Yes, Satyagraha has serious risks, the same ones that war does. Nobody can predict the future; campaigns may fail; the result may be jail, death, and continued oppression.
Gandhi, in both S. Africa and India, from the 1910s through the 1940s, started a number of campaigns that failed. The Poles had mass anti-government demonstrations, in 1956, 1970, and 1980, before finally succeeding in 1989-90. Tibet has totally failed to win their freedom, and probably won't until the West makes trade conditional on China treating Tibet better.
<If you think it will work against the likes of Stalin, Saddam or Kim, you are whistling past the massed graves.>
It may not work on those 3 men. It doesn't need to. To succeed, it only needs to work on the millions of Russians, Iraqis, and Koreans who follow their orders and maintain their rule. Kim cannot hold a gun to the head of every person in N. Korea. Not by himself.
Gandhi's ideas went through an evolution, on this question. His first tactic was passive resistance. This, he decided, was inadequate, so he developed tactics of active resistance. Next, he developed the principles of Satyagraha (Truth Force). At first, this foccused on converting the British, making them see the inhumanity of their rule. Gradually, Gandhi came to see that this, too, wasn't enough. He had gained some support among the British, and he had won a few partial victories. But, overall, the British people benefited from their subjugation of India, so not enough of them could be convinced. So this method, while not abandoned, was de-emphasized.
The final version of his tactics, was to make the country ungovernable for those who benefited from oppression. He sought to increase the costs of Empire, and make the British rather than Indians pay those costs. Boycotts, refusals to pay taxes, self-sufficiency, were among the methods to reduce the benefit of Empire for the British. There were never enough British in India to actually rule, so he worked to de-legitimize the British in the eyes of the millions of Indians who staffed the colonial government and army. Over and over, he sought to fill the jails, knowing that the British could arrest 10, or 100,000, but not 100 million. When the British finally left, it wasn't because they had been convinced their rule was wrong. It was because their power had been hollowed out from within, the costs of trying to maintain Empire had been made too large. It was a 30-year campaign, and there were lots of martyrs. |
