From Dictatorship to Democracy

conventional military rebellion

Violent rebellions can trigger brutal repression that frequently leaves the populace more helpless than before.

population becomes weak, lacks self-confidence, and is incapable of resistance. People are often too frightened to share their hatred of the dictatorship and their hun­ger for freedom even with family and friends. People are often too terrified to think seriously of public resistance. In any case, what would be the use? Instead, they face suffering without purpose and a future without hope.

By placing confidence in violent means, one has chosen the very type of struggle with which the oppressors nearly always have superiority.

The fall of one regime does not bring in a utopia. Rather, it opens the way for hard work and long efforts to build more just social, economic, and political relationships and the eradication of other forms of injustices and oppression.