198 Sundays: Welcome To The Gulag

In light of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's death, a revisit of Method #9 is in order.  Writing books is a form of noncooperation, as Sharp describes:

Overwhelmingly, the methods of nonviolent struggle involve noncooperation with the opponents.  "Noncooperation" means that the resisters in a conflict either deliberately withdraw some form or degree of existing cooperation with the opponents or the resisters refuse to initiate certain forms of new cooperation.  Noncooperation involves deliberate discontinuance, withholding, or defiance of certain existing relationships--social, economic, or policital.  The action may be spontaneous or planned, and it may be legal or illegal.

The impact of the various forms of noncooperation hinges heavily on the number of people participating in the use of the methods and the degree to which the opponents are dependent on the persons and groups that are refusing cooperation.

I've said that blogging and other writing in itself is not enough, but it certainly is a component of a long-term strategy of resistance...

ntodd

Covered on previous Sundays:

THE METHODS OF NONVIOLENT PROTEST AND PERSUASION  

1. Public Speeches
2. Letters of opposition or support
5. Declarations of indictment and intention
8. Banners, posters, and displayed communications
9. Leaflets, pamphlets, and books
10. Newspapers and journals
11. Records, radio, and television
14. Mock awards
15. Group lobbying
18. Displays of flags and symbolic colors
19. Wearing of symbols
21. Delivering symbolic objects
22. Protest disrobings
23. Destruction of own property
26. Paint as protest
30. Rude gestures
31. "Haunting" officials
32. Taunting officials
33. Fraternization
34. Vigils
35. Humorous skits and pranks
37. Singing
38. Marches
44. Mock funerals
45. Demonstrative funerals.
50. Teach-ins
52. Silence
53. Renouncing honors
54. Turning one's back.
55. Social boycott

THE METHODS OF SOCIAL NONCOOPERATION

57. Lysistratic nonaction
61. Boycott of social affairs
65. Stay-at-home
66. Total personal noncooperation

THE METHODS OF ECONOMIC NONCOOPERATION

71. Consumers' boycott
90. Revenue refusal
91. Refusal of a government's money
97. Protest strike
117. General strike

THE METHODS OF POLITICAL NONCOOPERATION

120. Withholding or withdrawal of allegiance
122. Literature and speeches advocating resistance
124. Boycott of elections
135. Popular nonobedience
137. Refusal of an assemblage or meeting to disperse
140. Hiding, escape, and false identities
147. Deliberate inefficiency and selective noncooperation by enforcement agents
148. Mutiny
150. Noncooperation by constituent governmental units

THE METHODS OF NONVIOLENT INTERVENTION

158. Self-exposure to the elements
159. The fast: a) Fast of moral pressure; b) Hunger strike; c) Satyagrahic fast
160. Reverse trial
162. Sit-in
164. Ride-in
170. Nonviolent invasion
171. Nonviolent interjection
174. Establishing new social patterns
177. Speak-in
178. Guerrilla theater
179. Alternative social institutions
180. Alternative communication system
189. Selective patronage
193. Overloading of administrative systems
195. Seeking imprisonment
196. Civil disobedience of "neutral" laws

Comments

[xan]

I've said that blogging and other writing in itself is not enough, but it certainly is a component of a long-term strategy of resistance...

But that's what Solzynitzin did. Much of the Archepelago details the stories of people he met in the System, mini-biographies, what they were arrested "for", the camps they had been through etc. But much of it is also the story of how he preserved those stories.

Techniques for obtaining writing materials (all forbidden of course) and hide them from searches, and sending them to people on the outside--all pre-internet of course, largely without telephone or even mail--

he said it was why so many people became poets, because poetry forced you to condense the most material into the shortest form. They would write poems on bars of soap with a sliver of wood, so they could be instantly erased with a swipe of water.

writing is important. Documenting is important.

[NTodd]

Uh...I know that's what he did. I think you misunderstand when I say it's not enough: just documenting doesn't win the war, but as I noted, it's an important component in an overall strategy, which has been my point the whole time. We need many elements of resistance, and no single tactic is enough to achieve our aims, any more than a single weapon, soldier or battle is.

[Mortski]

One might also add to the list of nonviolent means of protest: loud and obnoxious flatulence at governmental meetings and burping loudly whenever one mentions freedom fries.