Welcome to Defend Democracy, a brand new pro-democracy grassroots group! Our purpose is to peacefully support democracy and resist the rise of autocracy through a book club that doubles as a resistance group. We aim to learn more about how democracy works, what is changing in the world today, and what we actually do as creative and traditional resistance activities. Our goal is to be an outlet for those interested in learning more about the changes going on in the world today, and what we might want to and be able to do to support the fundamentals of democracy. In a very basic sense, democracy is about spreading power among more people so that we all have a voice. Autocracy is about consolidating power among fewer people.
We are based in the Netherlands but aim to discuss both locally and online internationally how autocracy is on the rise in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere. We do not align with any particular political parties or platforms. We support and aim to learn more about the fundamentals of democratic systems such as rule of law, separation of powers, and equality.
The first book club meetings will be:
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If you'd like to join, or if you're just curious to get more information, please email us at savedemocracy76@gmail.com. Please mention if you want to join the Leiden or the Amsterdam meeting. The first book is On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder. Read it before the first meeting if you can. We will meet once per week. Generally we will discuss democracy, how democracy can change into autocracy, and how that affects people like us, every other week. We will discuss books about nonviolent resistance and also discuss our own nonviolent resistance acts and ideas on the other weeks. So one week a book on how democracy works, the next week a book on peaceful resistance. Please feel free to join all or any meetings.
Creative Resistance start : Peaceful Biking Protests - We started this summer 2025 with small non-disruptive biking protests : biking slowly on public bike paths with signs showing our pro-democracy values. We keep biking, together but also among other people using the bike paths. When we bike (always on bike paths) facing oncoming cars, we enter into peoples' real life 'scrolls'. We bike through parks, on small and big streets, through cities. Our goal with this action is for many people to see us, to get people to think about concentrations of power in the world today.
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