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What Progressive Movements Around the World Can Learn From Serbia's Student List
Their success is the result of rebellion, energy, persistence, solidarity, courage, humor, nonviolence, utopian aspirations, and strong bottom-up organization.
Oct 28, 2026
Two years ago, Serbian students started their protests, endorsed by many citizens, in an honest, almost naive way. They declared that they wanted the end of corruption, press freedom, prosecution of the culprits behind the collapse of the Novi Sad rail station canopy, and, ultimately, another Serbia altogether. Students persistently claimed that entering politics was not their aim. But given all the issues they called in question, politics remained the name of the game. Nevertheless, they managed to stick with their grassroots methods of organization, and their influence spread.
For the last two years, students continued to act without leaders, and all decisions have been made in plenary meetings, a horizontal, non-hierarchical form of decision-making. This has been direct democracy at its best. It also represents an authentic form of political expression that transcends the impotence of the outdated options available within the existing system.
The ”Student List“ that appeared on the ballot in the recent Serbian elections emerged from the massive protests known as “Students in Blockade,” founded on September 9 with the slogan Students Are Winning. It became No. 3 on the ballot for the parliamentary election. Its program, the 11-point “Student Plan,” centers on the fight against corruption and organized crime and endorses new social measures in education, housing, and healthcare. It has been written in cooperation with experts from various fields, including farmers, doctors, teachers, social and cultural workers. According to its statute:
it is a voluntary, non-governmental, non-partisan, and non-profit association established for a fixed period to raise civic awareness of the importance of democracy and free and fair elections. Its goals include greater youth participation in democratic processes, monitoring elections and referendums, promoting the rule of law and freedom of speech, and holding those who break the law accountable.
The Student List consists not of students but of 250 academics, professionals, and public figures selected by student plenums, and is headed by cardiologist Ilija Srdanović. However, he is not, in the words of the students, the leader. In his own words, he is the first name on the Student List—though not its lead candidate. As he put it:
I don’t think that the invitation to the Student List was an invitation to be a candidate for deputy in front of a political option, but literally an invitation to get involved in the endeavour of Serbia’s victory over the mafia. The mafia stole our country, drove tens and hundreds of thousands of young people abroad, and ravaged the budget, eventually causing a tragedy in which 16 of my fellow citizens died.
In the last month, however, some actions and proclamations of the students gave pause to sympathetic observers from Serbia and neighboring countries. Such commentators are asking about students’ positions toward Russia, the EU, Kosovo, and war criminal Ratko Mladić. In an excellent article published in the Serbian independent media, Dejan Ilić describes how the younger generations are infected by their upbringing in Serbia, which has been prone to selective memory and to a victim mentality. But he continues:
There is little that can be done about that overnight. All we can do is marvel at how courageously those children stood up and confronted an arrogant, heartless regime with an excessive propensity for violence. Now that they have risen, all we can do is stand beside them and try to protect them from excessive repression… We have elections ahead of us. And in those elections, there is one, and only one, important, shared objective: to be freed from the regime headed by Vučić… These are elections for liberation… we should fight for the chance to create a normal and decent Serbia… There is a well-known rallying cry of militant democracy: no democracy for the enemies of democracy. Something similar should apply to Vučić during this campaign: no polite conversation with an enemy of all conversation and all decency.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić was by no means sitting around idle during the grassroots mobilization. Over the years, he seriously damaged independent media. He placed supporters with murky, often criminal background in tents known as Ćaciland, in Pionirski park in front of the Parliament in Belgrade as an intimidation tactic, and he used all known propaganda mechanisms to label students dangerous foreign agents ready to destroy Serbia. He recently stepped down as president of Serbia with the intention of becoming prime minister.
He continued a danse macabre that has ruined all the values of a democratic, civilized country, achieving everything which he has accused students of wanting to accomplish. He sucked up to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, flattered US President Donald Trump, cozied up to China as a partner, and lied to the EU.
For good measure, he manipulated his own supporters mercilessly. Vučić told them that WWIII was inevitable. He warned that Croatians were intervening in the Serbian elections, together with unnamed foreign powers. Following Trump’s recipe, he bragged about his enormous achievements and the bright future that would soon come under his leadership At the last pre-election rally of his party, he roared: “Let us never forget how they tried to bring down our state. Let us always protect and defend it… Let us go out and defeat them! Defeat them decisively!”
While Vucic was addressing this rather sparsely attended rally, at least 150,000 people gathered at Slavia, one of Belgrade’s main squares, which had witnessed innumerable protests over the years. In a completely different atmosphere, one of the student speakers said, “Today is the last rally, and it’s important that we all come here to send a message of love and peace and that we see each other on the 25th at the polling stations.”
Before Serbia’s 6.45 million voters went to the polls on October 25, several different scenarios were discussed in the press at home and abroad. One was that Vučić and his right-wing populist Serbian Progressive party (SNS) would win but that mass unrest would ensue. According to another scenario, Vučić would lose and not accept the results, which could lead to state violence against opposition activists. The third was that Student List would win and face numerous challenges in their effort to dismantle the long standing and thoroughly corrupt authoritarian bureaucracy. Government manipulation, civil unrest, and institutional paralysis figured in virtually all of the analyses.
Much also depended on the turnout. If turnout went above 70 or even 80%, the Student List could benefit. According to one Dutch commentator:
If there are long lines in front of the polling stations on Sunday morning—just like earlier in Hungary this year—the elections could lead to a historic upheaval for Serbia. If many voters stay at home, there is a good chance that Vučić has weathered the biggest protest storm in years, and the autocratic leader will be able to move the country further to his hand.
On Election Day
From early morning, citizens lined up in front of the polling stations, promising a hefty turnout. The turnout was 70%. From the outset, observers reported numerous irregularities, including suspicions of vote buying.
Tough guys with balaclavas and dressed in black began to appear as the voting day progressed. More and more physical attacks on citizens and journalists in all parts of Serbia have been reported. The possibility of violence provoked by the state and the ruling party was on everybody’s mind.
But the supporters of the Student List were in high spirits. As always, they made a lot of noise, including songs, and waved red-and-white balloons and banners. But at the same time, they called on citizens not to gather near places like the center of the capital where more and more police and non-uniformed persons were gathering.
The polling stations closed at 8:00 pm, and the waiting started. Croatian political analyst and philosopher Žarko Puhovski said, a few minutes after:
In Serbia, it is very important for that regime to leave, because I really think that Vučić’s regime is not only autocratic, but has also caused damage to Serbia by primitivizing those parts of Serbia that were not primitivized even during Milosevic’s time. In all countries you have primitive and backward regions, but Vučić primitivized the whole of Serbia. And that is why it is good that this country and its citizens finally get rid of him.
And they did.
After the Elections
At 9:35 pm, Aleksandar Vučić addressed the headquarters of the Serbian Progressive Party and admitted defeat. The Student List had won with 53% of the votes, which means 141 seats in the parliament. The United Serbia party of Vučić captured only 38.8% of the vote, which amounts to 103 seats. No other parties secured seats in the parliament except for a few very small parties representing minorities.
Outside, throughout Serbia, the singing immediately increased. The blaring of car horns became deafening as citizens filled the streets to celebrate the victory, many barely believing what had just happened. While celebration round the country was gaining momentum, cameras in Belgrade filmed the men in black running away from Ćaciland, while police forces watched in silence. The only time when citizens came close to violence was when they dismantled the Ćaciland tents, which had become the symbol of Vučić’s style of governing.
Vučić’ didn’t wait long before revealing his true nature. His further comments in his concession speech are telling:
This was the validation of a revolution carried out with the direct support of various European countries and the American "deep state"—the faction that opposes President Trump… I congratulate them—though they are merely the ones carrying out the work, the "dirty work" devised by someone else to bring down a sovereign nation… You’ve succeeded for the moment. But for how long?… We will defeat this evil sooner than they think.
The Student List offers a lesson to all progressive movements around the world. Their success is the result of rebellion, energy, persistence, solidarity, courage, humor, nonviolence, utopian aspirations, and strong bottom-up organization. Their victory differs in two main respects from other comparable electoral efforts in other parts of the world. Serbian students formed a movement and not a party, and they do not have a strong, charismatic personality that could function like a father figure. And they succeeded.
The task in front of them is enormous, and it is hard to predict what the future will bring. As the poet Branko Miljković wrote, “Will freedom be able to sing as the slaves sang about her?” One can hope so.
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Call Me a Jacobin: France’s Students Are Defending Their Future
The American Revolution helped inspire France’s struggle for liberty. Now, France’s students are offering Americans an example we ought to consider: A generation can defend its future together instead of being told, one person at a time, to adjust its expectations.
Oct 06, 2026
France’s October 6 mobilization challenges Americans to defend their future through peaceful collective action.
Call me a Jacobin. Call me whatever you want.
On October 6, students, teachers, and parents took to the streets across France in a national day of action over missing teachers, overcrowded classrooms, and deteriorating schools. Americans should pay attention to what they are demanding—and what their pressure has already helped put on the political agenda.
Our circumstances differ from France’s, but the gap between a promised future and a delivered one is familiar.
When I watch young people in France insist that their futures deserve more than another promise, I feel something like the hope Thomas Jefferson felt watching the beginnings of the French Revolution: the possibility that ordinary people might demand a greater say in the society they inhabit.
History does not offer a clean comparison. Jefferson’s enthusiasm led him to excuse terrible bloodshed, and I will not follow him there. What moves me today is the courage of students organizing peacefully, walking out, and refusing to treat deteriorating conditions as the natural order of things.
The American Revolution helped inspire France’s struggle for liberty. Now, France’s students are offering Americans an example we ought to consider: A generation can defend its future together instead of being told, one person at a time, to adjust its expectations.
The immediate grievances are concrete. Reuters has reported on French high school students protesting overcrowded classrooms, deteriorating buildings, and teacher shortages. One 17-year-old aspiring teacher described taking her French examination without having had a French teacher. A younger student carried a sign declaring, “Our address should not decide our future.” [Source]
That is a demand for the promise of education to mean something.
We tell young people to attend class, work hard, and prepare for a career. We tell them that education is their route to stability. Then, when the institutions responsible for providing that education fail them, we act surprised that they refuse to keep participating quietly.
Their sacrifice deserves acknowledgment. Walking out can mean missed instruction, disciplinary consequences, and added pressure around examinations. These students have futures to build. Their willingness to interrupt that work should make us ask why continuing as usual feels like the greater risk.
And with teachers missing, some students were already losing instruction. A government cannot count every hour lost to protest while overlooking the hours its own failures have taken.
The violence must be named plainly. By October 2, Education Minister Édouard Geffray reported at least 65 injured staff members, including 40 principals, about 170 wounded students, and more than 100 severely damaged high schools. By October 6, the prime minister reported 215 injured teenagers and 85 injured school staff. Schools have been set on fire. Reuters reported that two teachers in Marseille were inadvertently splashed with gasoline as a student tried to throw it into a trash bin. A regional education spokesperson separately reported a youth spraying gasoline at a teacher in La Ciotat; Reuters could not verify that incident’s circumstances.
Burning a school and endangering its staff betray the demand for a better education. Whoever commits those acts should be held accountable. Students, teachers, and principals deserve protection.
Officials also dispute the movement’s origins. Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin said outsiders had hijacked it; Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez described troublemakers moving between schools to incite violence. According to a government source cited by Reuters, intelligence agencies attributed its initiation to La France Insoumise and far-left allies. LFI denied the allegation. Those claims deserve scrutiny, rather than being treated as proof that every student’s complaint is manufactured.
Some Paris-area students told Reuters they were staying away because of the escalating violence. That is a loss of their voice, too. A peaceful movement needs to protect their ability to participate. Nonviolence must remain a commitment, especially when anger is justified. The society we want to build has to be visible in the way we fight for it.
If the police are more interested in silencing you than hearing your complaint, then that society deserves protesting, in my view. Police officers cannot resolve every political grievance, but they can respect the right to express one. When authorities answer peaceful dissent with intimidation or unjustified force, their response becomes another reason to protest.
A student should not have to fall silent to be treated as someone worth protecting.
But calls for order must come with an answer to the conditions that brought students into the streets. Returning everyone to the classroom will not resolve a teacher vacancy. Ending a blockade will not repair a neglected building.
If leaders want stability, they have to give young people a reason to believe the institutions around them can deliver it.
Promises alone cannot do that anymore.
There has already been a concrete retreat. On October 1, Education Minister Édouard Geffray announced that the government would withdraw proposed annual registration fees for students without scholarships in BTS technical programs and preparatory classes for the Grandes Écoles. The proposed charges were €178 and €270, respectively. He cited discussions with unions and the prime minister.
That reversal came amid the student mobilization. It does not prove that street protests alone caused the decision, and it does not repair a classroom. But it shows that a government proposal can be challenged and withdrawn. Pressure can produce something more tangible than another invitation to be patient.
Students deserve commitments they can evaluate: which positions will be filled, which buildings will be repaired, what resources will reach underserved schools, and when those changes will happen. A consultation can help identify a problem. It cannot become a permanent substitute for fixing it.
American Gen Z should take note.
Consider our fight over student debt. In June 2023, the Supreme Court struck down the Biden administration’s plan to cancel up to $10,000 in eligible federal student debt, or $20,000 for eligible Pell Grant recipients. The court held that the administration lacked authority under the law it had invoked. Borrowers who had been offered relief were left without that promised cancellation.
The legal question matters. So does the political responsibility to deliver a workable solution. Telling young Americans that education is the path to stability, then leaving them to navigate its financial consequences, is hardly an invitation to trust another announcement. Our circumstances differ from France’s, but the gap between a promised future and a delivered one is familiar.
Peaceful collective action gives that frustration somewhere to go. Student associations, unions, public meetings, demonstrations, and the ballot can turn private discouragement into demands people can act on together.
I do not expect every young American to take the same risk. Some cannot afford to miss a shift or a class. A serious movement makes room for them, too. Solidarity should widen participation and help people bear its costs.
What I admire in France is the refusal to surrender the idea that public institutions owe the next generation a fair chance.
God bless France. God bless the students peacefully standing up for the society they want to inherit.
And may America’s young people recognize that they deserve a voice in shaping theirs.
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Saving the Republic: Enough Insight Already, It’s Time for Action
Rather than relying solely on one form of political power, one that is often fragile and slow-moving, we suggest a more practiced and time-tested approach: Nonviolent Direct Action.
Sep 05, 2026
Daniel Snyder, advocate of strategic nonviolence and author of Praying in the Dark: Spirituality, Non-Violence, and the Emerging World collaborated on this commentary.
Countless commentaries have shed light on the current administration’s aggressive, demonic, and systematic campaign to undercut commitments that have held us together for 250 years.
The assault we are experiencing threatens our health and well-being, bashes hopes we have for our children and grandchildren, and detracts from essential responsibilities that go along with being a good citizen. Adherence to the rule of law, assuring protections afforded in the Bill of Rights, and maintaining equitable and humane treatment of all persons are three of the nation’s most critical commitments.
An assumption throughout has been that millions of people in this country treasure these commitments and want to see them reaffirmed. If you are reading this, you are likely a person who shares these feelings. The telling question then is: What to do? What actions would be most effective in fulfilling our common aims? It would not be an understatement to say that this single question has dogged many of us since this administration came to power.
Nonviolent direct action seeks to move the center of gravity of public opinion toward the 3.5% participation that researchers have identified as the “tipping point” of social movements.
Yet the question often leaves resistors uncertain and overwhelmed. We tend to rush to action without fully understanding political dynamics and appreciating the value of strategic thinking. A critical first step is study, not only of the issues, but of approaches that have proven to work.
Desperate for brighter prospects, we are counting heavily on the upcoming midterm elections to turn the political tide in favor of preserving our treasured commitments. Perhaps we are also hoping that the judiciary will step up as a forceful counterweight to the ceaseless assaults. Yet, important as they are, Congress and the courts are "top-down" forms of political power. "Bottom-up" power is an essential complement, keeping "top-down" forms accountable to the people they were created to serve.
Rather than relying solely on one form of political power, one that is often fragile and slow-moving, we suggest a more practiced and time-tested approach: Nonviolent Direct Action.
What it is: Nonviolent direct action seeks to move the center of gravity of public opinion toward the 3.5% participation that researchers have identified as the “tipping point” of social movements. Such a groundswell of public opinion requires a careful assessment of proposed actions’ tendency to expand the “bottom-up” power base. Strategy-based action is a kind of “street theater” designed to create a broad base of people power, and a collective sense that “we” are in this together.
No Kings Protests had some of the earmarks of nonviolent direct action, but they lacked a constructive purpose. Most important, they lacked a strategy for attaining and sustaining that critical 3.5% threshold.
How it works: Imagine an inverted pyramid balanced on its point—extremely unstable, right? It will topple with the slightest breath. To maintain stability, undemocratic regimes must be propped up with "pillars of support." What are those pillars for the Trump administration? This is the essential strategic question for anyone planning an action. Weakening or removing even one pillar creates a crisis for the regime. Demonstratively successful nonviolent actions work on this principle. Economic boycotts, central to the civil rights movement, forced business owners to integrate lunch counters. Divestment actions pressured South Africa to dismantle apartheid.
What is essential for it to work well: Study the literature, especially the writings of Gene Sharp. Sign up for online training or subscribe to one or more of the online news services that report on current nonviolent actions and offer informative articles on strategy.
Within every action group there must be at least one or two people dedicated to doing the research and training necessary to offer wise and informed strategic counsel.
Build coalitions with others. No need to reinvent the wheel or act alone. Find out who else is already taking action on behalf of the commitments listed above and collaborate in learning and coordinating action.
Big picture, we need to improve our game, be more effective than activist groups, which tend to be issue-focused and action-oriented, but weak on strategy. News outlets like Waging Nonviolence and Nonviolence News provide plentiful stories of current actions. These are good places to start for us who are anxious to do something that will definitively turn the tide toward democratic governance.
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Peace Means We're Not Alone
Peace means embracing conflict, understanding it—through non-judgmental communication between everyone involved—and looking for ways to heal, rather than punish, any harm that has occurred.
Jul 26, 2026
Breathe deep, sigh, embrace the next word: W-A-R.
It doesn’t go away. I write about it far too often, and every time I do I feel torn inside... even though I remain personally safe from it (at least for now). Words can so easily turn the actions and consequences of war into abstractions, while failing to question why it exists at all. War is simply who we are. This is a hard certainty to shatter. But...
“Nothing exposes the bankruptcy of America’s approach to Iran more clearly than its return to more war as the answer to its own failures.”
So wrote Sina Toossi and Nancy Okail recently in The Nation. Their words start opening a deeper level of understanding, one that I’m groping for. They go on:
It is tempting to dismiss the war resumption as another example of Donald Trump’s impulsiveness. It is something deeper. Trump is less breaking with America’s approach to Iran than taking it to its logical conclusion.
The logical conclusion, as far as I can tell, is to declare victory and then start looking for the next enemy... the next evil that threatens us. This is “peace”: that brief moment of silence while everyone reloads, as someone once put it. In other words, war is inevitable and ongoing. It solves nothing. It changes nothing, except to intensify people’s hatred, toward “someone,” and their desire for revenge. It shatters connection. It shatters healing.
War’s primary function is to perpetuate itself. It’s a collective addiction to power: power over others, not with them. The enemy is always present and always dehumanized. And war doesn’t always manifest itself through militarism. Consider the criminal justice system, aka the prison system, for instance.
So let me restart this column. The word I want to embrace is: P-E-A-C-E.
Peace equals evolution. Peace means power with others, not over them. And it manifests in numerous, and often unnoticed, ways. Peace is complex and rarely produces great headlines. Over the years I’ve written about many different peace organizations, which exist in many different contexts.
In essence, peace means embracing conflict, understanding it—through non-judgmental communication between everyone involved—and looking for ways to heal, rather than punish, any harm that has occurred.
Here’s part of a column I wrote about 10 years ago, after I had attended a conference on “soul repair” in Des Moines, Iowa:
The community was out of control—the children, oh my God, the children, were sniffing gasoline and pretty much abandoning any pretense of a future—and the social and criminal-justice systems were just adding to the problem. Nothing was working.
“Our children slammed us against a brick wall," Burma Bushie said.
This is the story of a culture in shambles. It was the early ’80s. Bushie’s community is called the Hollow Water First Nation Reserve, a village of about 900 people in eastern Manitoba, more or less at the end of the highway. There was one road in and one road out.
They may have felt utterly isolated in their troubles, but what a few of them started to do—in synchronicity with people in other Indigenous communities—has spread hope and awareness across the planet. They began reaching beyond the known (i.e., Western) world, deep into their souls and into the roots of a lost way of life, to save their children and the future...
“Our children were acting out—not learning. That was our beginning," she said. "We couldn’t hide anymore. The Indian reservation-school system, the child welfare system—all these systems that came to help us more or less became our enemies."
The committed team of change-bringers began talking to one another about their own lives, as well as the troubles around them. They began addressing the issue of alcoholism, an obvious surface manifestation of far deeper matters. "Each time we cleared up one level, we found another," Bushie said. “When we got to sexual abuse—we knew that’s what we had to deal with...”
And it became a community process. When someone has been harmed, people sit in a circle as equals—victim, perpetrator, any others who are affected—and everyone has a chance to talk. When they’re not talking, they listen. There is only one goal: healing
Rupert Ross, who was at the conference with Burma Bushie, wrote about all this in his remarkable book, Returning to the Teachings. He had been a Canadian crown (i.e., prosecuting) attorney, and Hollow Water was part of his coverage area. His job was to prosecute offenders, send them to prison. He began to realize all this was doing was creating more damage to the community, and that Western “justice” had nothing to do with healing. It broke connections. It created bad guys and proceeded to dehumanize them.
He wrote, in his book: “The word ‘healing’ seems such a soft word, but, as I will show later, Hollow Water’s healing process is anything but soft. In fact, jail is a much easier alternative, because it does not require the victimizer to face the real truths about abuse.”
And this is peace: not a simplistic lull while enemies reload—that is to say, nothing at all—but the ongoing creation of a world that belongs to all of us. It’s also known as evolution.
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Lessons in Equality
A writer reflects on the moments that taught him about the futility of violence and the inherent worth of every human being.
Jun 21, 2026
As I get older—my big eight-oh is virtually two months away—I find myself sloshing through my childhood, my awkward youth, with ever-increasing awe. I’m not talking so much about “memories” (that time I broke my finger playing football, let us say, or that crush I had on Patty in first grade), but something larger, quieter, less clear: moments of unexpected awareness.
These are moments of becoming. And they’re still with me. They’re still creating who I am, which is why I’ve decided to write about them again. I tossed a few of these moments out into the world a couple years ago, but since they’re still relevant to the world of today, I’ve decided to revisit them.
One such moment occurred after I had a punch-out with a friend after school. Then I bicycled home, with bruised knuckles, a torn pant leg. I parked the bike behind our house and as I dismounted, I felt consumed by an awareness I couldn’t shake off. Gosh, that was stupid.
Maybe fighting is part of kid life, but it’s also utterly valueless. I got hold of myself, calmed down... and decided I would never fight again. This wasn’t a flimsy, breakable rule I decided to impose on myself—you know, try to behave better—but something much, much bigger. In that moment, I claimed, well, partial agency over my own hot temper, and eventually beyond that: over the collective anger that had a grip on so much of the world. I decided I didn’t want to be a part of that anymore. This was well before I was in any way “political.” I was 11. I read the sports pages; that was it. But the stupidity of real-life fighting remained a scar on my psyche for the rest of my life.
Everyone is a genius. Everyone matters. We all have a unique perspective on the unknown.
When I was 13, I had another stunning moment of becoming. This one was far stranger, far less obvious. I hardly understood it. It was caused by a movie. The year was 1959. My mother, sister and I went to the local theater one Saturday afternoon and saw—I have no idea why—Imitation of Life. It wasn’t funny or cowboy-and-Indian exciting. It was a social drama about, for God’s sake, race: a black woman who works as a maid, whose daughter is light-skinned enough to pass as white and chooses to do so, separating herself from her mom.
I’m not sure if the movie is any good, but I did watch a small piece of it a few hours ago and was pulled deeply in. Indeed, I was shocked—the ending slashed my heart: At Annie’s, the mom’s, funeral, Sarah Jane, the estranged daughter, pushes through the crowd of mourners and clutches hold of the casket, crying for forgiveness. She had pushed her mom—who loved her dearly—out of her life so she could live as a white person. As she lies atop the casket, she cries, “I killed my mother.” And the movie ends.
As I say, I was 13. The civil rights movement had started up in the South, but I had no connection with it whatsoever. I was a teenage white boy living in an all-white suburb in the Midwest. I knew there were bad people around who did racist things, but what did that have to do with me?
So the movie hit me by surprise. I’m sure I had no emotional protection from its heart-cutting ending, nor did I have the ability to wrap it up mentally under the label “race,” stash it away, and move on. I was simply... well, troubled. And I’m sure we didn’t talk about it. We just headed home.
But then something happened—which had nothing to do with the movie. We had car trouble. Mom pulled into a garage so we could get the matter fixed. It apparently was not a big deal. They started working on it, and we just sat there waiting. I’m sure I was doing my best to put the movie and the emotions it stirred out of my mind, but there’s no doubt something deep had just opened in me. I didn’t know what.
The car was ready. We started driving home. And boing went my mental lightbulb. I had a thought, and the thought is beyond strange. It seems to have had no relationship to the movie per se, though apparently it emerged from the troubled confusion I was feeling. Even now it makes no sense. I silently told myself: I’m a genius.
Huh?
I can only guess what that meant, but I’m sure it had nothing to do with being measurably super-smart. Rather, somehow, I was suddenly aware... of God knows what. Perhaps the value of life. I had just seen over the edge of ordinary, over the edge of what we’re supposed to believe, into a deep unknown. I had seen beyond the answer to the question.
In retrospect, I believe this moment pushed my sense that I was a writer, and that life was mine to discover, not simply “be taught.” I also believe the takeaway from it was: Everyone is a genius. Everyone matters. We all have a unique perspective on the unknown. As I rode home with Mom and Sis, I clutched this like a precious stone, a blue pearl, perhaps, hovering in my psychic void.
And finally, three years later: Here’s me at age 16, about to have another moment of awareness—thanks to an encyclopedia salesman. Actually, I think it was just Volume A, which we got in the mail after joining a book-of-the-month club. Ever the eager learner, I started scrolling through the volume and came across a description of the book The Age of Reason, by Thomas Paine. I was intrigued, and on Saturday I went to the public library and checked out a copy.
I spent the rest of the day in bed and read the whole thing. Oh my God (so to speak). I had grown up in a churchgoing family and had never particularly questioned religion, but Paine’s critique of Christian theology hit me hard, in particular because I had also recently read the book Exodus, by Leon Uris—another book-of-the-month arrival. That book had opened my awareness of the creation of Israel (I’d no doubt get extremely frustrated with it today) and Jewish people in general. I knew nothing more about this than I did about civil rights, but I felt moved by Uris’ story.
And the two books in tandem opened up an awareness I couldn’t tolerate. According to what we’re told to believe, nonbelievers—that includes Jews, all of them—go to hell. In no way, no way, did I give any credence to this, and because I was the person in charge of my own beliefs, I immediately decided to leave the church. The next morning I told my mother, who was shattered. She also loved me dearly, and we struggled for years over this—and eventually our relationship transcended all theology. Our love for one another was bigger than that. And I began calling myself a “trans-believer”: curious about every religion, open to spiritual wisdom wherever it comes from.
And I couldn’t be happier, or more grateful, for these moments of awareness, which, as I wrote, are still creating me. And they support my core belief about life: All humans are created equal.
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ICE Is Counting on Our Silence
It is more critical than ever to be in the streets, showing up for our neighbors, advocating to our elected officials, and using all the tools available to us to show the Trump administration that we are still paying attention.
May 13, 2026
When thousands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents invaded Minneapolis this past January, Twin Cities residents, and people across the country, jumped into action, trailing these agents, organizing major protests, and dropping off food and supplies to those understandably afraid to leave their homes.
Both of our organizations, too, took action. Bend the Arc: Jewish Action leadership traveled to join a clergy day of protest alongside close partners in Minneapolis, and T’ruah sent some 50 rabbis to support dozens of their colleagues who live and work there.
Lay people and clergy alike similarly stepped up in Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, and other cities targeted by major Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids. Minnesotans successfully diminished the massive ICE takeover of their city. This is a testament to the power of citizen organizing and action.
But the absence of visible deployments of thousands of agents to a single city does not mean that the threat of ICE has disappeared, or has changed its tactics of kidnapping our neighbors, detaining immigrants without due process, and deporting people to places where they won’t be safe–including both their birthplaces and countries they’ve never even been to.
Every time we show up in the streets matters as we move through the wilderness to become the country of our aspirations.
Without the daily photos of masked ICE agents facing off against citizens armed only with whistles and cell phones, or dragging children in bunny hats or dads in pajamas out of their homes, it is easy to sit back and to believe that the threat to our neighbors has dissipated.
This is far from the truth. Last year's “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” gave the Department of Homeland Security $191 billion for immigrant detention and deportation, the largest immigration enforcement funding surge in American history. ICE alone received $75 billion, nearly nine times its annual budget. With that money, ICE is detaining more than 70,000 people per day across the country in truly horrific conditions; at least 17 people have already died in custody this year, which follows a record high 32 deaths in 2025.
ICE has yet to spend most of the money they received last year, and still they can enact this much violence in our communities. But for President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans this is not enough—right now they are trying to funnel up to $140 billion more dollars to these agencies to separate immigrant families.
In the Jewish calendar, we are currently counting the Omer, noting each day and each week between Passover and Shavuot. Within the biblical narrative, the Israelites have achieved freedom from slavery, but have not yet reached Mount Sinai, where they will receive Torah. With the drama of fleeing Egypt and crossing the sea in the past, they are stuck in the day-to-day slog of becoming free. They are disoriented, complaining, backsliding, and agitated. Counting the Omer reminds us that liberation does not come in a single moment, but rather takes days and weeks and even years of plodding through the wilderness.
It would be easy to throw up our hands and demand to go back to Egypt, as the Israelites did. But the true work of liberation requires continued action, even in the absence of flashy images and dramatic victories.
This is why our organizations, along with over 60 co-sponsoring Jewish groups, led a national day of Jewish moral action against ICE last month. This day of action followed a massive protest outside ICE headquarters in February that involved more than 600 Jews, including some 100 rabbis and cantors.
Scholars of fascism and democracy teach us that sustained nonviolent protests engaging only 3.5% of a population have been effective at multiple points in history at creating regime change. Every time we show up in the streets matters as we move through the wilderness to become the country of our aspirations.
Indeed, it is even more critical to be in the streets, showing up for our neighbors, advocating to our elected officials, and using all the tools available to us to show the Trump administration that we are still paying attention. That their attempts to distract and wear us down will not work. That we will always show up for each other.
Minneapolis may not be in daily headlines but the impacts of ICE’s violence will linger. The same remains true in far too many American cities. In the wilderness, the ancient Israelites kept complaining. They built a golden calf. They begged to go back. And they still made it to Sinai. Not because the wilderness was easy, but because they kept moving through it.
This is not a metaphor for passive endurance. Counting the Omer is an active process—you have to say the words out loud, with intention, or the count does not count. We can’t drift through the 49 days on autopilot. We have to choose, each day, to be in the middle of the story. We have a vision of the Promised Land we are trying to achieve here in the United States. It’s one where all of us, regardless of faith, race, ethnic background, ability, or birthplace, can be free.
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'The World Is Proud of You, Guido': American Peace Activist Honored in Iranian Lego Video
"Your dignity stands taller than the place you stood, and it will live forever in our memory."
May 02, 2026
Explosive Media, one of the independent outfits generating the viral videos about the war in Iran, created a short piece on Saturday to honor the American father of two who climbed atop a bridge in the Washington, DC this weekend to demand an end to the conflict.
"In honor of Guido Reichstadter, the man who climbed the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge to make his voice of protest heard," the group said in a post alongside the video short. "Your dignity stands taller than the place you stood, and it will live forever in our memory."
As Common Dreams reported, Reichstadter climbed the bridge wearing a t-shirt that simply read "End War" beginning on Friday afternoon, remained in protest overnight, and told one reporter he intends to remain "for a few days at least."
In honor of Guido Reichstadter,
the man who climbed the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge to make his voice of protest heard.
Your dignity stands taller than the place you stood,
and it will live forever in our memory. 🫡🏔️ pic.twitter.com/WANYzS7kIh
— Explosive Media (@ExplosiveMediaa) May 2, 2026
Reichstadter said he climbed the 168-foot-tall bridge “because the government of the United States is engaged in acts of mass murder in my name. And I refuse to be complicit in that.”
"The world is proud of you, Guido," Explosive Media said in a separate post on social media. "Soon, side by side, we will celebrate peace and victory together."
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'I Refuse to Be Complicit': Man Scales 168-Foot Bridge in DC Demanding End to Iran War
"I'm at the top of this bridge," says Guido Reichstadter, "because the government of the United States is engaged in acts of mass murder in my name."
May 02, 2026
Forty-five-year-old social justice activist named Guido Reichstadter, on Saturday morning, was still perched atop the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge in Washington, DC, after first scaling the structure Friday afternoon in protest against President Donald Trump's disastrous war against Iran, now in its third month, and the rapid and unregulated spread of artificial intelligence technology.
As Reichstadter, who described himself as the father of two children with master's degrees in both math and physics, said in a video posted to social media on Friday: “Hi, my name is Guido Reichstadter, and I’m currently occupying the top of the Frederick Douglass memorial bridge in Washington, DC.”
"I'm calling on the people of the United States," he continued, "to bring an immediate end to the Trump regime's illegal war on Iran and the removal of the regime's power through mass nonviolent direct action and non-cooperation."
"I woke up on February 28th, and I found that hundreds of school children had been blown apart. I think there are many millions of Americans who reject the war in principle, but whose actions have not yet been sufficient to bring it to an end."
In a separate video, he explained he was at the top of the bridge, which rises approximately 168 feet above the Anacostia River at its highest point, "because the government of the United States is engaged in acts of mass murder in my name. And I refuse to be complicit in that."
While bridge traffic in both directions was closed at times on Friday and overnight, the bridge is reportedly open to traffic Saturday morning, though with some lane restrictions, as law enforcement said a "barricade situation" with the protester continued.
Reichstadter, who has staged high-profile protests in the past, spoke to Al-Jazeera via video stream on Friday to explain his actions and call for an end to the war that he says—and tens of millions of other Americans agree, according to polling—is a colossal failure by the Trump administration.
A 45-year old man is occupying the top of Washington’s Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge to protest the war on Iran.
Guido Reichstadter spoke to Al Jazeera from atop the structure - here's what he had to say. pic.twitter.com/YzHghEoS8m
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) May 2, 2026
"I mean, it's an atrocity, right?" he said when asked what motivated him. "I woke up on February 28th, and I found that hundreds of school children had been blown apart. I think there are many millions of Americans who reject the war in principle, but whose actions have not yet been sufficient to bring it to an end."
Democratic members of Congress, both in the US House and Senate, have now brought several War Powers Resolutions to the floor in an effort to end the US attack on Iran, which now includes a naval blockade of the country, but Republican majorities in both chambers, backing Trump, have thwarted those efforts.
Poll after poll, meanwhile, shows that Reichstadter is completely correct in stating that millions of people "reject the war," but still the war continues even after a 60-day deadline, according to the War Powers Act of 1973, which says the president must either end military operations or get the explicit approval of Congress, which came and went on Friday.
On Friday, a video showed Reichstadter wearing a t-shirt that read "NO WAR" and unfurling a large black banner along the side of the bridge's central arch as part of the protest.
Before scaling the bridge, Reichstadter also spoke with journalist Ford Fisher to explain his motivations and what he hoped to accomplish with his one-person direct action:
- YouTube www.youtube.com
Reichstatder stayed on the bridge overnight, even as fireworks exploded overhead from a nearby Major League Baseball game.
In his statement concerning AI, Reichstadter said he wanted to "urgently warn the people of the US and the world of the imminent danger we are in of crossing a point of no return towards the development of artificial intelligence, which poses the risk of catastrophic harm to humanity, including human extinction."
"I call on the governments of the world to take immediate action to end this danger by permanently banning the development of artificial general intelligence and machine super intelligence," he said. "I also call on the people of the world to exert all possible influence through nonviolent action to compel their governments to end this danger with all possible speed."
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Yes It's Possible: How Spanish Anti-Eviction Activists Took on the Banks and Won
A people's housing Justice movement against the Spanish eviction crisis provides a model for making change.
Apr 28, 2026
While stopping evictions is the PAH’s [Platform for People Affected by Mortgages, or Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca] most well-known activity, the movement only began to use civil disobedience as a tactic of resistance out of necessity. Foreclosure processes tend to move slowly and a series of other problems must be resolved before eviction is imminent. At some point, people in the assembly started getting eviction notices, but the first ones to receive them didn’t feel the strength to try and resist the police kicking them out. In 2010, PAH Barcelona was approached by a man named Lluís who had just received a date for eviction from his house in La Bisbal del Penedès. He was desperate, claiming that he’d rather fill his house with butane canisters and blow it up, than to hand it over to the bank. At the PAH, they quickly understood the need for an alternative solution.
The platform’s founders realized that at some point they would have to resort to direct action to stop evictions, but they didn’t think they’d be capable of it... until they were forced to. To stop Lluís’ eviction, they armed themselves with a strong narrative, echoing the legal and ethical arguments against eviction, and an energetic communication campaign that included signs, banners, and media coverage. Moreover, the entire action was recorded.
They knew they had to avoid violence, and when the judicial delegation arrived, the activists did not physically engage them, but simply blocked the entrance to the house, tried to talk them out of evicting Lluís and refused to move. There was little the two police officers could do, and the eviction was postponed. Two days later, the PAH released the video of the demonstration, providing proof of what would later become one of the movement’s slogans: “Sí se puede!”
Harnessing Legitimacy
Members of PAH hold a protest. (Photo by PAH-Barcelona)
Civil disobedience as a tactic to stop evictions became part of the PAH’s regular activity. “What we have to do to stop evictions has become so normalized that when we talk about it at the assembly, we don’t speak in terms of ‘we’re engaging in civil disobedience,’ although that is what we do, and perhaps we should reflect more on that,” ponders Berni from PAHC Bages. “The PAH emerged at a time when thousands of evictions for mortgage defaults were taking place and the issue affected a lot of people who thought they were middle class; in the public discourse, everyone saw that this was something dramatic and unfair,” recalls Emma from PAHC Sabadell. “The fact that in this context, a group of people spoke out to draw attention to this injustice and engaged in nonviolent but active civil disobedience led to the success of the PAH model and its acceptance within society,” she concludes.
“The experience of protesting inside a bank with fifty people is really fulfilling, it takes away your fear and it empowers you.”
To ensure that the platform’s civil disobedience continues to be successful, it’s vitally important for it to preserve that legitimacy. That means being able to justify each and every action as legitimate. Although it will sometimes react to emergency situations, the PAH only takes action on evictions affecting people already involved in the platform. At their assemblies, PAH groups make it clear that they’re not an eviction prevention service, but that they work on the basis of mutual support and only try to block evictions when the people being evicted do not have proper alternative housing.
Beyond the general idea behind these actions—to resist peacefully at the entrance to the building to prevent the judicial delegation from entering—they must be carefully planned and roles must be assigned to make sure everything runs smoothly. If there are minors in the family’s care, a solution must be found to ensure that they aren’t in the house at the time when the eviction is scheduled. It’s very important to support the family, who might be out on the street with their compas, or prefer to resist from inside their home. It’s also very important to remember that the action revolves around their interests and they must be kept informed of what’s happening and able to make decisions when necessary.
Outside, the aim is to keep people’s spirits up while they wait for the judicial delegation to arrive, which might take the whole morning. It’s important to have people to energize the protest in creative ways and give directions. Although people can move around, someone must be responsible for making sure that the door is always protected.
It’s also important to decide in advance how to communicate the purpose and legitimacy of the action to the public, and who will be in charge of communicating with the authorities and the media, rather than leaving it to be decided on the spot.
It’s also helpful to consider preparing the affected person how to deal with the press, if necessary. The movement’s social media presence and its relationship with the media are also very important, as these are tools that can be used to amplify the PAH’s demands and reinforce its legitimacy.
Empowering Actions
Members of PAH-Barcelona stick flyers on a bank window. (Photo by PAH-Barcelona)
The PAH has an extensive repertoire of actions that goes far beyond stopping evictions. In fact, stopping an eviction is not usually the final solution, but a postponement that should make it possible to find a more permanent answer to the problem. This might require action against financial institutions, public authorities or water, electricity, and gas companies. Besides taking action in support of specific cases, big demonstrations can be called to target the institutions responsible for the problems faced by many families.
“I remember the first time we occupied a bank, back in 2010 or 2011. We occupied Caixa Catalunya and the riot police came to kick us out; that was ecstasy, a real high, and then the fear disappeared,” says Delia from PAH Barcelona. “The experience of protesting inside a bank with fifty people is really fulfilling, it takes away your fear and it empowers you.” Many people emphasize the strength of collective action; sometimes the mere act of covering a bank with posters condemning its actions is very powerful. “Wallpapering is a high, an outlet for your rage; you can take out all the hatred you’ve built up inside and stick it all over the institution,” says Juan Luis from PAH Torrevieja.
That’s where the festive tone and creativity of the PAH’s actions come in. Even if you’re protesting against a very difficult issue, you have to make room for joy. If you occupy a bank, you can use the leaflets that are there for anyone to take as confetti and play music or put up balloons and banners. “It wiped away my fear of the bank when I saw how all the employees could leave and the office would be left alone, occupied by activists,” says Juan Luis. The PAH manages to paralyze the bank’s activity without confronting anyone or even directly hindering its work. The movement’s actions are simply intended to make its presence felt because the bank is unwilling to continue its activity in these conditions.
Of course, everyone experiences these actions in their own way and that’s why some groups in Madrid organize what they call “fear workshops.” “These are workshops for people to learn how to act during an action: how to avoid losing their temper or falling for police provocation, how to rely on colleagues. In short, how to overcome yourself so that you can go to the protest, even if you’re afraid, because nothing is going to happen to you in 90 percent of the cases,” explains Alejandra from PAVPS [Platform for People Affected by Public and Social Housing], Madrid.
It’s also important to think about how to look after people in these protests. This can be done, for example, by warning when there’s a possibility that the police show up and recommending that people in an irregular administrative situation stay away to avoid unnecessary risks. “Besides that, they tell you how to act or how to hold onto another person so that they don’t hurt you if they’re trying to remove you by force,” adds Francisco from PAH Barcelona.
This excerpt is adapted from Yes, It’s Possible! A Handbook for Building Power by João França and The Platform for People Affected by Mortgages, published by Common Notions. Copyright (c) 2026 Common Notions. All rights reserved. Do not republish.
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No Kings: After the Splash, the Ripples Spread
From equality, to humor, to nonviolence, the values expressed at the protests will continue to energize resistance efforts in the weeks, months, and years ahead.
Mar 31, 2026
The numbers from No Kings protests made a big splash. Roughly 8 million people declared their opposition to the present administration this past weekend in over 3100 cities and towns across the nation. But in the long run the impact of quality will be greater than quantity. Beyond the splash, the values expressed in the protests will continue to ripple through our collective consciousness.
Here are some of those ripples that will spread out and energize resistance efforts in the weeks, months, and years ahead.
Harmony and Equality: Those who showed up on the streets joined as one, all equal, no person better or more entitled than the other. Their participation loudly reaffirmed cherished democratic values as expressed in the First Amendment and human values anchored in the world’s religions.
Mutual Respect and Common Purpose: Different views flourished among protesters, yet they shared a common purpose—a counter to the tide of divisiveness presently plaguing the nation. No Kings points the way to a community of diverse viewpoints that rejects demeaning attribution.
The message of No Kings could be deflected or demeaned by those in power, but its solidarity was indisputable.
The Power of Humor: Humor illuminated and emblazoned No Kings messages and lightened the despair associated with what many see happening in this country. Humor “unclothes the emperor,” revealing shallowness and frailty behind a façade of impregnability and bravado. Portraying wannabe authoritarians as buffoons added impact to the protesters’ messages, unmasking savagery and cowardice.
Clear-eyed Resilience: Enduring resistance springs from a grasp of the facts and rejects the temptation to deny or repress the severity of one’s current circumstances. Protesters did not mince words, rather offered direct, full-hearted, and cogent expression that accurately characterized the malignancy of the forces oppressing people.
Local Capacity: The protests had nationwide impact. Yet inherently they built local capacity. Participants garnered valuable lessons in cooperative action on a doable scale. Working together in this way becomes increasingly critical as large-scale institutions, spanning diverse functions, break down—the signs of which are already apparent.
Dignifying the Opposition: Peacefully and without rancor, protesters absorbed the jibes of those who see the world differently. Their overarching commitment was to honor the dignity of all humans, even amid a belief that others’ mindsets are flawed, their actions harmful. The message of No Kings could be deflected or demeaned by those in power, but its solidarity was indisputable.
Appreciating Ancient Wisdom: Free exercise of religion is not only central to the cause represented by No Kings, it was generative of ideas that motivated the protests. The messages conveyed are founded in Jesus’ unyielding embrace of human dignity and opposition to systems of domination, Jews’ commitment to the word and to social justice, Islam’s emphasis on charity and the reverence of pilgrimage, and the Dalai Lama’s expressions of compassion and loving kindness.
Nonviolent Direct Action: No Kings defies the inhumanity and injustice of systems of domination through nonviolent direct action. It serves as a “pilgrimage” for goodness of heart, reverence, compassion, and humor. It illuminates a different way of being and doing with one’s fellow human beings. The way the Minneapolis community reacted to the invasion of Immigration and Customs Enforcement is a case in point. People from all classes and backgrounds demonstrated mutual regard, materially supported each other, and salved each other’s pain and suffering—an ennobling of what it means to be a citizen of the world.
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