In recent weeks there have been a series of high-profile protests by groups hoping to draw attention to the plight of Indigenous people being forcibly displaced by the federal government. The issues that led to what is being called by some outlets the ‘Wet’suwet’en Blockade’ are complex and I leave that subject to people more educated on them.
Protesters have blocked railway corridors, preventing commuter and commercial trains from travelling their normal routes. Thousands of Canadians have been inconvenienced as trains have been cancelled and commuters have been forced to find alternate ways to get to where they’re going. Strictly speaking, the actions of protesters who prevent the lawful movement of these trains is illegal; they are breaking the law as part of their protest. These groups are engaged in a form of protest referred to as ‘civil disobedience’. The intent here is to give an overview of what civil disobedience entails and how in theory it’s supposed to work.
Civil disobedience involves the intentional breaking of a law in order to bring attention to the inherent unjust nature of that law or something as broad as an entire regime. It’s closely related to but distinct from the mere act of public protest. The latter involves a gathering of people designed to put pressure on the government, mainly through their presence. Civil disobedience involves more than a mere gathering; what is key is the intentional breaking of the law. Equally important is that the disobedience be peaceful and free of violence. Passive non-resistance is the mantra of civil disobedience; not violence. The hope is to increase the visibility of the protesters amongst the general population. This is often accompanied by the expectation that the civil disobedience protester will be arrested.
Numerous examples exist, but the modern version of civil disobedience was brought to the fore by Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian Nationalist Movement and Martin Luther King Jr. with the civil rights movement. Both were able to mobilize large groups of people against an oppressive regime and ultimately have those regimes bend to their will. Both involved the intentional breaking of laws with the expectation that authorities would arrest and prosecute them. Since those times, other groups around the world have used civil disobedience as a model for combatting the might of the state.
Both Gandhi and Dr. King were cognizant of the importance of making their respective movements highly visible. The ways in which they chose to break laws were designed to maximize pubic exposure and garner sympathy. Gandhi was very clear that the process of having protesters arrested and prosecuted/persecuted was an integral part of the nationalist strategy. Although King didn’t want his followers harmed, he would have known that the sight of black protesters being beaten, maimed and hauled away by state authorities in riot gear, weapons in hand and snarling dogs at their sides, would weigh heavily on the hearts and minds of those who saw those images. The protesters’ lack of violence would starkly contrast the increasingly violent state apparatus.
Civil disobedience has been described as a weapon of the powerless and disenfranchised. So how and why does it work?
There are two reasons why a civil disobedience movement may succeed. The first relies on the conscience of the general populace. The hope is that when the population at large sees peaceful protestors being beaten by the remorseless and powerful state, they’ll be so sympathetic that the court of public opinion will sway in their favour and pressure the government into relenting. This strategy was successful during the civil rights movement as televisions across the country flickered with images of young black protesters being threatened, beaten and arrested with nary a fight – all on the nightly news. Gandhi felt that this was the key to civil disobedience, although it should be noted that this assumes the general population has a conscience to sway.
The second reason involves the cost of maintaining the government status quo. This reasoning assumes no good will on the part of the government or general population. Civil disobedience is not only morally persuasive but expensive to oppress. When the cost of arresting, prosecuting and jailing members of the civil disobedience movement becomes greater than the benefits of the oppressive laws/regime, the government may choose to relent. For example, the cost of oppressing the Indian National Movement was undoubtedly a consideration for the British government as the entire Indian population was revolting at their feet while they were fighting a World War back home. The cost of colonialism became so great that they simply had to reject it. This reasoning may not be applicable if the government is so invested in their regime that they refuse to relent in the face of the rising cost of maintaining the status quo.
Usually in those cases where civil disobedience is successful, the reasons will be some combination of the two paths described here. What must be understood though is that the movement’s success mandates that the general population will be troubled, either via their conscience or their pocketbook. People will ultimately push their government to negotiate in good faith because they feel genuinely bad for the protesters or because they’ve been so inconvenienced that they can no longer abide their actions.
Always remember that, all over the world, great social change has never originated in any parliament or government apparatus. It’s always been the people in the streets who have fuelled change. The British government ‘granted’ independence at a point when that independence was inevitable due to the success of the Indian Nationalist Movement; the civil rights movement led to legislative changes, but those changes were inevitable as MLK and other brave protesters had already forced the government’s hand.
Civil disobedience is the weapon of the powerless.