IB History Non-violent Methods Notes

Non-Violent Methods: Creating Pressure Without Armed Force

What Non-Violence Made Possible

1. Popular movements used non-violent methods to show discipline, numbers, and moral authority without armed force.
   1. The method mattered because public sympathy could become a form of political leverage.
   2. The risk was that governments could delay reform while praising activists as orderly.
2. In Britain, the NUWSS (founded in 1897) used petitions, lobbying, public meetings, and marches to make women’s suffrage respectable.
   1. This suited a parliamentary system where reform required MPs, party leaders, and bills.
3. In India, Mahatma Gandhi linked satyagraha to anti-colonial mass action through boycotts and civil disobedience.
   1. The Salt March of 1930 made salt tax resistance simple, visible, and reproducible.
4. In Canada, Indigenous activists used courts, petitions, lobbying, teach-ins, and public protest to challenge state authority.

1. The Calder case of 1973 forced Canadian governments to confront Aboriginal title.

1. In Egypt, strikes and demonstrations turned public space into a weapon of pressure.
   1. In 2011, Tahrir Square linked students, workers, secular activists, Islamists, and ordinary citizens.

Why Non-Violence Worked Differently

1. Organisation determined whether protest could last beyond one demonstration.
   1. Local branches, volunteers, newspapers, and meetings helped the NUWSS keep pressure on parliament.
   2. In India, Congress networks helped turn boycott and civil disobedience into repeatable national campaigns.
2. Leadership shaped discipline, aims, and public message.
   1. Millicent Fawcett presented constitutional suffrage as reasonable and respectable.
   2. Gandhi made self-restraint part of the political argument against British rule.
   3. Idle No More, launched in 2012, used decentralised leadership, culture, and social media rather than a single party structure.
3. The state response set the limits of success.
   1. Concessions helped non-violent movements look effective, especially when governments wanted stability.
   2. Repression could radicalise supporters or expose state weakness, as seen in Egypt in 2011.
4. Media visibility changed the audience for protest.
   1. Newspapers, photographs, television, and social media made local action visible beyond the immediate crowd.
   2. Visibility worked best when the image of protest matched a clear claim, such as votes, self-rule, rights, or regime change.
5. Non-violence was not always moderate.
   1. Boycotts, sit-ins, strikes, and civil disobedience could disrupt trade, policing, and government legitimacy.
   2. The key distinction is that pressure came from mass refusal rather than organised armed attack.

Limits and Comparison

1. Non-violent action did not guarantee change.
   1. The NUWSS helped build legitimacy, but reform also depended on war, party calculation, and wider political change.
   2. The Egyptian Revolution of 2011 removed Hosni Mubarak, but did not secure lasting democratic rule.
2. Non-violent movements often depended on pressure outside formal politics.
   1. In India, colonial authority was challenged through boycott, arrest, salt law defiance, and mass refusal.
   2. In Canada, legal activism worked alongside land defence and public education.
3. A strong Paper 2 judgement compares method with context.
   1. Ask whether success came from the tactic itself, the crisis of the state, or the movement’s organisation.
   2. The best answer links method to outcome, then tests that link against limits and alternatives.