A two-metre Pink Panther sits in the Annual General Meeting of Lloyds Bank nonchalantly swinging its tail and ensuring that the meeting is disrupted by its presence; a gaggle of activists sing songs on top of a road-building machine at Newbury whilst one of their group studiously fills the petrol tank with pebbles; a team of costumed Superheroes Against Genetics occupies Monsanto’s head office for a day and tells callers to the Soya Bean Information Line the real facts for a change.
What do all of these have in common? As well as being fun, they are also all covert forms of action — in which the identities of those involved are kept secret.
Definitions of a "good" action will vary, but I believe that covert protest offers a good way to meet my criteria for effectiveness. These criteria include the following:
Covert action almost by definition does not make an issue out of the identity of the activist. By avoiding martyrdom at a trial, and by keeping the focus on the activity itself rather than the activists’ moral purity, covert action results in the issue at stake being "the issue", thus meeting my first criterion.
Let’s take the second criterion: costing a company money. While companies are largely responsible for environmental destruction, they must be pressurised to change their behaviour. Openings for dialogue with these corporations can only come about through us speaking the only language they understand — money — and by us hitting them where they most feel it — in the pocket. For example, last month in England saw the cancellation of a road widening scheme in Guildford, Surrey. The establishment of tree-houses and tunnels on the proposed route had to be a contributing factor to the U-turn by the road’s proponents. Faced with the possibility of resistance as seen at Newbury, Fairmile and Manchester airport — with all its accompanying and massive security costs — those who propose major and polluting developments on our limited green space are being made to think again.
The occupying of machinery and sabotage by an unnamed group which is part of this sort of resistance is not only effective at making companies re-count the cost of their destruction, but is also effective in meeting another of my criteria, that of empowering and involving people. A group of people overcoming the road-diggers and stopping them from working not only generates healthy disrespect for the machinery but also demonstrates how these weapons of destruction are merely machines which we can defeat when we come together. Realising your strength as a movement opens countless opportunities for action. The burning of the crane at Newbury in January, for example, may have caused controversy. But for those who were present on the day, and for those who had witnessed first-hand the devastation caused by this machine, to put it out of action was to find inspiration through the knowledge that together we can have an effect.
The realisation of our strength as a movement comes from the understanding that our actions are accessible and that involvement can come through a number of ways. Though the risks are great in both covert and open actions, they are different. To many people with families, jobs, and priorities other than campaigning, increasing the risk of imprisonment through greater openness would mean a corresponding decrease in their readiness to get involved. Some of the delay in construction work which was carried out at the M65 motorway campaign in 1995 was done by locals who would slip onto site at night to sabotage the machinery: this was the most direct way in which they felt they could take action. To insist that they should carry out this activity in broad daylight whilst declaring their identities was simply not an option. This would have meant limiting their cost to the company and, more importantly, denying what they felt was their most effective contribution to the campaign, as they were not able to commit themselves to live on site full-time or to write letter after letter to some faceless bureaucrat.
Covert action not only allows for lesser commitment in terms of lifestyle but also does not demand that trust be put in institutions which are a core part of the concerns that activists are opposing. Covert action questions the legitimacy of the legal system’s handing out punishment — surely a necessary question to ask of an institution which has proved time and time again that its priorities are not to end injustice nor to stop ecological degradation. While the odds are stacked against us and the system does not share our interests, covert action has a part to play in an effective strategy.
Your third criterion talks of "allowing those who are taking part to feel like they are making a difference." Surely the priority is something other than feelings? Burning a crane at Newbury might have left some people with good feelings, but there’s a real danger here that we lose our critical faculties in pursuit of a dangerous form of self-indulgence.
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