KEY TAKEAWAYS
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Kenya captured the world’s attention last month as thousands of youth took to the street to protest the government’s controversial proposed tax hikes. As these demonstrations reached a boiling point in late June, the predominately Gen-Z activists received support from a somewhat unexpected ally: faith leaders.
The Inter-Religious Council of Kenya spoke out in solidarity with youth demonstrators and warned against excessive police force just one day before the protests turned violent. Then, in early July, faith leaders of various denominations joined in a memorial service to honor the lives of at least 43 people killed during the protests and called on the government to release demonstrators still being held by the police.
The conspicuous role of spiritual leaders — not just in Kenya, but also recent protests movements from Hong Kong to Iran to Nicaragua — illustrate the need to better recognize the religious dimensions of peaceful, sustainable change. The urgency of this call is all the more pressing as we witness a broader resurgence of religion in global politics in the 21st century.
And new data from USIP can aid activists, practitioners and policymakers in their efforts by advancing our understanding of the oft overlooked, but widespread, role that religion can play in nonviolent resistance campaigns. The Religion and Nonviolent Action (RNVA) dataset examines 183 distinct campaigns for major political change between 1945 and 2013 — and includes information on various religious dimensions (such as ideas, actors, institutions and symbols) for 102 movements. This can help shed light on what we know about religion and nonviolent action, as well as raise questions still to be answered.
Much of what we know about religion and nonviolent resistance comes from a limited number of examples — with the American civil rights movement, the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa and the civil disobedience movement in India among those most often cited. Yet, religion has shaped nonviolent action on nearly every continent.
According to the RNVA dataset, more than half of the 183 nonviolent campaigns for major political change since World War II involved religion in some way. This includes a whole set of cases that often fail to garner public attention. During Panama’s anti-Noriega movement in the late 1980s, for instance, priests frequently joined the Civic Crusade in Panama coalition at rallies. In South Korea, religious clergy similarly added to calls for democratic reforms, with several dozen Roman Catholic priests and nuns leading a march in Pusan in June 1987. And in Madagascar, the National Council of Christian Churches proved to be an important ally of the Active Forces movement following the death of demonstrators that peacefully marched to the President’s Palace in 1991. More information on these and other cases can be explored via USIP’s new interactive map.
The extensive range of nonviolent movements that involve religion can broaden the lessons policymakers and practitioners draw from past cases. It can, for instance, help them identify more robust conclusions about when and why religion contributes to the success of nonviolence campaigns by comparing movements that do and do not achieve their objectives. It can also help to contextualize those lessons and identify how to support nonviolent resistance in ways that are sensitive to local religious and cultural norms.
Our current understanding of religion and nonviolent action also only draws on one specific type of religious influence: charismatic, religious leaders — such as Mahatma Gandhi and the Dalai Lama — who mobilize movements that capture the spotlight.
However, the RNVA dataset underscores how religion can do more than motivate people to adopt nonviolent action and demonstrates that religion has influence that extends far beyond traditional faith leaders. Religious festivals, commemorations and holy days often shape the timing of nonviolent action, as these sacred events serve as important points of coordination, even when resistance is not necessarily motivated by religion.
Religious festivals, commemorations and holy days often shape the timing of nonviolent action, as these sacred events serve as important points of coordination.
The National Resistance of East Timorese Students, for example, organized their travel to meetings or protests across the country under the guise of religious events. And during the Arab Spring, protests frequently followed Friday prayer in Egypt and Tunisia.
Religious locations often operate in a similar way. Holy sites may serve organizational purposes or be deliberately chosen for their symbolic value. In the early 2010s, churches in Côte d'Ivoire — including St. Paul’s Roman Cathedral in the center of Abidjan, the country’s largest city — served as a common site for sit-in protests organized by the pro-Ouattara campaign. Additionally, Buddhist monks in Tibet purposely organized demonstrations in 1987 at the Jokhang temple, one of the most important religious sites in Tibet.
Spiritual practices may further bolster demonstrators’ resolve in the face of setbacks and state repression. For instance, Christian hymns have routinely punctuated the sound of protests — from the pro-independence movement in Ghana during the late 1940s to pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong more than a half century later.
Religious rituals and symbols can also add to a sense of collective identity and energize movements, as they hold a deep meaning for followers and evoke powerful emotions. In Poland, Catholic Masses on the last Sunday of the month at Saint Stanislaus Kostka Church in Warsaw would often spill over into Solidarity rallies. And during the 1960s, Buddhist monks and nuns in South Vietnam combined symbolic practices of resistance, such as hunger strikes and sit-ins, with prayer to elicit support for the anti-war movement.
Because the most prominent cases of religion and nonviolent action occurred decades ago, there is also a tendency to miss its more contemporary influence. The RNVA dataset reveals that the religious influence on nonviolent resistance has hardly been relegated to the past.
Of the 102 nonviolent campaigns to draw on religion between 1945 and 2013, more than 40 percent have commenced since the turn of the 21st century. The 2000s alone saw the initiation of more religious nonviolent movements than any of the preceding decades.
This is not merely because more movements, in general, started in that decade. The proportion of religious campaigns has generally increased since the 1960s, comprising more than two-thirds of all new movements by the 2000s.
Nor is the prevalence of religious movements in the 21st century driven exclusively by the Arab Spring, whose resistance campaigns account for fewer than 20 percent of the 64 movements between 2000 and 2013. Rather, religion has shaped resistance across the globe in recent years.
Faith-based organizations, such as the Christians for the Abolition of Torture, were among the civil society groups comprising the Let's Save Togo Collective in the mid-2010s. Village mullahs encouraged protestors to be peaceful during the 2005 Tulip Revolution marches in Kyrgyzstan. And religious leaders, including Father Gerard Jean-Juste, participated in nonviolent demonstrations calling for the return of President Astride to Haiti in 2011.
The growing influence of religion on nonviolent resistance runs parallel to another, more concerning trend: the rise of religious conflicts. Yet, this may represent an important opportunity for activists, policymakers and practitioners. Tapping into the peaceful roots of religion can help movements maintain nonviolent discipline and counter messages that incite violence.
We have only scratched the surface when it comes to understanding the role of religion in nonviolent action. The persistent focus on a narrow form of spiritual influence (leaders) in a limited number of past cases obscures the full range of religion’s impact on peaceful change. The RNVA dataset brings some of this into focus, while also stressing the need for an even deeper appreciation of how religion contributes to nonviolent resistance.
We have only scratched the surface when it comes to understanding the role of religion in nonviolent action.
In particular, we still do not know under what conditions religious support is likely to emerge for movements in the first place, or why some religious groups support a movement while others of the same faith do not. We also still know relatively little about how and when religion might be used to increase a movement’s commitment to nonviolent discipline or overcome setbacks.
Finally, the question of when religion does or does not contribute to movement success remains open. While religious nonviolent movements as whole were not necessarily more likely to achieve their goals, the RNVA dataset does reveal that those campaigns with formal institutional support were the exception: Nonviolent movements with institutional religious support were around 40 percent more likely to succeed than those without such support.
Activists, practitioners and policymakers cannot afford to overlook religion if they seek to broaden the opportunities — and the chances of success — for nonviolent movements. And a richer understanding of the religious influence on nonviolent resistance will give them a fuller picture of contemporary forces at play for peaceful change.