More Non-violent Resistance

[mowque]

(I doubt this thread will get much traction but here we go)

First, let's define non-violent resistance. "Nonviolent resistance (or nonviolent action) is the practice of achieving goals through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, and other methods, without using violence. It is largely synonymous with civil resistance"

There are a number of cases in history, ranging in time and space from the Samoan Independence movement, the Baltic after the USSR fell and MLK's civil rights movement in the USA.

Basically I want places and people who could have taken this up in an ATL. Any ideas?

My first suggestion- Ireland. Instead of fighting a bloody civil war, maybe a massive organized non-violent campaign for Dominionship/Independence?

Any other ideas?

 

[Snake Featherston]

A relatively dark-horse possibility would actually be Nazi Germany, insofar as the Nazi deportations in Germany proper were concerned. It worked at Rosenstrasse, so that example might in an ATL lead others to adopt it as well, forcing the Nazis into a very difficult double-bind.

 

[SergeantHeretic]

COncerning passive restance in terms of larger strategic gamesmanship

Passive ressistance, like any other form of opposition activity is only applicable in certai nsituations and against certain enemies.

The biggest criteria for wheather or not it will or won't work is, "Does the other side care what people think of them?"

The second biggest is, how much leverage do you have in terms of your lack of participation and or your blocking of the machinery of either war or commerce?"

The third essential question is, what is the worst the enemy is willing to do in response to your passive resistance efforts?

Now, defending on the answers to those three questions passive resistance may or may NOT be any use.

Does that help you any?

 

[deathscompanion1]

(I doubt this thread will get much traction but here we go)

My first suggestion- Ireland. Instead of fighting a bloody civil war, maybe a massive organized non-violent campaign for Dominionship/Independence?

Any other ideas?

They tried this. The liberal goverment made some concessions the UVF threatened armed rebellion and the British army supported them.

The Irish turned to the gun as a political tool in the civil war because it worked agianst the British.

Some times violence gets results which unfortunetly makes people think that only violence can get results, the rest is history.

 

[mowque]

This thread is NOT about the morality of non-violent resistance.

It is just talking about places where it could be tried.

Snake- Thanks. Nazi Germany is a tough nut, much like the USSR would have been. I was thinking, maybe one of the weaker Latin American juntas would be easier?

 

[SergeantHeretic]

This thread is NOT about the morality of non-violent resistance.

It is just talking about places where it could be tried.

Snake- Thanks. Nazi Germany is a tough nut, much like the USSR would have been. I was thinking, maybe one of the weaker Latin American juntas would be easier?

I wasn't talking about the MORALITY of passive resistance, I was talking about the strategic and tactical application of passive resistance in any given situation.

In regard to any authoritarian regime with both the ability and inclination to use violence direct publicly against it's own citizens passive resistance isn't going to do you much good.

Even discussing the weaker latin American juntas, weak can be and often is a reletive term. Weak compared to whom and at what comparitive level?

Most of them were as weak as kittens compared to most first world nations, but compared to their own citizens, wellllllll.

See, that's what I mean.

If a regime such as oh, say, Panema in the 80's has a group of it's own citizens pull that, then the Noriega regime is just going to have themmowed down en masse, or just have the ringleaders "Dissapear."

They did that al lthe time with newspaper editors and reporters with a nasty tendancy to report on what they were doing.

China under the harsher versions of the COmmunist politburo is another nostarter.

In the main Passive ressistance works against liberal western democracies, such as the U.S. Great Britian, Israel, France, Germany and so on.

Why, because those countries have a free press and they have a self image problem in that they CARE what the rest of the world thinks of them.

Try passive resistance against a western style democracy and you're golden, they can either beat you up and be seen beating you up, or they can give you what you want.

Those are really a western democracy's only choices. The only question is how much punishment are you willing to absorb until your group inevitably gets what it wants.

Make no mistake, Ghandhi was right on when he called it "Soul warfare"

That's what it is and you are going to get hurt.

Maybe even hurt bad and you cannot EVER strike back.

That is the hardest part.

Not hitting back when you get beat up.

I cannot do it, that ability is beyond me. if someone hits me I hit back hard. I simply lack the capacity for true soul warfare.

 

[Snake Featherston]

This thread is NOT about the morality of non-violent resistance.

It is just talking about places where it could be tried.

Snake- Thanks. Nazi Germany is a tough nut, much like the USSR would have been. I was thinking, maybe one of the weaker Latin American juntas would be easier?

The thing is the OTL USSR in 1991 collapsed from non-violent resistance in the Baltic SSRs, so that's why I didn't note it as a potential example, it would simply be the OTL end in an ATL form. The Nazis had the potential to at the very least see a big log driven into the tracks of the Holocaust at the right time and the right place if non-violence had caught on more.

 

[SergeantHeretic]

The thing is the OTL USSR in 1991 collapsed from non-violent resistance in the Baltic SSRs, so that's why I didn't note it as a potential example, it would simply be the OTL end in an ATL form. The Nazis had the potential to at the very least see a big log driven into the tracks of the Holocaust at the right time and the right place if non-violence had caught on more.

Do you really think it would have worked, I mean you know, with the NAZIs I mean.

I read this one Alt Short story, called "The last article" about The Nazi's defeating the british and taking over India. Ghandi pulls his stuff with them and they just gleefully shoot everybody without even carying a jot what anyone thinks.

I mean, yes, it was fiction, but I can very easily see the Nazi's pulling that.

 

[deathscompanion1]

Do you really think it would have worked, I mean you know, with the NAZIs I mean.

I read this one Alt Short story, called "The last article" about The Nazi's defeating the british and taking over India. Ghandi pulls his stuff with them and they just gleefully shoot everybody without even carying a jot what anyone thinks.

I mean, yes, it was fiction, but I can very easily see the Nazi's pulling that.

They stopped T4, Tehy general Boycott of jewish shops and I cant confirm this but I heard that they seriously thought about toning down the Nuermburg laws due to them seeming to harsh.

NAZI Germany was a popular dictatorship public opinion mattered, if they thought that most Germans would object to outright killing of Jews than they would merely leave them to fend for themselves and let them starve. The Holocaust wouldnt be prevented but it would be slower and less industrial.

 

[SergeantHeretic]

They stopped T4, Tehy general Boycott of jewish shops and I cant confirm this but I heard that they seriously thought about toning down the Nuermburg laws due to them seeming to harsh.

NAZI Germany was a popular dictatorship public opinion mattered, if they thought that most Germans would object to outright killing of Jews than they would merely leave them to fend for themselves and let them starve. The Holocaust wouldnt be prevented but it would be slower and less industrial.

Hmm in that case someone needs to punch Harry Turtledove in his goodies for his biffing it in "The Last Article>" If the NAZIs were suseptible to passive resistance then who knows?

 

[Snake Featherston]

Do you really think it would have worked, I mean you know, with the NAZIs I mean.

I read this one Alt Short story, called "The last article" about The Nazi's defeating the british and taking over India. Ghandi pulls his stuff with them and they just gleefully shoot everybody without even carying a jot what anyone thinks.

I mean, yes, it was fiction, but I can very easily see the Nazi's pulling that.

Yes, because the Nazis ultimately relied on popular support. It wouldn't stop the atrocities in the USSR and in Poland, but it would at least end those directly occurring in Germany itself.

 

[SergeantHeretic]

Yes, because the Nazis ultimately relied on popular support. It wouldn't stop the atrocities in the USSR and in Poland, but it would at least end those directly occurring in Germany itself.

O.K., I can see that.

This is interesting, I have no idea the tactic wouldwork anywhere else but in Western Democracies.

Joanne is learning and Learning is fun.

 

[Snake Featherston]

O.K., I can see that.

This is interesting, I have no idea the tactic wouldwork anywhere else but in Western Democracies.

Joanne is learning and Learning is fun.

Well, I repeat that it did work in terms of the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The Baltic states re-established their independence wrongfully taken in 1940 by that means.

 

[SergeantHeretic]

Well, I repeat that it did work in terms of the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The Baltic states re-established their independence wrongfully taken in 1940 by that means.

I A-member that, I was young and stupid wearing army cammies, but this is good stuff, Where ELSE would it work?

 

[George Carty]

Well, I repeat that it did work in terms of the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The Baltic states re-established their independence wrongfully taken in 1940 by that means.

Wasn't this only because the Soviet Union had already been bankrupted by Saudi Sheikh Yamami's decision to massively increase oil exports in the 1980s?

 

[Snake Featherston]

Wasn't this only because the Soviet Union had already been bankrupted by Saudi Sheikh Yamami's decision to massively increase oil exports in the 1980s?

If we judge by the Iraqi experience, being in economic disaster doesn't exactly incline a situation to a dictatorship failing to drop the hammer....

 

[SergeantHeretic]

If we judge by the Iraqi experience, being in economic disaster doesn't exactly incline a situation to a dictatorship failing to drop the hammer....

Yeah, they usually don't tend to get mellow when finacially pressed.

 

[King Henry]

Yeah, they usually don't tend to get mellow when finacially pressed.

well yes, but weren't they at that point reliant on American goodwill and credit to prevent food riots?

 

[Doctor Imperialism]

I have a good one - in an ATL where WW1 never happened, have a nonviolent Polish movement calling for the liberation of Poland from Germany, Austria, and Russia.