War has been a part of my life since I can remember. I was born in Afghanistan, just six months after the Soviets invaded, and even though I was too young to understand what was happening, I had a deep sense of the suffering and the fear around me.
Rat je deo mog života otkad pamtim. Rođena sam u Avganistanu, samo šest meseci nakon sovjetske invazije i iako sam bila suviše mala da razumem šta se dešavalo, duboko sam bila svesna patnje i straha koji su me okruživali.
Those early experiences had a major impact on how I now think about war and conflict. I learned that when people have a fundamental issue at stake, for most of them, giving in is not an option. For these types conflicts -- when people's rights are violated, when their countries are occupied, when they're oppressed and humiliated -- they need a powerful way to resist and to fight back. Which means that no matter how destructive and terrible violence is, if people see it as their only choice, they will use it. Most of us are concerned with the level of violence in the world. But we're not going to end war by telling people that violence is morally wrong. Instead, we must offer them a tool that's at least as powerful and as effective as violence.
Ta rana iskustva su imala velik uticaj na to kako razmišljam o ratu i konfliktu. Naučila sam da kad se radi o ključnim pitanjima za ljude, za većinu predaja ne dolazi u obzir. Kod ovog vida konflikta - kad su ljudska prava ugrožena, kad su im države pod okupacijom, kad su ugnjetavani i ponižavani - potreban im je moćan oblik otpora i borbe. Što znači da bez obzira na to koliko je destruktivno i užasno nasilje, ako ljudi gledaju na njega kao na jedini izbor, koristiće ga. Većina nas je zabrinuta zbog stepena nasilja u svetu. Ali nećemo okončati rat, govoreći ljudima da je nasilje moralno pogrešno. Umesto toga, moramo da im ponudimo oruđe koje je bar podjednako moćno i delotovorno kao i nasilje.
This is the work I do. For the past 13 years, I've been teaching people in some of the most difficult situations around the world how they can use nonviolent struggle to conduct conflict. Most people associate this type of action with Gandhi and Martin Luther King. But people have been using nonviolent action for thousands of years. In fact, most of the rights that we have today in this country -- as women, as minorities, as workers, as people of different sexual orientations and citizens concerned with the environment -- these rights weren't handed to us. They were won by people who fought for them and who sacrificed for them. But because we haven't learned from this history, nonviolent struggle as a technique is widely misunderstood.
Ovo je moj posao. Proteklih 13 godina podučavam ljude u najtežim situacijama širom sveta kako mogu da koriste nenasilnu borbu da upravljaju konfliktom. Većina ljudi povezuje ovaj vid delanja sa Gandijem i Martinom Luterom Kingom. Ali ljudi koriste nenasilno delanje već hiljadama godina. Zapravo, većina prava koja danas imamo u ovoj državi - kao žene, kao manjine, kao radnici, kao ljudi različitih seksualnih orijentacija i građani zabrinuti za okolinu - ta prava nam nisu dodeljena. Stekli su ih ljudi koji su se borili za njih i koji su se žrtvovali za njih. Ali kako nismo naučili iz ove istorije, nenasilna borba kao veština je na široko pogrešno shvaćena.
I met recently with a group of Ethiopian activists, and they told me something that I hear a lot. They said they'd already tried nonviolent action, and it hadn't worked. Years ago they held a protest. The government arrested everyone, and that was the end of that. The idea that nonviolent struggle is equivalent to street protests is a real problem. Because although protests can be a great way to show that people want change, on their own, they don't actually create change -- at least change that is fundamental.
Nedavno sam upoznala grupu aktivista iz Etiopije i rekli su mi nešto što često čujem. Rekli su mi da su već isprobali nenasilno delanje i da nije delovalo. Pre nekoliko godina su imali protest. Vlada je pohapsila sve i tu je bio kraj tome. Zamisao da je nenasilna borba jednaka uličnim protestima je istinski problem. Jer iako protesti mogu da budu sjajan način da se pokaže da ljudi žele promene, sami za sebe, neće zapravo stvoriti promene - bar ne temeljne promene.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
Powerful opponents are not going to give people what they want just because they asked nicely ... or even not so nicely.
Moćni protivnici neće dati ljudima to što žele samo zato što lepo pitaju... ili čak ne tako lepo.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
Nonviolent struggle works by destroying an opponent, not physically, but by identifying the institutions that an opponent needs to survive, and then denying them those sources of power. Nonviolent activists can neutralize the military by causing soldiers to defect. They can disrupt the economy through strikes and boycotts. And they can challenge government propaganda by creating alternative media.
Nenasilna borba deluje uništavajući protivnika, ne fizički, već prepoznavanjem institucija koje su nužne za opstanak protivnika, a potom uskraćivanjem tih izvora moći. Nenasilni aktivisti mogu da neutrališu vojsku tako što teraju vojnike na dezerterstvo. Mogu da poremete ekonomiju preko štrajkova i bojkota. I mogu da izazovu vladinu propagandu stvarajući alternativne medije.
There are a variety of methods that can be used to do this. My colleague and mentor, Gene Sharp, has identified 198 methods of nonviolent action. And protest is only one. Let me give you a recent example.
Postoji više metoda koje se mogu koristiti za to. Moja koleginica i mentorka, Džin Šarp, identifikovala je 198 metoda nenasilnog delovanja. A protesti su samo jedan od njih. Navešću vam skorašnji primer.
Until a few months ago, Guatemala was ruled by corrupt former military officials with ties to organized crime. People were generally aware of this, but most of them felt powerless to do anything about it -- until one group of citizens, just 12 regular people, put out a call on Facebook to their friends to meet in the central plaza, holding signs with a message: "Renuncia YA" -- resign already. To their surprise, 30,000 people showed up. They stayed there for months as protests spread throughout the country. At one point, the organizers delivered hundreds of eggs to various government buildings with a message: "If you don't have the huevos" -- the balls -- "to stop corrupt candidates from running for office, you can borrow ours."
Do pre nekoliko meseci, Gvatemalom su vladali korumpirani bivši vojni zvaničnici sa vezama s organizovanim kriminalom. Ljudi su uopšteno bili svesni toga, ali se većina osećala nemoćno da bilo šta uradi po tom pitanju - sve dok jedna grupa građana, prosto običnih 12 ljudi, nije objavila poziv prijateljima na Fejsbuku da se okupe na centralnom trgu, držeći znakove s porukom: "Renuncia YA" -- dajte ostavke već jednom. Na njihovo iznenađenje, pojavilo se 30,000 ljudi. Ostali su tu mesecima dok su se protesti širili zemljom. U jednom momentu, organizatori su isporučili stotine jaja različitim vladinim zgradama s porukom: "Ako nemate 'huevos'" - jaja - "da sprečite korumpirane kandidate da se kandiduju za ministarstva, možete da pozajmite naša."
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
(Applause)
(Aplauz)
President Molina responded by vowing that he would never step down. And the activists realized that they couldn't just keep protesting and ask the president to resign. They needed to leave him no choice. So they organized a general strike, in which people throughout the country refused to work. In Guatemala City alone, over 400 businesses and schools shut their doors. Meanwhile, farmers throughout the country blocked major roads. Within five days, the president, along with dozens of other government officials, resigned already.
Predsednik Molina je odgovorio, zaklinjući se da se nikad neće povući. I aktivisti su shvatili da ne mogu prosto da nastave s protestima i da traže ostavku od predsednika. Moraju da mu ukinu izbor. Pa su organizovali generalni štrajk, u kom su ljudi širom zemlje odbili da rade. Samo u gradu Gvatemala, preko 400 firmi i škola je zatvorilo svoja vrata. U međuvremenu su zemljoradnici širom zemlje blokirali važnije puteve. Za pet dana predsednik zajedno sa desetinama drugih vladinih zvaničnika je dao ostavku.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)
I've been greatly inspired by the creativity and bravery of people using nonviolent action in nearly every country in the world. For example, recently a group of activists in Uganda released a crate of pigs in the streets. You can see here that the police are confused about what to do with them.
Veoma me inspirišu kreativnost i hrabrost ljudi koji nenasilno delaju u skoro svim zemljama sveta. Na primer, nedavno je grupa aktivista u Ugandi oslobodila kavez svinja na ulice. Ovde vidite zbunjenost policije jer ne zna šta da radi s njima.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
The pigs were painted the color of the ruling party. One pig was even wearing a hat, a hat that people recognized.
Svinje su obojene bojama vladajuće stranke. Jedna svinja je čak nosila šešir, šešir koji je ljudima prepoznatljiv.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
Activists around the world are getting better at grabbing headlines, but these isolated actions do very little if they're not part of a larger strategy. A general wouldn't march his troops into battle unless he had a plan to win the war. Yet this is how most of the world's nonviolent movements operate. Nonviolent struggle is just as complex as military warfare, if not more. Its participants must be well-trained and have clear objectives, and its leaders must have a strategy of how to achieve those objectives.
Aktivisti širom sveta su sve bolji u pridobijanju naslova, ali ove izolovane delatnosti malo pomažu, ako nisu deo veće strategije. General ne bi marširao sa svojim trupama u bitku, ako nema plan za dobijanje rata. Ipak, ovako većina svetskih nenasilnih pokreta radi. Nenasilna borba je jednako složena kao i vojno ratovanje, ako ne i više. Učesnici moraju da budu dobro obučeni i da imaju jasne ciljeve, a njihove vođe moraju da imaju strategiju kako da postignu te ciljeve.
The technique of war has been developed over thousands of years with massive resources and some of our best minds dedicated to understanding and improving how it works. Meanwhile, nonviolent struggle is rarely systematically studied, and even though the number is growing, there are still only a few dozen people in the world who are teaching it. This is dangerous, because we now know that our old approaches of dealing with conflict are not adequate for the new challenges that we're facing.
Tehnika ratovanja je razvijana tokom hiljada godina uz ogromne resurse i neki od naših najvećih umova su bili posvećeni razumevanju i unapređenju ratne delatnosti. U međuvremenu, nenasilna borba je retko kad sistematski izučavana, pa iako su brojevi sve veći, svega imamo nekoliko desetina ljudi u svetu koji to predaju. Ovo je opasno jer sad znamo da su naši stari pristupi bavljenju konfliktima neadekvatni za nove izazove s kojima se suočavamo.
The US government recently admitted that it's in a stalemate in its war against ISIS. But what most people don't know is that people have stood up to ISIS using nonviolent action. When ISIS captured Mosul in June 2014, they announced that they were putting in place a new public school curriculum, based on their own extremist ideology. But on the first day of school, not a single child showed up. Parents simply refused to send them. They told journalists they would rather homeschool their children than to have them brainwashed.
Vlada SAD-a je nedavno priznala da je u pat poziciji u ratu sa ISIS-om. Ali većina ljudi ne zna da se ljudi suprotstavljaju ISIS-u putem nenasilnog delovanja. Kad je ISIS zauzeo Mosul u junu 2014, objavili su da uvode novi plan rada u javne škole zasnovan na njihovoj ekstremističkoj ideologiji. Ali prvog dana škole, nijedno dete se nije pojavilo. Roditelji su prosto odbili da ih pošalju. Rekli su novinarima da će radije da kući obrazuju svoju decu nego da im ispiraju mozgove.
This is an example of just one act of defiance in just one city. But what if it was coordinated with the dozens of other acts of nonviolent resistance that have taken place against ISIS? What if the parents' boycott was part of a larger strategy to identify and cut off the resources that ISIS needs to function; the skilled labor needed to produce food; the engineers needed to extract and refine oil; the media infrastructure and communications networks and transportation systems, and the local businesses that ISIS relies on? It may be difficult to imagine defeating ISIS with action that is nonviolent. But it's time we challenge the way we think about conflict and the choices we have in facing it.
Ovo je primer samo jednog čina otpora u samo jednom gradu. Ali šta kad bi bio koordinisan sa desetinama drugih činova nenasilnog otpora koji se vode protiv ISIS-a? Šta kad bi bojkot roditelja bio deo šire strategije da bi se prepoznali i osporili resursi koji su potrebni ISIS-u da bi delovao; kvalifikovani radnici koji proizvode hranu; inženjeri neophodni za vađenje i preradu nafte; medijska infrastruktura i komunikacijske mreže i transportni sistem i lokalne firme na koje se ISIS oslanja? Možda je teško zamisliti pobedu nad ISIS-om putem nenasilnog delovanja. Ali je vreme da dovedemo u pitanje način razmišljanja o ratu i koje izbore imamo kad smo suočeni s njim.
Here's an idea worth spreading: let's learn more about where nonviolent action has worked and how we can make it more powerful, just like we do with other systems and technologies that are constantly being refined to better meet human needs. It may be that we can improve nonviolent action to a point where it is increasingly used in place of war. Violence as a tool of conflict could then be abandoned in the same way that bows and arrows were, because we have replaced them with weapons that are more effective. With human innovation, we can make nonviolent struggle more powerful than the newest and latest technologies of war. The greatest hope for humanity lies not in condemning violence but in making violence obsolete.
Evo ideje vredne širenja: saznajmo što više o tome gde je nenasilno delanje delovalo i kako možemo da ga učinimo moćnijim, baš kao što radimo s drugim sistemima i tehnologijama koje se stalno prerađuju kako bi bolje zadovoljile ljudske potrebe. Možda možemo da poboljšamo nenasilno delovanje do tačke gde bi se sve češće koristilo umesto rata. Nasilje kao oruđe konflikta bi onda moglo da bude napušteno na isti način kao lukovi i strele jer smo ih zamenili delotvornijim oružjem. Ljudskim inovacijama možemo učiniti nenasilnu borbu moćnijom od najnovijih i poslednjih tehnologija rata. Najveća nada za čovečanstvo ne leži u osudi nasilja, već u njegovom prevazilaženju.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Apaluz)