Archiving Human Rights for Advocacy, Justice and Memory
Training for Nonviolent Action
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Posted May 19th, 2008 by New Tactics
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Training ourselves on tactical and strategic nonviolent action is essential to maximize possibilities and results. What does this kind of training entail?

It's not too late to share your experiences, methods and resources or gain ideas and tools to apply to your efforts. Join the New Tactics community today to participate in this and other dialogues today!

Practitioners included:

  • Srdja Popovic and Giorgi Meladze from CANVAS
  • Sam La Rocca, Jason MacLeod, James Whelan, Holly Hammond, and Anthony Kelly from The Change Agency
  • Zsuzsanna Kacsó, Bianca Cseke and Corina Simon from PATRIR
  • Daniel Hunter, Joe Catania, and Philippe Duhamel from Training for Change
  • Linda Sartor from Nonviolent Peaceforce
  • Dola Nicholas Oluoch from Chemchemi Ya Ukweli-Active
  • Ouyporn Khuankaew from International Women's Partnership for Peace and Justice
  • Shaazka Beyerle from The International Center on Nonviolent Conflict
  • Hardy Merriman, an independent consultant in the field of strategic nonviolent conflict

Learn more about the experienced nonviolent action trainers who shared their ideas and resources during the dialogue.

Summary of Dialogue

Moving Nonviolent Action Theory to Practice

Enormous and exciting developments have taken place over recent decades to make this strategic theory available and accessible to people around the world, notably through education and mainstream acceptance of the theory.

Core concepts of successful nonviolent action are support, careful planning and strong leadership. It is essential to have a vision and strategic plan and to develop the tactics and campaigns necessary to achieve it. Most often, movements tend to happen through local grassroots organizations and unions, in response to circumstances in a place or because of the creativity of a group of people. It addition to educating people on their rights, nonviolent action also gives people an alternative way of expressing themselves.

Dealing with Repression

The effectiveness of tactics depends on the context in which the nonviolent struggle operates, and are not inherently effective or ineffective, low-risk or high-risk Even within an ongoing nonviolent struggle, a tactic can at some point be at risk. When teaching or training, it can be most effective in training is to have participants come to this insight themselves. Under conditions of repression, dilemma actions and simple mass actions can be effective. 

When choosing tactics to use, it is important to consider all possible tactics, as well as ‘dispersion’ and ‘concentration’. Different tactics are both necessary and useful at different times. One useful tactic activists have is to increase the cost of repression and reduce the effectiveness of the opponents’ repression. A group in Kenya identified the need to integrate the concept of self talk in nonviolent action training and to strengthen the capacity of organizations to traditional approaches of nonviolent action. And in Moldova, a "frozen conflict" brought forth some of the challenges that NGOs face in their relationship with the de facto authorities. To address these and other issues, Peace Brigade International (PBI) has provided for human rights defenders, trade union members and activists a manual to improve their understanding of security and protection.

However, participants need be aware that despite having a good plan and the right strategies and tactics, a nonviolent actions simply may not work out and that the best that can be done is to be prepared for probable risks and to train for the worst. Debriefing after an action has taken place is a tool in itself that allows participants a say and to realize their own power and effect.

Training tools and processes

One tool The Change Agency uses is critical-path analysis to get activists to think beyond what tactics they will employ and to consider how they connects with the vision, goals and objectives they are hoping to achieve. Another tool is power mapping for strategy building and mapping players/political actors and their position in relation to activists’ issues and their level of influence over campaign objectives. The New Tactics in Human Rights project uses a tool they call "Tactical Mapping" to help groups more clearly see the "terrain" in which they are operating, and additional areas they ca potentially impact.

Experimental methods in education that have been used include the water glasses exercise to show the difference between teach-centered learning and participant-centered learning, Education and Training for  Effective Environmental Advocacy: a chapter on educational theory is applicable to activist education in all movements, and The ‘spiral model’ by the Doris Marshall Institute which essentially follows an action learning cycle but with some guidelines for designing experiential process.  

A tool that proved effective and appropriate in Kenya, in the run up to elections when it was necessary to reach as many people as possible was the introduction of theatre into the process. A larger audience was reached in a short period of time and mobilization became very easy. Other examples of the use of theatre to engage, educate and move people to action are seen in Bangladesh (Action Theatre: Initiating Changes), in Senegal (Using Popular Theater to Break the Silence Around Violence Against Women) with the Philippine Education Theater Association and in Augusto Boal’s suite of The Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) which can be used in a meaningful way to explore and build a collective understanding on a range of themes. Another tool that has been used is the use of photographs to stimulate discussion, creativity and personal disclosure and strategic thinking.

Finally, CANVAS has designed four tools for knowledge transfer, acknowledging that the best and most efficient way to transfer knowledge is by using practical tools which enable participants to adopt new skill by DOING IT.

Training the Trainer: Experiences and Challenges

Challenges that trainers are face can include the opposition to joint “agreements” and the contradiction of so-called diversity. While it cannot be argued that diversity of tactics is a good thing, there are consequences to it such as a debate about he effectiveness of tactics, an unwillingness to put any parameters on public actions, the impossibility of truly nonviolent action (an action that is even 1% violent will not be "nonviolent") and the marginalization of nonviolence training, among others.  But a commitment to diversity or a variety of tactics can be especially helpful when groups are thinking about the surprise factor and keeping the opposition "off balance".

People need to need to feel that they have elected to be a part of the nonviolent action. Described as the 'Two hands of nonviolence', the combined impact of a nonviolent action, if designed well, creates an irresistible push and pull impact upon the opponent, stopping something while at the same time inviting people to work towards a solution. A great example of the challenges facing movements and campaigns including the need for a vision, measuring success, using a combination of pull and disrupt tactics, as well as know when to end a campaign is that of the Nestle Boycott.

Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals provides some of the best advice on confrontational tactics, including do unto others before they have a chance to do unto you, if something you do is ineffective, stop doing it, be truthful and honest at all times, but know when to keep your mouth shut, plan to change the world, but be happy with changing a single opinion, and be controversial, but watch the legals. Most importantly, “Power is not only what you have, but what an opponent thinks you have”. What can let down trainers is failing to link the community's theory of change to the real issues that affect them. Flexibility and being able to listen are key to the process, as is creativity.

Resources Featured Within the Dialogue

General

Theory

Methods

Tools

Training

Exercises

Case Studies and Examples

Recommended Books, Films, and Games

the Change Agency's picture

Theatre as a tool for a rehearsal for change...Augusto Boal

Submitted by the Change Agency on Tue, 06/03/2008 - 08:39.

the Change Agency

Hello all

Dola and Nancy it’s great to see theatre being raised a powerful tool to effectively communicate with a broad audience. Thanks Nancy for these resources and Dola enjoyed reading about how you used theatre in the run-up to the last general elections in Kenya when “there was need to reach as many people as possible with the Nonviolence message.” I would be really interested to hear about the kinds of processes you used to develop the theatre pieces.  

I find that using tools from Augusto Boal’s suite of The Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) processes can be used in a meaningful way in workshops to explore and build a collective understanding on a range of themes. There are an immense variety of ways that Boal’s processes can be used in a workshop. Just some of the themes that I have found them useful to support a group exploring, in a participatory way, are for example power dynamics, community organising etc.

Boal’s exercises could form a small component of a training or a the more multi-layered  processes could be significant portion of a training depending on how a facilitator chooses to use them.

One of the many things that I find incredible about Boal’s tools is that people (ie workshop participants, a community etc) can actually have an opportunity to have a ‘rehearsal for change’ in a way they works, feels appropriate for them. That could mean having an opportunity to trial, rehearse using a tactics, or even just an element of, that they feel is appropriate for them.

Below is some brief information on Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. To find more information on Theatre of the Oppressed, you can go to: www.theatreoftheoppressed.org. Here you can find a the principles of TO in around 20 languages, a library of books titles, photos, evaluations and reports by Boal and others and also a general introduction to every branch of TO such as Forum Theatre, Image Theatre, Invisible Theatre, Newspaper Theatre, Legislative Theatre and Rainbow of Desire.

Theatre of the Oppressed was born in 1971, in Brazil with the specific goal of dealing with local problems – soon, it was used all over the country. Forum Theatre came into being in Peru, in 1973, as part of a Literacy Program; we thought it would be good only for South America– now it is practiced in more than 70 countries. Growing up, TO developed Invisible Theatre in Argentina, as political activity, and Image Theatre to establish dialogue among Indigenous Nations and Spanish descendants, in Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico... Now these forms are being used in all kinds of dialogues.

TO was used by peasants and workers; later, by teachers and students; now, also by artists, social workers, psychotherapists, NGOs... At first, in small, almost clandestine places. Now in the streets, schools, churches, trade-unions, regular theatres, prisons...

Theatre of the Oppressed is the Game of Dialogue: we play and learn together. All kinds of Games must have Discipline - clear rules that we must follow. At the same time, Games have absolute need of creativity and Freedom. The Discipline of our Game is our belief that we that we must re-establish the right of everyone to exist in dignity. We believe that all of us are more, and much better, than what we think we are. We believe in solidarity.www.theatreoftheoppressed.org

Below is a very brief glossary of a few key terms from TO from the peace troupe website http://peacetroupe.org/reprints/r-humble.html 

PROTAGONIST: The person experiencing the "oppression", often referred to by Boal as "the oppressed", which has met with some argument.    

ANTAGONIST: The "oppressor" or the source of the oppression. Initially to Boal this was the person who prevented you from acting on your will. He referred to the "cop in the street" as an example of the oppression present in Brazil. After living in political exile in France and travelling in Western countries, Boal became aware of a more psychological set of oppressions, which he has recently articulated as "cop in the head."

INTERVENTION: The passive to active dynamization of the spectator into the actor produces the spect-actor. This is the moment when the dramatic action is halted and the protagonist is replaced.   

SPECT-ACTOR: In this role, alternatives are offered, by way of improvisation, in an attempt to bring the scene to a different conclusion.   

JOKER: The director, guide or mediator who facilitates the passive-to-active experience of the spect-actor and who encourages the discussion which follows a "rehearsal."  

IMAGE THEATRE: Actors choose real moments from their lives and "sculpt" other actors into images of those moments. By dynamizing the images with freeze-frame motion, a collective reading is possible. Discussion of the changing role of oppressor/oppressed can lead to alternative actions which can be played out in a scene or re-scultped as a series of images.   

FORUM THEATRE: This represents the highest performative end in Boal's work. A short scene or one-act play is presented. The dramatic work has been developed through collaboration and addresses a specific issue or moment of conflict. After the scene is played, it is repeated from the beginning. However, at the moment of crises (Boal's moment of oppression), the spect-actor audience may yell "Stop!" and then physically replace the actor playing the oppressed character. In the most elaborate performances this extends to costumes, make-up and other theatrical devices of character and acting. The other actors, trained to always seek the original outcome, present the challenge for the new spect-actor. When all interventions of this sort are completed, discussion may follow or replacement of the Antagonist may be allowed.

Augusto Boal has published several books some of these are: Theatre of the Oppressed, Rainbow of Desire, 1995, Routledge, Games for Actors and Non-Actors, Routledge.

Another book not by Boal but about the application of his work in social change is: Playing Boal: Theatre, Therapy and Activism; Schutzman, Mady and Jan Cohen-Cruz ed.; 1994; Routledge.

If anyone is interested in talking more about Theatre of the Oppressed, especially how the Image Theatre, Rainbow of Desire and Forum Theatre ‘branches’ of TO can be used effectively in a training/workshop environment I’m always keen.

Warmly

Pru Gell

 

the Change Agency