STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE

Previously (on January 15) I had written in this column that the numerous “stations of influence” in the US, including individual city judges, would have a role in combating, at least for short periods, the anti-democratic measures that a Trump White House, bolstered by a rampaging Elon Musk, was expected to launch.

While this has indeed happened to some extent, and a few of Trump’s executive orders have been at least temporarily blocked by individual judges, a major question that remains to be asked is this: shouldn’t nonviolent direct action be one part of the armory of resistance that foes of supremacy and lovers of democracy must assemble, whether the country in question is the US, India, or another? In other words, should thought be given to possible applications of the satyagrahas or civil disobedience actions of the kind that Gandhi organized in India from the 1920s to the 1940s against Britain’s rule, and King organized against racism in the US in the 1950s and 1960s? 

A most interesting discussion of strategies of resistance can be found in a conversation with Erica Chenoweth, a political science professor at Harvard: 

Says Professor Chenoweth in this discussion: “there are countless tactics and strategies available, though there is no cookie-cutter recipe to apply in any one case. But I think one main lesson that emerges is that, in order to have the capacity to develop winning strategies and tactics, a broad-based coalition is really vital. Focusing on building that capacity, those connections, and that coalition around shared values, from the neighborhood to the national level, would be very useful.”

WHEN RESISTANCE SUCCEEDED

“Folks can gain knowledge, hope, and inspiration from lots of prior democracy and/or anti-colonial movements. A good place to start is the documentary series A Force More Powerful, with short and informative segments on the Salt March in India, the Nashville desegregation campaign in the late 1950s, the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, Danish resistance against Nazi occupation, the Solidarity movement in Poland, and the anti-Pinochet movement in Chile.”

A few days ago (on February 8), possibilities of nonviolent direct action received a boost when Biren Singh, chief minister of the conflict-hit state of Manipur in northeastern India, long protected by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, finally announced his resignation. For 21 continuous months, Manipur’s suffering population as well as Modi’s opponents in the federal parliament in New Delhi had been demanding Biren Singh’s ouster. Manipur’s complex problems will not be resolved by one powerful person’s departure from office, but that exit bolsters the struggle to preserve democracy in India. 

Let us recognize that the nonviolent piece of satyagraha is not less important than its “direct action” component. When supremacists possess an overwhelming advantage in gun-power and bomb-power, which seems to be the case in most confrontations between supremacy and democracy, it’s a no-brainer that defenders of human rights should eschew violence. Moreover, the moral high ground is a potent asset that champions of democracy foolishly surrender when they resort to or justify killings and destruction. 

When I say this, I think of, among other places, Bangladesh, where the other day a crowd of angry young protesters vandalized, bull-dozed, and set fire to the house of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (1920-75), hero of the great and sacrificial struggle that had created Bangladesh in 1971-72. Six months ago, a massively popular and mostly nonviolent struggle toppled the government of Rahman’s daughter, Sheikh Hasina. Her prolonged second tenure, from 2009 to 2024, as Bangladesh’s premier had been tarnished by serious abuses of democracy. 

Last year, when Muhammad Yunus, the widely admired Nobel laureate, accepted the leadership of Bangladesh’s post-Hasina government, many within and outside his country (a crucial Muslim-majority nation in Asia with a population of about 180 million) hoped for a phase there of genuine democratic progress. If Yunus has issued any public statement deploring the thoughtless destruction of Rahman’s house in the Dhanmondi precinct of the country’s capital Dhaka (a house which, like numberless others from outside Bangladesh, I too have visited), I have not seen it. 

WASTE OF ENERGY 

Anger and ridicule have their place in lowering the standing of democracy’s foes, but ceaseless or reckless fury is not the energy that will defeat or discredit populist supremacists who have recently risen to power in more than a few countries. In his life, and as the head of Bangladesh’s government, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman surely made mistakes; and Sheikh Hasina is undoubtedly his daughter. These reasons cannot justify attacks on his historic house. In Bangladesh and elsewhere, if winning international respect and support is the aim of democracy’s champions, disciplined, strategic, and nonviolent applications of energy by a united group are likely to be more effective than a wild display of anger. 

I want to return to Trump and Musk and to emphasize “the broad-based coalition” of autocracy’s foes to which Professor Chenoweth points. Let me add that such a coalition has to be multi-national. Musk, a naturalized American, suffers from no hesitation while asking Germans to support the AfD Party, often described as a “far right” force where, apparently, it is sometimes argued (among other leaps) that judgments on Hitler should be reconsidered. As for Trump, many will recall that in 2016 he had openly asked the British to quit the European Union. He and Musk seem to think that it is their right to interfere in the politics, economies, and boundaries of other countries. 

I do not say that outsiders should imitate Musk and Trump in reverse and intervene directly in US politics. However, the world has a huge stake in the continuance in the US of democracy and its institutions. The amputation of any limb of democracy in the US, any significant curbing of newspapers, judges, election officers, civil servants, professors or teachers in the US, will be a body blow to people who take daily risks in order to achieve or restore liberty, equality and fraternity in their countries. 

AMERICA’S REAL FUNCTION 

Cartoons about Trump and Musk in different parts of the world are insufficient. People of prestige in Europe and elsewhere must come together and ask America to remember its purpose in the world. It is worse than disappointing to find prime ministers and presidents of nations with proud histories sealing their lips when measures against democracy are introduced in the US. And yet not quite shocking, for the leader of a nation must protect his or her people from reprisals that criticizing Trump is likely to invite.

However, that isn’t true for the rest of us. We are freer to express, for example, the fact that it is bizarre, and not just shamefully inhuman, when (along with other weird utterances) Trump threatens Gaza’s repeatedly bombed, crippled, and reduced population with fresh experiences of hellfire.

Our world’s intellectual, artistic and scientific leaders must find their voice against the assaults on democracy in America. Since for historical and cultural reasons, Europe has a special relationship with the US (and the same may be said for countries like Australia, Canada, Japan and New Zealand), it can be argued that serious thinkers in these lands have a duty to communicate their concerns to the people and leaders of the US. Which probably means that the Aussies, the Brits, the Canadians, the Dutch, the French, the Germans, the Italians, the Japanese, the Poles, the Scandinavians, the Spaniards, the Swiss, and others not mentioned in this short alphabetical list, have to forget for a while their complaints against one another and join in asking America to recall her real function.