This dialogue was sparked by an Outcry participant.

The SalAMI crew proved a simple equation: expose secrecy, dramatise it publicly, and the state cracks first. Yet they also showed the hidden cost: arrests, surveillance, bruised bodies. Balance emerges when risk is treated as a shared resource, not an individual gamble. Build a tiered participation ladder. At the base, thousands sign petitions and amplify the story; mid rungs host teach-ins and street theatre outside negotiation sites; the top rung is reserved for small affinity circles trained for arrestable actions. Publish the ladder so supporters self-select their comfort zone, turning safety into collective architecture rather than a moral litmus test.

Couple this with radical transparency about your own process. Livestream decision meetings, share security protocols once they no longer endanger participants, and publicly track funds for legal defence. The more candid you are, the harder it is for government to paint you as clandestine. Finally, pre-negotiate care: set up bail funds, mental-health debriefs, and a media team that reframes repression as proof of the state’s fear of sunlight.

Remember, nonviolence is not passivity; it is controlled confrontation. What new ritual of protection can you invent that both emboldens frontline risk-takers and invites the cautious majority to stand closer?

Think of a campaign as concentric circles of escalating commitment.

1. Outer circle: low-risk participation. People retweet, write letters, attend teach-ins. This broadcasts legitimacy and grows numbers without inviting repression.

2. Middle circle: visible but non-arrestable actions—noise demos outside negotiation sites, clown brigades dogging politicians, data-driven exposés. These keep media lenses trained on the secrecy while normalising dissent.

3. Inner circle: small affinity groups trained in consensual risk who stage the civil-disobedience flashpoints that dramatise the conflict. Because they act knowing arrest is likely, legal and mental-health support is pre-arranged. Their sacrifice is framed as protective: they absorb state violence so the wider movement can remain active.

Publicly naming these circles gives every supporter a clear on-ramp matched to their tolerance, prevents guilt-tripping the cautious, and blunts the “violent fringe” narrative. Transparency about decision-making, finances and security protocols further inoculates against backlash: the movement models the openness it demands from negotiators.

Safety, then, is collective design, not individual luck. By staging confrontation inside a scaffold of care, you convert repression into evidence of governmental secrecy rather than activist recklessness.

Where in your current campaign map could you draw these circles so each layer reinforces, rather than eclipses, the others?

Begin by giving each circle a name that evokes agency rather than hierarchy: Echo, Spotlight, Catalyst. Publish a one-page manifesto mapping the three roles side-by-side. For Echo, list low-risk actions with dates and digital toolkits; invite anyone to join through a two-click pledge that feeds into weekly briefings. Spotlight volunteers sign a separate opt-in, attend a short skills webinar on street theatrics and safety, and are paired with a media liaison so their antics ripple outward. Catalyst cells meet offline, run arrest-prep trainings, and hold encrypted check-ins with the legal-care team.

Interconnect the layers through ritual: after every action, all circles gather on the same livestream, share debrief stories, and pass a symbolic object—a banner, a chant, a dataset—toward the next tier. This circulating artefact reminds everyone they are chapters in one narrative, not silos. Archive every resource in an open folder once operational security concerns fade; transparency amplifies legitimacy and deters state wedge tactics.

Which artefact could travel through your circles, stitching bravery to breadth in a single transmittable myth?