Threat or Opportunity: non-violent protest?

[jmm99]

in this thread Threat or Opportunity: non-violent protest? (links to Gene Sharp and Albert Einstein Institute publications, here & here).

Regards

Mike

[davidbfpo]

Certainly not new IMO social movements taking on the state / government, modern IT is clearly an enabler and a vulnerability. Communication is simply faster.

So I spotted this comment on ICSR's blog, entitled 'No matter what he says, Wael Ghonim is a leader: Social Movement Leadership...'

It open with:

There has been a steady stream of thought-provoking remarks about the role of leadership (or lack thereof) in the activist movements that coordinated via social network sites to overthrow the Mubarak regime in Egypt. Most recently, Clint Watts wrote a thoughtful post on the subject at his blog, Selected Wisdom. His comments were sparked by a Steve Inskeep interview with Wael Ghonim, the Egyptian activist and Google executive who played a significant role in the uprising. The occasion of the interview was the release of Ghonim’s new book, Revolution 2.0, which I blogged briefly about the other day.

Link:http://icsr.info/blog/No-matter-what...ian-Revolution

[Bill Moore]

Certainly not new IMO social movements taking on the state / government, modern IT is clearly an enabler and a vulnerability. Communication is simply faster.

There is more to it than that, information not only moves faster, it penetrates more deeply. States have less capability to control information, and as Bob Jones would tell you if you don't control the information you don't control the people. I think the Arab Spring and other events around the world have validated that.

North Korea is terrified of South Korean citizens sending information into North Korea via ballons and have threatened to go to war over it. Attaching a message to a ballon isn't exactly modern information technology, but it still works. Once the paradigm is challenged it begins to rust, in some cases that corrosion is quicker than others.

In locations where cell phones, computers, blackberries, Ipads, etc. it does enable "smarter" and more effective protest efforts. It allows identity groups to form that would have difficult or impossible previously. Where did the protest movements start prior to the advent of online communities? Union meetings, Mosques, Churches, Colleges, etc. Now groups can be formed outside of these institutions.

In the end it isn't new, just different.

[Bob's World]

A lot of gist here...

1. Control. Either the populace feels they have control over the government, or the government must exercise control over the populace. The wide range of forms of governance are in large part defined by where that control rests.

2. Information. Control of information is critical to control of a populace. More so than security forces, but as one loses control of information, if your goal is to cling to a system with control vested in the government, then you better start ramping up your internal security. You are going to need it.

3. It seems to me that as access to information increases, so does transparency, and transparency leads to familiarity, and "familiarity breeds contempt." Populaces begin to evolve toward wanting more control over government as they become more informed, they also become less fearful of the state. If the state is unwilling to evolve along with the populace friction is inevitable, and conflict is likely.

4. I was at a meeting with several senior business executives, and one gentleman who engages in several overseas ventures made the comment that "corruption is how taxation takes place where no formal system exists." There is a lot of truth to that (though the State Department rep came out of her chair in protest, as the State Department has determined that all corruption is evil and has a zero-tolerance policy. A policy that is well-intended, but to me seems illogical and is, I suspect, a tremendous obstacle to diplomatic conversations). I think a similar observation could be accurately made regarding revolution. "Revolution is voting where no formal system exists." A logical take away is that the development of formal systems of taxation and payment of government officials could go a long way toward reducing low-level corruption; and similarly development of legal, trusted and certain ways for the populace to "control" government could go a long way toward warding off most revolutions. All must be homegrown solutions designed by and for the cultures they are to operate within; and all must be flexible to allow continued evolution as ever increasing information continues to drive social evolution.