How to bring about a ceasefire in 24 hours
Use what's within your circle of influence to bring about massive change.
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What if we added up all the numbers of attendees of all the protests around the world since October 7th?
That number would easily be in the tens of millions.
It's arguably the largest mandate ever. Perhaps in history.
(If you believe in democracy.)
So why didn't it change anything?
I know what you're thinking. Democracy is bs!
I mean, yes. It is. But we already knew that.
So then why do we keep doing it?
Why do we keep relying on the democratic process… on our voices being heard and our demands met… if we know it won't change anything?
And look. I'm not saying don't protest.
We need to keep the momentum going. And for many people this is a way to express their support for Palestine.
It's a way to cope with the high emotions the genocide has stirred in so many people. (I also think you should stop seeing the violent images and shift your mindset to only consuming constructive and practical content. But that's another discussion.)
But also… doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results is dumb. I'm sorry. It's just dumb.
What's worse is people feel like they achieved something. They feel a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction.
When nothing actually changed.
That's dangerous.
And the reason for this is simple:
The people you are protesting have no incentive to listen to you.
Did you read that?
The politicians do not care.
They want you to believe they care. And many of you do believe it.
But believe it or not they're not killing Muslims because no one told them not to.
Are your minds blown yet?
Seriously. Do we really think they will stop because we asked them to? Or because we shamed them as killers?
That makes no sense at all.
Like we'll keep demanding a ceasefire until they say “OK then l0lz”?
But I can’t stop thinking about the numbers. So many people continue to come out to protest.
Think about it:
That takes a great deal of organising and mobilisation.
That's a lot of social media posts. And invites. And forwarded messages. And RSVPs.
It's a massive collective of picking outfits. Making posters. Painting faces and placards. Printing t-shirts and flyers.
It's alarms being set. Cars being fuelled. Seats being filled.
Steps walked. Throats damaged from shouting.
I'm trying to say… it didn't just happen out of thin air.
People plan and get together and exert a great deal of energy to make these protests happen.
And they are massive.
And yet… repeating the same thing expecting a different result.
Can’t we use these huge numbers to do more?
I mean we’re talking 1 MILLION PEOPLE in a march!
You could literally take over a country with far fewer people. Even less to occupy an embassy or break a blockade.
What's crazy is it proves the point: with goal setting when the “why” is strong enough the “how” becomes easy.
Because the emotions behind the protests are strong and sincere… actually doing it becomes easy.
If you started off with the goal of organising a 1 million person protest you would probably not know where to begin such a seemingly daunting task.
Yet we see it getting done over and over again.
This brings me to the point:
If you can organise protests that don't make a scratch on the people you are protesting… you can organise protests that do.
It would take the same amount of effort or less.
It certainly wouldn’t take more effort just because you changed how you're protesting. Remember… the how is the easy part.
And the formula is simple:
Your demand + penalty if demand is not met = incentive
It's saying “meet my demand otherwise there will be a penalty”.
Because what entitles you to get what you demand? What do they gain or lose if they accept or reject your demand?
If you're demanding a ceasefire: what will you do to them if they don't accept?
Exactly.
So the demand needs to come with the threat of a penalty.
Shahid Bolsen gives a great analogy in his recent video on the same topic.
And if the demand is actionable and the penalty painful enough… you have incentive. A compelling enough reason to act.
And that's what's missing from the protests. A reason to actually take the demand seriously: an incentive!
For example:
“We are protesting the genocide. We demand an immediate ceasefire OR ELSE…”
We need to fill in the blank. and it needs to be something strong enough to make them act.
And you do that by finding out what they care about the most. Because it certainly isn’t you, the citizen.
The easiest angle is always… money.
I’m confident we can come up with plenty of financial incentives to make them act.
And I know everyone knows this because Muslims are always complaining about lobbies and billionaires and secret societies…
Just stop.
And realise it’s just money. We may be less well off as individuals but collectively we hold great power.
Consumer power.
With that in mind I’ll end with one suggestion. I don’t know the exact plan or how best to execute it.
But this newsletter is all about goal setting and that means JUST WRITE IT DOWN AND MAKE A START!
So here’s my suggestion:
Organise a protest where a significant number of people go to the bank and withdraw all their money.
Here are some points to consider:
It doesn’t have to be one event or happen over the course of one day. But rather a systematic campaign to take our money out of the banks.
You can transfer it to a challenger bank or even to another big bank. It's not really about taking money away from them. It's about not letting them use our deposits to make loans and investments (something we should be fighting anyway).
Banks use most of the money we deposit to create loans and other evil things. They don’t keep all of our money in the bank!
The affected bank will begin to fall apart when their numbers suddenly don't add up. They won’t be able to make money and will have a lot of debt to answer for.
The aim of a campaign of this type is the disruption of a key holder of power and capital. Of course, a long term solution would be to have our own banks. I think some banks in Muslim countries would be good enough for this campaign.
So for example: big bank A has a certain expectation of numbers moving for that day. But 1000 customers suddenly take all their money out. They probably won't even have all their money ready to give. Which is itself a problem and a PR win for the cause as the news spreads and people panic.
The general public needs to know their money isn't there. That's the real disruption we want.
The demand needs to be publicised well. It needs to be known that the bank needs to take substantial action or deal with this system-wide disruption.
And if bank B makes it public that they are against the genocide then we should take our money to them. It's demand + penalty = incentive.
Remember: this isn’t about shutting down a bank or “beating the matrix”.
All we need is enough disruption to incentivise them to meet our demands. A disruption of the banks spreads like wildfire. People are nervous when to comes to their money.
The people will pressure the banks to act.
Get it?
Share this with your contacts if you agree:
Leave me a comment if you don’t:
Get in touch either way and let’s come up with more ideas.