Martin Luther King Jnr. Marching with protesters in Salma, 1965 [Photo/history.com]
We were all shocked when Nasa leader, Hon. Raila Odinga, declared that Nasa had become a resistance movement.
Some had to clear their ears and blink several times to make sure that they heard the right words from Baba.
By resistance movement, the picture most of our minds manufacture is one of going into the forests and fighting the establishment from there.
The resistance movement usually uses guerilla tactics, kidnapping, acts of terrorism or even infrastructure sabotage to advance their cause against the government in power.
This can be seen in many revolutionary movements around the world.
For example, such tactics were made famous by Fidel Castro and Ernesto ‘Che’ Geuvara during the liberation of Cuba from General Batista in the 50s!
However, and upon clarification by Raila Odinga, what he meant by National Resistance Movement, was a civil, nonviolent resistance movement.
So what is a nonviolent resistance movement?
According to Wikipedia, it is the practice of achieving goals such as social change through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic and political noncooperation and even religious means as can be seen by what Mahatma Gandhi achieved in India and Martin Lurther King Jnr in America.
So, how can Nasa and Hon. Raila achieve social change through non-violent means?
Firstly, they need to be non-violent.
This is unheard of in Kenyan political protesting.
We are known to throw stones, loot, return teargas fired by police back to their sender, destroy property and even prevent others from going to work and travelling.
Therefore, there needs to be a change of tactics by the Nasa team.
A second way of achieving a non-violent resistance movement, is to fuse it with religion.
Nasa needs to get a spiritual leader to give Nasa supporters the much needed spiritual nourishment needed for any non-violent protests.
Faith, belief and religion was a major variable in the works of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jnr.
Their movements gained traction for they found a higher purpose of their protests through God and spirituality.
With the above conditions met, a third step would be to constantly demand dialogue from the Jubilee government.
To achieve this, Nasa will have to collaborate with International organizations, other religions (Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and even Atheists), and the international media.
Of particular importance would be media of the likes of Aljazeera, CNN and BBC.
On such media platforms, they would be able to voice their issues to the world.
A fourth and very effective method for civil disobedience would be to boycott events, products, services and all things government sponsored.
One way would be to stop buying government bonds, walking/cycling to work, occupying government buildings and even refusing to vote.
All and all, it takes a lot of energy and time to get such non-violent movements off the ground and bearing results.
Therefore the NASA supporters need to understand it will not be overnight success.
Such movements take time.
They will have to be patient like the Biblical Job.
Examples of nonviolent resistance movements are available online, but let me highlight some with the corresponding time it took for them to succeed:
Cuban Opposition Movement, 1959 – Present.
Orange Revolution, Ukraine, 2004 – 2005.
Civil Rights Movement, USA, 1955 – 1968.