A nonviolent form of defense against invasion or internal overthrow of a regime. This technique was well documented and made somewhat known to the public by Gene Sharp in works such as The Politics of Nonviolent Action (3 vols., 1973) and Civilian-Based Defense: a Post-Military Weapons System (1990). In CBD the citizens organize to resist the invasion or overthrow by nonviolent, or at least non-violent means such as strikes, defiance of military orders, fraternization, etc. CBD works well when the citizens can separate the attackers as people from their actions, accepting and seeking to win over the former while resisting the latter — if necessary, to the death. The best known modern example of CBD is Prague Spring, when over eight months, from January to August of 1968, Czech citizens resisted a Warsaw-Pact invasion aimed at suppressing the liberalizations of the popular president Alexandr Dubček — a military action that the Kremlin anticipated would take only four days. The methods used were fraternization, humor, and mild forms of sabotage such as painting over or turning road signs to mislead troop movements. In the end the uprising was overcome, but at a great propaganda cost to the Eastern Bloc — and no doubt an inspiring lesson to the Czechs, who would go on to use nonviolent means to separate from the weakened Communist power some twenty years later. Along with Third Party Nonviolent Intervention, CBD is now regarded by some as a nonviolent answer to war.

Fasting in Satyagraha has to be distinguished from, on the one hand, a hunger strike which is undertaken in protest but not necessarily with the focus on changing the mind of the opponent, and, on the other, a purificatory or penitential fast — or fast for health — which may not be directed toward another at all. In the ‘arsenal’ of Satyargaha, Gandhi considered fasting the ultimate ‘weapon’ that should not be entered upon lightly. He himself carried out about a dozen fasts of this type, not all of which he considered successful, i.e., leading to a change of disposition in the other and not a mere change of behavior — otherwise put, an act of persuasion and not of mere coercion.

In the course of his writings and practice, the outlined the following five principles for a successful fast:

1. One must be a certain type of person in order to undertake it. In the case of a ‘fast unto death,’ for example, one must really be capable of voluntarily laying down one’s life if one’s demands are not met.

2. The person to whom Satyagraha is being offered in that form must be someone who feels in some way part of one’s community: Gandhi actually said, must be a “lover.” The act loses its meaning if the person to whom it is offered feels no such bond. Throughout his career Gandhi never really fasted against the British, but rather to awaken his fellow Indians.

3. It must be the last resort.

4. The demand must be reasonable. During the Cold War two Americans fasted “against Eisenhauer and Kruschev” to make them stop the arms race. That fast failed on all counts, except possibly that:

5. It must be consistent with the rest of one’s campaign, if not one’s life. Irish revolutionists who fasted while in Long Kesh Prison did so only because they had no access to their usual violence. Tragically, some of them were simply allowed to die.

Cf. M.K. Gandhi, Fasting in satyagraha, its use and abuse, Compiled by R. K. Prabhu and Ravindra Kelekar (Ahmedabad, Navajivan Pub. House, 1965).

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.

Prof. Michael Nagler, a scholar of principled nonviolence, points to person power as the core energy at the heart of any nonviolent social movement. Nonviolence begins with an individual’s conversion of a negative drive to a positive drive. When one person transforms fear, anger, and aggression, into universal love, compassion, and resilience, nonviolence is born. Even though two million people were in the streets of Manila during the Philippines People Power movement, it was “two million individual decisions” according to Cardinal Jaime Sin. Scholars of strategic nonviolence such as Gene Sharpe tend to think about people power as the key factor – get enough people together on the streets and anything is possible. (And a lack of discipline can result in an unhelpful mob mentality known as the effervescence of the crowd.) Person power is contrasted with – and often stands in opposition to – state power.

One of the most crucial forms of constructive program, parallel institutions are the social, cultural, and governance structures that a nonviolent movement builds of its own accord without reference to or even as a comprehensive replacement for (often oppressive) mainstream institutions. Examples include: alternative governments, newspapers, radio, TV, and other media, unions, food and gardening co-operatives, clubs, professional associations, civic organizations, and religious organizations. These institutions are vital to creating organizational space for the entire campaign to coalesce. Some nonviolence theorists such as Gene Sharp believe these should be built at the end of a campaign, but Gandhi claims that what for Gene Sharp is step four in the campaign should in fact be step one.