Talk:What makes a campaign nonviolent
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Comment from Howard
The only issue of substance I have with this is about the rejection of the term 'coercive'.
Perhaps the way to deal with that is to anticipate the 'allies' and 'pillars of power' sections, saying that we don't just lump people into 'us' and 'them'. There are people we hope will join us, others we hope will support us, others who we hope will start doing their jobs properly (health and safety inspectors, whatever), others who we hope will begin to question their orders (police, prison officials etc) and others who we are determined to stop - ranging, say, from those who carry out torture to those at the top of a hierarchy, the order-givers and decision-makers who are likely to be intransigent and who will only change when confronted with different circumstances - with a level of resistance to which they will have to adapt.
So we state explicitly that our campaigns are trying to reach out to people - to persuade, convert, awaken them or whatever - but also we are not naive about the realities of power. Most campaigns, I think, are in the first place challenging the policies of people at the top of some hierarchy, but also they operate at a different level - in some way challenging the positions of power, the structures that those people preside over, the methods by which those people operate, etc.
I think we don't want to be merely coercive - that is, it is not just about winning or getting our way, in that we will listen to those with a different point of view, try to calm some of their fears, do the 'two hands', and might even adapt to meet genuine concerns.
An additional set of guidelines could be the 1997 Kosovo students guidelines that are included in Howard Clark, Civil Resistance in Kosovo, (London: Pluto Press, 2000), pp 247-248
Spectrum exercises /barometers could be useful in exploring group attitudes. Here's a text I translated from the Spanish war tax resisters a few years ago which might offer the basis for some discussions about group / campaign attitudes. And I think Andreas later translated this text into German!
Active. We are not resigned to passive laments, hoping that other people will lead the social transformation to which we aspire. We will not delegate our capacity for action to any party or representative.
Collective. This campaign is carried out by many people who in different ways are in the same process of disobedience to all social militarisation, be it in the barracks, the school, the workplace, etc. Rather than being a private concern in our own name, we are a collective movement finding its own strength in building from ...
Public. We want to be heard. A society without voice is easy to manipulate. Our disobedience takes place in the settings of everyday life family, work, free time, with our form of consumption or non-consumption; with each small daily gesture we are making it clear that we do not agree with how our taxes are used. Pursuing such an attitude has an educative and multiplicatory effect among the people we know.
Nonviolent, part of an ethic that is concerned with both ends and means. We do not see "the other" as our enemy. We believe that we strengthen ourselves every time we handle a conflict positively.
Political. We seek the abolition of armies and all the measures that benefit social militarisation. We are guided by the political principles of justice and solidarity that ought to regulate social institutions.
Coercion - Comment from Andreas
I agree with Howard that we should not rule out coercion. In fact, as I think social movements engage in some sort of power struggle, there will need to be some sort of coercion of those who we want to stop from doing something (i.e. building nuclear power stations, or fighting another war). This doesn't mean seeing them as enemies, or not respecting them as human beings, but we do want to stop certain people/groups of people/people in charge of certain institutions to stop doing what they are doing, even if they don't agree with us. They might come to see that it is in their interest to "comply" with a movement's demands somehow (as they presently don't have the power to enforce what they would like to do), but that doesn't necessaty mean that they changed their mind.
I think it is naive to believe we can change everyone's mind so that they agree with us - especially the minds of those in power. This is to deny conflicting interests, power structures, capitalism and the state...
When trade unions go on strike, they exercise their power to force the employer to negotiate/agree to their demands. I would call that coercion, and that's very legitimate in a nonviolent strategy.
Principles - from Howard
Not all of these principles are appropriate to campaigns - as distinct from organisations.
For instance, while an organisation like WRI or WRL should aim to be inclusive, some campaigns are really aimed at a particular constituency - youth, women, hispanics, whatever ... - and affinity groups definitely are best if people do have an affinity.
It's also that sometimes that the protagonists of a campaign (protagonist was criticised in a recent PN review as being a highfalutin' word, but actually it's one that Spanish speakers use a lot) might be youth - eg a CO campaign - but they need a social colchón (social mattress) of different groups. So quite often Spanish insumisos would have a group of people not liable for military service who would make statements of self-incrimination, "I incited/encouraged this refusal because the military ...." etc ...
Inclusiveness - Comment Andreas
Hmmm - I've always had my problems with the term "inclusive", which I think is an illusion. What does it mean to be inclusive? Often, if you aim to work one group, you will alieniate another - such when the gay rights movements claims to be inclusive at Gay Pride parades, and is happy for gay police or gay military to join, what signal does this send to gay illegal immigrants or gay pacifists?
I can't have anarchists and fascists/right wing people in the same campaign either - it doesn't work.
Inclusiveness does not exist, as often it will be an either/or. To be inclusive has always to be matched with other principles, such as our core political values. And sometimes we might want to decide that we want to exclude certain groups, or at least not encourage them to be part of a campaign/organisation (such as nationalists trying to join environmental campaigns).
-end comment Andreas
A PROBLEM WITH THE WIKI - IS THERE ANY WAY THAT I CAN DISCUSS THIS PIECE AND SEE WHAT I'M WRITING ABOUT AT THE SAME TIME?
Suffering - from Howard
I think the question of accepting or causing suffering should have less prominence. That is coming after some of the later remarks about discipline.
"Accepting suffering" is sometimes "inviting suffering" (for instance, the Salt March or the Freedom Rides) in order to dramatise the situation.
The Feminism and Nonviolence Study Group criticised this emphasis on self-suffering, and I think it's also one of the lines of criticism of US radical pacifism by Marian Mollin in her recent book (which I don't have).
Sometimes one of the points of nonviolent organising in a risky situation is to minimise suffering ... To take precautions that reduce the likelihood of attack, rather than explosing ourselves ... In London in the 1970s, feminists organised Reclaim the Streets marches through at night-time through Soho - the porn centre of London. Predictably this provoked attack, and I remember discussing with some of them what they might to reduce the dangers while persisting with their action. When Andreas and Sergeiy are with the Russian autonomists, who might be subject to lethal attacks by fascists, they'll have a hard time selling the "accept suffering" line.
So at least we have to say "At times we accept suffering ... "
On "inflicting suffering", we need to be a bit careful - if sometimes we want to provoke a crisis in the opponent and disrupt the smooth-running of a power system. A friend of mine moved from London to a quiet town in Wales, and the first time he mounted a campaign challenging the local Council, the leader of the Council had a heart attack!
Suffering - from Andreas
I also have my problems with the prominence of "accepting suffering". OK - we might accept suffering when we don't "defend" ourselves when beaten by police, but I still wouldn't call it accepting suffering. I still don't like it, and don't accept it that the police beats us, but I know that responding with violence doesn't do any good. Is that accepting suffering? I wouldn't call it that.
I do not believe in the notion that through our suffering we might open the hearts of our oppenents and make them change (that's Gandhian religious crap). For me the important part of confrontation with police or other violent authorities (or non-authorities) in nonviolent action is the aspect of empowerment, of overcoming our fear, which is very different from accepting suffering.
