Join Us!
We honor the hundreds of thousands and millions of people across the globe who have made big change happen over the centuries. They fought slavery, sexism, racism, abuse of workers rights, and more. Today, it's our chance to follow in their footsteps and clean up one especially bitter industry: coffee.
Dark machineries of colonialism, discrimination, and worker oppression have made their mark in many industries. But big, beautiful change has swept our world in spite of oppression. Usually, that change has come because of people power. Because day after day, week after week, year after year, hundreds of thousands of people around the globe mobilized. Mass protests do not always work. But people power is the most potent weapon to defend against tyranny, abuse, and injustice.
Many protesters are unsung and unknown. But they are heroes. They move mountains. They are dogged and steadfast. They make their voices heard. The world desperately needs courageous people who join mass movements. At Coffee Watch, we honor these people. We call on you. Join us.
Write us here <info@coffeewatch.org>
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Scholar, thinker, and innovator Gene Sharp reviewed thousands of instances of nonviolent struggle and catalogued 198 different methods - we invite you to reach out to us and volunteer for any of these non-violent protest possibilities that speak to your heart, and which you think can be deployed to end abuses in coffee.
The Methods of Nonviolent Protest and Persuasion
Formal Statements
- 001. Public speeches
- 002. Letters of opposition or support
- 003. Declarations by organizations and institutions
- 004. Signed public statements
- 005. Declarations of indictment and intention
- 006. Group or mass petitions
Communications with a wider audience
- 007. Slogans, caricatures, and symbols
- 008. Banners, posters, and displayed communications
- 009. Leaflets, pamphlets, and books
- 010. Newspapers and journals
- 011. Records, radio, and television
- 012. Skywriting and earthwriting
Group representations
Symbolic public acts
- 018. Displays of flags and symbolic colors
- 019. Wearing of symbols
- 020. Prayer and worship
- 021. Delivering symbolic objects
- 022. Protest disrobings
- 023. Destruction of own property
- 024. Symbolic lights
- 025. Displays of portraits
- 026. Paint as protest
- 027. New signs and names
- 028. Symbolic sounds
- 029. Symbolic reclamations
- 030. Rude gestures
Pressures on individuals
Drama and Music
Processions
Honoring the dead
Public assemblies
- 047. Assemblies of protest or support
- 048. Protest meetings
- 049. Camouflaged meetings of protest
- 050. Teach-ins
Withdrawal and renunciation
The Methods of Noncooperation
Social Noncooperation
Ostracism of persons
- 055. Social boycott
- 056. Selective social boycott
- 057. Lysistratic nonaction
- 058. Excommunication
- 059. Interdict
Noncooperation with social events, customs and institutions
- 060. Suspension of social and sports activities
- 061. Boycott of social affairs
- 062. Student strike
- 063. Social disobedience
- 064. Withdrawal from social institutions
Withdrawal from the social system
- 065. Stay-at-home
- 066. Total personal noncooperation
- 067. "Flight" of workers
- 068. Sanctuary
- 069. Collective disappearance
- 070. Protest emigration (hijrat)
Economic Noncooperation: Boycotts
Action by consumers
- 071. Consumers' boycott
- 072. Nonconsumption of boycotted goods
- 073. Policy of austerity
- 074. Rent withholding
- 075. Refusal to rent
- 076. National consumers' boycott
- 077. International consumers' boycott
Action by workers and producers
Action by middlemen
Action by owners and management
- 081. Traders' boycott
- 082. Refusal to let or sell property
- 083. Lockout
- 084. Refusal of industrial assistance
- 085. Merchants' "general strike"
Action by holders of financial resources
- 086. Withdrawal of bank deposits
- 087. Refusal to pay fees, dues, and assessments
- 088. Refusal to pay debts or interest
- 089. Severance of funds and credit
- 090. Revenue refusal
- 091. Refusal of a government's money
Action by governments
- 092. Domestic embargo
- 093. Blacklisting of traders
- 094. International sellers' embargo
- 095. International buyers' embargo
- 096. International trade embargo
Economic Noncooperation: Strikes
Symbolic strikes
Agricultural strikes
Strikes by special groups
Ordinary industrial strikes
Restricted strikes
- 108. Detailed strike
- 109. Bumper strike
- 110. Slowdown strike
- 111. Working-to-rule strike
- 112. Reporting "sick." (sick-in)
- 113. Strike by resignation
- 114. Limited strike
- 115. Selective strike
Multi-industry strikes
Combination of strikes and economic closures
Political Noncooperation
Rejection of authority
- 120. Withholding or withdrawal of allegiance
- 121. Refusal of public support
- 122. Literature and speeches advocating resistance
Citizens’ noncooperation with government
- 123. Boycott of legislative bodies
- 124. Boycott of elections
- 125. Boycott of government employment and positions
- 126. Boycott of government departments, agencies, and other bodies
- 127. Withdrawal from governmental educational institutions
- 128. Boycott of government-supported institutions
- 129. Refusal of assistance to enforcement agents
- 130. Removal of own signs and placemarks
- 131. Refusal to accept appointed officials
- 132. Refusal to dissolve existing institutions
Citizens’ alternatives to obedience
- 133. Reluctant and slow compliance
- 134. Nonobedience in absence of direct supervision
- 135. Popular nonobedience
- 136. Disguised disobedience
- 137. Refusal of an assemblage or meeting to disperse
- 138. Sitdown
- 139. Noncooperation with conscription and deportation
- 140. Hiding, escape, and false identities
- 141. Civil disobedience of "illegitimate" laws
Action by government personnel
- 142. Selective refusal of assistance by government aides
- 143. Blocking of lines of command and information
- 144. Stalling and obstruction
- 145. General administrative noncooperation
- 146. Judicial noncooperation
- 147. Deliberate inefficiency and selective noncooperation by enforcement agents
- 148. Mutiny
Domestic governmental action
International governmental action
- 151. Changes in diplomatic and other representation
- 152. Delay and cancellation of diplomatic events
- 153. Withholding of diplomatic recognition
- 154. Severance of diplomatic relations
- 155. Withdrawal from international organizations
- 156. Refusal of membership in international bodies
- 157. Expulsion from international organisations
The Methods of Nonviolent Intervention
Psychological intervention
- 158. Self-exposure to the elements
- 159. The fast (fast of moral pressure, hunger strike, satyagrahic fast)
- 160. Reverse trial
- 161. Nonviolent harassment
Physical intervention
- 162. Sit-in
- 163. Stand-in
- 164. Ride-in
- 165. Wade-in
- 166. Mill-in
- 167. Pray-in
- 168. Nonviolent raids
- 169. Nonviolent air raids
- 170. Nonviolent invasion
- 171. Nonviolent interjection
- 172. Nonviolent obstruction
- 173. Nonviolent occupation
Social intervention
- 174. Establishing new social patterns
- 175. Overloading of facilities
- 176. Stall-in
- 177. Speak-in
- 178. Guerrilla theatre
- 179. Alternative social institutions
- 180. Alternative communication system
Economic intervention
- 181. Reverse strike
- 182. Stay-in strike
- 183. Nonviolent land seizure
- 184. Defiance of blockades
- 185. Politically motivated counterfeiting
- 186. Preclusive purchasing
- 187. Seizure of assets
- 188. Dumping
- 189. Selective patronage
- 190. Alternative markets
- 191. Alternative transportation systems
- 192. Alternative economic institutions
Political intervention
- 193. Overloading of administrative systems
- 194. Disclosing identities of secret agents
- 195. Seeking imprisonment
- 196. Civil disobedience of "neutral" laws
- 197. Work-on without collaboration
- 198. Dual sovereignty and parallel government