Report on the Strategy Education Experiment

Q. How many activists does it take to change a power structure?
A. It depends how good their strategy is...

Between August and November 1993, four Victorian nonviolence activists spent
a total of thirty-five hours together, intensively discussing just about
everything concerning nonviolent campaigns, strategies and activism.  The
excuse for this gathering of energies was the first Strategy Education
Experiment (SEE); the activists involved were Bernadette McCartney, Margaret
Pestorius, Mark Cerin and Rob Burrowes.  The Experiment was organized and
facilitated by Rob.

The inspiration and motivation to hold the SEE came from several sources. 
One was Rob's belief that there are rules or principles on which nonviolent
campaigns can be based, and that campaigns which do have strategies that
follow these 'rules' are likely to be more effective in producing change than
those which 'make up' their nonviolence as they go along.  Rob has some clear
ideas about how groups can develop strategies based around these principles,
and the SEE was intended to share these ideas and allow discussion of them. 
The SEE was also designed to give the activists involved a forum in which we
could share our experiences, our frustrations, our feelings and our idea
about social change work, and in which we could receive support for ourselves
and our work.

An underlying theme of the SEE was the importance of the emotional and
spiritual aspects of nonviolence, which sometimes get submerged by the
intellectual/'theoretical' aspects.  We tried to make sure that the SEE
itself provided emotional and spiritual support for the participants.  We
discussed various ways in which we nurture ourselves, emotionally and
spiritually; we used the beginning of each day's session as a time to catch
up, to speak about what was happening in our lives and how we felt about it. 
For me, these honest sharings were a highlight of the SEE.

We also wanted to hold a ritual as part of the SEE, and chose our stay
together at Commonground as the appropriate time (in the appropriate place!).
We set aside an hour early one Thursday morning, and each of us devised and
facilitated our own section of the joint ritual.  Despite being attacked by
hordes of mosquitoes, we persevered (as activist's life is never easy).  I
really enjoyed the ritual.  I don't often get the chance to share my
understandings and feelings of spirituality with others, and it was a
valuable experience to gain as an insight into the spiritual 'traditions' of
the other three 'SEEers'.

The intellectual content of the SEE ranged from discussion of some fairly
basic 'building blocks' of nonviolence, such as our understanding of power
and conflict, to examination and application of a detailed strategic
framework for nonviolent struggle, developed by Rob.  The topics we discussed
included: what empowerment means, and how we can develop power within; our
understandings of society and of 'how the world works' (particularly in terms
of relations between first and third world); what conflict is, and what is
required in order to deal with it; and our conceptions of nonviolence.  Being
activists, we also spent plenty of time talking about mundane practical
issues such as how we can most successfully act in solidarity with other
people's struggles; how to encourage our own groups to put time into strategy
work; how we can create total nonviolent revolution; etc...  We developed the
'swirl theory' of affinity group formation: the idea was that groups tend to
form from preexisting networks, when energies come together in a big swirl
(e.g. a gathering or large action) and then coalesce into specific projects
and/or groups.  Through all of this discussion, we drew heavily on our own
experience as activists and people; I found that because of this, the ideas
we came up with made good sense and were (mostly!) easy to understand and
remember.

An important part of the SEE was the time we spent getting to grips with
Rob's 'strategic framework for nonviolent struggle', also known as the
strategy wheel.  The framework is meant to be used to generate strategic
plans which can guide nonviolent struggles.  The version of the framework
presented during the SEE has twelve components:these include a general
political and strategic assessment of the situation; determination of the
organizational, leadership and coordination structures of the movement; the
constructive program; the timeframe, stages and campaigns of the struggle;
and the selection of tactics.  A crucial distinction is between the political
purpose of the struggle - i.e. 'what we want' - and the strategic aims - i.e.
'how we get it'.  Rob emphasised that maintaining the group or network to
carry out the struggle must be a central strategic aim for any movement.  The
framework is quite inclusive and detailed, and I feel that to really
understand it properly I will have to apply it in the context of a campaign I
am actually involved in.

The SEE is the best thing I have done for a long time.  I particularly
enjoyed getting to know Margaret, Bernadette and Rob better, and hearing
their many stories.  I also enjoyed sharing my stories.  I thought the
quality of support we gave each other was very high.  I felt excited by the
new ideas and insights that we were dealing with, and I'm looking forward to
using them in my work.  The SEE helped me clarify my own understandings of
activism, and has given me the energy to become much clearer about my
personal strategy as an activist.  It also reminded me how much I still have
to learn about my emotional and spiritual self.  Bernadette, Margaret and I
have formed an informal ongoing group so we can continue to support each
other as we attempt to apply some of the insights we gained from the SEE.

Rob is planning to hold more SEE's in the future; the next one (depending on
energy levels) is likely to be in the second half of 1994.  Contact Rob for
more information: phone (03) 387 3398.
Mark Cerin