URL: https://www.lifeisasacredtext.com/organize/
Solidarity is the only way home.
We must build collective power.
1. Look to the experts.
There are folks with deep knowledge of every issue, and every methodology, who have been working in the trenches for a long time.
We must look to them for guidance and follow their lead.
2. Do your research.
When resistance campaigns used nonviolent tactics—instead of violence—they were 10 times more likely to transition to democracy—even if the campaign failed in the short term. And even when nonviolent campaigns didn't bear immediate fruit, they tended to—eventually, slowly—prompt the moderates in power to make useful reforms.
More than half the time, a nonviolent resistance movement toppled an unjust regime within a year.
Over half the time, a nonviolent resistance movement toppled an unjust regime within a year.
The key ingredients of a successful nonviolent resistance movement, Chenoweth and Stephan found, are:
- A large and diverse population of participants that continue to grow both in size and diversity, and can be sustained over time.
Chenoweth and Stephan even discovered something so important here that it gets a name: the 3.5 Percent Rule.
Everywhere they looked where a nonviolent resistance campaign engaged the "active and sustained participation" of at least 3.5% of that nation's population: they won.
Other key success factors include:
The ability to create loyalty shifts among key regime-supporting groups such as business elites, state media, and—most important—security elites such as the police and the military.
A creative and imaginative variation in methods of resistance beyond mass protest. Marches aren't enough. Public actions aren't enough. (Strikes! Boycotts! Civil disobedience! Guerrilla theatre! Ritual protests! Integration with art! Banging pots and pans! Wild, even hilarious, shenanigans! What will mess things up and move things along??)
Strategies for unity, and the discipline to keep the whole movement nonviolent, even in the face of direct repression– no falling apart, no opting for violence.
And a bonus insight, from Chenoweth's forthcoming book with Dr. Zoe Marks,
"when women participate in mass movements, those movements are both more likely to succeed and more likely to lead to more egalitarian democracy."
The political scientist Gene Sharp surveyed centuries and found 198 types of nonviolent action. It's not all sit-ins and street protests, or even vigils and die-ins. There are so many ways to gum up the works– some might involve not cooperating, like striking and boycotting, or even walking really, really slowly at work.
3. Relationships
It's not for nothing that the core building block of organizing is the one-on-one conversation (think: a coffee date), just getting to know someone– their perspective, what drives them, developing connections and trust as well as figuring out how, authentically, the movement or campaign might address a need or concern the person already has. Relationships matter. Trust matters. This is hard, long-haul stuff, and it requires showing up into the messiness. "Moving at the speed of trust," is a phrase we hear in some circles a lot these days, and it matters, for real.
4. Don't do anything alone.
5. Nothing about us without us.
6. Education matters. More urgently than ever.
As I mentioned above: There are experts in everything. This, too. It's time for us all to level up in our strategy, our theory, our approaches.
For example! This (below) is one great way to think about how to map power.
Those pillars can be the laws, courts, media, and schools that support unjust systems or policy and the people who advance or maintain them. Other pillars could be individuals who may personally oppose what's happening but nonetheless keep everything running— including administrators, regulatory bodies, educators, and more. Suddenly power isn't so intractable, it's– movable. The fewer people comply with injustice, the more difficult it is for unjust regimes to function.
The Birds Don't Know
A poem by Rabbi Ariel Tovlev
the birds don't know
what my people just did
their morning song not
a song of mourning
the trees don't know
that fear and hatred prevail
their leaves on a different mission
to transform and let go
the bees don't know
a life without altruism
their sisters out seeking
nectar to nourish their mini nation
the sun and moon don't know
they will rise and they will set but
today is not the same
even if earth remains unchanged
I will sing a song of mourning
I will transform and let go
I will seek nourishment for my nation
I am both changed and unchanged
because I know what they don't know