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