The 50 Habits of Highly Effective Revolutionaries

The third wave of nonviolent revolt

Jesse Walker | September 21, 2006

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After Milosevic was deposed, the same faces started to surface in different countries, spreading potent tactics and skills as they created a sort of People Power International. Between the direct links, the similar slogans, the use of foreign funds, and the fact that so many of the target governments were friendly to Russia's nationalist regime, conspiracy theories began to fly, all of them hinging on the idea that these revolts were simply exported from the West.

When you look at those theories closely, they fall apart. Without any guns to fall back on, a movement needs strong local support to succeed; groups that depend on foreign patrons are the groups most likely to lose. "Belarus and Zimbabwe are very clear negative models," says Popovic. "If you have international organizations picking among the opposition, selecting their favorites, not cooperating among each other, and micromanaging—this is the worst way to help the organization."

But there is one grain of truth to those conspiracy yarns. There is a core group of activists using every method they can—how-to manuals, hands-on training, educational films, even a video game that simulates a nonviolent revolution—to spread the know-how necessary to overthrow a dictator. And for the most part, they aren't afraid to get help from western governments and NGOs, even if they're apt to turn around and oppose those same states' policies in other contexts. Their style is the style of a hip young entrepreneur, savvy to the power of buzz and branding. You can see it on display in Nonviolent Struggle: 50 Crucial Points.

Lest I take the business comparison too far, I should note that Milivojevic believes his book's "'business models' aren't actually business models. They're social science models that the business community had adapted," and which political rebels can now adapt as well. But the Otpor generation does have a more capitalistic cast than, say, A.J. Muste, who cut his teeth in the labor movement. It's no surprise that when The New Republic profiled Peter Ackerman, a Drexel Burnham trader turned co-founder of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, it headlined the piece "Regime Change, Inc."

No one will mistake Nonviolent Struggle: 50 Crucial Points for The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, but the authors hope it will reach an audience not ordinarily inclined to read tomes on nonviolent strategy. "The idea is to get the book into as many hands as possible, as quickly as possible," Milivojevic says. It is being distributed both in paperback and on disc—the latter form ideal for, say, quietly smuggling the text from South Africa to Zimbabwe—and it can be downloaded for free at the CANVAS website. Translations are on the way: Dissidents in other countries have already requested editions in Farsi, Russian, and Spanish. If Otpor-style revolts break out in Tehran, Moscow, or Bogotá, don't be surprised.

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We Are Change Colorado Springs » Blog Archive » Civil Disobedience Is Not Terrorism links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…Capitol, the organization’s founder  denounced him as a “nutbag.” Rather than spinning fantasies of a violent uprising, the group is adopting one of the  core ideas of nonviolent  civil resistance: persuading police and soldiers to disobey their commanders. Waters quotes an SPLC colleague, Mark Potok, who accuses the Oath Keepers of spreading paranoia and argues that “these kinds of…