Journalist: Arab uprisings point to shift from violence

Gwynne Dyer Enlarge

BOWLING GREEN -- Using nonviolence to change tyrannical regimes doesn't work in every situation but the relatively peaceful overthrow of governments in the Arab world is a sign that it does work, freelance journalist and geopolitical analyst Gwynne Dyer told a Bowling Green audience Thursday evening.

Mr. Dyer, a columnist and lecturer on international affairs, also said nonviolent revolutions as seen in Egypt and Tunisia "are not necessarily bloodless" affairs when governments by popular uprising resort to slaughtering their own people to maintain their stranglehold.

"Nonviolence has really taken off as a weapon against tyranny in the last 30 years," Mr. Dyer told an audience of more than 150 in the Bowen-Thompson Student Union Theater.

Mr. Dyer, a student of international revolutions, nonviolent movements, and war, gave the third Nakamoto Peace Lecture at Bowling Green State University, sponsored by the campus peace and conflict studies program.

Mr. Dyer, who lives in London, writes a syndicated column that appears in The Blade and other newspapers across the world.

The revolution in Syria began as a nonviolent movement and lasted that way for eight months but turned bloody when protesters, some led by army defectors, began fighting back.

As a result, he said, the country is being pushed into civil war that pits the al-Assad family, which comes from the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, against Sunni Muslims. For the governing Alawite sect, about 10 percent of the population, "the possibility of vengeance is quite high."

The Bashar Assad regime knows "that the trick is to push protesters into violence," he said, because that "legitimizes" the use of extreme force against protesters.

He credited the disciplined protesters in Egypt and Tunisia for keeping their focus on nonviolent means "to bring brutal, ruthless dictatorships to their knees."

Libya's protests remained largely nonviolent until a top general, whom Mr. Dyer called an agent provocateur, joined the rebel side and instigated the armed struggle that ended after NATO's bombing attacks on Moammar Gadhafi's forces.

Mr. Dyer's 90-minute presentation examined various nonviolent revolutions that have changed the political landscape during the past 30 years, including the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the largely peaceful changes in its satellite countries, and the end of apartheid in South Africa. Many observers had misgivings about the chance for nonviolent government overthrows, he said.

But, Mr. Dyer said, "Nonviolence is a reliable way of replacing obnoxious regimes."

Precivilized societies were in a constant state of war to settle territorial issues among hunter-gatherer peoples, he said.

"We [modern civilization] didn't invent war. We adapted to it. Conflicts are constant," he said.

But he did offer a hopeful note for his audience members, many of whom wore buttons and peace signs proclaiming, "No War."

"War is in a very steep decline," he said. "But I don't think we'll see the end of it in my lifetime. It could be in 100 years from now to be a reality, but war is in decline," he said.

Contact Jim Sielicki at: jsielicki@theblade.com or 419-724-6050.