An overflow crowd at the First Unitarian Church of Oakland participated last Thursday night in a polite two-and-one-half hour conversation about violence vs. nonviolence in the Occupy movement. The eight-person panel representing the two sides of that debate largely talked past one another. The “diversity of tactics” panelists, for example, never really explained how they see their methods leading to constructive change rather than massive repression. And the advocates of nonviolence never really replied to the challenge to explain how their methods might lead to structural change in our political-economic system.
But a few comments suggested the possibility of more respectful coexistence. At the event, which was billed as “How Will the Walls Come Tumbling Down? Diversity of Tactics vs. Nonviolent Strategies for the Occupy Movement,” sponsored by the Occupy Events Committee, and initiated by David Hartsough and Peaceworkers, one panelist who accepts violence said that it would be “totally fine” if nonviolent advocates organized demonstrations and told her and her cohorts, “You are not allowed to come.” Another said, “If what comes out of this is an agreement that everyone will be ‘in the know,’ I think that would be awesome.”
Those comments were in response to complaints that peaceful demonstrators get caught up in police riots when other demonstrators escalate the situation.
Further discussion might tie those threads together into a covenant that would enable each side to stop spending so much time arguing with each other. Instead, they could concentrate on sharpening their own thinking and organizing those who aren’t currently active.
This agreement might, for example, lead the advocates of a “diversity of tactics” to call for a demonstration on one Saturday and nonviolent advocates to do so on another Saturday.
Whether the more violence-prone elements would ever abide by such an agreement is uncertain. It may be that they prefer to hide in large crowds composed of nonviolent demonstrators. But this kind of arrangement has happened before and perhaps it can be tried again.
If this approach is adopted, those who are willing to resort to violence might develop a clear consensus among themselves about what kind of violent action they believe will help their cause. Such clarity might result in less violence.
And with greater attention devoted to developing deep, clear agreement about our own long-term goals, perhaps we who practice nonviolence can help build a broad-based movement that can transform our global social system. With a vision of “evolutionary revolution,” as Gandhi put it, and a viable strategy to get there, perhaps we can attract some of those advocates of a “diversity of tactics” who see the need for systemic change and lash out in counter-productive violence due to desperation.
I therefore suggest that the Occupy Be the Change Caucus convene a series of public forums and workshops focused on “’The System.’ What is It and How Should We Transform It?” and invite the general public to help us compose our answers to those questions on our website by using wiki collaborative software, like the online wikipedia encyclopedia.
Not everyone would ever sign on to any such plan, of course. As some of the panelists pointed out, most nonviolent movements have been accompanied by parallel efforts that have embraced violence. That scenario will likely repeat itself in the future, aided by violence-prone police officers and other provocateurs.
But if we advocates of nonviolence do our homework and articulate a viable strategy for how to fundamentally restructure our society, perhaps many of those who are willing to resort to violence will see an alternative and help establish in the public mind that the Occupy movement is both nonviolent and dedicated to the profound transformation of our society.
Otherwise, the agreement hinted at during the December 15 forum could lead to the kind of scenario witnessed during Stop the Draft Week in Oakland in 1967. Prior to those actions, an agreement was reached that Joan Baez and her fellow advocates of nonviolence would have one day for their demonstration and the advocates of forceful disruption (including me) would do our thing the next day.
As it turned, the first demonstration was smaller and received little media attention. Our effort the next day to block the buses taking draftees to the induction center attracted more demonstrators and turned violent (I never even threw a rock myself but I was in the streets alongside those who did). The media, of course, gave the violence extensive coverage and our movement became defined as violent.
Two years later I was in the streets when demonstrators moved from a rally at Sproul Hall to take down the fence that had been erected around People’s Park in the middle of the night. I saw demonstrators running in the opposite direction with the back of their shirts ripped off and blood flowing from having been hit with shotgun pellets. I learned that James Rector, an innocent bystander watching from a rooftop, was killed by a shotgun blast. For weeks, I participated in nightly “general assemblies” where we demonstrators decided democratically what to do the next day. I joined daily violence-filled marches throughout Berkeley with “Street Fighting Man” blaring from windows. We had 90% of the residents of Berkeley in support of People’s Park.
On Memorial Day, supporters from other cities joined us for a massive march with National Guard sharpshooters perched perilously on rooftops. But no shots were fired and we tore up asphalt and planted grass in the streets. That night, we celebrated with primitive passion at People’s Park Annex to the rhythms of drums and people jumping through the flames of bonfires, sometimes bouncing off each other mid-air.
It was an ecstatic moment. As Andrew Kopkind later wrote in Rolling Stone, “For those who did not experience the intense communitarian closeness of struggles like Cuba or People’s Park or Paris in May, Woodstock gave them a glimpse of what life could be like after the Revolution.”
But it proved to be a fantasy. We had the people of Berkeley with us but Richard Nixon had the “silent majority.” So he was elected President in 1968 and suppressed activism with relentless repression. Yes, some of us were “radicalized.” But far people more were frightened into passivity.
Governor Ronald Reagan, who after People’s Park had declared, “let the blood flow,” was soon elevated to the White House.
And a jury decided that the sheriffs who had fired at the angry crowd that was approaching them were justified in their resort to violence.
So at the December 15 forum, I was struck by the insight offered by Josh Shepherd, who learned about the power of the military from having served and assured the audience that the military has available more than enough might to crush any violent rebellion. Having been in Baghdad protesting the Iraq war with the Iraq Peace Team during the “shock and awe” invasion, I experienced firsthand what he was talking about.
After People’s Park, Tom Hayden and Frank Bardacke, a hero and mentor of mine, wrote an essay for the Berkeley Barb envisioning how a massive uprising that included substantial violence could withstand repression by the military. I liked their essay.
I heard echoes of that thinking at the December 15 forum, with assertions that asymmetric warfare, or guerrilla war, in the United States could lead to victory as it did in Viet Nam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Apart from that questionable historical analysis, as Shepherd also stated the American people regardless don’t have the will, the fortitude, the means, or the desire to violently oppose the Establishment.
The romance of violence is even less realistic now than it was in the Sixties, when the whole world was awash in armed struggle against colonialism. The vision of a successful movement in the United States that is characterized by a substantial degree of violence is a utopian fantasy.
That impulse is understandable. As Albert Camus brilliantly delineated in The Rebel, the revolt against injustice is initially motivated by a desire for justice. But if the rebel allows himself to get caught up in the anger of his rebellion, he soon reproduces injustice with means that are inconsistent with his original ends, while justifying the inconsistency with claims that it is necessary due to a desperate situation.
The Occupy movement has primarily been nonviolent. But the Bay Area remains a hotbed for violence-prone anarchists who could redefine the Occupy movement. Ironically, if they do, they will do so by collaborating with the corporate media, which will be more than willing to establish that narrative in the public mind.
I would prefer that those who want to use violence start their own movement. But minority factions, including self-appointed vanguards that want to “radicalize” others by provoking confrontations and help bring down the system by fomenting chaos, will always be with us.
So those of us who are committed to nonviolence need to reinforce and maintain the image of the Occupy movement as one that is overwhelmingly nonviolent. Toward that end, we need to do the hard work of articulating a strategy that would appeal to both those who seek systemic change and the majority of the American people, who, I believe, would support fundamental transformation if a realistic vision were articulated concretely, rather than with empty ideological rhetoric.
Any such plan should include a commitment to identifying short-term winnable demands, or proposed steps forward, as Kazu Haga alluded to with his references to the need for skillful negotiation. This approach differs from efforts to educate the public by disrupting business as usual without tying such disruption to concrete proposals that would improve our situation – efforts that set an angry, blind tone that can foster escalation.
In these ways, we can see to it that, unlike during Stop the Draft Week, our peaceful demonstrations are larger and more compelling. If we do, smaller actions by those who consider themselves more “radical” can help those of us whom they consider too “moderate,” for their actions can bring attention to issues and prompt legislators to enact reforms.
Then, perhaps we can steadily achieve beneficial reforms that eventually lead to systemic reform and a qualitatively new society, as a chrysalis suddenly turns into a butterfly or water into steam.
We can’t know what social transformation will look like in advance. But if we are clear about our values, work to assure that our means are consistent with our ends, and constantly work on our own personal development (with mutual support) as Phil Lawson discussed, we can move in that direction.
I hope the Occupy Be the Change Caucus can contribute to that effort with a series of forums and workshops and a wiki website.
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