Granular Resistance and INdirect ActionS

A Manual for the Disaffected With Something Left to Lose

copyleft Zbignew Zingh 2003-2005 copyright

Your idea of a hunger strike is skipping breakfast.

You owe money on your mortgage.

You still have a job and others you know do not.

You have a spouse and kids.

You do not like the idea of using a communal toilet with strangers in the county jail.

You do not like pain or the sight of your own blood.

You know something is very wrong in your world. You want to do something, but you do not know what to do. You demonstrated or wanted to demonstrate or thought about demonstrating, and you feel that it accomplished nothing. You want to do something, but you do not know what to do. You do not trust the ballot box. You are a pacifist by fear, not necessarily because you believe pacifism works. You have the convictions but not the courage of your convictions. You are not a Hero or a Saint. You are disaffected, but you have something left to lose. You are only one person and the issues are big, so big. What do you do?

Those who can make Big Statements should make them. Those who have Courage should be courageous. Those who can Fight should fight. Those who can Sacrifice should sacrifice. A big sharp saw can fell the biggest tree.

But little granular acts can grind things down, too. If active, in-your-face resistance is too big a pill for you to swallow, then take a few small G.R.A.I.N.S. of resistance instead, a little at a time.

Granular resistance is subversively non-subversive. However, nothing advocated in this guidebook is illegal, nothing recommended will cause you or anyone else any pain nor will you destroy anyone's property.

This is not about passivity, nor is it about religion, nor about rendering anything unto Caesar that is yours or mine or ours.

This is about resistance on an individual, small scale. For every directly repressive action, there is an equal and opposite Indirect Action. When many such acts of indirect, granular resistance by many people everywhere are compounded and occur over time, the shape of things are changed.

Fine granules of sand constantly abrading, constantly replenished, will grind down the hardest surface. Dig a hole in the beach and the multitudes of little grains will fill it in and conquer it. Drive an expensive vehicle through the desert, and the sand will grind itself into the gears and ball bearings. Sand blown by the wind wears down the mountains and sand in the rivers cuts channels through stone, inevitably, irresistibly.

This, then, is a guidebook for GranularResistance and Indirect Action. It is a book about a lot of little things you can do. It is about how you and others can become grains of sand that get into everything.

United we sand.