Minds of the Movement
An ICNC blog on the people and power of civil resistance
The International Center on Nonviolent Conflict in 2023 launched a collaboration with ActionAid Denmark entitled, "Research In Action" or REACT for short. The project was conceived as a global research program with the goal to create useful knowledge from and for nonviolent movements. The collaboration is based on four key principles:
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- Addressing understudied areas and research lesser-known cases and realities
- Engaging activists as authors and guest editors
- Focusing on issues, collaborators, cases, networks and stories from outside the Global North
- Experimenting with new engaging formats
Writing is a central building block of our collaboration. We—the REACT team alongside a dozen activist-authors from all world regions—will use Minds of the Movement as a space to explore, express, exchange and elaborate. Over the coming weeks, keep an eye out for a series of posts by these activists ("REACT Series, powered by ActionAid Denmark"); you can read the first few posts below. We are aiming for about a dozen before the end of 2023.
Our activist-writers are engaged in nonviolent movements for diverse causes, but they all have one thing in common: A relationship to writing that transcends the personal and ventures well into the domain of collective power.
REACT Series, powered by ActionAid Denmark
By: Peter Tindborg and Amber French, May 4, 2023
What is your relationship to writing and how is that related to your activism? We received the above responses when we discussed this question with activists we met this past February at the Global People Power Forum (Tanzania), a space where movements and movement-minded organizations shared, learned and advanced collective wisdom.
As ICNC and ActionAid Denmark embark on a new collaboration this year, we are going straight to the source. Even in this first phase the approach has brought forth a true wellspring of ideas. [...]
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By: Araceli Argueta, May 23, 2023
Whenever I listen to Quintana's Cancion Sin Miedo, I feel the urge for change. As pointed out by Marshall Ganz, narratives are the art of creating emotions that translate values into actions. When I began participating in movements in El Salvador, every march and action was accompanied by songs from Torogoces de Morazan, Violeta Parra, Residente, and many others. I noticed that the idea of another world in Latin America has always been accompanied by music and creative languages of resistance that create new meanings, make the invisible visible, and invite us to dream, fight, feel, and change. […]
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This article is also available in Spanish:
"Una visión para el mañana: Narrativa en Resistencia en las luchas por la justicia y los derechos en América Latina"
By: Yoselyn Guardado Chicas, June 21, 2023
A powerful movement for the defense and protection of water has been brewing in El Salvador for decades. Based in Suchitoto, in the department of Cuscatlán, this nonviolent struggle has many components: grassroots community organizing, large demonstrations, popular education, and hip hop music production—all typically led by peasant communities with strong women’s participation. The message of the struggle is that water is not for sale. [...]
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This article is also available in Spanish:
"'Si una gota es constante, puede romper una piedra': movimiento por el derecho al agua en El Salvador"
By: Rosa Marina Flores Cruz, July 20, 2023
Last April through early May, a group of about 150 people spent 12 days and nights traveling the roads of south/southeast Mexico, responding to the National Indigenous Congress’ call to organize a Caravan called "The South Resists". Hot days and nights, in regions where temperatures can exceed 40° C (104° F); hostile roads, where thousands of people have disappeared without a trace; hours shared with strangers, who eventually became friends, all in response to a call [...]
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This article is also available in Spanish:
"'Sur de México: Una Caravana de Alegría, Solidaridad y Afirmación de Vida frente al Despojo"
By: Steward Muhindo Kalyamughuma, August 10, 2023
The citizen movement LUCHA was founded in 2012 by young Congolese frustrated by the dramatic situation in their country. LUCHA pursued nonviolent resistance to inform citizens and fuel their outrage, as well as to hold those in power more responsible and accountable. One of the tools they use is called Fatshimétrie, a barometer for assessing the level of fulfilment of commitments and promises made by the head of state to transform the DRC. [...]
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This article is also available in French:
"Promesses non tenues : La campagne congolaise 'Fatshimétrie' pour la responsabilisation des pouvoirs publics"
By: Maryjacob Okwuosa, October 13, 2023
At age 16, I initiated a youth education group, touring high schools and supporting struggling high schoolers. It was the prime of my organizing, and to date, I wish the group had had a structure and stable leadership that enabled it to hang on better after I left. But movement leadership is a dance, and it takes time to learn the steps. Being part of and eventually leading Activista Nigeria, a massive youth movement with a membership of over 10,000 young people, I saw and embodied the movement's vision. [...]
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By: Indonesian Pacifist, November 13, 2023
I began to explore the problems of West Papua during the COVID pandemic through human rights forums Amnesty International, Tapol.UK, ICNC and other sites. With the extra time I had during COVID lockdowns in 2020 here in France, I launched the bilingual blog, Markus Haluk Papua, on the struggle of West Papuans against Indonesian colonization, as a way to engage in activism as a member of the Indonesian diaspora in France. I have always enjoyed writing. I’m committed to using my residency in France, where freedom of expression is recognized, as an asset to the West Papuan independence struggle. [...]
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By: Julius Okoth, January 19, 2024
Trade union membership worldwide has been on the decline for years, and my country, Kenya, is no exception. Does this mean trade unions are no longer relevant actors for social change? Can we no longer expect to see trade unions mobilizing and galvanizing society-wide nonviolent action as we saw in major episodes of nonviolent history like the Polish resistance to Communist rule and Chilean resistance to defeat dictatorship in the 1980s? […]
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By: Steward Muhindo Kalyamughuma, February 27, 2024
Despite the independence of African states and the abolition of slavery, African democracies offer very few positive prospects in terms of good governance. The people of Africa are still faced with corruption, democratic backsliding and a range of other ills. As in the past, Africans are not giving up in the face of the predatory oligarchies in power. In many countries, activists and nonviolent movements have emerged to campaign against rulers’ abuse of power and to push nonviolently for good governance.
African civil resistance, especially in Francophone regions of the continent, is most often misunderstood or ignored by the rest of the world. […]
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This article is also available in French:
"Résilience, persévérance, innovation : Résister la violence et la dictature en Afrique"
By Abdou Khafor Kandji, March 21, 2024
Last month, a silent march organized by AAR SUNU Élection gathered hundreds of Senegalese to demand the date of the presidential election to be set and political prisoners to be released. A few days after this popular demonstration, the two main demands were met. The Senegalese authorities released the political prisoners and set the election date for this Sunday, March 24. [...]
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This article is also available in French:
By Feza Eliane, April 2, 2024
Ben Kamuntu belongs to the generation of young Congolese born during the war who have never known peace. From an early age, he had to endure the death of his relatives, the looting of his family's possessions and the displacement caused by the war. As an adult, Ben Kamuntu joined the nonviolent citizens' movement Lutte pour le changement (LUCHA) to urge the Congolese authorities and the international community to promote peace, justice and freedom in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). [...]
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This article is also available in French:
Bosembo : du slam pour dénoncer les violences armées et l’impunité en RDC
By Anonymous Author, April 4, 2024
We were around twenty local residents, members of the association, from various villages located around 120 kilometers from the sugar plantations in central Cameroon. On July 6, 2023, we gathered peacefully in front of the headquarters of a multinational company in Yaoundé's administrative district to demonstrate our dissatisfaction with the destruction of our crops by the pesticides dumped on the fields by the company's planes. In protest, we dumped the contaminated and visibly burnt crops-cassava leaves, groundnuts-in front of the agro-industrial company's head office. [...]
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This article is also available in French:
Check back soon for more articles in this series!
The REACT Team
Peter Tindborg has been engaged in youth organizing and activism for more than a decade out of Denmark, Bolivia, Kenya, Nepal and El Salvador. He is currently at the Global Centre for Social Movement Support as part of ActionAid Denmark, engaged in a range of research initiatives, among them the REACT collaboration with ICNC where he serves as co-editor. As a former rapper he is particularly interested in artistic activism and has been collaborating with political artists across Europe, Latin America and the Middle East as part of the collective Rapolitics.
Ivan Marovic is an organizer, software developer and social innovator from Belgrade, Serbia. He was one of the leaders of Otpor, a youth movement which played a critical role in the downfall of Slobodan Milosevic, Serbian strongman in 2000. Since then he’s been advising numerous pro-democracy groups around the world and became one of the leading educators in the field of strategic nonviolent conflict. In the last two decades Ivan has been designing and developing learning programs on civil resistance and movement building, and supporting the development of training organizations, such as Rhize and the African Coaching Network.
Ivan started his activism journey as a student organizer in the Otpor movement which played a critical role in mobilizing voters in historic 2000 election and the subsequent nonviolent mobilization which pressed Slobodan Milosevic to accept defeat and step down.
Amber French is ICNC Senior Editorial Advisor, Managing Editor of the Minds of the Movement blog (est. June 2017) and Project Co-Lead of REACT (Research-in-Action), the ICNC partnership with ActionAid Denmark focused on the power of activist writing. For the Minds of the Movement blog, she has commissioned 285+ articles by 130+ activist writers, academics and others around the world. Currently based in Paris, France, she continues to develop thought leadership on civil resistance in French. She holds an MA degree in international relations and diplomacy from the American Graduate School of Paris, France, and a BA in international relations and French from Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.
Bruce Pearson is Program Manager at the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC), where he supports online learning, field work, fellowships, and writing and publishing on the use of civil resistance by movements to win rights, freedom, and justice. With ICNC Press, he has coordinated the publication of twenty monographs, special reports, and resources for practitioners—fourteen of which he was volume editor. He also manages the moderated and participant-led online courses and supports courses by ICNC partners and teaching fellows.
Araceli Argueta is an organizer, anthropologist and campaigner from El Salvador. She has organized across Latin America with women, youth and indigenous people, creating tools to mobilize people from different backgrounds. She has worked on gender rights, migration and biocultural protection. Araceli has solid experience in political education, advocacy, nonviolent campaigning, digital campaigning and strategic planning in local and international organizations. She has researched nonviolent movements and political mobilization, especially using language, symbols and cultural means to create social change. Araceli work as Advocacy and Organizing Director at the Immigrants Rights Program with American Friends Service Committee (AFSC).