A three-hour training on how to change the world
How long? – 3 hours
Who? – social movement organizers
What? – strategies and tactics that organizations use to achieve social change they aim at
Format – training
How does change happen? How do we think change happens? How do we think that this particular change will happen? What do we need to do to make that change happen? In this strategy workshop the participants will explore what their underlying assumptions about activism are and whether their activities have been in accordance with their assumptions.
In this workshop we will discuss different theories of change that organisations have regarding different issues and analyse the strategies and tactics they use to achieve their goals. Then we will talk about conflict escalation, a tool that various “momentum-driven” movements have used in recent years.
You may well ask: “Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?” You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation.Letter from a Birmingham Jail, 16 April 1963, Martin Luther King Jr.