Like Water
Extract from our new publication ‘Power.’
Nothing is weaker than water,
But when it attacks something hard
Or resistant, then nothing withstands it,
And nothing will alter its way
— Lao Tzu
An action or event can cause ripples in a society which, in turn, expand further, reaching more and more people. But while ripples eventually fade, what’s left is like a body of water nudging the banks and filtering through the depths to new soils.
The power of water also lies in its formlessness, with martial artist Bruce Lee telling us we should “Be water, my friend”; moving, expanding, adapting; never assuming a single mould, but many — whichever ones a given circumstance calls for.
In the following you’ll find examples of ideas which, after their first ripples, stirred more and more people to the point of sparking an entire movement. These are the stories of the things that grew out of the ideas and actions of individuals.
#FridaysForFuture:
The FridaysForFuture global youth movement began after a 15-year-old in Sweden sat in front of the parliament every school day for three weeks to protest against the lack of action on the climate crisis. As her story spread, more students organised protests outside of their own parliaments and local councils all over the world, to the extent that now every month hundreds of thousands skip class in an unpreceded act of civil disobedience. As of November 2019, there are a registered 2129 strikes in every continent, with national campaigns forming in Iraq, the Philippines, Turkey, Pakistan, India, Brazil, Uganda and
Idle No More:
What began as a thread of emails in Canada in 2012 between four women to brainstorm actions against a law that would remove legal protections from the land reserved for Indigenous people in Saskatchewan province, has now become a “peaceful revolution to honour indigenous sovereignty and to protect the land and water”. Called Idle No More “as a reminder to get off the couch and start working,” the movement spilled into the United States and even as far as Ukraine and New Zealand. Its impetus is empowering Indigenous communities to stand up for their rights, cultures
and sovereignty, actions they say are rooted in a centuries-old resistance by Indigenous nations.
Umbrella Movement:
Students in Hong Kong’s 2014 pro-democracy protests used umbrellas to shield themselves from pepper spray used by police to disperse crowds, which had gathered in sit-ins as part of a non-violent civil disobedience campaign. The protests signalled a new wave of civil rights protection, which galvanised an entire generation whose activism continues five years on. Hong Kong’s 2019 protests are rooted in the spirit of the Umbrella Movement and have adopted the mantra “Be water”. Practicing varied forms of civil disobedience, protesters urge one another to be “Strong like ice. Flow like water. Gather like dew. Disperse like fog.”
This content originally featured in the magazine Power, which is free to download here: http://bit.ly/CRIN-Power