photo cc: treviño

There's an idea out there that anyone can take to the streets and make themselves heard. You just head out and start demonstrating to confront power. It's a beautiful idea.

Sooner than later, however, any assertive form of mass mobilization will cross path with agents of authority, be they security guards, police, or military. These forces are armed, and trained.

Spontaneity is great. But once you realize the opponent has undergone extensive training on how to deal with you, it's perhaps time consider your own preparation.

Hence nonviolent action training. Sometimes tactical, sometimes strategic, nonviolence training prepares people for what they are likely to encounter, and how they can best use fundamental political dynamics to achieve their goals.

What is nonviolence training?

Nonviolent action is the technique of unarmed struggle, based on a radical understanding that all social power rests on allegiance and obedience. Without consent, no tyrant can rule. Many tools and formats allow the nonviolent strategic framework and techniques to be shared and learned.

On a basic, tactical level, nonviolent action training does for activists what crowd control courses do for the police. On a more sophisticated level, training in the strategy of nonviolent conflict can do for social movement leaders what military schools do for officers of the armed forces.

Nonviolence training usually consists in various types of workshops aimed at preparing people for specific environments, campaigns or actions, sometimes involving civil disobedience or high risks. Other, more general trainings are aimed at helping activist organizers understand and use the strategic framework and tactics of nonviolent struggle. Specific nonviolence trainings are aimed at skills building, collective strategizing, group facilitation, conflict resolution, leadership development, etc.

An evolving legacy for human rights

All human rights known today were once (and still are) the object of intense struggles. If it weren't for the successful and mostly nonviolent mass movements of the suffragettes, the Home Rule movement in India and the desegregation movement in the US, for instance, women's equality, the right to independence from colonial rule and the ban on race discrimination would not be so widely supported today.

The tools and exercises used in nonviolence training workshops were developed over many decades, by citizens and groups involved in struggles too numerous to name: the civil rights and anti-Vietnam war movements of the 1960's, the farmers, anti-nuclear and women's movements of the 1970's, the peace, human rights, and international solidarity movements of the 1980's, the ecology, global justice, and national regime change mobilizations of the last 20 years. More resources than ever are available now, from workshops that run for a couple hours, to weeks-long intensive training programs, along with a growing body of books, movies, and websites.

One benefit of nonviolence training is that it provides upstream, proactive means of active intervention in times of social conflict. Various human rights activists and organizations have started to look into how that legacy of nonviolent struggle and training can help further their work.

Combatting human rights abuse

Human rights are never so severely abused as when the State feels justified and supported to crack down on violent dissent. We have all seen how riots and uncontrolled mob violence can shrink political space very quickly.

Not that nonviolent dissent is immune to repression. Far from it. Any threat to privilege or the status quo will be repressed. But because a crackdown on explicitly nonviolent movements tends to backfire, the scope, severity and duration of repression are eventually constrained when nonviolent discipline is maintained.

Activist communities and citizens trained in the art and skills of strategic conflict are better equiped to exercise and expand their human rights. History provides ample case studies of how effective nonviolent action can liberate space for freedom and justice, even topple undemocratic regimes.

Philippe Duhamel, interTactica.org

Join us as we discuss how to move from nonviolence theory to practice and ways to deal with repression, offer training tools and processes, including on how to train trainers, while sharing various experiences from around the world.

The New Tactics dialogue on Training for Nonviolent Action includes a global rolodex of nonviolent activists, trainers, and consultants, including: Srdja Popovic and Giorgi Meladze from CANVAS, Sam La Rocca, Jason MacLeod, James Whelan, Holly Hammond, and Anthony Kelly from The Change Agency, Zsuzsanna Kacsó, Bianca Cseke and Corina Simon from PATRIR, Daniel Hunter, Joe Catania, and myself from Training for Change, Linda Sartor from Nonviolent Peaceforce, Dola Nicholas Oluoch from Chemchemi Ya Ukweli-Active, Ouyporn Khuankaew from International Women's Partnership for Peace and Justice, Shaazka Beyerle from The International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, and Hardy Merriman, an independent consultant in the field of strategic nonviolent conflict.

The tactical dialogue goes on until June 3, 2008, after which it will be archived for posterity. Come join while it's live. And watch this blog for more on what nonviolence training can do for you and your organization.