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In October 2008, the Maldives held its first multi-party elections, toppling 30-year incumbent Maumoon Abdul Gayoom and replacing him with Mohamed Nasheed, a former political prisoner and according to Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) opposition members, rabble-rouser extraordinaire. Indeed, this is how members of the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) and others connected to the party were and still are viewed: as a mob of uneducated activists who took to the streets in undignified protest. But what few people know is that behind the clamour of MDP as well as those who joined their fight was a well-designed plan. And behind the plan, there was Canvas – an organisation of trainers and consultants that travel the globe to transfer their skills, knowledge and principles of non-violent struggle. The ideas exported by Canvas were born out of Otpor, a youth movement in Serbia, which has been credited with the bloodless revolution that brought down Slobodan Milosovic. “Maldives was fourth in line of our successes,” says Srdja Popovic, the executive director of Canvas. “Others include the Orange Revolution in Ukraine and the Rose Revolution in Georgia.” In the latter, students offered soldiers roses when the army was deployed by Eduard Shevardnadze, who had ruled Georgia for more than 30 years.Learning the basicsIn 2006, Canvas travelled to the subcontinent to hold three training sessions on non-violent resistance: one in Male’, one in Addu and one in Colombo. The aim was to arm MDP activists as well as members of civil society with a set of tools that could be used to overthrow government using non-violent methods. Around 20 people attended each of these sessions, some of whom, says Popovic, are now in government. The three main principles espoused by the theory of non-violent struggle are unity, planning and discipline. “What we normally do in our workshops,” says Popovic, “is to equip people to help them achieve their vision of tomorrow.” But, he is quick to add that this vision is “home-grown” and not exported.At the heart of Canvas’ schooling is the dissection of power and obedience. Power structures must be weakened and obedience converted into disobedience. The theory of non-violent struggle, says Popovic, “is that no ruler can do without the consent of the people and if people don’t obey, then the ruler can’t rule.”PillarsImran Zahir, an MDP activist who was jailed seven times under the former president’s regime, said that before receiving Canvas training, activists were just “doing this and that...but we didn’t know what to do.”One of the training exercises involved the identification of the pillars which support a regime. Generally, these include police and military, bureaucracy, the education system, organised religion, media and business institutions. The goal of non-violent struggle is to extract as many of the pillars from the regime by eroding their loyalty or by persuading them to deny their skills, knowledge, materials or resources to those in power. “If you undermine these pillars,” says Popovic, “the building will collapse.”The key to destabilising these pillars, adds Imran, is to “pull” rather than “push” people. Although it may seem self-evident, pushing consolidates a person’s allegiance to a regime. This, he says, is one of the main lessons activists learnt. Further, once the power structures within the Maldives had been analysed, "it took weeks" to bring the system down.PlanningCrafting a strategic plan is another key element of non-violent struggle. According to Shahinda Ismail from NGO Maldivian Detainee Network, “the importance of planning” was a central part of the instruction. “Until we participated in these trainings,” she says, “we didn’t know how important planning was...To the point of having back-up plans. Before, most of what we did was quite ad hoc.”Unity, the second mainstay of non-violent struggle, was, says Shahinda, “the whole success” and formed the basis of the United For Change campaign. Following the first round of the presidential elections, when no single candidate obtained more than 50 per cent of the vote, those opposed to Gayoom saw uniting behind Nasheed as their only hope of change.When Shahinda was asked to join the campaign, her first course of action, she says, was to consult the Canvas manual, Non-violent struggle: 50 crucial points. “Everything I did for the group, I got from the book.” During this time, Canvas held Skype workshops with opposition party members as they tried to mobilise the masses for a rally to display a united front for change.MobilisationDrumming up support is another fundamental component of non-violent struggle, which “relies heavily on numbers,” says Popovic. The strategy is to draw people to the movement with incentives personal to them. A movement’s “vision of tomorrow” must involve listening to all groups as “people are the stakeholders of change”. Activists must listen to all members of society in order to ascertain where public dissatisfaction lies. “When developing a vision of tomorrow,” says Popovic, “you need to realise that people will take risks for what is personally most important to them. Only when individuals see how the struggle will benefit them, will they join, he adds. “If you leave people out, you leave voters out.” Before being schooled in the principles of non-violent struggle, Imran concedes, the movement had one sole aim: to depose Gayoom. “We didn’t know we had to get the votes. But then we realised that even if we did bring Gayoom down, it would be very hard to find legitimacy. We realised we needed to see beyond that.” Dilemma ActionsA dilemma action is a situation in which any response from the opponent will result in a negative outcome. Nonviolent strategists think of how to create a “lose-lose” framework for the opponent and “win-win” framework for the movement. Over the last few years, this was put into practice on several occasions. In October 2008, protesters displayed a leaflet-filled coffin as a symbol of custodial deaths. This, says, Popovic, is a perfect example of a dilemma action. If police try to stop people from taking leaflets, they will appear as the aggressors but by failing to take action, the protesters’ message is allowed to reach the public.In another instance, shortly after Canvas arrived in the Maldives for the first time, a non-violent democracy group, Gaumataka, marked the death of Evan Naseem, who died at the hands of prison guards, by delivering flowers to police and government officials. At the time, the group said the flowers were “a symbol to urge the police to stop all brutality and to join hands with people to bring about a just and democratic Maldives.” Although it is unclear to what extent the principles of non-violent struggle have assisted members of the MDP and civil society to create a just and democratic Maldives, “If we contributed anything to your victory, then I am very proud,” says Popovic. http://www.minivannews.com/news_detail.php?id=6149

Tags: Year: 2008 Location: Asia Category: Protest and Persuassion Category: NonCooperation Category: NonViolent Intervention Protest and Persuassion: Newspapers and journals Protest and Persuassion: Records, radio, and television Protest and Persuassion: Assemblies of protest or support Protest and Persuassion: Protest meetings Methods of NonCooperation: Boycott of social affairs Methods of NonCooperation: Total personal noncooperation NonViolent Intervention: Nonviolent harassment NonViolent Intervention: Stand-in NonViolent Intervention: Mill-in NonViolent Intervention: Nonviolent raids NonViolent Intervention: Nonviolent interjection NonViolent Intervention: Nonviolent obstruction

Monks in tears cry out against lies while Beijing instructs foreign journalists

Lhasa (AsiaNews) – A group of Buddhist monks blocked a tour of 26 foreign journalists in Lhasa, led by the Chinese government, crying out that there is no freedom in Tibet and that the Dalai Lama is not responsible for the recent violence there. Some of them after having cried “Tibet is not free! Tibet is not free!”, broke down in tears.The surprise encounter occurred this morning while the group of journalists visited the Jokhang Temple. The monks interrupted the temples’ chief administrators address. Government representatives tried to drag the journalists away. Some of them however, succeeded in exchanging a few words with the demonstrators.The visit by the group of 26 was organised by the government in their efforts to show that order has returned to Lhasa, in the aftermath of violence which erupted on March 14th, when monks and Tibetans clashed with police and the Chinese army.The tour of the foreign press is the first since the revolt, organised and orchestrated to reinforce the official line on the clashes: that the Dalai Lama is responsible for the unrest that the victims were only Chinese, and that China is working to develop the region.This morning the group of journalists – who were “advised” not to move about alone for security reasons – visited a clinic which was attacked during the violence as well as a burned shop, where 5 Chinese girls lost their lives. In precedence the journalists were permitted to watch film footage of the violence attributed to the protesters (see. photo).Beijing maintains that 22 people died in the clashes. The Tibetan government in exile affirms that at least 140 people were killed.The monks succeeded in speaking to journalists using the mandarin language. Some of them said that they wanted to run the risk of the serious consequences of their actions, for love of truth. “Do not believe them – a monk told a journalist from Usa Today – they are deceiving you, they are telling you lies!”. http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=11862

1,500 protesters flex muscles during lawyers rally

LAHORE: About 1,500 lawyers, civil society activists and political workers took to The Mall to rally for the reinstatement of the sacked judges on Thursday.The National Coordination Council gave the protest call. Followed by the general house meetings, the Lahore Bar Association (LBA) and Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHCBA) took out their rallies from Aiwan-e-Adl and the Lahore High Court respectively. The two rallies joined at GPO Chowk and marched towards the Punjab Assembly Hall. Solidarity: Workers of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), the Tehreek-e-Khaksar (TK), the Labour Party Pakistan, the Tehreek-e-Insaf (TI), the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), the Pakhtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) and the Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan (JUP) also took to The Mall to show solidarity with the protesting lawyers. They joined the rally at GPO Chowk holding flags in support of their party leaders.On their way to Charing Cross the protesters shouted slogans against the government and the chief justice of Pakistan for “using illegal means to get his daughter more numbers in FSc”. Lawyers who were contesting upcoming elections of the LHCBA and LBA were showing more aggression against the government apparently to win over other lawyers. Pledge: The protesters demanded that the government reinstate the sacked judges as soon as possible. At the Chairing Cross, senior lawyers spoke to the protesters and pledged to continue their movement until the reinstatement of sacked chief justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and other sacked judges. Advocate Hamid Khan said that lawyers, civil society and political parties were united on the reinstatement of the sacked judges. He said allegations against Justice Dogar had put a new spirit in the lawyers’ movement. He said they wanted Justice Dogar to be tried. He said appointing a chief justice as an acting governor was in violation of the Supreme Court’s judgement.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008%5C12%5C19%5Cstory_19-12-2008_pg7_46

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