Month: September 2025

Documentary review

The documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell provides a powerful  case study of how ordinary citizens, particularly women, can mobilized nonviolent action to confront one of Africa’s most brutal conflicts. Led by Leymah Gbowee, the Liberian women’s movement pursued clear and precise goals: to end the civil war, secure peace negotiations, and reclaim their families’ future. Their strategies were grounded in inclusivity (bridging Christian and Muslim divides) and their tactics included fasting, and prayer. Tactics also included sit-ins, public chants, and, when negotiations stalled in Ghana, the threat of public nudity. In these different tactics and strategies, we can clearly see an application of what Gene Sharp describes as methods of protest, noncooperation, and intervention.

The film illustrates that nonviolent resistance can succeed even where or when  diplomacy fails. By forming a firm white line between warring factions, the women disrupted cycles of violence and delegitimized the warlords. Ultimately, this movement contributed to Taylor’s exile and the election of Africa’s first female president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Their achievement supports Sharp’s argument that when nonviolent struggle derives its power from the mobilization of social unity rather than reliance on arms, it can still produce real change.

From a West Sahelian perspective (confronted with violent insurgencies and intercommunal conflict), the film resonates on many levels. The Liberian women’s insistence on unity captured in Gbowee’s question, “Does a bullet know a Christian from a Muslim?”, offers a vital lesson for the Sahel, where ethnic and religious tensions are exploited to sustain conflict. A nonviolent movement in the Sahel region would need to similarly transcend identity divides, claiming legitimacy by appealing to shared suffering and collective aspirations for peace.

The film has more than a historical account; it is a pedagogical tool for understanding how grassroots mobilization, moral courage, and creative nonviolent tactics can succeed where traditional diplomacy and armed force often fail. For students of nonviolence, it illustrates the practical application of Sharp’s methods reminding us that sustainable peace is built on dismantling and disarming (nonviolently)  the social conditions that fuel it. 

The Singing Revolution (2006) documents Estonia’s use of song, solidarity, and symbolic defiance to resist Soviet occupation and reclaim independence. Across nearly fifty years of repression, deportation, Russification, and cultural erasure, Estonians utilized song and Laulupidu – their annual festival of song – to preserve identity and hope. In August 1991, Estonia declared independence, a feat credited to the strategic upholding of national identity and cultural expression. The love of song became a deliberate strategy, transforming music into a unifying and mobilizing force.  

Preserving language and culture and restoring sovereignty were the primary goals. Strategy relied on channeling symbols of nationhood into collective acts of resistance that refused assimilation. Singing provided morale and protection: justifying violent repression of mass, nonviolent gatherings of singing citizens was difficult. The song Mu isamaa on minu arm, banned by Soviet authorities, became a symbol of survival and an unofficial national anthem at the 1969 festival, when thousands defiantly sang it, despite Soviet military attempts to drown out Estonian voices. It became a rallying cry – openly expressing dissent through the solidarity of song. 

Estonians leveraged the unity of this event into additional tactics. In 1987, environmental protests challenged plans for phosphorite mines. In 1989, nearly two million people across the Baltics created a 370-mile human chain, demanding the end of regional occupation. The Estonian flag was reclaimed as a symbol of nationhood – displayed at rallies and woven into clothing. Writers published hidden histories of occupation and the Moloto-Ribbentrop Pact as acts of consciousness raising. Politicians pursued institutional resistance within glasnot structures to assert the primacy of Estonian law. These interconnected acts reframed public discourse and eroded Soviet authority. Singing alone did not bring independence, but it sustained the movement until a moment of ripeness where political opportunity aligned with Soviet decline. 

The film utilizes archival footage and survivor testimony, immersing the viewer in the culture and, often, the language that Soviet policy sought to extinguish. The Singing Revolution captures how joy, tradition, and solidarity became forms of defiance, showing how cultural expression kept a repressed society unified. The film shows the ways collective identity can be mobilized as a force for change, a reminder that nonviolent struggle is not only strategic but also deeply human. Staying silent meant slow assimilation – the loss of Estonian language, identity, and national connection. Violence risked further violent repression. Song offered a third path: resistance that was hopeful, creative, and transformative.