“If we want our world to be more beautiful, kind and just, then our activism should be beautiful, kind and just,” says Sarah Corbett, founder of the Craftivist Collective and headteacher of the School of Gentle Protest.

This March and April, the organisation I’m working with – 1215.today, an online platform that engages young people with political and social issues – partnered with Sarah to deliver The School of Gentle Protest, a six-week curriculum of vlog-based lessons, learning resources and homework covering the gentle protest movement.

“Gentleness is not a weakness, it’s about treating everyone how you would like to be treated, whether they are a victim, perpetrator or bystander,” says Sarah. “It’s about encouraging them to be their best self and improve our world for all. Gentle protest has been used effectively throughout history for long term change by people like Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. They never demonised anyone and not only helped change laws but hearts and minds too.”

If we want our world to be more beautiful, kind and just, then our activism should be beautiful, kind and just

So, why do we need it? I’d like to suggest seven reasons:

1. It’s time for a change

The effectiveness of old protesting techniques is limited. Often they are not the correct approaches for certain issues. Marching, for example, can raise awareness and provide catharsis, but it is too often followed by very little real progress. Moisés Naím, writing in The Atlantic, suggests: “Aerial photos of the anti-government marches routinely show an intimidating sea of people furiously demanding change. And yet, it is surprising how little these crowds achieve. The fervent political energy on the ground is hugely disproportionate to the practical results of these demonstrations.”

As Sarah suggests, isn’t it time that activism better reflected the kind of world people are trying to create?

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2. It’s clever

In today’s media-saturated world, the heavily-wrought analytical infrastructures upon which our opinions rest are primed for a gentler approach. Marshall Rosenberg, the late US psychologist and mediator, believed that ‘a difficult message to hear is an opportunity to enrich someone’s life’. Starting in the early 1960s, Rosenberg developed Nonviolent Communication, a process for resolving conflict within people, in relationships, and in society.

Rather than getting bogged down in analysis, Rosenberg’s approach crystallised the core of conflicts: he focused on creating empathy and resolution rather than anger.

3. It can help make you friends

Building on Rosenberg’s idea about the enriching potential in ‘difficult’ viewpoints, the gentle protest approach encourages us to make ‘critical friends rather than aggressive enemies’. Taking the example of an acquaintance making a sexist joke, John-Paul Flintoff (a journalist including for Positive News, and a teacher in ‘the art of conversation’) advises us to ask questions in a friendly way.

For example: “Wow, did you mean for that to sound so rude?” By asking open-ended questions you can keep the mood amiable and express your true feelings. Anger can further alienate people and solidify their opposing views. But coaxing them into a self-revelation is more likely to allow them to digest the situation and carry their new perspective through to their own interactions.

4. It lasts

From signing online petitions to applying filters to profile pictures, there are myriad ways to mark the activist tick box from home. However, their immediacy can mean that, though well intentioned, these methods are not supported by the thoroughness of thought that serious issues require.

A vital string in the gentle protester’s bow is craftivism, in which people use craft as a tool for influencing long-term change. Craft involves a certain level of focus and solitude, and the calmly formed musings that come out of these moments of reflective making can carry through to our lives more profoundly than a few clicks online might. The products of craftivism are also so unusual that they evoke a unique level of engagement from those who see them. Fostering an ongoing relationship with someone as their critical friend allows deeper, lengthier connections to be made than those you might forge with an aggressive enemy.

5. It works

In 2015, the Craftivist Collective partnered up with ShareAction, a charity dedicated to responsible investment. They wanted to address the Marks & Spencer’s board members at their AGM and put the Living Wage on the retailer’s agenda. Armed with 14 Marks & Spencer handkerchiefs customised with messages tailored to each board member, the Craftivists let their gifts set the tone of the conversation. Marks & Spencer’s chairman said the campaign was ‘a test case for how these campaigns should be run’ clarifying that it was the manner and tone of their approach that made the board so willing to meet in private and chat. Marks & Spencer eventually increased their staff pay above the Living Wage, a move owed in part to the positive attention the handkerchief campaign drew. Marks & Spencer increased their staff pay to the Living Wage and Craftivist Collective is now campaigning for Marks & Spencer to achieve Living Wage Employer accreditation.

6. It’ll save you money (and make you look cooler)

Another concept discussed during the School of Gentle Protest’s term has been that of visible mending. Breaking away from the wasteful consumerist treadmill borne of fast fashion and expendable incomes, is Tom van Deijnen, founder of Visible Mending.

Introverts, extroverts, talkers, doers and thinkers; gentle protest can come in every size and shape

He lists the benefits of mending your clothes so that people can see the repair work, literally wearing your values on your sleeve. Although it’s not a conservative look, the results are certainly eye-catching and can breathe new life into your worn and torn items. The more visible your mending, the more likely a conversation about slow fashion and ethical manufacturing or buying practices is to happen. (And the less money you spend on new clothes!)

7. Anyone can do it

Some of the great champions of peaceful protest, such as Gandhi, are extraordinary in part due to their oratory abilities and resilience to pressure. But simply marching – parading your values in public – can prove too daunting for some people. Anyone can pick from the array of techniques covered by the School of Gentle Protest. Introverts, extroverts, talkers, doers and thinkers; gentle protest can come in every size and shape.

To read more about the concept of gentle protest, visit 1215.today

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The post The art of gentle protest appeared first on Positive News.

We’ve heard a lot about social movements in recent times, and, in particular, protest movements. From the ‘Indignados’ in Madrid to those who occupied Wall Street and brought about the Arab Spring, protesters – especially those from the millennial generation – are everywhere.

However, millennials have quickly realised that while protesting can help to tear down systems, it isn’t as effective in building new ones. Meanwhile, institutions have realised the immense power that millennials have, and how much of that we all need to create change. As a result, the two have been working together through a new kind of movement: conscious movements.

Conscious movements bring together the energy of the millennial generation with the gravitas of the people and institutions who already have a seat at the table. They create a powerful combination that brings together old and new power, online and offline interactions and global reach with local impact.

Combining old and new power

“Millennials have quickly realised that while protesting can help to tear down systems, it isn’t as effective in building new ones.”

Many people talk about ‘new power’, which is more open and participatory than ‘old power’, which is often seen as closed and hierarchical. It may seem that these two types of power are completely incompatible, but conscious movements manage this tension and turn it into an opportunity.

The Global Shapers Community, part of the World Economic Forum, brings together Global Shapers under 30 years old with the CEOs and world leaders who go to Davos (an annual global meeting of political and business leaders) each year. Shapers take part in cross-mentorship schemes where they learn from world leaders, and these leaders, in turn, learn from the Global Shapers.

Connecting on and offline

Conscious movements recognise the importance of both online and in-person meetings. In a world that emphasises online interactions over in-person gatherings, conscious movements flip this logic on its head.

Lean In is a conscious movement launched by Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer. It encourages women to further their careers by launching Lean In Circles, in-person gatherings where women discuss their professional challenges, seek advice and share resources. Lean In’s website provides women with the tools to create and manage meetings, access expert videos (for professional development during meetings) and interact with other Circles nearby. But the focus remains on building trust through small, in-person meetings.

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Bridging global and local

Even though the world is more global than ever before, most of our daily contact still takes place locally. Of all the telephone-calling minutes in the world last year, only two percent were cross-border calls and the average person consumes just one to two percent of their news on foreign sites.

“Conscious movements make the most of both the global and the local.”

Conscious movements make the most of both the global and the local. Online global community +SocialGood unites change-makers around the power of innovation and technology to make the world a better place. Globally connected influencers work with +SocialGood to share ideas of what’s working in global development and adapt it to their local communities. The upcoming 2015 +SocialGood Summit will take place in New York on 27 and 28 September during the United Nations’ General Assembly week, but through +SocialGood, over 100 local meet-ups will take place around the world, including in the Philippines, Rwanda and Tunisia.

At a time where we’re looking for solutions, conscious movements play a key role. By bridging the millennial generation with the people and institutions in power, conscious movements bring about the best of old and new power, on and offline organising, and global and local influence in order to address society’s biggest challenges.

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Beardy, dressed in skin-tight grey and barely pausing for breath, Russell Brand addressed the crowd at the People’s Assembly march on Saturday with customary rock star zeal.

Striding onto the stage, charmingly flirtatious and studiously dishevelled, it was difficult to gauge what reception he might get. Because among the estimated 50,000 people who had turned up were families I spoke to who can’t afford to spend any time together, people who told me they were making choices between paying for heating or food; men and women feeling worn out, afraid and fed up.

The day felt engaged, but largely ‘anti’. This was about anti-austerity and angry placards. Music and togetherness yes – but against something, not for something. Last to speak on a line-up of mainly trade union bosses and stalwarts, it was uncertain how Brand would relate to this crowd. But he did.

© Lucy Purdy

“I know there are no answers in fame, fortune or superficial pleasures,” he said. “I know that the answers and happiness come when we connect with one another, when we join together to look after one another. It’s time for us to take back our common unity. This will be a peaceful, effortless, joyous revolution.”

Several of the other speakers anticipated Brand’s focus on the positive. Disability rights campaigner, comedian and author Francesca Martinez said: “We need to redefine what is sacred. To me, life is beautiful and precious. We are not economic commodities. We are all here for, and we have an equal right to, happiness, health and opportunity.”

“We must have a message of hope, of courage and of solidarity,” added author and political commentator Owen Jones.

Brand helped cement this vocabulary, and in doing so, he changed the tone. He reinstated the importance of having a positive vision for the future, not simply a denunciation of what we’ve got. He wasn’t ignoring people’s suffering – Ann from Cardiff who told me her benefits had been cut, or Angela from Liverpool whose son can’t afford the bus to college – but actually coming at the problem from the most human of angles. The best way to reject a system that allows these things to happen is to envisage a new and better one, and nurture the values that will underpin it.

It isn’t just Brand and others from the anti-austerity march who are making these connections; the language of change is shifting. Author and environmentalist George Monbiot proved himself capable of painful self-reflection last week when he said that saving the world should be based on promise, not fear.

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“I’ve been engaged in contradiction and futility. For about 30 years,” he wrote. “Almost everyone in this field is motivated by… the love and wonder and enchantment nature inspires. Yet, perhaps because we fear we will not be taken seriously, we scarcely mention them. We hide our passions behind columns of figures.”

Whipping up people’s fears, Monbiot explained, triggers an instinctive survival response, nurturing self-interest instead of the common good. He now realises that hope inspires people and is most likely to prompt positive action.

Many people seem to exist in this precarious spot: feeling a profound love for our world, but with horror and fear often eclipsing their joy

What a simple, yet game-changing shift. Because this negativity epidemic is evident in so many areas of life: in the mainstream media, in a political system which seems incapable of articulating any sort of positive vision, even in schools, when the food chain is taught in terms of the accumulation of pesticides instead of the beautiful diversity of life and where waterways are taught through our pollution of them.

My own experience tells me this is true. When I think about a lot of protests, the aims of which I often share but which hang heavy with the language of rejection and anger, I feel hopelessness. When I think about things I love, walking in a beautiful wood, being outdoors with friends and family, I feel hopeful and excited about the future. Many people seem to exist in this precarious spot: feeling a profound love for our world, but with horror and fear often eclipsing their joy.

Brand is not the answer, but he might be a fast-talking, hip-waggling conduit to an answer for some. But for most, the shift to believing in a more beautiful world will come from deep inside ourselves. From doing what we love, from cherishing the people and the planet we hold dearest, and from acting from our most human and intrinsic values.

Done with each of our own deeply personal, sexy brands of rock star passion, much seems possible.

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There aren’t many people who can say they’re proud to have been thrown into a Russian jail, but Frank Hewetson is one of them. The wiry, 45-year-old veteran Greenpeace logistics co-ordinator casts troubled eyes downwards when he remembers hearing the sobs of his teenage daughter, Nell, over the crackly line of a Soviet-era prison phone. But he’s unable to repress a gleeful grin when he talks about the campaign that landed him behind bars.

Hewetson, a Londoner, was one of the ‘Arctic 30’, a group of 28 Greenpeace activists and two journalists who were arrested at gunpoint by masked Russian security agents in September 2013, while staging a peaceful protest against the efforts of the giant Russian energy corporation Gazprom, to start the Arctic’s first offshore oil rig.

The group’s 100-day ordeal, which saw activists threatened with piracy charges before finally being released in late December, drew comparisons to the 1985 Rainbow Warrior bombing. The media furore helped make Greenpeace’s Save The Arctic campaign one of the most successful in the organisation’s 42-year history, sparking more than 800 protests in 46 countries, netting 5m petition signatures, and triggering a surge in new memberships and donations. Greenpeace says around half of all protesters mobilised worldwide were taking action for the first time and describes the scrutiny focused on oil companies since the Arctic 30 were imprisoned in the frozen city of Murmansk, as “unprecedented”.

Speaking to Positive News days after Royal Dutch Shell’s CEO Ben van Beurden announced the firm would not attempt to drill in the Alaskan Arctic this year, Hewetson said the campaign succeeded beyond his wildest dreams: “There were difficult moments in incarceration – a whole period of doubt and darkness – but I never once regretted it. What we went through revitalised the organisation and repositioned Greenpeace, particularly with a view to the effectiveness of direct action.”

“There were difficult moments in incarceration – a whole period of doubt and darkness – but I never once regretted it” – Frank Hewetson

“There was no particular genius to it, no highfalutin media guru who came along and told us what to do. I think it worked because we suffered and because Greenpeace communicated that well. People recognised how strongly we felt about our cause and respected that we suffered for it with pride and dignity,” he adds.

The campaign seemed to explode the prevailing sense of corporate inevitability, Hewetson says, disrupting a narrative that said the removal of Arctic oil was bound to happen, and giving renewed hope to activists around the world.

That shows the power of direct action, says Charlie Kronick, a senior climate advisor at Greenpeace. “Direct action is successful because it isolates a moment in time, allows you to document it, bear witness to it, ask people to reflect upon it, and change can happen as a result,” he says. Still, he adds, it’s important to blend the power of direct action with more measured outreach aimed at changing corporations from within. “The wider environmental activism community is now seeing that a more holistic view is how to change these institutions,” he says.

That shift now sees Kronick head regularly to the City of London and Wall Street to engage directly with top financial and corporate decision-makers. There, he seeks to appeal less to hearts and minds than to bottom lines and balance sheets in order to bring about change.

“What shareholders and companies saw with the Arctic 30 is that it was a nightmare for Gazprom, environmentally, politically, reputationally. It spoke directly to that business and financial community.”

The aim is to use the Gazprom episode to tarnish Arctic drilling more generally, and to convince investors that the pursuit of Arctic oil is a sign that fossil fuel companies are no longer a sound investment. “What we try to convey is the reality that the move of oil companies to the Arctic is an indicator of just how desperate they are – that this really is an endgame,” Kronick explains.

And what of those dubbed ‘armchair activists’; people who would not dream of setting sail into the Russian wilderness but who sign petitions, donate money, write, shout and click their support. Do they still have a role in environmental activism?

“Individual actions are certainly not futile, but they don’t leverage systemic change,” Kronick says. “For better or worse, markets are the most powerful places on Earth, and so if you want to change the world, you have to change the markets. What individual action provides [is] legitimacy to the bigger ask. It says: ‘We’re mandating you to make the systemic changes.’

“The key for the environmental movement’s future will be to build realistic, savvy campaigns that combine direct action with more systemic, investor-focused campaigning”

“I don’t think clicking ‘Like’ on Facebook changes anything, apart from the number of likes. But social media is an incredibly powerful tool. Before, people had to be pretty committed to even hear about these things, let alone act on them. We now have a great opportunity to widen our audience,” Kronick says. “If it stopped with a click, there would be a legitimate question. But in fact, we see that social media engagement translates at a surprisingly high rate from an online relationship to a real-world relationship.”

The Arctic organisers’ ability to muster an international network of supporters behind a small group of real-world campaigners showed the extent to which well-managed local campaigns can now take on global significance. “The movement has always realised that the environment is ‘about everything’. But this frames the discussion much more now: that you can’t separate out what happens in the far north Arctic to what’s happening here, wherever here is for you,” Kronick says. “What we’re doing now might not be as pure as in the early days of Greenpeace, but it’s certainly not naive.”

And if campaigners’ methods have evolved, so too has their message. Most environmental activism used to be based on the presumption that people failed to act due to insufficient understanding, explains Kronick. “The evidence now shows that knowing something is wrong doesn’t make people stop doing it. But knowing that something is right or that it benefits them is much more motivating.”

That’s leading campaigners to strike a more upbeat note, and to seek to emphasise positive action. Hewetson laughingly mentions a 2007 Greenpeace banner, unfurled to celebrate the Eurostar high-speed rail link to Europe, which was the organisation’s first to contain the word “yes” – in three metre high letters, no less.

It isn’t always easy to be that positive, Hewetson admits, since environmental protestors tend to focus on groups that are getting things wrong. “We’re in the business … of selling bad news, which is difficult.”

Still, there’s a fundamental optimism to all serious environmental activism. “What you have to prove is that it’s not too late to try, otherwise it’s time to give up and hand over to the cockroaches,” Hewetson says. That’s the real message of the Arctic 30, he believes: that it’s possible to stand up, to speak out, and to take meaningful action in the face of “clear and evident moral wrongs,” such as Arctic drilling.

“It’s possible to stand up, speak out, and take meaningful action in the face of clear and evident moral wrongs, such as Arctic drilling”

The campaign will long be remembered as one of the most significant protests of its time, says Hewetson, whose own eco-activism was inspired by the likes of late Nigerian environmental campaigner Ken Saro-Wiwa, and by Greenpeace’s 1995 Brent Spar protests (when activists occupied a retired North Sea oil storage buoy for more than three weeks, to protest against Shell’s plan to dispose of it at sea).

For the thousands who supported him and his colleagues throughout their ordeal in Russia, seeing somebody take action – and triumph – on their behalf is both a form of vicarious activism, and a strong motivator that Hewetson hopes will drive others to make a stand. “With the catastrophes that seem to be on the horizon given our ever-expanding love for fossil fuels, I can’t see activism going away. I think if anything, more people will become activists, and probably in different ways,” he says.

For his part, Hewetson remains thrilled to have been one of the Arctic 30. “I’m so proud of the team. We stuck together emotionally, morally and spiritually, on the boat and in prison. I wouldn’t change my involvement for the world.”

The impact of the Arctic 30

© Nancie Battaglia

Bill McKibben, founder, 350.org:
“It’s a reminder of the real courage involved in this work sometimes. The rest of us look on with awe at the sacrifice and commitment of the Arctic 30 – and the way they made the degradation of the far north a front page item around the world.”

© Paul Brown

Paul Brown, co-editor, Climate News Network:
“[It] was an enormous success in focusing attention on the Arctic. The best campaigns combine inventive frontline protest, like scaling power stations and oil platforms, with scientific briefings and back-up in the form of letter-writing and petitions. Never forget that after years of campaigning by Greenpeace in the Antarctic in the 1980s, it was the 5,000 individual letters from members of the Women’s Institutes protesting about the British government’s plans to mine there that changed Mrs Thatcher’s policy.”

© Aubrey Meye

Aubrey Meyer, author, campaigner and musician:
“The effect of Arctic melt rates has been a drastic wake-up call to the world … Global carbon budgeting is necessary and requires immediate international agreement to stop this catastrophic process … To be effective, future activism must now openly embrace the ‘contraction and convergence’ rationale.”

©Denis Sinyakov/Greenpeace

Alex Harris, Arctic 30 campaigner:
“It was the response led by the whole organisation during our imprisonment to fight for our freedom that made the Arctic 30 so big. I hope it has shown the world that big things can happen when a group of people who share the same values and have a passion to stand up for what they believe in come together. I spent 64 days in prison for a crime I didn’t commit. Undoubtedly they were the hardest days of my life but now the world is talking about Arctic oil and the threat it poses to our planet. That’s what kept me going in prison and made my time there worthwhile.  You don’t regret the things you do in life, only the things you didn’t do and I’m proud that I took a stand on something that I care about.”

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Criticised by some for lacking a unified viewpoint or providing alternatives to the system it rejects, the movement has put forward three main objectives in the ‘GlobalMay manifesto.’

The first is to shift the economic focus from profit to supporting social welfare and the environment. Occupy suggest this would include free access to healthcare, education, employment and housing for all people and making ecocide – large scale environmental destruction – a recognised crime.

Secondly, the manifesto calls for an economy that is run democratically on all levels by implementing measures such as abolishing tax havens, creating a maximum wage and putting an end to bank bail-outs.

Finally, Occupy want to see a fully democratic political system. One proposal suggests that rather than having elite groups of nations such as the G8 and G20, any decisions affecting all of humanity would be taken in democratic and participatory forums such as a UN parliamentary assembly into which officials would be elected by all the world’s citizens.

Contributors to the manifesto point out that they may not speak on behalf of everyone involved in the Occupy movement and that it is a work in progress and open to new contributions.

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