Resistance Studies

Stellan Vinthagen May 27th, 2007

The overthrow of the dictator Milsovic in Serbia represents a truly interesting case for students of revolution, in that it happened so genuinly peaceful and popular. In a sense it represents what today within revolution studies are called the “new revolutions” (started by the revolutions in Nicaragua and Iran but made clear for everyone during the 1989/1990 wave of revolutions in Eastern Europe and Soviet Union). The film “Bringing Down a Dictator” is a documentary that describes the whole process (more info about how to get it here). I think we all have something to learn from the Serbian experience.

Generally the revolution in Serbia was made possible through the a combination of social forces:

1: The student movement Otpor (which means “Resistance”) with their carachteristic use of humour in their actions, in which they broke the main base of the power system: ordinary peoples’ fear of the regime. Otpor used creativly symbols, music and actions in order to portray Milosovic as a dictator opposed to the Serbian people’s interest and democracy. They used parades, grafitti, commercials, flyers, new years celebrations, etc. in order to convey their message. They might be understood as the cultural resisters who break the regime of fear.

2: The democratic alliance of opposition parties (about 18 of them which earlier were fighting each other now united in their demand for democracy) during the election. With the help of political advisers from the US State Department they improved their performance and also made their own independent counting of the votes in order to make the frauds of the regime more difficult. The democratic alliance can be described as the realistic and democratic political alternative.

3: Then there were workers resistance and especially the miners from the industry that served the major part of the energy of the country. Thousands of miners joined in a strike closed the work and made the mine stand still. Later, when the strikes spread, closer the the revolution of the 5th October a general strike made the impact of this workers based resistance really felt. So, they were the economic resistance.

4: Like in many struggles the cities, especially the capital are at the centre. But thanks to the strong support of several opposition groups in the country side (e.g. Otpor and the opposition parties) it was possible already after about ten days to mobilise several hundreds of thousands in the capital. People were coming in from all over the country in car and bus caravans. They even brought bulldozers with them in order to be prepared to break through police barricades…This was the literal demonstration of the support of the people of Serbia.

5: And, as far as I understand, it was important that several people inside the opposition kept communication with the only real source of strength of the regime: the police and the military. By continous dialogue and attempt to win key people of the police and military over to the side of the opposition they knew all along the demonstration of the 5th of October what was going on. E.g. they realised that the police would put up barricades but would not defend them and that there were several members of the police that would refuse to obey orders to use violence. And since the opposition consciously decided not to use any violence against the police and by behaving friendly to them (greeting them, talking to them, smiling, etc) they wanted to show that they were welcome to come over to the opposition. I don’t know how extensive this became but I think the attempt was really interesting and significant for the strategy. This was the important attempt to create a opposition-police/military relationship.

If you take all this together it seems like a good blueprint for bringing down any dictator…

(Disclaimer: of course this is only a quick and impressionistic analysis of the revolution, but I got inspired to share my thoughts, feel welcome to correct me or add information on the case or analysis).

Within our network there is one researcher, Jorgen Johansen (that is “jj” in the different blog entries below…), who is doing extensive research on the Serbian case, some of his work is published and more will come. He compares different nonviolent revolutions around in the world and Serbia is one of his main cases. Email him directly if you want to know more about this trend of peaceful revolutions or the Serbian case: jj _ ahimsa @ hotmail. com (without spaces when you type the address).

Then we are all hoping to get the first entry by one member who is an expert on Otpor: Majken Sorensen. We will see when that comes…

• Civil Disobedience , Democracy , Nonviolent Action , Resistance , Revolution , Uncategorized
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