Not quite 25 years ago, something extraordinary happened – a group of young students and activists launched a campaign of resistance, full of humour while deeply serious, powerfully active while entirely nonviolent, that brought down the Serbian dictator, Slobodan Milosevic.

As a young activist, then starting out with Greenpeace, and with eastern European heritage myself, I was intrigued and impressed. But it wasn’t until 15 years later, when I read the brilliant book by one of the leaders of the movement, Srdja Popovic’s Blueprint for Revolution, that I came close to understanding what they achieved.

You can hear the story from Vesna Cerroni, one of its leaders, on Sept 12.

These days, when someone says to me “yeah sure, nonviolence is a nice dream, but it can’t actually work” (and it depresses me how often I hear that – which is why we’re running The Missing Peace), more often than not I point them to Otpor! (which literally means Resistance!) and say “tell that to these people.”

Milosevic was an entrenched dictator, a war criminal who didn’t hesitate to order violent repression. Violent resistance would only trigger a violent response, playing to the regime’s strengths, undermining public support for change, and making peaceful coexistence after the transfer of power harder to imagine. Nonviolence can be faced with a violent response, too – and it was, with Otpor! activists beaten and injured. But it forced the regime onto unfamiliar ground. With humour, graffiti, music and theatrical protests, they destabilised Milosevic’s coercive power by making fun of him, making his regime seem weak, drawing support away, and bringing people together in a joyful process of creating the world they wanted to live in.

Having read Popovic’s book, and written about Otpor! in my own book, I couldn’t believe it when I discovered that the Bob Brown Foundation’s Canberra lobbyist, who I was meeting for coffee, was one of their key organisers! Vesna Cerroni was Spokesperson for Foreign Affairs of the Resistance with Otpor! and has gone on to an extraordinary and diverse career as a human rights and environmental activist around the world.

And in a fortnight, on September 12, you have the opportunity to hear Vesna talking about her experiences, and ask her questions about how nonviolence does actually work, even in the darkest and direst circumstances.

Vesna will be speaking alongside the wonderful Dr Felicity Gray, Global Head of Policy & Advocacy for Nonviolent Peaceforce and well known to many Green Institute regulars as a former board member and editor of Green Agenda, as well as one of Flick’s colleagues from South Sudan, Sunday Stephen Nhial Thiang. Their experiences are just as revelatory, as I will write soon.

We’re incredibly privileged to have these three extraordinary women come to talk with us. Don’t miss this crucial event.

Register here.

See you then,

Tim