Social Defense, Social Change
by Brian Martin, Freedom Press, London, 1993

Looking for a provocative read to inspire a revolution?  Here's the book for
you. Brian Martin sets the tone in the first paragraphs of this exciting
little book.

"The idea of social defence - namely of abolishing military forces and
relying in their stead on nonviolent struggles by the general population - is
extremely radical.  Yet a large amount of the writing on this subject is set
within the most conservative of assumptions about society.  It is assumed
that it is somehow possible to introduce social defence and yet leave much of
society the same: the same economic system, the same political structures,
the same scientific and health systems, and so on.

To me this is implausible.  The military is one of the keys to protecting
existing systems of power.  Remove the military and the scope for change
would be greatly increased... training people in methods of nonviolent
struggle against outside aggressors would also give them the skills to
challenge employers, politicians, sexual exploiters and many others."

In the next 140 pages the author examines the implications of a society in
which the citizens have systematic training in the tools of defending through
social power what the people themselves determine is important.  This may
result in social strikes against polluters or mass actions in response to
gender based crimes.  Areas frequently untouched in the main stream of
civilian-based defence literature.

The first several chapters review the development of the concept social
defense.  In these chapters the author leaves none of the basic assumptions
unexamined, or unquestioned.  Following a chapter which looks at possible
application of the concept in a case study of the 1987 coup in Fiji, is an
excellent two page synopsis of what people can do to move this concept
forward now, entitled Social Offense: taking the struggle to the aggressor.

Without providing prescription answers, the following chapters point the
reader in the direction of considering how this model can address deeper
manifestations of violence in our cultures.  There is a chapter each devoted
to how social defense can address violence against women; replacement of
police and jails; deal with environmental insensitivity; unrestrained science
and  technology, political corruption and exploitative economic systems.

One of the last chapters may incite you to organize your friends to begin a
project of your own.  In it the author describes his participation in a
people's research group which set out to study and document how they could
prepare to use the system of mass communication to mobilize and inform the
populace in case of a political crisis while protecting the system, or making
it inoperable by, an aggressor.

Undeterred by controversial topics, the author finishes with a postscript
entitled "Power tends to corrupt, even social defense".  Be forewarned,
you'll be challenged by this book, especially in your complacency.
Yeshua Moser,
Nonviolence International SE Asia, Bangkok Thailand