By Srdja Popovic and Mladen Joksic
Revolutions are serious business. But even the most somber of revolutionaries can’t afford outdated tactics. And whether in the Middle East, Russia, or elsewhere, the record is clear: rage alone no longer cuts it.
Today’s most successful activists are transforming their societies not through the power of their weapons, but through the strength of their wit. In the process, they are replacing traditional notions of revolutionary fervor with a new form of protest rooted in fun, satire, and good humor: “laughtivism.”
There are several reasons for an increasingly prominent role that humor plays in the arsenal of the 21st century protestor. For one, humor breaks fear and builds confidence. Second, it makes protest cool and helps a movement attract new members.
Finally, humor incites clumsy reactions from a movement’s opponents. All three effects are proving key for today’s most inspiring protest movements.
Breaking the Culture of Fear
It’s no secret that nondemocratic regimes often rule through fear. High profile regime critics are bullied, badgered, or worse. As a consequence, the fear of retribution keeps vocal activism at arm’s length.
Humor offers a low cost way to crack the façade of fear upon which so many dictators rely. Laughter, after all, is infectious. Once a dictator becomes fair game for the few, he or she becomes fair game for all.
This was the strategy honed and perfected by Serbia’s nonviolent movement, Otpor, in the run-up to the fall of Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic in October 2000.
In one of our most famous actions, we took an oil barrel, taped a picture of Milosevic to it, and set it up in the middle of Belgrade’s largest shopping district. Next to it we placed a baseball bat. Then we went for coffee, sat down, and watched the fun unfold.
Before long, dozens of shoppers lined the street, each waiting for a chance to take a swing at “Milosevic” — the man so many despised, but whom most were too afraid to criticize. About 30 minutes in, the police arrived. That’s when we held our breath, waiting for what would happen next.
They couldn’t arrest shoppers — on what grounds? And they couldn’t arrest the culprits — since we were nowhere to be seen. So what did Milosevic’s police do? Outraged by the blatant disparagement of the Serbian President, Belgrade’s police arrested the only culprit of the crime: the oil barrel!
The image of the two policemen dragging the barrel to their police car was the best photo shoot in Serbia for months. Milosevic and his cronies became the laughing stock of the nation. Soon after, similar acts of intransigence spread across the country.
What may have seemed like isolated acts of humor and defiance proved infectious, inspiring activists elsewhere. Before long, Otpor was able to transform from a small student group to a national movement boasting over 70,000 members.
Indeed, once the barrier of fear had been broken, Milosevic’s authoritarian machinery could do little to stop it.
Making Activism Cool
Let’s face it; direct political activism seldom catches fire among the masses. Instead, political apathy has become the hallmark of young generations in both non-democratic and democratic societies alike. Laughtivism offers a refreshing antidote to this apathy.
Today’s protestors understand that humor offers a low-cost point of entry for ordinary citizens who don’t consider themselves particularly political, but are sick and tired of dictatorship. Make a protest fun, and people don’t want to miss out on the action.
Take Egypt for example. In 2011, humor quickly became a central part of the anti-Mubarak communication strategy, serving two primary purposes. On the one hand, witty puns, biting caricatures, and snarky performances made it “cool” to come to Tahrir square and to be seen as politically active.
Every day, larger crowds and new faces joined the square’s protests — not only because they wanted to oust Mubarak, but also because they wanted to be a part of the “comic explosion” unfolding across the nation.
On the other hand, acts of humor and cunning reminded the outside world that Egypt’s protestors weren’t the “angry young men” and fervent radicals that the regime would have them believe.
Humor effectively communicated a positive image of the Egyptian uprising and won the sympathy of the international community.
Making Authorities Look Ridiculous
It rarely takes long before powerful elites lose touch with reality. After all, stare at one too many billboards of your own image, and you’re likely to take yourself just a little too seriously. Humor can be an invaluable tool to provoke authorities to do something stupid and give them a wakeup call.
The best acts of laughtivism confront autocrats with a dilemma: the government can either crack down on those who ridicule it (making itself look even more ridiculous in the process) or ignore the acts of satire aimed against it (and risk opening the flood gates of dissent).
Indeed, when faced with an act of brazen mockery, oppressive regimes have no good choices. Whatever they do, they lose. Take as another example Putin’s Russia. In early 2012—after local authorities barred public demonstrations—activists from the Siberian city of Barnaul staged a “toy protest.”
Instead of carrying anti-Putin placards themselves, activists laughtivists propped up teddy bears, Lego characters, and South Park figurines to carry their messages for them. The toy protest posed an uncomfortable predicament for Siberian authorities: on what grounds could they rationalize banning something as seemingly inconsequential as a Lego toy holding a sign?
Yet rationalize it they did. After confiscating the unsanctioned ‘protestors,’ Siberian authorities placed an official ban on all future toy protests on the ground that the toys were not Russian citizens, but were in fact, made in China. Thanks to their clumsy reaction, videos, images, and stories of their decision made national and international headlines.
Of course, just because laughter in nonviolent struggle is now common, it does not mean that it is easy. To the contrary, laughtivism requires a constant stream of creativity to stay in the news, headlines, and tweets, as well as to maintain a movement’s momentum.
In the effort to build a movement, laughtivism is neither an end goal nor a strategy—it’s a tactic within a larger theory of change. Without creativity and wit, laughtivism can wilt before a movement’s ambitions are met. And without discipline and sound judgment, mockery can quickly descend into chaos and violence.
So for those looking to laugh themselves to victory, keep your pencils sharp and your wit sharper, but please take a nod from Ghandi and King: planning, unity, and discipline remain as vital as ever. Movements.org
Srdja Popovic and Mladen Joksic are veterans of Serbia’s cutting-edge revolutionary movement Otpor
