[A-List] Starhawk: Lessons from the Calgary G8 Mobilization

[Macdonald Stainsby <mstainsby@xxxxxx>]

[not an endorsement, but definitely an FYI... Macdonald]

Getting Our Tactics Right: Lessons from the Calgary G8 Mobilization

By Starhawk

July 2002

An effective direct action needs to be a bit like Goldilocks's porridge:
not too hot, not too cold, but just right. The recent protests in Alberta
against the G8, the heads of the eight most industrialized countries, are
an example of what happens when we apply organizing models that don't
actually fit the situation we're in. When we cook for a hotter fire than
we actually have, we end up with porridge that is colder than it needs to
be.

The numbers in Calgary were small, never more than five thousand, but the
actions were successful in many ways. They strengthened local organizing
and raised awareness of the issues. By Calgary's standards, getting that
many people out on the streets was a major victory, especially in light of
the campaign of fear mongering and criminalization waged against the
activists by the government and media. The Canadian labour movement gave
the actions strong support, and the completely peaceful nature of the
protests left the public outraged with the government and G8 for spending
$300 million on meeting security. The organizers did an heroic job,
overcoming huge obstacles to create the infrastructure for the mobilization
and provide a strong framework for actions.

Nevertheless, Calgary suffered from one grave fault: the lack of a
powerful, coherent action that could have made a significant impact on the
G8. More people might have made the trek to Calgary, at least from the
West Coast, had some clear vision of an action been put forth. And to
truly dismantle the structures of power we are contesting, an action needs
an edge, a sense of real confrontation.

The Calgary G8 actions were organized around respect for diversity of
tactics. I was never sure why, as nobody I met actually wanted to use any
tactics that went beyond clear definitions of nonviolence. Even the
Anti-Capitalist Convergence, generally among the more militant groups,
planned an action asking for no physical confrontation.

Calgary just wasn't the place or time for high confrontation tactics or
property destruction, no matter how principled. Calgary is called "the
Texas of Canada" for both its oil wealth and right wing politics. It has
no tradition of street protests, and its radical culture, though vibrant,
is very small. Street fighting and window smashing would have basically
undercut any future efforts at radical organizing in Calgary and possibly
throughout Alberta.

So why, then, didn't the organizers simply agree to principles of
nonviolence for the action? Partly because "diversity of tactics" has
become the movement default mode, the way we assume a powerful, militant,
major summit action should be organized. The type of powerful direct
action that actually could have been organized in Calgary has dropped off
our radar screen. Conditions in Calgary cried out for a mass action that
was both disruptive but explicitly nonviolent.

The focus on diversity of tactics has served us well in some ways. It
broke through what can easily become a stifling moralism around nonviolence
and an unthinking reliance on stale, static tactics. It has allowed us to
avoid potentially divisive conflicts, but at a cost. Instead of actually
arguing about what makes sense in a given situation, we simply say "we
support diversity of tactics" without ever defining what those tactics
might actually be.

Our very vagueness scares people off: nobody really knows if we've agreed
to support anarchist soccer in the streets or smashing the windows of the
local banks. We reinforce the fear campaigns waged by the media and
government.

When we avoid discussions and yes, arguments, about violence and
nonviolence, many people are left thinking "nonviolent" is synonymous with
"safe," "legal," "passive," and "nonconfrontational." The corollary, then,
is that any disruptive action or any civil disobedience becomes seen as
violent. But confrontation and disruption are essential aspects of
effective nonviolent direct action. Risking arrest is a time-honored
aspect of nonviolent civil disobedience. Yet often, now, I hear people in
the movement echo the media's assumption that an action that leads to
arrest must have been violent. At the Calgary action debriefing, one woman
complained vehemently that "We agreed this caravan was going to be
nonviolent, and then suddenly someone was asking how many people were
prepared to be arrested!"

As a result, people who want to act nonviolently end up in safe,
nonconfrontational actions that lack the power to truly confront or
delegitimize the power structure. We lose the chance to organize mass
nonviolent civil disobedience or disruptive yet nonviolent direct actions.
The planning of specific actions is mostly left to affinity groups, which
often don't actually exist, because we haven't mobilized and organized in a
way that could create and sustain them. Even experienced groups are
unlikely to plan strong, autonomous actions in a vacuum, without the
momentum of others doing the same, and without clear coordination. The
focus on security culture that accompanies "diversity of tactics" makes
coordination difficult, and keeps us from knowing what, if anything is
being planned.

If the phantoms were real, if there actually were an army of mindless
anarchist thugs prepared to sweep into any summit town and sack it, things
would at least get interesting. But the "thugs" in question are not, in
reality, mindless. They are deeply concerned with things like how to
strengthen ongoing everyday organizing in our home communities, how to
expand the diversity within our movement, and how to be allies with people
of color, immigrants, and labor. Asking those questions is inevitably
going to pull people back from confrontation for its own sake, and toward
planning actions in which labor and immigrants can actually participate.

When we organize around "diversity of tactics" and then try to mobilize a
broader community of people, we often end up at the last minute agreeing to
keep our actions "green" or at least nonconfrontational. As a result, our
actions end up tamer and less effective than they could be if, from the
beginning, we had organized a disruptive nonviolent direct action that
could truly interfere with some institution of oppression in more than a
symbolic way.

So, in Calgary, we might have planned a car caravan to back up the
Canadian Union of Postal Workers who went to the barricades at Kananaskis
with messages to deliver. We could have blocked the road and refused to
leave until the postal workers were allowed through, or blocked delegates
from leaving the meeting until they came out and heard our perspectives on
the issues. Or we could have ended a downtown snake march with mass
blockades at oil companies, to make the connection between oil, global
corporate capitalism, and the "war on terror."

But to take any of those or other truly disruptive actions, we would have
needed to organize in ways that are possible only in the political space
opened up by an explicit commitment to nonviolence.

Strategic nonviolence lets us mobilize broadly around actions that are more
than symbolic, that actually interfere with the operations of an
institution of power. Unions and NGOs, and at-risk groups can support and
participate in such actions, which contain many necessary roles at varied
levels of risk.

Committing to nonviolence as a strategic move for a particular action
allows us to organize openly, without security culture and with broad
participation in decisionmaking. While open organizing means we lose the
element of surprise in our planning, we can take that into account. The
worst failures in actions are those that depend on security that is rarely
tight enough to actually foil the authorities, but often too exclusive to
let us do wide outreach for an action. Transparency allows us to actually
educate, mobilize, and inspire people to join us. While security culture
may be necessary at times, it works against empowerment and direct
democracy. People can only have a voice in the decisions that affect them
if they know what is being decided and what the options are. Transparent
organizing also undercuts the power of infiltrators and provocateurs.

Open organizing means that we accept the risk of identification by the
authorities and even arrest, not because we want to be martyrs, but to free
up our thinking and let us do things we otherwise wouldn't do. A
commitment to nonviolence means that our actions fall under at least some
constitutional protections, and gives us some leverage against persecution.
Large numbers and prior planning also let us develop jail solidarity
strategies that can minimize the consequences of arrest.

Disruptive nonviolent direct action is not easily organized as a
last-minute substitute for a "red" action we decide we can't pull off. It
requires time to educate, mobilize and prepare people, to form and train
affinity groups, to organize home support and jail support, to wrestle with
fear and weigh the consequences of taking risks.

If we are to regain momentum in the post 9-11 climate for issues of global
justice, we need actions that can mobilize large numbers of people to do
more than simply march. We need to embrace discussion and debate, and
trust that our movement is strong, resilient, and mature enough to tolerate
open differences of opinion. We might agree that a diversity of tactics
are needed in the long run to undermine global corporate capitalism, and
still be willing to commit to strategic nonviolence for an action when it
seems the strongest option. Otherwise, we end up without either diversity
or tactics.

The next major mobilization is planned for Washington, DC, September 28 to
October 4. It's time to see, among the spectrum of activities planned, a
powerful, disruptive, explicitly nonviolent mass action.


Copyright (c) 2002 by Starhawk. All rights reserved.
This copyright protects Starhawk's right to future publication of her work.
Nonprofit, activist, and educational groups may circulate this essay
(forward it, reprint it, translate it, post it, or reproduce it) for
nonprofit uses. Please do not change any part of it without permission.
Readers are invited to visit the web site: www.starhawk.org.

-------------------------------------------
Macdonald Stainsby
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green
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--
In the contradiction lies the hope.
                                     --Bertholt Brecht