Mundane and creative ways of protest -Abu Muaj & Khandoker Adnan Eshfat

An opposition is no opposition when it is not creative enough to befool the oppressive people in power. A regime must be weighed in properly so that it can be repaid in the same coin by the people out of power corridor. A defender of people or human rights must be stronger than those in power and is abusing the rights. A weak or feeble defender of human or animal rights is no defender against a mighty offender.
But regimes of the world are getting creative too even staying in power. So in absence of strong opposition, regimes with their creativities and equipping themselves in a way that oppositions across the world are failing to guess the despots’ and authoritarian governments’ collusion or blueprint to overstay in power.
The regimes are either using police and army or judiciary and media columns to rob people of their franchising power or voting rights. There are a lot more of their strategies the undemocratic governments are adopting. A creative way of one regime is inserting poison in dissent’s undergarment like those of Russian regime which planted poison in opposition leader Navalny’s underwear.

Common and mundane forms of oppositions include rally, demonstration, human chain, protest procession, mobilisation of opinion through newspaper article writing, social media posts, text message, wall writing, graffiti spraying, raising the issue with international forum, burning the despots in effigies, putting down cameras for journalists, tractor procession or blockade by farmers like those of India etc.
But funding academics abroad, arrangement of tour of academicians, shedding blood to express certain emotions, ‘flyover protest’ like those of Myanmar or Palestinian Sunbird protest of Khaled Jarrar are some of the creative ways though they are already used by different opposition groups.
For protest fingers are used too to express voices of the dissent to regimes. The rabaa or rabbi’ah sign is a hand gesture that appeared in late August 2013 in Egypt, and used in social media and protest marches against dethroning of democratically elected Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi by country’s army general Abdul Fattah Sisi.
Since Myanmar’s military seized power on February 1 by ousting Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government, there have been growing civil protests with three-finger salute displayed by pro-democracy activists, a symbol of resistance that was also seen in demonstrations against the monarchy of King Maha Vajiralongkorn in Thailand.
Dresses sometimes are used as a weapon of demonstration. Thailand and Malaysia saw red-shirt and yellow-shirt movements. Long before the red-shirt movements in these ASEAN countries, Abdul Gaffar Khan in 1930 started a red-shirt revolution aiming at the independence of Indian subcontinent from the grip of British empire. Wearing black badge is another form of protest all over the world.

Some protests are weird: In March 2013, students at England’s University of Sheffield invaded a careers fair and staged a protest against one of the exhibitors by playing dead. The stunt, which the Fund Education Not War group claimed responsibility for, was an inventive move aimed against Thales, an arms and military vehicle manufacturer. The move was staged to oppose what the protestors called the university’s “continued liaison with arms companies responsible for the murder of innocents around the world.” Students lay around the Thales stand at the fair clad in fake blood-soaked shirts, and although the protest was a peaceful one, they were eventually removed with force by members of the university’s security team.

Blood shedding at BUET:

On September 3, 2012, some demonstrating students and teachers of the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), seeking ouster of their Vice-Chancellor and Pro-Vice Chancellor, took blood out of their bodies using syringes and spread it on stairs in front of the VC office. They termed this programme as ‘voluntary blood shedding’ and the movement aimed the corrupt duo. After the procession, they spread the collected blood on the stairs in front of VC Professor S M Nazrul Islam’s office around an hour later.
Academicians have listed all these types of protests in six broad categories in “Dynamics of Collective Action” project probably best articulated the individual to mass protest characteristics. Those are as they came mostly to common:
1) Literal, symbolic, aesthetic and sensory –Some protests are staged in an artistic, dramaturgical, and symbolic displays such as ‘street theatre’, ‘dancing’, etc. including use of images, objects, graphic art, musical performances, or vocal or auditory exhibitions such as ‘speech-making’, ‘chanting’, etc.
2) Solemnity and the sacred – These sort of protests include vigils, prayer, or rallies, in the form of religious service, candlelight vigils, cross or coffin bearing etc.
3) Institutional and conventional –Institutionalised activity or activity highly dependent on formal political processes and social institutions such as ‘press conferences’, ‘lawsuits’, ‘lobbying’, etc. often conflated with non-confrontational and nonviolent activities in research as the other or reference category.
4) Movement in space – This type of protest is most common type. In such protest demonstrators march or parade between one spatial-temporal location to another, with beginning or ending places sometimes chosen for symbolic reasons.
5) Civil disobedience – In such protest people cease to withhold obligations, stage sit-ins, create blockades, occupy key installation, hang banners, set up camps, etc. These are all specific activities which constitute the tactical form of civil disobedience. In some way, these activities directly or technically break the law.
6) Collective violence and threats – Collective violence includes pushing, shoving, hitting, punching, damaging property, throwing objects, verbal threats, etc. Collective violence is usually committed by a relative few out of many protesters (even tens of thousands). It is rare in occurrence and rarely condoned by the public or onlookers ‘particularly the media’. Usually met with equivalent or overwhelming force in response by authorities.

From time immemorial people are learning the ways or modes of protest and always wanted to be creative. But in modern age, many institutions have come forward to track the protests staged across the world. Albert Einstein Institution is one of them which has found there are around 200 modes of nonviolent protests and persuasions. They are given below:

Formal Statements
1. Public Speeches
2. Letters of opposition or support
3. Declarations by organizations and institutions
4. Signed public statements
5. Declarations of indictment and intention
6. Group or mass petitions
Communications with a Wider Audience
7. Slogans, caricatures, and symbols
8. Banners, posters, and displayed communications
9. Leaflets, pamphlets, and books
10. Newspapers and journals
11. Records, radio, and television
12. Skywriting and earthwriting
Group Representations
13. Deputations
14. Mock awards
15. Group lobbying
16. Picketing
17. Mock elections
Symbolic Public Acts
18. Displays of flags and symbolic colors
19. Wearing of symbols
20. Prayer and worship
21. Delivering symbolic objects
22. Protest disrobings
23. Destruction of own property
24. Symbolic lights
25. Displays of portraits
26. Paint as protest
27. New signs and names
28. Symbolic sounds
29. Symbolic reclamations
30. Rude gestures
Pressures on Individuals
31. “Haunting” officials
32. Taunting officials
33. Fraternization
34. Vigils
Drama and Music
35. Humorous skits and pranks
36. Performances of plays and music
37. Singing
Processions
38. Marches
39. Parades
40. Religious processions
41. Pilgrimages
42. Motorcades
Honoring the Dead
43. Political mourning
44. Mock funerals
45. Demonstrative funerals
46. Homage at burial places
Public Assemblies
47. Assemblies of protest or support
48. Protest meetings
49. Camouflaged meetings of protest
50. Teach-ins
Withdrawal and Renunciation
51. Walk-outs
52. Silence
53. Renouncing honors
54. Turning one’s back

THE METHODS OF SOCIAL NONCOOPERATION

Ostracism of Persons
55. Social boycott
56. Selective social boycott
57. Lysistratic non-action
58. Excommunication
59. Interdict
Noncooperation with Social Events, Customs, and Institutions
60. Suspension of social and sports activities
61. Boycott of social affairs
62. Student strike
63. Social disobedience
64. Withdrawal from social institutions
Withdrawal from the Social System
65. Stay-at-home
66. Total personal noncooperation
67. “Flight” of workers
68. Sanctuary
69. Collective disappearance
70. Protest emigration (hijrat)

THE METHODS OF ECONOMIC NONCOOPERATION: ECONOMIC BOYCOTTS

Actions by Consumers
71. Consumers’ boycott
72. Non-consumption of boycotted goods
73. Policy of austerity
74. Rent withholding
75. Refusal to rent
76. National consumers’ boycott
77. International consumers’ boycott
Action by Workers and Producers
78. Workmen’s boycott
79. Producers’ boycott
Action by Middlemen
80. Suppliers’ and handlers’ boycott
Action by Owners and Management
81. Traders’ boycott
82. Refusal to let or sell property
83. Lockout
84. Refusal of industrial assistance
85. Merchants’ “general strike”
Action by Holders of Financial Resources
86. Withdrawal of bank deposits
87. Refusal to pay fees, dues, and assessments
88. Refusal to pay debts or interest
89. Severance of funds and credit
90. Revenue refusal
91. Refusal of a government’s money
Action by Governments
92. Domestic embargo
93. Blacklisting of traders
94. International sellers’ embargo
95. International buyers’ embargo
96. International trade embargo

THE METHODS OF ECONOMIC NONCOOPERATION: THE STRIKE

Symbolic Strikes
97. Protest strike
98. Quickie walkout (lightning strike)
Agricultural Strikes
99. Peasant strike
100. Farm Workers’ strike
Strikes by Special Groups
101. Refusal of impressed labor
102. Prisoners’ strike
103. Craft strike
104. Professional strike
Ordinary Industrial Strikes
105. Establishment strike
106. Industry strike
107. Sympathetic strike
Restricted Strikes
108. Detailed strike
109. Bumper strike
110. Slowdown strike
111. Working-to-rule strike
112. Reporting “sick” (sick-in)
113. Strike by resignation
114. Limited strike
115. Selective strike
Multi-Industry Strikes
116. Generalized strike
117. General strike
Combination of Strikes and Economic Closures
118. Hartal
119. Economic shutdown

THE METHODS OF POLITICAL NONCOOPERATION

Rejection of Authority
120. Withholding or withdrawal of allegiance
121. Refusal of public support
122. Literature and speeches advocating resistance
Citizens’ Noncooperation with Government
123. Boycott of legislative bodies
124. Boycott of elections
125. Boycott of government employment and positions
126. Boycott of government depts., agencies, and other bodies
127. Withdrawal from government educational institutions
128. Boycott of government-supported organizations
129. Refusal of assistance to enforcement agents
130. Removal of own signs and placemarks
131. Refusal to accept appointed officials
132. Refusal to dissolve existing institutions
Citizens’ Alternatives to Obedience
133. Reluctant and slow compliance
134. Non-obedience in absence of direct supervision
135. Popular non-obedience
136. Disguised disobedience
137. Refusal of an assemblage or meeting to disperse
138. Sitdown
139. Noncooperation with conscription and deportation
140. Hiding, escape, and false identities
141. Civil disobedience of “illegitimate” laws
Action by Government Personnel
142. Selective refusal of assistance by government aides
143. Blocking of lines of command and information
144. Stalling and obstruction
145. General administrative noncooperation
146. Judicial noncooperation
147. Deliberate inefficiency and selective noncooperation by enforcement agents
148. Mutiny
Domestic Governmental Action
149. Quasi-legal evasions and delays
150. Noncooperation by constituent governmental units
International Governmental Action
151. Changes in diplomatic and other representations
152. Delay and cancellation of diplomatic events
153. Withholding of diplomatic recognition
154. Severance of diplomatic relations
155. Withdrawal from international organizations
156. Refusal of membership in international bodies
157. Expulsion from international organizations

THE METHODS OF NONVIOLENT INTERVENTION

Psychological Intervention
158. Self-exposure to the elements
159. The fast
a) Fast of moral pressure
b) Hunger strike
c) Satyagrahic fast
160. Reverse trial
161. Nonviolent harassment
Physical Intervention
162. Sit-in
163. Stand-in
164. Ride-in
165. Wade-in
166. Mill-in
167. Pray-in
168. Nonviolent raids
169. Nonviolent air raids
170. Nonviolent invasion
171. Nonviolent interjection
172. Nonviolent obstruction
173. Nonviolent occupation
Social Intervention
174. Establishing new social patterns
175. Overloading of facilities
176. Stall-in
177. Speak-in
178. Guerrilla theater
179. Alternative social institutions
180. Alternative communication system
Economic Intervention
181. Reverse strike
182. Stay-in strike
183. Nonviolent land seizure
184. Defiance of blockades
185. Politically motivated counterfeiting
186. Preclusive purchasing
187. Seizure of assets
188. Dumping
189. Selective patronage
190. Alternative markets
191. Alternative transportation systems
192. Alternative economic institutions
Political Intervention
193. Overloading of administrative systems
194. Disclosing identities of secret agents
195. Seeking imprisonment
196. Civil disobedience of “neutral” laws
197. Work-on without collaboration
198. Dual sovereignty and parallel government

Without doubt, a large number of additional methods have already been used but have not been classified, and a multitude of additional methods will be invented in the future that have the characteristics of the three classes of methods: nonviolent protest and persuasion, noncooperation and nonviolent intervention.
Spirit of protest is also inbuilt in piety. Musa (PBUH) protested at the Pharaoh people inflicting pain on commoners. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said, “Man raya minkum munkaran fal yougayyiru biyadihi, faillam yastati’ fabi lisanihi, faillam yastati’ fabi qalbihi. Jalika adwaful iman.” “Whoever among you sees evil, let him change it with his hand. If he is unable to do so, then with his tongue. If he is unable to do so, then with his heart, and that is the weakest level of faith,” he said.