(One in a series of posts on Mark & Paul Engler’s 2016 book, This Is An Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping The Twenty-First Century.)
Hang around for even a little while with people working for change and you’ll come across some version of the following excerpt from Frederick Douglass’ magnificent 1857 “West India Emancipation” speech:
“Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.
This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. In the light of these ideas, Negroes will be hunted at the North and held and flogged at the South so long as they submit to those devilish outrages and make no resistance, either moral or physical. Men may not get all they pay for in this world, but they must certainly pay for all they get. If we ever get free from the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and if needs be, by our lives and the lives of others.”
Douglass’ words aren’t famous because people like what he’s saying. They aren’t famous because they’re comforting. They’re famous because they’re true.
They’re as true about the nature of change in human society as Einstein’s E = mc² formula is true in describing the relationship between energy and mass in the physical universe.
Human society is as it is because at some time in the past, people decided to make it so. If you want to change the world as it is, then you inevitably will have to disrupt the status quo.
But, the status quo not only works well for some (perhaps many) people, it has the added advantage of being familiar and known to everyone.
Therefore, if you disrupt the status quo, some (perhaps many) people will be angry and will attack you. If and when they attack, you will then have to sacrifice if you are to persist in the struggle. (Note: this is true for those seeking to make change by violent means, as well as for those seeking to make change by nonviolent means.)
The Englers argue—based on their reading of the experience of nonviolent movements around the world over the past century—not only that sacrifice is an inevitable cost of organizing for change, but that in order to succeed, activists, leaders and organizers will have to find ways to escalate (nonviolently) the conflict with their opponents.
This will in all likelihood kick off another round of disruption, sacrifice and escalation until one side (or both) can’t take any more and is ready to negotiate a new settlement or concede defeat.
In chapter 6, “The Act Of Disruption”, of This Is An Uprising, the Englers draw upon cases and theorists from multiple continents, centuries and causes to hammer home the absolute importance, the inescapable necessity of engaging in disruption, sacrifice and escalation if you want to create change.
These tactics don’t guarantee success, but failure to use them does guarantee defeat.
Crossposted at: https:/masscommons.wordpress.com