Peaceful means
Civil society actors have a different toolbox of non-violent methods for engaging in the struggle against violence. Here we will explore some of the main tools.
We are all familiar with strikes and public demonstrations. There have been several large-scale peaceful revolutions in authoritarian societies in recent years, the best known being the fall of the Berlin Wall (Johansen 2009, pp 69-124).
Almost all social movements use some or all of the following six types of peaceful means:
• Non-violent protest and persuasion, such as a picket line or a peaceful demonstration. These means are used to highlight a problem or injustices; to make them more visible and create awareness.
• Social non-cooperation, such as students on strike. This a more powerful tool to show disagreement or protest.
• Economic non-cooperation I including disinvestment, sanctions and boycotts, such as the boycotts of South Africa during the last decades of apartheid. These tools were removing some of the pillars that the apartheid was based on.
• Economic non-cooperation II, such as workers taking strike action.
• Political non-cooperation, such as Gandhi’s call on civil servants in the British administration of India to stop working.
• Non-violent intervention, such as the Freedom Flotilla that took medical equipment, food, building material, and other necessities to Gaza in May 2010.
For more examples see Sharp’s study of the politics of non-violent action, which categorized hundreds of non-violent actions (Sharp 1973).