My son recently engaged in nonviolent direct action when he took over the bathroom after he was denied dessert. I decided to escalate the level of nonviolence by threatening to deal with one's personal needs in his room. He relented and I ended up reading him Saul Alinsky's retelling of the threatened O'Hare Airport Poop-in . We both laughed very hard and a lesson was learned, hopefully.
All posts by James O'Keefe
1st Convention Game of By Will Alone
After two playtests of the rules, I finally ran a convention game using the By Will Alone rules at Havoc XXIII. The rules can be found at the rules website. While pictures from the game are here.
A good time was had by all, but more remains to be done including:
- polish the rule book;
- improve the winning conditions;
- possibly revise the conflict results to better deal with prolonged fraternization and the effectiveness of violence by authority forces;
- write up scenarios.
More on Lebanon
The link from SBS below about what is happening in (generally) nonviolent struggle in Lebanon hasn't been updated, so for more info I suggest you read Robert Fisk from the Independent in the UK.
By Will Alone rules / Havoc game playtests
I'll be running a play test of my nonviolent action rules, By Will Alone, on Sunday, April 1st. It will likely at my house.
On Sunday, April 15th, I will be running a play test of my Havoc game, In the shadow of Gdańsk, at the Hobby Bunker in Malden. Here is the game description:
Solidarność (Soldarity) rejoices its success at reversing Jaruzelski's attempt to impose martial law in Poland. While coup plotters flee to the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact invades. With NATO unable and unwilling to intervene, union workers and their allies ready
themselves to stop the onslaught with the only tools at their disposal: their wits and determination.
Please contact me if you would like to help play test the rules and/or game at jokeefe at(nospam) jamesokeefe dot org. Thanks!
Coverage of nonviolent attempt to topple Lebanese government
Sophie McNeill, a reporter with SBS Television Australia, has a blog with her reports on the nonviolent attempt to bring down the Lebanese government by Hezbollah and Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement. Her coverage seems pretty even handed.
Nonviolent action conferences in the Middle East
I found the article Nonviolence can work wonders – even in the Middle East from the Christian Science Monitor about a gathering of nonviolence activists in Jordan. Interesting article.
There was another gathering called Celebrating Nonviolent Resistance held in Bethlehem in December 2005. I found out about it from this conference update.
Free Nonviolent Struggle Guide and other resources
I went looking for a list of nonviolent struggles in the world and found the Center for Applied NonViolent Action and Strategies. They were formed by some of the people who organized the overthrow of Milosevic in Serbia in 2000. They have a useful (and free) guide for waging Nonviolent Struggle.
A few more good sites are:
- Nonviolence International
- Nonviolent Peaceforce
- Center for Global Nonviolence
- The Albert Einstein Institution
- International Center for Nonviolent Conflict
- PeacePower: Journal of Nonviolence and Conflict Resolution
I make no claim as to the ideology of these groups only that they have some useful information on practicing strategic nonviolent action.
Nonviolent action game update
A quick update on the game. I am in the midst of rewriting it and have the key game mechanics done. I borrowed some of the game mechanics from Crossfire, an innovative World War II company level miniatures combat game. The key things I borrowed from it are:
- No fixed turns. Players can continue to act while they have the initiative. When they lose the initiative, turn passes to the other player (or team of players).
- No measuring. Units move from feature to feature (street intersections for example) rather than fixed distances. Some units will be able to move more than one feature each time (i.e. vehicles).
My game also focuses much more on command and control than the previous version.
I also decided to change the title from With Weapons of Will to By Will Alone, though that isn't a definite.
I hope to start playtesting it in limited venues before January with larger play tests in January. I want to have a game ready for Havoc, a miniature gaming convention in Massachusetts in March.
Lakey on spontaneous nonviolence
Here's a note from nonviolent activist George Lakey about the Palestinian tactic of nonviolently stopping Israeli aircraft from bombing Palestinian leaders and activists (reported ). Matt Guynn posted it:
It's a great example of NV defense, though, innovative, and the kind of thing which, if I advocated as a US'er to some Palestinians I've known they would laugh it off as ridiculous because it wouldn't deter the IDF.
I love these spontaneous things that people come up with in the midst of struggle, even people basically committed to violent struggle, when they realize that (once again) nonviolent means are often more powerful than violent means.
Interesting nonviolent tactic used by Palestinians
Found this interesting article from the Guardian via Common Dreams: Palestinians use human shield to halt Israeli air strike on militants' homes. I believe that this tactic was also used by the Serbs to counter NATO bombings during the Kosovo War.