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strategies for change 153 These two forms of civil disobedience are sometimes confused. For example, whilst Franks argues that civil disobedience is distinguished by what he calls its strong consequentialism (i.e. those engaging in civil disobedience work towards a particular end and justify the action through its attainment) he runs this idea together with a fundamental commitment to non-violence. His premise allows the possibility for violence, but his conclusion is Tolstoyan. The confusion stems in part from the habit of libertarians – Rand is one – to equate civil disobedience with non-coercive action, on the grounds that it is based on an appeal to individual conscience, not mass protest. Alternatively, activists involved in Peoples’ Global Action (PGA) suggest that the confusion rests in the concept of ‘non-violence’. This idea, they contend, is ambiguous and interpreted in culturally specific and sometimes contradictory ways. The differences are particularly marked in Europe and India. In view of this confusion, the PGA no longer include a commitment to ‘nonviolence’ in their Hallmarks and activists are instead encouraged to seek ways of confronting oppression by considering the suitability of specific actions in the prevailing local conditions. In other cases, the ambiguity reflects a deliberate attempt to push a policy of nonviolence. George Woodcock presents the assumption of nonviolence as a fundamental principle of civil disobedience. Indeed, he so downplays the differences between Thoreau’s position and that of the other writers that one could be forgiven for thinking that civil disobedience was informed by a unified tradition of thought. For all the confusion, anarchists have interpreted civil disobedience in both senses. For example, Zerzan’s idea of resistance is closer to Thoreau’s than Tolstoy’s. Denying that questions of resistance turn on violence or non-violence, he argues that the primary consideration informing action is individual conscience. Consequently, his personal conviction that ‘words are a better weapon to bring down the system than a gun would be’ carries no implications for ‘anybody else’s choice of weapon’. 63 His willingness to defend the Unabomber’s choice is very much in the spirit of Thoreau’s defence of Captain Brown. Probably more anarchists have equated civil disobedience with the Tolstoyan view. The strength of the commitment owes something to the causes with which the action has been associated. In the post-war period, civil disobedience was the preferred tactic of peace activists and campaigners against atomic and nuclear arms. For many of the anarchists involved in these campaigns, the
154 anarchism: a beginner’s guide commitment to non-violence was central to the oppositional stance they wished to take. The popularity of Bart de Ligt’s 1937 guide to war resistance, The Conquest of Violence, 64 helped to seal the association between the struggle for peace and non-violent protest. His argument was that warmongering was neither effectively nor legitimately combatted by war-like behaviour. Developing this logic, anarchist peace protestors argued that non-violent civil disobedience was a perfect match for anarchism. Alan Lovell, an anarchist member of the Committee of 100 (the organization founded in 1960 from within the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) argued that Gandhian non-violence ‘was something new’. It broke the fantasy of exercising state power and stemmed ‘from a different attitude to politics … more relevant … than Marx’. The ‘whole question of non-violent civil disobedience’, he argued, ‘is very closely tied up with decentralisation’. 65 In a similar vein, Derrick Pike defines ‘anarcho-pacifism’ as an organizational response to Bakuninism: The anarcho-pacifists … want to use an entirely different method to produce the social revolution … Anarcho-pacifists will never use violence to make others change their ideas and behaviour; instead they make clear what kind of society is best for everybody, and they persuade others to share their philosophy … they do not need to have any secret communications or clandestine meetings. Always they are overt, not covert. When there are enough anarcho-pacifists, we will all start living in a free society. 66 The argument between pacifists and their opponents has never been resolved and it has implications for all forms of anarchist protest, not just civil disobedience. In recent times, the debate has been conducted within the anti-globalization movement. anarchism and anti-globalization The anti-globalization movement is not a specifically anarchist phenomenon. However, anarchists involved in the movement believe that the mass protests like the Battle for Seattle in December 1999 (when protestors succeeded in shutting down the meeting of the World Trade Organization), and the Genoa summit of the G8 in July 2001 (when over-zealous policing resulted in the death of Carlo Guiliani) have given them an almost unparalleled opportunity to
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contents Acknowledgements vii intro
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acknowledgements A number of people
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chapter two anarchist rejections of
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chapter three anarchy We have alway
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Page 184 and 185: index Page numbers in italic denote
Page 186 and 187: index 177 Farrow, Lynne 119 fascism
Page 188 and 189: index 179 and state 30, 45-6, 50, 5
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