The Meta-Activism Project, a digital activism think tank, has just launched a new resource for nonviolent activists.  The resource, called Civil Resistance 2.0, is a database of technology-assisted nonviolent methods based on the 198 methods of nonviolent resistance compiled by Gene Sharp, the trailblazing scholar of the field, in 1973. Communication tools have become more numerous and more accessible to activists since then, and other technology-based methods, like using airborne drones to track humanitarian crises, have also emerged. The database (use links tinyurl.com/CivRes20 or tinyurl.com/CivilResistance20 to visit or share) is being crowdsourced, which means that scholars and activists can add to and update the list. Please stop by and share your creativity and experiences.

On Tuesday, WNV editor Nathan Schneider was a guest on Al Jazeera’s Inside Story, where he discussed his recent article on the question of co-optation and Occupy.

“Civil Resistance and the Dynamics of Nonviolent Conflict” is a fully online academic course on civil resistance, a joint project of Rutgers University and the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict. The organizers are now admitting perspective participants.

The course will run from Monday, April 23 to Tuesday, June 5, 2012, and it will involve a mixture of both live, synchronous activities at scheduled times (webinars, live chats and Skype conversations) and asynchronous activities to be completed within specified time frames (forum posts, short quizzes, readings and videos). The course will 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 through nonviolent tactics and strategies — from Egypt to Burma, to Zimbabwe and West Papua. We will look at issues of agency and structure, strategic planning and mobilization, democratic transitions and civil resistance, backfire and security divisions, digital actors and tools, the role of third party actors, and, finally, historical and contemporary cases of civil resistance around the world.

Perspective applicants may also register for and earn up to three graduate credits awarded by Rutgers University. Apply here.

When The Nation assigned me to do a story about questions of violence and nonviolence at Occupy Wall Street early last month, I had no idea how much the subject would explode. Occupy Oakland’s “Move-In Day” on January 28 and a subsequent article by Chris Hedges (as well as some heated discussions on my articles at Waging Nonviolence in between) triggered a national identity crisis in the movement. I followed the controversy as it played out in the OWS Direct Action Working Group, one of the movement’s most active and radical corners during the relatively quiet winter. Over the course of the month, I found yet another example of what “diversity of tactics” really means for Occupy Wall Street — the overcoming of challenges through raw creativity. In particular, I wrote about the birth of a new undertaking called the + Brigades:

The urge for this first came from a frustration with the same old tactics that Natasha Singh had been feeling for a while. “The marches were pointless,” she says. Then, just after the incident in Oakland, her friend and artistic collaborator Amin Husain returned from a World Social Forum meeting in Brazil, where he learned about the Chilean student movement’s creative tactics. He wanted to bring some of that home. The two of them recruited others and settled on a name: “+ Brigades.” They scoured photographs of movements through history at the New York Public Library. The goal, says Husain, is “addition and supplement rather than negation, opposition and subtraction.” Thus their answer to all the worry about black blocs: create blocs of your own.

Husain, who with Singh was one of the earliest OWS organizers, took part in the first intifada as a teenager in the West Bank. But he identifies neither with principled nonviolence nor, for instance, anarchism. The movement’s problem, he and Singh thought, wasn’t a matter of violence or not; it was a lack of imagination. There was too small a repertoire.

“Don’t negate the things you don’t like,” said Austin Guest at that inaugural + Brigades meeting in the church basement. “Add the things you do, so we can get a real diversity of tactics.”

Read the rest of the article at The Nation.

The International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC) is now accepting applications for the seventh annual Fletcher Summer Institute (FSI), which is the “only executive education program in the advanced, interdisciplinary study of nonviolent conflict, taught by leading scholars and practitioners of strategic nonviolent action and authorities from related fields.” The week-long conference will take place from June 24-30, and the application, which is due by March 15, can be downloaded here.

According to the announcement, this year the institute will:

address these and other critical questions: What are the most important strategic factors in civil resistance? What roles do communications and new technology play in nonviolent struggles? How do the actions of the international community affect indigenous nonviolent movements? Historical and contemporary cases of civilian-based struggles will be examined, including issue-based movements as well as popular struggles against foreign occupations, and authoritarian governments.

I had the good fortune of attending FSI two summers ago and could not more highly recommend it. The presentations were top-notch and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know the other participants, who were policymakers, scholars, journalists and activists from 29 different countries. (To get a taste of the sessions, many of the presentations from last year can be viewed here.) If you want to really dig deep into the exciting field of civil resistance, there is no better place to start.

We’re thrilled to announce the launch of a project we’ve been proud to be involved in: Beautiful Trouble, the ultimate guide to justice-oriented troublemaking. It includes contributions by all three Waging Nonviolence editors.

In Beautiful Trouble, seasoned pranktivist Andrew Boyd assembles the accumulated wisdom of decades of creative protest in order to place it in the hands of the next generation of change-makers. Part manifesto and part reference guide, Beautiful Trouble is the anti-textbook—a dynamic, 21st century how-to that brings together ten grassroots groups and dozens of seasoned artists and activists from around the world. Among the groups included are Agit-Pop/The Other 98%, The Yes Men/Yes Labs, Code Pink, SmartMeme, The Ruckus Society, Beyond the Choir, The Center for Artistic Activism, Waging Nonviolence, Alliance of Community Trainers and Nonviolence International.

The book will be officially released on April 1 by OR Books, an innovative new print-on-demand publisher. But if you pre-order between now and February 15, you get a 20% discount.

It’s also much more than a book. BeautifulTrouble.org says that it “will soon include the core content of the book as well as a growing array of additional modules, resources, profiles, debates and much more. With your help, the site will evolve in real time with new social movements and their latest tactical innovations.”

Rest assured, you’ll be hearing more about Beautiful Trouble on Waging Nonviolence. This is an extraordinary contribution to the work that’s our mission: to make the stories of creative, courageous struggle for a better world more accessible than ever.

An exciting new cross-media project called Everyday Rebellion has launched its Advent Calender of Nonviolent Struggle, in which Srdja Popovic will offer a short tip for activists every day until Christmas.

The video above is about the role of humor in nonviolent action. Others address the importance of having numbers and an appealing vision for the future to success in nonviolent struggle, among many other topics. (To watch and share these tips as they are posted, follow the project’s YouTube channel.)

As we’ve mentioned many times before, Popovic was one of the leaders of Otpor, the nonviolent movement that brought down Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic in 2000, and now runs the Center for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS) in Belgrade.

To my surprise and delight, this month he was also named, along with several other important players in the Arab Spring, at the top (#1) of Foreign Policy’s Top 100 Global Thinkers list—beating out President Obama, who came in at #11. This would have been unthinkable last year and shows that nonviolence is finally starting to get its due among more mainstream foreign policy analysts and political scientists, although we still have a long way to go.

A couple weeks ago I met with Arash and Arman Riahi, the filmmakers behind Everyday Rebellion. They filmed a long conversation between Popovic, Andy Bichlbaum of the Yes Men and myself about the Occupy movement and activism more generally.

The following day, the film crew came over to our apartment and interviewed Bryan Farrell and I about this site for the documentary Everyday Rebellion, which is only one aspect of their ambitious project, and filmed a series of tips for activists that will debut in 2012. In an email interview, Arman Riahi described the project as a:

cinema and television documentary and a web platform about non-violent forms of protest and civil disobedience during the 21st century… seen not only through the current Arab and Iranian uprisings, but also through former successful and less successful revolts and new movements like Occupy Wall Street.

In addition to the documentary, Arman told me that Everyday Rebellion plans on developing an extensive website that will include, among many other things, personal stories about nonviolent resistance:

artistic works that have been or are banned… and interactive tools like an app with tips and tricks for the daily fight or educational games for younger audiences to learn in a playful way about different nonviolent methods.

For the Riahi brothers this is more than just another project. They were born in Iran and their family fled the country for Austria after the Islamic Revolution. “We feel it’s a necessity for us to use our craft to bring this project to life in order to support suppressed people,” Arman explains.

From our conversations with them, Everyday Rebellion looks to be an important resource for all of us, and we will continue to blog about the project as it develops over the coming months.

Yesterday, Waging Nonviolence launched our first post published in collaboration with Possible Futures, an exciting new website and book series organized by the Social Science Research Council: “Women in Occupy Denver” by Chad Kautzer. In addition to choosing really great collaborators, however, Possible Futures has also gotten a start on launching an important discussion in various academic disciplines about what the Occupy movement represents. Most of all, taking advantage of the SSRC’s international orientation, the project is approaching the movement in global terms—as few are, and as all of us should be.

Political theorist Adrian Pabst, for instance, in an essay on “The Resurgence of the Civic,” examines the movement’s “glocal dynamic”:

The fusion of the global with the local is equally evident in relation to the specific objects of protest and the goals of the individual Occupiers. On the one hand, those activists who had previously been involved in international campaigns have recognized the need to engage with the concerns of the local community on whose territory they are now encamped. But on the other hand, as participants in a global protest movement, the Occupiers cannot be concerned with local issues alone. Protests, in order to be effective, must have a specific local object that nevertheless has global resonance: Tahrir Square exemplifies resistance against political oppression; los Indignados (the outraged) in Madrid and the demonstrators in Athens have mobilized against the austerity policy of debt-deflation; Occupy Wall Street and the St. Paul’s camp express a deep-seated anger about the impact of global finance on the local, real economy, which is shared by ordinary people and certain elites alike.

Another essay, Saskia Sassen’s “The Global Street Comes to Wall Street,” focuses on the role of streets themselves.

In addition to actual print books, the Possible Futures project’s website is divided into three sections: Essays (reflection and analysis), Dispatches (reports from the field) and Digest (commentary and news from other sites). Roam around!

If you’re in New York this coming Wednesday, we hope you’ll consider joining WNV editor Nathan Schneider and contributor Jeremy Kessler for a panel discussion about the First Amendment issues raised by the Occupy movement. Get in on Facebook here.

On Monday, a close friend of Waging Nonviolence, Francisco “Pancho” Ramos Stierle, was arrested while meditating at Oscar Grant Plaza during the early morning raid on Occupy Oakland. (Several moving photos of his arrest can be seen here.) As a petition on Change.org explains:

He is currently being held by the Oakland Police Department on $10,000 bail and they plan to turn him over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for immediate deportation. He could be sent to Arizona as soon as tommorrow morning. That means we need to act now!

On Facebook, Leenie Venet offers this update:

Pancho is now at Santa Rita in Dublin, CA.  His arraignment for the civil disobedience charges has been fast tracked to Wed. 11/16/11 at 9:00 AM in Room 107 at the  WILEY W. MANUEL COURTHOUSE.  There is a possibility that he will  be transferred after this hearing to the custody of the immigration officials. Please attend this hearing and show your support for Pancho Ramos Stierle!!

Before he goes to court later this morning, please read and sign the petition to free Pancho, which can be found here. An email from Janine Schwab at the American Friends Service Committee says that you can also:

call the following federal officials NOW and ask them to ask Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) to release (or lift) the immigration hold on him. Barbara Lee 510-763-0370. Nancy Pelosi 415-556-4862. Diane Feinstein 415-393-0707. We have 12 to 24 hours to act on this.

According to the petition, Congresswoman Barbara Lee can intervene and has the power to release Pancho.

Signing this petition or making these calls will only take a few minutes tops, and may be able to help keep a truly inspiring advocate and practitioner of nonviolence in the United States, so that he can continue his important work for social justice and peace—including his ongoing bold and creative effort to challenge gang violence in his Oakland neighborhood. As Venet writes on Facebook:

Pancho used his power of love to nonviolently stand against Arpaio’s immigrant sweeps in Arizona last summer and was faced with a similar situation.  We were successful in helping Pancho get out of that situation by using the power of collective intention.

Now we must muster whatever people power we have to defend Pancho once again and to challenge our unjust immigration policies.

UPDATE: Susan Koppelman has written on Facebook that Pancho’s arraignment was been postponed until 2pm PST, which means we now have roughly another 3 hours to spread the petition and call the congresspeople above. The How to Help tab at this link provides the most comprehensive list of things you can do, with many more ideas and phone numbers than I provided above.

The latest issue of The Catholic Worker includes a new article of mine about covering Occupy Wall Street for Waging Nonviolence. Since the paper isn’t published online, you’ll have to see either a (slightly edited) portion of it about Dan Berrigan at Occupy Writers, or a blown-up pdf here. I’ll also be giving a talk—which was gracefully entitled for me “The Ballerina and the Charging Bull”—at Maryhouse (55 East 3rd St., New York) on January 13 at 7:45 p.m.

Through all the dynamic and dramatic progress of the Arab Spring, the pro-democracy campaign in the tiny island nation of Bahrain has tended to be sidelined. It has struggled to attract the world’s sympathy and attention due to a lack of foreign reporters on the ground and little good information circulating in news sources. Additionally, the Bahraini government has silenced local journalists, employed public-relations and lobbying firms to discredit the protesters, even while it regularly pays lip service to delivering reform.

Nada Alwadi, a Bahraini journalist (and Waging Nonviolence contributor), recently delivered a webinar talk from the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict in Washington, D.C., discussing the current challenges faced by the movement. She was formerly a reporter for Alwasat, a popular newspaper in Bahrain, and was detained in April by security forces for covering the protests in the capital of Manama. Nada left Bahrain earlier this year over concerns for her personal safety. She is currently working in the United States to spread awareness about the situation in her country.

According to her, while the movement is popular amongst citizens, it has been unable to target the pillars of support of the monarchy. “Bahrain operates under a system of tribal politics, where the military, finance and judicial departments are run by a closely knit circle of Sunni elites,” she said. She argued, furthermore, that external pressure is currently the most pragmatic means for success, through international support galvanized by Bahraini and international advocacy groups and media.

Alwadi herself, for instance, is the co-founder of the Bahrain Press Association, an organisation which seeks to defend journalists from government repression. The group calls on the Bahraini government to ensure the safety of local and foreign media professionals, as well as to investigate cases of violence against them. She highlighted other advocacy groups like the Bahrain Mirror, a news and opinion website started by a Bahraini journalist based outside the country, and the Freedom for Bahraini Doctors campaign, which seeks the release of doctors and nurses sentenced to jail by the monarchy.

It can be argued that part of the reason Bahrain’s movement hasn’t captured the imagination of the global community is that it still lacks an emotional resonance as compared to other movements in the Middle East. Tunisia, after all, kicked off with a dramatic act of self-immolation, followed by a fervent uprising among citizens. The Egyptian revolution became iconic for the acts of prayer in front of tanks and Christian-Muslim solidarity in Tahrir Square. The bravery of Syrian protesters still demonstrating in the face of violent state repression has granted their pro-democracy movement supportive and sympathetic media narratives. In the case of Bahrain, scenes like the crackdown at the Pearl Roundabout and solidarity between Sunnis and Shias against the monarchy have been somehow less relatable to global audiences.

Nonetheless, the past few weeks in Bahrain have seen the movement take a new strategic turn. Alwadi explained that a new political movement has begun, running in parallel to the demonstrations. A coalition of opposition political parties recently released the Manama Document, a draft constitution for democratic governance in Bahrain. The Document argues that change in Bahrain can only be delivered through “dialogue between the authorities and opposition forces” with “international guarantees.” It calls for an elected government; fair electoral districts guaranteeing political equality for Sunnis and Shias and the principle of one person, one vote; a single chamber parliament with sole legislative and regulatory powers; a trustworthy and independent judicial system; and security for all of Bahrain’s residents. At the same time, the document envisions the reforms to deliver a constitutional monarchy, “retaining the royal family in terms of ruling and governing without powers.”

These moves have brought some measure of success and support to the Bahraini struggle. The Obama administration recently postponed a $53 million arms deal with the monarchy pending a review of an official inquiry into the state crackdown on protesters. Moreover, the crown prince of Bahrain, Salman Al-Khalifa, has supported the need for reforms in his country. In March this year he declared his own “seven principles of reform,” which ultimately became part of the Manama Document.

There is still tremendous uncertainty in the country. Alwadi highlighted how the politicization of the struggle has led to divisions in the movement. Some political elements, for instance, are calling for an end to monarchy altogether and a complete overhaul of the system. Additionally, critics of the pro-democracy movement suspect that a transition to democracy would lead to a fall in crucial international investments, as seen in Egypt. They argue that fears of political turmoil will send the global business community seeking deals elsewhere.

Alwadi also argued that global powers are reluctant to support the movement partly because they enjoy cozy diplomatic and strategic relationships with the monarchy. Bahrain is of course vital to perceived U.S. security interests in the Middle East, serving as the current headquarters of the navy’s Fifth Fleet. Closer to home, Saudi Arabia has made clear its commitment to maintaining the status quo amongst the Gulf nations, especially after sending troops into Bahrain earlier this year to violently suppress the protesters in Manama.

Still, Alwadi continues to be optimistic that popular sentiment will eventually bring democracy to her country. “The political movement in Bahrain is in its nascent stage, and the strategy is still being developed,” she said.

The challenges are great, yet the will of citizens is committed towards democracy. With the Manama Document, that will now has words and a voice. Political advocacy groups must sustain their campaigning on the ground, court international support, and develop ties between Sunni and Shia organizations. It is crucial that the movement does not lose its momentum.

Waging Nonviolence traveled to the fifth annual Gandhi-King Conference in Memphis this past weekend. In addition to making new friends and reconnecting with old ones—which is what it’s really all about—Eric and I presented a workshop on the role of blogging in nonviolent activism. While it has been an exciting year for us, with massive uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and the rest of the Arab Spring—not to mention Wisconsin—the real excitement has been the past two months, with Occupy Wall Street.

Since Nathan couldn’t join us to talk about his exhilarating experience as one of the early journalists on the OWS scene, we shot this eight-minute video (above), where he lays out the chronology and impact of his reporting. As he explains, being able to track the unfolding of a movement first-hand “fit so perfectly with what we’ve been trying to do all this time.”

We were excited to share this experience with the many great folks attending Gandhi-King this year and receive a really nice write-up in the Memphis Commercial Appeal.

Our good friends at the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict are once again teaming up with the U.S. Institute of Peace to offer an eight-week, professional level course called “Civil Resistance and the Dynamics of Nonviolent Confict,” which will run from October 20 through December 8. According to the announcement:

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, and in so doing transform the global security environment.

The course will examine 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 peacemaking?

The class will be taught by Dr. Maciej Bartkowski, Daryn Cambridge and Dominic Kiraly. The registration fee is $345 and participants (pending approval) will be able to receive one graduate credit for the course from Rutgers University that may be transferable to their academic institution. To learn more about the class or sign up, click here.