The Secret To Effective Nonviolent Protest By Jamila Raqib

Peaceful action allows a community to not only highlight the injustices of society, but to create a solution to the problem. To ensure the success of a nonviolent campaign, one must consider the sources of power of the opponent and the need for unity among the protesters. For example, in her Ted Talk, “The Secret to Effective Nonviolent Protest,” Jamila Raqib employs a graphic of a block tower, representing ISIS, with each block representing a necessary component of ISIS’s power, such as skilled labor. As these blocks are removed one by one, the structure of the tower crumbles, and ultimately collapses. Raqib uses a cause-and-effect relationship to illustrate how depriving opponents of their vital resources and institutions allows protesters to attack the oppressors at their foundation to break them from the ground up.
This tactic is not much different that proposed by Thoreau in the 1800s.
In his essay “Resistance to Civil Government,” Thoreau criticizes men who claim to oppose the Mexican-American war and refuse to fight, but “directly by their allegiance, and so indirectly by their money, furnished a substitute.” This statement demonstrates his belief that the government obtains its power through taxes, which are used to fund an unjust war. In the same way the withdrawal of vital institutions can devastate ISIS, the refusal to pay taxes would immobilize the government’s push for war because there would be no money to pay for
it. Thus, Thoreau asserts that it is not enough to just verbally oppose injustice, but one must completely remove support from the source of power. Another important factor to assess is the necessity of unity for any campaign to effectively function. Raqib states, “Isolated actions do very little if they're not part of a larger strategy… This is an example of just one act of defiance in just one city. But what if it was coordinated with the dozens of other acts of nonviolent resistance that have taken place against ISIS?” (Source E). Her repetition of “just one” reveals the small but powerful effect of one act of protest, and she employs the rhetorical question to ask the reader to imagine the power of many interconnected and coordinated acts. This emphasizes the importance of protesters becoming united in their campaign rather than acting in separate acts of resistance. In the documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell, the Muslim and Christian women overcome their religious differences to unite against the horrific violence of the war. When their actions seem to be ignored, they call in even more women. This cooperation allows for a stronger protest because it includes a multitude of people all fighting for the same purpose, and the sheer number of protesters amplifies the pressure on their oppressors, making them impossible to ignore. Ultimately, unity and destruction of the sources of power enable people to stand up against injustice and lead to progress in a peaceful yet effective way.