an alternative to normal methods of protesting
xy | 01.05.2002 07:54
I originally tried to post this in reply to Andy Tate's (?) BBC online post about alternatives to the norms of protest in the Left. But I had problems, and it didn't go through. This talks about "formal" vs. "informal" tactics and is quite short.
When this happens, as it is sure to happen as states perceive a serious threat to their unaccountability and become more aggressive, there are alternatives we can explore.
One is going beyond the formal and exploring the informal. Protests are formal; they are often seeking to "speak truth to power". Places where the demo is to happen is known of ahead of time, and therefore soldiers called police can prepare themselves most completely.
Informal methods of communicating our information and spirit are less easy to undermine. We can go around neighborhoods either in small affinity groups (doing a wide variety of actions), or individually. We can meet formally at a demonstration, and then disperse (when or before police order us) into our affinity groups, etc. whereupon we may choose to "infiltrate" the entire city in all directions, at any time we choose. Doing this by engaging everyone we come across in meaningful communication (in my view, much more meaningful than marchers shouting slogans).
Yet another method is *resistance consciousness*. This is a method that needs no above-ground organization nor leadership. It is a method where people may do a kind of informal general strike (and semi-passive resistance) based on their critical awareness of an issue, while not articulating their strategy openly (to articulate openly is to open oneself up for police state methods of silencing and intimidating us). We take "good cop, bad cop" and turn it around to "good peasant, bad peasant", and work on classically conditioning authoritarians via two extremes of silence/avoidance (beyond professional duty, such as a food service worker giving them coffee) and wildly celebratory interaction (beyond the norms of daily alienation).
Is this a start for you?
One is going beyond the formal and exploring the informal. Protests are formal; they are often seeking to "speak truth to power". Places where the demo is to happen is known of ahead of time, and therefore soldiers called police can prepare themselves most completely.
Informal methods of communicating our information and spirit are less easy to undermine. We can go around neighborhoods either in small affinity groups (doing a wide variety of actions), or individually. We can meet formally at a demonstration, and then disperse (when or before police order us) into our affinity groups, etc. whereupon we may choose to "infiltrate" the entire city in all directions, at any time we choose. Doing this by engaging everyone we come across in meaningful communication (in my view, much more meaningful than marchers shouting slogans).
Yet another method is *resistance consciousness*. This is a method that needs no above-ground organization nor leadership. It is a method where people may do a kind of informal general strike (and semi-passive resistance) based on their critical awareness of an issue, while not articulating their strategy openly (to articulate openly is to open oneself up for police state methods of silencing and intimidating us). We take "good cop, bad cop" and turn it around to "good peasant, bad peasant", and work on classically conditioning authoritarians via two extremes of silence/avoidance (beyond professional duty, such as a food service worker giving them coffee) and wildly celebratory interaction (beyond the norms of daily alienation).
Is this a start for you?
xy
Comments
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A Breath of Fresh Air
01.05.2002 08:26
Yours
Peter elffin
"Alternatives"
"Alternatives"
e-mail:
kittyplant@aol.com
Workers Day
01.05.2002 13:29
How about next year trying to co-ordinate activities at our places of work. May Day is workers day after all. This would be more inclusive, and occur all over the country. People on the "outside" of the "movement" would be able to see first hand what sort of people are involved, rather than hearing the usual media hyperbole. May Day could be about gathering people together rather than gathering protesters together...
I feel we are becoming dangerously distracted into Protestors vs Police and Protesters vs Media debates every year. This is all fine and well, but the police and the media remain as the barriers to truth and justice they have always been. We could even be helping them. The debate rages on through each May and beyond about tactics. We end up debating the best way of running around being chased by police. Is that the point? We already have the freedom to be chased around by the police!
May Day sets the tone for how other protests with more specific aims will be viewed by the public mind in the UK. The May Day protests are too EASY for the media to manipulate - the issues are too nebulous. Mistruths are built on foundations we lay. Those mistruths are used to keep people away from the important issues, and the protests which can actually make a difference people can see.
Let's build a May Day that really challenges each of us. Challenges us to stand up for what we believe in our normal environments, not in an exclusive space we have fought to create in the inhumane streets of London. A May Day that challenges each of us to articulate what it is we are trying to say.
Let's build a May Day that people can't avoid by going to work and not turning on the telly when they get home.
Let's create a May Day where no one can say "Get a job" because we ARE at work.
It is just an idea, and I hope I don't sound disparaging about any actions taking place today. There are a lot of specific targeted actions taking place this year, and I support them. I wouldn't want to see them replaced. But let's add another dimension to it next year.
%-)