All The Way With NvA
Nonviolence Today  #18, January 1991
 
Grey skies and sleeting rain was normal for a protest day on the Franklin
River.  Newly arrived protesters huddled in their dinghies paddling
occasionally to avoid drifting ashore opposite Warners' Landing.  They acted
as a vigil on what was the major landing for heavy industrial equipment.  One
day, they returned depressed and disempowered. The police on duty at the
site, bored and antagonistic, chainsawed two ancient treeferns down, using
them as stools they sat and ridiculed the protesters who felt unable to act
beyond being civil in obedience to their nonviolent action training
programme.
 
To those upriver such a callous act deserved an honest reaction.  This does
not infer that a violent reaction was in any way called for.  However in such
circumstances bland palliatives do not make a point. In such a situation as
the above it is important to confront the individual in a strong manner, to
react with a high degree of sincerity and not play a predetermined game
mindful primarily of the role of authority.  The very essence of the overall
campaign where a group of people rally around the cause of wilderness
protection is a strong non-acceptance of the inviolability of authority
structures.  On a personal level this must also apply making it essential
that honest and strong objection to unreasonable conduct is addressed to any
participants in the event, no matter who they may be.
 
The essence of training for appropriate empowering action is all too rarely
about the channelling of the dynamic fires of social change and too often a
programme to organise, and make tame, the cheeky sparkle of righteous
indignation.  This is despite the fact that the very survival of the planet
hangs on this fine thread of human endeavour.
 
"We live in a violent culture so nonviolence is a cultural revolution."1  But
what is nonviolence, can and should it be defined?  Currently varying
interpretations of NVA are causing heated debate both in print and at
demonstrations.  In the following article I will suggest that certain
segments of the green movement are turning their understanding of nonviolence
into rigid monumental forms.  What has become known as "orthodox"
nonviolence, we will argue, stifles creative energy and disregards the
strength in diversity and in fact polarises its critics as violent which is
unnecessarily judgmental, and divisive.  The strict adherence to specific
structures, processes and theories is problematic.  We refer here to
practices of extreme openness and co-operation with the authorities and undue
weight being given to the particular theories of Gandhi and Martin Luther
King which cannot always be plucked out of an historical context and applied
to today's circumstances.  Also, the practices of consensus employed by
"orthodox" NVA activists can merely duplicate existing power relations,
albeit in a hidden way, unless the group is small and has a uniformity in
skills.  If one pays lip service to ideas of consensus and grass roots
organisations, one cannot then implement definite ideas in an attempt to make
a diverse group of people work together.  We feel that groups and individuals
are being disempowered by organisational and bureaucratic processes which
mimic patterns existing in the mainstream society.  The essential ingredient
in any revolutionary thinking is empowering people to make decisions for
themselves and this is what NVA fails to deliver, in that it replaces old
structures with new ones.  Indeed, if a nonviolent society cannot be brought
about by violence, neither can a horizontally organised, egalitarian society
be brought about via structured bureaucratic processes that "desire to
discipline activist behaviour and curtail political expression according to a
particular conception of appropriate activity." 2
 
We are witnessing developments not dissimilar to the co-opting of the raw
energies of the counter cultural explosion of the 60's and early 70's.  What
arose as a pioneering spirit, degenerated in a few short years to become the
victim  of dilution and exploitation.  The environment movement, on the crest
of a wave in the early 80's had captured the imagination of the public,
spreading the word with evangelical zeal.  In many ways it caught government
and industry 'flat footed', however, the forces that strive to 'make a buck'
and seek to maintain control are reasserting their power.  On the one hand we
take a consumer path glossed over by environmental consciousness, and at the
same time the movement for social change is losing its way better than agent
provocateurs could envisage.  Indeed one may well ask how this could possibly
happen when so many are 'working for the planet'.  Personal agendas were and
are taking a priority.  Many are using the environment movement as a career
path not dissimilar to any other job.  The dance of the pioneering spirit is
inevitably taken over by boring, bureaucratic personalities who, by their
very nature, need and seek to gain control. This destroys the very essence of
revolutionary spark in the process.  What the society ends up with is
effectively another means of control.  This is clearly occurring in the
cutting edge of the environment movement in Australia today.
 
If the following is indeed the definitive critique of NVA by one of its
leading proponents, NVA cannot be allowed to remain unchallenged. "The use of
nonviolent struggle as the preferred method of political activism rests on
the twin convictions that it 'works' and that it is 'right'."3  Rob Burrowes
would be reminded that such sentiments as 'right' etc. are not new to this
planet and that such rationalist simplicity is the chief argument against its
validity.  In this debate we are witnessing a battle between fluidity and
rigidity.  Activists can learn a whole lot more than just rules and
regulations if predetermined concepts of appropriate political behaviour do
not stand in their way.  We can learn to deal with all sorts of authority
structures and what they represent if we understand how and why they are
working.  This implies an understanding of human, social and political
relations as multi dimensional, which change and cannot be accurately
predetermined for each and every action.  The practice of orthodox NVA
training is alienated from the actual practice of protest in that it refuses
to cater for the unexpected, and in fact opts for the safe option of
stereotyped role behaviour. NVA compares to effective social change as
education, defined by the state, compares to the process of learning.  The
education system teaches passivity, obedience, acceptance of rules and
regulations and conditioning to the benefit of the state.  The primary aim is
to produce compliant, productive servants to the status quo.
 
The actions at Terania Creek in 1979 and Mount Nardi in 1982 in Northern NSW
were pioneering experiences which set the stage for action by ordinary 
people in defense of the rainforests.  It was an era before the term
'greenies' was coined.  Both events drew on local people moved by passionate
desire to defend the forests.  Training was not even thought of and the
action areas were accessible to all.  The more experienced activists dealt
with the potential problems positively and dynamically.  It was the role of
the NVA activists to stay one step ahead of potentially violent situations
and turn them into creative actions, channelling that raw energy instead of
sitting back at the camp attempting to block or negate those sometimes
unwieldy personalities and desires.  Instead of spoiling tactics it was
cooperative decision making on site which forged dynamic action.  This 
dovetailed into political lobbying which resulted in a major victory in
defense of rainforests in the north of NSW in 1982.
 
Members of the Tasmanian Wilderness Society were sent to observe the Nightcap
Action.  These agents did not make their official presence known.  Judgments
were not made by observation in the forest but rather by observing the
dynamics of the base camp which were hindered by the inevitable loony fringe.
Fearful of this problem, organisers of the Tasmanian wilderness blockade
considered cancelling their Franklin action.  A compulsory NVA training
program and strict control on deciding who went up river was both a reaction
to the Nightcap campaign and a reflection of the extreme conservative nature
of the parent organisation.  This became a means of control in the Franklin
River campaign.  The process was of great assistance to those needing skills.
Its benefits are not to be denigrated.  However the stranglehold of hierarchy
occurred and a cult arose with the initiation process being NVA training. 
The process acted in many cases as a block to the free flow of energy.  For
those who had only a week to donate of their time in defense of the
wilderness, most of it was spent doing training, despite the fact that the
upriver blockade site was often starved of numbers.  Well-intentioned rules
took on an air of absurdity often, an example being when two qualified scout
masters on holidays from teaching, obviously well equipped and bush wise,
offered their skills to gather information for a proposed action in the
forest.  Their offer was blocked due to a lack of NVA training.  Such a rigid
structure negated individual responsibility, failed to recognize personal
ability and presumed that only a codified set of rules would create the 'New
Age Person' with the ability to deal with all situations.  While the
Tasmanian Wilderness campaign was highly successful it was due to a concerted
national effort and a not insignificant contribution was made by people based
at the upriver camp. These people were acting with a high degree of
effectiveness but were not necessarily practising orthodox NVA.
 
It is becoming clear that all the destructive processes are escalating, so
too are the security forces to frustrate legitimate reactions to the
increasing atrocities both to people and planet.  Working with authorities in
a state of naive trust and faith in their possible conversion is no solution.
However the growth of acceptance by authority structures regarding citizens'
rights of expression is essentially a step toward a sustainable future.  The
police represent the base line of such a structure.  Police and protester
relations can make a small but significant contribution toward a society that
can cope with the unexpected, is prepared to be disrupted and able to be
transformed.  Orthodox NVA lays claim to nurturing  a growth process with the
police.  We argue that such trust becomes a convenience for the authority
structure.  Experienced activists often have a politically astute analysis
and past experience of the potential 'unpleasantness' of police.  Their
legitimate reaction to horrific experiences are disregarded as a valid
perspective on authority.  Reinforcing the myth that there are only a few
rotten eggs in the police force implies that the police role has no intrinsic
power to corrupt.  The fact that we sustain these myths allows Australia to
have the highest rate of deaths in custody in the world (above South Africa).
The trust in the police's inherent 'niceness' conversely means that the blame
must be placed on the victims of police violence in other situations as they
'don't handle' the police correctly.  They will often pay lip service to the
values of environmentalism and human rights but when their authority is
attacked they can revert.  What we have to remember is that in every
situation we could be dealing with a potential psychopath.  This often
misguided trust goes hand in hand with rigidity in NVA training.  Such
training gives the security of specific processes, a set of rules and
regulations, showing how to act in specific situations.  However an evolving
and fluid process will allow the individual to understand authority
structures and simply recognize all aspects of police behaviour.  With this
recognition protesters will be equipped to deal with processes in a creative
way whenever the situation arises.
 
However, in reality groups and individuals are being disempowered by
organisations and bureaucratic processes codifying a movement which could
effectively challenge the establishment.  Both police and NVA practitioners
value social rules and regulations, their tactics peacefully coexist.  The
police represent an incomplete brick wall of protection against social
change.  NVA locks in perfectly to create a complete wall.   Making the
essential differences between police and protester so negligible, and making
the relationship between the two a priority, distracts attention from the
issue at hand. This structure limits other forms of protest expression. 
Their penchant for structure makes NVA the issue rather than the process. The
joining of these two forces stops protest at a certain level.  It dictates
that one can go so far, get so much, but the line is drawn and it is clearly
within the bounds of "reasonable behaviour" as defined by the authorities.  
Orthodox NVA proponents are undertaking a police role guarding the value
systems of the establishment and at the same time controlling potential
revolutionary elements.  The latter are not extremists but simply people
wanting real, as opposed to symbolic, social change and suffering
frustration.
 
We would argue that NVA training inhibits the seeking of an historical
understanding of revolutionary political processes as NVA is seen, in and of
itself, to be 'the answer'.  We feel it also rests too heavily upon the
tradition of Gandhi and while such philosophies are useful and important,
just like Marxism, if they are not seen in an historical perspective and then
translated into modern terms they become irrelevant.  "Martin Luther King
spoke so often about his desire to learn more of Gandhi's nonviolence that
Nehru felt obliged to say how surprisingly pragmatic Mahatma might have been
in dealing with the concrete problems of Modern India, let alone the problems
King faced in the US."4  Interestingly, Gandhian concepts translated to the
civil rights movement in the US prompted Martin Luther King to recognize that
"I am only effective as long as there is a shadow on white America of the
black man standing behind me with a Molotov cocktail". 5  As Starhawk says,
"Gandhi was a great man, but his ideas don't always fit for a lot of us,
particularly for women.  Gandhi said we have to accept the suffering and take
it in.  Women have been doing that for thousands and thousands of years, and
it hasn't stopped anything much - except a lot of women's lives.  In some
ways its also not ecological.  Rather than absorb the violence, what we need
to do is to find some way to stop it and then transform it, to take that
energy and turn it into creative change.  Not take it on ourselves." 6
 
Second wave feminism has seen women finding a new political sense.  Our
diversity and our recognition that this diversity is essential to the
credibility of our movement is in fact our strength.  In asserting the
'effectiveness' of nonviolent, non-hierarchical concepts, feminists saw from
the nonviolence they advocated that there was no ONE right way. "We allowed
for difference which leaves other ideologies for change looking thin, single
issue or reformist.  Sisters in change are complex creatures and relate to
the world in complex ways".7  In our opinion it is exactly such a disregard
for the complexity and immediacy of the wider environmental disaster that
make the NVA analysis disappointing.  Debate on such issues as the capitalist
appropriation of green consumerism and the danger of indiscriminately blaming
'the consumer' for global ills without understanding the role of the
capitalist company/media/government, are fleetingly dismissed by  the
nonviolent activists.  This would seem a particularly irresponsible view
considering the overt complicity of government and corporate enterprises in
environmental devastation.  Such issues are complex.  Rainforest destruction
is not just an issue about trees, it is a manifestation of the interconnected
web of economic, social and political atrocities currently inflicted upon
earth by patriarchal capitalism.  Environmental organisations which on the
one hand present radical solutions and on the other hand fail to challenge
the status quo, are at best ineffective because they merely parallel the
government's stand, and at worst cement the powerlessness of the uninformed
but nevertheless concerned populace. "One major strategy of the CIA is to
create or support parallel organisations which provide alternatives to
radicalism and yet appear progressive enough to appease dissatisfied elements
of the society." 8  It gets down to a grapple of wills between two distinct
sections of the green movement.  On one hand there are those who do not wish
to radically transform society, they wish as reformist conservationists to
save a little bit more of what is left so it can be protected.  They refuse
to see that a transformation of power relations is necessary before these
issues can be solved.  "Power inequalities cannot be overcome purely through
mutual understanding.  Taking power away from those who control is rarely a
'calm' or 'orderly' process, seldom achieved through the voluntary actions of
the more powerful."9
 
When theory translates into mass movement it can become dogma, as theory
relies upon and is vulnerable to interpretation.  The theory is packaged
which simplifies its very complexity assuming that people cannot understand
the nuances of the broader philosophy.  This gives people a rigid set of
ideas they can obsessively hang onto which becomes their form of radicalism. 
So people blindly adopt ideology, whilst others react in opposition to it,
meaning that they miss out on credible and important points of the
philosophy. If you do not happen to resonate with the entire package of NVA
then you are instantly alienated.  Effective conflict resolution asserts that
"We are both wrong, we are both right.  Taking sides only enhances
polarisation."10  Reactionary forces, either radical or conservative will not
further any cause.  We have to clarify via continuing debate in order to open
up a real understanding of these issues.
 
In a truly revolutionary movement a society can grow from the unexpected,
evolve from processes rather than try to control them.  Participants in
change have to accept that the movement, the ideology or the energy cannot
unfold exactly as preplanned.  It's not "my" revolution.  There needs to be
an understanding that there is a multiplicity of ideas and actions, not one. 
Patriarchal culture is at work when there is a dictating leadership which
compartmentalises and separates us from earth energies and dynamic ways to
communicate and work together.
 
"Finally, I think the spell we need to cast, the model we need to create has
to be open to the mystery, to the understanding that we don't know everything
about what's going on and we don't know exactly what to do about it.  The
mystery can be expressed in many ways."11
Felicity Ruby and Ian Cohen
 
1. This Way Daybreak Comes: Women's values and the future, Cheatham and
Powell, 1984 p.205
 
2. Wilson, Tempany and Nette, Response to the Rainforest Action Group in
Arena 91
 
3. Burrowes, Rob, The Strength of Nonviolence in Arena 90 p.168
 
4. Branch, Taylor, Parting the Waters, Macmillian, 1988 p.251
 
5. Manes, Christopher, Green Rage, Little Brown and Co 1990, p.174
 
6. Starhawk, Power, Authority and Mystery in Reweaving the World: the
Emergence of Ecofeminism, Diamond & Orenstein (eds) 1990 p 79
 
7. Salleh, Ariel, 'A green party, can the boys do without one?' in Green
Politics in Australia, Angus and Robertson 1987 p69
 
8. Coxsedge, Coldicutt & Harant, Rooted in Secrecy: Committee for the
Abolition of Political Police 1982, p74
 
9. Wilson, Tempany and Nette, The Limits to Nonviolence in Chain Reaction,
Spring 89 p.32
 
10. Koeing, Shulamith, Speaking of Faith: Global Perspectives on Women,
Religion and Social Change,  Eck and Jain (eds), New Society Press 1987 p68
 
11. Starhawk, ibid p79