FEATURE-Serbian activist teaches lessons in revolution * Serbian activist takes Yugoslav revolution lessons abroad * Unity, strategy and non-violent action key to success * Training for activists in Middle Easter, Zimbabwe By Peter Apps, Political Risk Correspondent LONDON, June 16 (Reuters) - Eleven years ago, Srdja Popovic was at the heart of the uprising to oust Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic. Now, he travels the globe helping other protest groups to plot the overthrow of autocrats. As executive director for the Belgrade-based Centre for Applied Non-Violent Action and Strategies (CANVAS), he and his colleagues have worked to train activists in 46 countries in the face of repression and sometimes brutality. His organisation began working with some Egyptian and Tunisian protesters in 2009, teaching skills that helped bring down their presidents and spark regional revolt. I dont want to overstate what we do, he says, adding that the success of uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia was 100 percent down to brave Arabs. You cant import or export revolution, it has to be homegrown. But what we can do is build skills and help. Sometimes it takes time, sometimes you know it isnt going to work straight away. But there are always things you can do. He has coached protesters including those who brought about democratic reform and the ousting of a long-time autocrat in the Maldives, Syrias withdrawal from Lebanonand revolutions in former Soviet Georgia and Ukraine. But he has also seen uprisings fail and falter, sometimes outmanoeuvred by governments or stymied by internal divisions. Success, he says, takes effort and planning -- a lesson he repeatedly preaches to groups from Myanmar, Vietnam, Zimbabwe, Belarus and elsewhere in quietly organised small group sessions. We in Serbia learned the hard way because they were 10 years of attempts and others can learn from our mistakes, he told Reuters on a visit to London, during which he met Egyptian activists to discuss how to take their revolution forward. You really need three things: unity, planning and non-violent discipline. You need a strategy. There is no such thing as a successful spontaneous revolution. BOOKLET AND DVD CANVAS says it sees itself as the successor to a host of non-violent campaigners from Indias Mahatma Gandhi to Martin Luther King. It says it brings a more rigorous, strategic model and skill-set to the process, as well as an encyclopaedic knowledge of recent global protest history. Its booklet of 50 key points for non-violent struggle can be downloaded for free in six languages, while its documentary Bringing down a Dictator, telling the tale of Milosevics overthrow in 2000, has been translated into 19 different tongues.
Posted on: Fri, 03 Oct 2014 01:53:23 +0000
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