Part 3 (1/2)
Those who extol nonviolent discipline ht be disappointed to learn that Occupy Wall Street has officially embraced ”diversity of tactics,” a phrase that often serves as a byword for condoning acts of violence However, the way that the Occupation ht lead us to think of this concept differently For the occupiers, it is less a license for violence-which they have generally avoided-than a broader philosophy of coordinated, decentralized activis part have been in a deadlock on the question of nonviolence At a planningin To er of fetishi+zing nonviolence to the point that it becoly, that ”nonviolence justviolence” The question of nonviolence was ultiht and thereafter ”This discussion is a coe and self-defense, therefore, have reuidelines later proated by Occupy Wall Street's Direct Action Coate physical violence with cops or pedestrians
We respect diversity of tactics, but consider how our actions ht see that individual protesters are free to use violence, especially in self-defense But in practice the occupiers have kept nonviolent discipline quite well Their self-defense against police violence has been h when tensions escalate during confrontations with the police, one so very close to the precipice) There have been no cases of intentional property destruction that I know of
One reason for this is surely co an essentially paramilitary institution like the NYPD, there's little hope that a few hundred or a few thousand protesters could stand much of a chance with violence Another reason is the point es that an act of violence would reflect on everyone in the movement, many of whose participants would not condone it
So far, at least, what ”diversity of tactics” has meant to the occupiers is not so much an openness to violence but a whole approach to direct action that coht In this, ”diversity of tactics” shares the heritage and logic of the open assemblies that are the heart of the occupation e from a pamphlet on hand at occupied Liberty Plaza (also known as Zuccotti Park), Anarchist Basics: Affinity groups [”of 5 to 20 people”] decide on their ohat they want to do and how they want to do it, and aren't obliged to take orders froe top-down decision-, and empower those involved to take direct action in the world around theroups by nature are decentralized and non-hierarchical, two i and action
Operating this way reflects the kind of values that many in the occupation move, decentralization, and equality
Consider, for instance, the two ht public attention and sympathy to the movement: the arrest of nearly a hundred people on a march near Union Square on Septe incident), and the approximately seven hundred arrested a week later on the Brooklyn Bridge In both cases, the arrests directly followed instances of autonoroups, which splintered away from the plan established by the Direct Action Committee (At Union Square, there was a dispute about whether to take the march back to Liberty Plaza or to the United Nations; at the Brooklyn Bridge, hundreds ofon the narrow pedestrian ay) In both cases, too, the police responded to such autonoarnered tremendous interest from the media
I have previously called for the movement to adopt eted specifically at the laws they oppose-on the hts nize that the messy stuff seems to work
My sense of the dyna: The NYPD, as a hierarchical, highly structured organization, operates according to certain plans and procedures arranged in advance Its coence they can about what protesters intend to do and act accordingly When the protesters act outside the plans police prepared for, or their plans aren't unified, the police feel they have no choice but to resort to a violent crackdohich in turn highlights the protesters' own nonviolence in the rows The net effect is that it al to help the movement, for that's what their every action seems to do
We already know that power structures that rely on violence can be highly vulnerable to coordinated nonviolent action During the civil rights ated city, like a sit-in or Freedom Ride, had the capacity to confront the syste to the powerful a choice between violent overreaction and capitulation Such actions have since becoenerally ineffective in American protest movements
Occupy Wall Street coht that, in much the same way, hierarchical command structures are vulnerable to non-hierarchical action If this is true, the real strength of the 1999 Seattle anization-after which ”diversity of tactics” entered activist parlance-was not so much the particular tactics used, least of all the -breaking antics of ”black blocs” It was the decentralized way in which such tactics were organized and deployed
A major reason why traditional forms of civil disobedience aren't well-suited to Occupy Wall Street is the fact that the occupiers aren't even capable of breaking the relevant laws in the first place While those in the civil rights ated bus, the occupiers at Liberty Plaza can't exactly flout caulation of banks Such laws are simply beyond the reach of most Americans-which is exactly the proble forced to resort not to civil disobedience but to what political scientist Bernard Harcourt has proposed we call ”political disobedience”: Civil disobedience accepted the legitimacy of political institutions, but resisted thelaws Political disobedience, by contrast, resists the very way in which we are governed: It resists the structure of partisan politics, the demand for policy refories that dominated the post-War period
”Diversity of tactics” is a form of political disobedience par excellence, since its emphasis on autonomy rather than authority represents a direct contradiction to the kind of order that ordinary politics presupposes
”Don't mistake the COMPLEXITY of this movens at Liberty Plaza
If it is true, as I've cofully practiced by the Occupationnonviolent, then traditional definitions of the phrase are in need of revision Rather thana ”diversity of tactics” is in its own right a robust approach to conducting resistance-and one that is arguably all the hted in the part of Naomi Klein's recent speech at Liberty Plaza that earned the loudest applause: Soht: You have coive the hts it craves so desperately And that treain, the story has been the disgraceful and unprovoked police brutalityMeanwhile, support for this rows More wisdom
The data seem to support her A widely cited Freedom House report from 2005 found that movements which rely on nonviolent methods are considerably more likely to result in de one authoritarian systeht for the Occupation movement, which strives so much to embody the ideals of a more democratic society in the means it uses to achieve one If a permissive attitude toward violence is not a feature of the world one is working for, it should not be welcomed in one's movement
Meanwhile, Erica Chenoweth and Kurt Schock have found through statistical studies that the effects of having a so-called ”radical flank” in a resistance htly lower success rate and a significantly lower level of public involvement Canadian activists Philippe Duhanize this in their call for ”a diversity of nonviolent tactics” They argue that ”some tactics don't mix”; once violence enters the picture, itother tactics and alienating potential participants This certainly was the case on October 15, when a s property destruction in Rome caused headlines like ”Protests Turn Violent” to doly nonviolent day of action in cities all over the world
Only a month into the occupation, and less than three an in earnest, Occupy Wall Street is just beginning to have the robust affinity groups that a ”diversity of tactics” approach requires Soeted actions like the disruption of a Sotheby's auction and a sit-in at a JPMorgan Chase bank branch It is tactics like these-rather than in to directly underet And when causing such disruptions, re that the disrupters keep their own legitimacy in the public eye
The committee responsible for-down to specific tweets-to use in case so violence Even those in the committee who aren't ultinize that such acts would be a serious challenge to thethose taking part in it Given the coh, just about anything can happen, and the committee often learns about it only after the fact
Let's hope those tweets go unneeded
Nathan Schneider writes about religion, reason, and violence for publications including The Nation, The New York Tiion Dispatches, Alter-Net, and Truthout He is an editor for Killing the Buddha and for Waging Nonviolence, where this chapter first appeared on October 19, 2011
CHAPTER 8
THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD
NAOMI KLEIN
I was honored to be invited to speak at Occupy Wall Street on Thursday night Since a I say will have to be repeated by hundreds of people so others can hear (aka ”the human microphone”), what I actually say at Liberty Plaza will have to be very short With that in er, uncut version of the speech
I love you
And I didn't just say that so that hundreds of you would shout ”I love you” back, though that is obviously a bonus feature of the human microphone Say unto others what you would have them say unto you, only way louder
Yesterday, one of the speakers at the labor rally said, ”We found each other” That senti created here A wide-open space (as well as an idea so big it can't be contained by any space) for all the people ant a better world to find each other We are so grateful
If there is one thing I know, it is that the 1 loves a crisis When people are panicked and desperate and no one seeh their wish list of pro-corporate policies: privatizing education and social security, slashi+ng public services, getting rid of the last constraints on corporate power A the world over
And there is only one thing that can block this tactic, and fortunately, it's a very big thing: the 99 And that 99 is taking to the streets from Madison to Madrid to say, ”No We will not pay for your crisis”
That slogan began in Italy in 2008 It ricocheted to Greece and France and Ireland and finally it has an
”Why are they protesting?” ask the baffled pundits on TV Meanwhile, the rest of the world asks: ”What took you so long? We've been wondering when you were going to show up” And most of all: ”Welcome”
Many people have drawn parallels between Occupy Wall Street and the so-called anti-globalization protests that came to world attention in Seattle in 1999 That was the last tilobal, youth-led, decentralized movement took direct aim at corporate power And I am proud to have been part of e called ”the movement of movements”
But there are important differences, too For instance, we chose suanization, the International Monetary Fund, the G8 Summits are transient by their nature; they only last a week That rab world headlines, then disappear And in the frenzy of hyper-patriotism and militarism that followed the 9/11 attacks, it was easy to sweep us away completely, at least in North America
Occupy Wall Street, on the other hand, has chosen a fixed target And you have put no end date on your presence here This is wise Only when you stay put can you grow roots This is crucial It is a fact of the infor up like beautiful flowers but quickly die off It's because they don't have roots And they don't have long-ter to sustain theet washed away
Being horizontal and deeply democratic is wonderful But these principles are co structures and institutions that are sturdy enough to weather the storreat faith that this will happen
Soht: You have coive the hts it craves so desperately And that treain, the story has been the disgraceful and unprovoked police brutality, whichht Meanwhile, support for this est difference a decadeon capitalism at the peak of a frenzied econoood tireed was a tough sell, at least in rich countries