Feeling like things are descending into unfixable chaos? We should be worried. But don’t despair. Neo-Nazis, white supremacists and racist presidents can be overcome by peaceful means. We can win this because we have the most powerful toolbox on earth: There are 198 powerful non-violent ways to beat stubborn racist regimes, corporatism, plutocracy, Trump and other obstacles to a thriving nation & planet.
JAMILA RAQIB WILL BLOW YOUR MIND in this 9 minute TED talk (see YouTube window below dotted line at bottom of this post). The resistance methods she describes are changing the world.
Rakib’s speech will leave you feeling EMPOWERED because you’ll realize the sheer number of EFFECTIVE PEACEFUL TOOLS AT OUR DISPOSAL. Marches are only one tool in this powerful 198 piece resistance tool kit.
Gene Sharp (who was nominated for the NOBEL PEACE PRIZE) is Raqib’s mentor. He gathered the list of 198 methods of non-violent action. These methods have achieved successful results with regimes even more despotic than ours. Because Sharp’s non-violent methods WORK, deposed dictators around the world curse his name.
Here Raqib describes the power of those 198 methods: “Nonviolent struggle works by destroying an opponent. Not physically but by identifying the institutions that an opponent needs to survive and then denying them those sources of power.”
Raqib grew up in Afghanistan after the Soviet occupation. Here’s the way she describes struggles for justice in the world in new terms:
“When people have a fundamental issue at stake, for most of them, giving in is not an option. For these types of conflicts, when people’s rights are violated, when their countries are occupied, when they’re oppressed and humiliated, they need a powerful way to resist and to fight back. Which means that, no matter how destructive and terrible violence is, if people see it as their only choice, they will use it.
Most of us are concerned with the level of violence in the world. But we’re not going to end war by telling people that violence is morally wrong. Instead we must offer them a tool that is at least as powerful and as effective as violence. . . The greatest hope for humanity lies not in condemning violence but in making violence obsolete.”
Sharp’s toolbox of 198 forms of non-violent resistance is even more powerful than violence to resist oppression and dictatorship. That toolkit has the power to make violence obsolete because it just works better.
“This is a technique of combat. It is a substitute for war.” – Gene Sharp
Here are Sharp’s 198 methods of nonviolent resistance:
http://www.aeinstein.org/…/198-methods-of-nonviolent-action/
– http://www.aeinstein.org/nonviolentaction/198-methods-of-nonviolent-action/
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And here is Jamila Raqib’s 9 minute TED talk:
Also check out Mark & Paul Engler’s celebrated new book “THIS IS AN UPRISING” which brilliantly shows how non-violent revolution is reshaping our world. They do an incredible job demonstrating that successful revolutions and actions are not spontaneous as the press would often have us believe. They are actually meticulously and strategically planned. This is a real page turner that shows how peaceful resistance is quickly becoming the most powerful weapon on earth.
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