When the spark ignites

Sometimes a nation or a people feel such humiliation and anger about the way they are being treated that it takes only one incident to spark off a protest which makes the prevailing regime crumble. It’s said that one picture is worth (variously) a thousand or ten thousand words - although, these days, I would put the equation at more like a billion words and I would focus on dramatic actions - rather than pictures.  

Last month I discussed a neglected classic which explored the question of how people such as Jesus Christ and Mahatmi Gandhi came to inspire the world….Emile Zola’s famous J’Accuse letter may have been more than a hundred years ago but inspired one of the western world’s first social movements – which split France in half.
Saul Alinsky’s writings set in motion several generations of community activists. A black woman refused in December 1955 to obey racist instructions to move to the back of a bus…- thereby starting what became the US Civil Rights movement…….Police brutality has often been the cause of riots eg the Watts Riots of August 1965 in Los Angeles.

But it was probably Jan Palach’s act of setting himself on fire on 16 January 1969 in the centre of Prague (in protest against people’s indifference to the Russian invasion in the summer) which made the greatest impact. His memory stayed alive for the 20 years it took for the country to liberate itself……

 93-year old Stephane Hessel was so offended by the world’s treatment of Palestine (amongst other things) that in 2010 he published Time for Outrage (2010) which quickly climbed to the top of the best sellers….
Later that same year Mohamed Bouazizi - a Tunisian street vendor – also set himself alight in response to the confiscation of his wares by a municipal official and her aides. The subsequent riots led the then-president of Tunisia, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to step down on 14 January 2011, after 23 years in power – and became a catalyst for the wider Arab Spring.

For every such defining moment, however, there are probably a million protests which lead nowhere….. The focus of protests have been variously industrial, racial, environmental, gender, housing, invasion. What, I have to wonder, makes the difference?

In all humility I wonder whether those Romanians who have taken to the street in the past couple of years - or even those such as Dorel Sandor and Alina Mungiu-Pippidi - should perhaps not be using that experience and literature to explore more deeply that basic question…..

Romania may have had blood on the streets in December 1989 but – unlike Poland and Czechoslovakia - its intellectuals were fairly passive until then (with the honourable exception of people like Ana Blandiana and Mircea Dinescu).

Social change, after all, doesn’t come from writing, consultancy or television appearances – but from a willingness to sacrifice…… Please understand that I’m not denigrating the writers when I say that – they are necessary but not sufficient. That’s clearly one of the messages which comes from the books I’ve selected for the important reading list I’ve developed below….

How, sub-consciously, we compartmentalise the world

It’s interesting what happened as I was developing this reading list……I knew that what I wanted to do was list some of books I had found useful in what is a massive literature on the experience and tactics of social struggle….ie a grassroots movement…..But I found references slipping in which I quickly realised didn’t fit……..which dealt what we might call “reform efforts from within the system of power”…..eg the World Bank titles and the Guide to Change management….. This blog has noticed repeated instances of people writing about the same issue but doing so with totally different language, concepts and “frames of reference” and – most importantly – without realising that there were “parallel universes” in which the same conversations were being conducted….

Having noticed this, I remembered the post I had done a year ago - Is it people who change systems - or systems which change people? – in which I had recounted the “pincer movement of change” I had developed in the 1970s. This argued that significant and lasting policy change required both “push and pull” – ie a combination of grassroots pressure with insiders sympathetic to change….Twenty five years later and in a different continent I developed what I called the “opportunistic” or “windows of opportunity” theory of change which I would expound to bewildered central Asian  bureaucrats…. 

“Most of the time our systems seem impervious to change – but always (and suddenly) an opportunity arises. Those who care about the future of their society, prepare for these “windows of opportunity”. And the preparation is about analysis, mobilisation and trust.

- It is about us caring enough about our organisation and society to speak out about the need for change.

- about taking the trouble to think and read about ways to improve things 

– and helping create and run networks of such change.

- And it is about establishing a personal reputation for probity and good judgement that people will follow your lead when that window of opportunity arises”.

 Reading list on social change

The selection is a very personal one and ranges from the passionate to the technical – with a  smattering of books that are more descriptive…..Temperamentally I go (at least these days) for the more analytical (and generic) works and the development literature is therefore probably a bit overrepresented (and the feminist underrepresented). Readers should also be aware that I was a strong community activist in my early days….

The first 8 titles can be read in full – as can the last 4. Strange that none of the books is written by a political scientist (with the possible exception of Gene Sharp). Machiavelli would be turning in his grave

Key Books for “social change” activists

Title	Focus	Notes
How Change Happens Duncan Green (2016)	Community groups and officials	Great overview – if from only a development experience perspective
A Guide to Change and Change Management for Rule of Law Practitioners (2015)	Transition countries Political culture	Very rare attempt to bring the insights of change management to those trying to build “rule of law” in transition and developing countries
People, Politics and Change - building communications strategy for governance reform (World Bank 2011)	Change agents in government	One of the best – straddling the various worlds of action, academia and officialdom – with the focus on fashioning an appropriate message and constituency for change
Finding Frames – new ways to engage the UK public in global poverty (2011)	Charities	A great example of frame analysis – showing the importance of trying to identify the link between social values and politics
Indignez-vous; Stephane Hessel (2010)	Social justice	Inspiring pamphlet from the Frenchman whose whole life has been an inspiration to us all
Common Cause – the case for working with our cultural values (2010)	Activists for global concerns	One of the most important 100 pages any social activist could read….it’s simply tragic that 8 years later, it would now be seen as revolutionary
Governance Reform under Real-World Conditions – citizens, stakeholders and Voice (World Bank 2008)	Change agents in government	A decade on, it’s still offers one of the clearest frameworks for making government systems work for people
Wicked Problems and clumsy solutions – the role of leadership; Keith Grint (2008)	leaders	A must-read analysis which introduced many people to frame analysis - helps us adopt a more holistic approach
Live Working, Die Fighting – how the working class went global; Paul Mason (2007)	trade unionists	A story that needed telling in a media and political world which is now so hostile to working people organising to improve their lot
Blessed Unrest – how the largest movement in the world came into being and why no one saw it coming; Paul Hawken (2007)	Environment	This is the field which has probably seen the most action – but the least results!
Change the World; Robert Quinn (2000)	Eclectic	A tragically neglected book
From Dictatorship to Democracy – a conceptual framework for liberation; Gene Sharp (1993)	Regime change	The handbook for a lot of soi-disant revolutionaries….its provenance is a bit suspect….
Putting the Last First; Robert Chambers (1983)	Donors	A morally powerful book which challenged (to little avail) the “imperialist” assumptions of most technical assistance programmes
Rules for Radicals; Saul Alinsky (1971)	Community action	THE handbook for generations of activists… the follow-up apparently to Reveille for Radicals which he published in 1946!

Occupy theory; is the first volume of a 3 vol series written by Michel Albert to mark the Occupy movement, the others being Occupy Vision and Occupy Strategy

When I googled “reading lists on social protest” I got this interesting selection https://c4aa.org/2017/02/reading-list-activism/