Difference between revisions of "Designing Protest"

Revision as of 07:53, 13 October 2013

Introduction

Cynthia Weber - 6 Elements of Protest

1. Discontent - what bugs you? what motivates you to protest? what are your core values and how does it differ from the current reality?
2. Problem Articulation - how do you signify whats bugging you? how should things be so they won't bug you? there are two approaches -either link it to the bigger systems at work, the cultural, political, socio processes of the world that are the cause of the problem. or imagine what the "better world" could be like. how would your life be lived if everything was the way you wanted it to be? what would "the good life" be like?
3. Action Plan - device a goal and match it with strategies to achieve them.

James Bridle - drones, freedom of information act

David Benque - The New Weathermen

• The New Weathermen

How to make a Freedom of Information Act Request

From https://www.gov.uk/make-a-freedom-of-information-request/the-freedom-of-information-act

• Anyone can make a request for information – there are no restrictions on your age, nationality or where you live.
• Your request will be handled under the Data Protection Act if you ask for information about yourself.

You can request information from publicly funded organisations that work for the welfare of the whole population, eg:

• government departments
• local councils
• schools, colleges and universities
• health trusts, hospitals and doctors’ surgeries
• publicly funded museums
• the police
• non-departmental public bodies, committees and advisory bodies
• http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/contents

Possible Leads

Singapore Issues

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_resistance

PresenceOrb

• Big Brother Watch - http://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/
• http://www.presenceorb.com / http://renewlondon.com/
• City of London calls halt to smartphone tracking bins - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23665490
• Tracking devices hidden in London's recycling bins are stalking your smartphone - http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-08/09/recycling-bins-are-watching-you - "The unique identifying numbers of over half a million smartphones have been recorded by a network of recycling bins in central London. Hundreds of thousands of pedestrians walking past 12 locations unknowingly had the unique MAC address of their smartphones recorded by Renew London. Data including the "movement, type, direction, and speed of unique devices" was recorded from smartphones that had their Wi-Fi on."

• Solution: Spoof Mac Addresses to their opt-out form?

The Methods of Nonviolent Action

Source: Gene Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Vol. 2: The Methods of Nonviolent Action (Boston: Porter Sargent Publishers, 1973).

Formal Statements:

1. Public Speeches (Egypt; E; WA-USA)
2. Letters of opposition or support
3. Declarations by organizations and institutions (Egypt)
4. Signed public statements (Egypt; Libya; Bahrain; E)
5. Declarations of indictment and intention
6. Group or mass petitions

Communications with a Wider Audience

1. Slogans, caricatures, and symbols (Egypt; E; E; Libya; WI-USA; B; L; L; WI-USA)
2. Banners, posters, and displayed communications (Egypt; Iraq; UK; WI-USA; WA-USA; ME-USA; Athens-GR; Bologna-IT; Albany, NY-USA)

1. Leaflets, pamphlets, and books (Egypt; E; PA-USA; PA-USA; Madrid-ES; Barcelona-ES)
2. Newspapers and journals (Libya; UK; Libya; WI-USA)
3. Records, radio, and television (Egypt; E)
4. Skywriting and earthwriting

Group Representations

1. Deputations
2. Mock awards
3. Group lobbying (WI-USA)
4. Picketing (US airports)
5. Mock elections

Symbolic Public Acts

1. Displays of flags and symbolic colors (Egypt; E)
2. Wearing of symbols
3. Prayer and worship (Egypt)
4. Delivering symbolic objects (Egypt; Bahrein; Afghanistan; Spain)
5. Protest disrobings
6. Destruction of own property
7. Symbolic lights
8. Displays of portraits (Libya)
9. Paint as protest (Egypt; E)
10. New signs and names
11. Symbolic sounds (UK)
12. Symbolic reclamations (Egypt)
13. Rude gestures (Egypt)

Pressures on Individuals

1. "Haunting" officials GR
2. Taunting officials (GR; Albany, NY-USA)
3. Fraternization (Egypt; E; PA-USA; WI-USA)
4. Vigils

Drama and Music

1. Humorous skits and pranks (Bangles; E; UK; WI-USA; Spain)
2. Performances of plays and music (WI-USA)
3. Singing (Bangles; CA-USA BoA flash mob; DC-USA)

Processions

1. Marches (Egypt; WI-USA; Yemen; OH-USA; LA-USA)
2. Parades
3. Religious processions
4. Pilgrimages
5. Motorcades

Honoring the Dead

1. Political mourning (Bahrain)
2. Mock funerals (Suez-E)
3. Demonstrative funerals (Bahrain; B)
4. Homage at burial places

Public Assemblies

1. Assemblies of protest or support (Egypt; Libya; Iraq; Yemen; UK; UK; WI-USA; WI-USA; Libya; UK; L; L; US airports; Greece; PA-USA; MA-USA)
2. Protest meetings (#occupywallstreet US).
3. Camouflaged meetings of protest
4. Teach-ins (Philadelphia, PA).

Withdrawal and Renunciation

1. Walk-outs (Stoughton, WI)
2. Silence
3. Renouncing honors
4. Turning one's back (USA)

THE METHODS OF SOCIAL NONCOOPERATION

Ostracism of Persons

1. Social boycott
2. Selective social boycott (USA)
3. Lysistratic nonaction (USA VA; Spain)
4. Excommunication
5. Interdict

Noncooperation with Social Events, Customs, and Institutions

1. Suspension of social and sports activities
2. Boycott of social affairs
3. Student strike
4. Social disobedience
5. Withdrawal from social institutions

Withdrawal from the Social System

1. Stay-at-home
2. Total personal noncooperation
3. "Flight" of workers
4. Sanctuary
5. Collective disappearance
6. Protest emigration (hijrat)

THE METHODS OF ECONOMIC NONCOOPERATION: (1) ECONOMIC BOYCOTTS

Actions by Consumers

1. Consumers' boycott
2. Nonconsumption of boycotted goods
3. Policy of austerity (USA)
4. Rent withholding
5. Refusal to rent USA
6. National consumers' boycott
7. International consumers' boycott

Action by Workers and Producers

1. Workmen's boycott
2. Producers' boycott

Action by Middlemen

1. Suppliers' and handlers' boycott

Action by Owners and Management

1. Traders' boycott
2. Refusal to let or sell property
3. Lockout
4. Refusal of industrial assistance
5. Merchants' "general strike"

Action by Holders of Financial Resources

1. Withdrawal of bank deposits (USA; WI-USA)
2. Refusal to pay fees, dues, and assessments (Greece)
3. Refusal to pay debts or interest (USA; USA)
4. Severance of funds and credit
5. Revenue refusal (USA)
6. Refusal of a government's money

Action by Governments

1. Domestic embargo
2. Blacklisting of traders
3. International sellers' embargo
4. International buyers' embargo
5. International trade embargo

THE METHODS OF ECONOMIC NONCOOPERATION: (2) THE STRIKE

Symbolic Strikes

1. Protest strike
2. Quickie walkout (lightning strike)

Agricultural Strikes

1. Peasant strike
2. Farm Workers' strike

Strikes by Special Groups

1. Refusal of impressed labor
2. Prisoners' strike
3. Craft strike
4. Professional strike (WI-USA; WI-USA)

Ordinary Industrial Strikes

1. Establishment strike
2. Industry strike (Egypt)
3. Sympathetic strike

Restricted Strikes

1. Detailed strike
2. Bumper strike
3. Slowdown strike
4. Working-to-rule strike
5. Reporting "sick" (sick-in)
6. Strike by resignation
7. Limited strike
8. Selective strike

Multi-Industry Strikes

1. Generalized strike
2. General strike (Egypt)

Combination of Strikes and Economic Closures

1. Hartal
2. Economic shutdown

THE METHODS OF POLITICAL NONCOOPERATION

Rejection of Authority

1. Withholding or withdrawal of allegiance
2. Refusal of public support
3. Literature and speeches advocating resistance

Citizens' Noncooperation with Government

1. Boycott of legislative bodies
2. Boycott of elections
3. Boycott of government employment and positions
4. Boycott of government depts., agencies, and other bodies
5. Withdrawal from government educational institutions
6. Boycott of government-supported organizations
7. Refusal of assistance to enforcement agents
8. Removal of own signs and placemarks
9. Refusal to accept appointed officials
10. Refusal to dissolve existing institutions

Citizens' Alternatives to Obedience

1. Reluctant and slow compliance
2. Nonobedience in absence of direct supervision
3. Popular nonobedience
4. Disguised disobedience
5. Refusal of an assemblage or meeting to disperse (WI-USA)
6. Sitdown (Egypt)
7. Noncooperation with conscription and deportation
8. Hiding, escape, and false identities
9. Civil disobedience of "illegitimate" laws (Egypt; E)

Action by Government Personnel

1. Selective refusal of assistance by government aides
2. Blocking of lines of command and information
3. Stalling and obstruction
4. General administrative noncooperation
5. Judicial noncooperation
6. Deliberate inefficiency and selective noncooperation by enforcement agents
7. Mutiny (Egypt; E)

Domestic Governmental Action

1. Quasi-legal evasions and delays
2. Noncooperation by constituent governmental units (IN-USA)

International Governmental Action

1. Changes in diplomatic and other representations
2. Delay and cancellation of diplomatic events
3. Withholding of diplomatic recognition
4. Severance of diplomatic relations
5. Withdrawal from international organizations
6. Refusal of membership in international bodies
7. Expulsion from international organizations

THE METHODS OF NONVIOLENT INTERVENTION

Psychological Intervention

1. Self-exposure to the elements (#occupywallstreet US)
2. The fast
   1. Fast of moral pressure
   2. Hunger strike
   3. Satyagrahic fast
3. Reverse trial
4. Nonviolent harassment

Physical Intervention

1. Sit-in (Yemen; UK; DC-USA (Keystone XL))
2. Stand-in
3. Ride-in
4. Wade-in
5. Mill-in
6. Pray-in
7. Nonviolent raids
8. Nonviolent air raids
9. Nonviolent invasion (UK)
10. Nonviolent interjection
11. Nonviolent obstruction (Athens-GR; Barcelona-ES; Athens-GR; Albany, NY-USA).
12. Nonviolent occupation (Bahrain; B; UK; WI-USA; B; B; WI-USA; WI-USA; WA-USA; CA-USA BoA flash mob; PA-USA "play in"; DC-USA; PA-USA (Philly Uncut); Spain; (Athens-GR; Bologna-IT; Athens-GR; Cairo-E).

Social Intervention

1. Establishing new social patterns (Egypt; E; E; Bahrain; WI-USA; WI-USA; PA-USA; Spain; Madrid-ES; Madrid-ES; Athens-GR; Athens-GR; (#occupywallstreet US))
2. Overloading of facilities (#occupywallstreet US)
3. Stall-in
4. Speak-in
5. Guerrilla theater
6. Alternative social institutions (Egypt)
7. Alternative communication system (Egypt; E; Libya; WI-USA; L; L; OH-USA; Arab world; Madrid-ES; (#occupywallstreet US))

Economic Intervention

1. Reverse strike
2. Stay-in strike
3. Nonviolent land seizure
4. Defiance of blockades
5. Politically motivated counterfeiting
6. Preclusive purchasing
7. Seizure of assets
8. Dumping
9. Selective patronage
10. Alternative markets
11. Alternative transportation systems (Uganda)
12. Alternative economic institutions

Political Intervention

1. Overloading of administrative systems
2. Disclosing identities of secret agents
3. Seeking imprisonment
4. Civil disobedience of "neutral" laws (Egypt; E; WI-USA; DC-USA)
5. Work-on without collaboration
6. Dual sovereignty and parallel government (Egypt; E; E; E)