New Tactics | Philippe Duhamel's blog

Dialogue: Power through Organizing: Lessons from the Field (2)

Posted June 21st, 2009 by Philippe Duhamel

Al Giordano says the most threatening thing to the ruling elite is people working together across race, religion, and class. But the Left, he says, is one of the most segregated places in America. While segregation used to be enforced by law, it is now consumer culture, through market segmentation and advertising niches, that...

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Dialogue: Power through Organizing: Lessons from the Field (1)

Posted May 28th, 2009 by Philippe Duhamel

How often do you get the chance to take in wisdom garnered through decades of smart organizing work?

In 1979, from a remote summer camp cabin in the Berkshire mountains, nineteen-year-old Al Giordano started organizing the Rowe Nuclear Conversion Campaign. Thirty-two years later, he's back in the same summer camp to share with us, lucky few, some of his best stories. A rare treat; not many organizers lasted as many seasons, or make the effort to patiently share their crop of battle-tested insights.

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Dialogue: Five Reasons Human Rights Organisations Should Promote Nonviolent Struggle

Posted April 28th, 2009 by Philippe Duhamel

Photo: TW Collins

Human rights monitoring. Documentation and reporting. Advocacy. Lobbying. Education. Formal complaints. Legal suits. These are useful tools, with proven effectiveness in many countries. But they only go so far. What happens when the usual channels offer little to no recourse, as human rights continue being systematically trampled and violated by ruthless regimes or entities?

When the US civil rights movement undertook transportation boycotts in the mid 1950's to fight segregation, when the People Power movement in the Philippines used human blockades in its overthrow of the Marcos dictatorship in 1986, when the struggle against apartheid resorted to mass non-cooperation and international divestment campaigns to dismantle South Africa's racist system, all sought to overcome major institutional roadblocks set to protect long-standing injustice and abuse. Major change, through conflict waged outside of official processes, became necessary. Movements had to be built around bold, non-institutional, and extralegal ways of securing fundamental rights. These were part of a vast arsenal of non-lethal weapons, a technique governed by its own set of strategic principles: nonviolent struggle.

Here are five reasons why human rights organizations should actively promote the means of civilian-based nonviolent struggle, as a complement to the work we do.

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Dialogue: From Pain to Compassion, from Victim to Victor: Hearing the Stories that Heal

Posted March 25th, 2009 by Philippe Duhamel

Photo: mell242

The cycle of violence can be broken. On interTactica this week, we get acquainted with two people, featured in our "Healing of Memories" dialogue, who haven't given up on hope.

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Dialogue: Ballots, not Bullets

Posted January 21st, 2009 by Philippe Duhamel

Photo CC: Seb L.

A car mechanic in Southern Ghana shows an inked index finger, evidence he has voted in the presidential election. On December 28^th, 2008, Ghanians held the second round of presidential elections which saw former vice-president, and opposition candidate John Atta Mills win a majority of the vote, and being elected to a four-year term.

"It's not the votes that count. It's who counts the votes." — Josef Stalin

As I hear and watch intently with the rest of the world the inauguration speech of US president Barak Obama, I am reminded that an authentic electoral process can signify major political change. After years of inauspicious results in this part of the world, I had almost forgotten about the power of genuine elections.

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Dialogue: Human Rights, Anything But Academic

Posted November 19th, 2008 by Philippe Duhamel

Photo: No Hate at 'Gate

"They were born to be slaves and serve White People. Bout time for them to start doing it again."

"No nigger will ever rule the WHITE House".

White-supremacist graffitis were found at Colgate University on the same day the United States elected its first African American president. It's been less than a week, and I am standing in front of an overflowing chapel on this all-American "Hidden Ivy" campus, with over a thousand people who have congregated here to denounce the symbols of a deep, ongoing strand of racism. The midday sun is as dim as the air is crisp, but the chill comes from elsewhere...

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Dialogue: Theatre for Bread and Liberation: An interview with Janelle Treibitz

Posted October 22nd, 2008 by Philippe Duhamel

Janelle Photo: Philippe Duhamel

Janelle Treibitz is a proud puppetista, organizer and waitress who thinks that culture, art, and organizing work must go together. Discover one of the resource practitioners in this month's online dialogue on the power of theatre as she shares her passion for cheap art puppets, wholesome bread and all-out liberation.

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Dialogue: The Whole World Stopped Watching (Part II): How "Diversity of Tactics" offers neither

Posted October 17th, 2008 by Philippe Duhamel

Nobody can argue against the proven benefits of using a diversity of well-chosen tactics to wage successful struggles. The sequencing of multiple creative tactics ranging from protests to legislative pressures, from secondary boycotts to civil disobedience, has been a fundamental feature of countless successful campaigns. A wide variety of tactics lies at the core of the emphasis nonviolent activists have put for decades on knowing a repertoire of at least 198 methods of action, and on clever ways to sequence them.

But dangerous slips of logic have presided over a protest framework known as "Respect for a Diversity of Tactics". I believe the failure of protests such as the one at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul (USA) last September is inherent in the Diversity of Tactics approach.

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Dialogue: The Whole World Stopped Watching: "Diversity of Tactics", Repression, and the RNC protests in St. Paul, Minnesota (Part I)

Posted September 24th, 2008 by Philippe Duhamel

RNC protest Photo: Diana Jou

On September 1, 2008, several hundred protesters from across mainland USA tried to stop delegates from attending the Republican National Convention at the Xcel Center in the business district of Saint Paul, Minneapolis, where they were going to crown presidential hopeful John McCain.

"Crash the Convention" was the order of the day. But politically and number-wise, whose side really got smashed and crushed?

Over 800 people arrested. Many more detained and released. House raids in the middle of the night. Eight organizers facing "Conspiracy to Commit Riot in Furtherance of Terrorism", a second degree felony charges. Maximum penalty: seven and a half years in prison.

Deep police infiltration. Pre-emptive searches and seizures. Baton rounds. Concussion and Sponge grenades. Tasers. Pepper spray. Tear gas.

The intense brutality of the crackdown in the Twin Cities was an awful, a hydra monster of gross violations. Outrage and indignation. These are healthy, vital reactions.

But once the emotion subsides, what should be the question?

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Dialogue: So the whole world can watch

Posted June 25th, 2008 by Philippe Duhamel

From the video "We were warriors".

From behind the stools, white men start taunting the mixed row of mostly black students who had the audacity to sit there. "He's so dark the whole room is darkened." "Nobody ain't gonna sit beside them dirty niggers." Those on the swiveling seats at the counter answer only with an unshakable look of dignity. Frustrated, the men from behind start pushing and shoving. Still no response from those on the stools. Then they launch the attack: hurling obscenities, throwing milk shakes and live cigarette buts, grabbing and punching. Lenses capture the scene. The whole world watches in shock.

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