Some brief thoughts on change, protests and repression

Building on my previous post, there have been violent protests in a number of places around the world of late - you can see maps of this here, and in various human rights reports. 

To egregiously over-simplify, typically a despot or authoritarian person who is s*** scared of difference or anything which even hints of disorder, let alone chaos, does something repressive (say, arrests an opposition figure, or sets police onto peaceful protestors, or weakens or denies democracy in some way), possibly does that for many years, and those being repressed, being human, may snap and react out of anger, hate, or fear. 

We are currently rehabilitating a dog that was egregiously abused by her former "owners", and she sounds aggressive in any circumstance that she feels threatened or unsafe in. It is a reaction akin to the military notion of "offence is the best form of defence", and is something that happens to some people when they are afraid. 

That is, in fact, one of the fight, flight, freeze, or network and nurture responses, after all. (It is amazing how many men refuse to include that fourth aspect - is it too far out of their repertoire of responses? If yes, they should never be allowed to have a relationship or any children, IMO. * ) 

This is also part of the responses by the lyin45ettes (my term for supporters of POTUS45) - incidentally, on them, see here. 

Such reactions are human ... and as ineffective as the incompetent (non)responses I wrote about in my previous post. 

Erica Chenoweth and Maria J Stephens have found that non-violent movements are more than twice as likely to succeed as violent movements,  Gene  Sharp  listed  198 ways to protest non-violently, and Gandhi has shown that this can work. 

Apart from the reasons Ms Chenoweth and Ms Stephens cover, this physical world violence plays into the realm that despots, authoritarians and their sock-puppet remora are comfortable with - the mundane, secular, material world, a comfortable  predilection and bias illustrated by the way they think and feel. 

On the other hand, things like non-violence come from a world of morality and decency that the despots, authoritarians and their sock-puppet ** remora inherently flounder in - they don't understand what they are seeing, don't know how to take it, and don't know how to respond. This is very well written about in Srđa Popović's book "Blueprint for Revolution" - particularly the story about Lego men as a device: the repressive authorities didn't know what those being left in various places was about, but it gave hope and an outlet for those they were trying to repress (and led to humiliatingly hilarious results when they started trying to arrest people for having Lego). 

Mr Popović also talked about Otpor!, which used humour, public theatre, symbols and the like to help end a repressive regime. 

That type of work takes a high level of organisation, study/training, and discipline to be effective - as Gandhi knew, as written about very capably by Paul K Chappell, as known by the US civil rights protest organisers in the 60s, and as most recently demonstrated by the Black Lives Matter protestors and the pro-democracy protest in Hong Kong.

In fact, several of these movements have successfully combined very high levels of organisation, discipline and training with modern communication and a decentralised structure. The pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong use a cultural saying to the effect of "be like water" - they will flow away from one area where police activity had intensified, and do something somewhere else (well, they did prior to the pandemic and the CCP crackdown that removed any vestige of one state-two systems).

As an analogy, consider scooping some water up in your hand, and then trying to crush the water: it just flows out between your fingers. 

Now, the aim of civil resistance is often to provoke a reaction and then take advantage of the publicity: that is the sort of work that needs to be done by those who have been prepared and trained (although I consider such training should consider (a) really obvious things like what to do if the Internet is shut down, (b) basic cyber-security and discipline [see here, for instance] - including personal cyber activities away from planned resistance [hackers have used answers to questions posted on social media to break into accounts, and the problem is often a variation of the biggest driving problem [the nut on the wheel - used in a pejorative reference to the driver] summed up as PEBKAC [problem exists between keyboard and chair], all of which is frustrating for me in everyday life, and (c) not using obvious terms and names when despots and their sock puppets are likely to be listening in). 

There is, however, less risky, less extreme, but effective if it is widespread enough work that can also be done - as exemplified by the Lego men, by posters and symbols being put up overnight, and by taxis driving at half speed - ostensibly for safety, but really as a protest at governance slowing reform. 

How can the despots, authoritarians and their sock-puppet remora object to something that is seemingly about safety? 

Imagine it: 

"Why are you driving so slowly?" 

"For your safety." 

"I think you're doing it as a protest - speed up!" 

"And put your life at risk?! No, I cannot do that - we take safety seriously, and what if something happened to you? I could not bear it!" 

In that circumstance, it would probably be wonderful if something did actually happen - but in governance, not on the roads or in the taxi.

(See Mr Popović's book - there is either that or something similar in it.)

One of the possible low risk actions I've often thought about is simply scratching a symbol or acronym in dirt - the "sacred soil" of every nation, maybe something as simple as B_ for "Better _<first letter of nation's name>". That is something people can do with low risk (they can't be identified as being up to mischief by having paint, posters or Lego men), if people do feel afraid they can wipe out the evidence, and by the time the despots, authoritarians and their sock-puppet remora realise that resistance to their repression is so widespread they no longer have the main power, it will be too late.

Of course, it would help if the rest of the world - beyond human rights organisations - stood up for R2P principles. That is best done by local regional bodies, but there are times others may have to get involved. 

Anyway, hopefully that is some food for thought. I have a few other thoughts about getting such despots out of power, but I will save that for another post.

(I've written about this sort of thing before - for example, here.) 

 * Yes, I am being deliberately provocative

 ** I'm using this term to describe someone who is being manipulated - not in the more recent fake social media sense