The evolution of nonviolent movements over time

Layal: Welcome to today’s episode of Nonviolence Now. I’m Layal, and I’m joined with my co-host Alisha today, where we’ll explore the evolution of nonviolent movements, from Gandhi’s fight for Indian independence to the digital revolutions of the Arab Spring. We’ll see how these movements, despite being separated by time and geography, share common threads that have made them powerful forces for change. I’m gonna start by asking you and our listeners a quick question: What do you think is the earliest record of a nonviolent movement?

Alisha: I’m getting quizzed already, huh? Well, okay, hmm, well the things I immediately jump to are Martin Luther King and Gandhi, kind of the big names, but clearly there’s gonna be stuff before that… I don’t know, maybe something in Rome, some philosopher who wrote how important nonviolence is?

Layal: Well I appreciate the assumption that everything comes from the west and from Europe, but one of the earliest recorded nonviolent movements dates back to ancient Egypt, during the reign of Pharaoh Ramesses III, and that is around 1152 BCE. This movement is referred to as the Deir el-Medina workers’ strike—Deir el-Medina was the name of the area—and this strike was actually the first recorded one in history. The workers who built the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings organized a peaceful protest when their meals were delayed. So instead of them resorting to violence, what they actually did was they simply decided to stop working and instead they marched to a nearby temple, simply demanding to be paid what they were owed. So even back in ancient times, people recognized the power of collective action without resorting to violence.

Alisha: Yeah, so it was a strike, and I think that’s so different from my earlier guess of “oh, this one person just kind of writing about it from their brain.” This is coming from the material conditions of how people lived and them deciding together kind of en masse.

Layal: Exactly, and you know a lot of records that come after this recorded incident, we have different religions, we have also different philosophies such as the Confucianism and Buddhism, for example. These two philosophies emphasize harmony, compassion, and nonviolent responses to conflict, they were just more peaceful in the way they viewed life and in the way they expect people to react. And obviously, Christianity, the one and only Jesus, throughout his teachings, particularly in the Sermon on the Mount, really laid the groundwork for later Christian-based nonviolent movements. And I think this was a huge turning point. Let’s get a bit closer into what we call modern history.

If you want to look at early organized nonviolent resistance, talking about the Middle Ages, around the 18th Century, we have the Peasant Revolts. You know in Europe, throughout medieval times, there were a lot of peasant uprisings where nonviolent resistance was employed. Many of them eventually escalated into violence, but that was only because they were repressed, and we need to keep in mind that these peasant revolts came out of nothing. These people had nothing. They were not even given or granted an education. So what they did instead was, as well as what happened in the Medina Strike, these people came together and decided to simply stop working and to stand together and march for their rights, and whenever they were repressed, they would steal the weapons that the repressors would use on them to fire back in the form of self defense.

Alisha: Wow.

Layal: So, what could possibly ring in your head when you think about anything more towards the Americas? Cause that was a European example I just gave.

Alisha: Yeah, one of them that comes to mind was the early abolition movement opposing slavery, which was such an institution in the US, you know very baked into the economy. For pre-Civil War figures who were big in the abolitionist movement, one of I think the most inspiring is Frederick Douglass. And his story is kind of incredible. He was born into slavery, he was a slave, and then he self-emancipated—he ran away. He taught himself how to read and write, and he self-emancipated and he kind of joined the pre-Civil War struggle to oppose the slavery system in the US. And one of the tools he used to do that was this newspaper that he founded called The North Star. And The North Star is a reference to the fact that when slaves would self-emancipate, when they would run away, they would look to the north star as part of how they found their way out and to the North where they could be legally free.

And so this newspaper, part of its mission was to counter the very backwards narrative that the slave owners would put out where they would basically describe slavery as nonviolent. They would say, “Oh, you know, we treat our slaves so well, they get food and things like that, we don’t work them so hard, and they’re so terrible and inferior that if we just left them to do their lives on their own, they’d just completely get it wrong, so it’s best that they just stay with us. And that’s just like the best life has to offer to them.” And so that narrative was a part of keeping the slavery system in tact by denigrating Black people in the US. And so The North Star along with other abolitionist newspapers, books, fliers, things like that, were really setting a counter-example and really exposing the brutality of slavery. And this was a big part of getting the common people in the US to realize that hey, slavery isn’t just this thing that’s kind of sad but has to happen, it is aberrant, it is something we need to get rid of. And so that was a big part of the abolitionist movement pre-Civil War.

Layal: That’s exceptional. Thank you for breaking it down that way. And now we look at things right in parallel to what was happening in the americas, just across the other side of the ocean, there was the Indian Independence Movement, not when Gandhi took over, but even during the early stages. They were early figures that advocated for Indian rights through nonviolent advocacy within the British legal system, which is kind of crazy because everyone assumes that when Gandhi arrived, that was when the Indian Independence Movement started. But Gandhi was just actually inspired by people that were there before him that were strategizing through nonviolent strategies, not just in India, but they were in Britain and they were trying to lobby for their rights. So there was this political game going on behind the scenes and this is what’s so beautiful about the Enlightenment Period, which is something we can draw links to with what was happening during the American abolitionist movement.

You were talking about the literature—the fiction and the nonfiction and how creative they got. So by the time Gandhi got there, things were starting to roll. So it was not easier, because what he did was exceptional, but he had an idea of how to navigate things and where to start from at least. And he thought—how can I really lead such a transitional change? If I want to really see change in the world, I need to develop core fundamental values. He developed something called satyagraha. What comes behind it is that Gandhi believed that by adhering to the truth and refusing to harm others, even in the face of aggression, one could inspire moral reflection in the oppressor and gain the support of the broader public. And he developed this concept in South Africa. And then from South Africa he took this concept with him to India, and it became a template for nonviolent resistance worldwide. His campaigns, for example such as the infamous Salt March, inspired movements across the globe.

Alisha: Yeah, and to dive a little deeper on The Salt March in particular, because this was really a high point of the Indian independence movement under Gandhi. So it happens in 1930, and Gandhi basically leads thousands of Indians on a 240-mile march to the Arabian Sea to make salt, you know, from the ocean water. And why are they doing this? It’s defying British colonial laws. Basically the British had a monopoly on salt production and sale in India, and then they taxed it really heavily. For anyone who’s interested, there’s an Indian economist named Utsa Patnaik who did some really groundbreaking research and found that, with how heavily the British taxed India, Britain was basically buying raw materials from India with India’s own money. So we can see how something as simple as just making salt from the ocean is a sharp critique of the economic oppression that India faced as a colony. And this is why on that Salt March, the protesters, the marchers, were brutalized by colonial police. Why would they do that if it wasn’t such a sharp critique of what was going on in the political moment?

Layal: 100% So Alisha, we’ve talked about BCE, we got to the 17th century, got to the Enlightenment Period. Now, tell me what emerged in the US during the mid 19th century?

Alisha: Well, we’ve got the Women’s suffrage movement!

Layal: Mid-19th century and culminated in the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920. This was maybe one of the most powerful testaments to the effectiveness of nonviolent protest. I want to hear all about it.

Alisha: Yeah, so we’ve got many women’s suffrage activists from that time. We’ve got Susan B. Anthony, we’ve got Elizabeth Cady Stanton, later we’ve got Alice Paul. And they’re all using a variety of nonviolent tactics to demand the right to vote, the right to suffrage. And that included peaceful protests, marches, civil disobedience. Sometimes women would actually just dress up as men and they would go to vote in the polls, and they would be able to vote, then they would take off their disguises and be like, “Actually, I’m a woman!” Then they would let themselves get arrested. So lots of creative ways to poke fun at how ridiculous the restriction on women’s right to vote was.

And then there’s the 1913 Women’s Suffrage Parade in Washington, D.C., which was one of the first large-scale marches in U.S. history. So women from all over the country went down to Pennsylvania Avenue, marching there, demanding the right to vote. Later we’re going to be talking about the Women’s March, which kind of has some echoes of this.

And then something that I found really interesting was the Silent Sentinels campaign. We have Alice Paul and the National Woman’s Party, where they employed a specific type of nonviolent resistance. For over two years, they had women standing silently outside the White House, holding banners that read, “Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty?” So simple. They’re just silently standing outside the White House with a banner. And yet, they were arrested, they were thrown in jail and mistreated there, for something so simple and persistent. And this just galvanized public support for their cause.

Layal: Even these white women felt oppressed! And these white women had a set of beliefs that we as women—not just as white women, as women—deserved the right to vote. And they shared this collection and set of values, and decided to take action together. So I think these are really important connectors to see, because this is the core and the essence of how things just kept on growing over time. So then, what came after the women’s suffrage movement?

Alisha: Well, then we’ve got the very famous US civil rights movement.

Layal: Let’s: Fast forward to the 1950s and 60s, across the ocean in the US, where the civil rights movement was gaining momentum. That was where the infamous Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. became the face of this movement, drawing heavily on Gandhi’s principles. And this is something that blows my mind. We are learning from a guy that was living in India, and here’s this Black man that is an absolute genius and we’ve all learned about him, this iconic global figure, taking on Gandhi’s tactics and applying them here. Isn’t this just amazing? What King added that was deeply rooted in the Christian doctrine of love and forgiveness. We can say that Gandhi took his inspirations from Hinduism, Martin Luther King Jr. took his inspiration from Christianity.

So in his 1960 article “Pilgrimage to Nonviolence,” he reflects on how his experiences and readings led him to embrace nonviolence as a philosophy and a strategy. And there’s this one sentence that I absolutely love, that he writes, which says, “Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. It is a sword that heals.”

Alisha: A sword that heals. That’s beautiful.

Layal: King’s leadership in the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which began around 1955, that was right after Rosa Parks’ arrest, demonstrated the effectiveness of nonviolent protest. This guy proved that through nonviolence, we can do anything. Seriously. African Americans in Montgomery, Alabama, refused to ride city buses for over a year, which that action led to a Supreme Court ruling that segregation on public buses was unconstitutional. Can you imagine?

Alisha: Yeah. That just years of persistence of people who didn’t have like a car—that’s a huge sacrifice. And you’re not just doing it once, you’re doing it again and again. And to see the government finally stop dragging its heels on this thing, this is a really powerful example of a reform done by the civil rights movement under King. But you know, King wasn’t just trying to change laws. He was really out to  transform society. He wrote a book called Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? and in it he’s discussing the importance of building a society where all people can live together as equals. It’s a holistic approach. He’s also starting to build up the Poor People’s Campaign. He’s getting into labor issues, he’s supporting striking sanitation workers, he’s speaking out against the Vietnam War which gets him a lot of opposition. And then, April 4, 1968, he gets assassinated.

And I find this assassination obviously extremely tragic, but also very instructive because basically the guy they arrested for this crime was James Earl Ray. This one racist guy hates Black people, shot Dr. King, so far so simple. Then, a couple decades later, 1999, the King family brings forward a new case with new information and the jury unanimously finds that there was a conspiracy beyond Ray including local police and federal agencies to kill King. Now, the Department of Justice has a whole page disputing this finding, but they’re essentially the ones being accused. So, I’m researching for this podcast, I’m reading all of this and seeing all of these claims, so I do what anyone would do—I read the court case. And oh my god, it’s so clear that authorities were planning and aiding the assassination. And it wouldn’t be the first time. In 1985, for example, local police bombed a house where Black activists from the group called MOVE, where they lived, and this bombing damaged 61 homes, killed 11 people including 5 children, and this is something that the US government admits to doing. But yeah, I just find it so clarifying because it shows that nonviolence is only effective for some things. Why was King able to use nonviolence so effectively when the state had to resort to assassination and police brutality? It’s because of what they were fighting for. You can’t nonviolently enforce a racist system, because if that’s your goal, then you’re forced to resort to these violent tactics because you can’t rely on people power, you can’t rely on truth. Your violence is all you have, and that’s a sad place to be.

Layal: Absolutely. You know, it’s sad that we have endings like this, but at the end of the day, this guy died knowing that everything he poured his heart into saved humanity. And I think he can rest in peace with that idea in his soul, you know?

Alisha: You can kill a revolutionary, but you can’t kill the revolution.

Layal: 100%. So, now that we’ve looked into history and modern history, how about we take a quick look at Modern Nonviolent Movements. So let’s talk about the 21st Century. What has been happening around us? I would like to start by using the example of The Orange Revolution, which took place in Ukraine between 2004-2005. Long story short, it started with widespread protests over election fraud between pro-Russian candidate and pro-Western candidate.

Tens of thousands of Ukrainians gathered peacefully in Kyiv’s Independence Square, (Kyiv is the capital of Ukraine) demanding fair elections, despite the freezing weather. Their commitment to nonviolence, through civil disobedience, helped unite people from all backgrounds and made the movement more accessible.

This peaceful approach gained strong international support, pressuring the Ukrainian government to avoid violent repression. At some point, the Supreme Court ordered a rerun of the election, leading to a peaceful transfer of power when the pro-Westerner won the elections. I think what’s interesting about this is, if you’re aware of the Russian and Ukrainian context, you have people within Ukraine that are still pro-Russia and want to be part of Russia, and you have the other side that are pro-Ukrainian that hate the guts of something that is called Russia. And there’s always this debate of, is there espionage within Ukraine? How are we gonna ensure that these Russians are not gonna come and try to smuggle their way through so that Russia gets to have more influence over Ukrainian territories if a pro-Russian person gets to be president?

So with what they did, with this peaceful protest taking place at the heart of their capital in the freezing cold, it really did change the tempo and it showed that this nonviolent attitude interested the westerners agenda, and they decided to re-run the elections in a very fair and transparent way, and it came to their benefit at the end of the day—no Russian interference or influence in the making, with fair elections happening in the process, very fair and square. So it took people to stand in the freezing cold, but it was worth it at the end of it. They got what they wanted.

Another example I’d like to highlight on is the Arab Spring. We’re talking about 2010, so that’s not so long ago either. What’s unique about this protest is this was the first revolution to be live-broadcasted on our social media platforms. And when I say social media platforms, it all started on Facebook. Facebook and YouTube. And I tell you, social media since then has become such a crucial tool for organizing nonviolent protests across the world today. But back then, it was the way that really empowered people to just stand up and go protest for your rights, go protest for pro-Democracy. We don’t want to live in a monarchy. We’re not happy with the economic situation. We want our rights! And they got inspired by simply seeing their other neighbors in other countries taking action. Can you imagine? So digital platforms today have proven to show how easier we can amplify, support, and participate in these nonviolent movements.

So back to the Arab Spring. It was basically a series of pro-democracy uprisings that spread across much of the Arab world. These movements were primarily nonviolent. I say primarily because most of these Arab countries are either under a monarchy or are very very very oppressive. And so these nonviolent actions that were happening, like protesting and chanting on the streets, they were faced with a really violent suppression. So at some point, for the protesters to defend themselves, they had to use violent means just for protection. So what they were doing, really their very presence, was to challenge these authoritarian regimes, demand political reform, and fight against corruption. What’s really notable about this spring is not just the scale of its impact but also the innovative use of nonviolent strategies in this digital age. And being a Lebanese myself, coming from the Middle East, I will be dedicating an entire episode just talking about the Arab Spring, so I will keep all of the juice and all of the details for that episode. Lots of drama, lots of fun, and lots of amazing nonviolence strategies to study.

Now let’s zoom out from the ME now and look more towards East Asia. Something really interesting that took place and something much more recent, which was the Hong Kong Protests that started in 2019. This protest basically represents one of the most complex movements of the 21st century. So Alisha, what do you know about this? Give us some background knowledge, give us an overview.

Alisha: Yeah, so basically Hong Kong used to be a British colony, and there was this plan to essentially transfer it back to China’s control in 1997. And so 1997 rolls around, it gets transferred back, we’re all good, right? Well, not really because now there’s this fight over how much the legal system of Hong Kong needs to match China’s when it previously sort of matched more the UK system. So China is then really pressuring to get Hong Kong to be fully integrated into the Chinese government. And as they start to put on the pressure, they’ve got things like an extradition bill, where individuals from Hong Kong would have to be taken to mainland China for trial; or, you can have elections in Hong Kong but China is going to choose your options for the candidates. So, people are kind of against this eventually this, they’re like we see our freedoms getting more and more restricted. Eventually this boils over and you get the protests starting, with police repression almost immediately.

Layal: The Hong Kong protests are particularly noteworthy for their innovative nonviolent tactics and strategies. These methods were often adapted to respond to the highly sophisticated surveillance and policing tactics used by the authorities.

And I’m going to touch on one of their thoughtful strategies, which is called The “Be Water” Strategy. And ironically enough, this strategy inspired from a famous quote of the one and only Bruce Lee. Protesters adopted such a fluid and flexible approach to their demonstrations. This meant avoiding prolonged confrontations with police by dispersing quickly and regrouping in different locations. So there’s tension here? Okay, we don’t face the tension and just fight. We’re gonna run away and go to different spots, and we’re gonna be like collected in groups, but we’re gonna be like smaller groups in different spots. But we’re in different spots so now police are forced to separate, and then we’re still continuing our thing, you know? It’s like you be just like water, float away, disperse, but regroup at some point. So the strategy made it difficult for the authorities to pin down the movement and suppress it in one blow, which is so fascinating.

Alisha: It’s very interesting, this “Be Water” approach with the flash mobs and the pop-up protests, because it’s actually quite similar to guerrilla warfare. Which, obviously, it’s warfare, it’s violent. But a lot of the same tactics are involved where if an army of some sort or resistance group is sort of like technologically or less able than the group that it’s fighting, they will have to adopt these similar tactics. And so it’s interesting to see that there’s even a similarity where, even in a nonviolent context, these same kind of tactics are applicable.

Layal: Absolutely. And what makes all of this so feasible is how smart they were in terms of organization, and they heavily, heavily relied on social media platforms. But they also used encrypted wording within their messages. They used key terms for different things so it was really difficult for the police to even crack down the code and figure things out. And that was really what helped mobilizing such large numbers of people as quickly.

These protesters used these platforms to share live updates, organize logistics, and even conduct polls to decide on the next steps, so it was a very democratic process, I would say. And this decentralized nature was really what made it super super difficult for the authorities to target the specific leader and cripple the movement.

So what kind of Global Outreach, what kind of symbols were used during this protest? Because you know there are so many symbols throughout this protest because they wanted to get the global attention that quickly. One of these symbols was the use of black clothing, face masks, and umbrellas (which became iconic, which they took this idea from the 2014 Umbrella Movement). These were all visual statements of resistance and unity. So, you know, black and face mask is just anonymous. It doesn’t matter who I am, it matters that I’m there, you know? We are here, we exist.

There was this really loud slogan that they used: “Five Demands, Not One Less.” This slogan actually became their rallying cry because it encapsulated the core goals of the movement. These demands included the complete withdrawal of the extradition bill, an inquiry into police brutality, the release of arrested protesters, the retraction of the classification of the protests as riots, and the implementation of universal suffrage.

Alisha: Yeah, that actually reminds me of something that happened in the US where when you put a number on the amount of demands, it’s a really good way to kind of signify, hey, we are not backing down. We will notice if you try to compromise this movement. And what it reminded me of is during the Black Lives Matter protest in the US and the calls to defund the police, there was a slogan called “Eight Can’t Wait,” and it was about these eight kind of similar demands on the legal and policing system. And it was a way to say, hey, if you sort of try to be sneaky and don’t put one of these in, we’re gonna notice.

Layal: You know, these slogans, they really give and they draw global attention. “Eight Can’t Wait”—who wouldn’t want to know, what are these eight and why can’t they wait? So in the case of the “Five Demands, Not One Less,” it did draw global attention to their cause. And what helped was that, because of social media, they managed to organize rallies in major cities worldwide, appealing to the international community for their support. So the waving of foreign flags, including the US’s and the UK’s, was a plea for international solidarity and intervention. This is like the people telling, “Okay, we need your help. Do you see your flag? This should be appealing to you. Look at this and ask why is your flag here and how you can contribute, because we are asking you to interfere right now.

Alisha: Yeah, and I think like these little symbols, these shows of unity, they’re really just a part of the larger creative forms of resistance that are going on throughout the Hong Kong Protests. And just for a couple other sort of fun creative examples, protesters would use laser pointers to confuse and disrupt police surveillance equipment. They would put up kind of en masse a bunch of Post-it Notes just on a wall, they called them “Lennon Walls,” filled with messages of support, of defiance. And one day you walk past a wall that was blank. The next day you walk past it and it’s filled with all these messages from people who are part of the resistance and it just kind of goes to hearten you and show you, hey, there are people on your side even if you don’t see them and talk to them every day.

And then art, music, even memes played a significant role in the movement. They made protest songs, creative posters, to just kind of spread the message and sustain that morale. And these cultural expressions of resistance, they helped keep the movement alive and they engaged a wider audience. You know, maybe somebody who wouldn’t have joined up with this or really seen the impetus for it, once they hear one of these protest songs, once they see their wall kind of come alive with these messages from a bunch of people, maybe they’re like, hey, actually I could be a part of this.

Layal: You know, as beautiful as this protest was and how loud it was, there is no doubt that the protest really did face a lot of challenges. And most noteworthy one was the increasingly severe response from the authorities. It got tough, it got tough. But by then, Hong Kong protests actually received a widespread of international support, with solidarity movements emerging in various countries. So that was one really interesting current case study. Let’s look at some—I think it would be nice to wrap-up kind of our episode with some current trends.

These movements are characterized by their ability to bring together diverse communities in solidarity, leveraging both traditional and digital methods to advocate for justice and equality. Let’s explore, Alisha. What would you like to start with?

Alisha: Yeah, so maybe I can start with one that is very near and dear to my own heart, the LGBTQ+ rights movement. I’m queer myself, out and proud, shaved head. I look amazing! But yea, over the past couple decades, there’s been a really big upsurge in a very visible form of protest which is the Pride March. And something that I think is really beautiful about these is it started in New York City with the Stonewall Riots, where there was a very vibrant gay community, trans community in New York City at the time, but it faced severe repression. There were even laws where the police would go and strip search people in bars that were sort of rumored to be the gay bars, where it was a three articles of clothing rule, where if you didn’t have at least three articles of clothing that were belonging to your assigned gender, they would arrest you. So that was like the kind of repression that was going on. They had police posted in the bathrooms of bars to make sure that people weren’t like making out in there with like the wrong kind of person. So it was just this complete invasion of privacy from the state in these kind of like areas. \

So at some point it just boiled over, and you got the Stonewall Riots where the people in the bar actually just fought back against the police who were like strip searching them and doing all of these things and trying to arrest them. And so from there, that was when the Pride March as a concept started. And it’s now not just in this like one locale of New York City, but it’s all over the world. And sometimes I like tear up when I think about it. There are these photos in places where there are still laws criminalizing homosexuality, there’s just these photos of it’s like a few people, you know, one truck with like a little pride flag hanging from it and a couple of people in kind of fun, flamboyant clothing just like walking along a little road where like they could be arrested, they could be shot. And they’re still walking and doing this little pride march with whatever they have at hand, and it’s so different from the pride marches that you would see if you were to go to New York City or San Francisco today. But in a sense I think it actually encapsulates the message of Pride better: even if you have a gun to my head, even if you’re gonna strip search me and like follow me into the bathroom and stuff, I’m still gonna be out here, I’m still gonna be proud, I’m still gonna show the world what and who I am, and you’re not going to stop me. And I think that is really just the spirit of Pride in its most raw and tangible form.

Layal: Look at you, you got me teared up as well. I’m gonna touch on a very different thematic, which is the Disability Rights Movement. I’m just gonna give a quick wrap-up of what has evolved for disability rights and this whole journey of advocating for accessibility and inclusion. There was a disability rights movement that took place in the US which utilized nonviolent strategies to advocate for accessibility, legal protections, and societal inclusion, which is really fundamental and super important. You know, in Lebanon—just a side note—in Lebanon, at least 30% of our population faces physical disabilities. I’m not talking about the mental, I’m talking about the physical disabilities as an aftermath of the 15 Year War civil war that happened in the country.

Alisha: Wow.

Layal: I have almost never seen a disabled person anywhere around me. You just don’t see them.

Alisha: Yeah.

Layal: The question is: Why do you not see them? Is it because they do not exist? Clearly no. There’s 30% of them obviously. But there’s nowhere for them to be seen, nowhere for them to go. It’s so inaccessible, so they’d rather just stay at home.

Alisha: There’s almost a shame or a stigma around it.

Layal: Yes. And that’s just so disappointing. So what they did in the US, there was something called the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) that happened in 1990 and was a significant victory, which was only sustained through these nonviolent activisms of this disability rights movement.

One of their most notable nonviolent actions was the 504 Sit-in of 1977, where activists occupied federal buildings to demand enforcement of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, which prohibited discrimination against people with disabilities. Until this day, this action remains one of the longest nonviolent occupations of a federal building in U.S. history. Can you imagine?

Alisha: I don’t have to imagine, because I’ve seen some of the photos! It’s really incredible. And you know it seems so simple, like oh, a sit in. We’ll go into this building and we’ll occupy it. The thing is, the buildings themselves were not accessible, which is part of what they were protesting. So people who can’t really easily go upstairs were like getting each other up the stairs in order to occupy the building so that they could say that it was bad that they can’t enter this building. Also, it was hard to get them out of there. And so you have these very brutal, garish photos of police basically trying to drag people who can’t use their legs out of the building and down the stairs. And they’re physically disabled, and so it’s very jarring to see this like strong, able-bodied policeman dragging somebody who is like physically very helpless but in this situation quite collectively powerful out of the building. And again, the kind of visual and the contrast of the police violence against the very simple and clear demands of the protesters, and you just look at that photo, and you’re like, at the policeman, what are you doing? And that makes you in turn question the law and really lend your support to the people who are putting this on.

Layal: That’s absolutely incredible. Thank you, Alisha, for expanding on that thought. Looking into a different genre of trend, let’s talk about some Global Marches of Solidarity. And the first thing that can pop up to my mind right now is Palestinian Liberation and international solidarity it got. I mean, this movement has such a long history of nonviolent resistance, from peaceful protests against land seizures to international campaigns like the infamous Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement, which is also known as the BDS Movement. These actions basically apply economic and political pressure on the Israeli government to end the occupation and respect Palestinian rights.

Another example for the case of Palestine is the Great March of Return. Since 2018, the Palestinians in Gaza have organized weekly protests known as the Great March of Return. These protests demand the right to return to homes from which Palestinians were displaced in 1948 and call for an end to the blockade of Gaza. Despite the fact that they faced such violent repressions, the movement has remained largely nonviolent and has really drawn global attention to the Palestinian cause, which really led independent international journalists to just travel, visit Palestine, live within Palestinian households, and witness, in their eyes, the idea of aggression onto their houses.

Alisha: Yeah, to be there and to see it in person. . . there’s a version of journalism that’s almost like detached and wants to be just overseeing the situation from afar, but that’s such a different way of covering the story in a much richer and even possibly more objective stance on it.

Layal: Absolutely. And today’s Global Solidarity Marches, which around the world, we’ve seen that they’ve taken place in support of Palestinian rights. These events, which include large demonstrations in cities like London, Paris, New York, Australia, Canada—literally, you saw Palestinian protests happening around the entire world, even in Washington DC. This really emphasized the global nature of the struggle for justice and the power of nonviolent resistance.

Alisha: And I can speak for myself a little bit here. I used to live in Tucson, AZ, where there is a large Raytheon weapons plant, and they make some of the weapons that the US is sending to crush Palestine, that they are sending to Israel. And so there were many protests in support of the Palestinians, kind of focusing around that Raytheon weapons plant and it just really hits home the battlefield is all over the world. The battlefield is in the US, where you know the sun is shining and the buildings are intact. That is also the battlefield. And to kind of show the extent of the violence, where it starts, is a really good way to sort of highlight the global nature of this issue and therefore the global responsibility of all people of the world to oppose this.

To kind of keep going with our diving into different issues, different intersectional identity-based issues, we’re going to return to something that we were kind of covering earlier, but in almost a much different form, which is the 2017 Women’s March in the US. This was right after Trump was elected, who had bragged about, you know, grabbing women by the pussy, or saying that it’s just locker room talk, and really kind of appealing to male chauvinism and things like this. So in response to his being elected, the Women’s March galvanized millions of people across the world and in the US to march on Washington. Much like that 1900s march that also descended upon Washington and on Pennsylvania Avenue, it is now one of the largest coordinated protests in history.

And I was at the women’s march! I was there as just a little kid in, what was it, my first year of high school. And just seeing kind of the swarm of people, the like millions and just the numbers descending there . . . We were on the metro getting there, and we were just packed like sardines, you could barely squeeze yourself into the train to get into the middle of DC. And everyone was just in the car, just singing in the train car. And I was dressed up as Rosie the Riveter. So it was pretty crazy. And I saw some very incredible signs. I remember one, it was silhouetted against the sky itself, but somebody was holding up a sign that said, “Women hold up half the sky,” which I thought was just very beautiful. I want to say it’s an Audre Lorde quote, but I can’t remember. But I have that image sort of burned into my head.

And to kind of compare it to the previous women’s suffrage movement that we were discussing, I think something that’s really important about this is that it is much more intersectional than the movement for women’s suffrage at that time. Layal was even speaking about how part of the messaging in the earlier women’s movement was, “Hey, we’re just normal women. We’re white, we’re the housewives,” all this. And the Women’s March had a much more intersectional approach. It highlighted the importance LGBTQ+ individuals, it highlighted people of color, other marginalized groups. And it’s really kind of bringing all of these together, and it’s not saying, “Oh, our strength is conditional on us being the most ‘normal’ or privileged women possible, but really on the more of us who are here together, the stronger this movement is going to be.” So yeah, I think the involvement of BIPOC, Black, Indigenous, People of Color, in that movement, they really elevated the women’s movement to what it is today. The really BIPOC-ed it, if you will. And it’s really just strengthened the movement, and I think there’s this change from the past to see intersectionality as not something that would dilute the movement, but as something that would strengthen it and give it more staying power, and I think that’s very powerful.

Layal: That’s amazing. And if you were going to give us a fifth and final global trend, in terms of nonviolence movements, what would it be?

Alisha: Well this one is also quite important to me because this is actually what radicalized me in some ways, which is the Climate Justice Movement. And I’ll be focusing here on Fridays for Future and the global climate strikes. So almost everybody knows the young activist Greta Thunberg, who basically had a sort of crisis, like, “Wait, I’m in school, everybody’s just talking about my future but actually the system is destroying future and the future of all young people in the world by continuing to emit fossil fuel emissions and to destroy our environment and things like that. And they want to tell us about our future and that we need to be responsible?! What gives?” And so she started this movement of every Friday, basically striking from school. And this was kind of—at first, it was just her. Then it was her and a couple of her friends. And now it’s millions and millions of people all over the world in 150 countries. And I think for something like the climate crisis, that is actually a really important tactic, because climate change, sometimes it can be a little invisible. It’s not something you can see. You can’t see the carbon dioxide coming out. But when you see thousands of people striking from school, then it makes this issue very visible, and that really put pressure on even governments, not just individuals to actually take some action on the climate crisis.

Layal: It’s absolutely interesting to listen to the story of Fridays for Future. I mean I’ve known Fridays for Future existed, I’ve known about Greta Thunberg, but the story behind it is really fascinating. And thank you so much, Alisha, for sharing this example.

To wrap this episode up, for our incredible listeners, that we have thrown out so many case studies at, the concept of nonviolent resistance has grown from localized, spontaneous acts just like the Deir el-Medina strike to highly organized, sophisticated global movements. Over time, the strategies and tools of nonviolent movements have evolved, particularly with the advent of digital technology, making it so much easier to mobilize large numbers of people and sustain long-term campaigns.

Nonviolent resistance has proven to be such a powerful method for social and political change, adaptable to various contexts and capable of addressing a wide range of issues.

Alisha: What a cool deep dive into the history of this movement. And I think with ending on the youth taking up this call, who knows what we’ll build in the future? And who knows—maybe you listeners, you’ll be part of continuing this history and keeping it going. And who knows, if we were to do this podcast 100, 200 years in the future, what beautiful and courageous examples we would even have to talk about then. Well that’s up for you to decide.

Outro, Alisha: Thank you for joining us on the Nonviolence Now Podcast. We hope today’s episode left you feeling inspired. If it did, don’t keep it to yourself—share it with your friends and community. Together, let’s spread the word about the power of nonviolent action.

A force more powerful: https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/force-powerful-english/

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6. Zwahra, Mahmoud. Chapter 1: “Everyday Resistance: The Hope and Challenge of the Occupation”.