Reflections On Yeshua Moser's Visit
                                        
Yeshua Moser, Nonviolence International's South East Asia representative,
visited Adelaide for three days in mid August and ran one public talk and two
workshops.  The workshops were devoted mainly to developing individual
political/social skills and visions. 

It was disappointing to have such limited time to share Yeshua's wealth of
experience of nonviolence, but the workshops were particularly thought
provoking.  This article is a reflection on some of the issues which arose
for us from the workshops.  Specifically we want to talk about the analysis
of power in society and its relationship to our understanding of nonviolence
as put forward by Yeshua. 

Analysing Power
One of the most interesting sections of the work we did was an exercise
analysing power in society.  We were asked to decide who the powerful groups
in society are and what it is that makes them powerful.  We were then given a
list of sources of power which Yeshua suggested was a reasonable model.  The
list included resource control, formal authority, principled or moral power,
communication, skills, innovative, cultural and coercive power.

The structure and content of any such exercise necessarily reflects a
specific  analysis of power.  However, this fact often goes unnoticed, as it
apparently did here.  It was presented as being uncontroversial and therefore
unquestionable. 

The kind of analysis we discussed presents power in an unstructured way, as a
variety of 'packets' possessed by various groups in society, albeit in
different forms and quantities.  The different forms of power are seen as
equal. It says little about how they connect to or impact upon each other, or
why some groups have more of any given form of power than others.  Nor does
it explain why some groups have some forms of power rather than others. 
Different forms of power simply exist almost randomly, possibly in
competition in society, and people have access to different types of power in
various amounts.

While this account undoubtedly simplifies the analysis somewhat, this sort of
model and the assumptions underlying it are shared by many other nonviolence
theorists and activists, including Gene Sharp (whose work Yeshua drew on in
his workshops). 

It is important to realise that this is only one analysis of power in society
from which a theory of social change could begin.  The idea of power being
unstructured, and being located in various independent locations reflects the
dominant tradition of western, liberal-democratic thought.  It is essentially
a market based ideology, said to be democratic because power is spread
between various elites and not concentrated in one group. 

This classic liberal theory takes the individual as its starting point. 
Individual people are seen to be rational, free decision makers 'naturally'
pursuing their self interest.  Having begun from this premise, the idea of a
competition for packages of power between individuals and groups flows
apparently logically.  Society is therefore seen as a collection of
individuals whose relationships are structured only by a 'social contract'
which regulates the competition between these interests to ensure the
continuation of society. 

The question is whether this set of assumptions is the most useful for those
seeking to understand violence, practice nonviolence, and create a better
world.  We believe that the ideas of human nature, and of society and power,
assumed by this analysis limit the possibilities for a truly nonviolent
society.  

By contrast, we suggest that human nature is essentially (or potentially)
co-operative and loving.  An individual's place in society is then defined by
their relations to others and the social structures in which they live.  The
analysis of power and the sort of society that can be envisaged as the
logical outcome of 'human nature' would be quite different.

For instance, socialism takes groups rather than individuals as its starting
point.  It sees the structures of class underlying all human relations. 
Economic power, that is, the control of the available ways of making goods
and services (factories, farms, media and so on) is seen as being
fundamental.  Those who have economic power are able to turn it into other
types of power, and/or they can influence people with those other powers. 
More importantly, the whole structure of society, its development, its logic
and the ideas which are prevalent in it therefore reflect the interests of
those with capital, with economic power.  

In capitalist societies such as Australia, a small group of people have
control of these resources, rather than economic power being shared equally
by everyone.  One result is that this group sets the political agenda and
reaps the rewards.  A familiar example would be a corporation deciding to log
a forest and then having the money to effectively lobby government, advertise
and to define the debate as being "jobs vs. development".  Environmentalists
are then constantly forced into reactive campaigns while workers, who if
given the choice may have chosen to do environmentally friendly jobs, are
simply faced with the choice of logging or unemployment. 

Many feminists would also agree that the unequal distribution of power that
we see in our current society is not a random coincidence, or even a set of
coincidences, but the result of an underlying power structure.  The
subordination of women is understood by radical feminists as being the result
of the systematic oppression of women as a group by men as a group. 
Individual women and men therefore can choose to act against the pervasive
sexism of our society, but none of us can simply decide to live outside it.
  
In patriarchal societies such as Australia, men have power.  The whole
structure of society, its development, its logic and the ideas which are
prevalent in it therefore reflect the interests of men as a group. 

In both these analyses, taken together or separately, power in society is
structured.  The power of capital and/or men is fundamental to society's
structures and all other forms of power.  These structures also underly
violence and are basic to an analysis of who does violence, to whom, with
what force and to what end. 

In this analysis, individuals make choices, but their options are limited by
the conditions they find themselves in, by the structures of society.  The
"easiest" option in any given situation, or the one presented as most logical
by society, is then usually one which reinforces the power structure.  Unless
we address this question in our organising, our actions suffer and we can end
up finding that what we do reinforces the very structures we have set out to
dismantle.  

Fear/Fearlessness/Courage
A concrete example of this process at work was brought to mind by Yeshua's
workshop exercise about fear.  It proceeded as if the idea that the opposite
of fear is fearlessness (or absence-of-fear) was unproblematic.  It also
assumed that our experiences of fear would be similar.  But, at a minimum,
women and men have completely different relationships to fear, and Yeshua's
model appeared to be based in what we argue is a particularly masculine
relation to fear.  

Men are taught that they must be fearless and taught a model of courage that
entails the absence of fear.  This does not stop men feeling fear, but it
functions to prevent them expressing it to themselves and to others.  These
messages are so heavy that for a man to "admit" to being afraid is perceived
as being a threat to his maleness.  "Don't be a girl."  "Be a man."  

Women, on the other hand, are almost required to be afraid.  It's feminine to
need and want to be protected.  To act with great courage may bring
accusations of "having balls", implying that only men are capable of courage.

It is important to work out where the messages we've had about fear come
from.  Accepting our society's current  masculine idea of fear and
fearlessness entrenches the prohibition on men feeling anything except anger,
which is part of the cycle of violence.  It leaves all of us with a notion of
courage that isn't helpful as a basis for action.  A feminist model of
courage might mean recognising and working through our fears rather than
denying them or being paralysed by them.  

For example at AIDEX '91 we saw men particularly experiencing fear but
expressing that fear as anger or violence.  We saw this in police as well as
in protesters.  The result was politically counterproductive, as well as an
obvious risk to the physical and emotional wellbeing of all present.  

By contrast, in some women's actions (like those at AIDEX '91), the ability
to express our fear has meant we've been able to connect more honestly with
one another, work to prevent fear-inducing situations where we think they are
unnecessary, and plan strategy for actions where we expect fear to arise. 
This has enabled us to work through our fear collectively and creatively,
rather than simply refusing to admit its existence.  The annual "Reclaim the
Night" marches against sexual violence are another example of collective
recognition of, and action against, a shared fear and the reasons for that
fear.  

At another level, the workshops suggested that fear is important as a major
reason why people obey authority.  But "Why do people obey?" is perhaps the
wrong question as it again starts with the individual and is based in ideas
of rational, free choice.  It underplays the structures which make other
alternatives difficult, or deprive people of even the idea of an alternative.
Again, there are structures of socialisation, education and opportunity which
limit the choices.  

The process of social change requires more than simply refusing to obey and
refusing to co-operate with injustice.  The question is not why do people
obey, but what stops people being part of a process for change and living
their lives differently.  And the answer relates to the structures which
govern society, not just to personal fear of sanctions or violence.  

Beyond Individualism
Despite such shortcomings in the analysis, the liberalism which has
underpinned much nonviolence theory has been useful in highlighting each
person's responsibility for their own actions.  We can not adopt the
Nuremburg defence of "following orders" or of blaming unfair structures.  But
unless we go beyond these ideas we will not get to the roots of power and
violence in society, nor will we have the basis to create the future society.

In our activism we work against sexism, racism, militarism and exploitation,
but a liberal analysis would have us see these as the results of individual
behaviour patterns and the poor choices of individual politicians.  War and
violence then become accidents, coincidences, or at most learned behaviour,
but not the result of society's structures.  Until we address these
structures in our activism and in our organisations, we will not be having a
real impact on the causes of the problems we are working to overcome.  

While socialists have often not seen themselves as nonviolent activists, and
many have explicitly argued the need for violent revolution, we should not
simply accept a liberal view of society by default.  Such liberal ideas
dominate our society.  They inform not only the newspapers and TV, but even
the very terms we use to conduct our own debates. It is difficult but crucial
to think outside this ideology. 

Yeshua's workshops finished with an invitation to explore our visions of a
future society, the society we want to live in.  Like others there, our
vision was of much more than a society without war.  Our vision of what a
nonviolent society might look like owes more to the co-operative, community
images of socialist and feminist traditions than to the individualistic,
competitive traditions of liberal analysis. 

In challenging the ideas that people are naturally free and competitive, and
that women are naturally defined in relation to men, socialists and feminists
have laid the foundations on which nonviolence can be based. 
Mary Heath & Greg Ogle

Phone: Mary (08) 274 1969, Greg (08) 43 7114 or leave a message at the Peace
Action Collective (08) 410 1197.

[Eds. Yeshua has informed us that he will respond in the next issue of NvT.]