100 DATES OF NON VIOLENCE

The twentieth century was the century of crimes against humanity, where the dead were numbered in the millions. However it also saw, on every continent, the birth and rising tide of a new form of struggle: non-violent resistance. These selected dates, by no means exhaustive, are a useful reminder of this advent. They are testimony to the human capacity for imagining methods other than violence for resisting oppression; they show that it is possible to effectively defend human rights and democracy by means that don't end up compromising those rights.

Violence begets violence in a hopeless spiral. Destructive and murderous, it proves itself incapable of bringing proper solutions to the inevitable conflicts that constitute the fabric of our existence and our history. Non-violence, in trying to reconcile moral imperatives and political reality, offers hope for building a future freed from the inevitable consequences of violence. This is why it is urgent to deconstruct the ideologies of violence and to develop a culture of non-violence.

We hope that this journey through history will inspire you,
so that you too might be an ambassador and spokesperson for non-violence.

1883 Russia The Kingdom of Heaven Is In You, seminal work of Tolstoy that will have a profound affect on the thinking of Gandhi, then a young lawyer in South Africa.


1905 Finland General strike to protest Russification of Finland, ends in abolishment of all oppressive laws and the establishment of a Finnish constitutional government.

1906 South Africa Gandhi launches the first civil disobedience campaign to protest discriminatory laws in regards to Indians.

1910 Russia Last letter of Tolstoy to Gandhi, his spiritual testament, two months before the demise of the Russian writer.

1914 - 1918 Europe, First World War

September 15, 1914 In France, Romain Rolland writes a forceful article in the Journal de Genève, entitled "Au-dessus de la mêlée" (“Above the Fray”). It denounces the war.

• 1939 At Chambon-sur-Lignon and on the Haut-Vivarais plateau, Pastor André Trocmé, Director of Collège Cévenol, welcomes and protects families persecuted by the Nazis and the Vichy regime. In this way close to 3,000 people, including numerous Jewish children, will be saved.

• 1941 The Bishop of Munster, Cléments-August Graf von Galen, publicly protests the euthanisation of mental patients. This program will finally be stopped.

• 1941-1945 A movement of underground education grows in Poland in reaction to the closing by the Nazis of lyceums and universities. In clandestin manner 18,000 lyceum students pass exams for their Bachelors.

• February 1942 Norwegian teachers successfully resist Nazification of education by concerted disobedience movement.

• 1942 Seven police functionaries in Nancy sabotage a roundup of Jewish foreigners by French peacekeepers.

• Octobre 1943 Jews of Denmark are transferred to Sweden and saved due to popular solidarity.

1958 France Surprise demonstration of some hundred individuals from Non-Violent Civil Action (including Lanza del Vasto and Pastor André Tricmé) on the restricted land of the factory in Marcoule to protest the production by France of the atomic bomb.

1958 United States Troops from the State of New York attempt to expropriate Iroquois lands to construct a dam. The Iroquois organize a non-violent blockade of the access roads and engage in numerous other non-violent political acts. The dam is never constructed and this event marks the beginning of the Indian movements to preserve or reclaim ancestral lands.

1961 Great Britain - World Creation of Amnesty International (Nobel 1977) which defends the rights of man with specific reference to non-violence; more than a million members worldwide in 2000.

1962 France Indefinite hunger strike of Louis Lecoin to obtain the status of conscientious objector. After 21 days, General de Gaulle accepts the principle (voted on in December 1963).

1963-1968 United States “I have a dream” At the conclusion of the "March on Washington", Martin Luther King gives his famous speech in front of 250,000 black and white marchers. Martin Luther King, for his non-violent fight for civil rights wins Nobel Peace prize in 1964, is assassinated in Memphis.

1965-1970 United States César Chavez organizes a movement of strikes and boycotts for recognition of Mexican workers’ rights in the United States, the Chicanos.

1967-1970 USSR Writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn solemnly refuses to submit to censure. Andrei Sakharov (Nobel 1975) with two other physicists establishes the Committee for the Defense of the Rights of Man in the USSR.

1967 United States For over 24 hours thousands of demonstrators surround the Pentagon, conducting a gigantic sit-in to protest the war in Vietnam. Joan Baez.

1968 United States In Baltimore, Philippe and Daniel Berrigan and seven other militants break into a recruiting office and torch six hundred military files with napalm they have produced by themselves from a military manual.

1968 Czechoslovakia - USSR Spontaneously, with humour and non-violence the Czech population resists invasion of troops from the Varsovy Pact.

1968 Brazil Dom Helder Camara, Bishop of Recife, launches the non-violent movement Action Justice and Peace to fight misery and dictatorship.

1971 Canada First expedition of the international ecological movement Greenpeace to the American nuclear test zone in the Aleutian Islands in the Gulf of Alaska.

1972 France For fifteen days Lanza del Vasto goes on a hunger strike in support of the peasants of Larzac who are threatened by the expansion of a military camp. Following the strike the peasants sign “the oath of the 103,” opting for non-violent struggle.

1973 Pacific Campaign in the Pacific to protest French nuclear testing in Mururoa, with Gilbert Nicolas, Genéral de Bollardière, Jean-Marie Muller, Jean Toulat and Brice Lalonde.

1974 France Some twenty French non-violent groups establish The Non-Violent Alternative Movement (MAN) with a political vision that is non-violent.

1974 Equator Indian peasants from Llangahua conduct a non-violent struggle, engaging in acts of civil disobedience calling for agrarian reforms so as to give them ownership of the lands they cultivate.

1974 South Africa Start of the "anti-Outspan campaign". Numerous boycotts in the fields of entertainment, sports, and economics will have more of an impact on media than on finances. Birth of the global “ethical market”.

1975 Europe 30,000 demonstrators from Alsace, Baden and Switzerland protest construction of a nuclear plant in Wyhl. The site is occupied for nine months and the plant project subsequently abandoned. Birth of the European anti-nuclear movement.

1975-1997 France Struggle to oppose construction of the Superphoenix super generator in Malille. Construction permanently ceased in 1997.

1977 United States 2,000 people occupy the nuclear site at Seabrook (New Hampshire). 1,414 are arrested.

1975-1976 Northern Ireland The day following the of three children, Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan Maguire (Nobel 1976) establish the Peace People movement, bringing together thousands of women from Northern Ireland to promote non-violence in the conflict between Republicans and Unionists.

1975 India Jaya Prakash Narayan (JP), former companion of Gandhi, openly defies the government of Indira Gandhi by announcing a weeklong campaign of non-violent demonstrations and civil disobedience throughout the country. The same day Indira Gandhi declares a state of emergency and incarcerates JP. In March 1977, JP, as the head of the Janata Party, wins the elections.

1977 Czechoslovakia 242 Czechoslovakian citizens publish Charter 77, a letter addressed to the Prague government, an initiative that galvanizes the dissidence movement in the country. Vaklav Havel.

1977 Argentina Every Thursday, the “crazy mothers of May Square” gather in Buenos Aires to protest the “disappearance” of their children.

1977 South Africa Steve Biko, key figure in the non-violent Black Awareness movement, dies under torture in the prison at Pretoria, at the age of thirty.

1977-1978 Bolivia From the initiative of four women, several hundred people conduct a hunger strike to protest the dictatorship of Colonel Banzer. This movement results in amnesty for all prisoners in political exile and constitutes a decisive stage in the eventual fall of Banzer.

1978-1981 China Enormous posters with oversize characters (dazibaos) demanding liberty and democracy for all of Mao Zedong’s and the Cultural Revolution’s totalitarian China. A "wall of democracy" 200 meters wide appears on Chang'an Avenue in Peking.

1980 El Salvador The Archbishop of San Salvador, Mgr. Oscar Romero, is assassinated in his cathedral. A day earlier he exhorted the military to respect the commandment of, "Thou shalt not kill."

1980 Argentina Adolfo Perez, one of the principal leaders of the Latino-American movement for non-violence, and the first secretary for the Peace and Justice Service (SERPA), receives the Nobel Prize for Peace.

1980 Poland After weeks of strikes, the Solidarnosc agreements, the first independent union recognized by a communist regime, with its leader Lech Walesa (Nobel 1983).

1981 Poland Following the overthrow of General Jaruzelski, the beginning of a long period of civil resistance by the Polish people, up until the round table of 1989, culminating in the acceptance of political pluralism.

1981- 1983 Europe - United States, anti-nuclear campaign

1981 Germany 300,000 people demonstrate in Bonn against the installation of Pershing nuclear missiles in Europe. Until1986 (start of the dismantling of the Pershings) there are numerous large-scale demonstrations and acts of civil disobedience to protest the danger of nuclear war in Europe.

1982 United States A million people demonstrate in New York against nuclear arms, the most important gathering in all of American history.

1982 France Fast for peace in Taverny on the occasion of the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This fast will take place each year in the presence of Theodore Monod.

1982 England In Greenham Common, 30,000 women peacefully encircle one of two sites chosen for the installation of 93 Cruise missiles.

1983 Germany Human chain of 400,000 people between Stuttgart and Neu-Ulm in favor of nuclear disarmament.

1982 World Creation of Brigades for Peace International (BPI) that exercises protection and non-violent intervention in conflict zones (Guatemala, Haiti, El Salvador, Colombia, Timor).

1982-1983 World The film Gandhi by Richard Attenborough is a success worldwide; his influence on resistance movements across the world is undeniable.

1983-1988 Nicaragua A team of non-violent volunteers, including many Americans (Witness for Peace), position themselves in a besieged town in Jalapa in order to dissuade the Contras supported by the United States. This kind of non-violent defense will intensify until the termination of American aid in 1988.

1983 South Africa 600 local social action and resistance organizations create the Unified Democratic Front (UDF), a movement that adopts a strategy of non-violent action against the apartheid regime. Desmond Tutu.

1983 Uruguay Fast of three members of SERPAJ, Pastor Oliveira and Fathers Aguirre and Osorio, reacting to the political censorship imposed by the dictatorship. The popular sentiment this arouses (the day of Hartal on August 25, a demonstration of 500,000 people on November 27, a general strike in January 1984) allows for the return of democracy.

1981-1983 France "March for equality and against racism" from Marseille to Paris. Upon arrival in Paris, the gathering of 100,000 people. This act will contribute to raising the awareness of the French population to the problems of the Beurs. Start of the indefinite hunger strike of Christian Delorme, Jean Costil and Hamid Boukhrouma in Lyon to protest the expulsion of immigrants. It will last 29 days, until the Minister of the Interior decides to suspend expulsions.

1984-1988 Brazil Chico Mendes, union leader for latex harvesters, together with the support of environmental activists conducts a non-violent struggle agaisnt massive deforestation of the Amazon. Assassinated December 22nd 1988 by a landowner-producer, he receives posthumous victory in 1995 (law on "land preservation").

1985 Sudan Mahmoud Mohamed Taha, Muslim intellectual and non-violence advocate is hung January 18th, on charges of heresy; in March a popular (80% of population) non-violent uprising threatens Islamic dictatorship of General Ja'far Nemeiry, finally toppled by a military coup d'état on April 6th.

1985 New Zeland Pretext for opposing non-violence: in Auckland, attack on the Rainbow Warrior, ship from Greenpeace preparing to conduct a campaign against French nuclear testing in Mururoa.

1986 Philippines In the aftermath of election fraud, People Power: in Manila hundreds of thousands of people paralyze dictator Marcos’ armed forces, forcing him to relinquish power.

1986 Poland In Breslau, 50 000 people from the independent Liberty and Peace movement demonstrate against the silence of authorities in Warsaw following the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl (April 26, 1986).

1987-1993 Tibet A non-violent resistance movement organized by clerics to protest Chinese occupation. For six years, over the course of 178 marches and demonstrations (always suppressed), the distribution of poems in a Tibetan incomprehensible to the Chinese, etc. The Nobel Peace Prize of 1989 is awarded to the Dalai Lama, spiritual and secular leader.

1987 Lebanon 56 handicapped persons march across Lebanon calling for an end to strife between communities.

1988 Australia Fifty thousand aboriginals, or one fiftieth of their entire population, disembark in Sydney (the "buses of liberty") for the purpose of disrupting bi-centennial celebrations commemorating the arrival of the first settlers.

1988 Burma On the steps of the Shwedagon pagoda in Rangoon, Aung San Suu Kyi (Nobel 1991) gives a speech in front of fifty thousand people, the first public action in her non-violent struggle for democracy in Burma.

1989 China A large student-driven non-violent movement for democracy shakes up the communist regime, but ends tragically with the Tienanmen Square massacre in Peking.

1989 Eastern Europe The "velvet revolution" in Czechoslovakia brings about the downfall of the communist regime. Vaklav Havel becomes the president of the Republic. Fall of the Berlin wall. The communist regime of the GDR collapses in the face of the increasingly large demonstrations begun in May.

1989 Israel - Palestine "1990: Time for peace". 30 000 people, Israelis, Palestinians and Europeans form a human chain for peace around the walls of the old city of Jerusalem.

1991 Lithuania In Vilnius, tens of thousands of unarmed people face Red Army tanks advancing to occupy broadcasting stations. Toll: 14 dead and 120 wounded.

1991 Kosovo Start of civil resistance of the Albanians of Kosovo against Serbian domination, initiating parallel systems of health and education. Ibrahim Rugova.

1991 Madagascar In Antananarivo, "freedom march" of 800,000 people, suppressed by the army (officially thirty dead, some one hundred wounded). This event will be decisive in the process of transition to democracy.

1992 Zaire In Kinshasa, the "March of Hope" of a million people protesting the dictatorship is brutally suppressed by Mobutu’s army. This action allows for the re-opening of the National Conference and a proclamation of its sovereignty.

1992 Brazil Day of “national civil paralysis”: 500,000 people gather in Sao Paulo. Congress makes official the destitution of the corrupt president Fernando Collor.

1993 Nigeria A peaceful protest march organized by the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (Mosop) brings together 300,000 people, representing two thirds of the Ogoni population. The spokesperson of this non-violent movement, Ken Saro-Wiwa, will be hung November 10, 1995 together with 8 of his companions.

1996 South Africa Created by President Nelson Mandela (Novel 1993), the Commission for Truth and Reconciliation presided over by Mgr Desmond Tutu (Nobel 1984), begins its public hearings in order to shed light on forty years of apartheid: "Truth, Amnesty and Atonement". It presents its report on October 29, 1998.

1996 Algerie Assassination of seven Trappist monks from Our Lady of Atlas in Tibhirine who lived their vow according to the evangelical requirement for non-violence. "The testimony of the monks of Tibhirine is the definitive act inscribing non-violence with letters of fire into the fabric of our history." (J.M. Muller)

1999 World Dismantling without devastating the McDonalds of Millau by peasants of Larzac, one of whom is José Bové. This gesture becomes the symbol of the struggle against junk food. Numerous non-violent and spectacular actions on the occasion of the Summit of the OMC in Seattle marks the birth of an international movement against the negative effects of the globalization.

2000 World Prior to 1900, only 9 countries had abolished the death penalty; there are now 97 in the year 2000. The United States and China continue legalized killing.

2001-2010 World Start of the "international decade for the advancement of a culture of non-violence and of peace for the benefit of the world’s children" enacted by the General Assembly of the UN on November 19,1998 (following an appeal by Nobel Peace Prizewinners). Training in awareness of non-violence acquires a major stake for the well-being of the new century.

FRENCH VERSION OF "LES 100 DATES OF NON VIOLENCE

 

CENTRE DE PAIX DE MONTRÉAL ACCUEIL