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Location: Home > Serbian Case > About Otpor > Otpor & Opposition
HOW DID WE SUCCEED:
SUPERIOR PROPAGANDA FOR
ADVERTISING FREEDOM
From the very beginning propaganda became main OTPOR's weapon in spreading the actions nationwide.
Simple messages, popular symbol of the fist and black-and - white coloured materials were more than acceptable for depressed Serbia . Using humour together with aggressive overall presence appeared to be successful weapon. In less than 6 months literarily everybody in Serbia has its own attitude about OTPOR, whether supportive or hostile.
OTPOR propaganda team developed strategy to predict, recognize and respond to all the regime actions, and to overcome the effects of state-sponsored propaganda (including National TV - RTS) oriented against OTPOR. Even in the times of strongest attack on OTPOR, which was proclaimed by the regime to be a terrorist group in may 2000.
OTPOR stayed on positive message.
Contents:
On Otpor's advertising and marketing: by Ivan Andric
We [Otpor] had, some advisors from the major advertising agencies in Serbia. And we had communication with them all the time. They're not doing things for us, but they can give good advice. We can always call them and ask about something and they help us. So, we have the idea of the campaign . And first of all, we have lots of research from polling, surveys and all that stuff. We got all of that for free from some of our other friends, from the Marketing Research Institute [a leading public opinion research company in Belgrade]. And so we made our story, what we're going to say.
We asked those other people about the story, about the quality of the story we're going to tell. And after that, I'll go to my friends - the marketing team of Otpor consisted of about ten or 15 young guys. And we made messages and all that stuff. Then we had focus groups, and we checked our messages, our posters , our slogans, our TV spots. And then we were out there, you know, having a campaign.
On marketing and deciding to target particular groups: by Ivan Andric
We decided that our target groups would be people between 18 and 30 years old. Our focus groups were organized by our partners or friends at the private firm, Strategic Marketing and Media Research Institute. They've been doing that kind of thing for six or seven years and they are very experienced in that. They liked us very much. They liked what we represent and all of our work. So they did it for us nearly for free.
So we had at that moment, 16 different focus groups in eight towns, with city populations and village populations of different ages and different interests. And it was very professional. At that moment, I have more than nine thousand pages of different surveys, polling, our focus groups and some other focus groups.
The manager of Strategic Marketing was giving me every focus group, every survey that he did. So, he had more than 12 different surveys in the last year. So I had all the results in my hand. So it was very easy to do things, to do the PR of Otpor. Because at every moment, we knew what people are thinking in Serbia . And we were just saying what most of the people were thinking. It was easy, like the conscience of the people.
Developing Otpor's slogans and stickers: by Ivan Andric
You know, from January of 2000., our inside story was that a dictator is finished when everyone in Serbia thinks that he is finished. When they think that and they have it clear in their minds that he's finished and he must go, then in real life, he's really finished. He can't do anything to stay in power. So that was our story.
And our first poster in that huge campaign was " This Is The Year ." Of course, we meant "the Year" that Serbia will become free. So, after that, we had a huge campaign for the elections, which was " He's Finished" - "Gotov Je ," in Serbian. And I can now say, that it was the main slogan of all protests, of rallies, of all happenings in Serbia .
We decided that it should be on all the stickers, only that sentence with our fist at the end. So, it was "He's Finished ," with a fist. And we printed almost a million of those stickers. So, it was everywhere in Serbia . For example, at rallies, people put those stickers on themselves. So when you look at the pictures, you always see people with our stickers on them. All of them are not our activists, of course, but it was the most interesting material they had at the moment, so they were putting it everywhere. I saw some very interesting photographs of police cars with our stickers on them. And it was very nice and brave to do that.
On reaching beyond young people: by Srdja Popovic
Slogans were one way. We were shaping the slogans adapted to the average level of education of common people in Serbia, especially lower educated people. So we were addressing them with public actions on villages. Our activists were going to the village to help the people in agricultural works for example, so we recruited farmers in our organization. We recruited some retired people so we tried to see how they could be part of our mission. What did was use simple slogans which were very much like slogans of Milosevic's SPS [the Socialist party].
The second thing was we organized special branches of, for example "Resistant Mothers." It's a general idea that we have a lot of activists, and all those activists have mothers and usually the parents were supporting our activists. The ancient feeling of motherhood is strong enough to involve a woman, grown up woman - her child doesn't have to be an Otpor activist - but her feeling for her own child is strong enough to protect everyone else's children, that's the instinct. And it worked all over the country. And the bravery and the energy some of our Resistant Mothers were showing in our battle was quite impressive.
On the specific methods of Nonviolent Struggle: by col Robert Helvey
You start out by trying to put a framework, a way to look at a strategic nonviolent struggle. And then you narrow it down a little bit to the nature of the struggle itself. You know, you have the mechanisms that bring change, that kick in, you know. You can convert people - conversion . You can get the regime to accommodate the demands of the opposition group. And then, you use more coercion and interventionist type things, as you increase the intensity of your campaign.
Protests are primarily symbols. Symbolic gestures to send a message to somebody about your dissatisfaction with the situation or what you want to see happen. But these are primarily symbolic. And the most powerful tool, of course, is withdrawal of consent - non-cooperation . Because without the people's consent, you can't govern. And it's just that simple. If you don't consent to be governed, then you're not going to be governed. So, as Gene [Sharp] has pointed out, you know, he listed 198 different methods of nonviolent resistance and that's just the tip of the iceberg. I would suggest you take those 198 and then look at your own situation and you'll easily come up with another 198 for your particular struggle.
On organizing the smaller actions instead of larger protests? by Ivan Andric
It was important strategy, because you could not organize big protests and big rallies. Because power will not be changed at a rally. We understood that. You don't have an opposition rally, and then Milosevic says, "OK, I'm resigning."
We decided not to have protests with large numbers of people, but that it was better to have many smaller protests. That it's more important to have a protest for example in Nis , Kraguevac, Novi Sad . It's better than having one big one in Belgrade . And we changed the strategy, of course. The image of those protests was, you know, of some funny things, colorful, [things] like that pictures sending positive message.
Now we changed the majority of the population to say, we must act in this way. And only resistance is the answer, you know, to all of those things. Not to accept anything from the regime. Not to cooperate in any way. You know, everything is black and white. That may be our main message. You are for them or you are against them. And at this point, you must be against them. Don't be on the black side, be on the white side.
On using drama and music: by Srdja Popovic
Music and drama are very important way of nonviolent acting generally and especially addressing the wider audience. You use it more often in comparison to what regime is using. They (Regime) were not giving a dime to a culture, not giving a dime to a music, so if they were weak in some field, we (OTPOR!) just started to grow in that field.
So if they are speaking by public speeches, we are speaking with actions. If they are speaking with uh - stern faces and [frowns] like this, we will laugh. We will show our smiley faces in contrast to theirs. If they are giving not a dime to a drama, music , theater, generally those cultural events, we were producing more and more and more public events in that way, because that means that we defeated them on that ground, and this is our ground. So this is the organization which can put on public events. And everyone will come because there will be some political messages together with some, you know, inside feelings of the people like drama and music are.
It was useful with younger people , with rock music we were using in our get-out-the-vote campaign. And, with the older people , using the public persons. Actors, professors, being presented at our - at each of our actions there was some kind of public person present. And having public persons in your movement is very important because common people identify with them. So it's really difficult to swallow the state propaganda which tells you that nonviolent movement is terrorist, fascistic, and so on. If you see a guy you saw on television dozens of times, an actor you like, with those guys, with a button, with a [Otpor] T-shirt, this is where state propaganda doesn't work.
On the purpose of demonstrations: by col. Robert Helvey
What a demonstration does - it's a symbolic gesture primarily. But it can be perceived as something very coercive . If you get 500,000 people out on the street, they're sending you a message. First, we can get 500,000 people out on the street, and that can be frightening. The second thing it does, it generates a perception nationwide of the growing strength of the organization and it could improve recruitment and support. It could cause these other pillars of support to start a reevaluation of their position with respect to the regime. So it has a cumulative effect, you know, what the demonstration can do.
Now if you decided to move that demonstration to the parliament and occupy the parliament, well now you've come into something more in the way of intervention. You're not just making a gesture, you are actually disrupting and interfering with the ability of the government to rule. So you have to look at your demonstrations for intent and knowing when you're going to be moving to something else because you have to also start changing your thinking about that demonstration. If you block off the roads for an entire day, for example, - that depends on what your intention is. You know, to disrupt the government or to just make this gesture, this symbolic gesture of dissatisfaction. A lot of these things are what you intended to do and how its received at the other end.
On free local media: by Ivan Andric
It was more a question of is there a free local media, like a local TV station or a local radio station, and by free, I mean independent. And it was a question of that, more than the city and village. Because during the last 20 years, most of the people from the village came to the cities to get a job. So you don't have really urban populations in the cities. It's very heterogeneous.
We cannot divide the population like that, into the city and the village, because every family in the city has someone in the village, and the connections are very strong between cities and villages. So, I can tell you, it's more like information. That was the reason. Do they have their information? If they don't, they were more for Milosevic. And if they have free media, they are against Milosevic.
On inventing the story that Milosevic was finished: by Ivan Andric
I can't say it was fiction. It came at the end. After all the things he'd done. First of all, to our country, and after that to every other country, in our area - you know, to every country, except, for example, Romania . But he did not have the support of the people. And then, I don't know why, he (Milosevic) decided to hold the elections. He didn't need to. He could have just had the previous law and he probably still be the president of Yugoslavia .
But he decided to go and run the elections. And at that moment, I knew, that he was really finished. Because he didn't have support. In every poll, every survey, every focus group, you could see that the people were really mad at him. They hated him at the moment.
On Otpor's campaigns: by Ivan Andric
We had two different, totally separate campaigns. One was the Otpor campaign, and the main message was, "He's Finished." And the other one was the "get out the vote " campaign, which was totally and visually different from the Otpor campaign. It didn't even have a fist on it. We did that other campaign with 37 different organizations: non-governmental organizations from Serbia and it were by the book, the Get Out The Vote campaign. A campaign for motivating young people to go out and vote, to take part in the elections.
And they were the two biggest campaigns in Serbia at that moment. And they were totally different. And the public didn't know that Otpor is standing behind this other campaign, because the name of that campaign was, " It's Time ." And the public didn't know because I personally think that for the GOTV campaign and all those motivating campaigns, you must be totally independent. You must be above the fight, even the fight against Milosevic.
Also because some people were afraid to take part in something which is organized by Otpor, because of arrests and all this. So you must make something for them, to motivate them. We knew that the people who like Otpor, they revolt against Milosevic. But we needed some more people. And in the end, 87 percent of young people got out in the elections, and I think that the number was 80 percent of the whole population.
And I think that that's why - it was for the first time in ten years. And most of them voted against Milosevic. And that's why we changed the dictator.
(Excerpted from an interview with Steve York: Belgrade , November 30, 2000.)
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