Corporate Legal Personhood in the Kiobel Case

In Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, the U.S. Supreme Court waded into the murky waters of corporate legal personhood, at least potentially, in hearing oral arguments in late February 2012. The issue in the case is whether corporations can be held liable to the extent that they are complicit in a foreign government’s human rights abuses. Legal personhood would say that they could be. This would represent an obligation that goes with legal personhood. The question is whether the justices who conferred in the Citizens United decision the right of corporations, based on their legal personhood, to make unlimited political donations would also be willing to view obligations as “part and parcel” with such personhood. If not, then legal persons, unlike human persons, would have the benefits of personhood without any of the obligations—an oxymoron to corporations to be sure. In other words, such an asymmetry would render the legal personhood doctrine itself as akin to a one-sided coin—which cannot exist, let alone stand.

The full essay is at "Corporate Legal Personhood."

Refusing for its Own Sake: Israel on the Palestinian Unity Government

President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority reached a deal for a unity government with Hamas on February 6, 2012—which was also the sixtieth anniversary of the Accession Day of Queen Elizabeth II of Britain. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had warned that a unity government with Hamas would rule out any chance of making peace with Israel. Meanwhile, the E.U. and U.S., as well as the state of Israel, had conditioned recognition and aid to Hamas on that party renouncing violence, recognizing Israel, and agreeing to previous agreements reached between the P.L.O. and Israel. In short, for all that achieving a unity government requires in terms of hard decisions and effort, the accomplishment was not exactly valued by Israel and the West. Aside from the baleful consequences in refusing to recognize something of value out of stubbornness and inflexibility, Israel and the West may have been hurting themselves by ruling out a chance for peace at the outset.

“Hamas is an enemy of peace,” Netanyahu said. “It’s an Iranian-backed terror organization committed to Israel’s destruction.”[1] Doubtless that description reflects Hamas historically, but in sticking to the description, it was the Prime Minister rather than Hamas that was cutting off any chance of peace. He was ignoring or dismissing the possibility that Hamas could change as a result of negotiations and a deal. Part of what happens as two parties negotiate and reach a deal is that the parties’ respective perspectives and interests can also change. To condition the negotiations themselves on the other party already having changed is illogical, besides being utterly unfair to that party irrespective of whatever its past may or may not have been. It is essentially to presume that that which takes place during negotiations must somehow occur beforehand—and for only one of the parties. In continuing to build settlements, Israel has not exactly been kosher going into the negotiations; Abbas’s unity government could insist that Israel itself change as a condition for negotiations to begin.

Ironically, Abbas’s unity government may be requisite to any agreement, for otherwise Hamas would be outside any such deal. Presumably everyone concerned must be part of a peace deal for peace to ensue. Therefore, Israel as well as the U.S. and E.U. would be wiser not to look the gift horse in the mouth—meaning complain about that which is really a gift to them. Abbas has undoubtedly had to swallow hard to accept a unity government with his rival. He is due credit for this, and his action should be recognized for what it is: a necessary step on the way to a definitive agreement between the Palestinians and the Israelis. At the time of Abbas’s announcement, it would have been wise for Israel and the West to seize the opportunity of the unity government rather than view it as ending any chance of an agreement.

The lack of change projected onto Hamas was really in its adversaries. “Give peace a chance” means being willing to relax one’s stubbornness such that one can change. The change needed is ultimately in oneself—not the other guy. With this on one’s plate, to worry oneself with the other’s change involves a rather presumptuous overreaching that one can ill-afford. This is not to say that the other guy has been an angel. Hamas has been far from it, but the same could be said of Israel. It takes two to tangle, and angels have no need for peace talks. Sometimes appearances can be deceiving here on earth. The smallest excuse may easily be made use of by the party most interested in sustaining a feud. If there is anything that must change before negotiations can begin, it is this: a refusal to come to the table, presumably conditioned on some change in the other guy other than his refusal to come to the table. The refusal usually says much more about the refuser than the refusee.

1. Ethan Bronner, “Abbas Will Lead thePalestinians in a Unity Pact,” The New York Times, February 7, 2012. 

Is Syria’s Sovereignty Absolute?

“Fundamentally, the argument over Syria reflects a deeper divide between those who would use the Security Council to confront nations over how their governments treat civilians, versus those who consider that it has no role whatsoever in settling domestic disputes.” On the one side, Sheik Hamad, the prime minister of Qatar, reported to the Security Council, “The government killing machine continues effectively unabated.”[1] The implication is that people running a government do not have legitimate authority to kill over 5,000 fellow citizens.

The Arab League taking on Syria at the Security Council.           (Mario Tami/Getty)

On the other side, the Russian envoy, Vitaly Churkin, adopted a “where will it all end” argument. The Council, he said, will start saying “what king or prime minister needs to step down. The Security Council cannot prescribe recipes for the outcome of a domestic political process.”  The Russian foreign minister added that the “Russian policy is not about asking someone to step down; regime change is not our profession.”[2] He might have well have said, It is none of our business whether Assad kills his people. He did say that “the decision should be made by Syrians, by the Syrians themselves.”[3] What he did not say is that, “Russia’s long ties to Syria generate billions of dollars in weapon sales, plus the relationship gives Moscow the entrée it needs to be at the table for Middle East peace talks. In addition, the Russian Navy deploys some ships from the Syrian port of Tartous, widening Russia’s sphere of influence into the Mediterranean.”[4] Of course, the West has a strategic interest in toppling Assad to weaken his ally, Iran, as well as Hezbollah, which backs Assad.

Strategic interests, regardless of which side they happen to be on, should not be determinative, even as the existence of the veto in the Security Council allows them to be. The fundamental issues go beyond what fascinates an analyst, and thus should not be cut short by momentary concerns. The basic question has to do with whether “the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity” of a country, including Syria, is absolute. Can human rights legitimately counter the claim of absolutism? In other words, does a ruler have the right, internationally-speaking, to use a government’s monopoly (or at the very least, advantage) of force to kill non-violent citizens? If not, should the U.N. have the right to intercede?  These were the questions before the world in 2011, and they were no closer to being resolved as 2012 got underway at the U.N.’s Security Council.

Perhaps compromise can be found, such as having the International Criminal Court, rather than the Security Council, decide whether a ruler has violated human rights. An international code of human rights violations sufficient for a ruler to be vacated by the court would need to be formulated. Contributing forces to the enforcement effort would be required of any country that has signed onto the Court’s jurisdiction, so the U.N. need not be the instrument. However, as this compromise will have kept the Security Council from being in the regime change profession in terms of making the decision, perhaps Russia and China would agree to the U.N. serving in some capacity following the Court’s verdict.

Absent such a compromise, the question may be whether the U.N. or a new organization should limit national sovereignty where human rights of citizens are being sufficiently violated. The self-interest of rulers sitting on the Security Council may dictate that a precedent applying an international check on the power of current office-holders is undesirable. As with strategic interests, such a conflict of interest should not be allowed to interfere with, or obstruct, a decision on the fundamental question: Is national sovereignty absolute, and, if not, should the U.N. play a role in limiting it?

I suspect that “we’ll just have to agree to disagree” would be as far as discussions between the E.U. and Russia would get on the question. If so, then—and Europeans should recognize this from their own differences on the Union-level—members of the U.N. who are no longer willing to recognize national sovereignty as an absolute could form a separate “track” from the U.N. that would include a new United Nations. Members of it would of course be subject to that organization as a check. Additionally, that organization could decide to support efforts to defend human rights with military force in a country that is not a member.

I do not believe that the philosophical difference between the “absolutists” and the “human rights” camps in the Security Council is such that anything short of a split can answer the question. Lest this appear too pessimistic, a wider time-perspective could allow for a different perspective in both Moscow and Beijing. In the meantime, a coalition of the willing should not lose any time in setting up a new U.N. that includes “human rights-justified regime change” in its mission, because the existence of the veto means that the existing U.N. will remain stuck—which essentially means led by the few holdouts rather than the majority of the members. Rather than being stymied by a few members of the Security Council, each of whom retain a veto-right, the forces willing to act against peers who are systematically violating human rights should step up to the plate—assuming there really is an interest in putting human rights before absolute national sovereignty.

1. Neil MacFarquhar, “At U.N., Pressure Ison Russia For Refusal to Condemn Syria,” The New York Times, February 1, 2012. 
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.

The U.S. Military in Europe: On the Tyranny of the Status Quo

On January 14, 2012, the American media reported that the U.S. Pentagon would bring home two brigades from Europe. That would reduce the U.S. Army presence by 10,000 to 30,000. “During the height of the cold war, when America’s heavily armored and nuclear-tipped force in Europe comforted allies and deterred the Soviet Union, the Army reached a peak of 277,342 troops on the Continent.”[1] A mere 30,000 might seem trite in comparison, and thus palatable, unless it be noticed that the cold war ended with the fall of the USSR. So it is perplexing that the “reductions come as some European leaders and analysts make their case for a sustained American presence on the Continent to deal with uncertainties, including a rambunctious Russia — even as these same NATO allies are unable or unwilling to increase spending for their own defense.”[2] There it is then—a military subsidy of sorts. To be sure, Russia is uneasy about Eastern European countries becoming states in the E.U., but this hardly counts as rambunctiousness—at least at the level justifying a military defense. It is democracy, rather than Europe, that needs defense in terms of Russia, given the hegemony of the United Russia party in Russian politics. As one senior European official said, “We don’t need a massive presence of U.S. troops. After all, we don’t see Russia anymore as an enemy or an adversary, but even as a partner, if a difficult one.”[3] The shift from adversary to ally has perhaps not fully sunk in—human perception being slow to let go of long-held assumptions.

In my opinion, the uncertainty in Europe in the wake of the Pentagon’s announcement involved more than a bit of overreaction. “Philip H. Gordon, the State Department’s assistant secretary for European affairs, already was visiting capitals on the Continent, reassuring an audience in Berlin . . .  that ‘the United States remains committed to a strong Europe, the collective defense of our NATO allies, and to building and maintaining the capacity and partnerships that allow us to work together on a global scale.’”[4] Such reassurance was hardly needed. In fact, it would not be needed were the remaining 30,000 troops pulled out. That would not be tantamount to the United States leaving NATO, after all. Yet strangely, the perception would be exactly that, and in politics perception can create its own effects, even reality.

Beyond the matter of military strategy (in the context of a $15 trillion U.S. Government debt), the fact that the U.S. is leaving 30,000 troops in Europe may itself point to the staying power in the status quo as an object or worship. Beyond lapses in “readjusting,” it may be that the adage, “same old, same old” gets too much air time, particularly given that the twenty-first century is not the twentieth. Thomas Jefferson advocated a new constitution every twenty years, or at least a decision on the matter. It might not be a bad thing were a little “spring cleaning” done  in the first few decades of any new century—rather than simply continuing so much on the books from the last century. The U.S. as protector of Europe is from the standpoint of the twenty-first century so antiquated that a pathological aversion to change can be suspected, with justification itself being presumed to be in the sheer existence of a practice. In other words, it’s always been done that way, so why question it? Under the tyranny of the status quo, layers of old laws and regulations pile up like old clothes in a basement. New clothes are instantly labeled as “extreme” and are therefore eliminated from serious consideration. The inertia of ongoing practices stifle even thought itself and render human experience far too constricted, even regimented. To break on through to the other side, where there is fresh air to breath and room to flex one’s muscles as nature intended, the entire order must have collapsed, and this seems hardly necessary.

1. Tom Shanker and Steven Erlanger, “U.S. Faces New Challenge of Fewer Troops in Europe,” The New York Times, January 13, 2012. 
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

Futility of a League: Arab Action against Assad

With observers on the ground in Syrian cities, the Arab League conceded at the beginning of 2012 that the monitors had “failed to halt the lethal violence” in Syria.[1] Nabil Al Arabi, the organization’s chair, acknowledged that snipers persisted in major cities, but that the allegiance of the shooters had not been ascertained. Such cautiousness was itself likely a contributor to what the Journal refers to as “pitfalls of the organization’s self-reinvention as a regional diplomatic playmaker.”[2] Criticism had been mounting that the “monitoring mission has done little to resolve a conflict that the United Nations [estimated at the time had] taken more than 5,000 mostly civilian lives. Perhaps this might be an indication of the snipers’ allegiance.

As of January 3^, 2012, 390 people had been killed in Syria since the observers arrived on December 29^th—which is less than a week before the report.[3] The observers were tasked with monitoring Assad’s compliance with his promise to pull security forces from the city streets, release political prisoners, and allow foreign journalists and human rights workers to enter Syria. Unless the protesters were shooting on themselves, the gun-shots and 390 deaths suggest that Assad was furtively continuing the government’s involvement in the violence.

On January 11, 2012, Anwar Abdel Malik, one of the observers, abruptly resigned because “he felt that the mission was serving the interests of the government rather than trying to end the crackdown on protesters. The mission was a farce, and the observers have been fooled,” he said. “The regime orchestrated it and fabricated most of what we saw, to stop the Arab League from taking action against the regime.” He added, “The regime isn’t committing one war crime, but a series of crimes against its people.” A week earlier, the human rights group Avaaz had reported that the group’s “researchers had gathered the names of at least 617 people who had died under torture in government installations since the beginning of the uprising against [Assad].”[4]

On the day that Malik resigned, Assad was at an outdoors rally in Damascus, telling the cheering crowd that he had come to draw energy from it. “I belong to this street,” he said before promising to end the “conspiracy” then underway—as if blatant protests in the cities of Syria were somehow secret and hidden from view.[5] In reaction to how Assad depicted the protests and the extent to which he claimed that the evidence against his government’s atrocities simply did not exist even though it did, we might want to worry a bit more about how much validity we give to the microphone in defining social reality. An official says X, and society takes X as valid, more often than not wholly uncritically as if little fish with mouths wide open, mindlessly swimming in a school without a hint of education.

Given Assad’s rock-hard intransigence, going the route of monitors being led around by his government officials can be reckoned as tantamount to admitting impotence. The response by the League was a marked departure from when the League asked the U.N. Security Council to impose a No Fly Zone over Libya. To be sure, even if the Arab League were to make the request in the case of Syria, the existence of the veto in the Council would likely merely confirm the impotence of the “regional diplomatic playmaker.” So what can be done?

Although not sufficient as a remedy, strengthening the Arab League from being a confederal alliance of largely empty threats to a federal system with teeth on par with the E.U. and U.S. might be good a start. The Journal reports that the failure of the monitors was opening new rifts within the league. The president of the Arab Parliament, a mere advisory body of Arab League diplomats whose decisions are non-binding, recommended that Arabi withdraw the observers. Even though they may have been providing Assad with cover and a tool of delay, Arabi was free to disregard the “parliament’s” advice. Conversely, if the E.U. Parliament, which is composed of elected representatives of the E.U. citizens, passes the law (i.e., not just advisory), the president of the E.U. Commission cannot simply ignore it. As the Arab league stood at the beginning of 2012, relying on the alliance to stop Assad was more than a bit naïve. The Arab League “diplomats” might examine the E.U. in particular for ideas on how the league could become something more than a league, adding the checks and balances that dual sovereignty enables. Were Syria a state in such a union, its basic law could allow a supermajority of elected representatives and state officials in Arab Union bodies to impose a No Fly Zone or do even more militarily.

Of course, the U.S. and the state of Israel would doubtless object to an Arab federal union, but such an entity could in principle be drawn up without the permission of the outside parties. My basic point over all here is that the Arab Spring in 2011 could serve as a springboard for Arab leaders to think about systemic changes that go beyond incremental fixes that don’t really fix anything. According to Salman Shaikh at the Brookings Institution, Arab leaders are “feeling the wishes of their street much more. Whereas perhaps they could have ignored them before, they are hearing now that 85% to 90% of the people are with the protesters.” So, he added, the leaders are “being compelled to act.” The question is perhaps whether their institutions can afford them the ability to do so, or whether the “actions” will continue to be “monitors” and diplomats’ statements.

1.  Matt Bradley and Nour Malas, “Arab World Diplomacy Fails to Stop Syria Clash,” The Wall Street Journal, January 3, 2011. 
2. Ibid.
3. Kareem Fahim, “Hundreds Tortured in Syria, Human Rights Group Says,” The New York Times, January 6, 2012. 
4. Nada Bakri, “Syria’s President Is Defiant in Rare Public Appearance,” The New York Times, January 12, 2012. 
5. Ibid.

Diplomatic Pressure and Human Rights: The Case of Assad in Syria

It is perhaps telling that the world was more or less content, as of 2011, to rely on diplomatic pressure in the idyllic hope that it is sufficient to remove a tyrant from power, even if a tyrant were unleasing the weapons of war, including chemical weapons, on his own people I have Bashar Assad of Syria.

In August 2011, the U.N. Security Council issued a statement condemning Assad’s offensive within Syria against his own people. The Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council also denounced Assad’s violence. Furthermore, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain withdrew their respective ambassadors. Meanwhile, the Obama administration praised the increased diplomatic pressure and urged that more was needed. Washington was looking to Turkey to use its influence. “Historically, concerted multilateral pressure and sanctions have the greatest impact on the Assad regime’s calculations,” Andrew Tabler of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy said. We “know that sanctions impact the regime, given its terrible economic situation and the regime’s worsening finances,” he added.[1] Yet an expert from the International Crisis Group admits that it may not matter to the very top.

I contend that even though a “calculations” approach in response to Assad may match his tactical-oriented or strategic approach to governance, the “tit-for-tat” level is grossly insufficient not only for removing a tyrant from power, but also in terms of dealing with human rights abuses. In other words, calculated effect is too wan for a domain such as human rights in which people are literally losing their lives.

LA Times (2011)

For example, relying on Saudi Arabia to pressure Assad because he has been going after Sunni tribes with ties to the kingdom naively assumes that the dictator would simply walk away from power simply from external pressure. Even in spite of opposition from the Arab League, Gadhafi was able to hold on to power at least as of August of 2011. Even bombing Tripoli and aiding the opposition had not achieved enough external pressure to remove the tyrant from power. Was Assad to simply walk away from solely diplomatic pressure?

If Gadhifi had lost the right to rule by international agreement, then to do anything less than remove him from power by force makes the international position look weak, if not impotent. For someone such as Barak Obama to say, “Gadahi must leave,” and then for the tyrant to remain makes Obama look foolish (and impotent).  That is to say, Obama ought not over-reach. More generally, if the international consensus is that a tyrant has lost the legitimacy to rule, the parties of that consensus are obliged to remove that tyrant unless an international mechanism is set up to do remove rulers who have been “ruled” illegitimate. In other words, governmental sovereignty is not an absolute, and the world ought not reply on diplomatic pressure to enforce transgressors. The duty arises out of the declaration and because the citizens being abused are not in a position to remove their dictator themselves.

1. Borzou Daragahi, "Arab Nations Add to Pressure on Syrian Regime," LA Times, August 9, 2011.

Gandhi as a Model for the Arab Spring

After two weeks in 2011 of mass protests in Egypt for representative democracy and the ouster of President Mubarak, the Egyptian government agreed to concessions including allowing freedom of the press, releasing of political prisoners arrested during the protests, and commencing a committee with the opposition to consider constitutional amendments. The "regime also pledged not to harass those participating in the anti-government protests."[1] Gandhi would have been proud, though the protesters left room for improvement on this score. Understanding how they could have done so can be of use to pro-democracy protesters not only in the Middle East, but also around the world.

To be sure, the Egyptian protesters could have done worse. Fortunately, they did not emulate the strategic orientation of the Obama administration. The Obama administration was "struggling to determine if a democratic revolution can succeed while President Hosni Mubarak remains in office."[2] The man whom Obama had sent to persuade Mubarak not to run for re-election eight month later, Frank Wisner, told a group of diplomats and security experts that “President Mubarak’s continued leadership is critical — it’s his opportunity to write his own legacy.”[3] Meanwhile the U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, "gave a strategy overview that stood at odds with that assessment."[4] Earlier, she had "made the case at a gathering in Munich that the entire process would take time, and must be carefully managed."[5] Revolutions must be managed? This approach can be viewed as an oxymoron.

When Mubarak resigned after eighteen days of protests, the Obama administration tried to catch up from its public position that Mubarak could another seven months until the regularly-scheduled elections would be held. "It is hardly the first time the Obama administration has seemed uncertain on its feet during the Egyptian crisis. . . . The mixed messages have been confusing and at times embarrassing — a reflection of a policy that, by necessity, has been made up on the fly. 'This is what happens when you get caught by surprise,' said one American official, who would not speak on the record. 'We’ve had endless strategy sessions for the past two years on Mideast peace, on containing Iran. And how many of them factored in the possibility that Egypt,' and presumably whatever dominoes follow it, 'moves from stability to turmoil? None.'"[6]  However, it could be that the reason was less being caught by surprise and more being too technocratically- or bureaucratically-minded. "Administration officials insist their responses have been more reaction to fast-moving events than any fundamental change in objective."[7]  In other words, Barak Obama and his advisors might have been too occupied with strategy to act on the basis of principled, big-picture, leadership. Obama, it turned out, was no Gandhi during the Arab Spring.

As an alternative to Obama's timid and incremental approach, Gandhi's approach is a better example for the courageous and non-violent Egyptian protesters in early 2011. Indeed, they were generally in Gandhi’s camp already; they only needed to more completely apply his strategy of active non-cooperation. This occurred to me during the twelfth day of protests, when the film, Gandhi was being fortuitously aired on the Turner Classic Movie channel on television. It occurred to me that rather than having responding in violence to the pro-government violence, the protesters could have taken the higher moral ground by not cooperating. The non-activity and normative message alone could have won the day even over the government’s raw force. This is the incredible thing about moral power--it can affect even governmental power and the related force of the sword, or rock. This is something the protesters in Arab Spring could have taken more to heart.

Gandhi proffered a new way to fight. "We will fight against their anger--not provoke it," Gandhi says in the movie. Non-violent non-cooperation is indeed fighting. As in all fighting, there is pain.  Only rather than inflicting physical pain, Gandhi took others' anger and though his pain the others would feel pain. "Through our pain, they will see their injustice. This will call them pain." It prompts them to as questions about themselves--uncomfortable questions with even more unpleasant answers. This new way of fighting is not in the interest of governments. If their opponents do not turn to violence, governments such as the Egyptian will be inclined to actually tempt the non-violent protesters to violence because it is a government's currency. Ironically, governments are on firmer ground when their opponents turn violent because government is fundamentally a means of legitimately ordering societal violence. In dealing with non-violent civil disobedience, governments are not in control; rather, the protesters are acting at their choosing to provoke a reaction that will make the injustice transparent to all. This locus of control gives the non-violent the upper hand. Rather than joining government on its axis, non-violent civil disobedience fights not to punish for weaknesses that we all possess, but to change minds and hearts. It is thus active rather than passive.

In terms of character, particular traits are necessary for one to remain non-violent even when tempted to strike back. According to Gandhi, turning the other cheek is not just figurative; it requires courage to take the anger of those having the power of government. Relatedly, firmness is also required. It is to defy "not with violence that would provoke anger," but, rather, "with firmness that will open their eyes." In contrast, an eye for an eye "only makes the world blind." Gandhi looked back at history to find that even as tyrants might for a time seem invincible, they have all fallen in the end. He felt that noncooperation with evil is a duty. A sense of this duty is also required.  Strategizers, such as those in the Obama administration, would be like seeds on rock in terms of Gandhi's approach. That is to say, Gandhi preached and engaged in principled leadership rather than in what was most comfortable for him at the moment. His approach also called upon self-respect. One must willingly take others' blows without either hitting back or retreating, and this involves keeping one's head held high with a sense that what one is doing is the alternative worthy of self-respect. Such respect is worth something to the protester, for pain is indeed involved in making injustice visible.

In terms of Egypt, the protesters could have recalled Gandhi's strategy of a general strike throughout British India, with Indians at prayer rather than work such that the entire country just stopped. Gandhi’s strategy is morally superior and more effective than answering government troops with rocks. A people willingly stopped of their own accord cannot be governed because there is no activity to stop. A government cannot cope with such a strategy of non-violent non-cooperation.  Hence it is no coincidence that in Egypt the pro-government forces on the street lured the protesters into engaging in violence. The protesters might have looked to Gandhi rather than take the bait. Even though tyrants might seem invincible for a time, one can have faith that the apparently-mighty in terms of worldly power will eventually face their own downfall. When their injustice has been suffered in a way that exposes it, that downfall can be facilitated. Ironically, returning violence for the violence of the state actually extends the current regime's tenure as providing order in the context of violence is a government's foremost rationale to exist.

Not taking the bait is  precisely where self-discipline and moral courage become so crucial in Gandhi's approach. Resisting "an eye for an eye" was on the mind of Hussein Ramadan, a political activist and organizer who helped lead the protests in Bahrain the week after Mubarak had fallen in Egypt. “The people are angry, but we will control our anger, we will not burn a single tire or throw a single rock. We will not go home until we succeed. They want us to be violent. We will not.”[8] The "they" here refers to the government.

When a people spurs its own government's instigations to be violent, the legitimacy of that government is compromised and the people gain the upper hand, even if this is not apparent at the time.  When soldiers working for the British beat unarmed protesters at the Salt Works in India, any moral right that the British had had to maintain order in India was lost. Of course, changes in government policy can lag, but in the end a government that has lost its moral basis to government must fall.  It is like a romantic relationship that ends. At one point before it actually ends, one of the two people in it has the sense that the relationship will end because of something intrinsic to it. Even so, the other person may be stunned when it does end—not having had the same sense. One could also use the analogy of jets. Once one has run out of fuel, it must inevitably fall back to earth. So too, a government that has lost its moral legitimacy on account of illegitimate violence exacted on its citizens must fall, sooner or later. If such a government takes its time in succumbing to this natural law, citizens can simply sit and do nothing.

In other words, active non-violent non-cooperation can be viewed simply as waiting for nature to do its work on the human organization that still takes itself as immortal. Protesters resisting the temptation to return violence know and have faith in this natural law, so they are not so desperate to hit back. It is the comparative lack of desperation that gives the protesters the upper hand in being able to provoke a government to overstep.  Unlike such protesters, government officials typically attach urgency to protests and thus feel compelled to act under the assumption: "before things get out of hand." Ironically, it is such a mentality that causes things to get out of hand. The lack of order is in the government rather than the protesters who foreswear violence.

1. David E. Sanger, “As Mubarak Digs In, U.S. Policy in Egypt Is Complicated,” The New York Times, February 5, 2011; Msnbc.com, “Mubarak Still in Power as Government, Opposition Talk.”
2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.
8.Michael Slackman, “Bahrain Takes the Stage with a Raucous Protest,” The New York Times, February 15, 2011.