Countering the authoritarian wave

Intro, Layal: Hello everyone and welcome to the Nonviolence Now Podcast, brought to you by Pace e Bene, where we explore the principles of nonviolence, where it all started, and how it shows up in today’s digital world.

Layal: Hello everyone, and welcome to our fourth podcast episode on countering the authoritarian wave through nonviolent means. I’m your host Layal, and today we have an exceptional guest speaker, Professor Felipe Daza. How are you doing today, Felipe?

Felipe: Well, I’m doing well! I mean, now gaining parties for classes science pol, and I’m very happy to be with you, former student of science pol, one of my favorite ones, and looking forward for this dialogue.

Layal: Right before we jump into our topic, Felipe Daza is a consultant, educator, and researcher in the field of civil resistance, human security, and peacebuilding. For the past 15 years he has provided strategic support to nonviolent movements in the Mashriq region, Maghreb, Eastern Europe, and South Caucasus. During this period, he was the codirector of the International Institute for Nonviolence with a Catalan organization called Novact. He is currently a professor at Science Po Paris and a senior consultant for the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute. Felipe has contributed to the development of human rights monitoring systems in Spain, the occupied territories of Western Sahara, and the South Caucasus region. I know on a personal basis that Felipe has been on the ground in Palestine. He has been also organizing nonviolent movements in Ukraine. It’s a pleasure to have you with us to talk about how do we counter this authoritarian wave.

Before we really dig into the subject, let’s first take a step back and think about what is authoritarianism? Because that’s a powerful word, you know, authoritarianism, you have power, there’s this sentiment of fear that comes with it. And at least when I come to think about authoritarianism, I think of weaponry, I think of army, I think of security, I think of a monarchy or a very oppressive regime oppresses its people.

Before we dig into that, what made you realize that there could be a pathway to counter this wave through nonviolent means?

Felipe: You already mentioned very key words about authoritarianism. So authoritarianism is about fear. It’s about polarizing communities. It’s about marginalizing those that try to lead the communities and also try to attack the most vulnerable communities. So it’s about fear. It’s about injecting fear and authoritarianism tries to divide the people to gain more power in order to accumulate more, let’s say, political power to achieve their interests. So authoritarianism is an expression of the classical model of power, so this monolithic approach, so a centralized power, power from above to the whole society, to have three hands to achieve the military, economical, and social and political goals. That’s why today, for example, it’s very illustrative to see, for example, Milei, the president of Argentina, taking pictures with some of the most important Spanish banks in Madrid. So there is a very interesting relation going on, and I think it’s very important to go deeper and to analyze the relation between the far right and the multinational corporations. So I think there’s a very symbiotic relationship over there.

Saying that, nonviolence is the antithesis to this centralized power, because nonviolence is about people’s power. And people’s power is about organizing the communities, it’s about not a unique leader, it’s about multiple leadership. It’s about horizontal structures. It’s about systems for sharing information and taking decisions between the whole community. It’s about cooperation. It’s about solidarity. It’s about to be brave and to have unity. So it’s the complete opposite, you know. So when we talk about centralized structures in these authoritarian systems, nonviolence is decentralization. It’s about sharing power, we call power-with, sharing power between the communities in order to achieve a political goal. But this political goal is not individual goal or profit goal. It’s the benefit, the public interest for the community, public services, distributing the wealth for the communities, helping the vulnerable communities, creating a sense of belonging to the community. So it’s the complete opposite. Decentralization and people’s power against centralization and power from above.

Layal: I think this encapsulates the vision or the idea of authoritarianism. If we were to give the listeners just a few words, like key terms for today’s discussion, when we think of authoritarianism, what are the main things we need to think of or we need to consider?

Felipe: Well at the end of the day, authoritarianism is basically the idea for political leaders to centralize power, and then to avoid any democratic control. So to reduce the capacity of, for example, civil society, to watchdog, and to increase the accountability of those that have the power. So it’s basically to be able to create a system where there’s a huge, that is critical, solid security system around the political government to repress the civil society and to prevent the democracy above. Because at the end of the day, democracy is the antithesis of authoritarianism.

So I will say that if we need to identify key concepts, I will say power centralization, a strong security apparatus to keep the power. I will say corruption. I think corruption is a key element as well. And I will say the complete oppression of the civil society, civic space, disappearance of civic space. And if we take a look, for example, on the rise of authoritarianism in many countries, so the first step that authoritarians are taking when they take a government, attacking civil and political liberties, attacking freedom of expression, attacking the right to assemble, attacking those fundamental freedoms of a civil society. Why? Because this is a threat for authoritarianism.

Layal: When you mention the far right, as far right being an antithesis to democracy. And an antithesis to democracy needs something to stand against it so that the people have their own power, right? If I’m restating what you mentioned earlier. But is it just the far right, or are we talking about any polar extreme that is trying to breech democracy or democratic values? Because around the world there are monarchies, there are dictatorships that are also countering this democratic value and they do not come from the far right entity, and I can state examples like Iran, as a primary one. What do you think about that? Is the priority when looking at authoritarianism, does it have to be linked to the far right because it’s linked to multinationals, or can we also say that authoritarianism can stem from entities that do not come from the far right, but do have expansionalist ideological views and also they are preaching democratic values?

Felipe: That’s a very good question, indeed. I think authoritarianism is. . . we can have a close link for the far right, but also if we go a bit deeper, we will see there are some conservative values. For example if you compare authoritarianism in Hungary or what is happening today in Georgia in South Caucasus, or even you know the rise of Vox Party in Spain or in Italy, you can see also that behind that there is a narrative, okay? There is a narrative on coming back to traditional conservative values in society. For example the role of the family in society, the religion can be orthodox, can be catholic religion, can be Islam religion. So I think that maybe something in common between far right and other groups is that they need, there is a way back in terms of conservative values.

Layal: So the root cause—

Felipe: The root is conservative. But also going a bit deeper, I think that there is also a narrative element here. And there is an ideological element. So I think that they have also in common is trying to show that there is a threat to the cultural values of the society. Because the cultural values is what the people, for people makes sense. Something that they have been living and some specific cultural values. So when they say that some traditional family values under threat because the LGBT are going to destroy the whole society, which is for example the narrative in Russia. This idea of creating an enemy in the other side, trying to preserve this tradition of values, and then from there provide the solution. Say, “Look, we need to centralize power, we are in a crisis situation, we need to protect ourself, for example protecting our borders, expelling our migrants, reinforcing our armies, reducing civil liberties because we are in a crisis time. We are in a unique moment under attack by all external forces. So that’s why there are I think that this element of the othering, no? And this enemies plus the idea of traditional values, this cultural verse is very important. At the end it’s also an information war, okay. I think that narrative is really really important on that. Even sometimes more important than the military struggle or the military defense. So I think that this is also critical. And you will see that the majority of authoritarian regimes or far right groups or conservative or radical conservative groups, they pay attention to this narrative component and the strategical use of communication always appealing to these traditional values because this is what the people connected with, this cognitive framework that people has and for them makes sense. That’s why I feel it’s important to pay attention to that.

Layal: Thank you so much for this clarification. I think it’s just really interesting and important to let these down. There’s always something deeper to everything that’s happening, there’s deeper meaning, there’s a deeper agenda, and there’s a purpose to all of this spread. We just introduced to our listeners what we will be talking about today. Let’s start with understanding these different crises situations. So let’s talk about collective and integral protection. This notion of politics of care. When we look at this notion, how has it evolved and what is it about?

Felipe: You mentioned crisis, right? In the last years we have witnessed differing crises. The pandemic was global crisis, no? Which was used by authoritarianism to restrict different values . . . also to concentrate more power. We saw also the rise of the tech industry. We saw also the rise of new mass surveillance technologies as well. So crises are used also by those political elites or military elites to take advantage to use it in their favor. We have the war in Ukraine and now today we are living an ongoing genocide in Palestine and also destruction and war in Lebanon and other parts of the world. So I think that we see also how the political and military elites they’re also taking an opportunity to increase the military budgets in this process. And I think that you mentioned also in this framework while they are concentrating more power, in the parallel they are dividing the people. Polarization again is a key strategy of authoritarianism.

So saying that, and coming back to nonviolence, I think that when these political elite—we don’t have to forget that we are the 99%, okay? Sometimes we thought that they have huge power, and it’s true. But we are the majority. The problem is that they know that we are the majority, that’s why they are dividing us. So in this framework, I think it’s important that they are using nonviolence and using new strategies to increase our power. We need to be more resilient. And in order to increase our resilience, we need to use approaches, which is, for example you mentioned integral protection, or compressive protection, which is based on the politics of care, right? So it means that in order to be more resilient, we need to focus on the reproductive activity. So it means for example taking care of the other. So in these movements that we are emotionally, psychologically exhausted, we need also to create networks of support and taking care about the emotional component. Sometimes, you know, activists, we are in the front line, trying to cover, and to be in all the struggles, in all the manifestations, in all the demonstrations. And we feel that we are burning out. So it is very important for us to have our networks, our affinity groups, our networks of support, to recover emotionally, psychologically, to continue this struggle.

So when we talk about this integral protection, it’s also about having a comprehensive approach to security: individual security, physical security, emotional, psychological—and here, you know the connection with people is very important.

Layal: I’d like to comment on that and say that this is a very very important aspect that we really have a tendency to disregard often. With the war happening now between Israel and Lebanon, me being abroad, it’s been, you know, this politics of care in the sense that we’re trying to organize as Lebanese diaspora in Paris fundraiser events, we’re trying to take the streets, we’re trying to connect with other diasporas from around the world, and you know at every second we hear any sort of news, we’re talking to these different groups to make sure that all of our loved ones are okay.

What I found extremely healing about this was once, I was reaching out to one of the activists because now we’re coordinating with activists on the ground that are supporting with humanitarian relief to secure food and basic human necessities for the people that were forcefully displaced from the south, I reached out to one of these activists that’s constantly on the ground and being bombarded with everything. I broke down with that person on the phone and I was telling them, “It’s so frustrating not to be able to be with you on the ground. I’m trying to coordinate, I’m trying to collect funds, but I’m so mentally exhausted because I can’t be with you, I can’t live what it is that you’re living, so I’m just imagining everything that you guys can be going through. And I feel horrible for not being able to be there.” And he told me, “You know, it’s really funny that you people abroad feel all of that guilt and you really want to be here when all of what we’re feeling is that we just want to leave because this is not something we want to be doing. We’re forced to be doing that because we need to help people around us. But our lives have been forcefully paused.”

After exchanging, both of us felt so relieved because we both realized that whether we were on the ground or whether we were anywhere around the world, we’re mentally exhausted because of the same factor. And that in and of itself led us to create a group with activists on the ground and with diasporas that are coordinating. And we’re like, “Okay, this group is going to be dedicated to vent. Let’s just talk about everything. You wanna nag? You wanna say something is not okay? This group is made for that.”

Felipe: And this is what we call building power. Because in the moment you create positive interactions, you create commitments, you try to have a safe space where you can talk with a comrade, supporting each other. So you are creating a space where it’s a space of power, right? . . . Imagine the dots, the small groups that are decentralized in the world supporting Lebanon, the diaspora and the people inside, so these dots are interconnected. And this is power, really. So we need to think sometimes when we talk about nonviolence—I like one image, it’s like a superorganism, you know? So every nonviolence group, every safe space where there are these positive interactions, these people’s power relationships, this is some sort of small cells in a whole organism that are interconnected to each other and they can work together in different directions, supporting basic needs for the Lebanese people or advocating to the French government to stop, for example, to export weapons to Israel.

So I think that strategically speaking, I will say that it’s also interesting to have this decentralization, to have these multiple fronts and at the same time, this is what we call using power strategically, using power for … actions. But without building power, without creating these safe spaces, these strong relationships between the activists, it will be impossible to have enough leverage to transform the system.

Layal: So if we were to sum up politics of care, it involves creating safe spaces. It also involves—

Felipe: It’s key here to understand that human groups, they have an important dedication on production activities like campaigning, like demonstrations, actions, but also they need to take care of reproduction, which is taking care of the energy of the group, creating for example, mechanisms to solve conflicts, creating mechanisms to take care of the other, to have systems of support, to have rotary distribution of roles. So there is a practical element. So it’s about values, you know? But at the same time it’s about concrete mechanisms, concrete protocols, concrete spaces for the people to take care of each other, let’s say.

Layal: And I think that’s really important in a time of crisis. So yes, this reconciliation, although it may sound so bubbly, this idea of, “Yes, we create these safe spaces,” but really, when you know that there’s someone you can talk to, and that person is just another person that’s experiencing the same thing as you are, I think that creates a huge bond that will help the community as a whole to just heal and regenerate this good energy altogether. Let’s talk about how do we campaign in situations of backfiring?

Felipe: The backfire is a key instrument of nonviolence. It was something that was described by authors like Gene Sharp with the politics of jiu jitsu as well. It can be also represented as the—I don’t know if you know the aikido, you know, like the aikido they use the force of the other, right? So it’s about being ready for the heat, for the attack of the other, and then try to use this attack for your own favor and to increase your power.

So for example, if there different movements—so we take a look at Ukraine during the Orange Revolution in 2004, the students demonstrate in Maidan, in Kyiv, and there were just hundreds of students, they were with tents in this public square and they were protesting for the electoral fraud that happened. The government sent anti-riot police, hundreds of anti-riot police, and they started beating the students at the square. And whole clashes, the whole repression was communicated. So this happened at night, and the next day, during the affairs and the news of the day, all of the channels were describing the huge operation and you could see the whole repression to the students. So then this catalyzed, it was a trigger event that catalyzed the movement of thousands of people like organizations, professionals, fathers, mothers, they joined all in Maidan. So it created the opposite effect, that they wanted to basically repress this students movement, but they create the opposite. So by repressing the vulnerable, the movement increased and managed to achieve the political goal, you know, and the Orange Revolution, they call it.

In other cases so we need also to be aware about the limitations. So I have been working in Palestine or in other countries in the Mashriq region and I saw really some situations how the backfire was very effective to increase the power of the community. For that you need to be ready, you need to have a strong communication system to use this in your favor, and to have good storytelling to explain what was the consequences of this attack. It happens also when you put many people in prison, this also creates that effect, you are creating—so hundreds of people are in prison, because the problem then, you start to dramatize, it’s what Martin Luther King was mentioning, no? So sometimes it’s important to dramatize the situation so that you are forcing the people to take a stand, you are forcing people to say with who you are. You are with the oppressor or you are with us that are affected, we are victims of the system. So backfire, it creates, if you strategically organize in the current way, it’s very useful for dramatizing the situation and pushing the people to take a stand, to take a position.

One of the critical elements however sometimes is—again, we see the current situation, we see also the limitations because we see the huge repression by Israel and we see that this is not enough. We have a lot of violence, there was maybe the most regions around the globe for supporting Palestine or today Lebanon, but this is not enough, it’s not enough. However, it’s happening, step by step. There are some steps that are happening. But I don’t know, how they feel sometimes very slow the process, no?

Layal: I’m gonna touch on what you’re giving as an example in terms of digital spaces, and let’s elaborate on that with the example that you were just talking about which is the case of Palestine and Israel. I think these backfires have really started to change the global public perception of what is Israel viewed as and what are the Palestinian people viewed as. And unfortunately in the case of this ongoing genocide that has been going on for more than a year now, we’ve been able to see on social media platforms, there was this narrative of “women and children are dying,” putting this as a headline, and the numbers are huge. And then you start to see all of the human rights violations that Israeli soldiers are committing on Palestinian soil in Gaza right now: breaking into people’s houses, wearing women’s lingerie. We’ve seen these videos, they’re outrageous. You did start to see that with time people started to be more involved and want to know more. We have not seen change yet, but I think this is going to have a very long-lasting impact on how Israel is going to be in the years to come.

Felipe: I think there is one strategy that is very important to highlight is journalism. I mean, all these stories, due to the situation because the whole blockage of the Gaza strip, I mean of course you have many professional journalists, but many people, you know Palestinians where they’re the owners of their stories and they’re the ones conveying their stories, and I think this is very powerful. And this is also one positive aspect of the new media, that this emerges. Citizen journalism is very important. And because it’s a first person you’re telling this story. We have many cases in Gaza or in West Bank or Palestine in general or in Lebanon and it’s really important.

At the same time, I think there are so many threads here. I think that communication today, as I’ve mentioned before, the information war is essential, is critical. So I think that the whole informational narrative is able to deconstruct some images. I think the idea of Israel as a democracy, is already completely deconstructed. And people in many countries are starting to say, “Come on, this is not a democracy, it’s an authoritarian regime. And look, you know, how they are destroying the whole society and the ongoing genocide.”

But the thing that we need to preserve this strategy. So preserving this strategy means also to engage in digital organizing. So digital organizing that was something, like concepts for example that were mentioned by Naomi Klein or Angela Davis during the pandemic. They were mentioned that we need to use better social media, we need to use better the leaderless fears for our political goals, and we need to basically to have a clear understanding of how we can use these tools.

I think here I would like to mention that it’s very important that activists, while they are continuing their work on citizen journalism, they’re also increasing they’re protection, leader security is super important. But we have also new tools about open source intelligence. We are creating new infrastructures, security infrastructures, to organize global movements. So we need to connect directly online and offline as peers to be more effective.

The threats are true, in my opinion. One is the mass surveillance, mass surveillance is growing. So we have the case of the Israeli company NSO group that was used to target activists around the globe and political leaders through different spywares, Pegasus. But there are more and more companies creating this type of surveillance mechanisms. Also we have biometrics camera also and other tools to monitor social media. This is one threat. The second threat is misinformation and fake news. We need to be aware that the social media networks are. . . basically, we have electronic armies that are controlling the narrative sometimes, and controlling sometimes the trending topics, and controlling what is mainstreaming. So electronic armies like composed by thousands of bots, controlled by one political party, one political actor, by different non-state actors, they have their own armies, you know? To digitally harass, online harassment to concrete activists or organizations to later on legitimize violent attacks to these persons, to these people.

These are the threats, so I think digital organizing is something I think we need to invest more time with all the tools we have here we can use. But we have to be aware about what are these threats.

Layal: I think a great example would be, and this is something we discussed in episode 2, Alisha, my co-host, and I, which is the strategy that they used in Hong Kong’s movement, the “be water, my friend” strategy. This would be an optimal case study to look into how it fits into this realm of online and offline campaign. In our previous episode we did mention the fact that they would use these different online platforms to communicate. While communicating, they had subgroups that, whenever the police would arrive somewhere, they would break down and go to the different places, and it would be impossible for the police to keep up with everything that’s happening at the same time. But also it did have it’s limitation on the longer run. But the idea was just so fascinating. I don’t know if you have something more you’d like to add on that matter and to try to link it to what you were talking about earlier.

Felipe: It’s a very good example which shows also the importance of the online and the offline actions, how to coordinate in a secure manner using technologies. And also it’s a reflection in my opinion of what we call the invisible nonviolence or the invisible resistance. So sometimes when the repression is very high, nonviolence movements or civil resistance go under the table or for example, it happens today in the occupied areas by Russia in Ukraine. So the resistance is ongoing but is more invisible. So just appears at night and then basically they make a graffiti somewhere, or basically they withdraw one Russian flag from a public building to show that “We are still there, but because due to a security situation, we need to have these invisible strategies.”

So how to use, and this is a key point, how to be anonymous but maintaining credibility. This is critical. Because at the end, so you need to mobilize people. But if you’re mobilizing and people don’t know who you are—this is a key point. I think one case, very interesting to pay attention, is called Tsunami Democratic. It was one digital movement created in Catalonia. It was created by  an independence movement and they create also one Telegram channel. So they create during weeks the confidence, the credibility about that they were committed activists and then people start to follow this Telegram channel. And they were providing some sort of instructions, proposals, recommendations for actions. So you need to build legitimacy, trust, and some sort of confidence, and maintaining at the same time this type of invisibility as well, and then having these actions at the end.

So you have the digital spheres can provide you with these two dimensions. But at the same time, you know, having concrete directions to have the actions in the offline sphere, let’s say.

Layal: And in that sense they would be trusting the material that they’re providing, the shared values that they’re proposing, the alternatives that they’re suggesting, without necessarily knowing who the person is because it doesn’t really matter at this point who is the person. It’s more about what this person, or what this entity is talking to you about, and over time you manage to build that trust, which is fascinating. But I think it has its challenges, definitely. If we’re looking at it in cases of crisis, for example, to come up with this, it does take time, and if a crisis just suddenly emerges, it’s really difficult to build that, don’t you think?

Felipe: Yeah, because in crisis situations when those connections are created are sometimes destroyed is the fear and the polarization is sometimes higher, and there’s more distrust between the communities. People get more afraid to talk on social media or to make a post or going to actions. So one key strategy in crisis would be to rebuild the systems, to rebuild the connections between people. It’s what, for example, happened today in Belarus. So in Belarus in 2022, there was electoral fraud. There was very well organized, you have Telegram groups of 500 people, and then the regime launched a huge repressive with hundreds of torture cases and people decide to leave the country, a lot of distrust. So these groups where there were maybe 500 people in Telegram groups, they became 50. But now, again, there’s a process of rebuilding again these ecosystems, this major organism of resistance.

So we need to also be aware that the crisis moments are the moments that, okay, we need to go into visible action, and we need to work on a more social level, you know, support, creating again the support networks to be ready for the next moment. To be ready for the next battle.

Layal: We were talking about crisis. Let’s look at times—I’m not going to say where there is no crisis, I’m going to call it an invisible crisis, per se. In the sense that it can be a climate crisis, for instance. It’s happening and something needs to be done. And I think we could look at the concept of multinational corporations as a target, and as we’ve previously started our podcast session by saying the global north—what is the role of the global north? I think it’s good to talk about the similar concept or Tsunami Democratic that you just mentioned earlier. These groups and movements that are there on a day to day basis and they’re creating this movement of awareness so that when they decide to take action or when something happens, they have the people, they have the capacity, and they go for it. How do nonviolence and social transformation movements like these create these new paradigms against these corporate powers, against colonialism, and against capitalism?

Felipe: I mean nonviolence movements, they need to be also strategical. Movements have like what we’re going to call the long term vision. They have their vision of tomorrow, what is this type of new paradigms that they need to emerge. For example, in some territories they thought ecofeminism, right? So like a new paradigm that can confront capitalism, can confront patriarchy, can confront colonialism. It’s like a new system of values. This is the long term. These values are very important. Values are important because they give direction to the movement and these values can be reflected, can be translated into the daily life of the movement by complete mechanisms, like for example how you take a decision. For example, if you really want democracy, real democracy is not only about voting, it’s also about deliberation, it’s about also discussion, it’s about the battle of ideas. You translate this value into decision making processes, that you don’t use voting to take decisions but you use deliberation. There’s a concrete example.

But the second level is to have a specific goals. Specific goals that people are able to understand where you are going, that they can be achievable, and they can be tangible. Because you are talking about, okay, we are going to political eco-feminism or we want to confront climate change, people are going to say, “Wow, these are huge battles, I don’t have time.” You need to land it with very clearly, with complete goals.

I’ll give you one example about one of the last reports we are working on, it’s about public housing. Public housing, for example in Spain, is one of the key problems today. And it also happens in many other countries and big cities, you know young people cannot afford to pay rent, mass tourism is also increasing the price to buy a house. So if you don’t have a house you will not have this ability for example to create a family, etc. So I think that they have a public housing is a critical element. It became a source of speculation. So we are targeting public housing as a very critical focus, but behind that there is other long term goals. What we are trying to convey is that who is behind the problem is not only the governments, but the big financial institutions like Vanguard, Black Rock, or even financial institutions that are investing in the occupied territories, in occupation contexts. So we have Spanish banks buying whole buildings for speculation, and at the same time they are investing in the occupied territories.

Layal: That’s crazy!

Felipe: So we, by focusing on very local issue, we are trying to provide the global picture. That the financial flaws by these financial institutions, they have the same strategy, they have the same predatory strategy, doesn’t matter if it’s Barcelona or doesn’t matter if it is Ramallah or if it’s Jenin. They want basically to get profit at any cost. So the same ones that are getting huge profit from the legal settlements in the West Bank are the ones that are today buying buildings, are investing, in Barcelona or other cities in Spain, preventing, or provoking evictions, etc. So we try to make this parallelism, and for the people it’s a very good entry point. “This is something that is effecting me in my neighborhood, but the source of the conflict, the global picture, is the occupation of Palestine.”

So I think that this is also very strategical, no? Because we are living in globalization and we can see that many of the problems that we are living today are interconnected. For example, when there is a privatization of public services, we consider the multinational corporations behind. When we see also the destabilization, war, and conflict it’s because sometimes multinational corporations want to destabilize in order to have more freedom to plunder natural resources. I think these elements about the local to the global level, I think it’s something that we need to work on and to try to put in our campaigns.

Layal: It’s really important and interesting because you think the problem is just one layered in the sense that, “Okay, I’m here in Spain, I can’t afford my rent, I can’t find a place to stay or I’m being evicted because they want to triple the rent and I can’t afford that.” To know that the people invested in this building are the exact same people are the exact same people that are investing in illegal settlements in the West Bank. This traceability of trying to find the supply chain of who is behind it really changes the perspective of things because you have people saying, “Okay, so we want to make this area more luxurious,” you know, this is a pure right-wing argument, “We want to make this place cleaner and nicer and fancier so we’re gonna make the rents go higher.” Your argument at that point would be, “Okay, but I still deserve to live there.” But there’s no more than that to it, because, one can argue, people have the liberty to price in the way that they want. But then you tell them, “Oh, but did you know that these same people that are asking for this are using that money to build illegal settlements?” Then the narrative changes completely. And I think again here we’re touching on the aspect of narrative. This is the trigger point that really shifts the perspective of people and that motivates them to opt for change.

Felipe: Yeah. And if you come back to the topic of climate change and how to confront that, we can see that in this crisis situation, in this crisis moment, the narrative is that we need the new sources of renewable energy. If you take a look on social media, you take a look at traditional media, you will see that how businesses, multinational corporations, the ones that create the problem are the ones that are saying, “We have new solutions.” They want to keep business as usual. Because if you take a look how they are producing this megaproject in Western Sahara, for example, so occupied territories. Morocco is emerging as one of the most committed states on promoting renewable energy for all the whole Maghreb region. Why? They are occupying. And the majority of the renewable energy projects, solar plants, are in the occupied territories. Or like Israel, again also, they are using this narrative as a diplomatic strategy to say, “Look, we are committed to finding renewable energy,” but the majority of these renewable projects are in the Jordan Valley, for example, the solar plants or farms. It’s also very important to be very critical about where these solutions are coming from. It’s something to pay attention as activists and as civil society.

Layal: So let’s talk about moral responsibilities here and rebounce-back to the crisis situation. But I don’t want to call it crisis because at this point we’re talking about war, if we’re looking at Ukraine, if we’re looking at currently at the moment Lebanon, I’m not gonna give Gaza as an example because there’s a genocide happening there, but maybe the West Bank as well. I think there’s this moral responsibility for all the people that, “Okay, if we are not living in times of war and we live abroad, what is one very simple nonviolent action that one can do?” Boycott! So how about we talk just a bit about that and how can we create this link of civil disobedience and boycott as a confrontation to war and this wave of authoritarianism?

Felipe: I was going to use the word “confrontation.” Because for me, nonviolence should be now confrontation. In fact there are some scholars that talk about “nonviolent conflict” to create a distance between pacifism. I think that pacifism is a value. There was also—the peace movement had important victories, but nonviolence is not only about pacifism and about demonstrations. I think we need to make a step forward.

I think this is the moment to have confrontation, nonviolence confrontation. This means that without using weapons, we have a wide range of actions we can use in order to confront those that have the political power to take the decisions. And then in another level I think that nonviolence can be very useful to provide solutions to very concrete needs of the people. In these kind of crisis situations, protection is essential. We saw during the invasion of Ukraine the important role of the civil society for evacuation, transportation of people from the occupied areas to the safe areas.

Or, for example, now today we are cooperating with nonviolent activists in Palestine, in West Bank, on one initiative called DefendPalestine.org in order to send volunteers to West Bank in order to protect local communities from settlers’ violence. We have rigid measures. We need to force Israel to have a ceasefire in Lebanon, to have a ceasefire in Palestine, and for that we need isolate Israel and to cut the commercial and the trade relationships and also especially to focus on the arms exports. I think without arms exports Israel will not be able to have these massive bombing in the Maghreb region.

It’s essential to create global nonviolent movements in US, in Latin America to confront—but having very direct actions, civil disobedience, boycott actions, huge strikes for weeks in the most important cities, blocking the public infrastructures until the government stops exporting weapons to Israel. So I think that for me would be critical. At the same time, we have other levels of action that I think is important. For example, in Palestine, we are supporting one action called Fazaa which is a protection mission, so activists from around the globe are traveling to West Bank to stop settlers’ violence. So they protect the communities with interposition, physical interposition, by observing, by capturing images, by recording this violence, so they serve a deterrence strategy as well because when you have internationals sometimes there is not this type of violence, sometimes yes, it happened, there were attacks on internationals, even they killed some US nationals. But if we have a huge mission of activists, this will have an effective deterrence strategy to the settlers.

Layal: As much as military groups need to strategize and come up with solutions and different tactics, the same thing exactly applies to nonviolence. The only difference is that it becomes more difficult because you’re not getting rid of people but you’re trying to change this behavior, change the way of thinking of people which is much more complex. I salute you, to everything that you’ve been working on! If you were to wrap up with one idea or something maybe that inspires you to keep going because this is really an exhausting and tiring duty that you have to keep on being persistent, keep moving forward, and I mean you’ve been doing this for 15 years plus, and still you’re full of life, you’re full of it, and you want to keep going. What is it that keeps you moving forward?

Felipe: All the struggles matter. I was working in different contexts with different activists and always I gain something, always I learn something, and always I establish some sort of solidarity relationship. So I really think that as humans, we need to really support each other and also to combat in different forms. For me nonviolence is the channel, but at the end of the day, human life is the main purpose. Nonviolence is also reinforcing communities, reinforcing social emancipation in different contexts, providing increase in people’s power, and practicing democracy, which is at the end of the day most important, practicing democracy, creating unity and solidarity. Some people can be a bit negative about the current situation but at the same time I try to say that the solidarity is growing so we need to be a bit more strategical, trying to focus more in global campaigns, and to have more concrete targets, in order to, as I mentioned before for example, to stop the arm exports to Israel.

Layal: What better way to end such a wonderful conversation but to motivate every one—our listeners and activists around the world—to not give up and to realize that countering the authoritarian wave has various strategies and they are actually effective and they are implementable. All we have to do is to be consistent, look for pressure points, and form a group based on a set of values and just aim for the moon to make sure that we leave this world better than the way we were brought into it. Felipe, thank you so much for your time today, and I wish you all the luck in everything that you do.

Outro, Layal: 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.