On March 26, 2018, a suicide car bomb hit a stadium in Lashkargah, the capital of Helmand province in Afghanistan. The attack killed dozens of football fans who had gathered in the stadium to watch the game. A number of civilians who lost their dear ones in the attack sat in protest to criticize the attack. They erected protest tents in Lashkargah and observed a hunger strike. […]
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“People worldwide are alert to the ramifications of COVID-19, and many are already organized and taking action to seize this crisis for the better. What remains to be seen is whether these fragmented efforts coalesce into collective power. Our ability to harness this power will determine whether we are able to leverage this pandemic in a way that transforms oppressive social, economic, and political systems. […]”
Governments worldwide are using the pandemic to tighten control and clamp down on dissent. Is this virus going to strengthen the autocrats’ grip on power? And what can we do now and in the future? Although I don’t have experience with epidemics (the smallpox outbreak, the last epidemic in Yugoslavia, happened a year before I was born), I do see some similarities between the current moment and the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999, which came when our movement Otpor was just a few months old. […]
In Ecuador and Bolivia, the countries’ presidents were unable to complete their terms because of growing waves of civil resistance, but also one decisive factor in particular: military defections. This blog post analyzes military defections in a way that hopefully other civil resistance movements worldwide may distill some insights. […]
There is still much to do to consolidate democracy and civilian rule in Sudan. All the same, the toppling of al-Bashir and his military backers is an amazing accomplishment. It demonstrates that whatever the structural obstacles may be, building on internal strengths and external opportunities, embracing diversity and nonviolent discipline, and following through on what was started are important ingredients to movement success. […]
Dos libros recientes, Movimientos sociales y Guerra civil, y Resistencia civil en la Primavera Árabe: Triunfos y desastres, estudian las secuelas de la Primavera Árabe, y arriban a la conclusión de que los movimientos de resistencia civil pueden conducir a un incremento de la violencia, el autoritarismo y democracias fallidas. […]
“Choosing to repurpose one’s movement toward community needs in times of crisis has short- and long-term strategic value. In this article I share a few thoughts about how movements can build power by serving their local communities—immunizing their movements from losing momentum with a “vaccine” of constructive programs and obstructive strategies. […]”
Thailand recently witnessed a new dawn of youth-led people power, but whether the nascent protests will morph into a nationwide movement depends on an effective strategy and a unified vision for the future. Although the Coronavirus pandemic is posing new obstacles to the movement, students are seeking alternative forms of online protest and incorporating humanitarian activism into their repertoires to build constructive relationships with communities. […]
In this article I offer a big-picture framework for how the Covid-19 crisis is impacting activism, organizing, and civil resistance movements. I hope this article, which defines four main phases I’ve observed, is helpful as movements make sense of this moment, analyze where they want to go from here, and begin planning a transition to the post-Covid-19 period. […]
Durante 2019, una ola de levantamientos mayormente noviolentos ha generado una abundancia de artículos de prensa sobre este tema, los cuales abordan cuestiones como: ¿Por qué tanta gente está protestando ahora? ¿Es parte de una tendencia mayor? ¿Existen temas comunes que impulsan estos levantamientos? ¿Adónde conducirán estos levantamientos? […]
