If you are wondering what you can do to express your solidarity with the resistance, here’s a simple thing everyone can do:
Wear a paperclip on your lapel.Or on your shirt collar, T-shirt neckline, breast pocket, anywhere. Just wear one, please.
This is not a new idea. I learned of it while reading Joyce Vance’s “Civil Discourse” newsletter on Substack s few days ago. Vance explained that during World War II Hitler’s forces took control of “neutral” Norway and attempted to replace its culture with Nazi ideals. They ordered schoolteachers to teach Nazism in classrooms, and they ordered the church to teach “obedience to the leader and the state.”
They also banned all symbols related to the royal family and state. So, in the autumn of 1940, students at Oslo University started wearing paperclips on their lapels as a non-violent symbol of resistance, unity and national pride.
The idea caught on, and soon some Norwegians were even wearing paperclip bracelets and other types of jewelry as well, symbolically binding them together in the face of such adversity.
It worked for the Norwegians, and it will work for us if we will just do it and encourage others to.
Any paperclip will do, but jumbo paperclips are best because they can be seen better. Office supply companies also stock shiny brass ones and brightly colored ones, and they are even better.
It’s a simple thing, and it works because if you see someone else in public wearing one, you know you’ve met a friend.
Please consider wearing one. Help get it started. Thank you.
- Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance: Paper Clip Protest
- Ask E. Jean: The Paper Clip Mutiny!
- The Paperclip Revolution: A Tiny Symbol with a Massive Punch Against Fascism
- Join the Paperclip Resistance!
- The Paperclip Rebellion: How Ordinary Norwegians Resisted the Nazi Occupation
- The Paper Clips Project
- Paper Clips – The Film
