Soft Rebellion in Action
1. Refusing the Script of Fear
The coup depends on a narrative of helplessness, of inevitability. Soft rebellion rewrites it. It speaks in futures not yet stolen. It refuses to repeat the script that says “we are powerless.” Instead, it whispers: We are vast. We are unruly. We are not so easily governed.
2. Sanctuary Networks
Authoritarianism thrives on isolation, on making people feel like they stand alone. Soft rebellion builds underground networks of care—mutual aid, resource sharing, protection. It weaves safety where the state seeks to unravel it. This looks like organizing community bail funds, housing networks, off-the-grid communication systems. It looks like knowing who in your neighborhood needs help, who has a safe house, who can be counted on when institutions fail.
3. Disobedient Joy
The coup wants you terrified. It wants you brittle and compliant. So laugh in its face. Gather in parks, sing, dance, make art that mocks the strongman and his fragile grip on power. Remember that joy is not a distraction—it is a weapon. It reminds us that another world is possible, that we are more than the violence done to us.
4. Slowing the Machine
Capitalism and fascism walk hand in hand, demanding productivity even as the world burns. Soft rebellion opts out. It works just enough to survive, then redirects energy into resistance, into community, into slowness. It refuses to feed the machine that funds oppression. It chooses to rest when the system demands exhaustion.
5. Decentralized Resistance
The state expects rebellion to be centralized, to have leaders it can imprison, movements it can crush. Soft rebellion is fungal—it spreads, untraceable, leaderless. It moves through encrypted networks, anonymous zines, whisper campaigns. It understands that a revolution with no head cannot be beheaded.
6. Rituals of Rewilding
Fascism thrives on control—of land, of bodies, of narratives. Soft rebellion rewilds. It plants trees in vacant lots. It reclaims stolen land. It teaches foraging and rainwater collection. It remembers that resistance is not just about destruction, but about growing something back.
7. Disrupting the Spectacle
Authoritarianism is theater—it survives on attention, on outrage, on the constant churn of crisis. Soft rebellion learns when to look away, when to starve the beast. It refuses to amplify propaganda, to take every bait, to let the regime dictate the rhythm of our days. It turns its gaze instead toward the work of healing, building, dreaming.
8. Turning Disinformation Into Openings
The coup thrives on disinformation, on turning reality itself into a battlefield. But soft rebellion doesn’t waste energy fighting ghosts. Instead of arguing in bad faith arenas, it uses moments of disinformation as openings—gently rerouting conversations toward truth, planting quiet seeds of doubt in false narratives. This looks like asking questions rather than attacking, offering a story rather than a statistic, introducing facts with the ease of someone handing over a cup of water instead of a hammer. It resists not through force, but through invitation—through giving people the tools to unspool their own illusions.
Soft rebellion is not passive. It is insurgent, but in a way that cannot be easily named or neutralized. It moves in whispers, in laughter, in unnoticed refusals. It weaves a world beneath the one being forced upon us—a world that, one day, will break through the cracks and bloom.»
—Shannon Willis
#SoftRebellion #ShannonWillis