Nonviolent action ? : Kamnan Style

Abstract

     Beginning in October 2013, Mr. Suthep Thuagsuban was prominent in the protest against an amnesty bill that was making its way through second and third reading in Parliament. Suthep later resigned from parliament to lead the anti-amnesty process as secretary of the People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC), an anti-government protest group. Eventually the amnesty bill was dropped. PDRC continued its protests to drive out the government and propose reforms to be implemented by an unelected government before any new elections. The PDRC protest ended after the imposition of martial law followed soon by a coup d’etat.

     The PDRC claimed that its protest was non-violent. This article aims to explain 2 things.

     First, the article asserts that the PDRC protest embraced the Gene Sharp principle of nonviolent protest action, which is different from Ghandi’s approach to nonviolent action applied as he led the movement in India seeking independence from the British Empire. Gandhi focused on 1) love for the enemy, with the result that the English people did not hate Gandhi; 2) peaceful protest without fear of losing his own property or even his own life; 3) Gandhi renounced violence toward his opponents but dared to lose his life to achieve his objective.

     Meanwhile the nonviolent action of Gene Sharp focuses on peaceful protest to defeat opponents because one who uses violence will only lose and will be destroyed by the opponent. This nonviolent action does not include love to the enemy as in the Gandhi way. The nonviolent action of Gene Sharp will earn sympathy from people; if the government uses violence, the protester will use “political jiu-jitsu” to make the government lose legitimacy so it can no longer govern.

     The second aim of this article is to study peaceful protest and compare the PDRC methods with the Gene Sharp nonviolent action approach. Sharp classifies nonviolent actions into 3 general categories: protest and persuasion, noncooperation, and intervention.