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Backfire: The Dark Side of Nonviolent Resistance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 August 2018

Michael L. Gross Open the ORCID record for Michael L. Gross [Opens in a new window]
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Abstract

Although nonviolent resistance assumes the moral high ground because its tactics do not intend to harm adversaries, severe ethical difficulties arise when nonviolent activists intentionally provoke harm to themselves. This occurs in a process called “backfire,” as hunger strikers or demonstrators provoke a disproportionately brutal and often lethal response from their adversaries to draw world attention and sympathy to their cause. As cases studies from Ireland, East Timor, and Israel demonstrate, backfire can offer insurgents and national liberation movements significant strategic gains. In Ireland, a 1981 IRA hunger strike radicalized the IRA's campaign against Britain. In East Timor, the massacre of hundreds of Timorese demonstrating for independence in 1991 galvanized world opinion and eventually brought international intervention and statehood. In Israel, the Marmara flotilla of 2010 and mass demonstrations in Gaza in the spring of 2018 refocused world attention on Palestinian grievances while easing the Israeli-imposed land and naval blockade. These events were transformative, but their success depended upon the careful cultivation of violence. An anathema to ideological nonviolence, backfire is often used by strategic activists who will mix violent and nonviolent tactics as circumstances demand. Ethically discharging this tactic requires organizers to articulate feasible operational goals while protecting minors, to mitigate risk, to obtain free and informed consent from participants, and to constantly evaluate the costs and benefits of political action.

Keywords

nonviolent resistancebackfirenational liberationprotestproportionalityhunger strikesinsurgencyhuman rightself-defense
Type
Roundtable: Alternatives to War
Information
Ethics & International Affairs , Volume 32 , Issue 3 , Fall 2018 , pp. 317 - 328
Copyright
Copyright © Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 2018 

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References

NOTES

1 Sharp, Gene, “The Intifadah and Nonviolent Struggle,” Journal of Palestine Studies 19, no. 1 (1989), p. 5CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Pattison, James, The Alternatives to War : From Sanctions to Nonviolence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018)Google Scholar; and Chenoweth, Erica and Stephan, Maria J., Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012)Google Scholar.

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4 “Margaret Thatcher: ‘A crime is a crime,’” YouTube video, 0:19, from remarks at a press conference ending her visit to Saudi Arabia and filmed on April 21, 1981, posted by “Irelandinschools,” May 3, 2011, www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7bTsRZh5bk.

5 Stephan, Maria J., “Fighting for Statehood: The Role of Civilian-Based Resistance in the East Timorese, Palestinian, and Kosovo Albanian Self-Determination Movements,” Fletcher Forum of World Affairs 30, no. 2 (2006), p. 61Google Scholar. See also, Weldemichael, Awet T., Third World Colonialism and Strategies of Liberation: Eritrea and East Timor Compared (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 195–217Google Scholar.

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13 Isabel Kershner, “Deadly Israeli Raid Draws Condemnation,” New York Times, May 31, 2010; UN Secretary-General's Panel of Inquiry on the 31 May Flotilla Incident, Report of the Panel of Inquiry.

14 United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs: Occupied Palestinian Territory, “Easing the Blockade: Assessing the Humanitarian Impact on the Population of the Gaza Strip,” Special Focus (March 2011), www.ochaopt.org/sites/default/files/ocha_opt_special_easing_the_blockade_2011_03_english.pdf.

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18 Plata v. Brown, United States District Court, Northern District of California, Case no. C01-1351 TEH, August 19, 2013.

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20 Amira Hass, “Gaza Doctors: Israeli Fire at Border Protests Causing Wounds Not Seen Since 2014 War,” Haaretz, April 22, 2018.

21 Loveday Morris and Hazem Balousha, “Israelis Kill More Than 50 Palestinians in Gaza Protests, Health Officials Say,” Washington Post, May 14, 2018, www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/gaza-protests-take-off-ahead-of-new-us-embassy-inauguration-in-jerusalem/2018/05/14/eb6396ae-56e4-11e8-9889-07bcc1327f4b_story.html?utm_term=.11d28ed750f5.

22 Fares Akram, “In Gaza, Border Opening Brings Relief and Anxiety,” Washington Post, May 25, 2018, www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5270485,00.html.

23 Ronen Manelis, “The Truth about Israel and Hamas,” Wall Street Journal, May 20, 2018, www.wsj.com/articles/the-truth-about-hamas-and-israel-1526841445.