Questioning Gene Sharp, Justifying Violence
On 24 September 2019, I joined the Reformasi Dikorupsi movement, the largest protest Indonesia has ever witnessed since 1998. I arrived pretty early, at around 11 AM, in front of the House of Representatives (DPR) building in the Gatot Subroto area, Central Jakarta. Thousands of other protesters, mostly students from different universities in Indonesia, came before me. Other civilian elements, such as labor unions, high school students, taxi and bus drivers, and fellow activists, were also there. Several reports claimed that the number of protestors reached tens of thousands (BBC, 2019; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2019; The New York Times, 2019). The movement lasted for several days in numerous parts of Indonesia, with Jakarta being the focal point.
I was there as an observer. The mandate given by my former employer, Amnesty International Indonesia, was clear: document as many details as possible, particularly regarding how the State apparatus handled the protest. Not more, not less. So, I brought my phone for note-taking, my camera to take pictures and videos, and several protective gears in case of escalation.
The protest started peacefully. At least three pick-up trucks equipped with microphones and loudspeakers (command mobile, mokom) were prepared and parked just outside the DPR gate to enable protestors to take turns to give speeches and articulate the protest’s demands: the strengthening of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), the legalization of the Anti-Sexual Violence bill (RUU-PKS), the end of military occupation in West Papua, and investigation of human rights abuses by the police, among others. At the same time, several student leaders constantly lobbied the police to allow the protesters to enter the DPR building, meet the legislators, and directly convey their hopes.
That day, protest leaders seemed to agree on when the protest should end if their demands were not met. The deadline was 4 PM: if they fail to meet the legislators, they will wrap up that day’s protest at 4 PM, head back home, and come again the next day.
At around 4 PM, several student leaders were preparing to announce to the crowd that they planned to conclude the protest. I saw several of them climbing up a loudspeaker-equipped pick-up truck, ready to address the sea of people until suddenly, the police fired water cannon from inside of the DPR building. I stood in disbelief. Why would the police fire the water cannon? Who were they targeting? I first assumed that the police would stop firing at some time. That was until the water hit me and, afterward, I realized that they had no plan to stop until all protestors were dispersed.
The sudden attack aggravated the protestors. Some protestors started trying to break the police barricade placed precisely in front of the DPR gate. Once they succeeded, the protestors tried to forcefully open the gate while others tried to climb it up. Water cannon continued to be fired from vehicles placed inside and outside the DPR building, and, not long after, the police started to fire tear gas aimed directly at the people without proper warning.
The once organized mass was now in disarray. Many protestors ran in all directions, trying to reach a safe place. Many others stayed and threw rocks — or whatever they could find — at the police. In the midst of chaos, I still tried to document as many instances I could record before a tear gas fell about five meters away from me, and I started to have difficulties comprehending what was happening around me.
The experience that day made me feel and question a lot of things. First, I was obviously in pain because of the water cannon and tear gas. Secondly, I was enraged. I was angry at how the police used excessive force. I was outraged by how the water cannon and tear gas were used unnecessarily, unproportionally, and indiscriminately. Thirdly, I was confused. I recall asking myself: why should I remain nonviolent when facing a violent situation? How could people stay peaceful when the people in power deploy violent tactics that are aimed at them?
A name constantly popped up in my head when trying to answer the questions mentioned earlier: Gene Sharp. Sharp’s main argument is that in a pluralistic society, i.e., a society of which the State’s power is derived from its people’s consent, nonviolent actions could bring about change without the necessity of threat or use of violent force (Sharp, 1973; Anders, 2007; Ammons & Coyne, 2018). Sharp then categorizes methods of nonviolent action, ranging from protests and persuasion (e.g., public speeches, distributing leaflets, etc.), social noncooperation (e.g., suspension of social activities, withdrawal from social institutions, etc.), economic noncooperation (e.g., boycotting consumer goods, workers’ strikes, etc.), political noncooperation (e.g., boycotting elections, withdrawing support to a political figure, etc.), to nonviolent intervention (e.g., fasting, sitting-in, etc.) (Sharp, 1973; Anders, 2007; Pressman, 2017; Ammons & Coyne, 2018).
In cases where nonviolent action is faced with violent tactics, Sharp and his proponents believe that the best response to such a condition is to continue exercising nonviolent actions (Zunes, 2000; Ammons & Coyne, 2018). Subsequently, success will follow either through conversion (the State is genuinely willing to fulfill the nonviolent practitioners’ demands), accommodation (the State does not desire change but fulfill nonviolent practitioners’ requests nonetheless), or nonviolent coercion (the State is unable to continue deploying violent tactics because the nonviolent practitioners successfully delegitimized it) (Ammons & Coyne, 2018). Further, Sharp’s enthusiasts believe that by not resorting to violence, nonviolent practitioners could gain support from the wider community, both abroad and at home (Zunes, 2000; Ammons & Coyne, 2018; Lupu & Wallace; 2019).
Indeed, shreds of evidence have shown how successful nonviolent actions can be. However, I believe that Sharp’s thesis is, at best, naive when applied to my experience during the 2019 Reformasi Dikorupsi movement or today’s Indonesia in general.
First, we need to remember that according to Sharp, the existence of a consent-based political system is a prerequisite for nonviolent action. A democratic climate, upon which the State’s authority is based on its citizens’ voluntary acceptance, is vital for the exercise of nonviolent action. However, under President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo, Indonesia’s political system does not necessarily reflect a democracy. Numerous authors argue that Jokowi’s close relationship with the police is slowly turning Indonesia into a police State, i.e., a system of government wherein the police have a dual function: as a security force and a political powerhouse (Fahrizal, 2019; Pratama, 2020; Supriatma, 2020). Such a system eerily mimics the authoritarian New Order era, in which the then-President Soeharto consolidated his power from 1966 to 1998 by placing the military in public positions, which, in turn, implemented repressive, often violent policies to silence critics.
As such, I firmly believe that the current regime resembles what Sharp called a monolith, i.e., a society in which the State’s power is held and exercised solely and absolutely by the rulers. Under a monolith environment, according to Sharp, violent force or the threat thereof is justified (Sharp, 1973; Ammons & Coyne, 2018). As such, I think Sharp’s nonviolent approach can be successful only when applied in Western settings where, for instance, a petition can and will be followed up by relevant authorities to bring about change.
But what type of violent acts can be justified? First, we need to understand the meaning of violence itself.
Most definitions of violence emphasize the possibility of physical harm to persons or property, including Sharp’s definition (Martin, 2017; Pressman, 2017; Smith, 2019). In addition, some authors attach the intention element to their definitions (Pressman, 2017). However, for me, it is difficult if we consider one’s intention to prove whether an act constitutes violence or not because intentions are intrinsic and hard to prove. As such, I want to focus on the act itself as a revealed behavior, i.e., a physical act that one performs to express discontent and opposition (Krause, 2016; Pressman, 2017). By doing so, we could think of violence as a spectrum of acts. For instance, Jeremy Pressman (2017) categorizes violence from the most to the least benign: from nonviolent moves, verbal violence, property violence (e.g., graffiti, vandalism, etc.), unarmed violence (e.g., stone-throwing, etc.), armed violence (e.g., the use of firearms, bombs, etc.), to catastrophic violence (e.g., nuclear weapons).
In resorting to violence, I will neither use a blanket agreement nor disagreement on what type of violent act is justified. For me, the use of violence depends on two tests: whether it is exercised to physically harm others or whether it is used as a means for self-defense. For instance, if I verbally attack a police officer after all hell broke loose during the Reformasi Dikorupsi protest, the act itself neither physically harmed the police officer in question nor was it exercised as means to start the escalation. As such, I will argue that my act — if I did so — was justified. Suppose, in the midst of the pandemonium, I threw rocks at an armed water cannon tank and vandalized it. Then, again, the act was aimed at a property and, although it may unintentionally physically affect a police officer, it was done in self-defense (because the police started firing water cannon at the crowd first). By itself, I would argue that my stone-throwing act was justified.
Secondly, Sharp’s idea about the types of success a nonviolent action can achieve, e.g., conversion, accommodation, or nonviolent coercion, cannot be applied to the 24 September 2019 riot or the consequent events thereof. Until today, nearly all the Reformasi Dikorupsi movement’s demands are not fulfilled. But does it mean that the campaign was unsuccessful from a nonviolent perspective? No. The movement, for a very brief moment and a very niche market, succeeded in delegitimizing the government. However, the use of internet trolls to skew public opinions makes delegitimizing efforts unsustained and short-lived. Does the movement succeed in making the rulers discontinue using violent tactics? Absolutely not. The armed forces keep using excessive force in handling critics and protests throughout the country until today. The new Corruption Eradication Commission law that weakens the KPK was eventually accepted by the President and came into force a month after the protests. Therefore, does the process and results (if any) of the Reformasi Dikorupsi movement satisfies any of Sharp’s typology of success? Unfortunately, the answer is, again, no. Despite the ‘success’ of the movement to momentarily undermine the government, the rulers of this country have shown, time and time again, that they are willing to maintain the status quo by whatever means necessary, including violence.
So, are we still going to say that when faced with a brazen State in love with violence, such as Indonesia, we are not allowed to resort to a justified form of violence? It is funny when we think about it: civilians in protests are mostly unarmed, and yet we are the ones who are told to hold our anger and not act violently when the armed forces, equipped with protective gears, tear gas, and water cannons, act oppositely.
Reference List
Ammons, J., & Coyne, C. J.. (2018). Gene Sharp: The ‘Clausewitz of Nonviolent Warfare’. The Independent Review, 23(1), 149–156.
Anders, T. M. (2007). Review: WAGING NONVIOLENT STRUGGLE: 20TH CENTURY PRACTICE AND 21ST CENTURY POTENTIAL by Gene Sharp. International Journal on World Peace, 24(1), 107–109.
BBC. (2019). Not just about sex: Indonesia’s protests explained. Retrieved on September 15, 2021, from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-49835084
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. (2019). Protests Against Joko Widodo Rock Indonesia. Retrieved on September 15, 2021, from https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/09/30/protests-against-joko-widodo-rock-indonesia-pub-79989
Fahrizal, D. N. (2019). How to prevent the rise of a police state. Retrieved on September 15, 2021, from https://www.thejakartapost.com/academia/2019/12/19/how-to-prevent-the-rise-of-a-police-state.html
Krause, K. (2016). From Armed Conflict to Political Violence: Mapping & Explaining Conflict Trends. Daedalus, 145(4) 113–126.
Lupu, Y., & Wallace, G. P. R. (2019). Violence, Nonviolence, and the Effects of International Human Rights Law. American Journal of Political Science, 63(2), 411–426.
Martin, B. (2017). Classic book review: Gene Sharp; The politics of nonviolent action. Journal of Resistance Studies, 3(1), 210–220. Retrieved on September 15, 2021, from https://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/17BRjrs.pdf
Pratama, R. D. (2020). Pemerintahan Jokowi Jadi Police State?. Retrieved on September 15, 2021, from https://www.pinterpolitik.com/ruang-publik/pemerintahan-jokowi-jadi-police-state
Pressman, J. (2017). Throwing stones in social science. Cooperation and Conflict, 52(4), 519–536.
Reuters. (2019). Police fire water cannon as Indonesians rally against new laws. Retrieved on September 15, 2021, from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-indonesia-politics-rights-idUSKBN1W91A6
Sharp, G. (1973). The politics of nonviolent action. Boston: P. Sargent Publisher.
Smith, M. (2019). Getting Gene Sharp Wrong. Retrieved on September 15, 2021, from https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/12/gene-sharp-george-lakey-neoliberal-nonviolence
Supriatma, M. (2020). The Indonesian police’s dual function under Jokowi. Retrieved on September 15, 2021, from https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2020/10/06/the-indonesian-polices-dual-function-under-jokowi/
The New York Times. (2019). Thousands in Indonesia Protest Bills to Limit Rights and Ban Extramarital Sex. Retrieved on September 15, 2021, from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/30/world/asia/indonesia-protests-joko-widodo.html
Zunes, S. (2000). Nonviolent Action and Human Rights. PS: Political Science and Politics, 33(2), 181–187.
