>> okay. what a nice presentation. [applause] >> live now to the u.s. institute of peace for remarks from african heads of state from ally, senegal, sierra leone and cape verde. they are expected to discuss democratic reforms and economy to the country. they will be joined by u.s. assistant secretary of state for african affairs, johnnie carson. this is live coverage here on c-span2. >> all but one are here in the building. the united states institute of peace works globally to avoid a violent conflict, mitigated,

resolve. we do so using lots of driven techniques. we have geographic expertise in addition to expertise across a wide range of subject matter issue, whether it's religion and violence or simply training people in dispute resolution, conflict mitigation. we've done awful lot of training in africa. we are very involved in africa, have been. unfortunately, we are typically where states are the most fragile, where conflict is either ending or beginning, and we're doing our best to try to help parties settle conflict without using violence. conflict in this society, conflict in the world is inevitable. that will always exist and will always be differences of opinion. different views, et cetera. but conflict at least to violence a specific things that we were going here at the institute of peace.

could you see if ambassador carson could come in? if somebody could get ambassador garza. -- ambassador carson. i want to welcome you all. we have overflow crowds elsewhere. this is being televised, and as i say, moving presidents around is like herding cats. i have a great appreciation of the legislators tend not to pay too much attention to people are trying to organize their lives. [laughter] as i looked expectantly at the door in hopes that somebody will come and. while we're waiting let me just introduce ambassador johnnie carson. is not in the room right nobody will be shortly and is going to be our moderator. let me describe to you his background. i guess he doesn't need to hear it. you probably already knows it. ambassador johnnie carson was

sworn in as assistant secretary of state to the peer of after affairs on may 7, 2009. prior to this he was a national intelligence officer for africa. after serving as the senior vice president of the national defense university in washington. ambassador carson is the 37 year foreign service career includes ambassadorships, zimbabwe and uganda. earlier in his career he had assignment in portugal, botswana, mozambique and nigeria. he has also served as best officer in the africa section at states of your of intelligence and research. state officer for the secretary of state, and staff director for the africa subcommittee of the united states house of representatives. before joining the foreign service, ambassador carson was a peace corps volunteer in

tanzania, from 1965-1960. he has a bachelor of arts from drake university and a master of arts from international relations from the school of oriental and african studies at the university of london. ambassador carson is the recipient of several superior armor awards from state department and meritorious service awards from madeline albright, center for disease control presented ambassador carson his -- its highest award, champion of prevention award for his leadership and directing the train the government hiv/aids prevention efforts. we are particularly pleased to have ambassador carson with us today. this is his last day with the state department, and many of you are as close personal friends. i think we owe him a round of applause. [applause]

>> i have a personal debt to ambassador carson, but for the fact that he is moderating, i will be moderating. [laughter] so let me turn it over to ambassador carson for a few words while i try and round up our cats and get them in the room. thank you all for being here. [applause]

>> [inaudible conversations] >> good morning, everyone. i want to start by thanking president jim marshall for his very kind introduction. and also the united states institute of peace for hosting this very important event this morning. there are a number of distinguished guests in the audience this morning. i will not attempt to identify you all by name, but i welcome you all with great pleasure to

this important gathering. the united states institute of peace has long been a center of excellence for preventing and mitigating international conflict. the institute's work in the sudan, it's partnership with the state department african peacekeeping training program, and its contributions to africa are significant. and i would like to acknowledge them this morning. as president obama said in front of ghana's parliament in 2009, and i quote, good governance is the ingredient that can unlock africa's enormous potential. democracy and good governance

not only create free, just and more stable society, they also create the addition for sustainable broad-based economic growth and development. that is why building a strong partnership to support democracy and good governance has been our top priority in africa, as well as a key pillar of resident obama's u.s. strategy towards sub-saharan africa. as we all know, democracy and good governance are about much more than just holding elections. what happens before and after elections is equally, if not more, important. that is why capable, reliable, and transparent institutions are key to success.

strong parliament, the rule of law, protections for human rights, independent judiciary, free press is, and vibrant civil society's and private sectors are attacked democracy and good government from those who might weaken or trampled upon it. all four of our very distinguished and honored guests here today, president koroma of sierra leone, president sall and we expect shortly, president banda of the mladic, and the prime minister of ted purdy, -- ted purdy -- te government has e to strengthen democratic institutions in their respective

country. their decision has contributed to economic development and security gains in the countries, and also in their respective regions. last year, sierra leone has held free, fair and credible elections in which nearly 90% of the registered voters participated peacefully. these elections, sierra leone's third since the end of its decade-long civil war in 2002, awarded president koroma a second term to continue implementing his agenda for prosperity upon tha. [applause] sierra leone's economy is expanding rapidly as a result of

president koroma's leadership. president sall who we joining us shortly participated in elections in his own country one year ago. senegal one year ago was facing a period of instability and economic attraction. president sall has made a number of political and economic reforms since being in office, and the government is now launching efforts to end the long simmering conflict in the region. under president sall leadership, senegal's economy is expected to grow by nearly 5% this year. president banda, who took over in malawi nearly one year ago,

and with her government immediately moved to implement tough but necessary political and economic reforms. together, they devalued malawi's currency, removed price control for fuel, and cut government expenses. in her first 100 days in office, president banda has turned malawi around it as a result, the country's economy is expected to grow twice as fast this year than in the previous year. [applause] and last but certainly not least, cape verde has risen from the bottom of many development indicators because of the visionary leadership of prime

minister neves. that countries vibrant political party system with strong rule of law, low corruption, also has contributed to cape verde having one of africa's highest literacy rates, best foreign investment environment, and consistently high economic growth. at every step of the way, the united states government has partnered with all four leaders in all four countries, as they have implemented their reform. because each country has demonstrated serious commitment, our millennia challenge corporation has contact in place with malawi, senegal and cape verde. and i might note that cape verde was one of the first three

countries to receive an mcc compact, and it was the first country to complete its compact successfully and it was the first country to get a second compact. [applause] all of these leaders are focusing on tackling the most significant impediment to development in their countries, and the mcc has selected sierra leone as eligible to develop a compact. again, thanks to the leadership of president koroma. [applause] the united states is committed to continuing its strong partnerships with leaders in countries committed to democracy, respect for human rights, the full inclusion of women in society, economic, politics, as was religious oppressed freedom.

president sall, welcome. [applause] i am going to stop here since we have a very full program, and not a great deal of time. i would like to turn the microphone over first to president koroma, and then to our other two presidents, and one prime minister who are here with us today. i will ask that each of you try to keep your remarks to know more than five minutes so that we have ample time for questions from our audience here, as well as in our overflow room, as well as those who are following us on social media. and for everyone in the audience, please keep writing your questions on the three by five index cards that we have

passed out, and hand them to a usip for state department staff member who was near the aisle. i'll start by asking each of our speakers in turn to address the following fraught question, how does a democracy and strengthening of democratic institutions in your country contribute to economic development, growth, and a more equitable society? but i will give our leaders five minutes to talk about their country, talk about what they are doing in terms of democracy and economic growth. and then we will proceed to a more informal dialogue and discussion. president koroma, i will start with you.

[inaudible] >> let me first thank the president of the united states institute of peace. we're happy you have invited us this morning. and let me take this opportunity to also thank the peacekeepers and america for the role they have played in helping peace in sierra leone. sierra leone has a unique -- peace and peace development because as a country, we have experienced peace after independence, and then we went into a period of civil conflict, and thereafter we are now building on developing the country again. the story of the conflict in sierra leone is an open

movement. [inaudible] the fact that we have committed ourselves to moving forward. what we take pride in is the fact that sierra leone is an example of a country that is united in peace, and how quickly it was, and we now are developing the country. now, for us to get to the point where we are today, the war was formally declared over in 2002. since then the country took the appropriate steps that have not only ended the war, have not only build on peace, but we have now positioned ourselves to

development. no comment on issues like this, we took the first steps of establishing a true reconciliation commission, which was ensuring that the communities and the people within the country can reconcile. because it's important for a country that had been through, to be a reconcile country, a reconcile community. to move forward. we also established the trc, which was a committee chaired with responsibility to take on those that have the highest responsibility for the plans of the world. and some of it was organized in the country, and, of course, we have the outcome of what's happened in the hague, but these

are all institutions that we have put together to end the war and reconcile ourselves. now in moving forward, and building the peace, building democracy and development, we have taken steps to put in place institutions that will ensure that we move forward in a manner of peace, and a minute and which democracy will be observed, and the manner in which inclusiveness will be guaranteed in the society. now, please let us to the establishment of institutions of good governance. we have established the political party registration commission. that is charged with the responsibility of monitoring activities of political parties. we have the national commission for democracy, is also an

institution that is essential to make sure we sensitize people and get them involved in the democratic process. we also have the institution of monitoring and maintaining the independence of media, the imc. the national electoral commission was also an institution that has been established. we have a good number of these institutions that established to guarantee good governance in the country. and in the process we have reviewed the security infrastructure in the country. the police and the military went through a security sector review process that has transformed them from security forces that are not democratic, but they are not security forces that are democratic, but respects the constitution. now, these are all institutions that we have tried to reform.

those including the judiciary. the rule of the judiciary is very important to us. we believe that when the judiciary becomes independent and professional, it will play the role in which everybody will feel protected and people outside will also feel protected. so we have created these institutions to ensure that democracy is guaranteed for human rights of individuals are guaranteed, and i will say that they have come a long way and trying to conduct their fears to the extent that our human rights commission has been granted -- last year because of the effectiveness that we have. [applause] we have also been to a situation in which, because of the human rights record of the commission, and also the political

commitments as a government and as a leader, we have provided which has made it possible for journalists to express their writing. there's a freedom of speech, and there's been a new movement even after the war when we had anybody been an incarcerated for expressing a political opinion. so we have an applicable human rights record. [applause] these are great achievements that have made the business for democratic governance. now within the government and we thought that we have to create an environment for investment to come in. and we have affected a lot of changes of our laws. a lot of strengthening of institutions, and a lot of adoption of fiscal measures that have given signals out that we

are stabilizing the economy and we are preparing it for adequate investments. and these have been recognized by the world bank, also one of the 10 top reformers in the world in terms of -- [applause] we have also in the process attracted investments in the region's upon millions and millions of dollars. these investments are now changing the agriculture and mining sectors. so a lot of things that could indicate there is a need for us to continue with the democratic process. and when there is a moccasin stability, it will open up investment opportunities. and that is where we are as a nation you. that is why we now believe that sierra leone is no longer a country of a flawed diamond studded snow for in the past.

sierra leone is now an investment destination. sierra leone is the place to do business. this is been recognized by the world bank, the imf. last year, our economy was referred to as the hottest economy, a place to do investment, and we have already a high rate of growth that is not comparable to any other african country. these are a result of the measures we have taken. the democracy that we are building, the openness of our economy, and the structures that we're putting in place to guarantee that investment is not only attractive, but it is also protected, and it is also seen in the lives of the people. more employment, better conditions of service, and i believe that sierra leone is on the move. so let me, mr. ambassador, stopped at this point.

apply that. >> thank you for the very, very rich thoughts. we will come back to some of the issues that you pointed to. let me, next, turn to our president from malawi. we will start with president banda. >> thank you very much indeed. ambassador carson, distinguished panelists who are also distinguished presidents and prime minister of africa, allow me to take this opportunity to thank president obama, and, of course, this institute for organizing this event. but more especially for president obama. to invite african leaders that he feels has done a lot in putting in place institutions that have brought about true or

and proper democracies. that is also encouraged united states. private sector, and with creation and growth. allow me to talk about malawi before i became president. in 2009, i stood for elections with the president as his running mate. i didn't realize at the time of elections that he was using me to get the female vote. because i've spent the days of my life working with women at grassroots pics on that platform to bring to the table. two weeks into office i realized that he wanted his brother to take over for him. was that it is in the next three years it was about his succession process to ensure

that the brother takes over. as a nation, we diverted from that agenda and focus on that succession. by 2012, last year, the economy had collapsed your there was no fuel in the country. the economy had gone to the black market. people were sleeping at the filling station. there was no food, no drugs in the hospital. i had been completed sidelined. in fact, i had been expelled from his party. and i had formed my own party, that the constitution did not allow him. he tried me twice. and another thing that i learned is that true leadership is a love affair between you and the people. and what -- [applause]

you must fall in love with the people and the people must in -- fall in love with you. when that happens nobody can break that relationship. and so for 30 years i had worked with the people and mr. vito to get people away from me. so that's what i had in 2012, by the time he passed away. and malawians decided that the constitution must be respected. the position was very clear. the vice president was supposed to take over when the president dies or becomes incapacitated. i'm studying from them so that you can understand that by the time i go into office, the collapsed economy, i was not aware. i have not been party to it. but i must also take this opportunity to thank american people. because in march 2012, i was invited to a conference in south africa, organized by serving

retired army military generals. general myers was at that meeting. i was meeting him for the first time. same with uk was there. the general from sierra leone. these distinguished men and women were meeting to discuss africa's conflict areas post-conflict reconstruction reconciliation, and they invited me to go and chair the drc case study. i didn't realize that in five weeks my general, who is also attending that meeting, would be deciding my fate. and i'm forever grateful ambassador carson and all those who worked so hard in $40 to

make sure that the constitution is respected and i'm allowe allo take both and be, president of my country. [applause] spenin the past year what we hae done is to get back on track. because by the time i became president, we were off-track with the imf. and so we had to go very quickly back to imf, get back on track. strengthen government institutions, make sure that we get the level we require in order for other donors to come back, including the uk that have cut our relationship with malawi. in 100 days we were able to get, they can to get our donors to get back. we improved our relations with our neighbors. we restored our relationship

with the united kingdom. [applause] we also had to do several things as malawi government. one was to repeal all the laws that we filled with contribution -- controversy. >> so in july of last year i organized what i called a national dialogue on the economy. at this conference we chose five sectors. namely, mining, energy, tourism infrastructure, and agriculture. those projects were chosen, those suckers were chosen because of the potential there to create wealth. within each sector, out of the five sectors, we have also chosen three projects. at the end of 2013 we must --

with three projects for each of those sectors. i want you, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, to know that i come in 14 days, in 14 months implementing a very, very unpopular reform program, i should have given up and backtracked. but why? because i must win the elections next year. [applause] but i'm committed to stay the course. i'm committed to stay the course because it's the right thing to do. and even if it ends up costing me the elections next year, that's okay, that's fine. [applause] we also have implemented social programs with the help of the imf, to make sure that we cushion the shock of the

evaluation over 49% that we were forced to implement last year in order to bring our economy back on track. it also meant introducing austerity measures, including setting -- reducing my own salary by 30%. poverty, education is at the top of my agenda. and we believe that we will only begin to change the institution of malawi when we begin to help malawians create jobs and create wealth. so we are talking about a private sector laid economy. i also introduced two presidential initiatives. one, poverty and reduction where we are mobilizing women and youth to grow crops that have

export potential. another way is diversifying from the traditional growing of maize for survival. i also insist that women and youth must get support. i am talking about creating wealth, creating jobs, but also assuring that women and youth have special opportunities, and having worked at grassroots for 30 years, what has become very clear to me is that the situation of women and children in africa is only going to change if we address issues of income. and helping women and youth to have an income is critical and is a must. we don't even have a choice. because when you talk about population growth, maternal

mortality, -- [inaudible] and until and unless we insist women and youth getting come at household level for the poor, the situation of women and children, our economies in africa will never change. i have worked with women and children for 30 years here and i know that for me that's the only way we can improve the life of people in africa. mulally is expecting a bumper harvest this year. allow its have worked extremely hard to diverse with economy and even for -- we're expecting a bumper harvest. we are encouraging investors to come and invest in agriculture, and in the, in mining, and in tourism. but agriculture is the easiest

for malawi ends to enter. malawi is a success story. because in the past year with all the efforts we have made, we are expected to grow by 5%, our economy we will have reduced maternal mortality of 600, to 470. we have out of 7000 added classes going on at the moment. we have improved our position according to the more index. we are working hard to improve the lives of women. we have studied a very strong exchange program. of month ago she sent a delegation from library to who came to malawi and we sent a delegation from malawi to we are

ready to help to assist our people, but we also calling upon the investors from the u.s. to come to africa. the best thing that's happened to me during this trip has now hearing president obama, engineering yesterday saying what i've been trying for 30 years, that it is only when we assist our people in the continent of africa to do business, to have an income at household level, that sealed we were going to eradicate poverty on that continent. thank you very much for your attention. [applause] >> and now president sall for his comments. >> thank you very much.

mrs[speaking in native tongue] >> translator: i would like to express my apologies for being late. in fact, we are talking about democracy and democracy consumes the summary of the people. yesterday after dinner the people of senegal, people from senegal and the united states, from all states who wished to meet with me and, therefore, i had to spend some time that i was with him and to four in the morning. and that gave me very little time to come here. so i'd like to extend my apologies. ladies and gentlemen, i am the president of a small country by its size. we have 12 million citizens in my country. but we are an african country which has provided a great contribution to universal democracy. senegal indeed has experienced

in 1786, the date when fundamental important things occurred in this country. in 1786, in 1787, we had a very important revelation -- revolution in the north of the country, which allowed us to rid ourselves of a traditional power in order to consolidate a governance based not on -- based around a choice of the various components of the population of the time. and a specifications were made at the time, and we said we needed to choose our leader, north valley of the time, based on these standards, your knowledge, there is a standard of leadership. and this would already codified in 1786-1787.

in 1860, long after these events, which lasted more than a century, at a time when seneca was still a colony, voting already started already in 1860, which means that a democratic process is neither the evidence of a single precedent, neither call by a party acts as a legacy of a very long process that took many years. cynical already in 1914 sent its first black member parliament to the french parliament. he was followed by other members of parliament. up until 1960. so is this legacy that allowed us to have a stable regime since 1960. we've never experienced

variations or choose. and this in spite of political crisis such as the one that we had last year, we nonetheless remain on the right track and we have understood that democracy is everybody's business. that democracy pursues free and transparent elections. and you must be held at specific deadlines. you must abide by the timeline by the principles of procedures, and you cannot change the rules of the game during again. because it's doing a soccer game if you change the rules of the game, you can imagine that the game would be of no longer much interest. and this unfortunately, this almost is what happened to us last year. so i'm talking about this little deviation, the rules of the game were changed when it was established in additional protocol that six months prior to an election you cannot modify the rules of electoral law.

so i am the inheritor of this tradition but i'm very proud of it, because i do know that as a president of republic there are some things i cannot do myself. and the example is that we have a true democracy, standing institutions, and i fought against the former president who, for 12 years was my boss. i was his minister, his prime minister. i was speaker of parliament. coming from his own majority, we had a dispute. i left in the i founded my own party, and i defeated him clearly transparent, democratically. and i came into office five days between the vote of the runoff, and my swearing of office. a country that does not have solid issues cannot do that. so senegal has democracy at

we've always had strong institutions. the power cannot, has control over these come you cannot change the rules of games and that's what institutions are, good government. good governance assumes the principle of accountability. therefore, you have to be held accountable. which means that those who are responsible of the public office, they have to come everything that they do is accountable, and, therefore, we have, we would like -- i myself have a boeing 747 that i'm putting off for sale because actually it's for sale for one year now but no one seems be interested in buying it. it might have to be given to a museum. ..

therefore we must constantly worked to reduce the corruption down to a level that will be almost insignificant, and that is not easy because the traditions of, and as long as we do not have the rule of law, if we don't have accountability, it will be very hard to fight corruption but we are not losing hope and i am convinced i am stuck here because i don't want to go beyond the time that was given to me but on the of

general, i'm in favor of the reduction of the term of office of the president from seven years to five years and i would like to tell you africa today is a continent on the large. the africa of 2013 has nothing to do with a cliche that is often expressed to talk about the civil war iraq, where you talk about half the coups but keep in mind you had the civil war fan there was in europe appear until 1945. people fought each other. africa has become independent for the most case so it is normal, there should be conflict remaining here and there and we have had composite borders that we created by the. in the overall dynamic of the continent we are moving towards prosperity and democracy and this hope i would like to convey to you today at usip is to tell

americans please come on to the continent. it's a cradle of mankind. it's a magical continent in terms of its diversity and in terms of its natural resources, in terms of its men and women africa, and it's just six hours by plane. [applause] >> thank you very much for those very spirited remarks. let me now turn to our last speaker in the first round and invite the prime minister of cape verde prime minister to

address us now. >> i want to thank the institute for this meeting. this is the peace institute. the institute of peace for the united states therefore i would like to start by saying that in order to have development, it is essential for that there be peace and stability and it is essential also to have democracy in the country. there is no development without civility and no government without democracy. that being said, i think that the most important thing that we can do for africa is to build capable governments, capable

states, states that can guarantee democracy and stability. a state capable of managing political plurality, social plurality, the state that can manage conflict and states in africa that could face the risk that are now presented in the continent and the risk that the whole humanity runs. they are very important and very large. but in africa we also face some very serious social risks for instance thinking about an

explosion on the part of the youth if you get the opportunities for the future. we need to train the young people for work so they can have a better life in the future. so i think that we needed the governments in africa that can develop a clear vision of development and states and governments that can develop strategies that will allow them to implement this vision for the development to define a development agenda the strategies of well-defined paths

to undertake the economy development is freedom. we will have a higher level of development and reached for our freedom and liberty and we will be in the position to consolidate democracy for good. another important factor for peace and stability in the future is of course a good governance. governance of course implies free in the transparent elections, respect for the rules of the game, respect for minorities. it's essential to respect minorities and to respect their position.

their position must find a position in the political game and the opposition must also play a role in the political definition of the administration in the country. and also, the government must be in a position to respond to the demands and the aspirations of the population. serious administration that looks towards providing services for the citizenry as well as the business community. and if we are able to do that, we will have certainly created spaces that will take into account the plurality and the diversity of our society's and is that in order to put together very strong development agendas and in so doing also reached or

put in place legitimate governments whose legitimacy will be of course defined by their own performance, governors that will defend the rules law and democracy which are all dirty important sectors for peace and stability. but to conclude, i would like to say that africa is the continent of the future. africa can only claim to be the continent of the future because they have a very rich past. it has enormous capabilities, and all we need to do is really gather all of this capacity, all this capability, talent and make it work towards the development

of africa to use very abundant resources in the service of dignity for all africans and i think that the president's our leaders that show there is a positive for africa, officious africa out there. there is africa that wants democracy, peace, stability command wants above all development to ensure all africans men and women. thank you very much. [applause] >> mr. prime minister, very inspired remarks, and we will come back to those.

we have received a number of very good questions from our audience. and i would like very much to involve them in the dialogue that we are having here this morning. i will ask all of you to respond briefly to these questions. the first one is a combination of two questions from the audience, and one is how do you keep your space progress on track, and what are the challenges to doing that? and the second one is also in the same way says congratulations on your economy being among the fastest-growing in the world.

what measures are you taking to keep this good news moving forward. the democracies will remain vibrant and alive. >> to remain accountable and transparent is to set up in my office was recalling the product implementation units as a center

with the public because they can find out what progress we are making and how the implementation is taking place. number two, i have set a program to interact with opposition parties and i would invite them to the state house to discuss matters of state to rise above politics and just focus on issues that are of great importance. i do my same with a civil society and i do my duty to the same and the faith community. >> thank you. >> could i ask the president macky sall. >> translator: thank you. i think that in order to maintain a democratic standard, my country must be able to

continue to have a constant space watchdog because the democracy does remain fragile in light of the exceptional events that occurred in our democracy was challenged and there has to be monitoring of the democracy. we are a country that is still free and independent but it's thanks to the justice system which asserted its independence and took the right to decisions. you have to have political actors that have set free in competition and also have to accept the outcome and the rules of the game have to be clear and transparent for all. we must also i believe be fair and equitable in the distribution of wealth. to do so, we need to have a growth that would be inclusive

whereby growth is reflected in society and we give greater opportunities to each and every one allowing them to progress thanks to their own efforts and improve their lives. that is a fundamental element, and there are various social programs. we have universal health care, and we have also the special family plans to give hope back to those citizens to are the weakest among us and to allow other people to truly develop themselves to create wealth, so it is a scale of balance that you must work with. and this is what i believe to be a factor. >> i think that in order to ensure continuity of a space state its fundamental that we consider three different aspects

first to respect scrupulously the rules of the game. second, to build a consensus as regards to the principal national, and in order to build consensus you have to have a prior strong political dialogue and bring together the principal political parties, the political actors as well as strengthen social dialogue or the different social actors, the unions, management, businesses, to build a minimum consensus on the important social issues on the day of the economic agenda and the creation of an environment that is seen as favorable for foreign investment and the growth of the economy. the first most important dimension has to do with the carrying out of government. governments become legitimate

day-by-day to the degree that governments are able to provide answers to social needs. they create channels, new channels of interaction with different aspects of society coming up with a strong civil society, ensuring that civil society has for room to grow and the firm itself. the economic growth per say the most important would be to create factors of continuity, to create a favorable environment for business and create opportunities so that these businesses will be carried out through strong investments from the private sector. >> for me, maintaining democracy is all about a strict adherence to the rule of law.

like i mentioned i also say to you it's difficult for us to build a space process we have to create institutions and what is required now is very strong institutions that will regulate the whole space process. we have institutions for the human rights, institutions for democratic, we have the judiciary and we have many other institutions that have strengthened and allowed a space without political interference i think that you would be able to ensure the whole society is not just about people and

governments or the leadership. it is about the protection of the individuals. it is about protecting the minority groups. it is about securing the vulnerable groups. and when you have in the country these institutions that address this issue, i think the substance of democracy is ensuring that if these institutions are given the space to operate and the government allows them a complete suppression of power to the economy also has to be an ongoing process. and now we have tried to add here to the review and they've become interested for their

investors to come and invest. that is why i very much like the contact for you you have to ensure the parameters that are expected on the continuous basis and by doing that you will begin to sustain the democracy and ensure that you have an opportunity to improve on what you have done so it is a question of just continuing those rights, in improving on it and allowing the institution to grow in the democracies. >> thank you very much. a space institutions clearly are a vital ingredient to any

strong, stable and vibrant democracy. but every good democracy is undercut by a vibrant civil society. a civil society capable of speaking out, civil society capable of organizing, of participating and being felt that it is being heard. let me ask a question in this regard from one of our audience members, and this person says what is your response to the leaders in africa who have become skeptical and hostile towards the foreign funding civil societies organizations, and how do you in fact treat and

respect your own civil societies >> i will start with president macky sall. >> translator: thank you. thank you, ambassador. in senegal we have a very dynamic civil society, and that civil society has played a major role in consolidating our democracy. the political terms to ensure that the elections are free and civil society in the country is a very active in promoting human rights. there are various national human rights organizations which worked not only within senegal that the neighboring countries as well. they are very involved in

conflict resolution and peace so we have a very dynamic civil society organizations. the religious issues, these religious civil society organizations have the freedom to do what they want and we have to look closely where they get their funding and make sure that funding provided to a lot of these religious is sent to the activities like terrorism. so, you have to look very closely at the funding of the organization's. we did a great deal of freedom and a great deal of leeway to the civil society organizations in our country that are active across the entire country.

and we have no particular objections to find funding organizations as long as all of this is done according to the national legislation they have no problem with funding ngos. >> development of differing african countries will be through a competitive integration of all of those countries working together until long run. there are some countries that are in the process of transition and there is a certain distrust regarding unknown investors and i think that gradually continent why we are creating first

accounted for each country. the creation of new opportunities for the firms interested in doing business in our country as well as necessary conditions to attract the foreign capital hoping that this investment will ultimately be for the true development of the country. in cape verde we have a lot that favors the attraction of private investments as well as the incentives policy to create a greater incentives that wish to take advantage of the investments as well was working to create competitiveness

sectors so the firms can invest and to do business and make profits for themselves investors can satisfy their own stockowners. >> i believe it plays a very important role in terms of the space process. i believe there should be partners with government in the efforts developing the specific sectors it represents. we have no problems with the civil society. i think the difficulty is when you cannot clearly defined the

civil society. what is the objective that we are trying to achieve. it is representing the other side visible from the government as acceptable but when the civil society only to attract further attention has been counterproductive for an effective governance and concealed as partners in development.

[applause] >> in a lot of ways the society provides they are partners and i myself came from this act so i'm a product of the civil society. when there is a fight between the civil society and the government, it only confuses the voiceless that we are all supposed to serve. they moved on the disadvantaged people and then they should take advantage of the issues in order to serve the people better.

to enjoy the freedom we think that the civil society in the international ngos that come to work have to forge partnerships because there are a lot of people in the civil society that are better able to understand the issues and when they forge partnerships, they are better able to yield more for the benefits. it really breaks my heart when the international community i think that they can do it alone and ignore the speaker. we know how to get from point a to point b and get people out of the product and it breaks my

heart when they have abandoned police officers. they don't know where to start from and what to do. a local indigenous ngo's then and they are better to achieve more to read >> thank you very much for those remarks. two groups in africa that are essential to africa's wellbeing and future are sometimes neglected and overlooked. we have gotten several questions from the audience that ask in many african countries come african youth comprise the

majority of the population. in many african countries, women are over 50% of the population. what are you doing to ensure the use of your countries are going to turn out to be the future leaders of the country who are going to continue to support democracy and strong economic development, what are you doing to ensure when men and all of your activities in your countries? >> and we would start if we could this time around prime minister neves.

>> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: these are two of the more interesting matters i can discuss. for instance, let's look at the youth. i think that fundamentally we have to invest in their training and education. if you invest in education is fundamental to be able to provide any type of a response to the needs and desires of the youth. a basic education, secondary education, university training, and professional and technical training. whatever type of training and education, invest heavily in that to create conditions they have the possibilities to be employed once graduated and to create the necessary conditions to support their entrepreneurial

spirit that they have spirit and they have the space to build a business that they can set up their own terms of employment, create their own businesses. we can create the eg batres in firms as it were, but also conditions permitting them to be hired, promoted, that they do have benefits from tax incentives. we already have many of you for creating small businesses where for the first three years they are able to operate tax-free and also where they can have greater easier access to all levels of education. in the last few years, 2% of our full of gdp budget we certainly rose to 22 percent, which is one of the highest rates of spending on education throughout the

african continent. in terms of women they represent the future of the humanity, period. therefore, it's fundamental to invest in the equality and equity that they deserve, and let me give you some examples. i have budgets that include the questions, the gender evaluation the caustically poverty is more frequent in female quarters and we have to reduce the inequalities and the distribution of power, the distribution of wealth and we have created and the quality institute and a gender inequality and an equity institute to promote even more even greater equality between men and women, and let me tell

you that behind -- behind every great man there is a great woman. beside every great man there is a great woman and that is a line that we wish to further in the future. creating many opportunities and to give an example even at all levels of government aid at a given point in time, and even to this day we have full parity among all of our 15 ministers we have eight women ministers come and these are an important and essentials portfolio for the government maintenance so that they can participate fully in the governance of the country. and this isn't really a question of just numbers. but we support business and entrepreneurial spirit by women, education for women coming to support women in the creation of small business.

of their own businesses. and last, to combat the question which has been fundamental throughout, and that is violence against women. unfortunately in africa we are aware of the fact this problem still exists and we have to do everything possible. everything within our power to combat domestic violence and gender based violence, and we approved with the support of the united states government and the secretary of state hillary clinton gave immense support in this regard we were able to approve the law against gender based violence which is having immediate results throughout cape verde. and let me wind up these are deep questions i may have gone on too much but there are deep personal interests to me. let me say that we have to have a full commitment by african

leadership in terms of attendees, greater opportunities to be given to the youth in the future and the equality and gender equality and equity to get ever greater opportunities to women. only in a society where equals coexist can there be people that are free. only in the free society with free people can there be greater recall that the -- ecology. thank you very much. [applause] >> mr. president, on the issue, we've taken this very seriously because the use are the most effective within and therefore

trying to rehabilitate the country and move the country forward bettas why we have an established the commission charged with the civility for the use of the activities and we engage them. additionally, i have created a ministry of to focus on activities coming and we can see that personally i have committed my second term to developing and sharing and that for them to realize the benefits of the new opportunities that a imagine the country to the [applause] also on the position of trust i

have full-time ministers and the government with opportunities to be exposed so it's not about the leaders of tomorrow or the leadership process today. the issue is also important and constitutes the majority of the position and of course we have the unique complexities customary and otherwise and position them alongside men and have an agenda that ensures the issue of inheritance, the issues of marriage, and we have also

enacted the crime against the state, and we have also different positions that have not been provided in the past. if you justices of the country are the solicitor general is a woman commissioner general for the authorities and we have a host of them in the supreme court and we are the country with the only general and these are examples of given opportunities. [applause] >> thank you.

>> thank you. more than 50% [inaudible] [laughter] we'll look at the population of when you find a woman and tell this woman don't you think this is enough she will look back at

you and say i have children. so until and unless we deal with the issue, they will continue to be worn. when you are born in a hospital when i find invent mortality and women that are dollying giving birth between the ages of 15 to 19, the reason they are dying is because [inaudible] if they are staying it is not only about the future but also her life in terms of the woman. it is very important for us to sort out the issue of the income

of the household level but for the poor suffer education for women, number two there is the discussion of leadership for creating space to participate in leadership at this level. in africa we have to women presidents in the african union. it's time for them to seize this opportunity to get as many women as possible.

our girls must go to school and must go to school, and stay in school. it's for the women because when the household has an income data to the hospitals. >> the ones that missed out on education supporting them and helping them that would raise the potential so they could have an income for the women and provided them the good news is that this year we are headed for this fifth i want to agree with

the president lot of the youth are not the leaders of tomorrow the are the leaders of today. they are the leaders of tomorrow allow me to introduce my minister. i want to introduce my minister of france. [applause] >> i don't need to say more. we are running short on time and president macky sall has a few short words on liberty. it's quite difficult to say

anything more after all these presentations to say something that hasn't been set yet but african society is a very young society. africa is a young continent the prime minister said so in a synagogue as in most other countries 70% of the population is under 25. so, just imagine 70% or 125. so, the challenge to our government -- these are major challenges. first of all, education which remains the crosscutting issue for women or young people there is a proverb that says if you train them and you train a citizen. if you train a woman you train a society because a trained and educated woman has an entire family and children and this is

geometrical and means of devotee of the society will be educated and trained so we will the absolutely carry out these educational training efforts, and empowerment efforts towards women but also we must promote a youth because it's not taken into account it will take affairs into its own hands by the street. so we absolutely need a well educated and well trained people we have six universities and we've created a brand new university which is in the sense of the country. but above all, we must provide vocational training for jobs, the skills which means to do manual labor is just as intellectual work we follow the

french tradition and people conduct manual labor are in fact at the bottom of the scale which means everybody wanted to become lawyers, doctors, engineers and of the society cannot continue that model we need bakers and everybody to create a society coming and we need to give value to that in order to give more jobs, more responsibilities to the youth to ensure that the most productive content namely agriculture is modernized agriculture should be able to occupy most of our work force, and finally, with respect to women we have all on gender equality which has been enforced which means a person who does not apply the principal of parity if your candidates you

cannot be elected and this is being enforced today. we see it in the upcoming elections at the city and local election and this is a principle that would be applied to the commission which means there have been some progress made in africa but of course africa is also the continent where we still have the situation of our society's but this has to be a dynamic and we accept it. >> you shouldn't get the wrong

target. women's empowerment is not just the quality of law, but it is the living conditions in the rural environment and the hardship of work. >> that is what the government has taken into account. we have to educate them. we have to get electricity in the villages. we must have health care centers to take care of prenatal care to allow women to give birth under better conditions to ensure that the hardship of their labor be reduced and they become true citizens of the world. so, wouldn't want to see the evolution of women exclusively for intellectuals and urban centers must also ensure that rural women have better living conditions as well.

thank you very much. [applause] >> we have many more questions from the audience the we will not be able to take this morning. but this has been a very stimulating and delightful dialogue with four great african leaders. we in the united states are proud of them being in washington over the last several days and we are especially proud that they are in fact share the values and principles that we in the united states believed then our strong space institutions and deep respect for human

rights and civil liberties and our commitment to economic growth and prosperity and a respect that understanding of the importance of women and youth and exclusivity in our democracy as well as the importance of a strong civil society that we are extraordinarily pleased to have been able to host this event with president macky sall, and the primm and mr. neves of cape verde. i hope that you all in the audience, this program to be as stimulating and rewarding as i have. so i thank them all and i turn

the podium back over to the president of the united states institute for peace, jim marshall, and we thank him personally and his colleagues for, again, opening of their facilities for this wonderful event. [applause] >> investor carson and all of our guests come i was inspired by your remarks. leadership like yours bodes well for the future of africa. you send an example to the world, an example of hope and it's an example that is inspiring. thank you for coming. it was a delight to host you and i would ask that the audience remain seated while we had our guests and their entourage leave. please be seated and with that we will close the event with my

thanks to the institute. thank you. >> ladies and gentlemen, please remain in your seats until the official party to departs. [inaudible conversations] please remain in your seats until the party departs

[inaudible conversations] >> that wraps up this event with african leaders. if you missed this will be available to you shortly online at c-span.org. here's what some of our viewers are tweeting about this event.

president obama is on the road today to talk about public-private

well, if you are result oriented it's miserable. we solved problems facing the constituents of the country it's miserable. and that's the bottom line. i am a fighter by nature. a spot inside of my greek heritage. unfortunately, the process has changed in the united states senate. it's no longer reconciling differences. it's either side has a position reflected as a party position. ones that failed if either side has a vote, than they do not

move to try to resolve those differences. if they become irreconcilable. the question is how you get past those differences. and that is a fundamental problem that has occurred in the united states senate. you have more lawmakers in the house and the senate. the 43 new senators since 2008 and then you have the 2014 election to be over 50 percent. so many that haven't been a part of the legislative body are not even familiar with how to make law. we are starting to go to the floor of the united states senate and remind everybody what works because it is true. we don't have the amendment process, we don't have the committee process. everything has broken down. so i came to the sad conclusion that fight needs to be taken on the outside. and that is why this is so inappropriate to engage the public to demand change and to reward those that are willing to

engage in consensus building and compromise and penalize those who don't. >> the city hall on the basement for -- >> november 24, 1963 dallas nightclub operator jack ruby shot and killed lee harvey also called the man arrested for the assassination of john f. kennedy. hear first hand about the trial from your jay rose that about the diary of the proceedings. >> he looked alone and he looked forward. he just looked pitiful. he never said anything. never smiled. i need ytoy contact with him

[inaudible] he had a vacant stare if you will. >> recently in new york university hosted a discussion with serbian political activist. she discusses the role of new media and political revolutions and compares violence to nonviolent struggles. in addition, he analyzes such movements as the green revolution in iran and political uprising in europe and syria. the founder and of a key organizer of the serbian nonviolent resistance group that helped overthrow the serbian president slobodan milosevic in 2000. the fine hard school of culture education and human development posted this event and it is just under 90 minutes.

>> all right. thank you, everyone for coming. i am a visiting professor of the media partner communication. it is an absolute thrill to introduce you srdja popovic. i've been introducing srdja for a while now and it seems every time i introduce him there is something attached to his name, be it talker, google speaker. we learned last week that it doubles in d so you can start feeling angeles right now. is the most influential person on this list or the other including why year, foreign affairs and other available publications. but let me tell you about the real reason we are here to listen to srdja. we are here to listen to srdja because, as the title of this talk suggests, srdja has done

and has fought perhaps more than anyone else out there about how to harness the terrific power of non-violent struggle and helping people organized movements that ended up in the ousting of mubarak and the ousting of ben ali and all kinds of the talk today began the last couple years terrible, terrible years for bad guys. so srdja will tell you a lot more about himself. he is the intellectual force and the muscle behind otpor!, the serbian movement that ended up incredibly started as a host of board college kids and ended up actually ousting slobodan milosevic. he's a consultant, a teacher, and h. guru of nonviolent movements throughout the world. it is my honor to have him here and my honor to call him a friend. srdja popovic. [applause]

>> thank you. you are too kind to me. but good afternoon and i'm so happy and proud of being here again at nyu. it started by actually the first time i walked in this building i was meeting people from all occupied a few years ago. and the next thing was talking to the bright students, and then they moved me a little bit from washington park because i like it too much and they sent me to another great professor in barkley of street which is where i met students and this is my third and i hope it will not be my last time here. we are going to touch a few issues for the issues of non-violent struggle. second, how it relates to the specifics use of media which we always try to understand. and then something that is very interesting and getting very sexy and i can even say over

exaggerated lately which is the role of the new media. and you are all seeing this in the title of the newspaper like facebook revolution. so, what it is and where it goes i will start by telling you my favorite anecdote how many of you are familiar with imagine the character from monty python. there is one single condition coming with this. the future will be accurate but you need to go to c-span and tell the future. so of course you take it back and you'll get the crystal ball and the next thing you know you are sitting in a studio with a lovely host, and this is what you say. behind 2011, they would be down and prosecute.

yemen would be out of the power and asad challenged together with gadhafi and the cruelest so it was the worst year for bad guys and before jumping into the year which is 2012 and released at all from the closet and becomes a kind of mainstream knowledge. before that most of the people were looking at it and we can see the harvard professor, columbia professor looking at how this works and then of course they were looking at this thing and they knew a little bit about it and for the first time the common people started what is this thing we call people power. one thing we know as we speak

and shakes the world. it's everywhere. it used to be all around the united states and its kept them in venezuela and is starting in syria as a non-violent uprising. yemen, bob naim probably 15 years now and the pet for burma up dramatically as we speak. whenever you look at the globe even in my own neighborhood under the pressure of the popular movement, the government resigns and as a new collections are named the system is changing. so one big thing is if there is so much around us how much do we know about it which brings us to one other question. if you look at this building you probably have a lot on the history books. so, if you take a random but from history, what percentage of

this book is about the war and a violent power. how many have you seen about one single vietnamese? ten, 15, 20, how many good news about the nonviolent struggle? how many good moves about martin luther king, one, maybe to. one good movie about malcolm and that is to teach the struggle with a you look at the books or the movies. how can this relate to the history i have the pleasure of dealing with this and we start with the question people give you very nice answers. people say the idea accounts and religion counts, change counts.

we want to look at the consequences and look at the way you can attach to the struggle we look at the history of the 20th century and start. a lot of movies and a lot of books, case study number one, world war i. what was world war i about? you had some countries that didn't have qualities and some that have colonies. it was in 1914 and very much like that now in the entire war starts and ends four years later and displaced people after them people are dying but what are

the real consequences and when you look at the consequences of the world war i you can see that the colonial power was redistributed to the most important consequence of world war i. world war two, when you look at world war ii, it was a completely different species. while world war i was a very tangible thing like the ground, the resources, the colonies, the goal, more about ideological for things. we call them national socialism and germany, tyrants in japan. a lot of these left wing mats and the liberal democracy i like to call liberal capitalism basically the three families and

it's not too big for them and what basically happened in the world were to. the 20th century is the cold war and now we have to rise that separated by the war and we wage the proxy war because they have so much that you can kill each other completely and lead to the proxy war, vietnam, korea, afghanistan. there isn't one single tangible that counts. we can talk about the league of nations for u.n..

when you look at the real consequences of the conflict, they are little comparing to the consequences of non-violent conflict what starts as a skinny little known as ghandi was he successful? what are the consequences? india was independent. one of the biggest colonial superpowers has lost its biggest and most important colony to the u.k. and india but leading to

2013. you understand how this is related and this guy over year there's something with people power. his name was martin luther king. what was his struggle about? race for a quality for the people to eat and shop regardless of the color of their skin. was he successful? she was successful and 30 years after that they were successful in the last fortress of the racial segregation in south africa. but basically this was one big movement for human-rights. consequences, 2013 was completely to judge by the color

of their skin anywhere in the world. when you look at the consequences, they are tremendous. what was the struggle about. the labor union, right. the communist government. but the results of his success were great. over its most important colonialized territory possible however we call the place with 1,000 russian troops. it started a little bit of the collapse of the soviet union and what we know as the fall of the berlin wall followed by the

struggles. we want to see how the people now in 2013. they are really, really dramatic. so, i will quote my favorite speech from martin luther king and hands of a few desperate men. our enemies would deal with the same group rather than a huge alarmed what is the sign? american scholars examined 323 different campaigns for 19,000

to 2008 and they find a fantastic results. you can see the success of the campaigns is 26% that would be 35 if you had the intervention to it like the one in libya and compared to the non-violent campaign efficiency rate is 53%. it becomes even more dramatic when you look at the decades because back there in the 40's, 50's and a little bit of the 60's you have a comparable result factor between violence and nonviolent campaigns we have a cold war here and a big brother once something is happening. you look at the latest results the nonviolent campaigns. while we are sitting here you are asking yourself this brings us to the topic which is how

this relates to the media. it symbolized by one from the very early stage of the serbian movement because we had the one as a website and it was really, really great. .. >> it creates an impression of the successful movement. you want to look at the web site, it's also a position where you can recruit your people.

so whatever these movements do, they communicate. and you've probably seen this thing 50 or 60 times in your life, but it's always nice to know and to remind how this machine of communication works for movements. first of all, they need to know who they talk to. if they're a little group of the people, dealing with a dog's shed in brooklyn, they'll probably have one type of people. if they're opposing assad in syria, they will talk to another group of people. if you want to attract rural syria, you need to go there and physically touch them so your them differs, and your messenger differs as well. so when you're examining successful movements, they all know how to communicate clearly. first of all, what they need to know, they need to know their target audiences, and whether we are talking about the female rights movements of the '50s

and '60s, or we talk about the contemporary movements for dealing with us aer the -- austerity measures anywhere in the world, they always have to talk to four types of target audiences. first of all, they need to talk to members and supporters. secondly, they need to talk to the wider audience. this is where they recruit people, because the nonviolent struggle operates the way you need to gain numbers and win through numbers. then they talk to the potential ally. every single small group is your potential ally in a nonviolent struggle if they have resources. at the end of the day, in the era of the new media there is no such thing as a low conflict. so you also talk to international community. how do you talk to this target audience depends on what you want. you can look at a variety of traditional media. you can look at the slogans, gestures, caricatures, symbols,

sky writing, earth writing, banners, posters, stickers, recorded music -- i had a fantastic meeting today with the organization called moveon.org, they try to find a market for the groups like pussy riot to perform and sell outside. so the music can be very powerful message. we can also talk about the flyers, pamphlets, books, newspapers, magazines. and back there in 2000 we thought this. this is an old screen which says, "he is finished," with the date of election. i thought this was the peak of the use of technology in nonviolent struggle. you buy a little card on a kiosk, you put it in your laptop, you send it as many messages as it is prepaid, it says he's finished, date of elections, and then it says, you know, please forward. so it also makes interactive,

because you forward this message to people from your phonebook, and you can reach thousands of people. and then you can just throw this card in the garbage, and people, you know, governments can't find you. i was so proud on serbian movement. now it's abandoned concept even for advertising victoria's secret. but back then it was 2000, it was very progressive. and, of course, word of mouth in many, many different cases where have a closed media, it is gossips and word of mouth is how people get to the truth. to be very politically incorrect because i'm a serb, we used to say that there are three different very fast ways to spread informations, it is television, telecommunication and tell a woman. [laughter] the last one is particularly efficient when it comes to the closed societies, because people do believe people they know rather than the state-controlled tv. and if you've ever lived nor a month in a country where media

are controlled by the government and you have censorship, you will know you would belief a taxi driver more than a state-controlled newspaper. so the word of mouth is also very, very interesting. so whichever thing you look you need to know why are you using it. and whatever kind of media has its, you know, own advantages and its own sales, some of them are cheap, some of them are more expensive, some of them are more efficient when you talk to the people directly. and this brings us to the new media. and, you know, when you look at this little basket with all of this little social networking tools, you want to understand how the new media change the scope of the nonviolent struggle. so, first of all, i'm a biologist, and i'm as far from i.t. as you can imagine. i don't even know how to put things in this machine. and i'm in constant fear that i

will bring something of this machinery down. but when you look at the history of the media, you can really see that we are on the brink of the third media revolution. and as a great scholar used to say, we need to follow two streams on the media revolution. and when you look at how it influences people-power movements, you can also see that it make tremendous impact. so look at the the first media revolution stream. it starts with guttenberg, the printing machine. so what was the printing machine given to us? come on. you read books? newspaper? so it made information accessible to lots of the people. before guttenberg the books, basically, the religious books were like, you know, rewritten by the physical people, and they were really, really expansive. because, you know, there was no excess to them.

once you get this printing machine, you could reach a lot of people in some time with relatively cheap product, the book. or might be. that bring i -- or newspaper. that brings us to the second step in the media revolution line number one which is radio. what has radio enabled us to do, or very unlike printing machine? hear people's voices which is important, but even more important? sorry? louder? oh. oh, yes, music. but when it comes to spreading of the information, it's almost immediate. yes, that's the difference because it takes some time to print, and it takes some time to distribute what you've printed. with radio you can listen as it happens. there is a traffic accident in brooklyn, immediately you can hear about it on the radio.

and then it brings us to the step number three which adds a little picture to the radio, and this is television. so what has television enabled us is to connect mass interaction with the speed and with the picture. and the picture, of course, works more than 1,000 words. so this streamline of the media revolution is something we live in. very unlike that, there is a young scottish guy whose name is heinrich bell, and he invented the second thing and the second line of the media revolution which is, of course, telephone. yes. what is difference between these two lines of -- what telephone enables you, of course, first of all, to interact. so very unlike television, radio and newspapers, it is one-sided communication. telephone is interacting.

so what is happening in the 21st century is that we are living in the third media revolution, because the first line of the media revolution enabled you to hit a lot of people in no time and to become even more lively with the pictures, the second one is here. but what new media are bringing to the scope is that they solve this communication dilemma. it's massive, fast and interactive in the same way. when you look at the tv, how many people you can bring to the studio, five, six? when you look at the radio, how many people we can put on a telephone wire? three, four. it's already complicated, it's a mess. if you try to conference with more than five people, you understand what i'm telling you about. the new media can reach millions in seconds, but in the same time, people can interact. they can leave comments, they can discuss, you can reply to them. so the reason why it's changed

our media space and the people power space dramatically is that really changed the destiny of the campaigns from the point of massivety and from the point of the interaction. now, i will walk you through the very short, unlikely history of the new media and their use if popular movements. -- in popular movements. and when you think about the popular movements, you think about the march, the countries which are technologically advanced, you can think about the young egyptians and tunisians. in fact, the first step in use of new media in the campaigns was done by the new york hipster. you know what the flash mobs are. flash mobs? let's gatt orer together on -- gather together on a funny place and do something stupid. basically, snowball wars, tomato wars. so in 2003 the different flash

mobs, groups basically in america and elsewhere in the western world, and they were used for bringing people to one place for basically having fun. doing something edgy, but basically having fun. that goes all the way until may of 2006 when a group of young belarusians organized a flash mob. they will meet in the main square in mining and eat ice cream. that was their idea of the good fun. they came there, the plain-clothed police appear, they arrest the guys. this is where today understand that it's not about eating ice cream or doing the pillow wars, it is about gathering of people. because lot of the autocrats limit the number of the people on the street. you have more than five people in zimbabwe, it's a political rally. you need to apply for a permit from the government. so this brings us to the second

very strange case of the use of the new media. 2006 led by a biewd monk who was -- buddhist monk, the thing we call saffron revolution started in burma. it was big, it was led by the buddhist monk accompanied by students, and the hundreds of thousands marched in the street. they didn't know the right strategy. there's rah gap tsaic movie -- fantastic movie which shows how they built this movement but also how the movement collapsed. you need to know when and how to proclaim the victory. so like in the city yangmen square, they stayed there a little too long, and then the military really calm down and smashed them. but this vj burma movie and the images we've seen all over the world were made on the very primitive cameras by common people who tend to become first

people power citizens-journalists. they were done by little cell phones, they were done by little cameras. and nowadays went you look anywhere in the world and you see demonstrations what is happening? somebody's taping. so this thing was -- [inaudible] in the rural, low-tech, no internet integration place called burma. this, of course, couldn't come without getting into the traditional campaign, so 2,000 days obama campaign used the media in a new and very, very cruttive way. this become -- creative way. this has become a blueprint for political campaign since we can say that churchill and hitler won their election on radio, they say kennedy won them on a tv, it was obama who won it via alternative digital media. this campaign was made by a funny little guy with this

lovely smile. so david plouffe used the new media and -- in a new and very characteristic way. first, recruiting the voter. over two million grass roots voters were recruited, it was led by a man whom i have pleasure to know. fundraising, $700 u.s. dollars basically from small -- so that's a second big function of the new media in this campaign. use of the, use of the social networks, late 2008 right before the elections obama was leading madonna 7 million to 1.3 million likes on the facebook to compare it with a show business thing. but even more important, in the campaign was interactive in a very, very interesting way. it has two very important aspects.

first, you recruit people in the virtual world, and then they put them together in the real world. so if you're a group of campaigners from brooklyn and you know somebody in the campaign matches your age and interest, they will put you together with the people to organize a garden party, they will give you bumper stickers, of course, they need your free labor, but it moves it from the virtual do the real world. fantastic way for people to interact. i started a blog on this campaign related to the recognition of the -- [inaudible] okay, this is the problem between america and serbia for which we were bombed in 999. i said, okay, i'm a serb from chicago -- i lied, but basically i'm a serb from chicago -- and there's a huge serbian community in chicago, and they elected obama as a senator. first, because he's coming from illinois, and they mostly vote left. so they mostly vote democrat. and they say recognition of kosovo is the big thing for us,

because it creates a problem between two of our countries. so if you become president, how will you treat this issue? and hen the more people start -- then the more people start commenting, and somebody in the campaign sees i've started a very interesting topic. so what happened next was there was an answer from obama himself on the site, of course, written by an intern. but, basically, somebody was watching this thing and say, okay, this is a topic we need to address. so this was not only the tool to address the people, but it was also the tool the to see what the people want and to deal with the real topics. so this is very unique use, and a lot of these campaigns are based on this david plouffe model. 2009 broadcasted on youtube, green revolution in iran started being organized and broadcasted by the social media. after elections, people gather in the street. they were using social networks

to communicate. text messages, facebook, different type of -- [inaudible] was very big network in iran. consequences, one of the protesters got hit by a sniper by national revolutionary guard, and we could watch the direct broadcasting of her dying on the youtube. she became a huge world symbol. 2009 revolution failed in iran because of lack of unity and some other things, but this is the very important use of the new media. needless to say, 2011 arab spring was very much into organizing by the social media, new media. broadcasting via social media. so when you look at these things even in sudan, you know, very low-tech place, people are using social media. so when you look at these things, you can say the nonviolent struggle, the people power, the revolutions are very much changed so the rerevolutions are following this

media revolution. and you can look at how this change the battlefield. you can look at the three aspects of it. first, few media are making -- new media are making things faster and cheap or. you want to organize a rally in 1995, you needed to print leaflets, put posters, ring doors, make radio commercial and get arrested, by the way. so it was really complicated process that costs money, time and there was a list -- risk involved. you want to organize a protest now in washington park, you know? you make a facebook loop, and people know. so it makes things a little bit faster and a little bit cheaper comparing to '80s and '90s. then second very important thing, it puts a huge price tag on the violence against nonviolent protesters. the father of assad could come in and kill 21,000 people in a

day 20 years ago because the country was under censorship, and no pictures will come out. now wherever in the last corner of the world you have a demonstration, you see what people are taping. so everybody is a reporter really changed the globe and really changed the face of the nonviolent struggle, very unlike expansive media, television, radio, where you need the studio and trained people, people on salaries, high technology. it's very easy to upload these images op the youtube, and the people will immediately know. third thing, new media help knowledge transfer. my organization which used to work with 46, people from 46 different countries around the globe teaches people how to wage nonviolent struggles i have yo work -- via workshops and online stools. 2004 we came out with the little book which we said nonviolent

revolution for dummies. it's manager you can read and understand between here and brooklyn if you are on the subway. farsi version of this book was downloaded 17,000 times from iran only. can you imagine the level of risk distributing 17,000 copies of a forbidden book in a society like iran? it's huge. so as we speak, hundreds of different manuals are traveling across the internet, and people are learning from each other how they can wage successful nonviolent struggle. revolution? yes. but, please, don't fall if love with new -- in love with new media too fast, and please don't be too fast in labeling the revolutions like facebook revolution and twitter revolution, because we have other common phenomenas. you all heard of kony 2011. what was it? invisible children's campaign

with a very compelling video, very efficient in, how do you call it, public awareness rising, very efficient in fundraising. but what happened to kony? unfortunately, he is still where he used to be in 2011. sits there in the single with his little child army. so this makes a little exclamation mark next to the thing we call collectivism. what is collectivism? you go on facebook page, you collect likes, and you saved the polar bears from climate changing. unfortunately, you need to do something in the real world. you need to turn this huge energy consumer which bright lights over the space on, you need to turn the lights off when you're coming from your home, you need, you know, to buy yourself a different car. you need to change your light if you want to change the place in the real world. so very unlike the virtual

world, the nonviolent struggle has been waged and is won or lost in the real world. so you can have three million facebook likes, and you can still have this bad government running the country, because this is where the struggle is happening. second, we learn how to use this struggle. the first thing happening in iran when you're arrested, they will pull all of your passports out of you so they can use your facebook profile to lure others to the place where they will be arrested. very unlike physical contact where you know if you're talking to the real person, you're not sure who is behind the facebook -- maybe your friend is arrested, and there is a police person there bringing you all together for a collective puck up. and -- pick up. and sent to jail. so before we get into this, we need to know that the real principles of success in nonviolent struggle are unity,

planning and nondiscipline. yes, you need a successful communication machinery whether this is offline machinery like in the leaflets and stuff, or it's an online machinery. yes, you need to understand your target audience. you don't speak to the rural people by addressing them on the web site in english. yes, you need to use branding and all the lovely tricks of the successful communications. yes, new media really changed the shape of the nonviolent struggle, specifically making them faster, cheaper, more efficient. yes, it put a huge price tag on the state-sponsored violence against the demonstrator. but it is activists on the ground who ultimately win the war, not the clicks. so that was my little lecture for today. i'm open for your questions. [applause]

>> we'd actually like people to come up to the microphone for people to ask questions. >> so they can be on the tv. >> so i will take the first step. first of all, thank you so much. second of all, you talked a lot about we have learned particularly in the field of media and new media in the last couple years. what have the bad guys learned? what do they make of this? >> oh, this is also very interesting. there is this fantastic book by will dobson called dictator's learning curve. so you look at the two different sides. we all know how the activists learn, and we dedicate our life in teaching activists, but of course the bad guys learn, and they learn how to survive. so from the point of media, it's also huge revolution. so when you look at how the bad guys were treating media 30 years ago, it was very easy for them because, you know, with one tv station, you can control the whole station. and still they're trying to control the state-run television.

second what they, of course, learn how to avoid being caught in this. so if you're using skype, they're trying to find a way to break and surveil into skype. so, you know, they try to find an answer to this. third, they're using new media. when you look at the egyptian sea now, you can see pro-governmental and anti-governmental facebook pages and stuff like that, so they tried to use it in the real world. second, there is an organization in russia called nashi, it's putin's response to the orange revolution. these guys are trained and paid to find content over the internet to whoever is a dissident in russia and post nasty comments under it. so, you know, there are a variety of ways bad guys are learning how to deal with it. and one specifically painful is using this to lure demonstrators and the prothe testers --

protesters, and pull more data from them. because was really cool when it comes to the, you know, facebook communication, it's also very dangerous because you don't know who's running this profile. that's the problem. you see, you know, this is the person, but if the it's overtaken by person b, you are continued being open and pulling this information. i had a lovely discussion today with people from movement.org. we were working on a small booklet called making oppression backfire, so we are thinking about making application which will help you, a, to inform all of your friends that you're arrested, b, inform all of the international human rights organizations, c, delete the trace of who have you informed, pause this is the first thing -- because this is the first thing police will look into your telephone. of course. uh-huh. >> so i really enjoyed your

talk, but i'm -- inside i have a deep pessimism. so i wanted to get your thoughts on that. >> uh-huh. >> i think it was orwell that said about the gandhi revolution that it works because in those cases in which the adversary has has a line they're unwilling to cross in repressing. in situations like china and syria where there is apparently no line that the authorities won't cross, it seems less obvious to me that a nonviolent revolution succeed. and -- will succeed. and the second point was one of the consequences i think of the second world war -- >> uh-huh. >> was a big contribution to the destruction of the colonial system. >> uh-huh. >> it wasn't just the nonviolent

action after the war, but it was the war itself. >> uh-huh. >> anyway, i'd like to hear your -- >> i'll start with second because it's easier. the same study looks, mara -- [inaudible] civil resistance work is the name of the study. it looks also on the consequences of the change, and it looks for the consequence of nonviolent and violent social change. and it says if you're doing a nonviolent struggle, you are about 42% of chances to end up in democracy. and if you're doing the violent struggle, it's 4%. so it's like the reason why, i mean, it's clear. once you unleash -- once people learn that they can take their politicians accountable, they keep doing it again and again. and once libyans learned that the way to deal with gadhafi is to rape and kill him in front of the cameras when they don't like this guy, they are very likely to repeat the same thing. second reason is because these movements are winning when they

become mainstream and majority. so very unlike elite-driven guerrilla wars, these movements are winning by becoming -- [inaudible] and once people are enrolled in this type of struggle, they basically become the shareholders for the victory meaning that it's very difficult to, you know, serbs? we won in 2000 by catching the -- [inaudible] cheating with the elections. serbian politicians have not become better in last 13 years, but they know there is a price tag with messing with people's votes, so this is never going to happen. we are having electoral democracy as a consequence. and we hear a lot of, i mean, we discuss this with a lot of people. first of all, i'm not neither optimist, for pessimist. we have about 42% of places end up in democracy in place like egypt. but, you know, when you are gravely ill, you will try a

medicine which guarantees you 42% of being cured. so it's not bad in the same time. and then when you look at the consequences, people normally say, okay, this will never work in syria because the regime is too oppressive. this will never work in north korea because the regime is too oppressive. this will never work in countries that was people are not educated. this will never work in country because you don't have a middle class. so the social sign difficults are -- scientists are very much into conditions. because i'm a biologist and have nothing to do with a social science, i know -- [inaudible] this is my field of work. and also passion, i fish. but when i look at these thing, i believe the skills you bring in the conflict are more important than the consequences and that you can always look at the very, very oppressive regime. i mean, killing a black man in south africa was not tough thing to do. it was a little bit more than killing a dog for, you know,

white police. so very, very oppressive places where people really won their struggle, and they won via nonviolent struggle. and the reason for this is that they understood this suppression, and then somehow they made this oppression backfire. so for me it's more like a skill. and when you look at these skills, i think that there are chances in very oppressive places to win in nonviolent struggle if you use some kind of understanding of the situation. i remember talking to iranians 2009, and they keep making the same mistake. they were coming to the one single square being beaten and arrested by national revolutionary guard, and then they will get caught on the cameras, and then they will pull to their homes, pull them out two weeks after. and i think what you need in this particular situation is to make the protest participatory under the ethics of the harsh oppression which means you not

find so many people ready to risk being killed or arrested. so what is this little thing people can do and still get away with it? so we're discussing this. and whennal sultanny was killed, it's a common name in iran, and they say, yes. i bet there was 50 stupid ethnic songs singing about eternal love for native green eyes. there are plenty of them, they are all rubbish. and i say, can we cut the ring tone? what if you cut a little ring tone from the song which is one we know, it relates to the woman killed in a protest, and then i have it on my telephone, and you have it on your telephone and she has it on your telephone? so she gets a message. we're sitting in a very little café, and we can't talk about the revolution, because we can get killed. but then we hear her sound, and we hear your sound, and somebody calls her, and her phone rings

the same way. is so we know we are the many and thisser the few. so there's -- they are the few. so there's several things we call low risk tactics of dispersion. we don't like tactics on concentration. this is what media loves. media loves these big rallies, and this is mostly what you see on cnn. but what you don't see are the people in bahrain coming to their roofs with their little mornings. so they come out on the roof in the time of the state's tv news, they blow a little horn. and everybody know that the of prophesy's there. and then the police comes into this building, but before they get to the roof, these guys disappear. so the police looks stupid. so these things we call low-risk tactics of dispersion are particularly efficient in the high oppression levels. because the way nonviolent movement operates is that you need to give people something to do but still get away with it.

not so many people will go and get killed for a game. so it's the combination of two. first, you need a strategy to win against to presentation, secondly, you need tactics to keep people involved and still get away with it. uh-huh. >> hi. [laughter] thanks again for coming. okay. i'll break it. i'm in charge for breaking technical equipment. >> thank you again for coming. i saw you last year, and i still think i take particular issue with the first tenet which is community. >> uh-huh. >> in terms of when you have all these disparate ideologies and people starting your own local revolution, if you need to unify them in order to overthrow the regime, how do you keep from sacrificing what is inherently

so revolutionary about them, which is the fact that they're unassimilated? and how do you feel that new media has changed that process either by making the assimilation worse and more manipulatable by the authorities or more disparate and autonomous? >> uh-huh. so the holy trinity of success in nonviolent struggle, how we call it the unity planning and nonviolent discipline starts with unity. and as you said, whether we are talking about the religious unity like in egypt you had all of this marvelous pictures of christians protecting muslims while they were praying in tahrir x there was a coptic christian wedding cheered by muslims, serbia had 19 opposition parties in a time of milosevic, and the fact that they were constantly fighting themselves was probably the most important reason why it was surviving throughout the period.

and you need somehow to put all of this little we call them the chieftains with no indians. okay, a lot of them having nominal parties with really no manpower, but they had so big egos. and so we need somehow to put this strange mix to have christians together with the people who are standing for gay rights, and this is very complicated thing. but there's several ways on how you achieve unity. first, you need to try to discover in the discussion, and your remark is particularly interesting, because now as we speak there is a protest in slovenia, for example. and these guys are using social networking things. and there we call them occupy 2.0, because they know what they want. they know what they want. they are not against banks and liberal capitalism, they want transitional government for six months which will do austerity measures, they want elections after that. neither the actual president of the government signed last week

the corrupted guy called -- [inaudible] or the leader of the opposition whom they consider equally corrupt. but they came to this platform through the new media which is very interesting. they came out with ten requests, and they are organized in online voting like what are the three most important things we all stand for? we are talking about the very small sample. this is a country of two million people. this is a country where a lot of people are using -- i mean, i wouldn't say we can use this anywhere in the world. but there were at least one case where the new media were used for achieving unity around the this little platform. and this is very, very interesting case. and by the way, they were successful. the prime minister resigned two weeks ago, and the leader of the main opposition party resigned from the place of the opposition party. they have a lovely woman for a temporary prime minister now as we speak. but when you look at the unity, it's really, clear. it makes all the difference

between the success and the failure. and what you really need to learn is how you achieve this unity and also what -- it's like what is the simple, common denominator about the tipping -- thing which we want? we are there until we please and then we make a party and fireworks and then we go home, and then the military comes in. it's like what do you want? but i'm not sure that people are losing their identity if they're running their unity campaign. and i think it's when you are talking to the people with the common sense, the way we've done it in serbia was telling these guys, okay, we know you're all different, but the only way to check whether this or that has the support of the people is to get rid of milosevic, get rid of the people who are stealing votes, go out in free and fair elections and then let people decide whether it is, whether we

should all go sunday to church, or we can, or we should legalize gay marriage. if you look from far right to far left. but, you know, it's like the most common denominator was to create the conditions for a democracy, and this is why, how you make, how you make this unity work. and also, i mean, we have done it the ard way, because we -- the hard way because we spent ten years competing among ourselves, and every time we lost, milosevic was winning. so, i mean, we were learning by doing it. but without the unity -- i mean, when you see eight candidates running, i will tell you who will win. >> hi. you talked, or you spoke about how in 2009 you were speaking to a few iranians about their strategy, and i'm curious in your book and the risk of downloading your book in countries with closed media. can you tell a personal story or a story about your organization about the risks that you take to get into these places to help

people? >> okay. my organization is called center for applied nonviolent action and strategies or canas. you can learn more on several different locations. we are really small, we are five people, 12 trainers, multiinternational, offices based in belgrade. and the way we operate is we wait for the groups to contact us. because of the book, because of the bringing down the dick tau to have movie -- dictator movie, we get all the best activists in the world. when the people contact us from a place like sudan, we know that they're the top people. and for some reasons these crazy activists recognize us, and we recognize them, so we have a little -- [inaudible] for each other. and the way we do the thing, it depends on the country. in some cases we go inside the country, so we get inside the maldives, 2006, a few of our guys were expelled.

they ended up hugging with the mull dave yang miswhich is fine because serbs are tall, and mall dave yangs are very small. and then sometimes we pull people across the border, pause it's not safe -- because it's not safe for them. not for us. they can easily expel us. but, you know, they will follow the people we meet, and they will go after them once we leave. so sometimes, you know, the people are forced to be smuggled through the border in mysterious ways, you know, to go between different places. so i mean, basically, we pull people out be we can't get in. sometimes we bring them to belgrade. we love bringing people to belgrade, because we can show them the revolutionary tour. but they can also see the transition. because one of these things is like, you know, people don't understand the nonviolent struggle, as you mentioned, is a three-phase process. to get rid of a bad guy, it's -- we know a hot about this.

to a-- a lot about this. to avoid a cue dethat and then you end up with a military government like in burma for 25 years, and ten you know to build a democratic institutions. the problem with building democratic institutions which is why we love bringing people to belgrade, that it's not something you can achieve in 15 days. and it's not sexy at all. it's far more sexier to outrun the police and deal with the bad guys and, you know, run against the tear gas than, you know, to slowly building ombudsmans and this and that. but if you want democracy, this is where you will end. and, you know, with the way we work is we give people tools to deal with their own struggle. we never tell them what to do, because you don't do that as a foreigner. the locals know best. you give them the principles, and within the principles you give them the tool box. and this is where they're fighting their own campaign. you know it happens to us that some people follow up, some

people don't follow up. like we met the egyptians in june 2009, and they spent two lovely weeks in serbia x we went through this little thing, and they were already pretty prepared. and they were already using a clenched fist movement, the serbian symbol. but they gave themself a name on the labor movement union. the first of may in egypt because they understood they need to copy labor unions if they want to be successful. and besides all of that, it disappeared. so we were waiting for a year, and then i was buying cigarettes on a sr. yang newsstand, and i seen the big -- [inaudible] not serbian woman, hanging with a big, with a big flag with a fist. and the title was the fist shakes cairo. so these are the moments where you really understand that you have the best job in the planet. because if you can contribute

one little tiny percent to the struggle for democracy, then you are on the very good place. but there's several situations where we haven't been in touch with these groups for weeks or months or years, and then immediately they emerge like the generation wave in burma and some other places. so there are plenty of funny anecdotes. and it's like from there to training mall dave yangs in sri lanka, the little turtles coming out from their eggs, but they're running on the wrong side. they're following the street lights, they don't go to the sea. so we break away our little workshop and start saving turtles. [laughter] it's a crazy life. >> hi. um, i actually -- sorry. just excited. i actually have two things. >> okay. >> the first is not really a

question, but i agree with you mentioning the problem of collectivism. but i would like to add that i think it's also -- okay, new media is good for dissemination and also the exposure, like, posting all of the pictures and video of the actual event happening, but i think there's also a disadvantage of new media because it's so public. like, if you want to organize something, okay, let's gather together, do something crazy, and if you are one of the officials, you can also see the message, and that can harm the process. so i wondered if you agree with that. and second, i think that will be maybe a broad question, but so new media has this limited effect if we talk about countries like china where new media is even more limited in terms of its power. because, obviously, people now have more access to internet. but still like really hipster

web sites on the webs are shut down in china. you cannot visit them. and we have our own version, like chinese versions of different web sites. but still you can't really post information like for -- against the chinese party. >> uh-huh. >> so how would you, i know like when you were a student, i'm guessing probably the hope if we wanted to organize something in china, it will be among students as well. but given this internet environment, what would you see as the few steps that possibly lead to a blossom of nonviolence in china? thank you. >> that's -- first of all -- >> [inaudible] >> yes. the internet, yes. first of all, when we look at this thing, the way we look at the nonviolent struggle, the people i know, the people from

casnas, we look at it as a form of warfare. and you use the same rules as you use in war. so first rule is know your enemy and know yourself, and you will know the outcome of the battle which is the chinese quote from -- [inaudible] and the second one is pick the battle if you can win. so if government will filter every single thing against the, you know, the government, and they will find a way to censor it, blah, blah, blah, so what can you do? a, you can use very offline. you can go back all the way to south africa. do you know how they spread the messages in south africa? no internet, state-controlled radio stations, no newspapers, one or two state-controlled newspapers, no tv. they were singing. so they had the revolutionary songs, and they have little couriers who would go from the

village to the village -- no land lines, by the way, in these villages, not to mention cell phones. because it really relates to the way these guys are communicating. most of the south africans still are learning majority of their history not from the books, but from the songs. so when, you know, your grandmother is singing songs about, you know, the famous ancestors, blah, blah, blah. so you accommodate to the way which is already common in the society. so if you sing the protest songs and you are singing the messages, you can do it completely offline. so one school of thinking is pick the battlefield where they can't censor. they can't censor what you listen on your own iphone, ipad, whatever i you have in your pocket, usb. and then it's like you can listen to the stuff. so if you think this school of thought is don't pick the battlefield they can control. and then be you need the battlefield -- if you need the

battlefield they can control, there's several ways for doing it. there was a famous case of south american dictatorship where people were robbed by the generals, and they were particularly harsh to the protesters so what would happen was people would wait for the moment their national team plays football, basically soccer how you call this thing -- you call football, this ugly game with these people in their armor? [laughter] but, soccer, whatever. so they would go to the football match, and they were listening to the national an then. and, of course -- anthem. and, of course, because the people are not very much affiliated with the staff, they would just mumble their national anthem. but there's a line in the national anthem that say that we will face our oppressors and enemies. and then the whole stadium will sing loud that one single line. and then, you know, that was the message to generals who were running the country. and they will mumble the rest of

the national anthem. so if you can find a way to use words which will mobilize people and will be difficult to censor, that would be the really cool thing to do. so there is two schools of thought. first, avoid the battlefield where they are stronger than you, and go make songs and spread them through different channels. if you don't know how, then sing them. and then the second thing, if you go to the battlefield they can't control, you use the way that people noaa you say, but it's very difficult to censor. so these are the two different ways. and by the way, i know very much clever chinese people, and i'm always talking about what went wrong in tiananmen. and one of the rules from su which they've somehow forgotten there was that the way you win in the nonviolent struggle is you pick the battle you can win, then you proclaim the victory

once you have it. if your victory is to have 300 graffiti or 50 people if a hall listening to you or facebook with 1,000 likes, once you have the victory proclaim the victory and get the hell out of this. very likely the government will be after you within the few days. so winning in this nonviolent struggle is more like climbing the stairs. you have these little thing. you achieve the victory, you get the hell out of there. there is a very, very interesting movement in china as we speak around the media censorship, and they kind of look like they are becoming a little wit successful. a little bit successful. it's called something of april, 15th of april. it has a date in name, but i forgot which one. it started last year. it was, it came into newspapers recently because there was a

newspaper from southern chinese city which was they didn't want to publish the censored article from the censor, and then the people went out to the street. you've probably seen this on google. i'm ashamed that i don't know the date or the town, but this is how you should do it. you pick the battle you can win, you organize something that looks as a victory so people can look at it and think that there can be something like victorious movement. and at the end of the day, nobody got arrested, so this is a very good thick. you work -- thing. you work below the line of to presentation. >> i also have a small problem. i'm, my name is feloma, i have been working with the not sexy aria, established democracy in chile. >> oh! >> yeah. so my question, what i'm trying to learn is when you have people

in not very oppressive countries, but people asking for things, asking for change, so how -- what -- how do you think that you can bring that energy inside of the government? i mean, how you can open -- you have experience also as a politician. >> uh-huh. >> so how do you think that governments can really open or learn about energy and not just to trying to to control them? but trying to use that knowledge of the people to improve government action. >> well, it means like there's several cases going on. the, basically, the question is how do you use this thing in democracy to help the government, yes? to help or to give a lesson. depending on what you want to achieve. basically, it's the same. it's like the people connect

these people-power revolutions to the oppressive regimes, but there is need for it now as much as there was during the -- [inaudible] times, and this is the eternal debate. when you are working with people coming from oppressed countries, they say, oh, bless you, you don't have this censorship, you can communicate, you can gather on the square, you will not get arrested. and then when you talk to the people from anti-austerity campaigns, they say, oh, bless you, you have in this evil government which automatically unites people around, so we all know what we want, we want the end of this government. but when you look at the battlefield, they're facing -- they're using the same tools, but they are facing a very, very similar enemy. in dictatorship they're facing fear, because the fear is the main factor of status quo. in democracies they're facing apathy. so tools for breaking out the ap hawaii and breaking out the peer are very -- fear are very similar. you need unity, you need vision of tomorrow, you need humor, for example, it operates super in

both kind of environments. but, basically, the people power is getting more and more interesting in the modern world because you have a huge bankruptcy in belief of the political elites. when you look at the u.s., when you look at, basically, western countries, you can see the rise of very unlikely players like pirate parties and stuff like that. this is the consequence of people losing confidence in their established political elites. so one way to deal with it in the countries like chile or serbia whatsoever, so you are talking about a transitional country, your talking a country which has reasonably free and fair elections which has the freedom of speech, freedom of assembly. so, first of all, you mobilize people around tangible problem. there's something -- this is not something in the air, like you're not talking about a peace in the world, but you're talking about a better organized traffic or pigger salaries, something -- bigger salaries or something they can touch. >> [inaudible]

>> yes, education is one little thing. and then when you are making it important to the people, you use the same tools for mobilization as you do in the nonviolent struggle. and what you want to achieve, it's when you look at this mechanism, you want to achieve a little irritation. you want to irritate the government because without being air -- irritated, they don't operate. the way the politicians work in democracy is that they take pr really seriously. so if they think they will lose the votes, they will do something to fill with it. so in the places like that, you come out with a little initiative, and you also find a bad example so you can find a good example and the bad example. so you're selling your good example, but you're at the same time labeling somebody who's doing something wrong because for some reason south americans and serbs are very much alike as most of the people with mediterranean blood. it's far more easier to gather

us against something than for something. unexplainable phenomenon. and i was working with serbs, i was working with arabs, i was working with people from mediterranean, with people from south america. if you can find a common enemy, people will gather immediately. if you tell them you need to do this for your own health, education, better life, they'll say, oh, somebody else will do it. it's so boring. so you need to play this little trick in order to gather people, and at the same time you need to find tangle victory -- tangible victory, proclaim the victory ask and get the hell out of there. if politicians understand, then they will act. it's a very stupid -- i know that i spend 12 years in revolution and three years in the parliament and three years in the government, and i'm not getting back there. but this is the way the politicians operate. they're sensitive to votes. if they think they're losing vote, they will go after the

story. >> hi, i have a question. i'm curious to hear you mentioned humor as a very important tool, and i was wondering if you could just give some examples of that, especially as humor varies probably culture to culture. >> uh-huh. so, basically, the -- we work pretty much on understanding the role of humor in nonviolent struggle. you can watch my techs talk about this. it's probably ten minutes well spent. we tried to examine how this thing works and why is humor such a powerful tool in many struggles regardless of culture, history, the way the people do. so when you look at these examples from, you know, perestroika, for example, this funny little poster or of gorbachev, and then all the way throughout the solidarity, you can see that the humor has three big effects. first effect, humor melts fear. and breaks apathy. because if people are having fun

and if all of your movement is looking like one big party, then the people will feel good. second, people makes your movement cool and in. people join things which are cool and in. so we were just a bunch of students with $50 in our pockets. we came out with this big barrel with me milosevic's face on it, took it to the main shopping district, there was a baseball bat attached to it. you will put the coin, and this is how you buy yourself a right to hit the guy in the face. it sounds lovely, the people make a long line and wait for their own chance to express their love to their leaders. but this was not the funniest part. the funniest part was when police arrived. so this type of thing we call dilemma actions, and we even designed them in the clause. it's like what is this little thing which will put your opponent in a place that if he or she takes it, gets there and arrests you, he will regret?