Technology for nonviolent struggle

The experience in the Netherlands is instructive.[4] In the late 1970s, a small radical party was part of a coalition government. A member of this party was made science minister, and Johan Niezing, Professor of Peace Research at the Free University of Brussels, was his chief scientific adviser. Niezing has long been committed to social defence, not for idealistic reasons but because it seems to him to be the most pragmatic alternative to the horrors of military methods.[5]

As a result of Niezing’s influence, one of the conditions for continuing the coalition was the acceptance of proposals to fund ten social defence research projects. A committee, chaired by Niezing, was set up to oversee the ten projects. But then there was a change of government. Funding was dramatically reduced so that there was enough for just one project.[6]

The one project was a study coordinated by Alex Schmid of Leiden University. Schmid and his collaborators concluded that an invasion by a determined military power (specifically, the Soviet Union) could not be stopped by nonviolent means.[7]

In retrospect, now that the Soviet threat to western Europe has collapsed in the wake of the largely nonviolent 1989 revolutions in Eastern Europe, this analysis seems quite shortsighted. Thus ended a promising possibility for sustained research on social defence.

(Schmid went on to set up the Interdisciplinary Research Project on Root Causes of Gross Human Rights Violations, with the Dutch acronym PIOOM, at the University of Leiden. This is a vitally important social science enterprise, whose core funding remains precarious.)

The Niezing committee was disbanded in 1987; its original proposals, having been updated and augmented by Giliam de Valk, were published in English in 1993.[8]

Niezing himself played a key role in ensuring that this publication took place.

These problems with getting governments to take action serve as a warning. It may be worthwhile to seek government support for nonviolent struggle, but it is wise to be aware of the difficulties. For example, at the United Nations, the most powerful governments obstructed a study of military science and technology at every stage. The study was endorsed by the General Assembly, but hamstrung by committee members (selected by governments) who were military officers or just ignorant. The study was held back by governments’ refusals to provide information or their antagonism to critical comment, and was continually stalled at the publication stage.[9] The difficulties that could confront active efforts to develop technology for nonviolent struggle — which might, after all, be used against government repression — can be imagined.

In summary, government support for nonviolent struggle offers the immense advantages of legitimacy and resources. But in most cases there is likely to be great difficulty in gaining any support in the first place, due to the close connection between the military and the state. Furthermore, seeking government support has the disadvantage of trying to get others to take action rather than doing it oneself. Finally, governments are likely to sponsor research that is removed from the community.

All these features are apparent in the Dutch experience. The Netherlands government had ample resources to investigate and promote social defence, but the major political parties were not interested. It was only by a quirk of politics that government funds were allocated to social defence. The money was cut back at the first opportunity and in any case was devoted to research rather than community action. Even so, the funding gave considerable credibility to social defence and the proposals from the Niezing Committee are a valuable resource for future research and action.

Scientists and engineers

Many scientists and engineers are in a good position to develop science and technology for nonviolent struggle. There are a number of reasons why they haven’t done so already. As described in chapter 2, most funding for science and technology comes from governments and corporations. Defence is seen as a matter for the military, and military R&D is a key driving force for science and engineering. This emphasis on military priorities filters through to civilian R&D: military priorities influence the disciplines that are most favoured and the technical problems that are seen as most significant. As high-status professionals whose privileges depend on claims to special expertise, scientists and engineers are seldom encouraged to get involved in social movements or, more importantly, to redirect their work so that professional skills become easily taken up by community activists. There is much more prestige to be gained by taking up the most esoteric theoretical challenges or constructing and using highly sophisticated technical apparatus.