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anarchism: a beginner’s guide
Most constitutional action is directed towards education and the
publication of anarchist ideas. In the hands of groups like the
Guerrilla Girls, it is also used as an instrument of cultural subversion.
By organizing workshops and producing posters, freely available
on the web, the group reveal the male norms embedded in
modern culture – and in particular in the Hollywood film industry –
and probe the relationship between masculinity, power and violence.
Constitutional action is also used as a critical tool. In their
pamphlet ‘What’s Wrong with McDonald’s?’ London Greenpeace
asked readers ‘to think for a moment about what lies behind
McDonald’s clean, bright image’ and attempted to enlighten them
with the facts. In 1990 the McDonald’s corporation disputed the factual
basis of London Greenpeace’s claims in what became known as
the McLibel trial – the longest libel trial in English judicial history.
But in doing so they unwittingly underlined the power of constitutional
action to fulfil a strong propaganda role.
symbolic action
Symbolic action consists of ‘those acts that aim to raise awareness of
an issue or injustice, but by themselves do not attempt to resolve it’.
Symbolic acts are those that ‘signify other acts’. 52 April Carter
suggests that symbolic actions are designed to ‘create solidarity and
confidence’, pointing to vigils and marches, fasts, slogans and songs
as examples of symbolic acts. 53 More recently, Lindsay Hart has
distinguished between two main forms of symbolic action: ‘bearing
witness’ and ‘obstruction’. The first, which has a long history in the
Quaker movement, is designed to tap the public’s conscience. By
attending incidents or sites of injustice, protestors aim to exploit
media coverage to raise awareness of abuse and provoke outrage at
its continuation. This form of protest has been employed by groups
from the Clamshell Alliance – an association of American antinuclear
protestors in New Hampshire – to those involved in the
International Solidarity Movement who draw attention to acts of
violence and degradation committed by Israeli forces in the
Palestinian Occupied Territories. The second is widely employed to
prevent road building, tree clearing, the movement of traffic and of
arms and it demands of activists that they use their bodies to block
unjust or oppressive actions – locking-on (to heavy machinery,
transport, etc.) or sitting down in front of trains, tanks and
bulldozers. 54