Emotions and AIDEX My physical injuries from AIDEX '91 only took six weeks to heal (a police boot in the ribs). I wonder about the other kinds of injury and whether other activists realise the importance of healing these. One recent dark and overcast morning I woke to realise that the song on the clock radio had been incorporated into my dream. In my dream the song was Elton John's haunting eulogy for John Lennon, Empty Garden, being heard quietly in a empty forest, and I woke with a strong feeling of sadness. Knowing the value of these opportunities from the subconscious for experiencing repressed grief, I told my wife about it and asked in that half awake state where we can all still be children, "Why do we always kill the good ones?". I thought also of Martin Luther King and Gandhi and had a little cry. As often happens there was anger mixed with the grief and it is good to experience this too. I wanted someone outside my self to blame. But once these emotions had achieved their catharsis I remembered that there is no-one outside my Self and I felt only compassion for the sick and suffering cultural organism of which I am a part. It is extremely important for emotions such as grief, anger, hatred and fear to be experienced and worked through, but only in private or in a supportive group. I am deeply concerned that many well-meaning activists think that it is desirable and effective to take these emotions all the way to their engagement with the opposition in the front lines of the struggle, "Maintain the rage" etc. In fact if I were asked to describe the essential difference between the purely tactical non(hyphen)violent direct action of the International Socialists and others, and Gandhian or Sharpian nonviolent struggle, this would be it. A slogan for nonviolent activists might be "Act not from Fear or Anger" or "Act, don't React". At the AIDEX '91 protests in Canberra last November, I watched what I believe were protesters' unhealed emotional wounds erupting into verbal abuse (and occasional minor physical abuse) of police and security guards and even other protesters. Surprisingly some of these were people who I knew had a commitment to nonviolence. My disagreement with this behaviour is not one of squeamishness but simply a deep understanding that this behaviour is not effective in bringing about the desired changes. It merely polarises the conflict and escalates the violence. Of course some protesters, particularly socialists, have an agenda of escalating the violence, which they see as "revealing the violence inherent in the system" (no apologies to Monty Python), with the ultimate aim of violent revolution. I also believe that nonviolent protesters were receiving injuries from the police in revenge for the abuse they had received from more aggressive protesters, who had called their insults from a safe distance. Few activists would even consider going back into a direct action with a fractured rib. Why do we keep going back with our emotional wounds unhealed? Why is it so hard for some activists to accept that they need to heal themselves using various emotional, psychological or spiritual practices so that in a crisis they are more likely to act in a highly effective manner with assertiveness rather than react from fear or anger. Are there still people in the world like John Lennon who can capture its imagination and speak to it of how it might heal itself? "We still have Mother Theresa", my wife reminded me. "Yes" I said, coming out of my grief, "and the Dalai Lama". In the following article the Dalai Lama explains some of the reasons why anger is not effective and how we can develop the more powerful, sustainable and controllable energy of compassion. See also Richard Gregg's The Power of Nonviolence. For practical help with emotional healing for activists, see either of Joanna Macy's despairwork books. Dave Keenan