Technology for nonviolent struggle

Use of audio and video cassettes creates less of a vulnerability than broadcast radio and television, since people use different cassettes. Cassettes are similar to books, in that a relatively few people produce them, but there is a considerable diversity and lack of central control over producing them. With inexpensive video cameras, it is now possible for many more people to produce video cassettes.

Audio cassettes played a role in the Iranian revolution of 1978-79. The Shah of Iran began his rule in 1953. His regime seemed invincible. With enormous oil revenues, he created a massive military machine. Secret police terrorized the population through torture and killings. The regime was actively supported by the United States government and was not opposed by the governments of Israel, the Soviet Union or most Arab countries. This apparently overwhelmingly powerful government was brought down by mass nonviolent action, triggered by religious opponents. The speeches of Ayatollah Khomeini, in exile, were circulated on cassette tapes. Funerals, held forty days after deaths, became protests. When police opened fire and killed mourners, further funerals were held. Opponents burned pictures of the Shah in front of spy cameras of the secret police. Tens of thousands of nonviolent demonstrators were shot dead by troops. Eventually sections of the military defected, and the regime quickly collapsed.[12] (It should be said that although the Shah’s regime was toppled largely by nonviolent methods, the successor theocratic regime led by Khomeini was also highly repressive.)

In 1991, a video cassette, combined with television, helped expose Indonesian atrocities in East Timor. The former Portuguese colony of East Timor was invaded and occupied by the Indonesian military regime in 1975. There was continued resistance to the occupiers, both nonviolent civilian resistance and an armed guerrilla struggle. Indonesian troops were highly brutal. As well as torture and killings of civilians, the search and destroy missions against the guerrillas led to widespread starvation. The United Nations condemned the invasion and occupation, but never took any action against them.

Indonesian authorities controlled almost all communication channels. News of resistance and atrocities against the civilian population only reached the outside world via travelers or emigrés. A short-wave transmitter in northern Australia, used to communicate with the East Timorese guerrillas, was shut down by the Australian government.

In November 1991, foreign journalists observed a massacre of hundreds of East Timorese engaged in a nonviolent protest in Dili, the capital of East Timor. One of the journalists, British film-maker Max Stahl, recorded the events on videotape, which was smuggled out of the country. This documentation caused an international scandal. Although there had been many previous massacres witnessed by East Timorese who later left the country, these did not lead to much publicity, partly because of categorical denials by Indonesian authorities. It was the testimony of foreign, independent journalists and of videotape which turned the 1991 Dili massacre into a public relations disaster for the Indonesian occupiers.[13]

Newspapers

Large daily newspapers are enormously influential. Authoritarian governments normally control newspapers directly or subject them to censorship. This is illustrated by the case of the Emergency in India. The Indian government led by Indira Gandhi was widely seen as corrupt and unresponsive. A mass movement developed around the popular figure of Jayaprakesh Narayan, and this appeared to provide a political threat to the government. On 26 June 1975, Indira Gandhi declared an Emergency. Thousands of people were imprisoned, parliament was muzzled, and the press was censored. For the first few days, the electricity supply to key newspapers was cut off. Financial pressures were applied to those that refused to toe the government’s line.

Control of information was a key feature of the Emergency. There was enormous resistance to the government, but groups in different parts of the country knew little of each other. Major demonstrations, with up to half a million people, were not reported and hence unknown elsewhere. Some newspapers capitulated quickly to the censorship requirements, whereas others resisted in various ways. The international press was a key force of opposition; correspondents found innovative ways of getting around censorship. When foreign dignitaries refused to visit India, this hurt the regime; visits by British political figures Margaret Thatcher and Michael Foot were used for propaganda purposes by the regime.

In 1977, Mrs Gandhi called elections, perhaps believing her own government’s censorship-created propaganda about her support. In spite of continued (though relaxed) censorship, the opposition Janata Party was elected. Thus the Emergency came to an end.[14]