Nonviolent Action Network

An Analytical Overview of the Application of Gene Sharp’s Theory of Nonviolent Action in Milosevic’s Serbia

Introduction:

Here is the analysis of the contribution of nonviolent methods, practiced by Narodni Pokret Otpor (People’s Movement Resistance), to the uprising that ended the13 year-long reign of President Slobodan Milosevic’s regime. Foreign and domestic analysts have already written at length about the October revolution in Serbia. However, they generally failed to carefully consider the role of Gene Sharps’ groundbreaking strategic model for nonviolent action and Otpor’s application of Sharp’s model – this article aims to fill this important gap in the literature. It is curious that Sharp’s work received so little attention because, especially in the last year, Otpor (Resistance) received considerable attention in the Yugoslav and international press.

In an attempt to show the key role that nonviolent social action could play in the democratization of regions with a history of internecine and seemingly intractable conflict, it is crucial to outline an import section of Sharp’s theory – the sources of political power in any society. Next, using these insights, here you can see the strengths and weaknesses of the regime and the democratic opposition, two main political actors in Serbia prior the raise of a nonviolent movement. A separate section shows how Otpor fit into this dour picture. This constitutes the first, shorter part of the presentation. The second, longer part, more or less chronologically outlines how Otpor developed and how much Sharp’s work offered an astoundingly effective blueprint for confronting a brutal regime while engaging the population into a pluralist, nonviolent struggle for self-liberation.

Before commencing with the analysis, for completeness sake it seems appropriate to mention briefly what Otpor was. It began its work in Belgrade in October 1998 as a nonviolent student movement that gathered many of the students active during the panegyric1996 student protests. From its inception, Otpor!’s symbol was a clenched fist, designed by Duda, a young Belgrade graphic designer (known to state authorities and bureaucracies as Nenad Petrovic); the clenched fist remained the most recognizable artifact produced by Otpor! and will likely remain the movement’s lasting contribution to post-Titoist symbolic culture.

1. Gene Sharp on the Six Sources of Power in Society

Gene Sharp begins his treatise on how to use nonviolent methods in political struggles by arguing that in any society there exist seven sources of political power. These include:

1. Authority, defined as “the right to issue a command and the willingness of people to

positively respond to that command.”

1. Human Resources (HR), defined as individuals who actively cooperate with the regime (or the nonviolent movement).

2. Skills and Knowledge, defined as the HR’s skills and esoteric know that enable and facilitate rule.

3. Material Resources, defined as the regime’s control of the distribution of scarce resources and the creation of wealth.

4. Sanctions, defined as positive and/or negative incentives at the disposal of the regime that further compliance with its commands.

5. Intangible Factors, defined as the sum of immaterial factors, such as beliefs, values, and mental habits, that affect the regime’s mandate and ability to rule. In Milosevic’s Serbia, perhaps the most salient intangible factor was the belief in the impossibility of political change.

As the foregoing analysis shows, each actor relied on a different combination of these factors to further their goals. The elegance of this conceptualization of the sources of power lays in its applicability to virtually any society.

1. A Comparative Overview of the Strengths and Weaknesses of Milosevic’s regime, and the social position and capabilities of the political opposition, and Otpor

Authority remained Milosevic’s main source of power throughout his reign. Though established firmly in the late 80’s “happening of the people,” it eroded slowly but steadily as, for example, evidenced by the results of every election after the first presidential and parliamentary elections in 1990. In the aftermath of NATO’s bombing camping (Spring ’99), as social and economic deprivation increased, the regime not only had access to fewer material and human resources, but the regime’s and Milosevic’s own authority declined precipitously. To maintain stability, instead of seeking some kind of accommodation with his opponents at home if not with those from abroad, Milosevic applied harsher and harsher sanctions against citizens — graphically testifying of his growing weakness.

Rather than focusing on undermining his authority, those working to overthrow him, including Serbia’s opposition political parties, focused on mobilizing popular support against Milosevic. As instances of anti-regime mobilization like the student protests in ’92 and in ’96 suggest, this strategy had major flaws. Prominent among them was the fact that the democratic opposition in Serbia, though organized in a number of coalitions, remained internally divided. Infested by Milosevic’s “divide and rule” strategy, and bitterly struggling for primacy, they posed little threat to him if he waited out the initial surge of popular support for the opposition. Not surprisingly, such a “unified” opposition failed to articulate a model for political action that would motivate a significant number of citizens to become politically active. Furthermore, its disunity helped the regime to maintain its stability.

2. Otpor: From a Traveling “Street Theater” to a National Nonviolent Movement

A careful analysis, heavily influenced by Sharp’s theory, of the existing conditions and of the likely shifts in the balance of power between the three main actors (i.e., the regime, the democratic opposition, and NGOs) marked the beginning of Otpor’s struggle in the period after NATO’s strike. Widespread discontent was readily visible but it needed channeling into constructive social action. To achieve this, Otpor initially organized a series of undemanding nonviolent actions. These included high-minded actions like “The Wall of Truth” as well as intentionally humorous actions that overturned and mocked Milosevic’s authority. Early actions of this sort included “A Cake for the President” in which Otpor activists joyously presented Milosevic a huge papermache cake to celebrate his 12^th birthday (20 August) in power, and “Slobo, you’re being eclipsed” during the August 1999 solar eclipse.

Apart from capturing the imagination of the public and appearing on number of cover pages of several popular papers and magazines, these seemingly benign actions also launched in Milosevic-controlled public space a new model for social action – the demonstrative exercise. With little in the way of human and material resources, college students and high-school kinds showed to millions of citizens how to send a message to their saturnine ruler. Concurrently, the symbol of discontent of the citizenry slowly became the clenched fist – the symbol of Otpor.

Following the “discipline of the message” model, Otpor’s meticulously planned and highly choreographed actions had the effect, reinforced through their exposure in mass media outlets, of an ongoing demonstrative exercise. With every instance of individual resistance that journalists reported and ordinary people observed, a larger part of the population saw in increasingly shorter intervals how they, too, could resist the regime. Otpor’s actions showed the discontent of the Serbia’s citizenry with Milosevic’s regime and with the ineffective democratic opposition. Actions also challenged ordinary people to do something, themselves, wear t-shirts, pass-out leaflets, spray paint slogans, about the condition of the body politic. What is more, the actions did this – nonviolently. A most formidable threat to the regime, the commencement of a national nonviolent movement, quickly grew.

The creation of Otpor’s strategy and the development of Otpor’s essential sources of power came about fairly quickly as the idea of Otpor spread to a large number of cities in Serbia. By focusing on concrete local problems, and by appearing in public with a certain, almost aggressive assertiveness, Otpor recruited activists slowly but steadily. With more recruits Otpor scored more and more “small victories” and attracted more and more domestic and foreign public attention. The struggle against the regime, thus, slowly enlisted the “third sector,” that is perfectly ordinary citizens of Serbia who gradually enlisted in a movement without a leader or a clear hierarchy. Coordinated strings of meetings and petitions, fiery public appearances, and literally tons of propaganda material, as well as draining student marches across Serbia all cumulatively contributed to the steady but discernible raise in Otpor’s main source of power, authority.

Concurrently, Milosevic’s main source of power, his authority, declined steadily but surely. The democratic opposition’s authority remained in check because of its near legendary rivalries and incessant meetings; by contrast, Otpor insisted on defining its authority as being rooted not in erudite parlance but in decisive deeds. Dramatic confirmations of this, such as the commemoration of the first anniversary of NATO’s bombing with a coordinated posting of some 50,000 posters in 63 towns and cities simultaneously (the whole action lasted exactly an hour), amounted to a formidable show of strength. The regime had to respond. Arrests of activists commenced.

With arrests under way Otpor’s human resources, though a source of power that increased continually because of a systematic drive to recruit volunteers, needed reinforcement. It was necessary to build up another source of power, namely the skills and knowledge of Otpor activists. The “Otpor Human Resource Center” appeared and began to work. Starting with only a few experienced activists, and thanks to the selfless work of some dozen well-trained instructors led by Zorana Smiljanic, the Center quickly developed its own training programs. Activists across Serbia thus leaned new applied skills (e.g., campaigning, preparing and printing materials, public speaking), and gained valuable theoretical knowledge (e.g., sources of power in society, strategic non-violence, conversion of the adversity, accommodation techniques). Target-group and regional training programs, and Otpor’s public actions that functioned as a unique demonstrative exercise for the whole nation, formed the foundation blocks of a nation-wide nonviolent strategy during the spring of 2000.

Key moments in the development of the aforementioned sources of power, human resources and skills and knowledge, were the initiation of Otpor’s own training program, as well as a training program for Otpor activists set-up in Budapest, Hungary. In Budapest, old hands in nonviolent activism like Bob Helvay, exposed some 30 Otpor activists (including the author of this text) to Gene Sharps’ monumental The Politics of Nonviolent Action and provided them with invaluable practical training. The spirit of nonviolent action, already let out of the bottle in Serbia, could now assume a concrete shape – a strategically positioned nonviolent movement on the national level.

Starting from individual actions in hundreds of places across Serbia, trained activists started leading blockades of roads, local marches, and sit-in strikes. Sedulous attention to local conditions both reinforced Otpor’s commitment to non-centralized decision making and offered a powerful incentive for participation (passive if not active) to a people fed-up with a highly centralized regime and opposition. Large-scale nonviolent social disobedience slowly became common place. It naturally culminated during the October revolution into a general strike. The general strike embodied the realization of one of Otpor’s key aims, itself embodied in the slogan “The People are Otpor” (“Narod je Otpor”). From 24 September, the day of elections Milosevic lost in the first round until 5 October, the day citizens liberated their parliament the people were Otpor.

3. Including the “Third Party”

The inclusion of what Sharp refers to as the “third party,” in Otpor’s case this meant the people of Serbia, proceeded along the well-known model of nonviolent action. In Milosevic’s Serbia, the mode of communication with the people favored by the political elites remained the bombastic leader. Otpor chose to communicate with the people through a symbol – the clenched fist – and by offering them the ideology of “individual Otpor,” reinforced by concerted efforts to convince the people that they are themselves key to regime change. Clear slogans in a very disciplined and gradual way, aimed to motivate the citizenry (e.g. slogans like “Otpor! do Pobede!” [“Resistance! util Victory!”] and “Otpor! jer volim Srbiju!” [“Resistance! because I love Serbia!”]), and to represent the growing authority of the movement (e.g., “It’s spreading!”, and “The People are Otpor!”)

On the ground, a battle commenced for control over every millimeter of media space to say nothing about physical space. The low costs of Otpor’s propaganda materials, such as posters, handouts, stickers, and graffiti, easily and cheaply covered all available spaces for messages in virtually every municipality. As important, the use of only black and white shades on all propaganda material solidified “brand recognition” – like it or not, everyone knew what Otpor materials looked like. Despite the far superior material resources of the regime and, to a lesser extend, of the democratic opposition, Otpor managed to a surprising extent to shape, if not to control, the “terms of the debate.”

Ceasing to represent to the regime merely a traveling circus, the small student ground grew beyond the wildest expectations of Serbia’s despondent citizenry and of representatives of the international community. The regime found itself in a quandary: what should it do with the new adversary. And, just as the history of nonviolent movements teaches, the regime decided wrongly. Now, sanctions and repression appeared on the scene.

4. The Regime Strikes Back – Sanctions at Work

Soon after the first wave of arrests in March 2000, the regime commenced with the broadest police action organized in Milosevic’s Serbia. Apart from detaining or arresting thousands of Otpor activists, frequently for self-evidently banal reasons like the wearing of Otpor t-shirts, the regime organized a garrulous media blitz and public events. Prominent state officials depicted young freedom fighters as, to quote one pernicious phrase, “terrorists, fascists, and NATO’s infantry.”

Otpor adapted to these difficult conditions by developing a new action plan. Two incidents made this paramount. First, on 2 May bodyguards of Milosevic’s son, Marko, brutally beat three Otpor activists in Milosevic’s hometown, Pozarevac. Especially after the regime officially accused Otpor of murdering Bosko Perosevic, a high official in the Vojvodina branch of Milosevic’s SPS, Otpor developed a model for surviving the repression and for engaging the “third parties” fully. Otpor thus responded adequately to regime’s direct confrontation with Otpor. The repressive conditions and increasing pressure almost forced Otpor to go “underground.” Given that almost all of its most active members remained under 24-hour police surveillance, this ad hoc “hidden leadership” broke-up into small cells. Vertical and even horizontal communication within the movement became reduced to coded messages.

Excellent training, commendable discipline, and the high commitment of activists to the movement, as well as the mystique that the movement’s ideology exuded enabled communication with coded messages. The “underground” model for action worked admirably. Despite engaging whole sections of the secret police and despite mass arrests of activists, the regime always remained a step behind. With each day that Otpor survived and appeared to thrive in its direct confrontation with the regime, its authority and public support increased.

The regime progressively relied on its last source of power – sanctions. In fact, fear became the key pillar of support for the regime in the period after May 2000. Fear, an important weapon in the sanctions arsenal, ought to have spread among the people with every threat issued, with every aggressive propaganda campaign, and with the application of increasingly brutal and arbitrary sanctions. This failed to happen, certainly not to the extent that made reliance on it cost-effective since fear functions as a double-edged blade. It is a formidable reason for obedience, but if used as a legitimization technique it may disintegrate rapidly under certain conditions. Once this process commences it is irreversible.

Needless to stress, the basic task of the movement in this period consisted of adapting to its new work conditions. The nonviolent strategy implemented during the first summer days under conditions of virtually complete repression was three-pronged. First, fear control training started before the regime’s strike. Activists had no doubts that the police would arrest them, and, accordingly, they received detailed instructions about what to do when arrested. Second, humor became an increasingly feature in actions. On a strategic level, this emphasis on humor in otherwise moribund, kitsch and propaganda saturated public space proved farsighted. Actions became silly and benign. Their lighthearted content made the inevitable arrests of activists all the more senseless – arresting neighborhood kids for clowning around on the streets because of their “subversive, terrorist actions” simply made no sense to any normal parent or grandparent. Lastly, a renewed emphasis was placed on unity and solidarity. Arrests, beatings, and confiscation made this an absolute necessity: in more that 500 instances, persistent and massive protests occurred in front of police stations while they interned activists inside. The activists saw that not only their movement supports them, more importantly, they saw – as did their captors — that their community supports them.

Woven into the larger the three-pronged strategy were a whole array of less visible threads that fortified it. For instance, one small act that deligitimized the regime nonviolently with great efficacy was that activists issued identical statements upon their release. While exiting the police station, they all cited the words of Jorge Luis Borhes, “Force is the last refuge of the weak.” To the citizenry, this assertion in effect sent the message that the regime breaths its last breaths, and that the repression is simply self-evident proof of this.

Lastly, the effects of the regime’s direct confrontation with the movement were defined within a strategy of presenting Otpor as the national victim number one. As is well known, persecution and victimization inspires the sympathies and, sometimes outright conversions of some members of the regime that, in turn, created in Milosevic’s ranks an “internal opposition.” Quickly after the repression began Otpor had at its disposal a network of supporters within various layers of the regime and access to strategic information like Milosevic’s next moves. A whole12 days before the official announcement, Otpor knew when the presidential elections would be scheduled. During those 12 days, the movement had ample time to design and prepare a negative campaign – “Gotov je!” (“He’s finished!”) – as well as a get out to vote campaign – “Vreme je!” (“It’s time!”) Both campaigns were ready for launching exactly one day after the official announcement of elections. While the democratic opposition attempted to agree upon a suitable presidential candidate, a massive quantity of Otpor’s propaganda material systematically saturated Serbia and its electorate.

5. The Last Showdown or A Clash Between The Different Sources of Power: The Intangible Factor and HR V. Authority and Sanctions

The scheduling of elections in August Otpor saw as the last showdown. The initial parameters were set: the campaign against Milosevic needed to embolden the electorate and to convince them to vote in large numbers, and this had to be achieved under impossible conditions. A system of covert command chains and a chain of hidden depots with campaign materials enabled a stable supply of materiel to all local branches – in all some 4.5 million pieces of campaign material were distributed. Ceaseless police raids and confiscation proved disastrously ineffective.

From a strategic point of view, the campaign “He’s Finished!”, doubtless the most accepted political campaign ever carried out in Serbia, shaped the showdown between the two respective sources of power of the regime and of Otpor. On its side, Otpor played on the intangible factor, that is on the agency of idea that the Dictator was finished when enough people though he was in fact finished. Second, Otpor utilized its superior HR. In the last phases of the campaign, an awesome 25,000 activists and citizens risked their safety daily by distributing material, posting stickers and writing graffiti. For its part, the regime played on sanctions and fear. With every new arrest, however, the other source of power of the regime, Milosevic’s authority, dissipated precipitously, and this only increased the movements power.

The remarkable response of the voters and the triumph of the democratic opposition’s candidate in the first round of voting led to the regime’s patently predictable next moves – denying the election results. The next logical step of the movement was to ride on the wave of national energy and to train as many people on the local level in effective techniques of nonviolent action. This, in a situation where some 2.5 million voters exuded a sense of outrage, amounted to a routine task. A series of blockades that stopped the traffic in all of Serbia, followed with appropriate propaganda-educational material, such as stickers asserting “Blockade!,” “Barricade!,” and “You won’t pass!”), hundreds of planned and spontaneous local meetings of citizens and student marches culminated in the events of 5 October. 5 October represents a tactically exemplary instance of nonviolently coercing the regime into give-up power.

Strategic nonviolence played a part in the process of destroying the regime’s authority in the eyes of the military and the police obviously exists, though the details remain murky. It thus remains to be determined to what extent did the withholding of obedience to Milosevic of these key mechanisms of repression have as its proximate cause the nonviolent strategy of Otpor and to what extent was the inaction of these coercive institutions rooted in sheer incompetence of its leadership. This much appears certain. The sedulous nonviolent strategy of Otpor constitutes a key component in the mobilization of the citizenry against the dictatorial regime of Slobodan Milosevic and it represents a genuine historical instance where nonviolent methods triumphed against a nondemocratic regime.

31 January 2001, Belgrade

For Otpor’s analytical team,

Srdja Popovic