Australian freedoms are under threat from government anti-terrorism powers. The materials here are relevant to resisting repression, defending civil liberties, promoting alternatives to repression and fostering nonviolent methods of social defence and social change.
Dealing with government repression
Canberra Peacemakers, Capital Defence: Social Defence for Canberra (1986). Practical information for resisting repression. Though some of the technologies discussed have been superseded, the basic approach remains highly relevant.
Brian Glick, The War at Home: Covert Action Against U.S. Activists and What We Can Do about It (Boston: South End Press, 1989). This is the best available manual on resisting government disruption of social movements. There is no Australian equivalent. Some material is available online.
Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents, on "how to remain anonymous and to get around censorship", download available from Reporters Without Borders.
Jørgen Johansen, "Humor as a political force, or how to open the eyes of ordinary people in social democratic countries", Philosophy and Social Action, 1991: using humour as a tactic.
Brian Martin, "Get ready for repression: living and resisting in a repressive society", 30 November 2005.
Brian Martin,"Resisting repression: some ideas for defending Australian freedoms", 6 October 2005.
Schweik Action Wollongong, "Defending Muslims in Wollongong" 2003. Muslims need skills, knowledge, contacts and strategy.
Schweik Action Wollongong, "Strengthening communication in groups", 1998: exercises to build a group's internal networks.
Zorana Smiljanic, "Plan B: using secondary protests to undermine repression", 2003: how Otpor! in Serbia responded to arrests of activists.
Ralph Summy, "Nonviolent politics: from praxis to research to classroom to praxis to research to classroom", 2005: lessons from the Queensland civil liberties campaign.
Mark Plunkett and Ralph Summy, "Civil liberties in Queensland: a nonviolent political campaign", 1980: a prize-winning article (4MB pdf download).
Nonviolence against terrorism
Brian Martin, "Nonviolence versus terrorism", Social Alternatives, 2002.
Ralph Summy, "A nonviolent response to September 11", published in Social Alternatives, 2002 and available on the TFF website.
Alternative responses to terrorism
Brian Martin. Instead of repression. Social Alternatives, Vol. 25, No. 1, First Quarter 2006, pp. 62-66.
Brian Martin. Technology for Nonviolent Struggle, 2001: how technological choice and design can strengthen a community's capacity for resistance to aggression.
Tactics against injustice
The backfire framework is a way of understanding tactics used for and against injustice. See http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/backfire.html
Historical failures of anti-terrorism
Paddy Hillyard, Suspect Community: People's Experience of the Prevention of Terrorism Acts in Britain (London: Pluto, 1993). See also "The 'war on terror': lessons from Ireland", http://www.ecln.org/, 2005
Nonviolent action against repression
A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict, television series and book: http://www.pbs.org/weta/forcemorepowerful/
Robert Burrowes, "The political objective and strategic goal of nonviolent action", 1996.
Brian Martin, Social Defence, Social Change (London: Freedom Press, 1993): nonviolent community resistance to aggression as a grassroots challenge to oppression.
Brian Martin. "Social defence: arguments and actions" 1991.
Kurt Schock, Unarmed Insurrections: People Power Movements in Nondemocracies (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2005). Superb recent scholarship on social movements and nonviolent resistance.
Jacques Semelin, Unarmed Against Hitler: Civilian Resistance in Europe 1939-1943 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1993).
Gene Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action (Boston: Porter Sargent, 1973). This is the classic account.
Gene Sharp, Waging Nonviolent Struggle (Boston: Porter Sargent, 2005) and other publications - many by free download in different languages - are available from the Albert Einstein Institution.
Brian Martin
email: bmartin@uow.edu.au
phone: 02-4221 3763 work; 02-4228 7860 home
web: http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/
Updated 13 June 2006