Jun 27 2006
long time, no blog
We were away for two weeks, during which time others carried on (Anthony, then Mez and Croz). Then this week, as a warm-up for the nonviolence course next semester, we watched Bringing Down a Dictator, the documentary of the nonviolent movement that removed Milosevic from power. The summary on the back reads as follows:
In the year 2000, in a war barely noticed outside Yugoslavia, the indicted war criminal Slobodan Milosevic fought to hold power. He controlled a battle-hardened army, a tough police force, and most of the news media. But he underestimated his opponents, led by a student-movement called Otpor! (Serbian for resistance), who attacked the regime with ridicule, rock music, and a willingness to be arrested. Their courage and audacity inspired others to overcome their fear and join the fight.
Otpor! students were the shock troops in what became an army of human rights and pro-democracy activists who systematically undermined police and army loyalty to Milosevic and forced him to call early elections. When Milosevic refused to accept his defeat at the polls, the people responded with a general strike. As normal life ground to a halt, Serbs by the hundreds of thousands descended on the capital on October 5 to seize the parliament in a dramatic triumph for democracy. Milosevic was arrested and extradited to the Hague to stand trial for crimes against humanity in June 2001.
It’s an inspiring story, but one that moves me for several reasons.
1. The obvious: use of nonviolence for positive social change. In this case, it was a purely strategic decision, but to me there is no such thing as purely strategic with something so obviously values-based. Even that which would not have referenced God was clearly a movement of God towards life and love.
2. That the movement was begun and led by students. These were not politically hardened middle aged men, but naive and perhaps idealistic young people, the kind of people who are usually told to shut up and get back in line, and therefore jaded by age 25. And they played to their strengths in that; at one point in the story, as the government tries to paint Otpor! activists as fascist terrorists, they take to the streets to ensure that they are openly and publicly seen by all. The reaction is that people see that they are 17 and 18 year old kids, and realise the lie being told about them.
3. That while there was a very serious side to the whole situation, they consistently used humour and jokes as a means of disarmament. In one scene, they celebrate the solar eclipse by putting a picture of Milosevic on the end of a telescope, pointing it at the eclipse, and inviting people on the street to look through. In another, they parade a random (and rather dorky, normal-looking) Otpor! member before people on the street, saying “This is what a terrorist looks like. He is wearing eye glasses, meaning that he…reads a lot. This is very dangerous, apparently.” Sarcasm and other like this was used incredibly effectively to warm people to the cause, and disarm those in power.
4. Their willingness to endure suffering for the cause and for their integrity. Many were arrested, slandered, and generally persecuted in many many ways, and yet they continued the fight.
5. That largely because of the commitment to nonviolence by Otpor! and their allies (and due in no small part to the level-headedness of the police and military forces), not a single life was lost in conflict removing Milosevic from power.
We also watched the Ciaron O’Reilly interview from Andrew Denton’s Enough Rope (transcript here), showing one kind of Christian nonviolent peacemaking. Reaction to this was interesting, particularly in terms of assessing effectiveness and wondering about how much it matters.
So now we’re really pumped for next semester. Or I am anyway. Hopefully everyone else is too.