The Antiwar Movement: Back to Basics?
In this engaging article about the antiwar movement, Celina de Leon writes that the antiwar movement has dramatically shifted tactics. "Mass national protests didn't sway the Bush administration, so young organizers have focused on local counter-recruitment campaigns." One organizer attempts to explain the mistake the antiwar movement made: ""For a long time we've hoped that we would be able to provide training and somehow somewhere, somebody else was going to step up and organize on the local level. We have to shift our tactics. A lot has changed, and unfortunately the anti-war movement hasn't." As far as it goes, there is some sense in this argument. One major failure of the antiwar movement has been its spontaneity. In the haste to capitalize on public discontent, the protest did not sink real institutionalized roots, thereby failing really to become a 'movement'. There was little to organize around beyond low-level discontent, and the protest organizers did little to elevate this discontent into political activity shaped around clear principles.
The reported organizational change is an important sign of self-reflection and experimentation by activists. However, the shift from national to local organizing addresses only one, and not even the most serious, problem with the antiwar position. It is a tactical shift, in which the only changes in the content of the message and political ideas are linked to the exigencies of organizing at the local level. As de Leon's article reports, for the most part, the organizing message remains the same: "It's all about oil, it's all about money, it's all about power." As even the organizers recognize, this is not obviously a positive message. As the youth and counter-recruitment coordinator for the New York War Resisters League points out "I think young people often feel that there's not much they can do about it. There's not a sense of empowerment or that energy or ability to make change."
The antiwar position struggles to develop positive principles that rise above expressions of political cynicism, alienation and frustration. It tends actively to avoid developing a clear political argument, beyond a vague 'withdraw the troops' position, which accommodates everything from a liberal abdication of responsibility, to the rote left 'anti-imperialism', to pure cynicism, to a more principled defense of Iraqi sovereignty and self-determination.
The antiwar activists do so mainly for tactical reasons, believing that the point is not to interpret the situation but to make a difference. Real political action, of course, does not recognize a conflict between the activity of reflecting about principles on the one hand and engagement on the other. So while the shift in organizing tactics is indeed an interesting development in the antiwar movement, it is not obviously the most needed change. The antiwar position needs to be willing to take the step back and argue matters of principle, and make clearer what exactly it is fighting for, even at the potential cost of losing friends and allies. So long as protests are chained to positions like 'Addicted to Oil' and 'Not In Our Name', the fetters of cynicism and defeatism will remain the central constraints on the development of a genuinely oppositional political position
The reported organizational change is an important sign of self-reflection and experimentation by activists. However, the shift from national to local organizing addresses only one, and not even the most serious, problem with the antiwar position. It is a tactical shift, in which the only changes in the content of the message and political ideas are linked to the exigencies of organizing at the local level. As de Leon's article reports, for the most part, the organizing message remains the same: "It's all about oil, it's all about money, it's all about power." As even the organizers recognize, this is not obviously a positive message. As the youth and counter-recruitment coordinator for the New York War Resisters League points out "I think young people often feel that there's not much they can do about it. There's not a sense of empowerment or that energy or ability to make change."
The antiwar position struggles to develop positive principles that rise above expressions of political cynicism, alienation and frustration. It tends actively to avoid developing a clear political argument, beyond a vague 'withdraw the troops' position, which accommodates everything from a liberal abdication of responsibility, to the rote left 'anti-imperialism', to pure cynicism, to a more principled defense of Iraqi sovereignty and self-determination.
The antiwar activists do so mainly for tactical reasons, believing that the point is not to interpret the situation but to make a difference. Real political action, of course, does not recognize a conflict between the activity of reflecting about principles on the one hand and engagement on the other. So while the shift in organizing tactics is indeed an interesting development in the antiwar movement, it is not obviously the most needed change. The antiwar position needs to be willing to take the step back and argue matters of principle, and make clearer what exactly it is fighting for, even at the potential cost of losing friends and allies. So long as protests are chained to positions like 'Addicted to Oil' and 'Not In Our Name', the fetters of cynicism and defeatism will remain the central constraints on the development of a genuinely oppositional political position
2 Comments:
So long as protests are chained to positions like 'Addicted to Oil' and 'Not In Our Name', the fetters of cynicism and defeatism will remain the central constraints on the development of a genuinely oppositional political position
Indeed.
So what this blog now has to do is to provide some concrete ways to do exactly that.
Waiting.
Is there a unifying message for the anti-war movement?
You Americans have a problem, you can't hate and despise yourself the way the rest of the world does. You focus on the administration and various prominent figures in stead. Hating yourself would leave you no way out except for learning to love yourself despite it all. You are concentrating on specific facets - greed, torture, lies, violence, and rightly criticizing these things, but this leads you to always be running behind, trying to catch up in stead of being ahead of them "game". Also, you do not want to confront the basic problems of American society - there is much to be loved, so goes the assertion. It is impossible to perceive that the neocons are - like the Nazis - not created in a vacuum. All Americans like being "on top of the world", though you do not like the way power is being used, you do like the idea of it. You are in love with the myth of your pioneering path, and I do not know how many times I have heard the name of the United States used in connection with the "biggest" and "best". True or not, the description will make Americans nod, automatically accepting the truth of the statement. If I were to state that your constitution is at the heart of the problem, not a single American would jump at the idea except for the purpose of seriously maiming the bearer of the tiding. But my message is that you need to have a serious look at your myths. The idea of a basic goodness and bestness of your institutions including the legal system, the rightness of the US position in the world, the fundamental idea that you are all equals with the same chances - that all it takes is hard work and guts to bring you out of any of life's situations. Also, you seem to have the idea that you have freedoms without responsibilities, the idea that there is such a thing as the American people, springing new born but fully clad upon the face of the earth. You place your sovereignty above all else, as if this was some holy grail, not a sign of fear and lack of trust.
It is not to say which of these myths is the most harmful and which ones lead to constructive acts, but I feel reasonably certain that the root cause of your problems lie somewhere in these myths and truisms. Your national experiences are those of the little child that have not yet encountered the harsh realities of the world. You have not experienced a war on American soil except for the Civil War, only the southern states learned anything from that. You systematically refuse to learn anything from others as you play safely within the confines of your nuclear fenced play-pen. Americans do not compare themselves to other nations to learn what can be learned, you join no international congregation unless you make the rules and can lead it like a cowboy rides a horse. You have learned how to extort rather than co-operate.
If the people of all continents except the African call you the greatest danger to world peace, you do not get the message, thinking everyone else is somehow badly informed and do not understand your basically good intentions.
So, the question remains, how can the anti-war "movement" get a grip on this? I remain pessimistic. Playing at lies and oversimplifications the way the other side does would seem a fair tactic. The most obvious problem is the media, but the media would not have been in its present state without your class system and your educational system, the distortion of the words in the English language. You can't use words like freedom, liberal, humanist, values, life, socialist, defence, and more without releasing huge clouds of disabilitating dust. You have a established a one party state without realizing it. Like the Germans at the end World War II, you are turning against your leader for bad management, for losing it, not for breaking the principle of the rights of a sovereign state. It is to be hoped that you, like the Soviet Union, finally manage your affairs so badly that you go bust - but like a wounded animal, you may be even more dangerous during this process.
Post a Comment
<< Home