Bodyhammer: Tactics And Self - Defense For The Modern Protestor - By Sarin

Technology has changed the street protest. In centuries past, a mass of people
wishing to express themselves could only be silenced by live gunfire. But the advent of
riot armor, lacryXXX gases and “less-lethal” projectiles have allowed ruling establishments
to squelch the voice of protesters with great ease, and even better PR.
It is the interest of this booklet to help preserve our freedoms of speech and public
movement in expressing ourselves. The objective is not to
‘up the ante’ or encourage street battles. No one sets out
to engage the police or the army. We are on the streets to
be seen and heard, but find it ever more difficult as
arrests and injuries from policing forces aim to shut our
voices out of the general equation.
One benefit of our modern and wasteful mass con-
sumption society is that it allows us to protect outselves
from these forces. We have the material and the means
to defend our protests and to keep the police at a dis-
tance. Our method is self-defense. We march with a
mission and should those in power order others to stop
us, we have a right to defend our bodies as much as our
message.
This booklet has been written in the basic interest
of alerting protesters in North America to the need of self-
defense tactics. Most of this book was heavily inspired to
the White Overalls movements in Europe who have a
much longer history of effecting change through powerful
demonstrations. We owe our thanks to them and hope
that we in the Americas can also find such strength in our voices.
A Roman relifef depicting a testudo formation.