Tactical frivolity

Tactical Frivolity is a form of public protest employing whimsy. Sometimes associated with 'Pink' and/or 'Silver' blocs or womanist and gay-themed marches, tactical frivolity blocs use drumming, samba, dance, radical cheerleading, clowns and fairies to create an atmosphere of festivity and humor during street protests. Different Pink and Silver Blocs (at different mobilisations) have differing positions on the question of 'violence' in demonstrations; often there are a range of libertarian activists who fit between the pacifist and Black Bloc spectrum of direct action. Participants usually wear pink and silver costumes as a way of engaging the "carnivalesque" spectacle, and to differentiate themselves from other blocs that utilise different tactics, such as the White Overalls, Black Bloc and NGO marches.

The first Pink Bloc was formed in the Pink/Silver line of the World Bank/IMF anti-globalization movement protest on September 26, 2000, in Prague, Czech Republic. Then it was not whimsy, but people exploring their own vulnerability, being able to be confrontational in the face of police, whilst underlining their own humanity. The Pink & Silver (mainly British, mainly Earth First!) bloc in Prague mixed people in costumes, black bloc, samba, people in gas masks and so on, all working together, in a forceful but calm manner.

External links

* [http://www.rhythmsofresistance.co.uk/ Rhythms of Resistance]
* [http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/free/genova/pinksilver/index.htm Pink Silver Group in Genoa report]
* [http://www.earthfirst.org.uk Earth First! in Britain]
*"Tactical Frivolity + Rhythms of Resistance" [http://www.hamacaonline.net/obra.php?id=593] , video by Nuria Vila and Marcelo Expósito (2007); see also [http://www.archive.org/details/tacticalfrivolity]