The purpose of humor is threefold:

1. It can be used for maintaining morale of your members and supporters,
2. It is sucessfull fear-breaker (laughing organizacally helps to overcome the effects of fear, se CANVAS Core Curricullum, chapter on Fear), and
3. It also helps in getting media attention and sympathies from wider audience (domestic and international).
   

How does humor attract media attention?

It is told that “One picture worths a thousand words”. Humorous actions like “dime for change”, Telescope for Falling President”, Cake for mr. Presidents Brthday (see OTPOR Campaigns, Meaning and Concepts) were widely covered by domestic and international media. Playing effective and funny “street theatre” type of action which guarantees the media representatives GOOD VISUAL COVERAGE will give you movement effective media impact even if activity is performed with limited human and material resources (OTPOR activities in 1998, 1999. And early 2000 were performed with only few dozens of people and around 100 usd cost each and have achieved tons of published photogrphies and multimedia overage in domestic and international press.

According to Gandhi: "The role of a civil protester is to provoke a response, and to keep protesting until there is a response." Obviously, 100,000 people marching to the sea to make salt is going to provoke a response, so too will a million nonviolent protesters occupying the public square. But what if you don't have a million, or a hundred-thousand, or even one thousand? Some power-elites are sophisticated enough to ignore small protests. When actions produce no response they appear futile (though, in fact, they may not be). Protesters feel impotent and become discouraged. It becomes harder to build a movement that can affect social change.

When protesters are ignored, they may react with rage. That might be an effective tactic in a family or social situation where expressed anger commands attention and disrupts a valued harmony. But against entrenched power defending its privileged interests, shouting fury is simply a louder form of futility. It may feel good for a moment, and it may energize that fraction of the population who are thrilled by acting out anger in public. But power-elites are impervious to militant slogans, and if rage erupts into violence, the police are ready, willing, able, and eager to quickly suppress it long before it poses any inconvenince to distant rulers safe and secure in their bastions of wealth and privilege.

Instead of using rage and violence to provoke a response from adversaries who ignore small rallies, pickets, and protests, creative nonviolent resistors use audacity to generate a, "They did what!?" response. In this context, "audacity" means breaking the paradigm of business-as-usual social behavior. Audacity is doing the unexpected. Audacity is violating cultural taboos in ways calculated to provoke a reaction without alienating potential supporters.

By combining audacity with humor, the chances of provoking only reflexive anger and outrage are reduced, and the chances of provoking thought are increased. Burning a flag or desecrating a beloved symbol with exrement may be audacious, but there is no humor involved and the response will be anger and opposition not thought or sympathy. Finding some audacious, but humorous, way to use that flag or symbol to provoke laughter or surprise is far more effective.

I've been a political activist for many decades and I've been on marches and picket lines uncounted, almost all of which have blurred and disappeared into the musty attic of what's left of my memory. But I still recall in detail those actions where we creatively combined humor and audacity. And what's true of my feeble memory is true for history as well. To this day, most every child and adult in America can tell you the basic story of the Boston Tea Party — an audacious nonviolent protest back in 1773. Yet the same grade-school teacher and textbook that taught us the Tea Party also taught us the Battle of Saratoga — a crucial (but conventional) military turning point in the American Revolutionary War against the British — yet once the classroom test was over, no one but history buffs and professors recall Saratoga at all.

• Why is humor such a powerful form of nonviolent resistance?

Humour is a powerful communication device and can be used for great achievements.  However if can also be used to be very damaging.  When discussing non-violent resistance in contrast to humourous communications one must first assess the target audience you are looking to make intellectual breakthroughs with. Humour is subjective and subject to personality, nationality and personal ethics/morals.  Humour needs to be tailored to these audiences and specifically targeted and mutated to suit, otherwise strong devices of humour (such as satire and parody) may induce the opposite effect.A recent example of this is the Mahammed cartoon controversies where "freedom of speech" in one culture creates great offense in another.  No matter which argument you believe in, the idea of nonviolent resistance in this instance should be studied and analysed to discover whether actually invoking violent thinking in a particular community is an effective or worthwhile communication.For they say the pen is mightier than the sword, and no-one wants to restrict freedom of thought, however, as a society we need to confront this concept from the ethics that are considered peaceful.  After all, the opponents of human rights use the same tactics to spread their messages of segregation etc.

How does the use of humor overcome fear and apathy?

• Making people laugh is a great way to put people at ease.  It assures the receiver of humour that they are cared for emotionally and that someone wishes for them to glipse happiness. 
• Humour and laughter has been documented by numerous individuals as a powerful tool for healing and emotional stress relief.
• When discussing fear and apathy though, I feel that the topics should be separated.  For the communication techniques required to tap the emotions of each state of being are vastly different I would imagine.
• When dealing with fear humour should be used to ease the pain of difficult topics, create well-being and be presented in a re-assuring way perhaps. 
• Apathy however is a different beast.  You may even need to target things several times to appeal to the apathetic person about a topic...  you may need to use other devices than humour and this also is a double edge sword.
• For example, this is a link to an internet forum from last year.  In Australia a television program broadcast something that they thought was funny in an "Australian" way (whatever that means for I know it's different for everyone).  The skit was a parody of Michael Jackson and used the comedic device of "Black Face Theatre" ...  Although this is considered very wrong from a civil rights perspective and it brought out all sorts of negativity and hate - there was a lesser opportunity to bring forth education on some that had never thought that hard about it before and didn't understand the history of such a controversial theatrical device.
• Hey Hey It's Racism - A forum in response to an Australian Television broadcast (Harry Connick Jnr was a judge on the talent program and put his ideas out there pretty strongly in dissappointment)
• Art Action Union Article in Response

How does humor attract new supporters?

• What better way to introduce a heavy topic than with something catchy and fun... in advertising humour is used to great power to brainwash you into trying the "new product that you didn't know about until this funny commercial with catchy jinge and slogan"...
• Not only that, you can have serious people involved that don't really have a sense of humour but will work for the seriousness of it ... but harder to engage the fun-loving who are in a constant pursuit of one momentary happiness after another.
• Making activism fun is important to appeal to a broad range and especially the apathetic.  But also to keep them involved in a meaningful way.
• To break down barriers of myth or stigma also, or simply to create an atmosphere that is accessible to more than one personality type.

Today’s limited mainstream media space is dominated by massive multinational corporations, which seek not to increase public awareness but to pad their bottom line. In this role they find more value in framing events as conflict (heroes and villains) and action (violence, clashes with police, etc).  Context and content are easily lost in this framework, and the activists struggling to be heard are often painted with such broad brushstrokes that their message becomes their means.  In turn, viewers at home can be easily turned off when such violence and methods fall outside of their own values, personal narratives and experience.

Humor works within this paradigm.  Done well, the unique nature of a humorous campaign or event draws in reporters and their cameras while disseminating an argument quickly and in a way likely to spread virally via physical and cyber social networks.  This empowers humor to help win “the battle of the story” verses “the story of the battle”.

Humor also has the power to create, drive and reinforce an argument and narrative within the media and ultimately the public dialogue when the action itself frames the debate.  Our 2004 campaign “Billionaires For Bush” captured this well in that the title itself was a joke, a frame, and an argument: that G W Bush’s most powerful constituents were a few hundred billionaires who profited at the expense of everyone else.  Companion slogans such as “Because we’re all in this together, sort of” and “Corporations are People, Too” were sticky in a way that echoed our argument because while being funny, they also rang true. 

"[Jokes] They are invariably the true expression of the masses and the conscience of their leaders."- Chapter 4, Civilian Jihad

What are the types of audiences of humorous tactics?

Humor affects all four existing types of wider audience (see CANVAS Core Curricullum [very large PDF], Chapter on targeted communication), it works with: 

Membership and supporters: Humor rises moral of your troops, breaks the fear, helps building group identity and gives your group/movement/brand the impression called “being “IN”  in common language. After humor was getting people together on streets for months during student protests in 1996-97 and was a Core Impression of initial OTPOR students movement formed in 1998, It has driven to us another big group of supporters – the highschool guys and girls. In 2000 Highschool branch of OTPOR counted more than 2500 kids around the country and major reason (according to the detailed research pollsetrs has perform among youngest OTPOR supporters in early 2000.) was that those young boys and girls have joined the resistance movement “Because it was it was “Funny and Thrilling”. Considering membership and supporters small scale, low risk dispersive humourous actions also affects creativity of grassroot branches and create the atmosphere of “positive competition”, so there was internal contest AMONG different local branches of OTPOR which one is going to organize “funniest and craziest” public action and gain more impact on local media.

1. Wider audience (including your opponent supporters: Effective humorous action gain domestic media attention and rise sympathies of wider audiences. They also help getting the positive image of the movement. In the situation like Serbia (and many other cases, Zimbabwe, Iran etc) where your opponents propaganda is focused on portraying por-democratic movement as “violent” or even “terrorist” it breaks apart basis of your opponent communication by exposing your movement as cheerful, open, public and creative, which decreases the effect of those who try to portray it as violent, secretive and internationally driven.
2. Potential allies: Humor attracts potential allies within political and social opposition in the society, it makes your group potential “gathering point” for representatives of potential allies, including civil society, political opposition and
3. International audience: Effective humorous actions, specivically those with effective and creative visuals attract the attention of foreign media. In the same time they create the impression for international target audience reading/watching those media.  

What are appropriate targets?

Targets should be carefully selected, in order to “hit in the head”. If you look through OTPOR Retrospective, and OTPOR campaigns you can see powerful interaction between police (the key coercive “pillar of support of the regime” see chapters Pillars of Support and Power Graph in CANVAS Core Curricullum) and the movement. From the beginning there was a clear strategy and the police itself was NOT the main target. As OTPOR has known well that we need to affect police to shift sides,

Policemen were only a “actors” in this game. Real target of these activities were people around Milosevic, specifically his wife Mirjana Markovic. We have spoken to police many times before planned humorous actions (see OTPOR Campaigns for examples)  and understood that most of “common policeman” were not reluctant to our message, in contrast. Problem was that they were ordered to act, go into field and arrest OTPOR activists engaged in street theaters, and sometimes unintentionally caught in a trap of “dilemma action “ (please see detailed explanation in CANVAS Core Cuicullum and “Nonviolent struggle 50 crucial points” book). When they were ordered to arrest a big Petrol Barel with Milosevics picture on it, (see example called “Dime for Change” or arrest the empty boxes of our materials in front of the camera of course they have felt embaraced. By our constant message to police pillar of support was generally positive. We understood that these people would rather watch for law and order and chasing criminals that doing hide and seek with clever OTPOR students for the sake of establishment.

Spatialy after attempt of regime to proclaim OTPOR terrorist organization(april 2000.)  this communication and FRATERNIZATION with police increased as we understood that only way for OTPOR was if we persuade policemen that we are far from terrorists. (watch documentary movie “Bringing down the dictator” and you will see specific actions designed for that period) 

What are effective vehicles (or modes) of humor (comics, video, websites, theatre, costums, puppets, masks, symbols, etc) and How does one choose the appropriate type of humor based on context, target, audience and vehicle?

OTPOR was using many of those, carefully taking care of AUDIENCE we have wanted to affect, please see the video (to the right).

What are the types of humor (joke, satire, irony, ridicule, mockery, parody, ambiguity, etc)?

Movements and groups should use this options combined, and vary it relating to the feedback coming from the audience. Normally you call it “Provocatie vs “Straight to the head”, for example: Provocative; when OTPOR asks people with many of its messages "Serbia are you ready for...Future" or "do you have guts to resist" its considered provocative. When you take Milosevic picture in photo shop and change his hand in it the way he is showing the middle finger (rude gesture) and put the message "I'll take care of your future" its more straight in the head. (see OTPOR Campaigns, Meaning and Concept)

In the U.S., hyper-partisanship continues to drive a wedge between the political parties and its adherents.  Lost in the middle are the many tens of millions of people who identify with a mixed bag of values that on one hand may prize individual liberty but equally on the other favor strong government regulation to protect the environment and society’s most vulnerable.

Traditional forms of protest, while still vitally important for myriad of reasons I’ll not cover here, often alienates the very people activists are trying to reach.  This is especially true when activists remain rooted in tactics that may be seen as offensive (burning the flag, per say) or worn out (images of a march filled with protesters who seem more interested in reliving the bygone era of the 1960’s than fighting for any permanent or practical solution.)

People tune into the news to find out what’s happening, but they are also reading these articles as stories: who are the heroes, who are the villains, what’s at stake and how is the action unfolding?  As in any story, people will identify with characters and/or the underlying values driving the narrative.   Humorous and creative tactics, when used strategically as part of a larger whole, are very effective at reaching this wider audience because they operate outside of those traditional and expected forms of protest that viewers have grown used to seeing.

Stay Out of the Box: How Humor Circumvents Tall, Sturdy Ideological Walls

I’ve campaigned in every region of the United States and I’ve found that Americans are eager to find out “which side you’re on” so that they can fold you and your argument neatly into their predefined box of established paradigms, “write you off” and go on their merry way.   They are less interested in what you are trying to say as much as where you fit in their firm concepts of “Left” “Right” and “right” and “wrong”.  This is true whether in the thick of cosmopolitan New York City or some suburban side street on the outskirts of Phoenix. It also matters little if they agree with you and your argument or not.  Humor, satire and creative tactics are powerful messengers because they circumvent these tall ideological walls long enough to engage in a dialogue with your audience.  

Too often, I think, activists judge the success or failure of an action entirely in terms of media coverage --- if there was no coverage, the action was a "failure," if there is little chance of coverage we shouldn't do it. But media is just one audience addressed by nonviolent direct-action, and often it is not even the most important audience. 

The goal of Nonviolent Resistance is to affect and change peoples' thinking. In a sense, the impact of direct action is like the layers of an onion, with each layer representing a different audience. When looked at this way, demonstrations address four distinctly different audience layers:

1. Participants. The nonviolent resistors engaged in the protest.
2. Targets & Observers. The individuals, businesses, institutions, and bystanders who personally encounter or observe the protest.
3. Hear Abouts. Those who hear about the protest from someone else via word-of-mouth.
4. Media Consumers. Those who learn of the protest through the media.

One of the things we know about direct-action is that intensity of effect and breadth of numbers are usually inverse to each other. A protest most intensely affects those who participate in it, secondarily those who directly encournter it, and thirdly those who hear about it by word-of-mouth. But compared to those who learn of it through the media, the number of participants, observers,  and hear-abouts is small. Conversely, the number of people who hear about a protest through the media is much larger than those who directly exprience it or hear about it from others, but the effect is limited, diluted, and distorted by the media.

People are far more influenced by what they hear from a friend about something by word-of-mouth than from any TV sound-bite or newspaper article. So an audacious or humorous action that gets people talking ("Did you hear what they did...") may be quite effective even if the media covers it not at all. Yes, media coverage will reach far MORE people than word-of-mouth, but if the word-of-mouth is positive and supportive it's effect is GREATER than a diluted and distorted third-hand or fouth-hand (actor-reporter-editor-consumer) media article. During the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, for example, 80-90% of the protests were not covered by the media at all, no reporters, no TV, no nothing. But they were still hugely effective in changing the consciousness of their communities.

Which is why audacity and humor are so important. Audacity because that is what gets people talking and spreading the word from person to person, and humor because people love, and react positively, to humor. Particularly humor that is aimed at the high and the mighty.

The Yes Men is a group of activists who practice what they call "identity correction," where they impersonate powerful people and spokespersons of governments and prominent organizations. They use satire to expose the ways in which these entities exploit and dehumanize people, through websites posing as corporations (WTO, DOW Chemical, and a George W. Bush homepage that has since been closed) and also by appearing on television interviews and at industry conferences. They have parodied DOW Chemical, the WTO, McDonalds, the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, and ExxonMobil, to name a few.

The Yes Men's strategies appeal to several audiences, including mass media (through television and print news agencies as well as self-produced documentaries detailing their parodies) and most interestingly, the very people involved in the entities that the Yes Men oppose. An example of this is when the Yes Men posed as members of the WTO at a conference on business with Africa, on a panel entitled "Trade in Africa: Enhancing Relationships to Improve Net Worth." Hanniford Schmidt (an alias of one of the Yes Men) proposed a re-privatization of humans--in other words, the WTO was proposing a return to slavery in Africa. Suprisingly, no audience members reacted in moral outrage. The only objections made were based on incentives for potential employers. This humorous approach forced people to question the motives of corporations--even those involved in these organizations who later learned that they had been duped.

The Yes Men is a wonderful example of how a variety of audiences can be reached through the use of humor. It also highlights the balance of humor and seriousness that is needed to reach a variety of audiences. Have you or your organization employed humor specifically to educate and form alliances with people who initially opposed your cause?How have you gone about doing this?

• Is it a statement of fact or an opinion?
• Some kind of statements are always opinions.
  • Predictions
  • Value judgments
  • Advice

PROPAGANDA

• Written deliberately to play on your feelings and not your sense of reason.
• It is an opinion or point of view put forward very strongly, sometimes forcefully.
• A deliberate attempt to persuade you to accept that point of view without thinking about it.

A number of common forms of propaganda:

• Catchy slogans
• Emotional words and pictures
• Using celebrities to persuade
• Stereotyping – very simple and short answer to personality divide.  Many people don’t like things to be complicated and difficult.  They do not wish to understand that there is more than one side to a story.
• Ridicule and Satire – e.g. Cartoon Satire and Parody

The sociologists and historians tell us that only rarely does a social movement involve more than 5% of the affected population in *active* participation. Fewer than 7% of the American colonists actively took part in the revolution against the British. In 70 years of struggle, the largest Woman Suffrage protest in the U.S. was 8000 marchers in Washington, DC in 1913. The Selma Voting Rights struggle of 1965 was one of the largest Freedom Movement campaigns of the 1960s. But if you add up all those who marched, picketed, sat-in, went to jail, tried to register to vote, or just attended a mass meeting, it totaled less than 10%
of Dallas County's Black population.

*BUT* these struggles by a small activist cores succeeded because they won mass political support. Going back to the Selma Movement, while less than 10% of Blacks directly and actively participated in the Voting Rights campaign, the overwhelming majority supported those that did take action, and they passively honored the economic boycott that was a significant element in the eventual victory.

The key point is that the 5% who are activists achieve victories by winning political support among the 95% who are not activists (and never will be activists). We don't have to start out with mass popular support, but we DO have to end up that way. Which means that our strategies and tactics must be shaped towards the goal of winning support among the 95% who are NOT activists.

Tactics that alienate, or frighten, the people whose support we need to win are counter-productive. What people fear, they come to hate, what they come to hate, they oppose. Tactics that treat the people we need to educate as if they were enemies turns them into enemies in fact. Which is where audacity, and humor, and puncturing authority with laughter come in. As said by many people in this discussion, hurmor, audacity, laughter, satire, surprise, and creativity appeal to masses of people, and if done well generate thought and openess to new ideas and perspectives.

The great thing about humor and audacity is that that they scale so well to the number of people willing to take action. Social movements can succeed when they propel 5% of the population into action, but 5% is really a huge number. A humorous action or piece of street theater like some of those that people have posted in this discussion can be pulled off by just a handful. So can audacious acts of civil disobediance. When there are more activists, and greater political support, larger actions with greater audacity can be achieved.

In my experience, even more effective than jokes and satire as tactics of nonviolent resistance have been acts of audacity performed with a sense of humor. For me, humor and audacity go hand-in-hand. Take for example, the "shop-in:"

In the winter of 1963-64, Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) chapters in the San Francisco Bay Area campaigned against racist hiring practices by the Lucky Market chain. When negotiations with Lucky failed to produce an agreement, CORE began leafletting, and then picketing, some of the stores to educate customers about job discrimination in general, and Lucky's policy of hiring only whites for all positions above janitor. Shoppers confronted with a picket line came face-to-face with the issue as activists urged them to boycott Lucky and buy their groceries elsewhere.

When there was no response from the Lucky management, CORE mounted "shop-ins" at a few of the stores — an audacious  tactic that broke the sacred taboos of private property, but without violence against people. After picketing and leafleting the store for long enough to ensure that everyone inside knew and understood the issue, CORE members entered the market, filled shopping carts with groceries of all kinds, and proceeded to the check-out counter where the merchandise was rung up and bagged by the (all white) clerks and bag boys. When presented with the bill, the CORE activists replied, "Wait! Is this store being picketed? Oh, no! We won't spend our money with a company that practices racism." Then they walked out leaving the bagged goods behind. Soon the shelves were practically empty and everything was piled up around the check-out stands. Business was halted for hours while the groceries were laboriously unsorted and the shelves restocked

Consternation ensued. Business had been disrupted, property had been mishandled, ice cream had melted, some cakes had been crushed. The social order of custom and courtesy had been violated. "Innocent shoppers" had been inconvenienced. Pundits and editorials denounced CORE's "coercive" tactics. But supporters of racial justice countered by raising the long-term economic and social devastation of systemic discrimination, and Lucky's role in perpetuating a system that was inherently unjust and socially destructive. Lucky had many stores across the Bay Area, only a few were picketed and fewer still had shop-ins, but word-of-mouth and media coverage spread the issue far and wide. And it was impossible to talk about the shop-in without also talking about Lucky's racist hiring practices. All of which built mass support for the boycott.

Because the well-trained CORE activists performed the shop-in with a sense of humor rather than self-indulgent rage or pompous posturing, no one felt physically threatened and even some of the clerks had to laugh. CORE had a few hundred activists, and only a portion of them participated in the shop-ins, but those actions by a small number resulted in a great deal of media attention, and even more important, enormous word-of-mouth. All of which caused tens of thousands to view Lucky as a racist company they did not want to do business with. Shortly after the shop-ins, Lucky signed an agreement with CORE to integrate its work force. Other grocery chains followed without requiring direct-action.

Timeline:

• September 2009: Thirty four radio stations -most of them with dissident political views from the government- are shut down in Venezuela.
• Opposition students and leaders turn to twitter and make The hashtag #freemediave reach the top 3 trending topics on the site.
• We at www.elchiguirebipolar.com (a Venezuelan-satirical-political fake news site) prepare a humorous video in which President Chávez threatens the Twitter Bird. We use old video material where President Chávez tells President Bush “You messed with me little birdie”. We make the video in a couple of days: simple music and editing. The intention of the video was to raise awareness on the politically apathetic youth that use social media sites in Venezuela. But we didn’t feel it was relevant until President Chávez actually talked about Twitter. So we hold the video and decide not to release it until the time was pertinent.
• February 2010: For the fist time, Hugo Chávez talks about Twitter. He launches a smear campaign against the popular  social media site saying it was a “capitalist weapon” and that “all revolutionaries should be alert”.
• February 2010: Just hours after President Chávez talked about twitter we release the video “Te Metiste conmigo pajarito” (You messed with me little birdie) on our blog. The video goes viral and reaches about 100.000 views in a couple of weeks. 
• March 2010: Considering the success of the song, elchiguirebipolar.com launches a remix contest for the song "Te metiste conmigo pajarito" where we urged people to send their own remix of the song. Over 30 young Djs and other well known musicians submitted their remixes.

NO MONEY WAS SPENT ON THIS CAMPAIGN. JUST HUMOR, PATIENCE AND TIMING.

If you want to know more about El Chiguire Bipolar read this article by the New York Times or visit our site

Australian's love a bit of cheeky humour. And we really love to tease our politicians. Let's be honest. Politics can be boring. It can seem like you're not going anywhere. It can seem defeating. So it's good to have some fun!

I work at GetUp.org.au. We're a progressive campaigning organisation with more members than all the political parties combined (currently, over 340,000). We want to get action on the big issues facing Australia.

In 2008 we had a new Labor Government which followed from 12 years of conservative government. Hopes were high for change and action. So when the government's first response to solving the petrol crisis was a website, we were like wtf? So we whipped up a TV ad - check it out here.

We pointed out the obvious. The website told us what we already knew petrol is very f**king expensive. We made our point. But we had fun doing it. We sent the TV ad to our list and asked them to donate to put it on air. We raised an incredible $75,000! And because it was fun, and funny, the media loved the Ad as well. So we get a whole run of free press coverage as well. 

Too often we can get caught up in trying to be serious because we care so much. This can make us a turn-off to the people who don't spend their lives campaigning - and we need them on our side if we're going to build a movement big enough to achieve the change we want to see.

Ruling elites are almost always hypocrites --- claiming one thing, doing another. Their massive, stunning hypocrisy provides strategic targets for humor and audacity. 

July 4th is America's great patriotic holiday, it commemorates the signing of the Declararation of Independence, a document that declares human rights for all people and states that it is the right --- in fact, the duty --- of citizens to overthrow governments that deny those rights. But the power structures who promote July 4th celebrations focus on flag waving, nationalist bragging, hot dogs, and fireworks, they never refer to what the Declaration actually says.

At the height of the Vietnam War, I and members of the Japanese peace movement were working with anti-war Marines at a major Marine base in Iwakuni Japan. The Marine Corps decided to hold a big July 4 celebration to be addressed by the lord high admiral of the Pacific. In addition to the GIs and their dependants, they invited Japanese officials, American expatriates, local civilians and so on to attend (I, of course, was barred from the base). We printed up copies of the Declaration of Independence, and on the back of the paper we provided a modern-English translation of what the 1700s-English actually meant. Emphasizing, of course, that governments derive their powers from the people and that it is the right of the people to alter their government if they need to.

Six courageous Marines then began passing our copy of the Declaration out to everyone on the base. The commanding officers ordered them arrested. The MPs charged into the crowd and hauled the six off to the brig. The GIs and their dependents couldn't understand why Marines were being arrested for handing out the Declaration of Indepence on the 4th of July. A crowd gathered outside the brig in a spontaneous protest that grew so large local Japanese TV news crews were dispatched to cover the event.

Over the following days we struck back with humorous cartoons and flyers --- "Is the Admiral a secret agent of British imperialism?" "Are the redcoats coming?" "We hold these truths to be self-evident that you don't have the right to read the Declaration of Independence," and so on. We also began preparing for the trial of the six who were arrested, intending to expose the hypocrisy of the entire situation. The Marine Corps gave in. Instead of trying the six, they discharged them from the war --- not with dishonorable discharges that they knew we would challenge, but with good discharges that retained their GI benefits and future employment references. Talk about six happy Marines!!  :)

Sometimes all you need is a little bit of courage and a good idea, together with the oportunity, and you can do a effective humorous action hitting the huge audience. Dan Glass has gotten tones of public exposure including live interviews on world networks like BBC and CNN and sucesfully pushed his enviornmental message trough after inventing humrous tactics which has forced Gordon Brown to stand next to him for as long as superglue on his hand was tying him to environmental activists in front of bunch of journalist on a reception. He has calculated the risk - legal lawsuit, and went to court, which has sentenced him to pay Gordon Brown replacement of prime-minister`s dammaged suit. Probably best invested few hundred punds in modern history of advertizing...:)

July 23, 2008

Article: Green activist superglues himself to Prime Minister Gordon Brown: Dan Glass attempts to superglue his hand to Gordon Brown

A climate-change protester tried to superglue himself to the Prime Minister last night.

Dan Glass covered his hand with glue and placed it on the PM’s sleeve at an awards ceremony at 10 Downing Street. He had smuggled the glue in in five pouches attached to his underwear and poured it over his hand during Mr Brown’s speech.

Mr Glass told the PM: “Do not worry, this is a non-violent protest. I have actually just superglued myself to the buttons of the Prime Minister.

“We cannot shake away climate change like you can just shake away my arm. We can beat climate change, but this is not going to happen by planning the world’s largest international airport at Heathrow.

“Climate change as we know it is the defining issue of our generation and you have got to start standing up to the bullies at BAA and start standing up for the British public.”

The 24-year-old student from Barnet in north London said that he was given a round of applause by the audience and said Mr Brown had repeatedly pulled his hand to detach it.

He said: “I just glued myself to him and after 20 seconds he tore my hand off - it really hurt. He had to give it a couple of tugs before it came away.

“He was just grinning about it. He didn’t seem to take me seriously.”

In an audio recording of the protest, the Prime Minister can be heard laughing as the stunt began.

Mr Glass, from anti-aviation group Plane Stupid, was invited to the event to receive an award for his campaigning activities from the Sheila McKechnie Foundation.

After the incident he was allowed to stay in Downing Street for 40 minutes, he said. When he left the building he tried to glue himself to the gates of Downing Street but had his hand detached by a police officer.

“I didn’t have much glue left by that point,” he added.

The Metropolitan Police said there had been no breach of security and confirmed that Mr Glass was an invited guest.

Whitehall sources said the gluing attempt had been unsuccessful and there had been no threat to the PM.

A spokesman for the Prime Minister laughed off the incident. He said: “As far as we are concerned, nothing really happened.

“There was a light-hearted and not particularly successful demonstration at a reception that was being hosted at Downing Street.”

In 1983, a small group of anarchists known as the KMV (Campaign Against Conscription) in Norway transformed a real trial into a humorous satire to point out flaws in the state's judicial process, specifically with trials of conscientious objectors. The trial process for those choosing to conscientiously object to military and alternative service had itself become a joke. Prosecutors often did not even show up to the trial. They knew that the same inevitable sentence would be given--a 16 month "serve their service in an institution under the administration of the prison authorities," also known as prison. This particular phrasing was used instead of "prison" to maintain the idea that Norway had no political prisoners.

As yet another conscientious objector was called to trial, he enlisted the help of a friend who had already been through the same process and seen it for himself. because these trials almost always followed the same routine and sentencing, and knowing that the prosecutors rarely showed up, they decided to have an actor-friend dress-up and play the role of the prosecutor. The actor proceeded to was overly expressive ad made highly exaggerated sentencing demands yet no one questioned him. This entire process was secretly being video taped and was later leaked to the press to show the public the ridiculous trial. Making a mockery of the process, not once did the judge or anyone else present, question the validity of prosecutor's position, nor his outlandish and harsh demands.

This humorous tactic showed the unfair sentencing that conscientious objectors receive and the apathetic approach of the judicial system. Norway took notice of the flaws in their system after this event and have taken steps to correct the laws that allowed this to go on in the first place. Though this happened almost 30 years ago, the use of humor as a tactic is still highly transferrable and I feel this example stands the test of time.

President Alexander Lukashenko,voted into office in 1994, is the head of the dictatorship in Belarus. His policies have intimidated political dissidents, crushed alternative opinions (and political parties), rigged elections (he won the 2006 presidential election with 84.2% of the vote), and eliminated most independent media outlets. He has warned that anyone joining an opposition protest would be treated as a "terrorist", adding: "We will wring their necks, as one might a duck." 

The Third Way Expatriates' Network was founded by Pavel Marozau in 2004, as a means to undermine the Belarusian goverment's oppressive policies through the use of humor and satire. The organization began by creating short political cartoons poking fun at the Lukashenko regime. They also launched a liberal, online television network called ARU TV in the summer of 2009.

But the most interesting project (in my opinion) is one that was created in 2007 as a response to Lukashenko's announcement that he would tighten restrictions on the internet. Belarusian activists from the Third Way launched the Lunet campaign under the guise of a 53rd birthday gift to the dictator. The goal of the campaign was to raise awareness about the threats being posed to online freedom of speech, and what Lukashenko's new policies may look like. Lunet consisted of LuTube (similar to YouTube), LuJournal (similar to LiveJournal), Lundex (a play on a popular Belarusian search engine), and a web portal tut.lu (named after a popular Belarusian we-portal). The websites portrayed humorous and satirical content, displaying information that praised Lukashenko and condemned the opposition.

The tactics used by Pavel Marozau and the Third Way serve as tools to educate the Belarusian public about oppressive government policies, using humor and technology as a way to mobilize citizens. Lunet challenged Lukashenko in such a way that he did not know how to react-- the regime has remained silent on the subject. It seems that the use of humor (and audacity) has confused the government  to the point that they don't know how to respond without looking like complete fools. Here is a link to a blog post I wrote about humor as a tool of protest in Belarus. There are further links on the blog, including several interviews with Pavel Marozau.

Another example of using humor and audicity for human rights has just hit the media: Hoaxers target Shell with bogus Nigeria news.

• The target: Shell Oil Company
• The tactic: Put out a hoax press release titled, "Shell halts Nigerian offshore drilling in visionary new remediation plan" explaining that because of pressure from Amnesty International and other human rights groups, Shell will stop drilling in Nigeria and inact a clean up plan.  
• Who's behind it? YES MEN?
• Why now? Shell is one of the largest oil and gas producers in Nigeria. It is due to hold its annual shareholders' meeting in the Hague on Tuesday, when it often faces questions from human rights and environmental groups about operations in the country.

Has it made an impact? Will it make an impact?

A question that often comes up in the use of humour as a tatic, and is a risk of using it as a tool, is when do you know your stepping over the line?

When does the humour support your campaign (people laughing with you)?

When does humour harm you campaign (maybe people laughing at you as opposed to with you, or alternativly not laughing at all!)?

And does stepping over the line, necessarily always harm the campaign?

I've been involved in many theatre productions that used humour as a tool to disperse public education messages in development settings.  Sometimes these messages have been controversial or taboo.  Mid-show when everything seems to be going well, the community is laughing, the messages are being explored and shared, a rock suddently flies out of the middle of nowhere and and hits one of the performers on stage.  Oh oh.... no more laughter.

Was a joke a bit too risky.  Did something provoke something in somebody.  Did we cross the line? Or maybe did we hit a truth?

There is a line of thought that beleives that if we do not try and go close to this 'line' then change and the pushing of boundries will not occur.  That we will stay in our comfort zone and not question.  One of the benefis of using humour as a tool is it enables tricky areas or issues to be explored in a way that other tools struggle to do.

Do we judge success only when everybody agrees with the humour, what will be the impact if the humour backfires?

Is it a negative thing if we do cross then line? 

When we cross the line are we still acheiving our aim of exploring tricky issues?

Is it no longer funny because it is too close to the truth?

Thoughts for discussion....

If you can predict your opponents reaction, it is far more easier to find the line between "humor as a driver" and "humor as thing which may backfire"

First key challenge is to predict how your opponent will act and getting him into “dilemma action” scenario”. If you cut down the framework of future humorous activity so you can put your opponent in front of lose-lose scenario (if the police appears and arrest activists for making funny street theatre, there will be public cost. If they don’t react, other citizens will be encouraged to mock your opponent even harder, see examples in “Branding in Serbia", video clip posted in "resources part)

Second big challenge with using humor is how to avoid impression of “not being serious”. The art is to combine humorous actions with “more serous” methods of communication (slogans, posters, banners should be SERIOUS combined with humourous actions like street theatre). Combining humor with “seriousness” gives best results in affecting four target audiences: Members and supporters, Wider audience, Potential Allies and International Community.

Reading down this discussion I notice that a lot of what other people are discussing is GREAT stuff - if you are attached to a group or activist lobby organisation ...

I want to challenge the notion of individual activism ... something that i am passionate about and is the basis of my work.

See... I became Isolated in the world...

I went from being a go-getter high level temp, cross training in important government portfolios and was just born with the leftist thinking mind (some see leftist as "compassionate") ...

I became a mother who was not ok with the housework as a pursuit of happiness and being a mother made me very much more sensitised to the injustices that I felt around me...

I was a trained graphic designer and events organiser ... but I had only the resources of my personal computer to launch something...

I had nothing...

No network ...

A small group friends of varying personalities - everyone was apathetic to me then, cause where I live APATHY is the NORM ... and if it isn't apathy, it's a resignation that it's out of our hands and only the rich and powerful have any influence in the big picture ... sorry Kath couldn't just accept that.

But I didn't like getting involved in activist organisation or joining 'causes' ... I am a multi-dimensional person and I couldn't just dedicate everything to one cause when everything is so important...  not only that but social politics what totally OSTRACISING ... personality types seemed to clash all the time or perhaps I could be a better team player ... not sure - but being aligned with any one group was not an option if I was to be active... not only this but a lot of protests take place when working people CANNOT attend or when there are other responsibilities  - anyone with small children will tell you that to get babysitters and arrange some total freedom can often take weeks of planning and the ad hoc nature of protest didn't fit into family responsibilities... not only that you have to (given in Australia we don't have a paid babysitting culture outside of childcare hours unless you are wealthier than us) explain to your babysitters that you are going to protest ... otherwise you take you babies with you and that can sometimes be a difficult decision particularly if the topic is generating interest with police etc...  we want the kids to believe police are there to help.

ok... sure... if you are on the frontline of Human Rights... you gotta be the extreme activist... if you are trying to bring direct change because you are directly affected in an extremely impacting way etc.  than you may find yourself in the thick of it...

me... not the case... isolated by distance, responsibility and lack of a network...

Well I gotta create one first was what I thought.

to be continued... as my activism has unfortunately been compromised by immediate responsibilities :-)

Ahhh.. yes I came back to this... sorry... I am trying to mix this up a bit and provide an element of surprise... :-)

We communicate diferently at the AAU... :-)

Anyways... to cut a long story short...

I got my audience by being a complete nutter online...

YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MANY PEOPLE GET TOTALLY FREAKED OUT BY THE CONTINUED USE OF CAPS LOCK... I HAVE SEEN VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES GET COMPLETELY WEIRDED OUT BY ONE USER WHO INSISTS ON TYPING IN CAPS LOCK CONTINUALLY ... APARENTLY IT MEANS SHOUTING... BUT WHEN YOU MESS WITH THAT LITTLE PERCEPTION ALONE YOU CAN GET SOME REALLY GREAT ONLINE PERFORMANCE GOING...

If you are involved in a forum full of hate little things like being totally random using caps and taking a very blahseh stance to the topic whilst structuring your coded text to bE IRONIC... YOU CAN VERY QUICKLY EVOKE RESPONSE.

So, the Art Action Union became a character represented by the costume of my avatar...

We have a great following online comprised of people who can't always be active, for one reason or another...

We have a gloriously global audience so we can learn from people in other countries... and when there is an issue we can rally the troops to sign GetUP and Greenpeace petitions...  and people in the network share these links with people in their networks and people comment and everyone is a comedian as the saying goes so things become very entertaining in the comments which draws others in, but the real content is always there and people learn and if they can act easily they will...

To be cause specific would not allow us the widest audience... so we use humour in every motion and communication because that keeps people entertained in a feel nice way and that keeps them ENGAGED... people will follow us for as little or as long as they like... but most importantly people find a portal to all creative things activist that we can find, but also to aspire to inspire a positive force for social change... and we can also make positive examples of negative influencing art...

People spend a lot of time online now...

Their communication is more focussed ... but the challenge always remains to engage those that are not already converted.

so to speak...

I maybe on a little tangent, but I guess that I am having trouble connecting with this discussion in that we don't do things at all traditionally in some of these respects... we are a virtual group of real people sitting in their homes and combining our brains for goodness I suppose... it's good magic and an uplifting feeling to know that others think in a similar pattern... this alone allows greater confidence when people are faced with anti-social behaviours in their social groups or at large in the political media...  it gives them more courage to speak out and invoke discussion... which in a personal and social way is converting thoughts or at least providing  different perspective to someone who may be exhibiting behaviours that do not encourage inclusiveness.

Srdja Popovic at Canvas asked New Tactics to share these useful resources they have shared wth activists worldwide:

• Branding in Serbia: 10 minutes video clip explaining OTPOR brand and activities together with many elements of humorous actions. Produced by Gistro Advertizing in 2001.
• Voting and  Washing Machine: Legendary  30 seconds video ad from “He is finished” OTPOR Campaign, 2000. Performed by famous Serbian actress Milena Pavlovic.
• Symbolic funny visuals showing OTPOR requests
• Humor is the answer, short clip and extract from awarded documentary by Steve York “Bringing Down The Dictator”

Hi all,

Just wanted to share this great resource developed by Tactical Tech to assist and inspire activists to use humor to spread a serious message in a light and effective way.

This resource is featured in Tactical Tech's '10 Tactics for turning information into action' - a collection of 10 tactics that practitioners can adapt to use information for activism (see our past dialogue on Information Activism: Turning Information into Action).  The '10 Tactics' video has been shown in countries all over the world.

Tactic 5 is titled 'Just add humour' and this tactic card includes:

• video stories
• a case study
• suggestions for the different ways you could use this tactic
• a featured tool
• tips

The tips shared in this tactic card include:

ALAA, OPEN SOURCE DEVELOPER AND TECHNOLOGIST, ON HUMOUR AND VIRAL MESSAGING:

“In Egypt we have had a dictatorial regime for 25 years. If I get a joke about my President and forward it to 10 of my friends and each of them forwards it their friends, the joke might get modified on the way, but it is spreading virally and very quickly.”

ADVOCATE IN BELARUS, ON THE LIMITATIONS OF THE INTERNET:

“The flash mobs in Belarus weren’t very popular in all regions, because they depended on the active online community, and internet penetration wasn’t that strong outside of the capital back then. But they were important because they showed fresh and creative thinking, and brought together a lot of the young people who likely never before participated in any political or civic actions.”

SAMI GHARBIA, GLOBAL VOICES ON CHALLENGING POWER:

“Humour is the first step to break taboos and to fears. Making people laugh about dangerous stuff like dictatorship, repression, censorship is a first weapon against those fears…without beating fear you can not make any change. So humour is very effective.”

Read the whole of Tactic 5. This card includes more links, tips and examples: DOWNLOAD CARD (PDF)

This is a great, accessible resource for practitioners that are beginners to using humor in their work, but is also useful for those that want to think about new ways to use this tactic. Tactical Tech also shares great tools that practitioners can use (usually for free) and has step-by-step toolkits for how to use them:

• Mobiles in a box
• Message in a box
• Security in a box

Enjoy!

Humorous practitioners,

There have been questions and concerns raised around how to reign in 'rogue' activists and comments made about the importance of training, such as Bruce's comment on the 'Shop-in':

How can we train our troops to carry out these tactics effectively, safely, and appropriately? Can you share any resources, tips, advice, training tools?

Thanks!

I was remiss in posting too much yesterday but did attend SmartMeme's workshop on Story-based strategies for social change & action design.  While these tactics aren't always rooted in humor, their tools and strategies work because they focus on "winning the battle of the story" and not "the story of the battle".  I highly recommend reading their online references.  

They have also just published a book detailing many of their past projects, how and why they worked, as well as learning from some that didn't.  It's called "Re:Imagining Change: How to use story-based strategy to win campaigns, build movements, and change the world" and I'm proud to have helped craft or execute a few of the projects within its pages.

Here are some links to some excellent SmartMeme concepts:

Memes & Smart Memes

Narrative Analysis of Power

Story Based Strategy

Why Now? (Situational Analysis)

De-Colonizing the Revolutionary Imagination

I wanted to be sure to share these two great resources from CANVAS - Srdja Popovic referenced some of the useful points and tips found in these resources in his posts during the dialogue:

• Nonviolent Struggle 50 Crucial Points
• CANVAS Core Curriculum: A Guide to Effective Nonviolent Struggle

This is a great action, and yes, audacious.  Mabye it's good to change the shtick a bit now and again, just to keep it fresh and keep people interested.  Whether it's penguins or some other change?  It does seem confrontational and disruptive (in a good way) to actually swim out to the ships, no?  In costumes to put a silly face on a serious action? 

Sounds like, with a little work, you could devise your own take on the "citizens inspection team" presented in this blog post. Here's a tactical notebook that should give you a pretty good idea how to organize such an action. And a clip to help you visualize the concept. Good luck!

Kathleen, thank you for sharing this. It brought to mind a great example of a pun from Egypt that I was reading in the recently published book, Civilan Jihad: Nonviolent Struggle, Democractization, and Governance in the Middle East. The organization "Shayfeen.com is a clever combination of "we see" (shayfeen) and a simple suffic (com) that slighly alters "we see" to "we see you," or "we are watching you". It became the driving force behind the creation of a larget movement, Eygptians Against Corruption." (quote found on page 269 of the book)

I also wanted to bring to mind the great "branding" idea from OTPOR! (Resistance!) and the the symbol that galvanized their movement (the raised fist). 

This choice of a name that might also reflect the goal, might limit the on-going ability of the organization to respond to rapidly changing situations. For example, when the Nestle Boycott was launched in the late 70s over the practice of Nestle and infant formula, the organization had to eventually change to accommodate the success of their boycott tactic.

I'd like to ask Srdja - and others in this dialogue - about your experience when the organizational name that represents your goal has been reached, how does the organization or the members transform?

1. Okay!! we all seem to like putting our opinions secretly forward for some alternate reason or other sanction, as a simple word as tickle arouses stimulation to create this freedom. I feel the simple word such as this here has become used as excuse to unload free consumerism, whining, abuse, self historical hiatus, marketing failure's, blatant egotism, psychiatric excuse & drivel.

2. My head has nearly exploded after trying to fathom your many opinions upon a short poem as tactic tickle, and are bewildered into an embarrassment that is neither tickled or tactical.  2a. So some of you obviously have a company with many contacts and are obviously well educated inside academia, well then write a book!! instead of paste & link............

3. Is satire funny! before I go I'll leave you a little drawing in context with current political affairs, this to ponder your also word filled eyes upon, yes images are to a language, maybe even greater than a spoken or written method. Keep up the good work comrades............................................................... Regards Andy 

I love this example of creating a 'lose-lose' situation for the opposition.  You are exactly right, as humor delegitimizes the opposition, it also disarms them, so to speak, while empowering your members and attracting new ones.