Do Protests Based in Confrontation Work?

Based on my knowledge of history I think confrontation works in some specific (and rare) circumstances, but not in others.  Here is my thesis:  Confrontation is counterproductive if the people you need to achieve your goals identify with the people whom you are confronting.

The Civil Rights movement in the United States used protest marches, sit-ins and other confrontational tactics and in the end they were very successful, segregation was abolished. The reason the movement was successful was that the marches, sit-ins and other confrontational approaches were directed at the people of the South.  The people and local and State governments in the South just got angry and defiant in response to the protests. But the rest of the country, that did not particularly identify with the people of the south because of their segregationist policies, imposed the solution through Federal legislation.

Gandhi used similar tactics in India to achieve independence.  The people in England, thousands of miles away, largely unaffected by the protests, imposed the solution.

Confrontational tactics in South Africa made little headway for decades.  The white population that dominated government just got more determined to defend Apartheid.  The end of Apartheid was the result of press coverage that ultimately caused the uninvolved rest of the world to impose crippling economic sanctions.

On the other hand in my 45 years of adult life I have seen confrontational protests by many groups about many perceived wrongs that in my estimation did not produce positive results.  The Vietnam war protests went on for nearly a decade and in my estimation did not shorten the war and may have lengthened it.  The lack of success by the Occupy protests of a couple years ago is highlighted by the fact the Republicans whose policies created the inequality economy are about to take over both houses of Congress.   The numerous protests that led to the overthrow of dictatorships during the Arab spring have failed miserably because in the end the confrontational tactics undermine the restraint necessary for a functioning democracy and have resulted in a confrontational (as in shooting each other) free for all among different groups striving for influence.

So, I conclude that unless there is some uninvolved greater power that can impose a solution, the emotion confrontation causes in those confronted will undermine both the support of many of the folks needed to create the solution, and to some extent the restraint and respect fundamental to democracy.

The current wave of protests about trigger happy cops in local jurisdictions does not seem to me to lend itself to solution by imposition from some uninvolved greater power, and in fact the confrontational actions are aimed at the citizens and police of the jurisdictions where the change must occur.  They are in the face of the people they need to solve the problem.  They are more likely to create resentment than cooperation.

Comments?