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In Blueprint for Revolution, author Srđa Popović describes nonviolent forms of resistance based on his experience in Belgrade. On the importance of symbols, he writes:
Getting together in our small, smoky Belgrade apartments, we decided to start a movement. We called it Otpor!, which means “resistance,” and we gave it a logo, a cool-looking black fist that was a riff on a potent symbol of social change that has served everyone from the partisans who fought against the Nazis in occupied Yugoslavia during World War II to the Black Panthers in the 1960s.
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All this talk of logos may sound shallow, I told my Egyptian friends, but branding was important to us. Just as people all over the world see the red-and-white swoosh and instantly recognize Coca-Cola, we wanted Serbs to have a visual image they could associate with our movement. Besides, at that time we realized only too well that even if we begged all of our friends and family members to come out and support our movement, we probably couldn’t get more than thirty people to show up at a march. We could, however, spray-paint three hundred clenched fists in one evening, and one morning early in November the citizens of Belgrade woke up to discover that Republic Square had been covered by graffiti fists.
At the time, when everyone was terrified of Milošević, this gave people the sense that something large and well-organized was lurking just beneath the surface. And, soon enough, it was. Seeing the fist and the word “resistance” plastered everywhere, young people naturally wanted to know more about this new, hip thing. They wanted to join it.
In this spirit, I’ve looked whether there’s already a logo that’s in wide use. The closest I’ve found is variants of this: a crossed out yellow T. Above is a quickly drawn version of this (vector source, grayscale version). All public domain, of course. If you tweak it to improve on my ineptitude, I’m happy to replace the version in this diary with yours.
I hope you find it useful, and if you’ve seen a more common symbol in the wild, please let me know. The safety pin, I think, should be reserved for the more specific message of solidarity in the face of threats; it’s a more personal, intimate thing.