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Blog: Tactical Transferability: The Nonviolent Raid as Case Study

Portrait de Philippe Duhamel

NV raid Ottawa

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

Portrait de Philippe Duhamel

Raid on Dharasana

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

Portrait de Philippe Duhamel

Flying elf

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.