DIVERSITY OF TACTICS AND DEMOCRACY
By
George Lakey
12/01 - Forwarded
email
>
> ================= Begin forwarded message =================
>
>
> >DIVERSITY OF TACTICS AND DEMOCRACY
> >
> >by George Lakey
> >
> >This fall while working with activists in Europe I had the
> >chance to hang out more with young people from Otpor, the resistance
> >movement that brought down dictator Slobadan Milosevic in Serbia
in
> >October 2000. These Otpor activists were ages 19-23, typical ages
in
> >the movement that catalyzed the downfall of Milosevic (pronounced
> >"Milosevitch"). They taught people twice their age some
powerful
> >lessons about how to overthrow a dictatorship, including how to keep
> >going despite years of arrests and beatings.
> >
> >Some of the young people who started Otpor in 1999 had
> >already been doing direct action in 1996 in the student pro-democracy
> >movement. There they learned a hard fact: as the demonstrations
> >grew the government paid infiltrators to pretend to be activists
and
> >do property destruction and street fighting.
> >
> >The government's tactic was brilliant because it scared away
> >the potentially hundreds of thousands who were getting ready to join
> >the movement, and gave back to government the moral high ground.
> >
> >Refusing to be discouraged, those who made a fresh start in
> >1999 made a critical decision: in order to win, Otpor would
> >establish a policy of nonviolence. The stakes were too high, they
> >reasoned, to have the luxury of everyone doing their thing.
> >Milosovic was desperate, and surrounded with thugs who had no
> >scruples. Only a policy of nonviolence could avoid the mistakes of
> >1996.
> >
> >I was impressed by the fast learning curve. Most movements
> >do have a learning curve that enables them to benefit from their
> >experience, but Otpor confronted a very hard lesson and quickly
> >changed their policy of tolerance for diversity of tactics. Maybe
> >their youth gave them an advantage in flexibility.
> >
> >
> >Was Milosevic's tactic unusual?
> >
> >So many powerholders have used the tactic of what the French
> >call "agents provocateur" that it is virtually predictable.
Not only
> >the "bad guy" authoritarians like Milosevic do it; liberal
democratic
> >governments do it as well. The British did it to try to stop the
> >anti-colonial struggle in India: paid agents worked to turn the
> >movement violent. The U.S. government did it to try to stop the
> >civil rights movement and the anti-Vietnam war movement, just to
name
> >two occasions in my country.
> >
> >Why do governments so much dislike nonviolent mass movements?
> >What is it about people power that makes governments so eager to
> >point the movement toward street fighting, attacks on police, or
at
> >least defensive violence and smashing property?
> >
> >Governments have found over the years that it works for them.
> >They know they need legitimacy to stay in power over time, and
> >movement violence gives them that legitimacy, what is often called
> >"the moral high ground." They also need fear to stay in
power, and
> >movement violence increases the fear in the body politic. They work
> >overtime to divide the movement, and movement violence is a great
> >divider. And, perhaps most important, they desperately want to
> >prevent new allies from joining the movement, and a frequent outcome
> >of movement violence -- even property destruction -- is that
> >potential allies stay away in droves.
> >
> >Pro-democracy feeling among Serbs had been building through
> >the 1990s, but it was usually expressed in a cautious way, channeled
> >by politicians who didn't move boldly enough for the radical
> >students. The students who formed Otpor understood that they
> >couldn't possibly bring down Milosevic by themselves. They chose
a
> >strategy that would catalyze more cautious mainstream elements into
> >action.
> >
> >Otpor strategy took into account the government's
> >fear-mongering, by making fun. "ROLLING STONES COMING TO BELGRADE"
> >screamed the headline of the flyers they illegally distributed; when
> >people eagerly read the flyers they found a list of all the reasons
> >the Rolling Stones wouldn't be coming to Belgrade, reasons that had
> >to do with the dictatorship!
> >
> >The police frequently raided the main Otpor office and took
> >away boxes of leaflets and their computer. Sensing an opportunity,
> >on one of these occasions Otpor put out the word publicly that it
was
> >moving back in. Otpor activists showed up with a bunch of moving
> >boxes, and the alternative media. Police arrested them immediately,
> >tore open the boxes, and found them . . . empty!
> >
> >Otpor young people knew that fear freezes people rather than
> >motivates them to act intelligently, so they refused to cooperate
> >with the fear game. In fact, since police beatings were routine,
> >both on the street and in the jails, Otpor coined the slogan, "It
> >only hurts if you're scared." I asked one of my Otpor friends
who
> >had been beaten, "Is it true?" "Of course," he
said, and smiled.
> >"Well . . .it's true that it hurts more if you're scared."
> >
> >One frequent Otpor tactic was to remember the badge number of
> >an officer who beat them, find out his name and address, and then
go
> >to his house and sit in front of it with signs such as: "Why
do you
> >beat the children? Are you so weak that you beat up young people?"
> >
> >The young activists signaled to potential and cautious allies
> >a message of courage rather rather than fearfulness, by doing
> >nonviolent direct action again and again and again. Their numbers
> >grew; by the time of the election they claimed 80,000 members, and
> >after the election young people literally stood in line to join the
> >movement. They maintained their agreement not to use violence even
> >in defense; they felt the stakes were too high. They very badly
> >wanted to win, and for that they needed not only the young people,
> >but also to move their more cautious pro-democracy elders. That was
> >also their understanding of what democracy means: to get the maximum
> >number of people standing up for themselves.
> >
> >But isn't "diversity of tactics" more democratic?
> >
> >Some very committed and courageous activists on this side of
> >the Atlantic are arguing for a policy of diversity of tactics here,
> >so that protesters with different styles can all come to the same
> >city to do their actions. "Diversity of tactics" implies
that some
> >protesters may choose to do actions that will be interpreted by the
> >majority of people as "violent," like property destruction,
attacks
> >on police vehicles, fighting back if provoked by the police, and
so
> >on, while other protesters are operating with clear nonviolent
> >guidelines. Sometimes advocates of diversity of tactics propose
> >outlining zones for different activities, so one style of action
> >doesn't bring undue immediate risk to those pursuing another style.
> >
> > Isn't a movement strategy that encourages diversity of
> >tactics more democratic than a clear policy of strategic nonviolent
> >direct action? Isn't it more democratic to encourage everyone to
do
> >their thing, rather than create an agreement that leaves some kinds
> >of action out?
> >
> >It's understandable that some activists are proposing this,
> >because in North America we don't have dictatorship; diversity of
> >tactics is not so life-threatening as in Yugoslavia under Milosevic.
> >Unlike Otpor, we can afford to experiment with property destruction,
> >street fighting and the like, and most of us don't really expect
> >major governmental repression to result. If we had been living in
> >Serbia, I suspect all of us would agree with Otpor's winning strategy
> >except those of us who are suicidal or government agents.
> >
> >But here we are in privileged North America! Immediately the
> >contradiction hits us: not all of us are privileged. Some groups
> >are much more at risk than others. Young white middle and owning
> >class men may feel invulnerable -- so why not smash windows or throw
> >molotov cocktails? -- but that's not the reality for most of us.
> >Most people have deep life experience of repression: people of color,
> >women, sexual minorities, blue collar workers. I'm personally in
> >this majority: in the U.S. am openly gay man is more likely to be
> >beaten up for our identity even than a person of color! We have
> >good grounds for feeling less safe.
> >
> >In light of that, all the more impressive that the mass
> >movements in North America have been mostly composed of us, the
> >oppressed, rather than the privileged, and we have in fact taken
> >enormous risks. What does it take to get us into sustained
> >risk-taking through direct action?
> >
> >Let's take the civil rights movement of the U.S. Deep South
> >because it is best known. After lives full of suffering, black
> >people were willing to risk pain and death from the Klan and the
> >police in order to occupy what the public saw as the moral high
> >ground, and win victories. They were not willing to get hurt and
> >killed in order to occupy the perceived moral low ground and lose,
> >which would have been the outcome of a violent civil rights movement.
> >
> >I remember dialoguing with a student of mine in the 'sixties,
> >a black middle class militant new to the cause, about the political
> >uses of violence. She got a chance to do field work among poor
> >African Americans in North Philadelphia, and after a few months came
> >to see me. "I got turned around," she said. "What
happened?" I
> >asked. "Every time I brought up the possibility of a little
tactical
> >violence," she said, "the response I got was: 'Are you
crazy? Are
> >you trying to get us killed?'"
> >
> >In Philadelphia the strategy chosen by the direct action
> >leaders for protesting the Republican National Convention was
> >diversity of tactics. The city government responded illegally and
> >repressively. I talked with an organizer of a poor people's
> >organization in Philadelphia, about the group's reaction. This is
an
> >organization largely of color which repeatedly uses "street
heat" --
> >civil disobedience, occupations, and the like, in a disciplined way.
> >The members, I learned, felt contempt for the protesters. Instead
of
> >experiencing solidarity, and sympathy with the bruises the young
> >people were getting (which is what young protesters in the civil
> >rights movement got), these potential allies were alienated. To
> >these poor and working class people, very experienced in direct
> >action and confrontation, diversity of tactics seemed senseless and
> >self-indulgent.
> >
> >What, then, does "democracy" mean in this North American
> >context? Does it mean choosing a strategy that excludes most
> >oppressed people because only the privileged can believe in it? Does
> >democracy mean choosing a strategy of, by, and for the privileged?
> >
> >To me, a strategy isn't democratic if it intrinsically
> >alienates the majority of oppressed people and shuts the door to
> >their participation. A strategy isn't democratic if it drives away
> >the working class when they have every reason to participate and
want
> >to. A strategy isn't democratic if it urges people who are already
> >belittled by the culture to take the perceived moral low ground.
> >
> >How about democracy inside the movement, among the activists?
> >
> >What excites me about democracy is dialogue and debate: the
> >collective exploration of ideas and views without shutting people
> >down. I'm hearing from various parts of North America a trend to
use
> >"diversity of tactics" to shut down debate and refuse to
explore pros
> >and cons of strategies and tactics!
> >
> >I enjoyed the public debate between Ward Churchill and myself
> >at the University of Colorado because we tried to model principled
> >dialogue about important political differences. Ward Churchill is
a
> >writer, leader in the American Indian Movement and professor who
has
> >written "The Pathology of Pacifism."
> >
> >That's when diversity serves democracy: when differences are
> >actively explored. I'm disappointed when I hear of places where
> >groupthink takes over, of circles of activists where conformity is
> >enforced, where radical thought police prevent learning from
> >successful direct action movements of our sisters and brothers.
> >
> >When I look outside my immediate circle of comrades and take
> >in this amazing project of changing the world, of saving the planet,
> >of ending empire, I end up with this conclusion:
> >
> >Diversity of opinion serves democracy; "diversity of tactics"
> >undermines democracy and our chance to win.
> >
> >
> >12/01
> >
> >
> >Although George Lakey is Director of Training for Change (TfC), he's
> >not representing the opinion of TfC in this essay. TfC sees its job
> >not to argue positions on movement controversies, but to facilitate
> >workshops as safe places where activists themselves explore options
> >and develop strategies. In his role as trainer, George has
> >facilitated workshops for revolutionary student soldiers in a
> >guerrilla encampment in the Burmese jungle, for anarchists in London,
> >for lesbian and gay activists in Moscow, for Mohawk activists near
> >Montreal, for African National Congress members in Johannesburg,
for
> >Act Up in New York City, for anti-poverty activists in Toronto, and
> >many other groups -- over 1,000 social change workshops on five
> >continents. His first arrest was in the U.S. civil rights struggle
> >and he's organized direct action campaigns on local, state, national,
> >and international levels.
> >
> >He can be reached at: Training for Change, 1501 Cherry St.,
> >Philadelphia, PA 19102
> >215-241-7035. georgelakey@yahoo.com www.TrainingforChange.org
>
> --
> This forum is hosted by the Peace and Environment Resource Centre
>(Ottawa).
> Viewpoints expressed in this forum do not represent the opinions of
>the Centre,
> its supporters, or the operators of these facilities.
>
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