“Guerrillas without guns”: Albania’s Activism Festival

In the last months of Slobodan Milosevic’s misrule of what was then still called Yugoslavia, graffiti began appearing on walls, roads and footpaths in Belgrade, and other cities in Serbia. It read, in Serbian, “He’s finished!”, and was often accompanied by an image of a clenched fist, and the Serbian word for “Resistance”, Otpor, which had been adopted as a rallying-point by allied factions of Serbian students.

In October 2000, Otpor’s slogan became, as was intended, a self-fulfilling prophecy: Milosevic was run out of office by an uprising significantly encouraged and led by Otpor. When I met Otpor’s nominal figurehead, 20-year-old Branko Ilic, in Belgrade shortly after the revolution he’d helped foment, he described his comrades as “guerrillas without guns”. It has proved an extraordinarily adaptable and resilient idea.

Also in openDemocracy on Europe’s youth-inspired revolutionary wave in Serbia, Georgia and Ukraine:

Dejan Djokic, “Serbia: one year after the October revolution” (October 2001)

Amy Spurling, “Tbilisi’s polyphonic carnival” (November 2003)

Alexander Motyl, “How Ukrainians became citizens” (November 2004)

If you find this material valuable, please consider supporting openDemocracy by sending us a donation

In the years since Milosevic’s unlamented unloading, remarkably similar-looking phenomena – smart, well-organised, youth-led campaigns of civil disobedience, employing pranks, stunts, slogans and smart branding – have erupted across much of eastern Europe and the middle east. In November 2003 in Georgia, the tired, incompetent and corrupt regime of Eduard Shevardnadze was forced from power by a revolution prompted by a youth-led resistance called Kmara (Georgian for “Enough!”) and did not trouble to disguise their debt to, or their links with, Otpor, using the same logo as well as similar tactics.

In late 2004, another tired, incompetent and corrupt government Leonid Kuchma’s in Ukraine, was ejected from power by a wave of protest in which Pora (“It’s high time!”) – another movement that had borrowed ideas, as well as direct advice and training, from veterans of Otpor – played a key role. And in Lebanon in February 2005, following the assassination of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri, the younger people who rallied in Beirut’s streets to protest against Syria’s continuing occupation of their country quickly formed Otpor-style groupings, including Pulse Of Freedom.

No one’s puppets

On 3-5 June in Albania’s capital, Tirana, I was one of surprisingly few foreign journalists present when all the above groups, and a few more besides, gathered in one place for the first time. The Tirana Activism Festival was hosted by Albania’s equivalent organisation, Mjaft! (it also means “Enough!”)

Delegates from all the aforementioned organisations attended, as well as representatives of Zubr (Belarus), Kan (Kosovo), Yox (Azerbaijan), Gong (Croatia), Youth Human Rights Network (Russia), Youth Initiative for Human Rights (Serbia), Loja (Macedonia), and Unitas (Montenegro). Also present, though unannounced and understandably unwilling to be quoted on record or photographed, was a sole emissary of a nascent movement – Bolga – in Uzbekistan (whose ghastly president, Islam Karimov, recently demonstrated his view of organised dissent by ordering soldiers to open fire on crowds gathered in the main square of Andijan).

It was an inspiring, if somewhat tiring, weekend – a schedule which plots drinking and dancing to last until 2am, and then conference sessions to start at 9am, is clearly the work of people under 30. What was most noticeable about the organised discussions, which were conducted in English, was how free they were of any doctrinaire nonsense or dogma. There was an extraordinary focus on practicalities – what works, what doesn’t, and how tactics can be adapted to circumstances.

At one session, discussing relationships with the media, a delegate from Ukraine’s Pora emphasised, with bracing but faultless cynicism, the importance of manufacturing a constant stream of stories for press, both national and international. Ah, said someone from Azerbaijan’s Yox, but this won’t work if there’s no local independent media and little interest from the outside world. He explained that Yox were planning to overcome this impediment by leaving piles of leaflets in high locations, and letting Baku’s wind do the rest.

The thought of a roomful of young folk in t-shirts discussing how best to overthrow Europe’s last dictatorships would seem absurd, were it not for the fact that they’ve already done it three times which is certainly why there are many suggestions at large that Otpor, Kmara, Pora, and their kin, are agents, wittingly or otherwise, of foreign (specifically, American) intelligence.

Certainly, there has been cooperation between the groups and western governments and/or their NGO proxies (the glossy brochure containing the festival agenda cheerfully admits to being sponsored by Freedom House, with funding from Usaid). There were representatives of Freedom House in attendance, weathering endless jokes about being puppet-masters and spooks with only slightly wearied humour.

There are, I think, a couple of problems with the idea that these movements are exclusively an American plot. One is that it credits the American intelligence services with rather more imagination and organisation than they’ve demonstrated in Iraq, for example. The other is that it’s more than slightly racist, implicitly arguing that the wit, invention, determination and courage demonstrated by the members of these movements is beyond the simple-minded, cabbage-munching peasants who inhabit the former communist empire.

Also by Andrew Mueller in openDemocracy:

“Taiwan in a Chinese overture” (May 2005)

I find it difficult to recall ever seeing so many bright and brave people in one room (or bar, or nightclub). There were people at the festival who will become prime ministers and presidents. It’s also more than likely, unfortunately, that there were people at the conference who will end up in prison – several delegates, indeed, were already able to swap tales of prison food – or worse.

More to the point, though, if America is helping these groups, it’s difficult to see why it’s a bad thing. Otpor, Pora, Kmara, Mjaft! and others have in common passions for democracy, honesty and transparency, and no interest in violence. It’s not like we’re talking about arming the Nicaraguan Contras.

The immediate practical upshot of the festival was a declaration called the Kruja Pact, signed on a day trip to Kruja, the birthplace of Albania’s national hero, Skanderbeg. A conscious, if slightly self-mocking, echo of Article V of the Nato treaty, which regards an attack on one member as an attack on all members, the Kruja Pact promises that if one signatory is threatened, they can count on the others to raise as big a ruckus as possible.

This may well end up inconveniencing and embarrassing America, if the Otpor model becomes established in Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan in particular – two places where the otherwise grim stability of the present is in America’s interest. Yox noted, somewhat bitterly, that the United States embassy in Baku seems reluctant to return its calls.

Further links:

Otpor:
http://www.otpor.com/

Pulse of Freedom:
http://pulseoffreedom05.org/

Mjaft:
http://www.mjaft.org/

Zubr:
http://www.zubr-belarus.com/index.php?lang=2

Kan:
http://www.kan-ks.org/lexo_permbajtjen.php?kategoria=1&gjuha;=english

Yox:
http://www.yox-net-no.org/

Gong:
http://www.gong.hr/eng/

Youth Initiative for Human Rights:
http://www.yi.org.yu/