In September 2003, a member of Why War? posted an archive of damaging internal files from Diebold on his website. After Swarthmore threatened to shut off our Internet access in the face of baseless copyright infringement claims from Diebold, we initiated a global campaign of disobedience, in which students at universities would post mirrors of the files on their own servers, staying ahead of each specious take-down request. At its peak, more than 50 different colleges and universities around the world had copies of the documents and 50,000 viewers were visiting our site each day.

“Somewhere we must come to see that human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals who are willing to be co-workers with God. And without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the primitive forces of social stagnation.”

Had French society allowed for nonviolent social movements to form and flourish, violence would have seemed politically inefficient. Because immigrants and the working-class are so effectively shut out of French society, they have no other way to effect change than to violently demand it.