How to topple a dictator Srdja Popovic

and proud to be here on TEDx cracker oh

I’ll try to speak a little bit today

about a phenomenon which can and is

actually changing the world and whose

name is people power I’ll start with the

anecdote or for those of you who are

Monty Python lovers a Monty Python type

of sketch here it is it is December 15

2010 somebody gives you a bet you will

look at the crystal ball and you will

see the future future will be accurate

but you need to share it to the world

okay

curiosity killed the cat you take the

bat you look at the crystal ball one

hour later you’re sitting in a building

of the national TV in the top show and

you tell the story before the end of

2011 Vanilli and Mubarak and Gaddafi

would be down and prosecuted Saleh of

Yemen and Assad of Syria would be ear

challenged or already on their knees

awesome of bin Laden would be dead and

rot comedy would be in hack know the

anchor watch is you with a strange gaze

on his face and then on the top of it

you had and thousands of the young

people from Athens Madrid in New York

will demonstrate for social justice

claiming that they are inspired with

Arabs next thing you know two guys in

white appear they give you the strange

t-shirt take you to the nearest mental

institution so I would like to speak a

little bit about the phenomenon which is

behind what already seems to be the very

bad year for a bad guys and this

phenomenon is called people power

well people power has been there for a

while it held Gandhi kick Brits from

India it helped Martin Luther King wins

historic racial struggle it helped local

black valensa to kick out 1 million

Soviet troops from Poland and beginning

the end of the Soviet Union as we know

it so what’s new in it what seems to be

very new which is the idea I would like

to share with you today that there is a

set of rules and skills which can be

learned and taught in order to perform

successful nonviolent struggle if this

is true

we can help this moment well first one

analytic skills I’ll try

where it all started in the Middle East

and for so many years we were living

with completely the wrong perception of

the Middle East it was looking like the

frozen region literally refrigerator and

there are only two types of meal there

steak which stands for a Mubarak Ben Ali

type of military police dictatorship or

a potato which stands for terror and

type of Tokra seized and everybody was

amazed when the refrigerator opened and

millions of young mainly secular people

step out to do the change guess what

they didn’t watch the demographics what

is the average age of Egyptian 24 how

long Mubarak in power 31 so this system

just obsolete the expired

and young people of Arab world have

awakened one more link and understood

that power lies in their hand the rest

is the year in front of us and guess

what the same generation Epsilon with

the rules with our tools with our games

and with your language which sounds a

little bit strange to me I’m 38 now and

can you look at the age of the people

the streets of Europe seems that

generation epsilon is coming now let me

set another example I’m meeting

different people throughout the world

and there are you know academics and

professors and doctors and they will

always store conditions they’ll say

people power will work only if regime is

not too oppressive they will say people

power will work if the annual income of

the countries between acts and that

don’t say people power will work only if

there is a foreign pressure they will

say people power will work only if there

is no oil and I mean there is a set of

conditions well the news here is that

your skills bring in the conflict seems

to be more important than the conditions

namely skills of unity planning and

maintain nonviolent discipline let me

give you the example I’m coming from

country called Serbia took us 10 years

to unite 18 opposition party leaders

with their big egos behind one single

candidate against Balkan dictator

Slobodan Milosevic

what that was the day of his defeat you

look at the Egyptians day 5 on Tahrir

Square they get rid of their individual

symbols they appear on the street only

with the flag of Egypt I will give you

contra example you see 9 presidential

candidates running against Lukashenko

you’ll know the outcome so unity is a

big thing and this can be achieved same

with planning somebody have lied to you

about the successful and spontaneous

nonviolent revolution that things

doesn’t exist in the world

whenever you see young people in front

of the road trying to fraternize with

the police or military somebody was

thinking about it before now at the end

of nonviolent discipline and this is

probably the game changer if you

maintain nonviolent discipline you will

exclusively win you have 100,000 people

on a nonviolent March have one idiot or

agent provocateur throwing stone guess

what takes all the cameras that one guy

one single act of violence can literally

destroy your movement now let me move to

another place its selection of

strategies and tactics there are certain

rules in nonviolent struggle you may

follow first you start small second you

pick the bells you can win it’s only 200

of us in this room we won’t call for the

march of million but what if we organize

spraying graffiti throughout the night

all over crack of city the city will

know so we pick the tactics which

accommodates to the event especially

this thing we call the small tactics of

dispersion they’re very useful in a

violent oppression we are actually

witnessing the picture of one of the

best tactics ever used it was on Tahrir

Square where international community was

constantly frightened that you know the

Islamists will overtake the revolution

what they’ve organized Christians

protecting Muslims where they are

praying Coptic wedding cheered by

thousands of Muslims the world has just

changed the picture but somebody was

thinking about this previously so there

are so many things you can do instead of

get getting into one place shouting and

you know showing off in front of the

security forces now there is also

another very important dynamics and this

is dynamics normally analytics

see this is dynamics between fear and

apathy on one side and enthusiasm and

humor on another side so it works like

in video game you have a fear hi

you have status quo you haven’t to see

as I’m higher you see fear is starting

melting day too you see people running

towards police instant from the police

in Egypt you can tell that something is

happening there and then it’s about

humor humor is such a powerful

game-changer and of course it was very

big in Poland you know we were just a

small group of crazy students in Serbia

when we made this big skit we put the

big petrol barrel with a you know

portrait picture of mr. president on it

in the middle of the main stream there

was a hole on the top so you could

literally come put the coin in get a

baseball bat and hit his face sounds

loud in within the minutes we were

sitting in a nearby cafe having coffee

and there was a clue of people waiting

to do this lovely thing well that’s just

the beginning of the show the real show

starts when the police appears what they

will do arrest us we are nowhere to be

seen we are like three blocks away

observing it from our you know espresso

bar arrest the shoppers with kids

doesn’t make sense of course you could

bet they’ve done the most stupid thing

they arrested the bar and now the

picture of the smashed face on the

barrel with the policeman dragging them

to the police car that was the best day

for the photographers from newspapers

that they ever will have so I mean this

these are the things you can do and you

can always use the humor there is also

one big thing about a humour it really

hurts because these guys really are

taking themselves too seriously when you

start to mock them it hurts now

everybody is talking about His Majesty

the Internet and it is also very useful

skill and but don’t rush to label things

like Facebook revolution Twitter

revolution don’t mix tools with a

substance it is true that internet and

new media are very useful in making

things faster and cheaper they make it

also a bit safer for the participants

because they give the part of anonymity

we are watching the great example of

something else internet can

it can put the price tag of

state-sponsored violence over non

violent protester this is famous group

we are all colored side made by Wael

Ghonim in Egypt and his friend this is

the mutilated face of the guy who was

beaten by the police this is how he

became the public and this is what

probably became the straw which broke

camel’s back but here is also the bad

news the nonviolent struggle is when in

a real world in the streets you will

never change your society towards

democracy or you know economics if you

sit down and click there are risks to be

taken and there are living people who

are winning this struggle well

million-dollar question what will happen

in the Arab world and though young

people from Arab world were pretty

successful in bringing down three

dictators shaking the region kind of

persuading clever kings from Jordan and

Morocco doing substantial reforms it is

yet to be seen what will be the outcome

whether the Egyptians and Tunisians will

make it through the transition or this

will end in bloody ethnic and religious

conflicts whether the Syrians will

maintain on valen discipline faced with

a brutal daily violence which kills

thousands already or they will slip in a

violent struggle and make ugly civil war

will this revolutions be whole like

through the transitions and democracy or

be overtaken by military or extremists

of all kind we cannot tell same works

for the western sector where you can see

all these excited young people

protesting around the world occupying

this occupying that are they going to

become the world wave are they’re going

to find their skills their enthusiasm

and their strategy to find what they

really want and push for the reform or

they will just stay complaining about

the endless list of the things they hate

this is the difference between to town

now what the statistics has my friends

book Maria Stefan’s book talks a lot

about the violent and nonviolent

struggle and there are some shocking

data if you look at the last 35 years

and different social transitions from

dictatorship to democracy you will see

that out of 67 different cases in 50 of

these cases it was nonviolent struggle

which was the key power this is one more

reason to look at this phenomenon this

is one more reason to look at the

generation Epsilon

enough for me to give them credits and

hope that they will find their skills

and their courage to use the nonviolent

struggle and thus fix at least a part of

the mess our generation is making in

this world thank you