Fifteen years ago Srdja Popovic was just a Belgrade rock kid looking for a party. He tells the extraordinary story of how he became one of the leaders of Otpor! – the movement which overthrew dictator Slobodan Milosevic – and how he went on to train the pro-democracy activists behind the Arab Spring, Occupy, and many other movements.

Through examples such as a protest of Lego men in Siberia (when flesh-and-blood people would have been shot), and a cheese boycott in Israel to challenge price inflation, he tells stories of the ingeniously clever ways in which non-violent resistance has achieved its means.

Photo credit Oliver Mark, oliver-mark.com

Srdja Popovic

Srdja Popovic is a Serbian biologist, political activist and executive director of the Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS). As the director of CANVAS, he has consulted with revolutionary activists from Egypt, Syria and Tunisia, among others. The PRIO tipped him to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, Wired listed him as one of 50 people who will change the world, Foreign Policy named him one of their 100 Global Thinkers, and he was one of the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders for 2013.