Uppity Women

Iranian women

I've been reading over and meditating on Sunday's Gospel lesson (Matthew 15: (10-20), 21-28) about the Canaanite woman who was uppity enough to push through the prejudice and negativity of the disciples and persistent enough to challenge Jesus to heal her daughter.

I have lots to say about her and especially Joseph and his brothers in the Hebrew lesson (Genesis 45:1-15) for Sunday. That will have to come sometime tomorrow.

Thinking about both Joseph and the Canaanite woman - comparing and contrasting their stories - suddenly reminded me of Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals

Saul Alinsky wrote this entertaining classic on grassroots organizing in 1971. I still have my copy, sitting prominently on my bookshelf.

Those who prefer cooperative tactics describe the book as out-of-date. Nevertheless, I happen to think that it still provides some of the best advice on confrontational tactics ever written.

Alinsky begins this way:

What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.

His “rules” derive from many successful campaigns where he helped poor people fighting power and privilege

For Alinsky, organizing is the process of highlighting what is wrong and convincing people they can actually do something about it. The two are linked.

If people feel they don’t have the power to change a bad situation, they stop thinking about it.

According to Alinsky, the organizer — especially a paid organizer from outside — must first overcome suspicion and establish credibility.

Next the organizer must begin the task of agitating: rubbing resentments, fanning hostilities, and searching out controversy. This is necessary to get people to participate.

An organizer has to attack apathy and disturb the prevailing patterns of complacent community life where people have simply come to accept a bad situation.

Alinsky would say, “The first step in community organization is community disorganization.”

Through a process combining hope and resentment, the organizer tries to create a “mass army” that brings in as many recruits as possible from local organizations, churches, services groups, labor unions, corner gangs, and individuals.

Now, combining hope and resentment is an interesting mix, no? All of it sounds to me a bit like the Tea Party folks have taken a page right out of Alinsky's Rule Book.

Then again, so has anyone who wants to change the status quo and shift the paradigm of power. If you listen carefully to the Scripture lessons for this Sunday, you can hear pieces of this strategy at work.

Alinsky provides a collection of rules to guide the process. But he emphasizes these rules must be translated into real-life tactics that are fluid and responsive to the situation at hand.

So, here is Alinsky's 'Rules for Radicals'. Uppity women, please take note:

Rule 1: Power is not only what you have, but what an opponent thinks you have. If your organization is small, hide your numbers in the dark and raise a din that will make everyone think you have many more people than you do.

Rule 2: Never go outside the experience of your people. The result is confusion, fear, and retreat.

Rule 3: Whenever possible, go outside the experience of an opponent. Here you want to cause confusion, fear, and retreat.

Rule 4: Make opponents live up to their own book of rules. Alinsky wrote: “You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.”

Rule 5: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It’s hard to counterattack ridicule, and it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.

Rule 6: A good tactic is one your people enjoy. Alinsky wrote: “If your people aren’t having a ball doing it, there is something very wrong with the tactic.”

Rule 7: A tactic that drags on for too long becomes a drag. Commitment may become ritualistic as people turn to other issues.

Rule 8: Keep the pressure on. Use different tactics and actions and use all events of the period for your purpose. “The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is this that will cause the opposition to react to your advantage.”

Rule 9: The threat is more terrifying than the thing itself. When Alinsky leaked word that large numbers of poor people were going to tie up the washrooms of O’Hare Airport, Chicago city authorities quickly agreed to act on a longstanding commitment to a ghetto organization. They imagined the mayhem as thousands of passengers poured off airplanes to discover every washroom occupied. Then they imagined the international embarrassment and the damage to the city’s reputation.


Rule 10: The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative. Avoid being trapped by an opponent or an interviewer who says, “Okay, what would you do?”


Rule 11: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it. Don’t try to attack abstract corporations or bureaucracies. Identify a responsible individual. Ignore attempts to shift or spread the blame.


Rule 12: According to Alinsky, the main job of the organizer is to bait an opponent into reacting. “The enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength.”

Any uppity women out there want to join me in sending a copy of this to the White House?

Jesus said: "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish."

I'm not a woman from Canaan, and she's centuries away, but I hear her talking.