Last Friday, the topic of our discussion was the three stages of political campaigning but we also focused on the stages of campaigns related with social change.
When it comes to the actions of social movements, there are two kinds of tactics that are used by protesters : Violent Tactics(which are more militant) and Non Violent Tactics.
“Nonviolent action are techniques outside of institutionalized behavior for social change that challenges an unjust power dynamic using methods of protest,noncooperation, and intervention without the use or threat of injurious force.”(Daniel Hunter,The Power of Nonviolent Direct Action)
People that inspired millions of people to protest and campaign with non violent actions were Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King.Both were in favor of tactics that can bring social change through a positive way.
The excibition”Disobedient Objects” that I visited at Victoria & Albert Museum reflected in practice the Non Violent Tactics which we discussed in the class . This excibition shows how simple everyday objects have been used by protests since the 1970s in order to convey their messages and also protect themselves from the authorities. Thus it portrays Non Violent Tactics.
As the curator of the excibition(Gavin Grindon) mentioned at BBC: “The idea was to collect together the objects of art and design from activist social movements over the last 30 years,” “it’s part of an important area that we should be paying attention to.”
I have to admit that I got really impressed from the objects that I saw.The important and interesting thing about them, is that they were made as a quick response to a crisis.Of course I don’t remember every single object, nevertheless I would like to write about some that really attracted my attention .
To begin with, the first objects that I saw were the badges which were worn by Poles in the Soviet Union as a movement of support to illegal radio broadcasts.The idea was quite clever because the badges have a really small size so Poles were wearing them but at the same time they were able to hide them.
Also, when it comes to more recent movements I saw great examples of innovation and also humour .One example is the inflatable cobblestones which were used against the police in the 2012 May Day protests in Barcelona and Berlin. Another example is the placards which were used in protests like those against tuition fees in UK. The slogans that were used were really clever thus they immediately catched the eye of the media.
Furthermore there was a great number of video clips with protests from many areas of the world such us Middle East and Japan, showing how violent was the state and the authorities with them.
Last but not least a concept that really attracted me was the use of protesters’ bodies in order to resist against the authorities, in 1989 ,during forest protection blockades in Australia. The interesting thing is that the creators of the objects that were used in order to resist against the authorities,which were actually lock-on devices, made “how-to” guides and finally these objects were spread globally as a tool of non-violent action.
When it comes to the methods of Non Violent Tactics , I have to say that many of them were represented in this excibition.More specifically there were great examples of non-violent tactics such as :
- dressing up
- rallies
- print materials(placards,posters etc)
- audio and visual materials
- reports
- logos
- slogans
Media, Campaigning and Social Change 