We hope to make it available to as many people globally as possible. This book is a nonprofit endeavor and we will be put up for free OPENSOURCED download so that activists in our global academy  network may have access to the booklet and use them in their own grassroots struggles. 

Help contribute to the development of this project and you will be directly contributing the nonviolent civil resistance globally. With CANVAS' track record of training and equipping the top tier of civil resistors, you can be sure that your donation will help to spread the cause of nonviolent action!!!!

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE 

 And we need funds to translate the Making Oppression Backfire booklet into in as many languages as we can manage. Just like with 50 Crucial Points, if someone wants it in  Spanish - no hay ningun problema, What about French? pas de probleme! Serbian? Nema problema! Even  Arabic and Farsi!

What happens if you are at a protest and suddenly you want to take a picture to send to your favorite blogger so she can write about it as it is happening? Or maybe you are worried about your friend who was held in custody? Or maybe you want to document a creative tactic that you saw when you were out on the street? How can a booklet help you then? 

Well  - in line with the goals of this project we will work to develop a MAKING OPPRESSION BACKFIRE PHONE APPLICATION. And you will be able to do all of these while in the midst of your own struggles.  Again, once it is developed it will be available for FREE AND OPEN-SOURCED DOWNLOAD. So far, we have seen a couple of great phone applications that are very useful tools for nonviolent resisters and we hope to make our own. Please help us! 

The Booklet is divided into three easy sections that will help you as you plan a movement: 

1) Prepare for the Oppression: This section will include a plan-format model about how nonviolent resisters can prep themselves logistically for a moment when governmental forces enact oppression. It also includes discussion questions and role playing activities from activists who have been on the front line of oppression in over  30 different movements globally.  

These activities prepare people both logistically as well as psychologically  for dealing with harsh oppression. 

2) Face the Oppression: This "phase" goes into detail about what to do during the day of a protest or nonviolent action. When a nonviolent movement is organized activists may have to worry about logistical issues that arise; during a police crackdown of a protest, it may be difficult to keep track of participants, or people may begin to panic.  This section includes what nonviolent resistors should expect and be ready to face on the day of planned actions. It will include detailed case studies about what other groups have done.

3) Capitalize on the Oppression. This section will talk about ways that nonviolent resisters can turn a bad or violent situation into something that strategically works to their advantage. This will include examples about how other resistors in movements have “dealt” with oppression and effectively made it backfire. Will include such sections as "Making Martyrs," and "Jail Fililng" as well as sample press releases for activists to use as a template. 

Making Oppression Backfire is a training booklet,  first but also a mindset towards dealing with brutality. When discussing nonviolent social movement often people claim that there is no possible way succeed in getting the demands of the people heard if a regime has acted brutally against its citizens.  

THIS IS NOT TRUE. 

WE WILL SHOW YOU HOW IN THIS BOOKLET

 When people hear "nonviolence" they  usually confuse it with pacifism or 1960-era hippies who are known to talk alot but not walk actually get anything done. 

Nothing against these types, we appreciate them. But that is not CANVAS and that is not how we work. 

STRATEGIC NONVIOLENCE is something different. It is war without guns. It is strategy without bullets. 

ABOUT CANVAS 

The Centre for Applied Nonviolent Actions and Strategies is a Belgrade, Serbia -based activist group that seeks to educate civil resistors all over the world about strategic nonviolence.  It was founded by the members of the Serbian nonviolent resistance group Otpor (resistance!) that helped to bring down dictator Slobodan Milosevic in the year 2000. Since then CANVAS has been involved in hundreds of youth movements in central Europe and the middle east. .Some of the groups that have learned and applied CANVAS methods directly include Egypt’s April 6th movement (2011), Georgia’s Kmara! Movement, Sudan’s Girifna movement, Ukraine’s Orange Revolution participants  and Russia’s Oborona  movement. CANVAS trainers have worked with people in over 40 countries, and participated in  over 200 workshops or conferences and trained over 2000 participants. The CANVAS workshop model is based around the ideas of unity, planning and nonviolent discipline and seeks to bring about the transfer of knowledge about nonviolent strategies from the people who have successfully implemented it themselves. 

CANVAS members have been featured in multiple documentaries including the Peabody award winning Bringing Down a Dictator, and the movie How to Start a Revolution.

In 2006 CANVAS published an activist textbook entitled Nonviolent Struggle 50 Crucial Points that has since been translated into five languages and downloaded by nonviolent resistors all around the world. Making Oppression Backfire is envisioned to be another booklet for activists, with updated case studies and exercises. 

The Impact

Once we print the booklet, we hope to give copies of it to people involved in our workshops.  Your contribution will go directly into the hands of activists seeking to undermine oppression. Furthermore, we will work to incorporate the ideas in the booklet into our workshops. Any additional funding will go towards the development of a   phone application to supplements all these efforts.

CANVAS has both the NETWORK and the CAPACITIES  to distribute this text to people all over the world. Our trainers come from a vast global network and you can feel rest assured that your contribution will be going to people who need it the most. And you will DIRECTLY help to spread  the knowledge of nonviolent social movements worldwide!!

The Team on this Campaign Includes.........

Srdja Popovic    

Srdja  is an experienced political party and nonviolent movement leader. As a founding member of the Otpor! resistance movement credited with the downfall of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and a proactive member of Serbia's Democratic Party, his expertise unites both partisan and NGO sector skills and knowledge. Popovic is the Executive Director of the Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS), an international network of trainers and consultants from Serbia, Georgia, South Africa, Ukraine, Lebanon and the Philippines engaged in the transfer of knowledge about nonviolent democratic change around the world. In 2013 was  shortlisted for a  2013 Nobel Peace Prize y the Oslo institute and he was named a “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum. He lives in Belgrade, Serbia with his wife Masha. 

Marcella Alvarez