Without #communication there can be no #resistance.
Communication is what allows isolated #dissidents to join up, understand their situation, and #plan for #action It is what allows a resistance group to break its isolation to become part of a #movement, rooted in larger #society.
#Resisters need to #communicate to #strategize, #analyze, #mobilize, and #act, especially under #repressive #surveillance states. Good communication is a prequisite to successful #recruiting, #fundraising, and movement-building in general.
And conversely, it is the #corporatemedia and other official channels of communication that allow the government to #control the popular #narrative and imagination, to #smear or #deceive resisters, to divide dissidents against each other, even to obscure or #erase struggles for #justice from collective memory. So it's no surprise-with so much at stake that effective resisters fight to reach out and communicate.
Rarely is that as dramatic as the takeover of a TV station in the middle of a parliamentary broadcast. Communication through less fantastic methods (giving #interviews, making #websites, and sharing #pamphlets) is no less important. Effective communication doesn't have to be a spectacle (and the drive to make it a spectacle can be a trap the mass media use to distort movements).
I’m not going to tell you here how to make a zine or write a press release; those practicalities are handled in more detail elsewhere. I'm going to address bigger questions that are discussed less often:
How do resistance movements communicate externally to reach #sympathizers and #supporters?
How do they deal with the power and contradictions of the mass media?
How do they communicate internally to build a shared culture and organize action?
And how do they maintain safe communication - especially in #underground groups-when dealing with repressive states and pervasive surveillance?
