creativity
Blog: Theatre for Bread and Liberation: An interview with Janelle Treibitz
Photo: Philippe Duhamel
Janelle Treibitz is a proud puppetista, organizer and waitress who also likes to hone her training skills on the side. In this interview, she shares her passion for puppets, wholesome bread and liberation.
Q. Please tell me, Janelle Treibitz, how did you come to puppets?
J. T.: I have always cared about social justice issues and people. I attribute some of it to judaism and the way I was raised as a Jew, to my synagogue and to my parents teaching me to question, and make opinions for myself.
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Blog: Tactical Transferability: The Nonviolent Raid as Case Study
photo: Benoît Aquin
One goal of the New Tactics Project is to help us adapt action methods in innovative ways. As we look to various tactics, the main focus remains on "transferability", the capacity to bring and apply a given tactical framework to a different issue or situation.
It's hard.
Most activists do not even think twice about "transferability' when they choose to organize a march or a boycott. But when it comes to more complex tactics, most people can't bring themselves to envision it in a different context. Yet, every tactic is transferable.
Because I have had some experience with the nonviolent raid as intervention tactic, some fairly recent, I thought it might be useful to show a few examples of how this tactic can be, and was, transferred across different campaigns on a number of issues. The goal of the exercise is to spark our imagination.
Blog: The Nonviolent Raid as Intervention Tactic
From the movie Gandhi (1982). — See the raid on the Dharasana Salt Works.
When Santa Claus and elves tried to deliver a piece of coal to the Prime Minister of Canada last December, the tactic they used was the nonviolent raid. In a nonviolent raid, committed and well-trained actionists attempt to enter a protected facility to seize it, or to carry out some legitimate task consistent with their goals.
The nonviolent raiders are seen advancing. They seek to enter the facility. But fences, barricades or police lines are there to block them. They proceed nonetheless. Most often than not, they are stopped through some form of repression, with arrests usually. But they still win.
Blog: One use of the “nonviolent raid” tactic
Photo: Ashley Fraser, The Ottawa Citizen, Dec. 13, 2007. — Protesters dressed as Santa Claus and several of his elves were arrested at 24 Sussex Drive last night when they took Stephen Harper a lump of coal. It was to be his reward for what they call his sabotage of the UN climate talks in Indonesia.
That’s a picture of yours truly as... well, a flying elf.
I was arrested last week. Again.
First time ever as one of Santa’s Little Helpers, though.
Let me tell you what happened as an introduction to how the tactic — the nonviolent raid — can be, and has been, used in a wide range of campaigns.
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Blog: Nine tips on reaching a younger audience
photo: Guerilla postering by Amnesty International in Belarus.
While everything and everyone ages all the time, new people come into this world every day. This is why every movement will need to rejuvenate its membership and tactics, eventually.
How do you appeal to a younger generation? What can you do to actively reach out to the youth of today?
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Blog: Take new tactics everywhere with mobiles
Image: From a PowerPoint presentation by Anneke Bosman, Amnesty International, The Netherlands.
In keeping with this blog’s mission to bring you concentrated nuggets of tactical and strategic information, we continue our exploration of new tactics involving the use of mobile phones. I draw my inspiration today from various posts and papers found mostly on the sites of resource people for our tactical discussion on using mobile phones for action.
My last post covered the emergence short messaging as a tool for protest organizing in various countries, including the Philippines, how Amnesty International set up its youth-based SMS Alert network, and how to find some protest ringtones. I now turn to some incredibly creative emergent uses of wireless communications for human rights and social change work.
Blog: Harnessing new technology for new tactics
cc photo by Flickmor
This month’s tactical discussion focuses on using mobile phones for action. From the time the tactical notebook by Amnesty International on the use of short messaging services was published here in 2004, mobile phones have only become more powerful, multifunctional and almost universal. We can now record sound, photos, even video on our phones. The pocket devices can be used to send email, files, pictures, music, surf the web and chat, wherever we are, whenever we want.
In what ways can the power of the small computers we still call “phones” be harnessed as tools for collective action, as instruments for improving the world? What technology do we see emerging that could create innovative life-changing and life-saving tactics?
Blog: Learning by doing 301: From tactics to strategy
cc Philippe Duhamel, interTactica.org
Why is a strategy important? Having a strategy helps you keep the initiative in your hands, enhance your ability to see opportunities, use your strengths to the best advantage, and minimize your weaknesses.
— from Why Strategy and Tactics?, available here at NewTactics.
Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics
without strategy is the noise before defeat.
— Sun Tzu
What is strategy in relation to tactics? How does the strategist differ from the tactician? Find out some of the steps towards designing a good strategy. Third in a three-part series on moving from activity, to tactics, to strategy.
Blog: Learning by doing 201: Becoming a good tactician
“As I have had more experience in shaping the strategy of an organization, it has become clearer to me that the more we understand about tactics, the more flexibility we have to set new strategic directions. [...] Tactical development enriches strategic thought.”
“The skillful tactician may be likened to a snake that is found in the ChUng mountains. Strike at its head, and you will be attacked by its tail; strike at its tail, and you will be attacked by its head; strike at its middle, and you will be attacked by head and tail both.”
— Sun Tzu
Second in a three-part series on moving from activity, to tactics, to strategy.
So what makes a good tactician? In today’s piece, I’ll tell you some features of a good tactical mind and provide a couple analogies about areas where you, as a learning tactician, can concentrate your skills. But let me start with a little story.
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Blog: Learning by doing 101: Activities create the activist
As with so many leaders who emerge at the grass roots level trying to right a wrong, I began at the level of an activity, graduated to thinking about tactics, and struggled to understand how to shape strategy, with only limited notions of the tools that were available to me.
— Douglas A. Johnson, in The Need for New Tactics
(First in a three-part series on moving from activity, to tactics, to strategy.)
How does one become an activist? How does someone grow from being oblivious to larger issues to caring about them? And, how does one move from being a “concerned citizen” to the crucial step of devoting precious time and energy to taking determined, organized action for a cause?
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