Protesters in East Germany, October 30, 1989. Photo: Wolfgang Thieme, Wiki Commons
Protesters in East Germany, October 30, 1989. Photo: Wolfgang Thieme, Wiki Commons
Trump is looking for an excuse to invoke martial law and suspend the Constitution—you know the one he lied about defending in his Oath of Office. Don't give him one.
History has served us up a series of important protest events that were entirely non-violent on the part of the protesters and which resulted in massive changes to multiple nations.
Perhaps the most consequential and the largest non-violent events that changed an entire region were the protests by the people of Leipzig in then East Germany in the Fall of 1989. These are the protests that brought down the Berlin Wall, and began falling dominoes that resulted in the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.
The protests in Leipzig were studiously non-violent and they were huge, growing with each successive event. The then leaders of East Germany were terrified on two fronts. They were scared to death of the protests, but equally scared of what their Russian overseers might do if they faltered in their suppression of their populace.
The East German Communist leaders assembled a massive police and military force of some 8000 members. This force was placed on standby in Leipzig and had been given authority to open fire on the protest marchers. Meanwhile the demonstrations grew from 40,000 to 70,000 to 120,000 and then later to 320,000.
An extraordinary thing happened. There was not one instance of violence or provocation from any of the demonstrators. Members of the Stasi, the secret police modeled after the KGB, glanced furtively from behind curtains as these masses of people marched past their headquarters, depositing flowers and candles at the entry. No violence, no angry words, no antagonism. Just the pure solidarity of presence and nothing more.
The East German government began imploding. And finally began making errors of magnitude which set off streams of East Germans heading for Berlin and converging on the crossings to West Berlin and West Germany. A border guard with orders to shoot the demonstrators looked at the masses of people approaching and at his commander. The decision was made. Open the gates. And it was over. East Germany fell without a shot in anger being fired.
An excellent documentary series on Netflix called Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War covers these events in much greater detail. Including the fact that the offices of the KGB were next door to Stasi headquarters. And also peering from behind curtains at the passing mass demonstrations was a KGB officer named Vladimir Putin.
We in this country are faced with the specter of the same kind of suppression the populations of Eastern Europe were subjected to when they were behind the Iron Curtain. No freedom of press, no freedom of expression, of assembly, of opinion except as dictated by the state. With Donald Trump deporting anyone he sees fit, his attacks on the Judiciary, his attacks on the press for any utterance of criticism of his actions, we see the same suppression of Americans forming. Will Trump form an Iron Curtain around America? The indications are that this is coming.
Protests are planned nationwide, in every state and every capital. Keeping these protests utterly and rigidly non-violent is absolutely critical. The dictators of East Germany and the other former Communist Bloc nations wanted an excuse to retaliate against the protests. They were given none. The commanders on the ground seeing no provocation held their fire.
This is the lesson. We must be an overwhelming presence that is just that, a presence facing down a dictatorship of our own. Trump is looking for an excuse to suspend Congress and the Constitution—you know the one he lied about defending in his Oath of Office. Don’t give him one. He only has the power we grant him and the use of violence in any way grants him power. Non-violence and even silence detract from his power. Use that.
Marty Kassowitz is co-founder of Factkeepers. As founder of Interest Factory and View360, he brings more than 30 years experience in effective online communications, social media management, and platform development to the site. He is a writer, designer, editor and long time observer of the ill-logic demonstrated by too many members of the species known as Mankind. After a long history of somewhat private commentary on a subject he totally hates: politics, Marty was encouraged to build this site and put up his own analyses as well as curate relevant content from other sources.
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