Dr Gene Sharp's 198 methods of non-violent action

My family went to Egypt and saw the violence of extreme poverty for ourselves. Dr Sharp's 198 non violent methods to challenge tyrannies  helped to bring down Mubarak. They are the best way to challenge oppression across the world, wherever we encounter it.

 

The Methods of Nonviolent Action

​​​​​(from Gene Sharp, The Methods of Nonviolent Action, Boston 1973)

THE METHODS OF NONVIOLENT PROTEST AND PERSUASION

FORMAL STATEMENTS

  1. Public speeches
  2. Letters of opposition or support
  3. Declarations by organizations and institutions
  4. Signed public declarations
  5. Declarations of indictment and intention
  6. Group or mass petitions

COMMUNICATIONS WITH A WIDER AUDIENCE

  1. Slogans, caricatures, and symbols
  2. Banners, posters, and displayed communications
  3. Leaflets, pamphlets, and books
  4. Newspapers and journals
  5. Records, radio, and television
  6. Skywriting and earthwriting

GROUP REPRESENTATIONS

  1. Deputations
  2. Mock awards
  3. Group lobbying
  4. Picketing
  5. Mock elections

SYMBOLIC PUBLIC ACTS

  1. Displays of flags and symbolic colours
  2. Wearing of symbols
  3. Prayer and worship
  4. Delivering symbolic objects
  5. Protest disrobings
  6. Destruction of own property
  7. Symbolic lights
  8. Displays of portraits
  9. Paint as protest
  10. New signs and names
  11. Symbolic sounds
  12. Symbolic reclamations
  13. Rude gestures

PRESSURES ON INDIVIDUALS

  1. “Haunting” officials
  2. Taunting officials
  3. Fraternization
  4. Vigils

DRAMA AND MUSIC

  1. Humourous skits and pranks
  2. Performances of plays and music
  3. Singing

PROCESSIONS

  1. Marches
  2. Parades
  3. Religious processions
  4. Pilgrimages
  5. Motorcades

HONOURING THE DEAD

  1. Political mourning
  2. Mock funerals
  3. Demonstrative funerals
  4. Homage at burial places

PUBLIC ASSEMBLIES

  1. Assemblies of protest or support
  2. Protest meetings
  3. Camouflaged meetings of protest
  4. Teach-ins

WITHDRAWAL AND RENUNCIATION

  1. Walk-outs
  2. Silence
  3. Renouncing honours
  4. Turning one’s back

THE METHODS OF SOCIAL NONCOOPERATION

OSTRACISM OF PERSONS

  1. Social boycott
  2. Selective social boycott
  3. Lysistratic nonaction
  4. Excommunication
  5. Interdict

NONCOOPERATION WITH SOCIAL EVENTS, CUSTOMS, AND INSTITUTIONS

  1. Suspension of social and sports activities
  2. Boycott of social affairs
  3. Student strike
  4. Social disobedience
  5. Withdrawal from social institutions

WITHDRAWAL FROM THE SOCIAL SYSTEM

  1. Stay-at-home
  2. Total personal noncooperation
  3. “Flight” of workers
  4. Sanctuary
  5. Collective disappearance
  6. Protest emigration (hijrat)

THE METHODS OF ECONOMIC NONCOOPERATION: ECONOMIC BOYCOTTS

ACTION BY CONSUMERS

  1. Consumers’ boycott
  2. Nonconsumption of boycotted goods
  3. Policy of austerity
  4. Rent withholding
  5. Refusal to rent
  6. National consumers’ boycott
  7. International consumers’ boycott

ACTION BY WORKERS AND PRODUCERS

  1. Workers’ boycott
  2. Producers’ boycott

ACTION BY MIDDLEMEN

  1. Suppliers’ and handlers’ boycott

ACTION BY OWNERS AND MANAGEMENT

  1. Traders’ boycott
  2. Refusal to let or sell property
  3. Lockout
  4. Refusal of industrial assistance
  5. Merchants’ “general strike”

ACTION BY HOLDERS OF FINANCIAL RESOURCES

  1. Withdrawal of bank deposits
  2. Refusal to pay fees, dues, and assessments
  3. Refusal to pay debts or interest
  4. Severance of funds and credit
  5. Revenue refusal
  6. Refusal of a government’s money

ACTION BY GOVERNMENTS

  1. Domestic embargo
  2. Blacklisting of traders
  3. International sellers’ embargo
  4. International buyers’ embargo
  5. International trade embargo

THE METHODS OF ECONOMIC NONCOOOPERATION: THE STRIKE

SYMBOLIC STRIKES

  1. Protest strike
  2. Quickie walkout (lightning strike)

AGRICULTURAL STRIKES

  1. Peasant strike
  2. Farm workers’ strike

STRIKES BY SPECIAL GROUPS

  1. Refusal of impressed labour
  2. Prisoners’ strike
  3. Craft strike
  4. Professional strike

ORDINARY INDUSTRIAL STRIKES

  1. Establishment strike
  2. Industry strike
  3. Sympathy strike

RESTRICTED STRIKES

  1. Detailed strike
  2. Bumper strike
  3. Slowdown strike
  4. Working-to-rule strike
  5. Reporting “sick” (sick-in)
  6. Strike by resignation
  7. Limited strike
  8. Selective strike

MULTI-INDUSTRY STRIKES

  1. Generalised strike
  2. General strike

COMBINATION OF STRIKES AND ECONOMIC CLOSURES

  1. Hartal
  2. Economic shutdown

THE METHODS OF POLITICAL NONCOOPERATION

REJECTION OF AUTHORITY

  1. Withholding or withdrawal of allegiance
  2. Refusal of public support
  3. Literature and speeches advocating resistance

CITIZENSNONCOOPERATION WITH GOVERNMENT

  1. Boycott of legislative bodies
  2. Boycott of elections
  3. Boycott of government employment and positions
  4. Boycott of government departments, agencies, and other bodies
  5. Withdrawal from governmental educational institutions
  6. Boycott of government-supported institutions
  7. Refusal of assistance to enforcement agents
  8. Removal of own signs and placemarks
  9. Refusal to accept appointed officials
  10. Refusal to dissolve existing institutions

CITIZENSALTERNATIVES TO OBEDIENCE

  1. Reluctant and slow compliance
  2. Nonobedience in absence of direct supervision
  3. Popular nonobedience
  4. Disguised disobedience
  5. Refusal of an assemblage or meeting to disperse
  6. Sitdown
  7. Noncooperation with conscription and deportation
  8. Hiding, escape, and false identities
  9. Civil disobedience of “illegitimate” laws

ACTION BY GOVERNMENT PERSONNEL

  1. Selective refusal of assistance by government aides
  2. Blocking of lines of command and information
  3. Stalling and obstruction
  4. General administrative noncooperation
  5. Judicial noncooperation
  6. Deliberate inefficiency and selective noncooperation by enforcement agents
  7. Mutiny

DOMESTIC GOVERNMENTAL ACTION

  1. Quasi-legal evasions and delays
  2. Noncooperation by constituent governmental units

INTERNATIONAL GOVERNMENTAL ACTION

  1. Changes in diplomatic and other representation
  2. Delay and cancellation of diplomatic events
  3. Withholding of diplomatic recognition
  4. Severance of diplomatic relations
  5. Withdrawal from international organisations
  6. Refusal of membership in international bodies
  7. Expulsion from international organisations

THE METHODS OF NONVIOLENT INTERVENTION

PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERVENTION

  1. Self-exposure to the elements
  2. The fast
    1. Fast of moral pressure
    2. Hunger strike
    3. Satyagrahic fast
  3. Reverse trial
  4. Nonviolent harassment

PHYSICAL INTERVENTION

  1. Sit-in
  2. Stand-in
  3. Ride-in
  4. Wade-in
  5. Mill-in
  6. Pray-in
  7. Nonviolent raids
  8. Nonviolent air raids
  9. Nonviolent invasion
  10. Nonviolent interjection
  11. Nonviolent obstruction
  12. Nonviolent occupation

SOCIAL INTERVENTION

  1. Establishing new social patterns
  2. Overloading of facilities
  3. Stall-in
  4. Speak-in
  5. Guerrilla theatre
  6. Alternative social institutions
  7. Alternative communication system

ECONOMIC INTERVENTION

  1. Reverse strike
  2. Stay-in strike
  3. Nonviolent land seizure
  4. Defiance of blockades
  5. Politically motivated counterfeiting
  6. Preclusive purchasing
  7. Seizure of assets
  8. Dumping
  9. Selective patronage
  10. Alternative markets
  11. Alternative transportation systems
  12. Alternative economic institutions

POLITICAL INTERVENTION

  1. Overloading of administrative systems
  2. Disclosing identities of secret agents
  3. Seeking imprisonment
  4. Civil disobedience of “neutral” laws
  5. Work-on without collaboration
  6. Dual sovereignty and parallel government​​​​​

 

Views: 1655

Comment by Rickey D. Whetstone on 2nd mo. 24, 2011 at 8:49pm

Forrest 

 

Apparently I'm a poor communicator . . .  the driving force that causes people to rebel against their leaders good or bad . . . that are put in place by God  . . . who controls the universe  . . . is a spirit of rebellion that hides behind the mask of freedom.   God allows this as a test for all of us.

 

If we look at the life of Peter . . . who with a noble swipe of his knife . . . tried to rescue God.  And God told Peter to put away his knife.    And when we read the writings of Peter after he spiritually matured Peter makes this statement.

 (1Pe 2:13)  Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme;
(1Pe 2:14)  Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well.
(1Pe 2:15)  For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men:
(1Pe 2:16)  As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.
(1Pe 2:17)  Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king.

 

The demonstrators in Egypt , Libya  and Yemen  are using their liberty for a cloke of maliciousness. Property was destroyed.  Building looted.   And people killed.   They  honour not all men.  

 

When anyone publicly demonstrates they are thumbing their superior nose to all who will watch.

 

And if you want to run on that side of the fence . . . be my guest . . . if it makes you happy.    

 

 

 

Comment by Rosemary Rimmer-Clay on 3rd mo. 1, 2011 at 8:09am

'The letter kills but the spirit gives life'...the early Quakers recognised that our responses to life must be spiritual rather than based on rehearsing biblical texts  by rote as the sole response to the challenges we face...this is where Mr Whetsone errs. he seeks to enforce his personal views, based on selective readings of bible verses, to prove that his viewpoint is the only right one, because it is based on the Bible.

Whereas Quakers are more usually involved in life, and the endless challenge of seeking  social justice in the face of immense human suffering all over the world.

Comment by Forrest Curo on 3rd mo. 1, 2011 at 11:20am

So how does a person meet God... and then become a worshipper of evil institutions? There were German pastors in Nazi days, citing those same Biblical passages as justification for cooperating with the Nazi regime. (There is a really really excellent Pendle Hill pamphlet, #49, 'Christ in Catastrophe' by Emil Fuchs, on what it was like living through those times without collaborating or joining in the state's violence... available for free download at pendlehill.org (via their bookstore) last time I looked.)

 

The driving force behind your "spirit of rebellion" is the fact that human beings do need, and intensely desire, freedom from harsh and arbitrary misgovernment. Whether some of us are also malicious, or prone to become addicted to the (overrated!) thrills of rebellion, is quite beside that point; there is no justification for using this to shake thy finger against efforts to nonviolently bring down a corrupt and vicious regime.

 

Weren't you the one telling us to watch out about mistaking the teachings of humans for the voice of God? Tis really time thee went back for another talk... (& why not, me too!)

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