with violence. The President’s belief that being the most heavily armed country in the history of the world fosters peace and stability is much like the vision of citizenship embraced by 9-year girls and boys: sometimes you have to fight the bad guys.

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The just past elections showed that the most important instances of nonviolent activism in the last year here in the United States have been the organizing efforts of the various groups that together call themselves the Tea Party. Through rallies, speeches, voter turnout efforts, and the mobilization of various media outlets, the organizers of the movement changed the majority party in the House of Representatives in dramatic fashion, dealing a serious blow to President Obama’s remaining agenda and likely stifling any hope of passing immigration reform or a green energy bill in the next two years. Like all nonviolent movements, the Tea Partiers exercised power by organizing people, gathering in public spaces, talking and debating about how we ought to live together and then took action that changed the character of the world.

On the left and among most of those who study or advocate for nonviolence, the Tea Party is not understood to be a “real” nonviolent movement. First, the Tea Party is in part a creation of Fox News and the so-called grassroots organizations that have done much of the organizing are in fact Astroturf organizations funded by corporations, wealthy individuals or Republican Party operatives. Second, much of what seems to be motivating Tea Party activists, both from a policy standpoint and as indicated by the character of their rhetoric, seems inconsistent with social justice and, in some cases, promotes violence. Some Tea Party activists are pro-gun, anti-immigrant, anti-gay, anti-union, anti-Muslim and/or racist. Indeed, more broadly, we might say that the likely effects of the Tea Party movement is a further acceleration of a decades long trend toward redistributing wealth away from poor and working class people and toward the wealthy. First up on the agenda in this regard is their desire to extend the Bush tax cuts in their entirety. If we understand economic oppression as a form of violence, then clearly the goals of the Tea Party movement are not so non-violent after all.

However, discounting the Tea Party out of hand amounts to a missed opportunity and short-sighted understanding of how power and nonviolence works. If you listen closely to the rhetoric of Tea Party activists, elements – and I stress elements – of what they say resonates in important ways with core principles of nonviolence. They emphasize self-sufficiency, local control over resources, and skepticism about centralized government. They rail against bailouts for Wall Street, large corporations and corruption. Some Tea Party activists have a libertarian streak that leads them to be skeptical of the United States’s interventionist foreign policy and the our current wars in particular, for both moral and financial reasons. Some have been critical of the Patriot Act and warrantless searches. But as important as whether or not the goals of the Tea Party and progressives line up, nonviolent methods, in and of themselves, have meaning.

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The recent attack on the Mavi Marmara has inspired discussions of the techniques of nonviolence in the mainstream media. Here at Waging Nonviolence, we have already lamented what appears to have been a lack of discipline on the part of the protesters. However, an interesting commentary by Lane Wallace in The Atlantic shows how misunderstandings about the basic principles of nonviolence play a role in skewing coverage of and opinion about the events.

Information is still murky, but what Wallace gets right in her piece is that Gandhi was insistent that one should always defend oneself with nonviolence, not physical force, if one is able. When the Israeli military raided the ship, they hoped to send the message that the blockade of Gaza would remain firm. In the aftermath, Israel has claimed the activists had terrorist connections.

By breaking from strict nonviolent discipline, the activists played into this narrative, giving it a measure of plausibility and shifting the field of interpretation. Wallace says, expressing the sentiments of many:

[T]here is at best a naivete, and at worst a disingenuousness, in provoking a fight and then complaining noisily that a fight broke out. The activists decided to take on the Israeli military. It doesn’t matter whether the military should have resisted their passage to Gaza, in a moral sense; the fact remains that Israelis had been very clear that they were going to take whatever measures were necessary to stop the boats. So the activists knew they were going to meet resistance. […] There are no lack of individuals, groups, or nations who use violence as a means to an end. But if you decide to step in that world, you can’t complain when your opponent uses violence in return.

Wallace is sympathetic to nonviolent activism and her piece is an indication of the extent to which the Free Gaza movement has lost control over the interpretation of the events. Even while inspiring worldwide condemnation of the unjust Gaza blockade, what has most disturbed me is the character of much of the outrage it has inspired. The Turkish president’s assertion that Turkey will “never forgive” the killing of the ten protesters, protests in Ankara featuring hardliners burning Israeli flags and offering chants of “death to Israel.” This in turn has predictably inspired protests by Israeli hardliners equating Turkey and Hamas and claiming, “We came with paint guns and got lynched.” Israel’s bellicose actions and statements are of course responsible for this, but the activists on the Mavi Marmara bear some responsibility as well.

However, Wallace makes a critical, faulty assumption in her analysis of nonviolence and one that is frequent among those who are casual observers of it. She writes that the problem with the flotilla was that it “went into the confrontation looking for conflict, to draw attention to their cause.” Citing Gandhi and King she says that “[q]uiet, uncomplaining courage is harder and less satisfying than provoking an opponent.” Unlike the Gaza protesters, when “Martin Luther King, John Lewis, the Freedom Riders and the rest of the non-violent protesters for civil rights set out, they knew what they were walking into. And if we admire their courage, it’s because they walked into a hailstorm without so much as a word of complaint.”

Both Dr. King and Gandhi were very keen to use nonviolence to inspire confrontation and they did so in conjunction with some of the most profound words of complaint the world has ever known. Even in particular instances of direct action, “complaining” was important (think of C.T. Vivian confronting Sheriff Jim Clark in Selma). They were also persistently held responsible for being agitators who caused violence. The purpose of nonviolence is to put the violence that is the lifeblood of segregation and colonialism on display and excavate the hatred and fear that drives it. The problem with the flotilla was not in provoking and revealing the character of Israel’s death grip on Gaza. The provocation worked perfectly in demonstrating that only deadly force can support Israel’s current policies. The problem is that by failing to stick to the principles of nonviolence the Free Gaza movement failed to take the opportunity that was given to them.

Nonviolent means usually have a more direct relationship to political outcomes than violent means. When militants fire rockets into Israel for the purpose of protesting the Gaza blockade, the substance of what they are doing is completely divorced from the political outcome. When a flotilla of aid tries to break the embargo, there is consistency between the means and the ends. But attacking commandos—even those trying to stop a flotilla—is not. Maintaining consistency in means and ends can be extremely difficult, but it is why Gandhi thought the methods were more truthful.

Wallace both underestimates how difficult it is to maintain nonviolent discipline in the face of highly trained uses of violence and misunderstands the purpose of nonviolent protests. But her impressions of nonviolence are not uncommon and something those of us who use nonviolent means should keep in mind going forward.

As the crisis in Haiti unfolds, news reports first anticipated and then confirmed the anxiety of many on the ground: that a hamstrung or decimated police force would lead to violence and looting. There are numerous reports of looters wielding knifes, machetes and guns and mobs killing suspected looters as the rag tag police force tries to reestablish order.

These might be uncomfortable facts for those of us who believe in nonviolence. Pessimists and so-called realists find a ready-made narrative for such events in Thomas Hobbes’s description of the state of war. For them, what is happening in Haiti is the enduring natural fact that without fear of government people will take the opportunity to exploit and destroy one another. Only the threat of violence by a functioning police force keeps the worst impulses of human beings in check.

And even if you’re not a Hobbesian, there’s room for despair and cynicism. David Brooks took the opportunity to isolate the backwardness of Haitian culture (the first to end slavery in the Western Hemisphere), as the reason their infrastructure was so vulnerable to earthquakes. Pat Robertson decided it was a good time to chastise Haitians for throwing off the French. Even American assistance, given our history of pernicious meddling in the country and our conspicuous prioritizing of American lives above the lives of Haitians might seem self-serving.

Yet the vast majority of people in Haiti responded to the earthquake with the apparently just as natural of an impulse to help one another. People immediately began to risk their own lives to rescue people trapped under rubble. Previously intractable religious differences instantly melted away. In a remarkable spontaneous protest, Haitians in Port-au-Prince piled up bodies as roadblocks in a macabre protest of the delay in aid. Under the headline “Looting Flares Where Authority Breaks Down” the New York Times reported that “given the conditions, it was all the more remarkable that a spirit of cooperation and fortitude prevailed nearly everywhere else, as people joined together to carry corpses, erect shelters and share what food they could find.”

Just as remarkably, a small portion of the United States military – the same institution that so brutally occupied Haiti for two decades in the early part of the last century – has been temporarily repurposed to deliver aid that will undoubtedly save many thousands of lives. Ordinary Americans and people all over the world immediately responded with millions in donations.

In response to the argument that human history is rife with violence, Gandhi remarked that the force of nonviolence is so common that every instance of it cannot be remarked upon. Yet “thousands, depend for their existence on a very active working of this force.” No doubt this force is the dominant one in Haiti at the moment as it sustains the vast majority of those who have survived – and will save many more lives in the coming days.

To donate to Partners In Health, which has been working on the ground in Haiti for over 20 years, click here.

Before it fades too far into the past, I wanted to note a few things about the commentary that President Obama’s Oslo speech elicited because it reveals certain problems that will undoubtedly have bearing on events in the New Year. Obama’s speech was organized around the assertion that he, as a head of state, and we, as human beings, must grapple with two truths: a “hard truth” that governments “will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified” and another truth that “no matter how justified, war promises human tragedy” and “is an expression of human folly.”

This paradox has troubled thoughtful people through the ages, but it is not the paradox of our time. The puzzle of our time is just as weighty but more practical and, in a sense, has begun to dissolve or transform this older paradox. The puzzle of our time is that military might has sometimes spectacularly succeeded and sometimes spectacularly failed in achieving political objectives in the twentieth century and yet most people, certainly most Americans, and every American President, persist in assuming that physical violence is generally more effective than other means in times of emergency. The President spoke of just wars in his speech, inviting a critique on moral grounds. But most commentators sidestepped the issue of the morality of war and focused on the related but fundamentally different claim that violence is necessary because sometimes only force can stop the violence and evil of others.

Conservatives like Gary Schmitt and Tom Donnelly were quick to praise the speech because to their great relief it seemed to finally acknowledge the truth that American military might is the most important factor in the security and stability of the world. The President asserted that we have “helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms” and for conservatives this seemed like a surprising sea-change, which they hoped was a result of him maturing into his role as commander-in-chief. (Though his axing of F-22 fighter jet development and billions for other weapons systems leaves them skeptical that he really adequately values our military power.)

Andrew Sullivan and David Brooks both wrote approvingly of the Christian brand of realism that Obama seemed to offer, which they understood as reflecting the proper balance between embracing the necessity of the use of the force and the idea that we should feel sad and dirty about it when we do. But realist commentators like Stephen Walt pointed out that the President was either disingenuous in his claim that American military power should underwrite international law or, as secular realists would expect, simply exempting the United States from the notion that international law should be enforced. After all, he clearly did not mean that the United States should be held accountable by the rest of the world for breaking international law or violating existing rules of conduct.

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