Diversity of Tactics and DemocracyBy George LakeyClamor magazineMarch-April 2002Last fall while working with activists in Europe I had the chance to hang out more withyoung people from Otpor, the resistance movement that brought down dictatorSlobadan Milosevic in Serbia in October00. These Otpor activists were ages 19-23,typical ages in the movement that catalyzed the downfall of Milosevic (pronounced"Milosevitch"). They taught people twice their age some powerful lessons about how tooverthrow a dictatorship, including how to keep going despite years of arrests andbeatings.Some of the young people who started Otpor in 1999 had already been doing directaction in 1996 in the student pro-democracy movement. There they learned a hard fact:as the demonstrations grew the government paid infiltrators to pretend to be activistsand do property destruction and street fighting.The government's tactic was brilliant because it scared away the potentially hundreds ofthousands who were getting ready to join the movement, and gave back to governmentthe moral high ground.Refusing to be discouraged, those who made a fresh start in 1999 made a criticaldecision: in order to win, Otpor would establish a policy of nonviolence. The stakes weretoo high, they reasoned, to have the luxury of everyone doing their thing. Milosovic wasdesperate, and surrounded with thugs who had no scruples. Only a policy ofnonviolence could avoid the mistakes of 1996.I was impressed by the fast learning curve. Most movements do have a learning curvethat enables them to benefit from their experience, but Otpor confronted a very hardlesson and quickly changed their policy of tolerance for diversity of tactics. Maybe theiryouth gave them an advantage in flexibility.Was Milosevic's tactic unusual?So many powerholders have used the tactic of what the French call "agentsprovocateur" that it is virtually predictable. Not only the "bad guy" authoritarians likeMilosevic do it; liberal democratic governments do it as well. The British did it to try tostop the anti-colonial struggle in India: paid agents worked to turn the movement violent.The U.S. government did it to try to stop the civil rights movement and the anti-Vietnamwar movement, just to name two occasions in my country.
Diversity of Tactics and Democracy
Why do governments so much dislike nonviolent mass movements? What is it aboutpeople power that makes governments so eager to point the movement toward streetfighting, attacks on police, or at least defensive violence and smashing property?Governments have found over the years that it works for them. They know they needlegitimacy to stay in power over time, and movement violence gives them thatlegitimacy, what is often called "the moral high ground." They also need fear to stay inpower, and movement violence increases the fear in the body politic. They workovertime to divide the movement, and movement violence is a great divider. And,perhaps most important, they desperately want to prevent new allies from joining themovement, and a frequent outcome of movement violence -- even property destruction-- is that potential allies stay away in droves.Pro-democracy feeling among Serbs had been building through the 1990s, but it wasusually expressed in a cautious way, channeled by politicians who didn't move boldlyenough for the radical students. The students who formed Otpor understood that theycouldn't possibly bring down Milosevic by themselves. They chose a strategy that wouldcatalyze more cautious mainstream elements into action.Otpor strategy took into account the government's fear-mongering, by making fun."ROLLING STONES COMING TO BELGRADE" screamed the headline of the flyersthey illegally distributed; when people eagerly read the flyers they found a list of all thereasons the Rolling Stones wouldn't be coming to Belgrade, reasons that had to do withthe dictatorship!The police frequently raided the main Otpor office and took away boxes of leaflets andtheir computer. Sensing an opportunity, on one of these occasions Otpor put out theword publicly that it was moving back in. Otpor activists showed up with a bunch ofmoving boxes, and the alternative media. Police arrested them immediately, tore openthe boxes, and found them . . . empty!Otpor young people knew that fear freezes people rather than motivates them to actintelligently, so they refused to cooperate with the fear game. In fact, since policebeatings were routine, both on the street and in the jails, Otpor coined the slogan, "Itonly hurts if you're scared." I asked one of my Otpor friends who had been beaten, "Is ittrue?" "Of course," he said, and smiled. "Well . . .it's true that it hurts more if you'rescared."One frequent Otpor tactic was to remember the badge number of an officer who beatthem, find out his name and address, and then go to his house and sit in front of it withsigns such as: "Why do you beat the children? Are you so weak that you beat up youngpeople?"The young activists signaled to potential and cautious allies a message of couragerather rather than fearfulness, by doing nonviolent direct action again and again andagain. Their numbers grew; by the time of the election they claimed 80,000 members,
Diversity of Tactics and Democracy
and after the election young people literally stood in line to join the movement. Theymaintained their agreement not to use violence even in defense; they felt the stakeswere too high. They very badly wanted to win, and for that they needed not only theyoung people, but also to move their more cautious pro-democracy elders. That wasalso their understanding of what democracy means: to get the maximum number ofpeople standing up for themselves.But isn't "diversity of tactics" more democratic?Some very committed and courageous activists on this side of the Atlantic are arguingfor a policy of diversity of tactics here, so that protesters with different styles can allcome to the same city to do their actions. "Diversity of tactics" implies that someprotesters may choose to do actions that will be interpreted by the majority of people as"violent," like property destruction, attacks on police vehicles, fighting back if provokedby the police, and so on, while other protesters are operating with clear nonviolentguidelines. Sometimes advocates of diversity of tactics propose outlining zones fordifferent activities, so one style of action doesn't bring undue immediate risk to thosepursuing another style.Isn't a movement strategy that encourages diversity of tactics more democratic than aclear policy of strategic nonviolent direct action? Isn't it more democratic to encourageeveryone to do their thing, rather than create an agreement that leaves some kinds ofaction out?It's understandable that some activists are proposing this, because in North America wedon't have dictatorship; diversity of tactics is not so life-threatening as in Yugoslaviaunder Milosevic. Unlike Otpor, we can afford to experiment with property destruction,street fighting and the like, and most of us don't really expect major governmentalrepression to result. If we had been living in Serbia, I suspect all of us would agree withOtpor's winning strategy except those of us who are suicidal or government agents.But here we are in privileged North America! Immediately the contradiction hits us: notall of us are privileged. Some groups are much more at risk than others. Young whitemiddle and owning class men may feel invulnerable -- so why not smash windows orthrow molotov cocktails? -- but that's not the reality for most of us. Most people havedeep life experience of repression: people of color, women, sexual minorities, blue collarworkers. I'm personally in this majority: in the U.S. am openly gay man is more likely tobe beaten up for our identity even than a person of color! We have good grounds forfeeling less safe.In light of that, all the more impressive that the mass movements in North America havebeen mostly composed of us, the oppressed, rather than the privileged, and we have infact taken enormous risks.What does it take to get us into sustained risk-taking through direct action?
Diversity of Tactics and Democracy
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How about democracy inside the movement, among the activists?
What excites me about democracy is dialogue and debate: the collective exploration of ideas and views without shutting people down. I'm hearing from various parts of North… (More)
What excites me about democracy is dialogue and debate: the collective exploration of ideas and views without shutting people down. I'm hearing from various parts of North… (More)
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