The purpose of “The 3.5% Project” is to provide an ongoing context for Harvard professor Gene Sharp’s 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action – a blueprint for nonviolent resistance. Each of the 198 methods can be used at any time, in any order, by anyone. (Scroll below to read the most recent post.) If you’re part of the 3.5%, feel free to subscribe at the top right to receive your weekly method, and please share liberally.
“Researchers used to say that no government can survive if just 5% of its population rose up against it, but what the research showed is that no single campaigns failed during the time period after they’d achieved the active sustained participation of just 3.5 percent of the population.” – Erica Chenoweth
Formal Statements
1. Public Speeches
2. Letters of opposition or support
3. Declarations by organizations and institutions
4. Signed public statements
5. Declarations of indictment and intention
6. Group or mass petitions Continue reading →
Lesbian Connection: free to lesbians worldwide, but the suggested donation is $7/issue (more if you can, less if you can’t), January/February 2019 issue
Sometimes I wonder what it will feel like to read these posts in 5 or 10 years. Honestly, I started the this project because I needed to do something with the daily barrage of overwhelmingly bad news. In a short time, it’s becoming a record of how much we’re all managing on a daily basis.
I am doing this because we are NOT helpless.
These methods work.
Method 31: “Haunting” Officials was used in India 1928 during the Bardoli Satyagraha, a peasant-led campaign of civil disobedience. In response to the government’s unresponsiveness to widespread famine, farmers, peasants, and other volunteers “haunted” government officials. They camped out in the roads in front of their homes in silence. When the activists were arrested, they were immediately replaced by others. Eventually, authorities tired of the process. Members of the governments of Bombay and across India were furious about the treatment of the protesting farmers and resigned from their offices in open support of the farmers.
Yesterday in New Zealand, citizens gathered in silent protest outside Gun City, a gun store that sells the military-style semi automatic reportedly used by the man responsible for the massacre in Christchurch. Prime Minister Jacinda Adams’ response to the massacre puts other leaders to shame:
“She fought from the start like a real politician, scorning the killer, attacking racism and slapping back at Turkish president Erdogan’s revolting election propaganda – which used the murderer’s own video – then hitting out at US president Trump. And insisting that New Zealand’s gun laws would change forever.”– Robert Fisk, Independent
Wasn’t Method 29 a breath of fresh air? Today’s must-watch video of Anderson Cooper is not that. The piece below aired last week, but in today’s news cycle, it’s already old news. That’s the danger of the time we’re in. Paul Manafort is up for sentencing today, 45 is already tweeting about campaign contributions and the wall, and in the meantime in North Korea:
Satellite images appear to show the North is rebuilding a facility that had been previously used to test long-range missile engines. Analysis of the images suggests the work on the facility, which had been dormant since August, began right around the time Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met up for their second summit, which ended last week without an agreement.
– via CNN, March 6, 2019
Watch Anderson Cooper’s response to 45 calling Kim Jong-un, the leader of the world’s most repressive dictatorship, “my friend,” “an interesting guy” and a “real leader.” North Korea – the country where failing to keep the presidential portrait dust-free is a punishable offense.
This offers some context for Professor Gene Sharp’s warning that Method 30 should be used only rarely in situations of political or international conflict. What would happen if North Koreans mooned Kim Jong-un’s palace, like Trump’s protestors did in Chicago? By law, three generations of a protestor’s family could be sent to labour camps.
In September 2017, The Telegraph provided a concise list of “brutal and inhumane laws North Koreans are forced to live under.” I’ve provided a condensed version, below:
Three generations rule
In North Korea, if one person is convicted of a serious crime and sent to a prison camp, their immediate family can also be sent with them. Then the next two generations born in the camps can also remain there. The 1972 edict says that up to three generations must be punished to wipe out the ‘seed’ of class enemies.
Access to non-state-controlled media
Listening to unauthorized foreign broadcasts, watching foreign TV shows and possessing dissident publications are considered “crimes against the state.” Those caught face execution or being sent to labour camps.
Freedom of movement
It is a criminal offense for North Koreans to leave the country without government permission. That doesn’t stop thousands making highly treacherous journeys in attempts to escape every year. Even those who successfully make it out of the North can still be pursued by government agents and there are reports of defector’s families being punished in their absence.
Practising Christianity
Although the North Korean constitution officially allows freedom of religion, the state has a hostile approach to religions, particularly to those it sees as western faiths such as Christianity. Those discovered practicing Christianity face arrest and being sent to a labour camp. (I wonder how the half of pastors who approve of Trump feel about the endorsement of Kim Jong-un?)
Economic rights
Private enterprise of any kind is officially banned in North Korea. Those caught face arbitrary punishment even though the black market remains one of the only ways for people to get the food, medicine and other necessities the government often fails to provide.
Today’s method is a hopeful one! Sometimes it’s called “Planting in Protest.” When public land has been seized or neglected, protestors plant trees, seeds, or plants in places where the existing or future policies are a threat to the environmental health of that area.
In Africa, eleven countries are building a “Great Green Wall” from east to west coast to reverse desertification.
After Trump withdrew the US from the Paris Agreement, a New Zealand group called Trump Forest began accepting pledges to plant trees, because every tree helps to reduce carbon from the atmosphere. To date, Trump Forest has planted over 500,000 trees and has collected pledges from more than 100 countries. Author Margaret Atwood is a supporter.
Neighbors in British Colombia, Canada formed an organization called PIPE UP to restore the local ecosystem after the construction of a pipeline.
An NGO in Costa Rica called “Community Carbon Trees” is working with rural community members to reforest portions of the rainforest with indigenous trees. “Our goal is to get as many hands on desk as we can, because we really do have a solution to the problem.
Across North America and parts of Europe, people are fed up with their complaints about neglected roads going unanswered. To get the attention of local municipalities, they fill street potholes with potting soil and flowers. Here’s are a few shots from Portland, Oregon – because Portlanders.
NOTE: Today’s post comes with a challenge, so feel free to skip to the hashtag at the end.
Way back in July 2018, Trump returned to the White House after a summit with Putin during which he refused to denounce any Russian interference in the 2016 election. Former Clinton advisor Adam Parkhomenko took to Twitter in protest.
In less than 30 minutes, a crowdfund campaign covered the costs for a mariachi band to play outside the White House during a night when Trump was already jet lagged. The concert went on to become part of a multi-day protest called Occupy Lafayette Park:
Is it me, or do the mariachi days of July seem cheerfully naive in light of this week’s reports that migrant children are being handcuffed and transferred to adult detention centers on their 18th birthdays? While “weaponizing” mariachi bands, opera singers and bagpipers may seem harmless, the use of oral or mechanical sounds has been used throughout history to convey a message during oppressive regimes.
In May 1917, the French army had already staged mutinies against the government, but when some units were forced to return to the trenches, the soldiers began “baaing” in protest, to signify that they were lambs to the slaughter. “The officers were helpless to prevent it.” (Source: The Methods of Nonviolent Action, Part Two, Gene Sharp.)
In 1968, in protest of forcible occupation, Czechoslovakian bishops called on churches to ring funeral bells. Soon, the city filled with the sound of sirens, car horns and train whistles. Soviet troops were so unnerved that they drew their pistols, terrified that an attack was about to begin.
#InternationalMargaritaDay
Today, on what is apparently #InternationalMargaritaDay, imagine what would happen if we used that hashtag to enlist the resistance to blare our car horns in time to “Impeach the President” on the hour, every hour for the next week? Or month? Or until 2020?
As my beloved Lidia Yuknavitch says, “we are nothing without each other.”
“Impeach the President” is a single by funk band The Honey Drippers, released on Alaga Records in 1973 and re-released to iTunes by Tuff City Records in 2017, after being sampled many times. The protest song advocates the impeachment of then president Richard Nixon.
“Impeach the President”
Ladies and gentlemen We have the Honey Drippers in the house tonight They just got back from Washington, DC I think they got somethin’ they want to say
[Verse 1] Some people say that he’s guilty (that he’s guilty) Some people say I don’t know (I don’t know) Some people say, give him a chance (give him a chance) Aw, some people say, wait till he’s convicted (till he’s convicted)
[Chorus] Impeach the President Impeach the President Impeach the President Impeach the President
Ukulele Challenge: Part III “A Very Mueller Valentine’s Day”
Who can turn the world on with one file? Who can take an endless case and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile? Well it’s you, Bob, and you should know it With each glance and every little news breaking moment The truth is all around, no need to worry Still I have to say, we wish you’d hurry You’re gonna make it after all You will convict him after all
“Researchers used to say that no government can survive if just 5% of its population rose up against it, but what the research showed is that no single campaigns failed during the time period after they’d achieved the active sustained participation of just 3.5 percent of the population.” – Erica Chenoweth
Photo by Rob Latour/REX/Shutterstock (10095018ic) Brandi Carlile 61st Annual Grammy Awards, Show, Los Angeles, USA – 10 Feb 2019
Carlile’s performance of “The Joke” at last night’s Grammy awards has been on repeat all day. It’s one of the most powerful, timely performances I’ve seen, and I just can’t get it out of my head. Watch the performance.
They come to kick dirt in your face
To call you weak and then displace you
After carrying your baby on your back across the desert
I saw your eyes behind your hair
And you’re looking tired, but you don’t look scared
Artists are leading the revolution.
Method 27: New Signs and Names
Method 27 can take many forms, but the approach is to take signs that have been used against people and to turn them into something new. The signs can be repurposed, they can disappear or be replaced with something new.
When I was researching this method, I came across today’s LA Times, “Last of iconic illegal immigration crossing signs has vanished in California.” After years of debate, the last of 10 yellow “immigrants crossing” signs that once stood on either side of the 5 and 805 freeways near the U.S.-Mexico border disappeared. The department of transportation stopped making the signs and constructed fences to prevent people from crossing highways instead. (See slideshow, below.)
Method 27 was used in 1942 in occupied Poland by a group of young resistors who called themselves “The Little Wolves.” They stole the signs reading “Nur Für Deutsche” (FOR GERMANS ONLY), signs that were posted in front of Warsaw’s best cafes, hotels and theaters. One morning, hundreds of the signs reappeared on city’s lamp posts and trees where the Germans often hung Polish patriots. Overnight, street signs, placards and inscriptions throughout the city were replaced with the names of the heroes of the revolution.
I featured the artist Banksy in Method 26: “Paint as Protest,” and he’s back again today. A warning that the images in the slideshow below are triggering, but they end on a note we can all live by. I recommend listening to Brandi Carlile as you watch. [Listen.]
Let ’em live while they can
Let ’em spin, let ’em scatter in the wind
I have been to the movies, I’ve seen how it ends
And the joke’s on them.
“Researchers used to say that no government can survive if just 5% of its population rose up against it, but what the research showed is that no single campaigns failed during the time period after they’d achieved the active sustained participation of just 3.5 percent of the population.” – Erica Chenoweth
Method 27 can take many forms, but the approach is to take signs that have been used against people and to turn them into something new. The signs can be repurposed, they can disappear or be replaced with something new.