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Non-violent campaigns have higher rate of success
IAN SINCLAIR tries to answer the crucial question: why are we so ignorant about the rich history of non-violent struggle?
WINNING FORMULA: The civil rights march on Washington of August 28 1963 – Jewish civil rights activist Joseph L Rauh Jr (centre, front row) marching with Martin Luther King (second from left front row)

Writing about the recent death of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Guardian columnist Afua Hirsch made an extraordinary claim about the ending of apartheid in South Africa in 1994.

“Columnists did not cut it. Activists could not have done it. Peaceful protest did not do it. Sports boycotts, books, badges and car boot sales did not do it,” she argued. “It took revolutionaries, pure and simple. People willing to break the law, to kill and be killed.”

Fellow Guardian writer Owen Jones tweeted in support: “Apartheid was brought down by revolutionaries, not peaceful protest. Brilliant piece by @afuahirsch.”

The protests that toppled Tunisian Ben Ali’s government in Tunisia in 2011 were largely non-violent

Successful non-violent campaigns
have the ability to confront and coerce centres of power

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