Minds of the Movement
An ICNC blog on the people and power of civil resistance
Featured image: Armenian pro-democracy protest in spring 2018. Credit: Davit Ayvazyan.
In the one year—to the day—that the Minds of the Movement blog has been in operation, much has changed in the world. Although newspapers and schoolbooks will likely remember the wars and violence that sketched the contours of history during this blink of an eye, our blog readers know there are other processes of change that have promise to deliver greater rights and justice in our world.
Click image to read related Minds of the Movement post on civil resistance in Venezuela.
Since this blog first went live last June, we have published 58 total posts, including reflections on personal involvement in a movement, how-to guidelines, thought pieces, and interviews. Eighteen recent nonviolent movements have been documented by bloggers with first-hand lived experience in these movements. Our bloggers have come from or were based in 19 countries in all regions of the world, and include movement leaders, scholars, members of the policy community, digital security gurus, screenwriters, journalists, former political prisoners and exiled dissidents. Patched together, their profiles and backgrounds form a mosaic of civil resistance voices that help us understand the complexities and relevance of this force for change.
In the last year, we’ve heard about new colors and vibes in Armenia’s politics and society following that country’s Velvet Revolution earlier this spring—on account of our blogger who was appointed Minister of Culture of Armenia two days following the publication of her blog post.
We’ve heard from a former political prisoner and exiled activist in Norway, about the ongoing struggle for justice among Oromo people in Ethiopia. We were touched by our contributor’s creed that “nothing is impossible when you are with the people, and the people are with you.”
Click image to read our 50-year commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. this past spring.
But we’ve also done some reflecting on meta questions. We shared analysis of key terms, advocating that the misleading term “strategic nonviolence” no longer be used to refer to civil resistance, because its fuzziness hampers people’s comprehension.
We’ve ventured into the policy world to brainstorm about what a “democracy insurance policy” would look like—in other words, a strong investment in educational infrastructure for grassroots activists and organizers in a country, because they are “a cornerstone of defending and advancing democratic self-rule.”
Capacity building was even the theme of a mini-series we published last December, when a civil resistance and civic empowerment trainer for youth, women, and sexual minorities in Pakistan shared her personal journey to her current role and reflections on what makes trainers most effective.
As the buzz continued over the five-year anniversary of the Arab Spring earlier in 2017, we did some soul-searching to take head-on the debate about whether these largely nonviolent uprisings actually brought on more violence to the Middle East. Our contributors reminded us that it is often external violent actors hijacking nonviolent movements, as well as governments repressing activists, who sow violence—not nonviolent movements themselves.
Click image to read related Minds of the Movement post on mindful activism.
We’ve further reflected on why violence undermines protest, which among many listed reasons, offered this quote by the Rev. Dr. James Lawson: “The truth of the matter is that violence can destroy a building, but violence cannot build a university or a family home or a church or a fraternal order, or a farm or a business… It cannot create a city where people can live well in peace and with a sense of worth of their own life.”
These are just a few of the highlights. Take a minute today to browse our articles and contributors to see what Minds of the Movement has to offer you. Entering the blog’s second year, I hope this platform will continue to reveal new facets of civil resistance as a meaningful prism through which we can understand the way sustainable change is achieved in our communities—and quite frequently on larger scales than that.
Quick-reference list of Minds of the Movement posts highlighted above in chronological order:
- Why Violence Undermines Protest by Jack DuVall, July 27, 2017
- On the Inside and Out: Reflections of an Exiled Activist by Lammi Begna, August 17, 2017
- Democracy Insurance by Hardy Merriman, September 7, 2017
- Strategic Nonviolence is not Civil Resistance by Peter Ackerman, September 21, 2017
- Did the Arab Spring Bring More Violence to the Middle East? by Peter Ackerman and Maciej Bartkowksi, October 18, 2017
- A Civil Resistance Trainer’s Story, and Takeaways for Activists (Part 1), by Mariam Azeem, December 20, 2017
- Part 2: A Civil Resistance Trainer’s Story, and Takeaways for Activists, by Mariam Azeem, December 27, 2017
- After Armenia's Velvet Revolution, New Colors and Vibes in Country's Politics and Society by Lilit Makunts, May 10, 2018
Great articles to bookmark, read and share!
- An Activist-Scholar’s Insights on Researching Civil Resistance and Environmental Justice by Michael Wilson Becerril, February 21, 2018
- A Personal Homage to Gene Sharp by Phil Wilmot, February 8, 2018
- Overcoming Mental Health Challenges as Movement Leaders and Activists by Joel Preston Smith, December 15, 2017
- Resisting War: Insights from a New Frontier in Civil Resistance Studies by Juan Masullo and Cecile Mouly, November 9, 2017
- “Living in the Truth”: Revisiting the U.S. Anti-War Movement of the 1970s by Hailey Grace Steele, October 11, 2017
- Madagascar: No Defection Too Small, No Act of Resistance Too Isolated by Ketakandriana Rafitoson, July 14, 2017
- Memory and Movements in Building Singapore's Civil Society by Kirsten Han, June 20, 2017
- Does Protesting Do Any Good? by Tom Hastings, June 28, 2017
- The PTM: A Nonviolent Movement for Protection of Pashtun Rights in Pakistan by Ilam Khan, June 4, 2018
