How do you make change with the violent resistance of oppressed people, and what is the long-term impact? What’s the difference between resistance and terrorism?
During the last Pride Month, there was a social media campaign from radical pro-Palestinian groups arguing that “Stonewall was an intifada” and that the only reason LGBTQ folks have rights today is due to the violent resistance of our ancestors. This came up again after the year mark of October 7th, when radical activists decided to “honor the resistance fighters” for Palestinian rights.
In stories about change movements, history often gravitates toward two extremes. On the one hand, many want to sugarcoat history’s actual events and say that peaceful advocacy causes change. On the other hand, others seemingly wish to say that the only reason change happened was the violent uprising of oppressed people.
One of the books I read this past year was The Deviants War by Eric Cervini. This book went in-depth on pre-Stonewall LGBTQ activism, primarily by Frank Kameny. Kameny was a veteran and astronomer who wanted to serve and give back to his country. He was met with government regulations created specifically to oppress gay people in government jobs. He started Washington, DC, gay rights activism that worked within the justice system and the Pentagon to try and appeal the government’s decisions to restrict LGBTQ involvement in government.
Stonewall could only have made the impact it did with the authentic and substantial work within existing systems by activists like Frank Kameny (performance in tandem with coalition systems change). At the same time, his work alone would never have made the strides seen in the last twenty years without the consciousness-raising effect of Stonewall and other riots. The Stonewall Reader by Jason Baumann uses firsthand accounts to narrate this dichotomy.
In 2024, this dichotomy appears in performative activism. Anti-Israel activists have expressed their support of violence as a means to oppose Israeli oppression. Jewish communities argue that these groups support terrorism. The line between these is thin but very distinct. At the very least, violent uprising turns to terrorism when crimes against humanity (as defined by international law) are committed.
There are lines in fighting oppression: Stonewall did not include mass sexual assault of the police officers attempting to arrest partygoers. Even the alt-right Charlottesville protests in 2017, which employed hateful chants, theoretically were meant to be civil and peaceful demonstrations.
Those who conflate terrorism and resistance create a dangerous and precarious position. First, the more normalized violent rhetoric becomes, the more frequently instances of actual violence occur. Second, since it’s purely performative activism, it does not independently produce lasting and effective change. Third, the violence shown by Hamas is statistically not supported by the vast majority of the world. The possible coalition automatically shrinks.
The Deviant’s War highlighted the struggle between activists who wanted a particular type of peaceful demonstration and those who tried to push for more disruptive action. There will always be dissent between these groups, but the book’s central message was the need for both for the systems change that came over the following 50 years.
The critical point is that violent resistance and peaceful demonstrations are both performative actions independently and, therefore, are not individually effective. Terrorism is not a means to resist oppression, and glorifying it limits the coalition a group can build. To make real change, we need a combination of performative peaceful protests, broad coalition building, and a commitment to working within current systems. In the following article, I’ll go into more depth about specific tactics anti-Israel activists have used in the last year and analyze the effectiveness of those tactics.
