I enjoyed the strategic thinking in Sam Bombadil’s and Stephen Hancock’s articles ("In praise of covert action", and "In praise of openness", PN July 1997). I was also glad to see Lorna Richardson’s response ("In praise of messiness", PN Aug/ Sept 1997), showing that the alternative is not between nocturnal raiding and Ploughshares-style actions. I really welcomed her sense of perspective and sheer sound advice. But it feels as if this debate won’t get anywhere without a bit more focus on the key strategic questions.
The crux of the strategic debate is the battle of wills and the test of power between the adversaries — the social movement and the regime/company/ oppressive institution.
In brief, the questions to ask are:
The tactical choices — which more often than not turn out to be matters of judgement rather than principle — should follow on from the answers to those questions.
Three of Sam’s four criteria for evaluating actions were reasonable — communicating why the action is being taken, making participants feel they are making a difference, and encouraging others to feel that they can take part. I feel the fourth — costing the target company/oppressor money — undermines the whole argument. It’s a one-dimensional view of the conflict. It underestimates other costs — for instance, in terms of legitimacy or image. And it grossly over-estimates the power of causing economic damage to alter an opponent’s will and underestimates other costs such as possible costs to legitimacy or image. On small matters, perhaps the economic costs inflicted on an opponent might dissuade them from continuing. But where the opponent’s vital interests are at stake, such economic calculations are marginal. The most likely response to a movement strategy based on destruction of machinery and other property is not the abandoning of a policy but an escalation of the state’s repressive power.
The most likely logic for a movement strategy based on destruction of property is towards violence, as any concern for the safety of someone on the other side is always going to inhibit your ability to be "effective" in the terms of this strategy.
As well as the basic strategic question, activists should be clear about what kind of movement we want, and what kind of society we are trying to create. Ideally a movement’s activities prefigure the kind of social relationships we are working for. In a conflict that ideal is sometimes hard to achieve, but still it should be held in mind.
Secrecy and anonymity may be necessary on occasions, but as an exception — for certain limited and defined purposes, or in particular contexts. There’s a world of difference between a squad of activists breaking into somewhere to damage machinery, and the kind of semi-resistance of the Danish workers during the Nazi occupation whose quiet economic sabotage meant that they never finished the ship they were building.
In the August Peace News we could read how in Indonesia activists have had to learn how to hide. That is not all activists have to learn when they live under ruthless regimes: self-discipline, punctuality, a different kind of vigilance, discretion about how much to involve other people. And restraint. On occasions it is necessary for a movement to refuse to be provoked into any open display of opposition, in order to avoid devastating reprisals. The kind of temporary sense of catharsis felt by Western activists trashing machinery would soon appear more like a provocative self-indulgence, a luxury the movement could not afford.
Sometimes, even in those situations where people have to organise in underground ways, people get the impulse to go public. Often it’s more a matter of intuition than analysis. I think of Poland in the 1980s.
Following martial law, Solidarnosc successfully established an underground information network and coordination system. But the situation changed dramatically when a much smaller group of young people — Wolnosc i Pokoj (WiP, Freedom and Peace) — climbed on roofs, fasted in church doorways, and openly returned their military papers. A group of marginalised young people transformed the atmosphere among the democratic opposition.
The Poles had their union, Solidarnosc, and many more traditional ways of distancing themselves from the regime — political jokes, cheating the system in a variety of ways, observing religious rituals. But these small groups of young people emboldened the whole opposition, showing an infectious defiance of the regime that weakened its hold over the people and ultimately its own will to govern.
When WiP began, a Polish friend, whose intellect and analysis I still value, was not optimistic about what their open strategy might achieve. Poles, he said, prefer to make people martyrs than to follow their example. In fact, it was my friend’s intuition that was lacking. WiP activists got the feeling that their actions could and were making a difference.
Stephen is right to warn against people wrecking machinery just to feel better. People in our societies are so screwed up that we can’t simply say "trust your feelings". But when people are acting as free people, that is not just reacting against some monster but acting on the basis of values they want to live by and with an inclusive sense of community, then let’s hope they will both feel and see that they are making a difference.
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