This article was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.
'Tank Man': the renowned nonviolent protester standing in front of a column of tanks after the Tiananmen Square massacre. Credit: Jeff Widener/Associated Press.
A friend of mine who is an organizer and nonviolent trainer has a favorite exercise called “10-10,” which she uses when introducing nonviolence to new activists. She divides the students into groups and tells them to write down, as quickly as possible, 10 wars. Afterwards, they review all of the different wars that people have recalled. While there are a number of wars that are repeated, often each group has come up with some war that other groups have not thought of at all. When I first participated in this exercise, I was excited to contribute the rather obscure Corinthian War. Then she asks the groups to write down 10 nonviolent struggles. This task always takes longer and some groups run out of time before they can complete the task.
