A conversation with Srdja Popovic
by Eric Stoner and Bryan Farrell
October 5, 2010
Waging Nonviolence, Truthout, Yes! Magazine, The Indypendent
Ten years ago, on October 5, 2000, hundreds of thousands of Serbian protesters descended on the streets of Belgrade and pushed past the indifferent security forces to seize control of the Parliament building, effectively ending the dictatorship of Slobodan Milosovic. It was the final act of a two-year nonviolent struggle led by the youth movement known as Otpor, or “Resistance,” whose iconic clenched-fist led the way toward free elections and newfound democracy.
One of the leaders of this movement was 27-year-old Srdja Popovic, who after Milosevic’s overthrow was elected to the Serbian Parliament. In 2004, Popovic left politics to found the Center for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS) in Belgrade, an organization that has trained activists in dozens of countries around the world – from those involved in the successful pro-democracy movements in Ukraine and the Maldives to the ongoing struggles in Burma and Iran.
We recently had the opportunity to sit down with Popovic and ask him about the role that humor played in the struggle against Milosevic, how they were able to win over his feared security forces and the ways in which Otpor lives on today.
The release of the 
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