The Importance of Community Building: Examples from BLS’ recent Activist Experience
The Bulgarian Libertarian Society recently organized two very successful demonstrations which garnered a lot of public attention in Bulgaria. This highlighted the importance that networking and the establishment of a community of like-minded individuals have for achieving tangible impact in the public sphere.
The first of the demonstrations in question took place in September, when several BLS members decorated the campus statue of Karl Marx at the University of National and World Economy in Sofia with skulls and a bloody crown to illustrate the deadly consequences of Marxist ideas. The main purpose of this demonstration was to attract attention and raise awareness and it was extremely successful in this regard. Quite a few media outlets and national television stations covered it and this provoked a lot of discussion regarding the topic of communism and the devastating impact that communist dictatorships have had on countries like ours.
BLS founder and chairman Stoyan Panchev and other representatives of the organization even appeared on national television to talk about the topic. Later in January, the Atlas Network published a short piece about this demonstration, featuring it as number one in its top ten happenings around the world in the global freedom movement. Overall, the demonstration was a big success and achieved its purpose.
Many people in Bulgaria, especially from the younger generations, are unaware of the dangers of Marxist ideas and tend to be negligent of the potential long-term impact of socialist policies being introduced by the government. This is why it is so important to organize demonstrations which raise awareness and make people think about the practical consequences of the abstract ideas of Marxism. We often do this by writing articles and op-eds, but nothing beats a visual demonstration like decorating a Marx’ statue with skulls. To “see” Marx’s bloody legacy visualized as the actual death toll of communist regimes can be more effective than even the most logically consistent and in-depth op-ed. In order to maximize the spread of the ideas of liberty we must impact the public not only on an intellectual, but on an emotional level as well.
Several weeks ago in January, BLS organized another demonstration, this time in front of Parliament protesting the mandatory voting laws that were introduced in 2016. This was part of a long-term public campaign which started 2 years ago and included numerous media appearances, op-eds and several organized protests against the introduction of mandatory voting laws. Although the law was passed anyway, the public opposition against it had a notable effect – instead of the originally proposed fines for those who do not vote, parliament instead introduced a rule according to which if a citizen does not vote for two elections in a row (of any kind) he will be removed from the electoral register.
We of course did not ease our campaign since for us this is a matter of principle – voting is a right, not a duty. No citizen owes his vote to any political party and he should be free to withhold it altogether, without having to suffer any sort of punishment from the authorities. The protest that we organized in January was unique from the previous one and drew attention because it featured an unusual participant – a sheep named Maya. The demonstration featured something akin to a performance piece in which the sheep Maya, which served the purpose of a metaphorical representation of the Bulgarian voter, was led to the ballot on a leash, which of course represented the mandatory voting law.
The demonstration was a wild success and interviews with BLS representatives were featured on several national televisions, radio stations and the whole event was reported by numerous online media outlets. The unconventional nature of the protest was what made it so attractive and caused people to actually think about how by introducing mandatory voting laws politicians were practically treating them as sheep to be herded to the voting booths.
The popularity and success of these two demonstrations highlight why BLS is first and foremost a grass-roots activist organization and why libertarians in general should focus on activist methods just as much as the purely intellectual promotion of liberty. A witty and unconventional protest can garner more attention and have a bigger impact on public opinion than even the most in-depth and well-written public policy paper. To be fair, these two types of projects often target very different audiences, but this is an even bigger reason why libertarians should engage in both!
To be able to organize such activist events however you must have an active grass-roots libertarian community of people ready to take part in protests and stand up for the ideas of liberty. This is why BLS is an activist membership organization which focuses first and foremost on community building by organizing various social events and meet-ups for its members to socialize and get to know each other. Events like the annual European Students for Liberty Conference come in handy. In Bulgaria, ESFL’s annual regional conference is not only the most important libertarian event of the year from an educational standpoint, but from a social networking one as well.
The conference brings hundreds of libertarians together from all over the country, who get the opportunity to meet new friends and build connections within the community in Bulgaria. To facilitate this community-building aspect of the conference, ESFL always organizes an evening party at a local bar when the lectures at the conference are finished. Many people in the liberty movement, myself included, have made new friends at these parties and afterwards taken the decision to become active in spreading the ideas. This networking opportunity that the ESFL conference provides is arguably even more important that the purely educational aspect it has through the lectures that it features.
This community that we have been able to build over the past several years is what makes demonstrations like the ones discussed above possible. Not only in terms of grass-roots financing that BLS receives through the membership fees that it collects, but also in terms of volunteers to take part in such protests and demonstrations. The reason why libertarians in our country are so eager to take part in such activities is because they feel a part of a bigger community of libertarians in which everyone supports one another. The movement is a family to many of us and the human bond that we share with other members is what motivates people like me to support the organization and partake in its activities as much as possible. The fruits of all this community-building are borne in the success and public impact that our activism has.
Georgi Vuldzhev is an Executive Board Member at the Bulgarian Libertarian Society, and a contributor to the ESFL Blog.
This piece solely expresses the opinion of the author and not necessarily the organization as a whole. European Students For Liberty is committed to facilitating a broad dialogue for liberty, representing a variety of opinions. If you’re a student interested in presenting your perspective on this blog, please contact [email protected] for more information. Header image source: Flickr.