Be That Guy — Lessons In Resistance

"Remember sitting in history, thinking: If I was alive then, I would've… You're alive now. Whatever you are doing is what you would have done." — David Slack, Television writer and producer

The Man Who Refused To Salute

There is a photograph, recently discovered, of a Nazi rally at a shipyard in Hamburg. The entire crowd is looking ecstatic with their arms outstretched in a fascist salute.

In the upper part of the photograph, one man stands with his arms crossed.

The photo has been made into posters, often with the slogan: BE THAT GUY

I came across this story in the fascinating book Moral Ambition: How to Stop Wasting Your Time and Start Making a Difference by Rutger Bregman.

Bregman tells the story of the tiny town of Nieuwlande, Netherlands, which had the highest concentration of Jews being hidden and protected by locals than anywhere else in Europe.

What made this little town such an outlier?

Bregman digs deep into this story to reveal some surprising answers. First off, he challenges the notion of the Dutch "resistance" to the Nazis. He writes:

"Many people thought resistance was futile… and acted accordingly. And so a civilized country largely stood by and watched as its Jewish population was carted off to camps. Public officials willingly took part, the police helped nab Jews in hiding, and the national railways took care of transit."

Over the years, a number of studies have been done trying to identify the factors that led a brave few to resist fascism while others went along. There was no common identifying core. Some were religious. Some were atheists. Some were well-read. Some simple farmers. Some were cocky, others shy.

But what bound them was simple: they chose to act while others took the safer route of looking the other way.

Bregman states there was one key factor that divided those who acted from those who did not. The ones who stepped up did so because someone reached out and asked them to do their part.

"Those who were asked to help a stranger almost always said yes. In many cases, the question seems to have been a turning point, with people then helping other Jews afterward. And many who were asked to help went on to ask others.”

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Resistance as a Positive Virus

Resistance movements begin with those who bring the initial spark. Psychologist Cass Sunstein describes these actors as "zeros." They play the part of pushing others to get involved. These individuals who get motivated to join become the "ones" who then pass the work on to another group, known as the "twos."

Once the chain reaction moves from zeros to ones to twos, a chain reaction of social change becomes possible. I think of G. K. Chesterton, who describes the powerful combination of people coming together.

"Through all this ordeal, his root horror had been isolation, and there are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally. It may be conceded to the mathematicians that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one." - G. K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday

In Nieuwlande, the resistance began with a zero — Arnould Douwes — and a one — Max Léons.

Douwes was considered a failure in peacetime life. He was a bit of a misfit. But when the Nazis came, Douwes was determined to resist. He began with small acts of sabotage. He crossed the Netherlands using the only thing he owned — a bicycle.

Douwes urged locals to take responsibility for protecting their neighbours. That meant becoming an active resister - someone willing to lie, bribe, and put their life on the line because to get caught meant certain death.

Together, Douwes and Léons pressured people, shamed them if necessary, and played the roles of bad cop and good cop to get people to act. But once people committed, they went the distance.

These were very ordinary people who stepped up and did the right thing in the face of dangerous tyranny.

Because someone asked.
Because someone believed they could.

One major study of those who stood up to help protect Jews from the Nazis found that a mere 3% of interviewees took part for less than a month. The bulk of activists became deeply engaged in resistance, and the majority of people, 65% ended up helping more than five Jews each survive the war.

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What About Today?

Every day, our Resistance team receives stories from local zeroes who are turning into heroes. Many have never organized before. Very few have a background in politics. What sets them apart is that they know that our leaders aren't coming to save us.

Unwilling to sit back and watch the world descend into darkness, they made a choice. Continue doom-scrolling or get off the couch? To remain isolated or to reach out to someone else who might be willing to help?

Like the woman at Toronto's Elbows Up organizing meeting, who said she was so sick to her stomach with fear that she began knocking on her neighbours' doors to see what they were thinking. Her neighbours shared her fears. They decided to come together to form a local resistance group.

Or the people who initiated the Tesla Takedown protests and local gatherings of the Elbows Up and No Kings resistance. And those who promote Canadian products and encourage others to maintain the boycott.

I think of Ted Schmidt, who told me that he was going to stand out on Toronto's Kingston Road with a sign that read "Never Normalize Genocide." He was a zero.

My mother, who had never been politically active before, attended Ted's protest and then started her own Grandmothers Against Genocide vigil. She became the “one” who inspired numerous twos and threes and fours who have picked up and are carrying the genocide vigils across Canada.

In the past days, I have been asked by many American readers what they should do if they come across people wearing Alligator Alcatraz gear.

Do they stay silent? Do they call it out?

These are frightening times. I get it. But we are living in a time where what we do matters. No matter how small the act of resistance.

If no one else is speaking up, it falls to you.

Be that guy.

Reach out to someone else, share your plan and ask them to join you.

This is the key to resistance. This is how resistance spreads.

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