Together with her husband Jean, Hildegard provided significant nonviolent training and organizational expertise to the Philippines People Power movement and nonviolent campaigns throughout Latin America. She is a member of IFOR and could be viewed as a Gandhian (principled) nonviolent activist/trainer. She has written important books about nonviolence and her own experiences, thus contributing to interpretation. She is seen by many as an important leader in the creation of a growing nonviolent culture.

A student-led Serbian uprising, Otpor (“resistance”) led to the overthrow of dictator Slobodan Milošević in 2000. The campaign–almost entirely obstructive program–was carefully planned with assistance from Gene Sharp and his colleagues. Otpor involved a long-term consciousness raising effort with graffiti, flyers, billboards, a rock concert, and nonviolent direct action including various forms of civil disobedience, trade union organizing, preparations to combat electoral fraud, a massive strike, and finally a national convergence of hundreds of thousands on the capital building. The movement was one of strategic, rather than principled, nonviolence – little concern seemed to be displayed (as documented in video footage) for changing the heart of the oppressor, but instead for gaining political power and deposing the regime by any nonviolent means necessary. It has led to other similar campaigns in Eastern Europe, such as Ukraine’s Orange Revolution. Uniquely, the leaders of Otpor have formed an organization called CANVAS to “export” lessons learned to other would-be nonviolent revolutionaries.

Film: “Bringing Down a Dictator”

A U.S. nonviolent movement of conscientious objectors who refused to fight in any war and took active steps to undermine the war system. Radical pacifism began in opposition to World War II, when A.J. Muste, David Dellinger, John Yoder, and others refused to fight in “the good war.” Some objectors believed it was acceptable to serve in an ambulance corp., others refused to take part in the war system in any way and instead requested an alternative service regiment (which in some cases involved being subjected to torturous medical experiments and near-starvation). While in jail, Dellinger and others were successful in a strike that resulted in desegregation of their prison years before the advent of the Civil Rights Movement. They also worked to reform the dehumanizing psychiatric hospital system. Later, radical pacifists took action against the Vietnam War and skirted the nonviolence line with some forms of property destruction (burning of draft files).

Film: “The Good War and Those Who Refused to Fight It”

Third Party Nonviolent Intervention (TPNI) is the name that has arisen for the age-old practice of an outside party intervening in a conflict in an effort to open the space for reconciliation, peacemaking, and peacebuilding. Some services of the TPNI actor can include witnessing, accompaniment, monitoring, interposition, offering good offices, and rumor abatement. Because the nonviolent intervener is not one of the “dehumanized others,” s/he has a chance to be seen as trustworthy and not an object of violence. Even the most rabid militants often hesitate to inflict violence on a member of the international community, both for pragmatic reasons -– any attack could generate unwanted media attention — and because the (often unexpected) presence of a third party helps to break up the inevitable polarization of ’self’ and ‘other’ that conflict causes and on which it depends. Perhaps most importantly, by risking life and comfort to protect an intended victim of violence, the third party helps to rehumanize that victim in the eyes of the would-be attacker.
In the modern period, TPNI emerged from Gandhi’s ‘peace army’ (shanti sena) and from increasing human rights and humanitarian interventions that have gained momentum since the 1980s. Peace Brigades International (founded in 1980) has played an important role, along with Christian Peacemaker Teams, Witness for Peace, and Michigan Peacemaker Teams (with most of its efforts concentrated in the local region). Today Nonviolent Peaceforce is building TPNI into a global entity. TPNI has been practiced with varying degrees of success in places like Colombia, Palestine, the US/Mexico border, and Sri Lanka. TPNI stands in contrast to the standard U.N. armed peacekeeping model – in fact, some practitioners of TPNI state that nonviolent interposition can act as a full replacement for armed peacekeeping. TPNI is supported in legal frameworks by the concept of the “right to intervene” (droit d’ingérence). Many feel that, alongside the related Civilian-Based Defense, TPNI shows that there is a nonviolent alternative to war.

A Philippine term for active nonviolence, alay dangal means “to offer dignity.” Although the expression only came into limited use during the Philippines People Power movement, many of the people’s actions were quite representative of this ideal. By treating dictator Marcos’ soldiers as fellow human beings who were suffering under an oppressive regime and by offering them food and water and pleasant conversation, the Filipinos who led the uprising, which culminated in the EDSA nonviolent moment, exemplified the nonviolent drive to connect with the dignity of the “other.”