Nonviolence Training

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(Print version)

Preparation of High-Risk Actions in Groups: Some Challenges

(About Nonviolent Action and Group Process, with the example of the European ploughshares movement)

Stellan Vinthagen

(Active in the ploughshares movement in Europe 1986-2000)

stellan.vinthagen@resistancestudies.org

Second draft, version 2007-12-11

A challenge for any movement which wants to do effective nonviolent actions is how to prepare these actions. Mohandas K. Gandhi and Martin Luther King emphasized mass-meetings and “self-purification”, i.e. individual preparation through meditation, fasting or prayer. They believed in “nonviolence of the strong”. Since the 1970s – with the criticism of such spiritual and individualistic nonviolence together with the creative development of new organisational forms, especially within the US feminist movement – NVDA preparation has become more group-oriented. Even in big movements most work is done in (smaller) groups.

If we work in the tradition of Gandhian thought means and ends are connected and facilitate each other. Then it makes sense to build a democratic, respectful, non-oppressive and just community culture within your movement if you want to be effective in creating such a society. Thus preparation is two-folded: building community and enabling effective results. Any group will differ in how exactly it wants to go about combining such process and goal orientations, since they demand very different activities. To make our own unique combination with energy, fantasy and endurance we need something more: creativity, both individually and collectively.

So, a good group needs to facilitate creativity, community and effectiveness, in a good combination (and that combination depends on the group and the context, the task ahead, etc.) that makes nonviolence flourishing in our selves and our society.

This is a difficult task which demands good understanding of both groups and the world you work in. In order to give an example of how it can be done and what problems might arise the experience of the Ploughshares movement in Europe might be helpful.

The Ploughshares movement does nonviolent disarmament actions at military factories or bases (see http://www.plowsharesactions.org/ ). Since 1980 there has been some 70 actions in which equipment of e.g. nuclear weapons, fighter air-planes or machine-guns have been disarmed/destroyed, with the hammer blows and bolt-cutters of ordinary citizens. The actions have been done in the US, Western Europe and Australia. Activists have sometimes received up to 20 years in prison but mostly one or two years. In the US ploughshares are predominantly Christian but in Europe typically secular.

The ploughshares preparation process is best described as a group oriented resistance retreat model which builds on group reflection. The retreat means that you take a step back from action and daily life, reflect on it and get ready for new actions and a changed daily life. The process is on a political level about facilitating the reflection on our social role in the world we live in and our duties and possibilities of social change. Ploughshares normally meet for weekend retreats for a couple of months, then a week or two at the site before the action, followed by support work of jailed or imprisoned activists (which sometimes takes several years).

Building a resistance movement in the Western context among predominantly white middle-class means struggling with the dominance of a consumer society in which (most) people live alienated from the world realities of poverty, war and oppression, i.e. where power is internalised and resistance abstract.

On a practical level it is possible to understand it as group work on participants obstacles, to develop solutions that make their action possible. The retreats are designed to systematically process all hindrance that exists. There is no chance of getting rid of the serious obstacles (like fear of violence and humiliation; years of prison time, etc.), they don’t have “solutions”, but they can be minimized, handled or accepted. In that sense the process is about “disarming the self”, i.e. to manage or live with fears, and temptations of affluence and privileges (without becoming paralyzed or passive).

Dilemmas that groups will have to deal with and which arise from the aim to do a high-risk NVDA and the group process: How to balance action/movement commitment with other commitments in life? A major problem is deciding on the relative importance of your family/partner vs. the movement/action.

Who decides? Are activists those deciding the action alone as they are the ones risking their skin or are supporters having an equal say since they are the ones that have to do support work the whole prison time?

How long preparation in the group? The action can be done too early (not enough prepared to do a good job) or too late (energy and focus is lost).

When is the group dissolved? After the action, the jail-time or when all consequences (also psychological damages) are dealt with some years after?

The balance between practical action planning and community building retreat.

The balance between the need to rotate leadership roles versus the need that the work is done with high quality and competence.

The degree of openness and what will be kept secret is something each group needs to make a judgement on (since total openness or total secrecy is impossible).

The balance between formal decisions and structure versus a flexible attitude and supportive atmosphere in the group.

How to combine individual needs and personality vs. group needs and task? Do we really need to like each other and become friends?!

The experience of ploughshares has made visible several difficult problems which might arise in any group preparing for nonviolent resistance actions that involves risk-taking. All these problems have already occurred in some groups in Europe, as serious conflicts threatening the existence of a group or as minor tendencies which has been managed.

How do we avoid becoming trapped in these group problems?

1.The sect and the chosen ones (the revolutionary avant-garde).

2.The community of intimacy and hidden conflicts (which don’t dare to be honest and face conflicts).

3.The community as self-serving goal, i.e. hindrance of the action (“Why do actions when the group process is the great thing, which is what we should bring to others?”).

4.The problem of using the group as therapy or a new family (Instead of giving energy to the group, the energy is drained for private purpose…).

5.The Hero Syndrome (the Brave Activists and their adoring fan clubs).

6.The Macho Activists who can do it themselves (without the group) (but who want a group to do the not-so sexy support service…).

7.The One Big Action (which is not sustained by boring long-term movement work). Becomes the “The Big Witness” by the truth-speakers, or “the Saintly Act” of self-purification (which, when it is done once, gives a ticket to the Moral Club…).

8.Desperation and belief of “quick effects”, i.e. pressing the group to do things too quick (wanting to do “something drastic” due to pessimism and anxiety).

9.The endless process as hindrance (After several months of group process: who has the energy to do an action?).

10.Actions as self-realisation (Developing yourself, becoming a different human through interesting experiences…).

11.An alternative and fast development of your job-carrier? (Doing an action and becoming a media-star, author, lecturer, conflict-trainer, radical intellectual, etc.).

12.Totalizing of commitment, i.e. pressing people to make an “all or nothing choice” (e.g. between family and resistance).

13.The dictatorship of the (stubborn) individuals (through veto and consensus decision-making).

14.Group pressure and the difficulty (for new or insecure persons) to say no.

15.A preparation for an action or romance? (Using the group to find intimate relationships).

16.Envy or power struggle between participants, i.e. the support group as hindrance (undermining acts by those who didn’t feel ready to risk prison time against those who did…).

17.Ritual murder of leaders (Liberating yourself from internal dependency on authorities or moral leadership figures by attacking them symbolically).

The basic idea behind the group preparation process in ploughshares is that the support and community of the group can facilitate the ability and commitment to disarm. At the same time it is evident, at least from the European and especially the Swedish experience, that the community or the difficulties to build a community with several and different persons constitute the main problem. It is in a sense the paradox of ploughshares preparation that the main source of activism is the supportive small community of activists, while the main obstacle is the conflicts of the same close relationships (including family, partner, children, etc.). Of course state punishments (prison, fines, etc.) and other social punishments (like job problems, media campaigns, etc.) are difficult, especially when activists get long time in prison…, but these problems are mediated through the group.

My conclusion is that a resistance culture creates its own problematic tendencies which need its own reflexive counter-culture in order not to destroy the attempt of resistance. The creation of a resistance culture with its way of life, values, and new behavioural patterns makes a new little society (a “prefigurative society”) with its own problems, conflicts, hierarchies, power and even oppression. In order not to get stuck in an oppositional role, in a reaction to the “old” surrounding society, a self-reflective and critical evaluation of its own power problems is needed. Thus, a kind of “internal resistance” against the movement culture is necessary: i.e. internal resistance against (some aspects of) the external resistance. If the principle of preparation is support and community, the principle of the internal resistance is open dialogue, plurality and critical self-reflection.

A longer version of this article is available here

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Direct Action Roles for Affinity Groups

(A very abbreviated list…)

BEFORE ACTION Coordinator, Campaigner or Organizer Fundraisers Research Scouting the site or route Outreach and organizing Logistics and support Meeting facilitator Prop, sign and banner making, Painters, Graphic artists, etc. Media outreach: Send out media advisory and media release Media kits Writers DURING ACTION People risking arrest (committing civil disobedience) Direct Support People Police Liaison Peacekeepers/monitors: Deployment Team/ Diversion Media spokesperson Media outreach Communication team Demonstrators/Sign-holders/Chanters/Singers/ Hand out literature etc. Videographer Still photographer Medic/EMT/Medical Team Legal Observer(s) Jail Support Contact person AFTER ACTION Legal Support Lawyer Documentarian/Historian/Archivist Fundraisers Public speakers Letter writers to decision-makers and newspaper editorial boards

taken from: Rant collective

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Gender and Nonviolent Action

Wars will cease when men refuse to fight – and women refuse to approve. Jesse Wallace Hugan, founder of War Resisters League

 

Introduction

 

It may seem simple and obvious that we want both men and women involved in our struggles against war and injustice. However, if we want to fully utilise people's talents, energy, and insights, we need to apply gender awareness to how we organise ourselves, how we design our campaigns, and how we conduct our trainings for action.

Why? Because gender, our societies' definitions of male and female roles, of masculinity and femininity, influences all of us. And the social traditions that have constructed masculinity as dominant, aggressive, and controlling and femininity as weak, submissive, and serving have deeply affected each of us. Gender awareness helps us to make sure that in our nonviolent actions and campaigns, we don't perpetuate the same injustices we are trying to stop.

In antimilitarist campaigns, gender awareness and gender-based analysis are also valuable tools for creating an effective strategy. Gender is an element in every conflict. It may not be the cause of a conflict, but different ideas of masculinity and femininity are at the heart of why and how people fight. Military systems are built to function on certain ideas and assumptions about male and female roles. If we want to create nonviolent structures and systems for resolving conflict, we will need to create new assumptions and expectations about gender.

In this section, we include concepts and exercises to help you to incorporate gender awareness in your trainings and to examine your campaigns and nonviolent actions through a gender lens.

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Nonviolence training during the U.S. Civil Rights Movements

By Joanne Sheehan

In 1942, radical pacifists formed the Nonviolent Action Committee of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, which trained teams to provide leadership in antiracist and antimilitarist work. Out of that grew the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), which in 1945 became the first organization to develop nonviolence trainings in preparation for involvement in the civil rights movement.

For 10 years beginning in 1947, CORE ran month-long training workshops in Washington, DC. Participants learned theories and skills in nonviolence and organizing, with the goal of breaking segregation in the capital area.

Early in the civil rights movement, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference based its preparation for nonviolent action campaigns such as the 1956 Montgomery Bus Boycott on African- American religious traditions. At mass meetings held in local churches, Martin Luther King, Jr. and others lectured on nonviolence. Community spirit and the nonviolent discipline were strengthened through singing and prayer. As civil disobedience became a crucial part of the civil rights movement, training included role-plays and the signing of a pledge to remain nonviolent.

It took extensive trainings to prepare civil rights workers for the violence they would encounter in the South. Students in Nashville trained regularly for months before sitting-in at a lunch counter in 1960. Participants in the Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964 began with a two-week training. The Poor People’s Campaign of 1968 held training programs for marchers, marshals and support people.

Excerpted from Decades of Nonviolence Training: Practicing Nonviolence by Joanne Sheehan from the Nonviolent Activist, July-August 1998.

http://www.warresisters.org/nva0798-4.htm

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Look at the history of your country and you will find episodes of nonviolent action - demonstrations, strikes, boycotts or other forms of popular non-cooperation. They might not be referred to as "nonviolent action", and might not even be mentioned in school books, but they are there, a potential source of inspiration and evidence that nonviolent action in your context is not the invention of foreign agitators. The causes will vary - for the rights of workers and peasants, freedom for slaves, the right to vote for women or people without property, for racial equality, for gender equality, for freedom from occupation, against corruption, against price rises, against military corruption - in short encompassing a range of forms of injustice and domination. However, it was not until the twentieth century - and in particular the campaigns of Gandhi in South Africa and India - that movements discussed nonviolent action as a conscious strategy for social transformation.

Gandhi was convinced that nonviolence had a particular power - both in its effect on the people who took an action, and on those at whom the action was directed. He saw that social solidarity can overcome efforts to dominate, exploit or otherwise oppress a population. It is not just enough to oppose an adversary, blaming them for everything, but also people have to look at their own responsibilities and their own behaviour - freedom and justice are not just to be demanded but to be practised, and to be the basis on which a movement constructs itself. Gandhi wrote streams of articles developing his ideas about nonviolence. He was not the first to observe that those who rule depend on the cooperation of those they rule, but he made this central to his strategies of civil resistance: "the first principle of nonviolence", he once wrote, "is non-cooperation with everything humiliating". Gandhi was not the most systematic thinker about nonviolence - he preferred to talk about his experience as "experiments with Truth" - but he insisted on certain fundamentals. One was the need for campaigns to maintain a nonviolent discipline. Another was the central importance of constructive activity addressing problems among the population - work that people could organise themselves in their daily life. In the case of Gandhi and the context of colonised India, this constructive programme expanded to include reducing inter-religious hostility, tackling discrimination on gender or caste lines, countering illiteracy and ignorance on sanitation, and promoting self-sufficient production of food and clothes.

Most participants in the campaigns initiated by Gandhi shared only some of his principles - they were prepared to use nonviolence to free India from British colonialism, but few had Gandhi's utter commitment to nonviolence as a way of life, and indeed most conventional political leaders gave only symbolic importance to the constructive programme. This pattern has frequently been repeated, nonviolent action being effective when used by broad movements, where most participants accept nonviolence in practical terms as the appropriate strategy for their situation but only a minority express a philosophical commitment. The example of the Indian independence struggle had a huge influence on subsequent movements against colonialism, especially in Africa - and people in a wide range of contexts began to study what makes nonviolence effective and how it can be used even more successfully. Sixty years after Gandhi's death, nonviolent activists are still "experimenting with truth" and a field of study has grown up about what makes nonviolence effective.

What works where

The style of nonviolence varies a lot according to context. Since the term "people power" was coined when the Marcos regime in the Philippines was brought down in 1986, and especially since the downfall of Milošević in Serbia in 2000, some observers have talked of an "action template" - meaning popular nonviolent action overthrowing a corrupt and authoritarian regime attempting to win elections by fraud. Of course, there are similarities between the downfall of Milošević and "people power" episodes elsewhere. Indeed, some of the Serbs who used nonviolence so creatively against Milošević have now become involved in training these other movements. However, in each situation, the movements have to make their own analysis of what is appropriate and what will work.

Many people are sceptical about the power of nonviolence against entrenched and brutal regimes. In such situations any resistance is likely to be difficult. Nonviolence does not offer a "quick fix" in these situations - and neither does armed struggle. Some idealistic movements have turned to armed struggle only to find themselves increasingly separated from the population, depending on extortion and kidnapping to maintain themselves, and in short degenerating into armed bands. Nonviolence aims to work differently. By expanding the social spaces that a movement can occupy, and by giving voice to what the regime requires should not be said, it can set processes of fundamental change in motion. Nonviolent action in the face of torture, "disappearances" and death squads in various parts of Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s aimed to rebuild a social solidarity that could overcome fear (see article Chile: Gandhi's Insights Gave People Courage to Defy Chile's Dictatorship).

In the former Soviet bloc, many were cautious about resistance, not wishing to provoke repression or Soviet military intervention. In 1970, four strikers in Gdansk, Poland, were shot dead, so when Solidarnosc was formed in 1980, the Gdansk strikers avoided street confrontations but locked themselves inside their shipyard instead. They aspired to a different society, but now limited their demands to an essential first step - the recognition of free trade unions. A limited objective behind which all Polish workers could unite. Polish intellectuals described this as "the self-limiting revolution". Despite such caution, Solidarnosc's mobilising power scared the regime into imposing martial law and imprisoned many activists. But within a few years the time came to go beyond these self-imposed limits, to make other demands and to risk more provocative forms of nonviolent action, not just in Poland but throughout the Soviet bloc.

Most readers of this handbook live in societies where there is more "freedom of speech" than under Soviet Communism or Latin American military dictatorships, but where activists tend to complain of social "apathy" while the public is bombarded with images trying to get us to buy more. Violence in our societies is most likely to be hidden away or accepted as "the status quo", the way things are - the many forms of state violence right up to its weapons of mass destruction, the violence of social deprivation and environmental devastation, the violence manipulated by remote puppetmasters pulling strings across the globe.

In these situations, social movements have a wide choice of actions, and boundaries that are continually changing - actions that broke new ground yesterday have become merely routine today, even the disruptive has become contained.

The role of pacifists

We in the WRI embrace nonviolence as a matter of principle. We recognise that this commitment makes us a minority, and requires us to work with people who do not necessarily share our pacifist principles. We want to look beyond rhetoric or short-term shock tactics to develop forms of active nonviolence that challenge systems of oppression and seek to construct alternatives. This means defining goals that make sense to a spectrum of people broader than just pacifists or anti-militarists, and also using methods and forms of organisation that are attractive to people who not necessarily have a pacifist philosophy.

Because pacifists refuse to resort to organised violence, we need to invest our creative energy in trying to develop nonviolent alternatives. Historically, pacifists have played a vital innovatory role in social movements, developing nonviolent methods of action, both at the level of tactics and in forms of organising. For instance, the first US "freedom rides" against racial segregation in the 1940s - racially mixed groups of riders boarded long-distance buses to defy the rules on segregation - were a pacifist initiative. So too was the British nonviolent direct action against weapons in the 1950s. The creative use of nonviolence of these groups opened spaces for a much more widespread use of nonviolence by the mass movements that followed.

Nonviolence training was developed in the USA by the freedom ride organisers. Initially the role of nonviolence training was to prepare people for the kind of violence that they might meet in nonviolent actions against segregation. However,in the past 30 years nonviolence training has played an essential role in promoting more participatory forms of movement organisation.

Gandhi and Martin Luther King became such towering figures within their own movements that some people have the impression that successful nonviolence depends on "charismatic" leadership. For us in WRI, however, nonviolent action should be seen as a source of social empowerment - strengthening the capacities of all participants without depending on superhuman leaders. Therefore we have advocated more participatory forms of decision-making, promoted the adoption of forms of organisation based on people grouping into groups (see p ), and expanded nonviolence training to include tools for participatory strategy assessment and development.

Organising

Sometimes, it seems that nonviolence just happens - that thousands of people converge to do something - but usually this takes organisation, and especially if the action is not simply a reaction to some event publicised in the mass media but a step in a campaign, an effort to set an agenda for social change. The image from outside might be of one more of less unified set of people. However, closer in, you see the movement consists of various networks each reaching out through particular constituencies, of distinct organisations each with its own themes and emphases, of several inter-connected campaigns taking up aspects of an issue. The contribution of nonviolent attitudes, methods of organisation and forms of action is to strengthen the ability of these diverse elements to act in concert and to win over new supporters.

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This handbook is written for groups. Perhaps a group that has come together for a specific cause or with a specific theme, perhaps a group based on friendship or affinity in what you feel about the world, perhaps even a group formed for one occasion. Even an individual stand usually depends on having some group support. The campaigns section of the handbook tends to be groups who plan to stay together in the long term, while the section on preparing for action might also be just for those who happen to join up for a specific event.

Strong groups of people who stay together, who work well together and strengthen each other, give a movement strength. Groups come together in many different ways, and those that are most effective and enjoyable tend to have something distinctive about them, some mark of their own creativity, some characteristic that makes them flourish. This arises from the special combinations that happen within a group, and to the particular balance the group arrives at between the various desires and talents of its members.

This article, then, offers some of the perspectives that you might be thinking about as a member of the group - some of which the group will discuss and make a conscious decision, some of which will evolve.

Strengthening a group

The first point is actually how much importance do people attach to the way the group itself functions and its attitudes. This itself can be a never-ending source of conflict! There are balances to be struck - between those impatient with discussion, they urgently want to be out "there" and "doing", and those who want to more clarity, be it about goals, about being prepared to argue a case in public, about who the group should be trying to reach and the forms of action it should consider, or about how the group organises itself and functions. Somehow a new group has to do its best to find its own way, some happy medium between people pulling in different ways, and to find an overall direction for the group. If there's a lot of energy and initiative in the group, it might work to have sub-groups taking up particular themes. If the group involves people with conflicting political philosophies or attitudes, somehow that needs acknowledging and made into a source of strength rather than a block on creativity.

Whether your group is large and open or small and limited by affinity, you want new people to feel welcome and you want everyone to feel able to contribute. This raises issues of cultural diversity, of oppressive behaviour, of class, race and gender dynamics, and also of power within the group. How to deal with these can itself be a source of tension, although not dealing with them can be even worse. So you'll need to find ways to tackle these questions in a supportive atmosphere. The section on gender offers some examples.

In general, it is useful for a group that plans to stay together to organise some special sessions in addition to the usual meetings, or to set aside a slot in the regular meetings for something a bit different. At times, this might have a practical focus - skill-sharing, campaign development or even a more detailed look at a particular campaign topic. At times, this might be more group directed - activities that build rapport (banner-making, singing), or activities that look at ways to improve group functioning.

Exploring differences

A nonviolent action group also at some point will benefit from considering some of the issues attached to the term nonviolence - including forms of nonviolence and their repercussion, values, attitudes and goals. Any issue touching on group members' deeply held convictions has to be handled with respect for differences within the group - less aiming to establish a group position than to share perceptions and perspectives. Simply understanding each other better will deepen what you're trying to do together.

Take the question of nonviolence itself: a commitment to nonviolence can be a unifying factor for a group, but is not necessarily so: there are often divisions, especially between those prepared to use nonviolence for specific purposes and those who hold it as far-reaching philosophy. There are some issues which, in the campaigns section, we suggest might be dealt with by a collective declaration of principles, but even in a group that says it is committed to nonviolent action, there will be different preconceptions about other aspects of nonviolence - positive and negative. A good discussion around the issues might be stimulating, even inspiring, but a not-so-good one can exacerbate tensions and frustration. A relatively safe way of exploring differences is a 'barometer' of values, also known as a 'spectrum' exercise. Someone works out a set of questions to explore different attitudes and factors, and people stand on two axes: one, it is or isn't nonviolent, and the other, I would or wouldn't do it myself. This can later develop into 'I would / would not want to be part of a group doing this'.

A question like 'what is your group trying to achieve?' can have one simple answer, but behind that each person has additional goals There are many different lines of thought or feeling that can lead people to be involved in a group, and something as simple as a paired introductions exercise can make a good start in giving people space to explain what brought them in.

This handbook in general does not talk much about the perspective in which you engage in action - beyond a fairly loose idea of social transformation. Such perspectives will vary a lot from group to group, and in different contexts. The point is not to establish uniformity, but to understand and even appreciate people's different ways of looking at things. In particular, if your group is considering something risky, you need to take the time to prepare properly - understanding the distinct attitudes each of you has in coming to the action and your preferences for how to respond to the risk.

How you understand the context in which you act affects your choice of methods. Commentators sometimes distinguish between 'conventional' and 'unconventional' forms of action, however context can change all that. In a closed society, simply 'saying the unsayable/ breaking the silence' in a closed society by quite conventional means can have an enormous impact, perhaps explosive, perhaps catalytic. However, in other contexts, 'non-conventional'action - such as civil disobedience or strikes - might have become contained or normalised. Either because non-participants ignore it as 'oh it's just them doing their thing again', or because the participants themselves have just got stuck in a routinised form of action. Some social movement theorists 1 have suggested that 'transgressive' and 'contained' contention is a more useful distinction than 'conventional'/'non-conventional' action because it acknowledges the different impact different forms of action can have in different contexts. Some of the differences within your group - for instance, in attitudes to illegal activity - might well stem from different analyses of the context for your action.

What do you want?

You as an activist need to think about what you want from a group - do you want a group attracting a wide range of people or do you want a group with people who share a lot of attitudes and convictions and that will make a strong statement of those? Is there any way of combining the two? - for instance, working as an affinity group promoting nonviolence in the context of a broader campaign.

Until your group starts to take action, you don't know how much impact you could have. Groups usually don't sense the possibilities they can open until they actually go public. There were just 14 women who took part in the first demonstration of Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, and some other powerful movements began even smaller. Some simple small actions that have had far greater consequences than anyone could imagine. However, you also have to recognise that there are plenty of actions with much smaller consequences. A nonviolent action group needs to be aware of its full repertoire of action, have a strong sense of purpose, and be capable of analysing the context it is working in. This handbook therefore includes material about preparing for action, about building up a campaign and about evaluating what you've done.

Doug McAdam, Sidney Tarrow and Charles Tilly, Dynamics of Contention, Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp7-9↩

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Nonviolence training can help participants form a common understanding of the use of nonviolence in campaigns and actions. It is a participatory educational experience, where we can learn new skills and unlearn destructive and oppressive behaviours taught in society. Nonviolence training can strengthen a group, developing a community bond while people learn to work better together. Nonviolence training can help us understand and develop the power of nonviolence. It gives an opportunity to share concerns, fears and feelings, and discuss the role of oppression in our society and our groups. Individually, training helps build self-confidence and clarify our personal interactions as well as those of the group. The goal of nonviolence training is the empowerment of the participant and to be able to engage more effectively in collective action. The process includes the use of various exercises and training methods, some of which are included in this handbook.

Nonviolence training can prepare people for participation in nonviolent direct action, teach people strategy development techniques and the skills needed to engage in the strategy, work on group process and issues of oppression.

Nonviolence trainings are often used to prepare people for specific actions, to learn about the scenario, develop a plan and practice it, understand the legal issues, etc. It is an opportunity for a group to build solidarity with each other and develop affinity groups. Through role playing, people can learn what they might be able to expect from police, officials, other people in the action and themselves. It can help people decide if they are prepared to participate in the action.

Nonviolence trainings can range from several hours to several months. That depends on several factors,including the campaign's needs and timeline, goals for the training, experience and availability of the participants and trainers. See Tasks and Tools for Organising and Facilitating Trainings for more on planning nonviolence trainings.

BOX or Side panel:

“My first training experience was for the 15th of May action in Israel in 2003. I was a Chilean conscientious objector who had been involved in campaigning against militarism for a number of years. The training was truly empowering to me, and I went back home with the urge to share what I had learned and that if we wanted to be successful in our actions, training ourselves was going to be essential. The next actions we did, were not just with all the group standing in front of the military building but with a higher level of risk because of the higher level of confidence we had, because we were prepare and trained for it.” Javier Gárate (full story on the web)

Role of Trainers

A nonviolence trainer is someone who can facilitate a group through a learning process. A trainer needs to be knowledgeable regarding the topics of the training, but should not be a know-it-all. A trainer's goal is to guide the participants to develop their own ideas, not to tell people what to think and do.

We realize that not all groups and communities who want nonviolence training have local trainers. But when people understand what skills are needed to conduct a training, they may realize they have already developed some of those skills, which they have used in different contexts. Create a training team of co-facilitators, who together can bring their skills and experience. The training team should reflect the participants if possible, consisting of women and men, people of various ages, and ethnic background.

Trainers need: Good group process skills, with an awareness of group dynamics. It is the role of the trainer to make sure everyone is participating and feeling they can share their insights and experiences. An understanding of nonviolent actions and campaigns. If no one has experience, the trainer needs to make sure that case studies and exercises are used to help the group learn. To learn how and when to use the right exercises, being sensitive to the needs and styles of groups. Areas covered in nonviolence training can include: History and philosophy of nonviolence and practice of nonviolent action. Overcoming oppression, ethnic/racial and gender dynamics. Campaign strategy development Consensus decision making and quick decision making What is an affinity group and the roles within the group Skills trainings such as legal and media work.

Contact the WRI Nonviolence Programme to connect with other trainers, and to find out about training for trainers opportunities. There is also a WRI Nonviolence Training Working Group which can be contacted, for requesting trainers for training and also for accessing resources in nonviolence.

A.J. Muste Memorial Institute International Nonviolence Training Fund

This funds makes grants of up to $3,000 for trainings which help people learn how to collectively use the theory and practice of nonviolent action to effectively carry out struggles for social justice. Projects must be located outside the United States, or within Native nations in the US. For grant guidelines and more information, see their website http://www.ajmuste.org or contact the Muste Institute at 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 info@ajmuste.org.

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This handbook has been produced by War Resisters' International (WRI) drawing on the experience of groups in many countries and different generations of activists. At the heart of every nonviolent campaign is the resourcefulness and commitment of the activists, the quality that they or their message has to reach people - to raise questions about how things are, to stir people out of their resignation about what is happening or might happen, to find allies, and to demand a say in decisions that affect their / our lives. That is why one of the notions central to nonviolent action is "empowerment" - a sense of how you can make things happen, especially if you join with others. At various points in this handbook we describe some of the advantages of nonviolent action and give examples of how it works. If there are some terms in the handbook unfamiliar to you, there is also a glossary explaining them.

So why are you interested in a handbook on nonviolent campaigns? Probably because you want to make something happen, or perhaps you might put that negatively - you want to stop something happening. Perhaps you sense that nonviolence can offer an alternative to actions that generate hostility and ultimately prove sterile - at least from the part of view of making social change. Perhaps you just want to try something a bit different, or get some tips to improve the way your group is already organising actions and campaigns.

There are many dramatic images of nonviolent action. Indeed, the ability to dramatise an issue is one of the strengths of nonviolent action. Nonviolent action tries to make people see and act on what often passes unnoticed. However, this drama doesn't just happen. It gestates - in groups or cells of activists, in discussions, in training sessions, in reflecting on previous experience, in planning, in experimenting, in making contacts. That is why this handbook is grounded in what groups have done, and how they have done it. The idea is not to present a definitive model, but to suggest methods that have worked in various contexts and can be adapted by creative nonviolent activists in their own situation.

What do we mean by nonviolent action?

Perhaps our basic definition is action based on the desire to end violence - be that physical violence or what's been called "structural violence" of deprivation, social exclusion and oppression - without committing further violence. There are other more eloquent definitions, more philosophical definitions, some that meant a lot in a certain time and place, and some personal rather poetic definitions.

Nonviolence can imply much more than this basic definition, including the desire to change power relations and social structures, an attitude of respect for all humanity or for all life, and for some even a philosophy of life or theory of social action. These are areas that we encourage readers to explore. Discovering the differences in emphasis and generally sharing insights into nonviolence can be a rich experience in the context of a group preparing to take nonviolent action together.

People have different reasons for adopting nonviolent action. Some advocate nonviolent action because they see it is an effective technique for bringing about desired social changes, others because they seek to practise nonviolence as a way of life. There is a spectrum here, with many somewhere in between. Such differences may come to the surface during a campaign, but usually people holding attitudes throughout the spectrum can be accommodated in a statement of principles or guidelines specific to the particular campaign.

Certain differences in understanding of nonviolent action, however, can be a source of friction in a campaign and need bringing into the open. For instance, some argue that the methods of nonviolent action should be deployed in order to wage a conflict and win, whereas others argue that a key nonviolent attitude is to seek a solution that will include those who today are adversaries. What is essential over a difference such as this is not that campaigners debate basic attitudes, but that they reach agreements on the points that affect the campaign. This particular example - of the difference between one side 'winning' or seeking an inclusive solution - would have implications for the demands drawn up by the campaign and its negotiating strategy.

The question of damage to property can be divisive. Some nonviolent activists seek to avoid damage to property while others believe that damaging property is a cost worth inflicting on an opponent. Elsewhere in the handbook, we discuss the value of campaign or action guidelines, and attitudes on a subject like property damage might well be debated in drawing up such guidelines. Such discussion should not be delayed until an action is underway. For some people, nonviolent action means avoiding hostile behaviour towards adversaries, perhaps even 'seeking that of good in everyone', while other nonviolent activists might seek to 'shame' an adversary, or to brand them as 'war criminals' or 'torturers', 'racists' or 'corrupt'. The issue of shouting names or terms of abuse might well be covered in the guidelines for an action, but the underlying differences and the possible combinations of attitudes can be discussed in much greater depth by the kind of 'affinity groups' discussed in the section on preparing for nonviolent action. Such groups aim to be a 'safe space' for disclosing doubts, but also for mutual learning. Affinity groups can take a phrase commonly associated with nonviolent action - such as 'speaking truth to power' - and say what that means for each of them and what issues it raises, sharing insights and deepening each other's understanding of what they are trying to do together.

A common attitude of nonviolent activists is that we want our activities to be an expression of the future we are trying to create: this might be embodied in what Gandhi called constructive programme, but also in the idea of we / the movement 'being peace', that our behaviour reflects the world we want. When we use phrases such as 'speaking truth to power', 'affirming life', 'respecting diversity', we are invoking fundamental values that themselves are a source of strength for us and a point of contact with those we want to reach.

How does nonviolent action work?

Nonviolence strengthens a campaign in three ways:

1. Among participants in a campaign. In fostering trust and solidarity among participants, the idea is to put them in touch with their sources of their own power to act in the situation. Many people don't realise how creative they can be until they have support of others in trying something new.

2. In relation towards a campaign's adversary. Nonviolence aims either to inhibit the violence of an adversary or to ensure that violent repression will 'backfire' politically against them. Beyond that, it seeks to undermine the 'pillars of power' of an oppressive institution. Rather than treat employees of our opponents as inanimate tools, nonviolence tries to create possibilities for them to rethink their allegiances.

3. In relation to others not yet involved. Nonviolence changes the quality of communication with bystanders or 'outsiders' - people not yet concerned about the issue or not yet active about it, people who can be potential allies.

The pioneer of nonviolent scholarship was Gene Sharp, who has suggested that there are four mechanisms of change in someone opposing a nonviolent struggle: a) conversion - occasionally the campaign will persuade them to its point of view; b) coercion - sometimes the campaign can coerce an adversary to back down without convincing them about the rights and wrongs; c) accommodation - often an adversary will look for some way to 'accommodate' a campaign, to make a concession without granting what everything the campaign demands and without relinquishing power; d) disintegration - this mechanism Sharp added after 1989 when Soviet-aligned regimes had lost so much legitimacy and had so little capacity to renew themselves that, in the face of a 'people power' challenge, they disintegrated.

The scholarship on nonviolence tends to look more at the ultimate success of a movement, in particular the leverage it succeeded in exerting on those in power. This handbook, however, is more concerned to look at processes involved in building up campaigns, in making issues alive and tangible, in designing campaign strategies, in preparing and evaluating action. What we write is firmly grounded in the practice of social movements, and in particular our own experiences with the peace, anti-militarist, anti-nuclear and social justice movements of various countries.

Why nonviolence training?

We don't say that you need nonviolence training before you go out on the street and hold up a placard or give out a leaflet. Not in most countries anyway. However, the whole process we refer to as nonviolence training - analysing issues, envisaging alternatives, drawing up demands, developing campaign strategy, planning actions, preparing actions, evaluating actions or campaigns - can increase the impact your group makes on others, helps you to function better in action and cope better with the risks and problems it poses, and expands your action horizons. The basic point of nonviolence training is that it helps to have a safe space to test out and develop new ideas or analyse and evaluate experiences.

In the next section on introduction to nonviolence training, we give more detail on the range of activities this can include and how to train.

How to use the Handbook

This printed handbook is a selection of a wider range of material available from War Resisters' International or on the internet. It is a combination of texts introducing certain themes, experiences, and exercises. These exercises are for groups and aim either to deepen their understanding of an issue and of each other or to help the group be more effective in carrying out nonviolent actions and campaigns. In general, the exercises need somebody to 'facilitate' them, that is to introduce them, explaining what to do and why, and then to keep the process moving, and encouraging timid people to speak up and extroverts to listen, especially in the 'debriefing' at the end. 'Debriefing' means people commenting on what they were thinking or feeling during the exercise, and can be particularly important. (For more on the role of facilitators, see roles in training).

We hope that readers will make copies of parts of this handbook they find useful and translate them or copy them for handing out to their groups - if you do this, feel free to adapt what is written to suit your needs. The section doing your own handbook offers advice - and therefore encouragement! - for you to tailor what you find here or on the WRI web-site to your own situation.

If there is something you find particularly interesting, go to the WRI web site and see how to find out more about this. You will find longer versions of some of the articles, additional articles and exercises, and plenty more resources. In WRI we try to share rather than provide resources, meaning that others would love to read what you have learnt in your experiences with nonviolent campaigns or training. So please contribute them to the WRI web site. And if you do translate part of the handbook, please send that in so we can add it to the website.

Malmö 17-21 September 2008

As part of the European Social Forum in Malmö, several antimilitarist and peace groups are organising the European Peace Action Forum.

The forum will focus on 4 themes: NATO and the militarisation of the EU, nuclear weapons, militarisation of space, and the international military industrial complex.

Bilbao, Basque Country, 26th - 29th of October 2008

WRI's Nonviolence Programme aims to strengthen and deepen our understanding of nonviolence, both from a strategic and campaigning point of view, and to develop and provide tools and support to groups using nonviolence. To advance further towards this goal, WRI is organising an International Nonviolence Training Exchange in Bilbao, the Basque Country from the 26th to the 29th of October, 2008.

Why we choose nonviolence?

Brainstorming is a group technique designed to generate a large number of ideas in a limited amount of time. Most of us have probably used brainstorms in our political work to develop descriptions (i.e. What is nonviolence?) or answer question with as many ideas as possible to consider (i.e. What tactics would help us reach our goals?). It is a good tool to use at meetings and nonviolence training as it gets people energised by the flow of answers. It also helps to listen to more voices within the group.

Wars vs Nonviolence

(30 min)10/10 Strategies - This exercise helps people learn about the rich history of nonviolent campaigns, getting a better understanding of campaigns, tactics and movements. Break into small groups of 5-6. One person in each group needs to list numbers 1 to 10 on a piece of paper. Groups are "competing" with one another to see who can do the task in the fastest time, as opposed to our usual cooperative style. Each group is to list 10 wars as quickly as possible, raising their hands when they are done. Facilitator should note the time.