DVD: A Force More Powerful
$39.95
DVD-FMP
In 1985 a young South African named Mkhuseli Jack led a movement agaunbst the legalized discrimination known as apatheid. Their campaign of nonviolent mass action, most notably a devastating consumer boycott in the Eastern Cape province, awakened whites to black grievances and fatally weakened business support for apartheid.
Episode Two:
In April 1940, German military forces invaded Denmark. Danish leaders adopted a strategy of "resistance disguised as collaboration" -- undermining German objectives by negotiating, delaying and obstructing Nazi demands. Underground rsistance organized sabotage and strikes, and rescued all but a handful of Denmark's 7,000 Jews.
In 1980, striking workers in Poland demanded independent unions. Using their leverage to negotiate unprecedented rights in a system where there was no power seperate from the communist party, they created a union, Solidarity. Driven underground by a government crackdown in 1981, Solidarity re-emerged in 1989 as Poland's governing political party.
In 1983, Chilean workers initiated a wave of nonviolent protests against the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, who had taken power in a bloody coup d'etat on September 11, 1973, when the democratically-elected President Salvatore Allende was killed and the Presidential Palace was bombed in a plot in which the U.S. C.I.A. was complicit [see film: "Missing" listed above]. Severe repression failed to stop the protests, and violent opposition failed to dislodge the dictatorship -- until the democratic opposition organized to defeat Pinochet in a 1988 referendum.
Reviewing a century often called the most violent in human history, this series is the story of millions who chose to battle the forces of brutality with nonviolent weapons - and WON.
Originally aired on PBS in 2000. Produced by Steve Zimmerman and Miriam York and WETA Televison, Washington, D.C. Each tape is 87 minutes. Includes a Discussion Guide.
A companion book, "A Force More Powerful" by Jack DuVall (St. Martin's Press) is available seperately. To learn more about nonviolent conflict visit the website: www.aforcemorepowerful.org
