The need for non-violent escalation: Globalize the Intifada!
For 2 years, people of conscience, civil society, and others have tried to follow official democratic procedures to get the Luxembourgish Government to act and do its part in ending the genocide in Gaza through sanctioning israel. For 2 years, they have circled the city in weekly protest parades, submitted petitions, gone to meetings, and taken every avenue the government encourages citizens to take to show their displeasure.
Yet, nothing has happened.
Intifada in Gaza Strip, 1987 (modified) – Image Source: Efi Sharir, modified
Trump Gaza, Screengrab of AI-generated video by Solo Avital (EyeMix)
The recognition of Palestine through the farcical New York declaration is not a product of societal pressure in Luxembourg, but yet again a display of herd mentality with our neighboring states and a last attempt at saving the Zionist entity’s legitimacy through a two-state-solution Netanyahu and his government reject themselves. The Trump plan that has brought a ceasefire also should not be mistaken as a just resolution of the genocide. Especially now, we need to ensure that public pressure heightens and leads to justice rather than a Trump Riviera and continued ethnic cleansing and apartheid.
déi aner and Spiral Magazine recently ruffled some feathers by publishing a disruption of Mr. Bettel while he was eating mussels for lunch at the same time as Nora Rosa Fellens-Huberty had been apprehended by the israeli Occupation Forces, asking him yet again to sanction israel. To those inside of the movement that have shown indignation at non-violent direct action and even publicly disavowed it, we say: where has your politeness gotten you? What have you achieved?
Appeasement never brings justice. The international order has fallen, and with it international law. This time, the Americans won’t be around to save us from our neighbors. We must save ourselves, and this means taking risks and making sacrifices. This does not mean pleasing our complicit politicians in the hopes of them throwing us some crumbs. We celebrate the resistance to the Nazi occupation, who bravely mounted a general strike. We celebrate people like Martin Luther-King and radical feminists who all participated in sustained campaigns of civil disobedience. Why do we not see more people follow their example in Luxembourg?
“All Power to the People” Black Panther Party Button depicting Huey P. Newton, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Art and Artifacts Division, The New York Public Library. (1965 - 1975)
This does not mean that what we know as the “inside game” (parliamentary work, petitions, lobbyists) should stop. To go back to my environmentalist roots, resistance movements function like an ecosystem – they are expansive and always in flux, and all parts need each other to thrive. However, Luxembourg has little to no “outside game” aka grassroots action; it has been castrated by those trying to remain moderate and respectable at the cost of more Gazan blood, and therefore our inside game has no teeth because there are no consequences for disregarding our demands. Only when we flex the muscles of people power will the ruling classes tremble and act.
Just like the brave Student Intifada around the world and the dockworkers in Italy, we need to escalate for Gaza! If you are comfortable, if you are not pushing boundaries with your actions, if you censor the people actually affected and fighting genocide on the ground, you are not furthering the cause but caging it. We are living in polycrisis and our window of opportunity to halt the dystopian reality unfolding is closing. Climate change is already here, the complete eradication of Gaza is near. What are we waiting for? We need to be brave now!
Gene Sharp, the foremost scholar on non-violent direct action (NVDA) defines it as follows:
“Non-violent action refers to those methods of protest, resistance, and intervention without physical violence in which the members of the nonviolent group do, or refuse to do, certain things. They may commit acts of omission – refuse to perform acts which they usually perform, are expected by custom to perform, or are required by law or regulation to perform; or acts of commission – perform acts which they usually do not perform, are not expected by custom to perform, or are forbidden by law or regulation from performing; or a combination of both.”
He lists 198 different methods, some of which are more or less risky. The linked database shows case studies for each method that include detailed evaluations of success. To minimize unknown variables and adverse consequences you need to plan well when preparing for NVDA:
What is your goal? Labor disruption, media coverage, spreading skills and knowledge, do you have specific demands?
Plan for different risk levels; give support roles to people who cannot be risky.
Be water! Always be a step ahead. Figure out logistics by scouting out locations and learning about law enforcement tactics and protocol. I do not suggest cooperating with the police or alerting them in advance, this is counterproductive and defangs your action (in Luxembourg they do not have much training by the way).
Have a legal plan for whether what you will do is legal or not, and try to have a lawyer on call (hit us up if you are or know a lawyer willing to volunteer their skills).
Recruit people in advance and give them as much information as possible to preserve their autonomy. They should be able to quit at any time.
Pick a method that fits your situation and capacity for risk, get some people together, plan it, and do it! We can no longer afford to sit on our hands and wait for others to lead. I am talking to every reader; us organizers are not special people, we are simply people who one day decided to do something. I planned my first action at 18 years old, blockading the Red Bridge for the climate without any training or advice.
As the late great Assata Shakur has taught us, “Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.” All the rights we have have been fought for with blood, sweat, tears, and great sacrifice. If you would like an at-length conversation or a workshop on non-violent direct action, you can contact me through déi aner. I am also happy to give you access to my personal stash of NVDA-planning templates upon request. Just hit me up! Now get off your asses and do something that makes you and the ruling classes uncomfortable!!!!
Assata Shakur (1981 Press Photo), Trenton Times. Rest in Power.
