Srđa Popović (activist)

Srđa Popović (born 1973) is a Serbian political activist. He was a leader of the student movement Otpor! that helped topple Serbian dictator Slobodan Milošević.^[1] After briefly pursuing a political career in Serbia, in 2003 he established the Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS), and has been its executive director since. CANVAS has worked with pro-democracy activists from more than 50 countries, promoting the use of non-violent resistance in achieving political and social goals.

Early life

Popović was born in Belgrade, where both of his parents worked in television.^[2] His mother Vesna narrowly avoided being killed during the Nato bombing of Belgrade in 1999.^[3] He played bass guitar in a goth rock band called BAAL, which was fronted by Andrej Aćin who later turned to film making. They released one album - 1993's Između božanstva i ništavila.

Political career

In parallel to music, Popović joined the Democratic Party's (DS) youth wing called Demokratska omladina. At the party conference in January 1994, he became the president of Demokratska omladina working under the also newly elected party leader Zoran Đinđić.

Although remaining a DS member, in 1998 with the establishment of Otpor!, Popović's activity in the party took a back seat to his engagement with the new movement.

Shortly after the overthrow of Milošević, Popović left Otpor! to return to his political career in Serbia, becoming a Democratic Party (DS) MP in the National Assembly as well as an environmental adviser to newly appointed prime minister Zoran Đinđić.^[4]

Books

Popović is the co-author with Matthew Miller of Blueprint for Revolution: How to Use Rice Pudding, Lego Men, and Other Non-Violent Techniques to Galvanize Communities, Overthrow Dictators, or Simply Change the World (2015).^[5][6] Blueprint for Revolution was met with positive reviews and was nominated for the Atlantic Magazine's book of the month.^[7] The book was originally published in the United States as well as in Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Serbia. It has since been translated into Serbian, French, German, Spanish, and Turkish. Popović has been on book promoting tours in both the US and UK.

Popović has also authored or co-authored various CANVAS publications including Nonviolent Struggle: 50 Crucial Points and the CANVAS Core Curriculum: A Guide to Effective Nonviolent Struggle.

Activism

Otpor!

Popović was one of the founders and leaders of the Serbian nonviolent resistance group Otpor!, which was founded in Belgrade on 10 October 1998, by a small group of student protestors.^[8] The organization was founded as a leaderless movement implementing the principles of nonviolent resistance in order to oppose the violent policies of the Milosevic regime.^[9] Otpor rapidly gained popularity among student activists and expanded from a small organization to a massive political movement. The resistance movement attracted a diverse range of opposition leaders and brought them together for discussions, from which the resistance movement established common goals against the Milosevic regime.^[10] Persistent resistance allowed the Otpor! movement to finally pressure Milošević to step down from the presidency. Shortly after 5 October 2000 revolution, he left Otpor! to pursue a political career in Serbia, becoming a Democratic Party (DS) MP in the Serbian assembly as well as an environmental adviser to prime minister Zoran Đinđić.^[4]

CANVAS

In 2003, Popović and former Otpor! member Slobodan Đinović co-founded the Centre for Applied Non Violent Actions and Strategies (CANVAS), an organization that advocates for the use of nonviolence resistance to promote human rights and democracy. Established in Belgrade, CANVAS has worked with pro-democracy activists from more than 50 countries,^[11] including Iran, Zimbabwe, Burma, Venezuela, Ukraine, Georgia, Palestine, Western Sahara, West Papua, Eritrea, Belarus, Azerbaijan and Tonga and, recently, Tunisia and Egypt.^[12][13]

In 2006, Popović and two other CANVAS members - Slobodan Đinović and Andrej Milivojević - authored a book called Nonviolent Struggle: 50 Crucial Points, a how-to guide for nonviolent struggle.^[14]

In November 2011 Popović was one of the speakers at the TEDxKrakow conference. Between December 2011 and February 2013, the video of his speech at ted.com received almost 200,000 views.^[15]

CANVAS has been listed as a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates.^[16]

Other Activities

Green Fist

Simultaneous to his early 2000s political engagement, Popović, together with former colleagues from Otpor! Predrag Lečić and Andreja Stamenković, founded the environmental non-governmental organization named Green Fist. Conceptualized as an "ecological movement", it attempted to transfer some of Otpor's mass appeal into environmental issues by using similar imagery, but soon folded.^[17]

Ecotopia

Popović heads the Ecotopia fund, the non-profit organization dealing with the environmental issues, financially backed by various Serbian governmental institutions as well as the private sector. In 2009, the fund organized a wide environmental campaign featuring well-known Serbian actors and media personalities with television spots and newspaper ads.^[18][19]

Waging Nonviolence

In 2009, Popovic became a founding member of the board of advisers of Waging Nonviolence, "a source for original news and analysis about struggles for justice and peace around the globe." ^[20][21] Popovic was removed from the board in the wake of the Stratfor controversy (see below).^[22]

Teaching

In addition to activism, Popovic also runs educational workshops and lectures at a variety of forums and universities. Additionally, he has taught courses on nonviolence tactics and political struggle at Grinnell College, Harvard University,^[23] Colorado College, New York University, Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University, Northeastern University, Rutgers University, and Belgrade University. Popovic and the Centre for Applied Nonviolent Actions and Strategies have partnered with Northeastern University's Co-Op program, hosting interns and running them through nonviolence workshops.

Honors and Awards

Foreign Policy magazine listed Popović as one of the "Top 100 Global Thinkers" of 2011 for inspiring the Arab Spring protesters directly and indirectly and educating activists about nonviolent social change in the Middle East.^[24]

In January 2012 The Wired included him among the "50 people who will change the world".^[25]

Peace Research Institute Oslo's (PRIO) director Kristian Berg Harpviken speculated that Popović is among the candidates for the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize.^[26]

World Economic Forum in Davos listed Popović as one of Young Global Leaders for 2013.^[27]

Tufts University Awarded Popović, along with CANVAS, with the Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award in February 2016.^[28]

Controversy

Involvement with Stratfor

In 2011, the hacker collective Anonymous broke into the computer network of corporate intelligence agency Stratfor, and the subsequently leaked e-mails were published by WikiLeaks.^[29] Included was correspondence between Srda Popovic and analysts at Stratfor, and Wikileaks tweeted that CANVAS was "used by Stratfor to spy on opposition groups."^[30] In December 2013 Steve Horn and US Uncut co-founder Carl Gibson published an article that sought to shed light on Popovic's interactions with Stratfor, and criticized him for his apparently extensive interaction with Stratfor analysts, which ranged from passing them intelligence to inviting them to his wedding.^[31][32] The article garnered heavy criticism from the New York-based culture-jammer Andy Bichlbaum^[33][34] (who sat with Popovic on the board of Waging Nonviolence at the time).^[35] Gibson and Horn stood by their original denunciation of Popovic,^[36][37] pointing out that Popovic gave information about grassroots activists to Stratfor without their consent, and served as a liaison between Stratfor and Muneer Satter, a prominent investment banker who worked at the time for Goldman Sachs ^[38][39]

References

Further reading

• "Meet Srdja Popovic, the secret architect of global revolution". 8 March 2015. Retrieved 9 March 2015.