good afternoon and proud to be here on
talax crack or 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 kill the
cat you take the bet you look at the
crystal ball one hour layer you're
sitting in a building of the national TV
in the top show and you tell the story
before the end of 2011 vaneli and
Mubarak and Gaddafi would be down and
prosecuted Saleh Xavier manan Assad of
Syria would be ear challenged or already
on their knees all sama bin Laden would
be dead and rod commodity would be in
heck no the anchor watches 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 it 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 helped Gandhi kick brits from India
it helped Martin Luther King wins
historic racial struggle it helped local
like Valenza 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 movements 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 a frozen
region literally refrigerator and there
are only two types of meal their steak
which stands for a Mubarak benelli type
of military police dictatorship or a
potato which stands for tethering type
of Tokra sees 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 expert and young
people of our world have awakened one
morning 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 their 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
throw 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 X
and that they'll 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
guess what that was the day of his
defeat you look at the Egyptians day
five on the career square they get rid
of their individual symbols they appear
on the street only with the flag of
Egypt i will give you contour example
you see nine presidential candidates
running against Lukashenka you will know
the outcome so unity is a big thing and
this can be achieved same with planning
somebody have lied to you about this
successful and spontaneous nonviolent
revolution that things doesn't exist in
a 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
in a non-violent market one idiot or
agent provocateur drawing 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 the
career square where international
community was constantly frightened that
you know the Islamists will overtake the
revolution while they've organized
Christians protecting Muslims where they
were 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 Z as I'm
higher you see if you're starting
melting day to you see people running
towards police instant from the police
in Egypt you can tell that some
something is happening there and then
it's about a 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 mainstream 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 were like three blocks away
observing it from our you know espresso
bar I read 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 drugging 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 the humor 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 an anomaly
we are watching the great example of
something else internet can
it can put the price tag of
state-sponsored violence over nonviolent
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 stro 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 the
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 violent 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 these revolutions be whole like
through the transitions and democracy or
be overtaken by military or extra mist
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 the part of the mess our
generation is making in this world thank
you