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all dictatorships are baked from the same basic ingredients: corruption, nepotism, mismanagement, social injustice, violence, and fear.
“even the smallest creature can change the course of the future.”
Jonathan Kozol advises: “Pick battles big enough to matter, but small enough to win.”
Benjamin Franklin is said to have remarked, “All mankind is divided into three classes: those that are unmovable, those that are movable, and those that move.”
Make sure that the “line of division”—the phrase was used by an Otpor! buddy of mine named Ivan Marovic—that separates you and the bad guys gives you as many allies as possible.
Remember, in a nonviolent struggle, the only weapon that you’re going to have is numbers.
Bringing Down a Dictator. Narrated by Martin Sheen,
in which we ask people to imagine what’s important to their fellow countrymen, no one ever speaks of things like civil rights, or freedom of religion, or the right to assemble. Those are big things. Instead, people—in the Maldives, in Syria, in Serbia—talk about the little things: they want respect and dignity, they want their families to be safe, and they want honest pay for honest work. That’s it. It’s never sweeping stuff. Too often, however, dissidents fail to realize that it’s the mundane things that move people. Well-educated and passionate, these aspiring revolutionaries focus on lofty
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a revolution only picks up steam once two or more groups that have nothing to do with one another decide to join together for their mutual benefit.
Every tyrant rests on economic pillars, and economic pillars are much easier targets than military bases or presidential palaces. Shake them, and the tyrant will eventually fall.
Dr. Gene Sharp, known as “the father of nonviolent struggle theory.” Every regime, Sharp argues, is held in place by a handful of pillars; apply enough pressure to one or more pillar, and the whole system will soon collapse. All leaders and governments, Sharp believes, no matter where you find them, rely on the same sorts of mechanisms to stay in power, which makes their power more transient than it seems. No power is ever absolute.
The activist’s first task, then, is to make sure the normal course of affairs comes to a screeching halt—to make sure the pillars are shaken.
It’s important to realize that oppression isn’t some demonic force that bubbles up from some deep, festering well of evil in the blackened hearts of your opponents. Rather, it is almost always a calculated decision. In the hands of authorities everywhere—from dictators to elementary school principals—oppression achieves two immediate results: it punishes disobedience, and it prevents future problems by sending a message to potential troublemakers. Like so much we’ve been talking about, all oppression relies on fear in order to be effective: fear of punishment, fear of getting detention, fear
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The trick for activists looking to make oppression backfire lies in identifying situations in which people are using their authority beyond reasonable limits.
When you think of power, remember that exercising it comes at a cost, and that your job as an activist is to make that cost rise ever upward until your opponent is no longer able to afford the charges.
In order to make oppression backfire, it pays to know which of the pillars of power you can use to bolster your case.
Believing that change can happen to you, dreaming big and starting small, having a vision of tomorrow, practicing laughtivism, and making oppression backfire: these are the foundations of every successful nonviolent movement.
Movements are living things, and unless unity is planned for and worked at, it’s never going to materialize on its own. And that’s why it’s important to make your movement relatable to the widest number of people at all times.
That’s because unity, in the end, is about much more than having everybody line up behind a particular candidate or issue. It’s about creating a sense of community, building the elements of a group identity, having a cohesive organization, leaving none of your men or women behind, and sticking to your values. It’s about doing plenty of things that make others feel as if your struggle is theirs as well. Often, it is about no more than holding hands in a crowded square or singing the right song. And it’s immeasurably important.
GRAND STRATEGY. Gene Sharp defines this all-important principle as the “overall conception which serves to coordinate and direct all appropriate and available resources (economic, human, moral, political, organizational, etc.) of the nation or other group to attain its objectives in a conflict.” It sounds like a handful, but Sharp breaks it down nicely by bringing it to a more human level, telling us that grand strategy includes “consideration of the rightness of the cause, assessment of other influences in the situation, and selection of the technique of action to be used,” as well as
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STRATEGY. This, Sharp tells us, is “the conception of how best to achieve objectives in a conflict … Strategy is concerned with whether, when, or how to fight, and how to achieve maximum effectiveness in order to gain certain ends. Strategy is the plan for the practical distribution, adaptation, and application of the available means to attain desired objectives.”
tactics are simply the very limited plans of action you devise at any given point.
Unlike strategies, this realm of tactical planning is often immediate, may be constantly changing, and demands a keen understanding of the realities on the ground and an imaginative approach to optimally utilizing all available resources.
momentum is everything.
We treated activism like an action movie, realizing that unless it always moves forward to something bigger and louder and cooler, it will just bore the audience. Think of it this way, and planning kind of takes care of itself, with everything falling into place.
Take up arms, and you have a 26 percent chance of succeeding. Practice the principles you have just read about in this book, and the number shoots up to 53 percent. Not
Countries that experienced nonviolent resistance, Chenoweth and Stephan found, had more than a 40 percent chance of remaining democracies five years after the conflict ended. Countries that took the violent path, on the other hand, had less than a 5 percent chance of becoming functioning democracies. Choose nonviolence, and you’re looking at a 28 percent chance of experiencing a relapse into civil war within the decade; choose violence, and the number is 43 percent.
You need to preach nonviolence within your movement—or, for the less religious among us, you should make it your movement’s ideology.
bloodthirsty gangs of Buddhist vigilantes
The second thing you need to do is train your fellow activists to spot potential sources of friction.
the third step you need to take when securing your movement against the creeping demons of violence: defending it against the provocateurs who will inevitably try to crash your party.
But while nonviolent discipline—which forms the holy trinity of successful nonviolent struggle, along with unity and planning—is vitally important, there are other things needed to guarantee success. Just as important as this trinity is knowing how—and when—to finish what you started.
And once you’ve gotten down all the basics, like defining your cause, coming up with your symbols, identifying the pillars of power, and making oppression backfire, knowing how to get shit done at the higher levels of nonviolent action means knowing when to declare victory and move on.
It’s your responsibility as an activist to finish what you start, because, as we see all around the world, revolutions without proper resolutions can be just as bad as what came before them. You must ensure that whatever changes you bring about are going to be durable and stable. There are some obvious things you should be cautious of, like proclaiming “game over” too early, not recognizing victories when they are handed to you, or frittering away your hard-won unity on “family” squabbles and political posturing. And although it can be tempting, be careful not to fall in love too easily with
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There is a false notion that only the elites in our societies matter and that all change, progress, or setbacks emanate magically from within their dark or greedy souls. You can sense this awe and respect for the powerful any time you walk past a magazine stand. Who are on all those covers? It’s always the richest businessmen, the most famous actors, the fastest cars, and the girls with the biggest boobs.
