Choose your target wisely

Since the early 2000s, the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP), a radical anti-poverty organization based in Toronto, Canada, has organized under the slogan “Fight to Win.” It’s a simple slogan packed with meaning: To win, you’ve got to fight. But the point isn’t to fight; the point is to win.

An organization run by and for the poor, OCAP has proven extremely effective in compelling politicians, welfare workers, and employers to grant the concrete gains they seek. In one of many successful actions, OCAP prevented a gas station from pumping gas until the employer came up with money owed to a former employee. Similarly, mass delegations by OCAP to welfare offices have led to the reinstatement of benefits for low-income members. OCAP has been effective because it recognizes that social change comes through struggle, which involves articulating clear demands and applying targeted pressure on those in power to comply with those demands.

To win, you’ve got to fight. But the point isn’t to fight; the point is to win.

Nothing is more demoralizing to folks who have put many long hours into a fun and creative action than to hear the target of the action say: “I don’t have the power to do that for you, even if I wanted to. The guy you want is next door.” (And actually have that be a true statement rather than a blow-off line.)

When we plan our actions and campaigns, we have to understand our targets and what makes them tick (see: METHODOLOGY: Power mapping), taking care to focus on the person with the power to meet our demands: to sign the check, to introduce the legislation, or to cancel the contract. In an example from Uganda (see: STORY: Stripping Power in Uganda), analyzing the political and cultural power dynamics between the government, military, investors, and people, enabled locals in Apaa Village to develop a winning strategy to prevent massive land grabs planned by the regime.

It’s important to note that not every target is vulnerable in the same way. A blockade, occupation, or creative disruption may be effective against one target but not against another. What works once may not work a second time (see: PRINCIPLE: Don’t fall in love with your tactics). We need to figure out where our target is weakest, and where we are strongest (see: METHODOLOGY: Pillars of power). What actions can we take that are outside their experience? Nothing rattles a target more than something they aren’t prepared to deal with.

You might not have enough power to push your primary target at first, but your actions may help you identify a secondary target — an individual or group that can be pressured to leverage their influence on the primary target. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers, for instance, won their battle by identifying and pressuring a secondary target (fast-food corporations) when their primary target (tomato growers) proved immovable (see: STORY: Taco Bell Boycott). Similarly, the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement applies the same logic against international companies (secondary targets) that are complicit in the Israeli regime of occupation, colonialism, and apartheid (primary target), and have forced many companies to withdraw from business activities that profit from human rights violations (see: STORY: Dump Veolia Campaign).

We are creative folks. If we’re smart about where and how we apply pressure, there’s nothing we can’t accomplish.

Originally published in Beautiful Trouble.