Dr. Maria Stephan, International Center on Non-Violent Conflicts

To begin I am teaching currently a course now at the Georgetown [University] at the School of Foreign Service on Nonviolent Struggle, and the solidarity movement is one of the first movements that we study. My students, in particular they all are graduate students, said that they were very impressed by the strategic stubbornness shown by the Poles during the Solidarity movement; the strategic stubbornness - the creative use of nonviolent tactics and the clear articulation of goals. And the step by step approach to achieving those goals. I wanted to emphasize a couple of points related to strategy and strategic lessons from Solidarity and then focus on the role that the external actors can play and support the  local nonviolent movements. The most important point has been emphasized by a few speakers and that is that the key to the success of Solidarity was that it was indigenously   driven nonviolent movement that united diverse constituencies in Polish society. I like to think of  the Holy Trinity in  the Polish context – the unity involving the intellectuals who provided the cognitive psychological  liberation, the workers who provided the organizational backbone and forceful   non-cooperation, and the Catholic Church which obviously provided a lot of moral authority in the legitimacy and protection to the movement. This idea of expanding coalitions of the willing in the society that is resisting oppression is important. This is probably the most crucial factor in consolidating the strength of the nonviolent movement because it allows movement to secure resources, tap into networks, and to build momentum. The other key point that I think was important in the Solidarity was how the Solidarity activists diversified the use of nonviolent tactics. They expended the repertoire of nonviolent sanctions to include protest, non-co-operations, strikes, boycotts, other forms of civil disobedience.  I know, for example, that today in Cuba there are more than 3000 documented nonviolent actions that have taken place this year alone. The most important of these, in terms of identifying the strength of the movement, is work on non-cooperation. This is taking place everyday inside Cuba. I think the Castro regime felt so threatened by  this, that even in the daily newspaper there were reports that these actions, these non-cooperation actions by the workers, would be punished. Yet despite this, this is taking place. There are protests taking place on a daily basis. There are neighborhood resistance actions taking place. For the first time, when human rights activists are being followed by government mobs, by security forces, their neighbors are surrounding them forming human chills around them to protect them from the mobs, which is a very interesting development in Cuba. And important point to think of, in the Cuban context, is the role of the security forces. We have seen a number of past historical cases that members of the security forces have disobeyed orders by the regime to use a violence  to crackdown on non-violent protestors. This does not happen automatically. There are specific strategies that can be used by the non-violent opposition to help divide the loyalties of the security forces. So I ask myself in the Cuban context: Is it possible to appeal to the security forces sense of patriotism, the idea that their strength is serving the nation and not one person? Is there a way that activists can be better fraternized to the security forces to include them in the vision of tomorrow for Cuba so that they won’t feel threatened? Because I think the security forces would be part and must be part of  the solution as well.

I want to end by mentioning few points related  to the role of external actors in non-violent struggles, and I want to cite from this study called “How Freedom is Won. From civic resistance to durable democracy”- it was 2005 Report published by Freedom House. The key finding in this report in the vast majority of transitions from authoritarianism to sustainable democracy, civic resistance was the driving factor. This type of resistance is more likely to resort  in sustainable democracy and freedom than either a lead driven processes of transition or by processes driven by violence – when the opposition uses violent force. This report highlighted a couple of key roles that external actors can play, and I just briefly mention them. Perhaps the most important for governmental and non-governmental actors is to invest in civic life, in societies in during oppression. General assistance to civil society forces -  supporting women’s movements, workers groups, trade unions. All of this is very important and the importance of transferring knowledge on strategy and tactics on non-violent resistance – purely, distribution of education materials. There is no  blueprint for effective non-violent struggle – we know this, every situation is different but there are generic principles that can be learnt, and skills that can be learnt that could be very helpful in the Cuban context. Thirdly, providing enhance resources for independent media communications - allowing Cubans to communicate is the best way to promote the formation of civic coalitions. Finally, we discuss the possibility of targeted sanctions: Is there a role for governmental sanctions that can help create the political space for resistance in Cuba? To conclude, any successful transition can and must be driven by local indigenes actors but there are very important solidarity and other  roles that can be played by external actors in this conflicts.