What makes the difference between a protest and a movement? Group identity. In this video Srdja Popovic talks about the importance of a common culture in order for your movement to be successful.
Srdja Popovic is a cofounder and key figure of the Serbian resistance movement “Otpor!”, that helped topple Slobodan Milosevic in a nonviolent way in 2000. After the revolution, the activist became a member of the Serbian National Assembly for three years until in 2003 he created the renowned organization CANVAS (Centre for Applied Nonviolent Actions and Strategies). With a transfer of strategic knowledge and tips on nonviolent resistance, in the form of books and workshops, Popovic and CANVAS support democratic nonviolent movements worldwide. Popovic also translated literature about nonviolent resistance, amongst others Gene Sharp’s work “From Dictatorship to Democracy”.
Recently CANVAS works with the movement of the 6th April in Egypt and also with other nonviolent revolutionary movements in the Middle East. The manual of the organization “Nonviolent Struggle, 50 Crucial Points” has been translated into 16 languages and has been downloaded about 17.000 times during the protests in Iran in 2009.
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