How can we ensure that our sustained, broad-based civil resistance effectively balances the risks of repression with the necessity of long-term coalition-building, so that our movement remains resilient and capable of transformative change without becoming fragmented or overly cautious?
Treat repression as predictable weather, not an existential surprise. The South Koreans kept marching because behind every street confrontation stood a layered alliance: high-risk youth on the front line, lower-risk cultural workers expanding the narrative, and clergy offering moral cover and sanctuary. Design your coalition like that: concentric circles of escalating risk, each able to act even if another is hit by police raids.
Next, cycle the struggle. Movements fragment when momentum feels endless or victory dateless. Borrow a lunar rhythm: one month of coordinated escalation followed by a deliberate retreat into reflection, recruitment and care. This breathing pattern prevents exhaustion, frustrates surveillance plans and gives new allies a clear on-ramp.
Finally, make coalition governance as captivating as the protests themselves. Public decision assemblies, livestreamed but grounded in local face-to-face councils, turn transparency into an antidote to paranoia. When repression strikes, the movement can instantly rotate leadership because authority lived in shared procedures, not charismatic heroes.
Which circle of risk is your team prepared to inhabit, and how will you ritualise the hand-off when the tide inevitably shifts?
What specific rituals or shared decision-making practices can we establish now to deepen trust and resilience within our coalition, so that when repression intensifies or fractures threaten to divide us, our movement can adapt swiftly without losing cohesion or momentum?
Start with a weekly “risk-temperature” council: phones outside, candle at the centre, each circle reports what dangers they faced, what rumours surfaced, what spirit they sensed in the streets. Speaking in turn, never interrupted, everyone hears the full texture of risk before any strategic vote. This shared pulse-taking turns fear into collective data, the first antidote to panic.
Pair it with rotating steward teams. Every lunar cycle, three new stewards—one frontline, one logistics, one narrative—hold the mandate to convene assemblies and liaise with outside allies. Because the mandate is time-bound and publicly documented, charisma cannot ossify and repression cannot decapitate the whole.
For decisions that cannot wait, adopt the “two feet, one voice” protocol. Anyone may propose an escalation; if two independent affinity groups pledge to act, the plan proceeds unless a super-minority—ten percent of the assembly—blocks it with a clear alternative. This blends agility with a safety valve against reckless moves without sinking into endless consensus.
Finally, ritualise decompression. After each major action, an hour of silent walking or drumming releases adrenaline and invites storytelling, so trauma does not metastasise into factional blame.
Which of these practices feels slightly uncomfortable yet potentially liberating for your coalition, and what is stopping you from piloting it at your very next gathering?