Over at the Meta-Activism Project, Mary Joyce, who I had the pleasure of getting to know in Boston this summer, has launched an ambitious all-volunteer effort to catalog as many case studies on digital activism as possible.

These stories are being entered into the Global Digital Activism Data Set (GDADS), a “non-proprietary quantitative machine-readable data set,” that I think will be of great use to activists and scholars wanting to learn more about this budding field.

The spreadsheet, which recently hit 500 cases, along with a selection of fleshed out case studies can be found here. And of course, if you know a story that isn’t on their list, submit a case study of your own!

The International Center for Nonviolent Conflict just sent notice of a course on civil resistance that they have developed, in conjunction with the United States Institute of Peace, which will be offered this fall in Washington DC.

Having attended their week-long Fletcher Summer Institute this year, I can say that their presentations and educational materials are top notch. Here are the details, in case it’d be something you’d like to attend:

The world is witnessing a surge in people powered movements in places such as Iran, the Niger Delta, Honduras, and the West Bank. As a result, the foreign policy community is carefully following the courageous acts of civil disobedience utilized by people fighting against various forms of repression.
This course is designed to provide an in-depth and multi-disciplinary perspective on civilian-based movements and campaigns that defend and obtain basic rights and justice around the world – from Egypt to Burma, from Zimbabwe to West Papua. The course will ex-amine such questions as: What is civil resistance? What determines the success or failure of a civil resistance movement? How can professionals in the field better understand and analyze what elements are at work when civilians use nonviolent tactics? How and when should external agents – governments, NGOs, media, business – act or not act when civil resistance is gaining momentum? How can the dynamics and history of civil resistance better inform the fields of conflict management, development, diplomacy, and peacemak-ing?

• Interactive course: focuses on simulations and case studies
• Experience opportunities to share lessons across sectors
• Hear insight from expert scholars and practitioners

COST: $195. Participants not based in Washington, DC are responsible for their own accommodations and travel, including visas.

CREDIT: Participants will receive certificate upon completion of course.

APPLICATION: Visit the USIP course listing to apply

VENUE: USIP Headquarters, 1200 17th St. NW, Washington DC, 20036

For more information please contact education@usip.org

On Sunday, Boston Globe senior assistant business editor Mark Pothier wrote about his feelings regarding a boycott of The Upper Crust, one of his favorite pizzerias in Boston, that has been targeted because of allegations that the company has not paid its employees for overtime.

After a few minutes of “soul-searching” about whether he should join the boycott, he says he decided to follow his taste buds. Pothier then gives a string of standard justifications for his actions:

Sure, it nags at my conscience a little to think I support a company that could be profiting at the expense of these good employees and dozens more like them. But I’m not naive, either – how would I know whether the competing family-owned pizza maker I decided to patronize instead treats its employees any better? Mom and Pop can be greedy capitalists, too.

Nowadays, it seems, the preferred tactic activists use to fight corporate misconduct, whether genuine or perceived, is the boycott. Thanks to social media, they can spread faster than a YouTube video of a cat playing the piano. But what is a boycott supposed to accomplish? Too often, such campaigns are knee-jerk reactions to a company’s blunders. They almost always inflict more harm on front-line workers than corporate culprits in tailored suits. Before the first British Petroleum tar balls fouled the Gulf Coast, for instance, drivers were urged to steer clear of BP gas stations (a “Boycott BP” Facebook page has been “liked” by nearly 850,000 people). Trouble is, most BP stations in the United States are independently owned. If you stop filling up on BP-brand unleaded, departing chief executive Tony Hayward won’t sleep any worse that he already does.

[...]

In the case of Upper Crust, if business at its 17 locations drops sharply because of an ill-advised boycott, you won’t need an economist to figure out the likely consequences: fewer hours for employees, then fewer employees, and, eventually, fewer restaurants. That means more people on unemployment, more dark spaces on Main Streets.

By making this final point, Pothier reveals his true ignorance of the history and power of boycotts. While hypothetically his scenario could play out, an effective boycott could also push Upper Crust to do the right thing and compensate its employees properly.

• Century City’s business as usual came to a standstill Thursday afternoon as the janitors who lost their jobs cleaning JPMorgan Chase-owned Century Plaza towers were joined by 500 janitors, community activists, and union supporters at a march and protest in Los Angeles. Thirteen people were arrested for blocking an intersection in an act of civil disobedience.

• Some 10,000 people gathered outside historic Dunbar High School in Washington, D.C. on Saturday for the “Reclaim the Dream” march commemorating the 47th anniversary of the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom,” where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous “I have a Dream Speech.”

• On Sunday, an estimated 80,000 Hong Kongers marched in honor of eight people killed in a bus hijacking in Manila, attacking the Philippine government for botching the rescue operation and demanding justice for the dead.

• Teachers on Thursday staged a 24-hour strike and paralyzed Puerto Rican public education to protest what they say is a general deterioration of the school system.

• On Thursday, two protesters associated with Climate Ground Zero blocked the entrance to the headquarters of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to bring attention to what they believe is the DEP’s failure to enforce the Clean Water Act by permitting mountaintop removal mining.

• A protest of Nigerian women shut down a Shell plant last Wednesday, just one week after a group of Ugborodo women blockaded a Chevron natural gas pipeline.

• Oil workers calling for compensation for recently fired employees maintained a blockade at a storage plant in southern Argentina on Friday.

• More than two dozen Bremerton Coca-Cola Enterprises employees went on strike Monday as part of a walkout that involves nearly 500 employees around Washington state.

• In Kazakhstan, a threatened hunger strike by 48 workers building the Almaty subway has succeeded in getting them three months’ back pay. The workers, all from one shift, went on a general strike for three days last week, refusing to work until they got their salaries.

• On August 23, about 100 steel workers at the Hormozgan Steel Complex in Southern Iran staged a protest gathering. The workers were protesting 300 workers not having received back wages in the last three months.

• Around 160 garment workers in Cambodia continued to strike on Monday outside the gates of a factory in Meanchey district, where they have camped out day and night since Thursday to agitate for improved working conditions.

• Thousands of Honduran workers marched in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula on Aug. 18 to demand an increase in the minimum wage and to show solidarity with teachers who were in the 14th day of an open-ended strike.

• Last Thursday, the workers at Kian Tire in Iran went on strike closing down the gates of the factory warehouses. The workers were demanding back wages.

• Women bared their breasts to fight for the same right to go topless as men, during protests in Venice Beach, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Denver, Miami Beach and Seattle on Sunday.

It just came to my attention that back in February, Al Jazeera English finally decided to air “Pride of Warrior,” a documentary about the nonviolent struggle for independence in West Papua. As I noted on this site, the network was originally set to show the film in July 2009, but pulled it at the last minute. With a presidential election slated for later that month, it appeared that the documentary was postponed because of pressure from the Indonesian government.

Nevertheless, “Pride of Warriors” is still worth watching as a powerful introduction to desperate situation faced by West Papuans and their ongoing campaign for self-determination. (h/t ICNC)

This week the city of Minneapolis agreed to pay $165,000 to seven protesters to settle a federal lawsuit they filed after they were arrested and jailed for two days for lurching down Nicollet Mall dressed as zombies to protest “mindless” consumerism.

According to an article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

When arrested at the intersection of Hennepin Avenue and 6th Street N., most of them had thick white powder and fake blood on their faces and dark makeup around their eyes. They were walking in a stiff, lurching fashion and carrying four bags of sound equipment to amplify music from an iPod when they were arrested by police who said they were carrying equipment that simulated “weapons of mass destruction.”

However, they were never charged with any crime.

Although U.S. District Judge Joan Ericksen had dismissed the zombies’ lawsuit, it was resurrected in February by a three-judge panel of the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which concluded that police lacked probable cause to arrest the seven, a decision setting the stage for a federal trial this fall. The settlement means there will be no trial.

This sounds like the sort of creative protest that should be replicated elsewhere, especially with the seeming explosion of interest in anything zombie related in this country in recent years.

On November 22-28, Adbusters and its network of activists and culture jammers (now nearly 87,000 strong) are organizing a “Carnivalesque Rebellion,” with the goal of “shutting down consumer capitalism for a week.”

Think of it as an adventure, as therapy, as Buy Nothing Day times a hundred … think of it as the World Cup of global activism – a week of postering and pranks, of talking back at your profs and speaking truth to power. Some of us will poster our schools and neighborhoods and just break our daily routines for a week. Others will chant, spark mayhem in big box stores and provoke mass cognitive dissonance. Others still will engage in the most visceral kind of civil disobedience.

One creative action that Adbusters cites as an inspiration is this video (above) of The Love Police stirring things up in the UK.

The first action that the magazine has launched is a worldwide boycott of Starbucks, which should be accompanied by a shift to local indie coffee shops. In their most recent tactical briefing, they announced a similar boycott of Nike.

The next issue of the print magazine will be a “theoretical and practice handbook for the November rebellion,” and they are currently asking that you send along your best ideas for coordinated acts of civil disobedience to memewarriors@adbusters.org, which they’ll share in future briefings.

Over at Mondoweiss, which I’ve recently discovered has perhaps the most thorough coverage of nonviolent action challenging the occupation of Palestine, there is a post today announcing a big victory for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign:

The Norwegian government has divested its pension fund of two Leviev companies that build settlements in the occupied West Bank on the grounds that the international community regards territory east of the ’67 line as occupied.

Earlier this month, over at Religion Dispatches, Kim Bobo, the executive director of Interfaith Worker Justice – a great organization that I visited with earlier this summer – had a nice article about why and how the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) have stepped up as leaders in the campaign against SB 1070 in Arizona. She boils down seven lessons that the faith community can learn from the Unitarian experience about how to mobilize people around immigration reform or any other social justice issue:

1) Engage leadership.

The UUA president made a personal commitment on the issue. He offered to go to Arizona. He issued an invitation to others. He agreed to get arrested. Denominational leaders are often overwhelmed with their responsibilities and commitments. And yet, their personal involvement in economic and social justice issues, on the ground, particularly in the midst of tough situations, can support and embolden local leadership and draw others into the work. Leading through action is always stronger than through words.

Equally important was the leadership of the local pastors in Phoenix, especially the terrific work of Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray and of the UUA’s moderator, Gini Courter, who came to Phoenix with members of the UUA Board.

2) Link to principles and history.

The UUs consistently linked the struggle in Arizona to their longstanding commitment to civil rights and their core principles. The UUs also linked the campaign to the denomination’s anti-racism initiative.

3) Assign staff and resources for planning.

The UU committed money and staff to the planning and preparation in Arizona. Presumably, the UUs are as cash-strapped as other denominations, and yet they committed resources to action and witness. As a result of the denomination’s commitment, contributions flowed to help with bail, legal defense, and additional outreach work.

Read the rest of this article »

• Singing choruses of “we shall not be moved” while scattering sunflower seeds, 14 activists were arrested in Kansas City on Monday after blocking an earth moving vehicle on the site of a proposed nuclear weapons manufacturing facility.

• Last Friday, around 35 Palestinians demonstrated against Hallamish settlement with around 15 Israeli and international peace activists in the village of An Nabi Salih.

• German workers on Tuesday protested against what their union says are plans by the country’s central bank to have euro banknotes printed by foreign companies.

• Some Pakistani flood victims blocked highways to demand government help on Tuesday.

• Three television channels in Ukraine went on strike on Saturday in protest of steadily increasing pressure on media in Ukraine, with hundreds of other journalists declaring readiness to join the action.

• Students from various schools and universities in the Philippines traded the four corners of their classrooms for the streets last Friday to join the National Youth Walkout and appeal for more government support for the education sector.

• On Monday, hundreds of protesters started a sit-in outside the legislature, fueled by mounting anger over the government’s cross-strait policies and the expected passage of a controversial trade agreement with China later this week.

• The 19-day long protest in Bolivia’s Potosi province was finally brought to an end with the protesters lifting the blockade of the airport and major roads after a deal was struck with the government.

• The entire team of Sri Lanka’s government wildlife vets has gone on strike amid mounting controversy over an elephant conservation plan that has led to increased clashes between the animals and villagers.

Check out this great remake of Depeche Mode’s “People are People” by a flash mob in a Target store over the weekend. According to the video, over 250,000 people have pledged to boycott Target over their $150,000 donation to a group paying for ads for Tom Emmer, a conservative candidate for governor in Minnesota who opposes gay marriage.

If that many people follow through on their commitment to boycott, the store will easily lose far more than $150,000 in business for the donation, which will hopefully make other corporations think twice about the potential ramifications of spending money on political candidates.

Activists are not only upset about this particular donation, as their song suggests, but the fact that Target took advantage of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision earlier this year -  which ruled that corporations can spend an unlimited amount of money on political advertisements -  to back Emmer.

This would suggest that Target is just the first target by citizens upset with the now unchecked ability corporations have to influence elections in the US, and that as other donations by other corporations become public, these protests will spread. As one of the protesters mentions at the end of the video, Best Buy is already in the crosshairs for donating $100,000 to the same group supporting Emmer in Minnesota.

If you want to join the growing boycott of Target, click here or here, and sign this petition asking the company to change its ways.

This short video, called Civil Resistance: A First Look, which I first saw at the Fletcher Summer Institute at Tufts in June, is a solid introduction to the concept of civil resistance for anyone unfamiliar with it. The narrator answers a series of basic questions that many people new to the idea might have and briefly goes into some of the strategic and tactical concerns that activists face in developing a movement.

For example, there is a good explanation of the risks involved in public action against repressive regimes and the pros and cons of having a charismatic leader.

My only major issue with the film is with the response to the question, “What if my adversary can’t be persuaded?” The narrator replies definitively that civil resistance is not about persuasion, and that it is not an effort to reach the conscience of the opponents, but to remove their power by using ridicule and humor, imposing economic costs and disrupting business as usual.

While those are all important ways to affect the balance of power, to argue that persuasion is not part of the equation is misleading. It has in fact been a feature of most nonviolent movements. Reaching out to the conscience of the opponent was central to the struggles that Gandhi and Martin Luther King led, and to their understanding of how nonviolence works.

Being able to convert your adversaries – while perhaps rare, especially for those with the most at stake in preserving the status quo – can be a deciding factor in the outcome of the struggle. I would argue, for example, that persuasion of the opponent is an instrumental part of any nonviolent success story where defections by the police or security forces play a central role in the overthrow of a repressive regime. This was the case with the movements that brought down Marcos in the Philippines, the Shah in Iran and Milosevic in Serbia, to name just a few.

The film can be downloaded in several different languages on its accompanying website, which also has a good collection of other resources on the subject.

• About a hundred net neutrality activists left their laptops at home Friday afternoon to gather at Google’s Silicon Valley headquarters to protest the search giant’s perceived betrayal of the movement for federal internet openness rules. The protest group’s ranks included eager young activists, long-time technologists, first-time protesters and the ever-present Raging Grannies, who led anti-Google sing-alongs set to classic Americana songs.

• Around 1,000 Senegalese opposition supporters took to the streets on Saturday to protest President Abdoulaye Wade’s regime, saying they were fed up with power cuts, floods, and rising food costs.

• In Haiti, dozens of protesters held a sit-in at the National Palace Thursday to oppose the forced evictions of thousands of displaced residents from makeshift camps. The Haitian government has been urged to issue a moratorium on all forced evictions until alternative shelter options can be provided.

• Two Korean priests are publicly fasting outside a government building in the latest protest against the highly controversial Four Rivers project, which they believe will be detrimental to the environment.

• Iranian opposition members in Germany are staging a two-day hunger strike to demand a stop executions and an international investigation of prisons in their home country. A group of 20 on Friday chanted slogans such as “Stop stonings” and “Free political prisoners” on Berlin’s most prominent public spot at the Brandenburg Gate, two days after the purported TV confession of an Iranian woman facing death by stoning on adultery charges.

• On Saturday, all the taxi drivers in the provincial city of Dégolan‌ in Iranian Kurdistan went on strike parking their taxi cabs by the Bolbanabad terminal to protest a 20 day interruption in the compressed natural gas supplies.

• Sunday’s game between the Arizona Diamondbacks and Washington Nationals was briefly interrupted by protesters urging commissioner Bud Selig to move the 2011 All-Star Game from Phoenix because of Arizona’s new immigration legislation.

• Public sector workers went on strike across South Africa Tuesday, closing schools and wreaking havoc on a wide array of public services. As many as 1.3 million people were expected to walk off their jobs. Between 10,000 and 100,000 workers also demonstrated Tuesday across five provinces.

• Dozens of construction workers building a subway in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, have vowed to begin a hunger strike today to demand three months of unpaid wages.

• On Monday, a few dozen Embassy Suites workers who claim they are routinely denied breaks walked off the job in Irvine, California.

• Anti-government protesters in Bolivia tightened their siege of Potosi on Saturday, launching a hunger strike and cutting rail links to Chile, as tourists began negotiating their way out of the mining city, 10 days into the blockade.

• Nine protesters were arrested for blocking the main gate to Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor on Monday. They were among members and supporters of Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, which holds an annual vigil at the base on the anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

• More than 30,000 truck drivers in the Dominican Republic went on a 24-hour strike yesterday to protest a government proposal to raise the fuel tax.

• Workers at the Post-Gazette walked out at Noon on Monday to protest pending staff cuts the paper says are needed to stay afloat.

• In India, Yoga Guru Baba Ramdev staged a sit-in protest at Haridwar with a demand to halt the hydropower projects across River Ganga and also to protect the river from further exploitation and pollution. Several Hindu monks also accompanied Baba Ramdev in this crusade.

• A three-day strike launched on Monday by customs workers in Ivory Coast over benefits that have been withheld is blocking exports of cocoa from the world’s top grower of the beans.