The Rising

"In the early 1970s, for instance, the democratically elected leader of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos, tried to centralize power in his own hands. Students rose up: A clash between them and police left six protesters dead. Transit workers went on strike, followed by joint student-worker demonstrations. Marcos countered by declaring martial law. Led by Cardinal Jaime Sin, the archbishop of Manila, Catholics arose to resist."

"In 1983, Marcos's key opponent, Benigno Aquino, was assassinated. Marcos banned TV coverage of Aquino's funeral. But 2 million mourners showed up for what turned into an 11-hour rally against the regime. The middle and professional classes then joined the protesters. The Manila business community held weekly demonstrations. The following year, there was a general workers' strike. After Marcos stole the next election, members of the armed forces began to mutiny."

"Such uprisings are not rare. For their 2011 book, Why Civil Resistance Works, the political scientists Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan looked at 323 resistance movements from 1900 to 2006, including more than 100 nonviolent resistance campaigns. What Chenoweth and Stephan showed is that citizens are not powerless; they have many ways to defend democracy. For the United States, the question of the decade is: Why hasn't a resistance movement materialized here?"

People have risen worldwide to defend rights, dignity, and democracies in countries including Poland, South Africa, Lebanon, South Korea, Ukraine, East Timor, Serbia, Madagascar, and Nepal. In the Philippines during the 1970s and 1980s, student protests, transit and worker strikes, Catholic resistance, massive funeral rallies, professional and business demonstrations, military mutinies, and international pressure combined to unseat Ferdinand Marcos in 1986. A 2011 study analyzing 323 resistance movements from 1900 to 2006 found more than 100 nonviolent campaigns and concluded that citizens are not powerless and have many ways to defend democracy. The United States faces the question of why a comparable resistance movement has not materialized.

Read at The Atlantic