Components of a campaign
From WRIWiki
Common understanding
Is there a common understanding of the problem or situation that exists? Have we analysed why it exists? Does the analysis include the social, economic and political structures? Do we have a common understanding of what it means to have a nonviolent campaign? Do we have an agreed upon decision-making process?
Nonviolent Discipline
Have the organizers discussed and agreed to nonviolent principles? Are there nonviolence guidelines? Are these clearly stated for all to understand?
Research and Information Gathering
What do we know, what do we need to know? Are we searching for the truth, or just trying to “prove our side”? Who can gather the information we need? Who can guide us and provide sources? Research includes finding out how others think about the issue. Listening Projects Community Surveys www.listeningproject.info are one way to do that. Listening Projects help activists look deeper at an issue, gathering information to base future strategy on while developing a connection between those being interviewed and those listening. Listening projects have been done in the US, Croatia, Cambodia, and South Africa.
Education
Is the information understandable for the people we are trying to reach? A role of nonviolent activists is to take the research and put it in a form that can be widely used in a campaign, or facilitate people through that process. Are we using popular education and conscientization processes? Have we developed good educational materials, considering the different constituencies and allies we want to reach? What other educational processes can you use (i.e. street theatre)? How are we using the media to raise awareness?
Training
Do we need training to learn the skills to develop strategy and organize (i.e. group process, strategic planning, media work, etc?) Are we providing training to prepare people for nonviolent action? Is the training available to everyone? Do our trainings address issues of oppression and how we deal with them both in a societall context and within our groups and relationships. (See exercises in the Gender Section of this handbook )
Allies
Who are our allies, who might become allies or supporters if we communicate with them more? How do we reach out and build cooperative relationships to groups we want to work in coalition with? (Use the “Spectrum of Allies” exercise above to identify potential allies.)
Negotiation
Have we clearly identified who we need to negotiate with? How will we communicate with them? Are we clear what we want? Are clear our aims are not to humiliate our opponent but to work for a peaceful solution?
Constructive Work /Alternative Institutions
Gandhi saw constructive programme as the beginning of building the new society, even in the shell of the old. A key element of social change, it is designed to meet the needs of the population (i.e. economic equality, communal unity, development of local industries) and to develop community. Constructive work is often missing in campaigns in the West, and emphasized in the East. While we say “no” to an injustice, how do we say “yes”? How do we begin building the vision of what we are working towards?
Alternative Institutions may be temporary, such as setting up alternative transportation while boycotting a segregated/apartheid bus system.
Legislative and Electoral Action
Is legislative or electoral action an educational tactic or a goal of the campaign? How will you put pressure on politicians, how do you exercise your power? How will people participate in that action? What are the plans if your goals are not met?
Demonstrations
How can we best demonstrate our concerns? Have we considered the many methods of nonviolent action? (See “Forms of Action” in this handbook) Are we clear about the objectives of the demonstration and how that will help us reach our goals? How will we involve the public? Will our actions make sense to the local community?
Nonviolent Direct Action/Civil Disobedience/Civil Resistance
Have we done all we can to build support for our action? Will it encourage more community involvement or will it be counter-productive? How will it advance our cause rather than be an end in itself? Are our objectives clear? Will it put the kind of pressure on the adversary to move them? Who will it put pressure on?
In his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr wrote, “You may well ask, ‘Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches, etc? Isn’t negotiation a better path?’ You are exactly right in your call for negotiation. Indeed, this is the purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatise the issue that it can no longer be ignored.”
Exercise
Deconstruct the King Quote - Write the last two sentences of this quote up on the wall. Using the action that the participants are preparing for, ask them to identify the crisis, the creative tension, the community, how they can dramatise the issue.
Reconciliation
“As a way of engaging in conflict, sometimes nonviolence attempts to bring reconciliation with it: strengthening the social fabric, empowering those at the bottom of society, and including people from different sides in seeking a solution.” (WRI Statement of Principles) Have we been working for a win-win, rather than a win-loose situation? Is the reconciliation public or private? (In some successful nonviolent campaigns in the US Civil Rights Movement white businessmen asked that the integration of restaurants be done without a public statement to avoid a negative reaction, while in other cases there was a public event that demonstrated the desegregation of a system.)
Celebrate
When we reach our goals, we need to celebrate our accomplishments. People should take time to recognize what we have done. Sometimes we reach beyond our goals, or accomplish other goals, and don’t take the time to understand that. And we do not always make progress in reaching our goals. It’s important to evaluate our campaigns, to document our successes and failures, to learn from when we take our next steps towards our next goal. And to share that with others so we can learn from each other. Recognize that some people may be burned-out and need a break, but you also need to keep up the momentum that a victory produces.
