Revolutionary Nonviolence: Concepts, Cases and Controversies 9781786998255, 9781350222373, 9781786998248

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R E VO LU T I O N A RY N O N V I O L E N C E

R E VO LU T I O N A RY N O N V I O L E N C E CONCEPTS, CASES AND CONTROVERSIES Edited by Richard Jackson, Joseph Llewellyn, Griffin Manawaroa Leonard, Aidan Gnoth and Tonga Karena

Revolutionary Nonviolence: Concepts, Cases and Controversies was first published in 2020 by Zed Books Ltd, The Foundry, 17 Oval Way, London SE11 5RR, UK. www.zedbooks.net Copyright  Richard Jackson, Joseph Llewellyn, Griffin Manawaroa Leonard, Aidan Gnoth and Tonga Karena 2020 Copyright in this Collection  Zed Books 2020 The right of Richard Jackson, Joseph Llewellyn, Griffin Manawaroa Leonard, Aidan Gnoth and Tonga Karena to be identified as Editors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 Typeset in Plantin and Kievit by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon Index by Adan Suazo Cover design by Burgess and Beech Cover photo  Jez Coulsson / Panos Pictures Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of Zed Books Ltd. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-78699-825-5 hb ISBN 978-1-78699-824-8 pdf ISBN 978-1-78699-822-4 epub ISBN 978-1-78699-823-1 mobi

CONTENTS

Notes on contributors  |  vii Acknowledgements | xi

Introduction: the opportunities and challenges of revolutionary nonviolence today. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Richard Jackson, Joseph Llewellyn, Griffin Manawaroa Leonard, Aidan Gnoth and Tonga Karena

 1 A defence of revolutionary nonviolence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Richard Jackson  2 Listen, leftist! Violence is not revolutionary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Joseph Llewellyn  3 Symbolic nonviolence and the transformation of society beyond liberal capitalism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Timothy Bryar  4 Eradicating warism: our most dangerous disease. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Duane L. Cady  5 Social defence: a revolutionary agenda. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 Brian Martin  6 One No against violence, many Yeses beyond violence: Zapatista dignity, autonomy, counter-conduct. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Sean Chabot and Stellan Vinthagen  7 Nonviolence within national movements: BDS and the formal Palestinian political process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 Pippa Barnes  8 “Media jujutsu”: resistance and the media power of opponents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 Isabel McIntosh  9 Wiremu Patene and the early peace movement at Karakariki. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 Anaru Eketone 10 Reclaiming the role of Rongo: a revolutionary and radical form of nonviolent politics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200 Tonga Karena

11 Understanding Baxter’s “Dunedin lawyer”: Alfred Richard Barclay and the significance of Boer War opposition in New Zealand. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224 Tim Leadbeater Index | 245

CONTRIBUTORS

Pippa Barnes is undertaking her doctoral studies at the Department of Political Science at Umeå University, Sweden. She is researching the dynamics of the fractured leadership and legitimacy of the Palestinian national liberation movement. Her Master’s research examined the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. She worked as an associate lecturer at Massey University, New Zealand, teaching both domestic and international political courses. Timothy Bryar is an Australian and Fijian national. He holds a PhD from the University of Sydney which applied Žižek’s Bartleby politics to peace and nonviolence theory and the transformation of structural violence. Timothy Bryar is currently an Honorary Associate with the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney. Duane L. Cady earned his MA and PhD at Brown University after finishing his BA with honours in philosophy. He has been teaching at Hamline University for over 40 years and has been recognised for excellent teaching both regionally and nationally. He is author of From Warism to Pacifism: A Moral Continuum (1989; 2nd ed. 2010), Moral Vision: How Everyday Life Shapes Ethical Thinking (2005), co-author of Humanitarian Intervention: Just War vs. Pacifism (1996), and co-editor of three anthologies. He has published more than 60 articles in professional journals on the history of philosophy, ethics and nonviolence. Professor Cady was on the National Council of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) for six years and is a past President of Concerned Philosophers for Peace. Sean Chabot is Professor of Sociology at Eastern Washington University and book review editor at the Journal of Resistance Studies. His dissertation and book discuss the Gandhian repertoire’s transnational journey from the Indian independence movement to the Black liberation movement in the United States. He has also published on the gay and lesbian movement, Brazilian landless movement

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(MST), Iran’s Green Movement, the Egyptian uprising, the violence of nonviolence and revolutionary love, among other subjects related to resistance. He is currently working with Stellan Vinthagen and Carol Daniel on a project concerning decolonising resistance. Anaru Eketone is from the Ngāti Maniapoto and Waikato Iwi and is a Senior Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Otago, New Zealand. Anaru has a background in youth work, community development, social work and health promotion. While his primary research interests are in contemporary Māori economic and social development, he also has an interest on the impact of religious movements in his tribal area and their impact on Māori economic and social development. Aidan Gnoth is a Research Assistant and PhD candidate at the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, Otago University, New Zealand. With a background in national and local politics, his research interests focus on how new and emancipatory forms of knowledge can be used to inform and disrupt the policies and practices of humanitarian intervention – especially the often unquestioned assumptions around the legitimacy and validity of violence. Richard Jackson is Professor of Peace Studies and Director of the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (NCPACS), University of Otago, New Zealand. He is the founding editor and current editorin-chief of the journal, Critical Studies on Terrorism, and the author and editor of 11 books and more than 70 journal articles and book chapters. Recent books include: Critical Terrorism Studies at Ten: Contributions, Cases and Future Challenges (2019; co-edited with Harmonie Toros, Lee Jarvis and Charlotte Heath-Kelly); Contemporary Debates on Terrorism (2018, 2nd edition; co-edited with Daniela Pisiou); The Routledge Handbook of Critical Terrorism Studies (2016); Confessions of a Terrorist (2014); and Terrorism: A Critical Introduction (2011; co-authored with Marie Breen Smyth, Jeroen Gunning and Lee Jarvis). His most recent research focuses on pacifism and nonviolence in international relations. Tonga Karena is a PhD candidate at the Peace and Conflict Studies Centre in Otago University. He is an indigenous researcher

contributors |  ix experienced in the cultural field of custom and ritual, language revitalisation and performance arts. As an orator at Parihaka, the demand to promote customary knowledge within the context of indigenous resistance, nonviolent revolution and tribal selfdetermination has informed the academic position he uses as part of a critique on the role of indigenous peace traditions in the current global setting. He is engaged, and has two children and he lives on his papa kainga with his whanau at Taranaki, New Zealand. Tim Leadbeater is an independent researcher based in Dunedin, New Zealand. He blogs regularly on topics relating to New Zealand politics and history, and also works as a relief teacher at Logan Park High School. Griffin Manawaroa Leonard is from the Te Arawa iwi and completed his PhD at the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (NCPACS), University of Otago, New Zealand. He continues his relationship with the Centre as a research affiliate. Griffin’s research interests include: Māori and indigenous perspectives on peacebuilding, resistance and war commemoration; military abolition; US diplomatic history and foreign policy; the use of conciliatory and hostile discourses by political leaders. He is involved in various community and activist groups. Joseph Llewellyn completed his PhD at the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (NCPACS), University of Otago, New Zealand. His research focuses on nonviolence, pacifism, anarchism, Gandhi, Buddhist perspectives on nonviolence, and military abolition. Before conducting his PhD research, Joseph completed a Master of Arts and a PostGraduate Diploma in Peace and Conflict Studies at NCPACS. Before starting post-graduate study, he trained as an occupational therapist. He has been in various activist groups and projects since he was a teenager. Brian Martin is Emeritus Professor of Social Sciences at the University of Wollongong, Australia. He is the author of 18 books and hundreds of articles on nonviolence, whistleblowing, scientific controversies, information issues, democracy and other topics. Isabel McIntosh is a PhD student writing on media meshworks and formations of social power in nonviolent activism. She is on

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a three-year Australian Postgraduate Award (APA) at UTAS and supervised by Dr Michelle Phillipov (JMC), Professor Libby Lester (JMC) and Professor Bruce Tranter (Sociology). Her case study is the New South Wales Coal Seam Gas campaign which she uses as a pivot to relook at the logic of leadership, social power and media in activism and Australia’s environment movement. She is also researching water’s significance in conflict around the world and strategies of nonviolent activism to protect water. Stellan Vinthagen is Professor of Sociology, and the Inaugural Endowed Chair in the Study of Nonviolent Direct Action and Civil Resistance at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he directs the Resistance Studies Initiative. He is editor of the Journal of Resistance Studies, and co-leader of the Resistance Studies Group at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He has since 1980 been an educator, organiser and activist, participating in numerous nonviolent civil disobedience actions, for which he has served a total of more than one year in prison. One of his books is A Theory of Nonviolent Action: How Civil Resistance Works (2015).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The papers included in this volume were first presented at a conference entitled “Rethinking Pacifism for Revolution, Security and Politics” held at the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Otago, New Zealand, 22–24 November 2017. The conference was financially supported by the New Zealand Marsden Fund under the Marsden Fund proposal, 14-UOO075, “A New Politics of Peace? Investigations in Contemporary Pacifism and Nonviolence”. This project, and the conference, aimed at exploring what a new engagement with pacifism can offer to theories of revolution, practices of resistance, security policy and civilian protection, counterterrorism policy, political philosophy and democratic theory, state-building, peacebuilding, social justice movements and other aspects of politics. Richard Jackson is deeply grateful to the Marsden Fund, and his co-investigator in the project, Jeremy Moses from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, for the support they provided to the project. He is also deeply grateful to the conference keynote speakers, participants and paper contributors, especially the contributors to this volume, and to all the conference assistants who helped make the event a real success. Richard would especially like to thank Rosemary McBryde, Joseph Llewellyn, Griffin Manawaroa Leonard, Aidan Gnoth, Tonga Karena and Adan Suazo for their hard work and enthusiasm. Finally, he is grateful to Zed Books for their professional support and assistance with the project, and as always, to Michelle Jackson for making it all worthwhile. Joseph Llewellyn would like to thank his fellow editors, all of the contributing authors, and everyone who presented at the “Rethinking Pacifism for Revolution, Security and Politics” conference in 2017. He is also extremely grateful for all of the support that he receives from his family and friends. He would especially like to thank Nicole for all of her support and encouragement. Griffin Manawaroa Leonard would like to thank the contributing authors, his fellow editors and those who participated in the conference

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and hui from which this work stems. He would also like to thank his family and friends for their ongoing support. Tonga Karena would like to thank Professor Richard Jackson and his fellow co-editors for the wonderful scholarly discussions. He would also like to acknowledge his wife, Manawa Hepi, and his son Ahurei Tutereina Hepi-Karena who have never wavered in their support and love. Finally, to his whanau of Parihaka who continue to inspire him never to let the dream of peace become a dream only, but a lived reality for all peoples.

INTRODUCTION: THE OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES OF REVOLUTIONARY NONVIOLENCE TODAY

Richard Jackson, Joseph Llewellyn, Griffin Manawaroa Leonard, Aidan Gnoth and Tonga Karena

Introduction It is unlikely that there has ever been greater interest in nonviolent resistance and social justice activism than the present historical moment. In addition to a rapidly growing scholarly literature on the subject (see, among a great many others, Baaz, Lilja and Vinthagen 2018; Bloom 2017; Chenoweth and Stephan 2011; Dixon 2014; Eaton and Levesque 2016; Hallward and Norman 2015a; May 2015; Meckfessel 2016; Vinthagen 2015), the past two decades have witnessed a massive proliferation of educational and activist organisations promoting nonviolence around the world. In particular, there are now hundreds, if not thousands, of local and global activist groups and movements dedicated to working for nonviolent progressive social change across many different areas in virtually every country. This activity includes numerous nonviolence think tanks, associations and training centres, as well as university-based scholars, research centres and teaching programmes. These groups and organisations are coming together to form global networks linking many thousands of scholars and activists to share information and resources, engage in nonviolent training, and support and coordinate civil resistance and social-change campaigns in different countries (Eaton 2016: 4–6). As Eaton (2016: 9) puts it, this interest and activity in nonviolent resistance amounts to a “truly new moment in human history”. At the same time, and partly as a result of the sharing of ideas and information among activists, the past two decades have also witnessed a genuine surge in the number of major nonviolent movements

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for social and political change. These movements, which include the so-called Arab Spring, the Occupy movement and the Colour Revolutions in Europe, among many others, are described in both a large case study literature (see, among many others, Bartkowski 2013; Nepstad 2011; Roberts and Ash 2009; Schock 2005), and detailed information contained in the Nonviolent and Violent Campaigns and Outcomes (NAVCO) Data Project (see Chenoweth and Stephan 2011). In some cases, including the Zapatista movement discussed in Chapter 6 of this volume, liberation movements which have previously relied on armed struggle have moved towards nonviolence as their primary mode of political action. Alongside these nonviolent movements, there has been an increase and spread of uprisings and urban revolts across the world. Major disturbances and mass resistance have been seen in cities like Cincinnati in 2001, Paris in 2005, Athens in 2008, London in 2011, Stockholm and Istanbul in 2013, Ferguson in 2014, Baltimore in 2015, and Milwaukee and Charlotte in 2016 – not to mention urban revolts in Cairo, Sao Paulo, Madrid, Berlin, Tel Aviv, Hong Kong, Khartoum and elsewhere (Dikec 2017; see also Meckfessel 2016). Although such events are often depoliticised and pathologised as deviant and violent mob behaviour by political leaders and the mainstream media, it is more accurate to conceive of these uprisings as the “revolt of the excluded”, given that they are motivated by “rising inequalities, bleak economic prospects, urban transformations, authoritarian governance, discriminatory policing and political corruption” (Dikec 2017: 3). These urban revolts express accumulated grievances and employ strategies of “unruly practices and defying the order of things” to expose the patterns, dynamics and structures of exclusion and oppression that have built up over time and in many cases, become routine and normalised in their societies (Dikec 2017: 3). Importantly, many of the insurrections have subsequently evolved into grassroots, community-led movements aimed at generating long-term structural change and community improvement. This increase in the academic study of, and the real-world practice of, nonviolent resistance movements and unarmed insurrections is unsurprising in the light of current global realities. Today, there are a great many severe and often interlinked crises and challenges facing the people of the world. The most serious of these include the well-known disruptions, harms, conflicts and increased social

introduction |  3 injustices resulting from rapid human-induced climate warming, and the exclusions, bleak economic prospects and discontent caused by increasing levels of wealth inequality and neoliberal economic restructuring. To this can be added ongoing and intensifying forms of violence (direct, structural, cultural and epistemic violence), the erosion of human rights and civil liberties as a result of the war on terror and the security technologies of governments, deindustrialisation and urban transformations, authoritarian governance, political corruption and increased levels of racism, prejudice and xenophobia associated with economic and social exclusion and the rise of rightwing nationalism and populism – among many others (Dikec 2017: 3; Meckfessel 2016: 10–12). Directly as a consequence, these interlocking crises are producing social stresses and pressures which contemporary political institutions, for a variety of historical, structural and governance reasons, are proving largely unable to cope with. As Dikec (2017: 4) explains it, the urban revolts seen around the world are “a symptom of the failure of liberal democracies to address exclusion” which “the established institutions of liberal democracies cannot accommodate in non-coercive ways”. Instead, states are more frequently resorting to militarised policing, forms of disciplinary control and surveillance, and repression in response to rising social demands and urban insurrections. These violent responses to expressions of grievance, combined with the “reform deficit”, creates and reinforces a growing “crisis of legitimacy” for political institutions. Reasons for the failure of political institutions and the crisis of legitimacy can be found, in part, in the processes of neoliberal governance which have in the past few decades simultaneously incapacitated and disempowered dissent, and more broadly de-politicised the governance of society (Meckfessel 2016: 12–14). Not only have methods of political dissent like protest marches, petitions and strikes been largely rendered harmless or even co-opted to provide legitimacy to the current system, but politics itself has become largely a matter of the efficient management of people and society in the aims of neoliberal capitalism rather than genuine political contests over competing visions of the good society. The point is that, partly as a result of the Occupy movement, there is a rising global consciousness that the serious crises the world is facing require radical and revolutionary changes to capitalism and

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current ways of life, but that political institutions are really only capable of moderate reforms at best, due to their status quo interests, their de-politicisation and their links to corporate elites and neoliberal values. This means that large-scale resistance movements, such as the climate justice activism of Extinction Rebellion, for example, or urban insurrections appear necessary for re-politicising society and politics, and generating the kind of pressures on current power holders to make the radical changes required to resolve these crises. In other words, the combination of these factors – the rising interest in, and resort to nonviolent resistance by frustrated groups around the world, the pressing need for radical social change to deal with a series of interlinked crises, and the lack of responsiveness from political institutions – provides an historical moment of genuine danger and possibility (Dixon 2014: 2). The danger is that the world could descend into ever greater spirals of violent conflict, chaos and destruction as these crises intensify and governments prove unable to respond effectively, or respond with ever greater efforts at suppression and control. On the other hand, the possibility is that disciplined, strategically informed resistance movements, alive with the spirit of radicalism, will rise to meet the challenge, instigate revolutionary change and help to transform our whole way of life for the betterment of the world’s environment and people. A series of imperatives For scholars and practitioners of nonviolent resistance and social change, this critical juncture, or interregnum between possible worlds, provides a number of pressing imperatives. First, there is an analytical imperative to better understand the nature, types and varieties, origins and causes, potential, limitations and consequences of the many kinds of nonviolent resistance seen around the world today (Baaz, Lilja and Vinthagen 2018; Eaton and Levesque 2016; Hallward and Norman 2015b). As a field of research and practice, resistance studies is still in its infancy; there is still a great deal we do not know about political resistance. In particular, there is an urgent need to better understand how resistance is constituted and shaped by the power it opposes, how it responds and adapts to the type of power (sovereign, disciplinary or biopolitical) it seeks to resist, and how it can transcend the social limits of its origins and modes of action (see Bloom 2017; Meckfessel 2016). The challenge here is

introduction |  5 to understand how resistance actors can employ forms of practice and action which create new political subjectivities, exercise new forms of power and build new kinds of community, instead of reproducing and reinforcing capitalism, neoliberal states and current modes of sovereign power – as a number of chapters in this volume explore. This leads directly to the strategic imperative which involves the need for greater efforts to understand how resistance can be better organised and coordinated, and made more effective in its various aims. There is little doubt that the forms of nonviolent resistance which achieved strategic goals in some localities, and in some historical eras, are not effective in other situations or no longer effective in the current neoliberal era (Meckfessel 2016). This is especially the case in relation to the technological and legal landscape of security which has grown up in recent years around the war on terror, as well as the depoliticisation and incapacitation of dissent mentioned earlier. A crucial question here relates to the aims of nonviolent resistance: what strategies and approaches can nonviolent resistance adopt in order to generate revolutionary change rather than simply a series of limited reforms which end up reifying capitalism and the system of neoliberal states, as Chapters 3, 4 and 5 in this volume discuss? And, how can nonviolent resistance adapt to more effectively counter the new ways in which power reduces political agency in the neoliberal era? The current moment also provides an ethical imperative to find goals and ways of acting that will be against all forms of violence (structural, cultural, epistemic and direct violence), and without violence (Vinthagen 2015). Here, nonviolent movements will need to look at themselves closely and in particular, find ways to decolonise their theory and practice (Chabot and Vinthagen 2015), create radical equality, recognise intersectionality, and model new forms of servant leadership – among others. In part, this will involve seeking to find ways to include the voices and perspectives of indigenous scholars, activists and communities, as Chapters 9 and 10 in this volume do, as well as other marginalised and subjugated voices and knowledges. Lastly, the current moment presents an ecological survival imperative in which there exists a short window of opportunity to rapidly force through the kinds of radical changes to the global economic

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system and ways of life in every society that will at least have a chance of limiting the coming climate chaos. The consequences of failure in this are severe, with the potential for unprecedented suffering, conflict and mass violence. This necessitates the strategic development of disruptive, coercive forms of collective resistant power, the intentional construction of new kinds of radical communities based on ecological justice and well-being, and the courage of activists and scholars to put their ideas and ideals into action. It is in this context, and with these imperatives in mind, that we offer this collection of papers. The aim of the volume is to contribute to current discussions about how to generate progressive social change through forms of nonviolent political action aimed at revolutionary change. In this volume, we conceive of revolutionary nonviolence as forms of individual and collective political action directed at fundamentally changing social structures, political subjectivities, modes of power and ways of being for individuals and communities – as opposed to reformist nonviolence which is aimed at changing leaders or particular policies (Hallward and Norman 2015b: 8). Specifically, the volume speaks to the theory and ethics of nonviolent resistance, some of the debates and controversies within the resistance studies field, historical and current cases of revolutionary nonviolence, the strategies and tactics of nonviolent political action, the consequences and impacts of nonviolent movements, and decolonial perspectives on nonviolent political action. It seeks to offer new voices and novel perspectives on this increasingly important subject. Revolutionary nonviolence: issues and challenges In this global moment when nonviolent movements are increasingly exerting themselves and scholars are trying to understand where these nonviolent movements came from and how they work, it is not surprising that there are a number of key issues and challenges which are the subject of intense debate among both scholars and activists (see Hallward and Norman 2015c: 19–32). The chapters in this volume touch on a number of these important issues. For example, scholars and activists continue to debate what the real aims of nonviolent political action should be: should they be directed at limited or strategic goals which attempt to reform current political and economic systems, or should they aim at the

introduction |  7 revolutionary change of systems and societies? This question is increasingly debated in activist and academic circles in relation to capitalism and the neoliberal state. In Chapter 3 of this volume, for example, Timothy Bryar argues that despite decades of nonviolent resistance by activists, the neoliberal capitalist system, with all its destruction and injustices, remains unreformed and unfettered. He critiques the argument that the revolutionary transformation of capitalism is not the aim of nonviolent resistance, and suggests that we need a new kind of resistance which can and will lead to the transformation of capitalism. Similarly, in Chapter 6, Sean Chabot and Stellan Vinthagen analyse the ways in which the Zapatista movement in Mexico is seeking to go beyond opposition to neoliberal capitalism and build an alternative society rooted in radical equality, social justice, autonomy and environmentalism. In Chapters 4 and 5, Duane Cady and Brian Martin respectively discuss how nonviolence should be directed at the revolutionary transformation of states away from warism and militarism. They suggest that nonviolent political action needs to be aimed at eradicating militarism, which in turn would involve a radical restructuring and transformation of the modern state. In fact, the rejection of reformism and liberal pacifism or pragmatic nonviolence is evident in many of the chapters in the volume. The argument that it is not enough to be nonviolent but that social justice activists must aim at revolutionary change, represents a break from historical forms of nonviolent action, especially in many Western liberal state contexts where it has been institutionalised, pacified and co-opted as a tool of modern governance. Another key issue or challenge facing scholars and activists revolves around the nature of “violence” and “nonviolence”, and whether it is still useful to make a strong dichotomous distinction between the two, or whether social justice movements should refuse to cooperate with groups who refuse to adhere to strictly defined notions of nonviolence (see Meckfessel 2016). An initial issue here is whether a conceptual distinction between the two can be meaningfully maintained, especially in relation to revolutionary change. After all, a revolution involves the violent tearing down of existing social structures, epistemic structures and even economic-material structures. This is especially true for capitalism, which is a material, as well as ideological, system of oppression. Material destruction

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was a necessary part of the revolution in the case of the Berlin Wall, which was a physical structure of oppression. Added to this, it is legitimate to question whether things like rioting, the non-injurious violence against symbols of capitalism (such as smashing the store windows of McDonald’s restaurants) or militarism (such as breaking into military bases and damaging missiles) or stone throwing (as resisters in Palestine do), really counts as “violence”. Complicating the picture is that the mainstream media and the political establishment view any kind of unruly behaviour by protestors, or indeed any violent clashes, even when initiated by the police, as being an expression of “violence” and therefore illegitimate. Added to this, it has to be acknowledged that there is somewhat contradictory evidence about the relative effectiveness of “violence” by social justice movements. On the one hand, evidence gathered by Chenoweth and Stephan (2011) demonstrates that nonviolent movements that can maintain discipline and refrain from turning to armed struggle have higher rates of success – albeit in terms of largely reformist aims. On the other hand, as Meckfessel (2016) clearly shows, it is the demonstration and threat of large-scale disorder, usually produced by urban insurrections involving riots, that most often coerces authorities into making major concessions. In 2018 and 2019, it was certainly the disorder and public order threat enacted by the yellow shirts in France and the protestors in Hong Kong that resulted in major policy concessions by the government. These issues are debated in this volume. Both Chapter 3 by Bryar and Chapter 10 by Tonga Karena question whether the strict adherence to a purist notion of nonviolence is valid or helpful to our understanding of different forms of resistance, while in Chapter 7, Pippa Barnes notes that Palestinians largely reject the violence/nonviolence dichotomy, particularly for the way in which it restricts and delegitimises their broader resistance struggle in the eyes of external actors. In contrast, both Chapter 1 by Richard Jackson and Chapter 2 by Joseph Llewellyn discuss the dangers of social justice movements resorting to armed struggle. These two chapters speak mainly to the issue of organised campaigns of military violence which rely on armies, weapons supplies and mass killing, arguing that such political action has the likely consequence of reifying violent modes of sovereign power. In Chapter 6, Chabot and Vinthagen discuss how the Zapatistas have come to replace the armed struggle with

introduction |  9 a revolutionary nonviolent struggle based on dialogue, forms of nonviolent resistance and the construction of alternative modes of being and organising – although they retain the option of defensive armed resistance. In Chapter 7, Barnes similarly discusses how the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign reflects a growing turn to nonviolent resistance in the Palestinian struggle for justice. A third key issue or challenge currently animating the nonviolence resistance community is the question surrounding the so-called constructive project and prefiguration as an essential part of the struggle (Dixon 2014; Chabot and Vinthagen 2015). The argument here is that it is not enough to struggle against the current system, nor is it enough to reform the current system; rather, in addition to working against capitalism, oppression and forms of violence, social justice activists also need to work to build alternative institutions, economic systems and ways of living and organising that do not require the state, militarism or capitalism, but which are autonomous and oriented towards human dignity and emancipation. That is, there is a need to “make something other – ‘another politics’” (Dixon 2014: 5–6; Chabot and Vinthagen 2015: 525–526). Moreover, they need to use modes of struggle which enact or create – prefigure – the kind of politics and the kind of world they are seeking to build. This means using forms of radical democracy and equality in decisionmaking, horizontal forms of leadership, community-organising, new social relations and political action which embodies dignity, equality and respect for humans, among other things. In other words, and once again in contrast to historical forms of liberal pacifism and strategic nonviolence, taking the constructive project and prefiguration seriously means engaging with anarchopacifism, forms of community rooted in indigenous traditions and world-views, nonviolent social defence and other grassroots projects directed at alternative ways of being. Crucially, it means seeking ways to link local struggles for improvements in the lives of ordinary people to long-term transformative visions for society; or, linking “everyday struggles while cultivating liberatory possibilities” (Dixon 2014: 6). Dixon (2014: 8) calls this an “against-and-beyond” struggle, where “our ‘against’ is our active opposition to all forms of domination, and our ‘beyond’ is our work to build new social relations and forms of social organization through struggle”.

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Some of the issues surrounding prefiguration and the constructive project are discussed in Chapters 4 and 5 where Cady and Martin discuss how to build alternatives to the warist and militarist foundations of the modern state. In Chapter 3, Bryar argues passionately that social justice movements need to be working for the transformation of society. Similarly, in Chapter 6, Chabot and Vinthagen examine how the Zapatistas are practically building new economic, educational, welfare and cultural structures and practices that obviate the need for the liberal state and instead create new kinds of autonomous communities and revolutionary subjectivities among the people. In Chapter 10, Karena argues for the need for new (or old-indigenous) subjectivity as part of the constructive project at the nonviolent resistance-based peace community of Parihaka in New Zealand. Another critical challenge for nonviolence movements today relates to the question of decolonising resistance. A key problem here is that to date, the study and practice of resistance has been dominated by Western scholars and activists, with forms of resistance knowledge and practice rooted for the most part in enlightenment and rational-instrumentalist approaches and frameworks (Chabot and Vinthagen 2015: 517; see also, Dixon 2014: 25–27). Moreover, in the story of resistance there has been a forgetting of the long and varied histories of indigenous resistance to imperialism and colonialism, as well as an ignorance about how coloniality presently affects resistance theory and practice. In other words, resistance scholars and activists today need to acknowledge the much longer historical genealogy of resistance (Dixon 2014: 14), the centrality of the dignity of the oppressed in resistance struggles, and the need to engage respectfully with “the subjugated knowledges of marginalized communities that refuse to be governed by coloniality and experiment with decolonizing modes of being” (Chabot and Vinthagen 2015: 518–519). Radical resistance movements of the past, often located in indigenous communities, can tell us a great deal about how resistance subjectivities are constructed and passed on to following generations, as well as how to construct resilient alternative communities and ways of being. In part, one of the aims of this volume is to tell some of these subjugated decolonial stories. In Chapter 9, Eketone tells the story of his ancestor who attempted to resist the violence and conflict of

introduction |  11 colonialism, and passed down his commitment to social justice and peace to his descendants. Similarly, in Chapter 10, Karena explores the story of the nonviolent resistant community of Parihaka which both actively resisted the violent invasion of the colonial forces using nonviolent strategies, and built an alternative peace community rooted in indigenous values. Another story of anti-imperial resistance is told in Chapter 11, where Tim Leadbetter recounts how a Dunedin lawyer stood up against the broader tide of war fever on the basis of socialist and worker solidarity-based ideals. These stories have historical resonance and contemporary relevance, and can function to de-subjugate the voices and knowledge which is relevant but rarely heard in the field. Finally, the volume explores issues around specific approaches and strategies of resistance which might be more or less effective today. A particular issue, widely debated among scholars and activists, is the use of social media in social justice campaigns. In Chapter 8, Isabel McIntosh examines how social media was used as a way of empowering local people and communities in Australia to oppose and resist the interests and designs of large mining companies who were exercising undemocratic and undue influence. In the final analysis, this volume represents a modest but nonetheless significant contribution to current debates and discussions around revolutionary nonviolence. Of course, there are many other important issues, topics, controversies and challenges which this collection does not explicitly address. Important topics not examined in any detail in this volume include anti-racist feminism, intersectionality, anarchism, environmental justice and others. Similarly, we do not cover the debate over what counts as resistance (especially the question of whether actions must be intentional to count as resistance), the so-called principled versus pragmatic nonviolence debate, the coercion versus conversion debate, or the question of how to measure the success of nonviolent resistance (see Hallward and Norman 2015c; Baaz, Lilja and Vinthagen 2018). At the same time, we also have to recognise that revolutionary nonviolence is a project in motion; it is constantly evolving, growing, experimenting and consolidating (Dixon 2014: 19). Or, as Baaz, Lilja and Vinthagen (2018: 4) put it, resistance should be understood as “multidimensional, unstable and a complex social construction in dynamic relations that are related to differences of context”.

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Consequently, any study of it, including this one, will only ever be a snapshot of a moving object, capturing some obvious visible elements but missing the dynamic movement. Clearly, there is a long way to go to sufficiently widen and deepen our understanding of the theory and practice of revolutionary nonviolence today. Nevertheless, we hope that overall, this volume has made a strong case for the necessity of revolutionary nonviolence over reformist nonviolence, and for the importance of both forms of resistance to current policies and structures, and the long-term, bottom-up construction of alternatives – for putting prefigurative politics at the centre of resistance. It is not enough to oppose the different violences of the current world order; resistant communities also need to model and actively build alternative local and world orders. We also hope that this volume has made the case for decolonising and pluralising the knowledge and practice of nonviolent resistance, and making space for the voices and perspectives of those individuals and communities who come from a long historical line of resistance. The final section of this introduction provides a brief summary overview of each of the following chapters. Overview of chapters In Chapter 1, “A defence of revolutionary nonviolence”, Richard Jackson subjects a number of commonly expressed claims about pacifism and nonviolence and the liberation of oppressed people to critical analysis to determine whether collective organised violence can form the foundation for revolutionary action towards emancipation. He concludes that intentional, organised physical violence cannot be revolutionary or progressive because it is dominatory towards its victims, constitutive of social and political life, and reifies existing modalities of sovereign power. Instead, Jackson argues in defence of revolutionary nonviolence as a potentially more fruitful basis on which to build a new kind of transformative politics that exceeds the current social limits of resistance. In Chapter 2, “Listen, leftist! Violence is not revolutionary”, Joseph Llewellyn examines Murray Bookchin’s well-known essay Listen, Marxist! In this essay, Bookchin argues that Marxist methods of revolution have not been liberating. The essay is a call to leftists to develop the means for a truly liberating society that looks to the future rather than the past and which does not reinforce or

introduction |  13 recreate hierarchy. The core of Bookchin’s essay is his recognition of the inextricable relationship between means and ends, writing, “the organisation we try to build is the kind of society our revolution will create”. The argument presented in this chapter agrees with Bookchin’s critique, but takes his position on means and ends further, arguing that if leftists want a social revolution, they need to reject organised violence as a method of change. In particular, Llewellyn challenges common arguments from prominent revolutionary leftists who defend revolutionary violence by propagating three myths about violence: violence as necessary and productive; violence as intrinsically valuable; and violence as psychologically liberating. The chapter concludes that if leftist visions of social revolution are to be achieved, leftists need to listen to those pacifist voices that many have failed to take seriously for a long time. In Chapter 3, “Symbolic nonviolence and the transformation of society beyond liberal capitalism”, Timothy Bryar argues that despite decades of protest movements against the impacts of capitalism, no viable alternative beyond capitalism has yet taken hold. In fact, despite our best efforts global inequality continues to rise, the fate of workers is more precarious, and the environment sits on the brink of collapse. It would appear that Margaret Thatcher was right about there being no alternative. However, one must also question the dominant form of resistance to capitalism today which also presents itself as the only viable alternative. Bryar critiques the theoretical presuppositions of pacifist and nonviolent social movements and argues that the democratic form of resistance to capitalism is a form of symbolic violence that prevents the emergence of a politics up to the task of transforming society beyond liberal capitalism. Instead, he makes a case for embracing symbolic nonviolence as the presupposition for a pacifist and nonviolent politics able to go beyond liberal capitalism. In Chapter 4, “Eradicating warism: our most dangerous disease”, Duane Cady argues that there are three main obstacles to pacifism which are reflected in conventional wisdom: (1) warism – that is, taking war for granted as normal, natural, morally acceptable and even morally required; (2) pacifism is stereotyped as a moral extreme, an absolute easily dismissed as unrealistic, naïve idealism; and (3) pacifism is seen to be negative, that is, anti-war but nothing more. Cady sets himself the task of removing these

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obstacles to taking pacifism seriously. His emphasis is on recognising and eliminating warism, because it is a fundamental yet for the most part unnoticed condition that prejudices most people against envisioning a peaceful world now and for future generations. In Chapter 5, “Social defence: a revolutionary agenda”, Brian Martin suggests that despite the recent upsurge in the use of and interest in nonviolent action, there has been little progress in transforming existing military systems. One important option, he argues, is social defence, which is nonviolent community resistance to aggression as an alternative to military defence. He argues that introducing a social defence system would have major implications for training, workplaces, communications, infrastructure and much else. Furthermore, social defence offers an agenda for citizen empowerment that can be used to help guide campaigns in the direction of revolutionary grassroots empowerment. In Chapter 6, “One No against violence, many Yeses beyond violence: Zapatista dignity, autonomy, counter-conduct”, Sean Chabot and Stellan Vinthagen suggest that while leading nonviolent resistance scholars have interpreted nonviolence as an effective strategy for political reform within the violent world-system, in contrast, a revolutionary approach requires us to change the violent worldsystem by creating alternative ways of life. Nonviolence is not just a strategy without and against violence; it is a holistic and constructive process for making other worlds without-against-and-beyond violence possible. It involves one No against systemic violence, as well as many Yeses beyond it. Although Zapatista rebels asserted their dignity with Fire, they learned to confront and move beyond violence with Word and Autonomy as weapons. Chabot and Vinthagen go on to explore how revolutionary Zapatista women engaging in counter-conduct within the movement are on the frontlines of contemporary struggles without-against-and-beyond violence. Chabot and Vinthagen propose 11 theses to critically reflect on the state of nonviolent resistance studies, utilising practices and insights of the Zapatista movement to exemplify revolutionary nonviolence and encourage further research on struggles for autonomy and alternative ways of life. In Chapter 7, “Nonviolence within national movements: BDS and the formal Palestinian political process”, Pippa Barnes notes that the failure of the Oslo peace process, and subsequent further

introduction |  15 negotiation attempts, has seen a revival of Palestinian civil society and grassroots nonviolent resistance. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has become a central strategy and organisation to the Palestinian national liberation movement. Built entirely upon nonviolent practices, the movement relies in large part upon international networks and involvement, purposely circumventing the formal political system. It claims to seek no formal leadership or political role, while it does seek to influence the national liberation movement of Palestine. The growth of the BDS movement is forcing political tensions between different leadership groups to the surface of the Palestinian national movement. As such, Barnes refocuses nonviolence analysis on the issue of intra-liberation movement leadership dynamics, arguing that the Palestinian Authority is caught between its cooperation agreements with Israel and its inability to neither support nor denounce BDS outright. Although both are part of the same liberation movement, support for one does not mean support for the other, and there is an undeniable clash between the statist approach and the grassroots popular resistance. As a result, Barnes argues, BDS is challenging both Israeli and Palestinian political power structures. In Chapter 8, “‘Media jujutsu’: resistance and the media power of opponents”, Isabel McIntosh focuses on how social media platforms and digital technologies have revolutionised access for grassroots actors to build networks, circulate media objects and engage in public discussions with a diversity of actors. While there is no shortage of research into the grassroots protest opportunity of today’s hybrid media system to communicate dissent and mobilise, how it is used as resistance to disrupt hegemonic power and hold its narrators to account is largely unexamined. Translating the strategic civil resistance concepts of “moral jiu-jitsu” and “political jiu-jitsu”, McIntosh coins the term ‘media jujutsu’ to analyse how resistance actors in Australia’s movement against coal seam gas leveraged the media power of opponents for movement gain. Critical to this was the sustained commitment of grassroots actors to build decentralised social media networks, self-generate and frame media content and directly challenge the regime narrative. In Chapter 9, “Wiremu Patene and the early peace movement at Karakariki”, Anaru Eketone discusses an episode of nonviolent resistance to colonialism in Aotearoa New Zealand by one of

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his ancestors. Specifically, he shows how Karakariki became an influential village on the Waipā River in the immediate lead-up to, and aftermath of, the British invasion of the Waikato district in the 1860s. He explores how it became a village accepted by both sides as one that promoted peace, especially through the leadership of Wiremu Patene, an early Māori Methodist minister. Eketone describes the work of Wiremu Patene and what he and the other members of the village contributed to the work of peace through a time marked by resistance, war and land confiscations, and the lasting effect this has had on continuing decolonial struggle. In Chapter 10, “Reclaiming the role of Rongo: a revolutionary and radical form of nonviolent politics”, Tonga Karena explores the potential of Rongo, a Māori god, to be a spiritual and political force as a profound and key part of Māori customary law. He argues that the invisibility of Rongo, the traditional god of peace, is connected to the subjugation of indigenous peace traditions and is also bound to the political history of Parihaka. He asserts Rongo as a viable and relevant political ideology to replace the notion of ‘passive resistance’, and show through an analysis of Parihaka songs and general discourse on peace studies, another viewpoint on pacifism. In the final section of the chapter, Karena analyses the “Kawenata o Rongo” – the “Covenant of Rongo” or the “Deed of Reconciliation” between the crown and the Parihaka community – and explores the normative ideals written into the deed. Finally, in Chapter 11, “Understanding Baxter’s ‘Dunedin lawyer’: Alfred Richard Barclay and the significance of Boer War opposition in New Zealand”, Tim Leadbeater examines the antiimperialist and radical anti-capitalist legacy of a little-known figure in New Zealand’s political history. Archibald Baxter’s famous memoir, We Will Not Cease, contains numerous references to socialist ideas and class politics. In this chapter, Leadbetter traces his socialist outlook back to a speech given in 1902 to the workers of the Hillside Railway Workshops in Dunedin by Liberal minister, Alfred Richard Barclay. Using newspaper reports from the Boer War period, Barclay’s radical anti-capitalist objections are described and located within the context of New Zealand opposition to the Boer War. Baxter’s pacifism thus emerges as a distinctively political stance, with historical resonances which have contemporary relevance.

introduction |  17 References Baaz, M., Lilja, M., and Vinthagen, S., 2018. Researching Resistance and Social Change: A Critical Approach to Theory and Practice, London: Rowman & Littlefield. Bartkowski, M., ed., 2013. Recovering Nonviolent History: Civil Resistance in Liberation Struggles, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Bloom, P., 2017. Beyond Power and Resistance: Politics at the Radical Limits, London: Rowman & Littlefield. Chabot, S., and Vinthagen, S., 2015. “Decolonizing Civil Resistance”, Mobilization: An International Quarterly, 20(4); 517–532. Chenoweth, E., and Stephan, M., 2011. Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict, New York: Columbia University Press. Dikec, M., 2017. Urban Rage: The Revolt of the Excluded, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Dixon, C., 2014. Another Politics: Talking across Today’s Transformative Movements, Oakland, CA: University of California Press. Eaton, H., 2016. “Introduction: Current Trends and New Perspectives on Nonviolent Theories”, in Eaton, H., and Levesque, L., eds., Advancing Nonviolence and Social Transformation: New Perspectives on Nonviolent Theories, Sheffield, UK: Equinox, pp. 1–15. Eaton, H., and Levesque, L., eds., 2016. Advancing Nonviolence and Social Transformation: New Perspectives on Nonviolent Theories, Sheffield, UK: Equinox.

Hallward, M., and Norman, J., eds., 2015a. Understanding Nonviolence: Contours and Contexts, Cambridge, UK: Polity. Hallward, M., and Norman, J., 2015b. “Introduction”, in Hallward, M., and Norman, J., eds., Understanding Nonviolence: Contours and Contexts, Cambridge, UK: Polity, pp. 3–13. Hallward, M., and Norman, J., 2015c. “Understanding Nonviolence”, in Hallward, M., and Norman, J., eds., Understanding Nonviolence: Contours and Contexts, Cambridge, UK: Polity, pp. 14–38. May, T., 2015. Nonviolent Resistance: A Philosophical Introduction, Cambridge, UK: Polity. Meckfessel, S., 2016. Nonviolence Ain’t What It Used to Be: Unarmed Insurrection and the Rhetoric of Resistance, Chico, CA: AK Press. Nepstad, S., 2011. Nonviolent Revolutions: Civil Resistance in the Late 20th Century, New York: Oxford University Press. Roberts, A., and Ash, T., eds., 2009. Civil Resistance and Power Politics: The Experience of Non-Violent Action from Gandhi to the Present. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schock, K., 2005. Unarmed Insurrections: People Power Movements in Nondemocracies, Minneapolis, MN: University Of Minnesota Press. Vinthagen, S., 2015. A Theory of Nonviolent Action: How Civil Resistance Works, London: Zed Books.

1

| A DEFENCE OF REVOLUTIONARY NONVIOLENCE

Richard Jackson

This chapter subjects a number of commonly expressed claims about pacifism and nonviolence and the liberation of oppressed people to critical analysis to determine whether collective organised violence can form the foundation for revolutionary action towards emancipation. It concludes that intentional, organised physical violence cannot be revolutionary or progressive because it is dominatory, constitutive and reifies existing modalities of sovereign power. Instead, the chapter argues in defence of revolutionary nonviolence as a potentially more fruitful basis on which to build a new kind of transformative politics that exceeds the current social limits of resistance. Keywords: Revolutionary Nonviolence; Pacifism; Fanon; Violence; Agency

Introduction The primary aim of this chapter is to subject a series of commonly expressed claims about pacifism and nonviolence and the liberation of oppressed people to a critical analysis in order to assess whether such claims are sufficiently compelling to form the normative and strategic basis for a politics of revolution. Specifically, I examine the related claims that: (1) in a context of overwhelming repressive violence, organised violent resistance is the only realistic alternative for the defence and the liberation of oppressed people; (2) that in oppressive situations armed revolutionary violence is not only legitimate, but normative because it empowers the oppressed, reinvigorates their agency and liberates their subjectivity; (3) that pacifism and calls for nonviolent political action deny the rights of the oppressed to resist oppression and thus function as part of the apparatus of domination; and consequently (4) that organised violent resistance is a necessary tool or process for social transformation and revolution. These claims can be found in a variety of forms, including certain sections of the postcolonialism literature, and the anarchism and Marxism-inspired literatures, among others.

a defence of revolutionary nonviolence |  19 It is important to note from the outset that I use the term “violence” in this chapter to mean collectively organised physical violence that aims at the killing and injuring of groups of other human beings. Collectively organised violence requires the maintenance of systems for arms production and acquisition, military training and fighting strategy, processes for material and ideological support, and hierarchical forms of leadership. In other words, it refers to the decision to organise and launch an armed insurgency or war as a means of taking power, intimidating an opponent or protecting a group or territory. It does not refer to campaigns of property damage and sabotage (unless they are specifically intended to lead to major loss of life), nor to spontaneous, unorganised outbursts of violence such as riots and disorder. It also does not refer to other forms of violence, such as structural violence, cultural violence, psychological violence or epistemic violence. After all, it would seem obvious that a kind of epistemic violence or rebellion against the ideological and cultural structures of subjugation, and the violation of oppressive laws, norms and ways of thinking and being by the oppressed are essential to resistance, revolution and the empowerment of the oppressed (Meckfessel 2016). However, the arguments deployed against pacifism and nonviolence typically tend to elide distinctions between different forms of violence, and imply or openly advocate for the use of collectively organised physical violence. In fact, the argument of this chapter could be reconciled with the arguments in favour of revolutionary violence if the term “violence” was restricted to the notion of epistemic or subjective agential violence against the ruling order (or perhaps to “coercion”) and excluded organised physical violence that results in the deliberate killings of human beings. After all, revolutionary nonviolence also aims to (violently or coercively or forcefully) tear down the material and ideological structures of violent oppression and build a new politics of positive peace. Meckfessel (2016) refers to this as “unarmed insurrection”. A key point of distinction here is that while the epistemically violent tearing down of systems of oppression is a form of reversible political action liable to experimentation and change of course (the search for truth, in Gandhian terms), the tearing apart of human bodies through organised armed violence is irreversible. This makes it a completely different kind of violence (and form of political action) which enacts a different kind of power and produces different kinds of political effects.

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Overall, in exploring the claims made against pacifism and non­ violence, I find that they are problematic on the basis of both political and social theory, as well as empirical research on violence and nonviolence, and that they therefore provide a poor foundation for approaching revolutionary political action. Instead, I argue that revolutionising both the means and ends of liberation through the theory and practice of revolutionary nonviolence – as opposed to liberal forms of pacifism or pragmatic nonviolence (see Chabot and Sharifi 2013; Meckfessel 2016) – has potential for constituting a new kind of politics which does not simply reproduce forms of dominatory sovereign power and its associated direct, structural and cultural violence. A final caveat is that this chapter attempts to contribute to current debates on the diversity of tactics in revolutionary action and the constitution of new kinds of politics which transcend the historic “power and resistance” cycle in which violent revolution produces a new form of elite domination requiring a new revolution (see Bloom 2017). The chapter certainly does not aim to provide a panacea or blueprint for revolution in every context or specific case; there can be no single infallible approach to overcoming oppression. Moreover, recognising the dangers of the white saviour complex and white privilege, it is not the intention of this chapter to pass judgement on historic cases where oppressed people have employed armed struggle against violent oppression, or to promote “respectability politics” by condemning activists who choose to use tactics which are forceful and disruptive (Meckfessel 2016). Rather, its modest aims are to try to ground ongoing discussions about revolutionary political action and the construction of radically progressive politics on a more realistic foundation, one which recognises the inadequacies of both liberal pacifism and the leftist call to violence. Violence and realism The first claim to consider is that in a context of overwhelming and totalising repressive violence, such as situations of colonial oppression, military occupation or institutionalised racism, organised violent resistance is the only realistic alternative for the liberation of oppressed people (see Brie 2008). The notion that in some circumstances organised violence is the only available response, or the

a defence of revolutionary nonviolence |  21 only response which has a realistic chance of success, is so widely accepted as to be little more than commonsense. However, such a viewpoint is based on a common misunderstanding of the relationship between violence, power and coercion, and alternatively, the nature of nonviolent action and what it is capable of in this regard. The implicit assumption here is that in some circumstances, only the use of widespread collective violence can deter and coerce violent actors to make them halt their violent actions. A first critical observation to make is that such a viewpoint is overly deterministic and reductionist in relation to human motivations, agency and subjectivity. People, groups and societies act out of a variety of complex motivations within shifting contexts, and they always retain the necessary agency to stop their actions, change course and act differently. Reducing the strategic choice of oppressed people to a simple binary between organised violent resistance or passive submission is a gross simplification of both the possibilities for action of the oppressed, and the potential for changing the mind of the oppressor. It functions to reduce both actors to moral caricatures locked into a kind of pre-ordained morality play. As I have discussed elsewhere (see Jackson 2017a), from a theoretical perspective we can argue that the proponents of revolutionary violence (or the proponents of other forms of normatively oriented violence such as humanitarian intervention or national defence) misunderstand the relationship between violence, force and power. In particular, they misunderstand the relationship between brute force and coercion (see Holmes 2013: 185; May 2015: 49–52), failing to note how the effectiveness of violence to deter or compel depends entirely on how people respond to the violence, not the violence itself. Theoretically, the capacity to destroy bears no direct relation to the ability to coerce (Wallace 2016). Violent acts or threats can produce submission and deterrence or resistance and retaliation, despair or rage, action or inaction – as the proponents of violent revolution themselves accept when they assume that the oppressed can choose to resist the oppressive violence they are facing rather than simply submit to it. The point is that the desired response to violence can never be assured. This explains why advocates of organised violence so frequently mistake the reliability of violence as a political tool, even when it is employed for a normative good such as liberation from oppression (see Howes 2013: 436).

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Related to this, power theorists know that there is no simple or linear relationship between violence and power. Arendt (1970: 56) for example, argued that “power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent … Violence can destroy power; it is utterly incapable of creating it”. Following Arendt, Vinthagen similarly explains how power and violence are analytically distinct, given that violence is a form of unilateral action, whereas power is by definition relational and operates through the approval of the subordinate. He suggests that as a consequence, “the most extreme result of violence – the killing of a human being – is something that ensures that there will never again be subordination within that relationship. Killing results in an absolute absence of power. In fact, violence is a … failure of power” (Vinthagen 2015: 193–194). This suggests that the notion that taking up arms is a means of empowering the oppressed subaltern is theoretically flawed; it misidentifies taking up arms with the empowerment that comes from an act of insurrectionary disobedience. In fact, it is clear that there is no a priori theoretical reason for thinking that violent actors cannot be deterred or convinced to change their behaviour using other, nonviolent means. It is perfectly possible to resist, exert power against, and coerce other actors without the threat or employment of physical violence. Strikes, boycotts and other disruptions to economic profitability, to give one example, can sometimes be enough. In other cases, shame, appeals to common values, and reputational damage can exert power to change behaviour, as can the promise of rewards. As Deming (1984: 175–176) explains it, “To resort to power one need not be violent”, and “It should be acknowledged both by those who argue against nonviolence and those who argue for it that we, too, rely on force”. She goes on to suggest that it is possible to use physical force to obstruct and frustrate the will of those who would kill, but in ways that do not violate their persons in fundamental ways (1984: 176–177; see also May 2015). In short, there is no theoretical or logical reason to think that organised violence is necessarily the only resistant response to violence or oppressive situations, or importantly, that violence and coercion are identical. Coercion and force are often a necessary part of resisting oppression or engendering revolutionary change, but we cannot say that organised physical violence is necessary. From the perspective of empirical research, the argument that violence represents the only realistic option ignores the wide variety

a defence of revolutionary nonviolence |  23 of documented historical experiences where nonviolent actions were able to prevent, deter or end violence by oppressive actors. At the very least, the burgeoning literature on forms of “everyday resistance” or “hidden resistance” (see for example, Lija et  al. 2017; Darweish and Sellick 2017; Hahirwa, Orjuela and Vinthagen 2017), as first proposed by James Scott (1987), demonstrates that even in the most violently repressive contexts, humans always retain the possibility of resistance, dignity and agency. As Foucault (1990: 95) famously put it, “where there is power, there is resistance”. The point here is that there is no essential reason why resistant action must be physically violent towards humans; there are infinite possibilities for the expression of resistant agency in any social situation, including violently oppressive ones. The growing literature on nonwarring communities (see Kaplan 2017; Anderson and Wallace 2013) further illustrates the many creative ways that communities have found to protect themselves from predation and violent oppression in conditions of state terror and civil wars – without the need for organised resistant violence. There is even evidence for successful community-based nonviolent resistance to ISIS in Syria and Iraq (see Stephan 2015). The stories in this literature gesture towards the inherent and wide-ranging possibilities of nonviolent political action, and the opportunities for agency and resistance which inhere to every social situation, regardless of the degree of oppression or violence. Moreover, we can add to these observations the growing body of empirical evidence which collectively demonstrates that nonviolent resistance movements are much more successful than violent resistance movements in achieving their aims, including when they face a highly ruthless opponent, and even when their aims include maximalist demands such as regime change or secession (see, among many others, Schock 2013; Celestino and Gleditsch 2013; Chenoweth and Stephan 2011). In fact, Howes (2013: 433, 438) argues more broadly that there is “gathering evidence for the ineffectiveness of violence in a variety of empirical literatures”, and he concludes that “[t]he weight of extensive empirical evidence demonstrates that the practitioners of violence are more often the tragic idealists than are pacifists”. In other words, the belief in the efficacy of organised violence over nonviolence is not supported by the empirical evidence we currently have.

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Related to this, there is also evidence that nonviolent movements result in fewer civilian casualties than resistance movements who use violence ostensibly to protect civilians from state violence (see Wallace 2017; see also Deming 1984: 178–180). The empirical evidence that nonviolent strategic action by rebels provides greater civilian protection than violent action by rebels has not been adequately addressed in the leftist and postcolonial literatures on revolution, and consequently raises doubts about its efficacy. Lastly, there is an important argument to be made about strategic action in a situation of extreme asymmetry, such as in a confrontation between the state and a popular resistance movement. In such circumstances, apart from the mounting evidence that violence rarely works to achieve its goals and works less effectively than nonviolence (Chenoweth and Stephen 2011; Howes 2013), the employment of violence plays into the hands of the actor with the greatest capacity for violence – usually the oppressive state – which explains in part why violent resistance movements often fail, and why they tend to result in greater civilian casualties than nonviolent movements. The use of violence under such conditions also has the potential to backfire in terms of alienating potential allies, harming those already oppressed and confusing political messaging, among others. Moreover, as Clausewitz and many other war theorists have amply demonstrated, once violent action begins it is much harder to control than nonviolent action (Deming 1984: 169). In short, the current state of research on violent and nonviolent movements suggests that in situations where a resistance movement is facing violent provocation from the authorities, it is strategically important to maintain nonviolent discipline rather than respond with counter-violence. I would also add here that the strategic shortcomings of collective violence raise a troubling ethical question for external supporters: should the ethical dangers of the white saviour complex override the danger of supporting a liberation movement’s use of violence in the knowledge that such a strategy will likely result in failure and the deaths of greater civilian casualties than if the movement had remained nonviolent? Violence, agency, liberation However, the argument for revolutionary violence goes beyond necessity and purported realism in situations of oppression. In many

a defence of revolutionary nonviolence |  25 Marxist-inspired and postcolonial accounts, violence takes on a normative role: it is the primary means by which the oppressed restore their agency and dignity, and is argued to be “indispensable in the decolonization of the self from the psychological hegemony of the colonizer” (Srivastava 2010: 304; see also Frazer and Hutchings 2007). It is assumed to be a liberating force, in other words. For example, in its most famous articulation, Fanon (1963: 86, 94) argues that “The colonized man finds his freedom in and through violence”, and “violence is a cleansing force. It frees the native from his despair and inaction; it makes him fearless and restores his selfrespect”. Jean Amery, among many others, re-affirms the normative properties of what is labelled “revolutionary violence”, highlighting its re-humanising force: Revolutionary violence is the affirmation of the self-realizing human being against the negation, the denial of the human being … Repressive violence blocks the way to the selfrealization of the human being; revolutionary violence breaks through that barrier, refers and leads to the more than temporal, the historical humane future. (Amery 2005: 16; cited in Srivastava 2010: 308) The problem with this normative conception of organised physical violence is first and foremost that it is essentially idealistic and naïve, primarily because it fails to acknowledge or accommodate the lived nature and effects of physical violence as an embodied, material experience (see Scarry 1988). At the very least, it ignores the vast accumulation of empirical evidence about the traumatic and dehumanising effects of physical violence on the individual and societies which experience it. There is, for example, no acknowledgement in this argument that both victims and perpetrators of violence frequently experience a range of psychological injuries and disorders as a consequence, including elevated suicide rates, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and what has become known as “moral injury” (see, among many others, MacLeish 2013; Grossman 2009; Maguen et al. 2009; Hoge et al. 2004; Prigerson, Maciejewski and Rosenheck 2002). In addition, organised violence is deeply entwined with forms of toxic masculinity and dehumanisation, and it is not entirely clear that violence as an organised activity can be effectively done without

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such toxic masculinity and dehumanisation. Interestingly, in tension with the normative assertions Fanon made regarding the liberating force of violence, the final chapter of The Wretched of the Earth on “Colonial War and Mental Disorders” (1963: 249–310) vividly captures Fanon’s “recognition of the traumatic and pathologizing effects violence had on Algeria society”, and the fact that “Violence, in the end, and contrary to Sartre, is fundamentally inglorious” (O’Halloran 2015: 369). Such an observation makes perfect theoretical sense given that physical violence is an embodied, degrading, traumatic, worldshattering practice which is incomprehensible and devoid of meaning in its brute material experience (see Scarry 1985, 1988; Brie 2008; Wallace 2016). Physical violence typically renders its victims and audiences mute, and it has no inherent meaning in itself beyond horror and physical domination, until it is made socially meaningful by its perpetrators and its audiences. Physical violence requires narration and discursive reconstruction to legitimise, obscure or aestheticise its sheer brutality and reinscribe it as redemptive, justifiable, legitimate or emancipatory – as “revolutionary violence”, for example, as opposed to simply “violence”. As Brie (2008: 252; emphasis added) puts it, “counter-force [revolutionary violence] is initially no more than the other side of rule. To this extent, it is not different, it is only against. Often it imitates in the rawest form the means of domination, and sometimes even makes these more brutal”. In addition, as argued above, physical violence and power are analytically distinct; killing is a failure of power and it results in the absence of power from the relationship. From this perspective, the argument that violence can function as a means of empowerment is questionable. The point here is not that Fanon is completely wrong; as embodied, purposeful social action, violence can restore the agency of the oppressed, and it may provide a short-term cathartic effect in the liberating moment following a violent revolution, or in the spontaneous eruption of violence in a riot situation. Rather, the failure of Fanon is to assume that organised physical violence is necessary for restoring agency and pride, and to dismiss the dehumanising and psychologically damaging effects of violence on its perpetrators. At the very least, it ignores the way in which the practice of physical violence is restricted to the able-bodied and the young. Fanon’s position would suggest that the elderly, the infirm, the disabled, the

a defence of revolutionary nonviolence |  27 imprisoned and the very young are excluded from experiencing real freedom because they are unable to fight and kill. As I will attempt to demonstrate below, it is also a failure to acknowledge the constitutive nature of violence, and the way in which its use as a political tool, while producing a moment of rupture, nevertheless immediately re-constitutes violent physical domination as the primary mode of power; it reifies the existing order based on sovereign power. The point is that Fanon fails to see that “the rehumanization of the colonized self” (Srivastava 2010: 303) occurs in the moment of disobedience, refusal and resistance, not solely or necessarily in the moment of physical violence against another human body; it is “the courage to act against the colonizer … which ensures a form of re-humanization” (2010: 305), not necessarily the courage to act violently. Alternatively, we might reconcile Fanon and Gandhi, among others, by arguing that it is the “violence” of disobedience and refusal – the tearing apart of oppressive epistemic, normative, cultural and psychological structures – which restores agency (see Meckfessel 2016; O’Halloran 2015; Srivastava 2010; Deming 1984). It is in the act of violating the political-judicial order, of throwing off the regime’s epistemic chains, of overturning the existing modalities of power (which is based on dominating others through physical violence), and of tearing oneself away from revenge and anger and other socially prescribed affective reactions, that the oppressed subject finds liberation and the opportunity to re-build their shattered subjectivity. In the end, as Srivastava (2010: 318) puts it, “how to distinguish between ‘purifying’ violence, an end in itself and limited in time and execution, and the perpetuation of colonial violence in its postcolonial reincarnations remains an open and troubling question” (see also Trivedi 2011). I would suggest that such a prior distinction between types of violence – the notion that there is an oppressive kind of violence which produces negative effects on the human, and another, separate kind of normative, revolutionary violence which produces positive effects on the human – is empirically and theoretically untenable. In fact, Srivastava’s question itself represents an idealistic yearning rather than a realistic confrontation with the true nature of physical violence which must be confronted in any theory of revolution.

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Pacifism as oppression However, advocates of revolutionary violence go further than arguing that organised physical violence is necessary and normative in the struggle against oppression; they also argue that pacifism and calls for nonviolence deny the rights of the oppressed to resist oppression and thus function as part of the apparatus of domination. In part, this criticism grew out of the circumstances of the anti-colonial and civil rights struggles of the 1960s and 1970s when it was observed that many privileged liberals appeared to be opposed to revolutionary violence, and seemed to advocate forms of “passive resistance” that were reformist in nature and would not destabilise the existing social system (see Trivedi 2011; Deming 1984). To the extent that political movements do advocate forms of nonviolent protest and acquiescence to the state’s authority which are not effective in bringing about radical change, and which leave oppressive structures largely in place (what we might call “liberal pacifism”), it is legitimate to claim that they function as part of the apparatus of oppression – particularly if they suppress and divert other more radical groups and movements from confrontational action (Meckfessel 2016; Chabot and Sharifi 2013; see also Deming 1984). However, most pacifists would not recognise this as their primary orientation, given that pacifism (or what I am calling revolutionary nonviolence in this chapter) “does not mean meek submission … it means pitting one’s whole soul against the will of the tyrant” (Gandhi cited in Cady 2010: 25). The point is, as Cady (2010: 103; emphasis added) puts it, “pacifists do not claim that it is wrong to resist violence. On the contrary, they claim that violence should be resisted. They just believe that there are strong moral grounds for preferring to do so nonviolently”. Dellinger (1970: 371) makes a similar point: “Commitment to nonviolence must not be based on patient acquiescence in intolerable conditions. Rather, it stems from a deeper knowledge of the self-defeating, self-corrupting effect of lapses into violence”. In part, this is a way of saying that “the question of the expediency of violence is not at all identical with the question of its legitimacy” (Brie 2008: 245; original emphasis). In other words, pacifists or the advocates of revolutionary nonviolence do not deny the right of the oppressed to resist; in fact, they strongly assert the moral reasons to resist tyrants and oppressors

a defence of revolutionary nonviolence |  29 and to struggle for social and personal emancipation. Rather, what they contest is the necessity and expediency of employing organised physical violence in this struggle – particularly given the nature, effects and failures of violence as described above. Famously, Gandhi argued that courageous violence was preferable over passive submission to tyranny, even though he believed that nonviolence was more ethical and effective and would in the long-run bring about the liberation of society and the self: If the choice is set between cowardice and violence I would advise violence. I praise and extol the serene courage of dying without killing. Yet I desire that those who have not this courage should rather cultivate the art of killing and being killed than basely to avoid the danger … I would a thousand times prefer violence than the emasculation of a whole race. (Gandhi cited in Srivastava 2010: 317; Chabot and Sharifi 2013: 7; see also Dellinger 1970: 369) From another perspective, it must be acknowledged, following Foucault and others like Bloom (2017), that the type of resistance that emerges in a particular context is constituted or produced by the type of power it is resisting. In other words, a violently oppressive power which brutalises individuals and communities, and which trades in the currency of exemplary violence can expect to produce equally violent expressions of resistance. Such an outcome could also be viewed as part of the mimetic nature of violence itself, as described by Clausewitz. In any case, there are plenty of historical examples in which violently ruthless revolutionary organisations emerged to confront violently ruthless oppressors. Nevertheless, while such a response from the oppressed may be justified in legal or normative terms, and may be expected as a consequence of the situation, this does not necessarily mean that organised physical violence is either ethical or prudent. In the end, pacifism – particularly in its revolutionary nonviolence form – is neither inherently passive nor does it reject the right of the oppressed to resist. Instead, it simply questions whether violence is the most ethical, effective or revolutionary means by which to resist. As Deming (1984: 168–169) formulates it, and notwithstanding the

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important acknowledgement of privilege by those who are not facing a situation of oppression, if the individuals who can find the courage to bring about change see no way in which it can be done without employing violence on their part – a very much lesser violence, they feel, than the violence to which they will put an end – I do not feel that I can judge them. The judgements I make are not judgements upon men but upon the means open to us – upon the promise these means of action hold or withhold. The living question is: What are the best means for changing our lives – for really changing them? In other words, the more important question than whether the oppressed have the right to resist violently is the question of what are the best means for achieving emancipation? Here, following Arendt (1970: 52), revolutionary nonviolence suggests that “violence will be justifiable, but it will never be legitimate”, in large part because, as has been argued, it destroys power, negates politics, reinforces domination as a mode of political action, harms both perpetrators and victims, is strategically ineffective, is irrelevant to agency and liberation, and so on. Instead, revolutionary nonviolence or unarmed insurrection suggests that radical and forceful nonviolent political action offers a “third way” between conflict avoidance or passivity and violent resistance (Brie 2008: 255; Meckfessel 2016). Moreover, the fact that Gandhi’s nonviolence did what the Marxists in India did not remotely come close to doing (Trivedi 2011: 527), and that dozens of nonviolent movements in the past few decades have overthrown and transformed numerous oppressive systems (see Chenoweth and Stephan 2011; Celestino and Gleditsch 2013), demonstrates that revolutionary nonviolence is much more a force for social transformation than it is a part of the apparatus of oppression. In fact, as argued below, given that the use of violence is a form of dominatory social action and that it functions to reify prevailing modalities and structures of (sovereign) power, it can be argued that it is actually the use of violence which ultimately functions to uphold the apparatus of oppression in society. Nonetheless, as a strategic orientation towards revolutionary change, it must also be acknowledged that revolutionary nonviolence as a

a defence of revolutionary nonviolence |  31 form of theory and strategic action is still in its infancy; it is still “in the process of invention”, given that compared to the use of violence “we have hardly begun to try it” (Deming 1984: 171–172). This means that when advocates of revolutionary nonviolence argue that nonviolence is the most ethical and effective strategy and should be the default strategy in situations of oppression, they have a responsibility to offer concrete alternative methods of resistance. They cannot simply condemn the use of resistant violence on moral grounds and then do nothing. As Dellinger expresses it: Those who are convinced that nonviolence can be used in all conflict situations have a responsibility to devise concrete methods by which it can be made effective. For example, can we urge the Negroes of Harlem or the obreros and campesinos (workers and peasants) of Latin America to refrain from violence if we offer them no positive method of breaking out of the slums, poverty, and cultural privation that blight their lives and condemn their children to a similar fate? It is contrary to the best tradition of nonviolence to do so. (Dellinger 1970: 369; original emphasis) Importantly, as already noted, there are growing literatures today which document numerous strategies and practices of nonviolent resistance, nonviolent defence and nonviolent intervention that have been effectively employed in struggles around the world and throughout history. Violence, pacifism and revolution The final argument to be examined is that organised violent resistance is a necessary tool or process for social transformation and revolution – that major social and political transformation away from oppression and towards emancipation is impossible without organised violence which needed to dismantle the oppressive order and build a new one (see Frazer and Hutchings 2007). Or, as Marx expressed it: “violence is the midwife of history”. In part, this argument is related to the notion that violence is necessary for the oppressed to free their agency and decolonise their subjectivity – that it is a kind of cleansing force, politically and psychologically. However, the advocates of revolutionary nonviolence would question

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this assertion on at least two grounds: first, the inextricable link between the means and ends of social action, and the consequential constitutive nature of political violence; and second, the inherent nature of political violence itself, which is a dominatory kind of social action and thus the antithesis of politics in its ideal form, which is inherently dialogic and cooperative. Together, these factors – the means and ends connection, the constitutive nature of violent action, and the anti-political nature of violence – all make it difficult to see how violence could be considered a force for emancipatory revolutionary transformation.

The means–ends connection and the constitutive nature of violence As I (and many others) have argued (see Jackson 2016), it is in reality impossible to separate the means and ends of social action, including violent political action. Moreover, to attempt to do so – to insist that the means by which revolution is achieved is irrelevant to the ends to which revolutionary power is put, for example – is to mistake a necessary heuristic practice with the nature of reality. That is, while we have to separate actions and outcomes in a sequential order bounded by a purported beginning and ending in order to make sense of them, this does not mean that they are ontologically distinct in reality. In human activity, as in nature, events occur in a continuous stream and every end becomes the means or cause for what follows. As Dewey puts it, “nothing happens which is final in the sense that it is not part of any ongoing stream of events”, and therefore, “ends are, in fact, literally endless, forever coming into existence as new activities occasion new consequences” (Dewey 1922: 212; cited in Lindahl 2017). What this means is that the outcomes of all political actions are already prefigured in, or an extension of, the means employed to achieve them, and “[h]owever hard we try to separate means and ends, the results we achieve are extensions of the policies we live”, and most importantly, ontologically speaking, “Means and ends are aspects of one and the same event’ (Cady 2010: 56). Or, as Gandhi famously put it, arguing that the means of revolution can be viewed as separate to the ends of revolution is like saying “that we can get a rose through planting a noxious weed … The means may be likened to the seed, the end to a tree; and there is just the same inviolable connexion between the means and the ends as there is between the

a defence of revolutionary nonviolence |  33 seed and the tree … we reap exactly what we sow” (Gandhi, cited in Lindahl 2017: 529). Such a teleological perspective on reaping what is sown also confirms Arendt’s observation that “[t]he practice of violence, like all action, changes the world, but the most probable change is to a more violent world” (Arendt 1970: 80). From this perspective, it is implausible that a new, peaceful society can be built by violent revolutionary action. In addition, we can examine violence from another perspective as an embodied, repetitive kind of collective social action. In other words, looking at violence through structuration theory or constitutive theory draws our attention to the ways in which violence is constitutive of social structures, actors, identities, practices and society at large. At the simplest level, we can note that organised violence cannot occur without the prior construction of what some have referred to as a socially and historically embedded “war system” which provides institutional arrangements for the scientific development of weapons and military strategies, a political-economic system for the production and disbursement of weapons and war materials, a logistical system for the training and material support of military personnel, a medical care system for the physical and psychological well-being of the troops, a system of doctrines, laws and norms governing the use of deadly violence, a violence-supporting culture, the memorialisation of the war dead, and accepted public narratives which define identities of friend and enemy, worthy and unworthy victims, threats and dangers, and so on. The construction of such material systems and social practices with their inherent values, norms and expectations, as well as the repetition of organised violence over time, functions to create war and violence as a sedimented, self-perpetuating social structure. That is, the repetitive practices of political violence reproduce, materialise and reconstruct political violence as a social-material structure; consequently, they help to constitute a society in which political violence against human bodies has become an accepted and normalised mode of practice and way of being. From this perspective, it is once again difficult to see how the material and social practice of organised revolutionary violence could constitute its opposite – a non-militarised, nonviolent, peaceful revolutionary society. In fact, extending Fanon’s observation, just as oppressive violence constitutes the colonial subject, so too does revolutionary

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violence constitute the revolutionary subject. This is probably why there are no historical examples of a revolutionary state dismantling its own capacity for organised violence. However, this critical analysis can be extended even further. Bloom (2017: 5–6), for example, makes the important point, following Foucault, that there is a “mutually constituting relationship between power and resistance” in which “power and resistance mutually produce each other and ourselves as social subjects”. Importantly, he suggests that “power is constructed in and from its relationship to the resistance that seeks to transform it”. We might argue, in other words, that violent power produces violent resistance, which in turn (re)produces violent power. Certainly, it is difficult to see how violent resistance could mutually constitute a different kind of (peaceful) power to that which it seeks to resist. Bloom (2017: 8) goes on to argue that “Importantly, discursive hegemony has a strong affective component. A dominant discourse psychologically ‘grips’ subjects according to its constructed desires”. Without being reductive or deterministic, we have to take into account how the hegemonic discourse of power and violent resistance Bloom describes affects the revolutionary subject. It may help to explain how the desire for revolutionary counter-violence of the kind advocated by Fanon is produced in the oppressed subject and those who desire to assist them, because power produces specific types of resistance and specific types of resistance subjects. Expressed differently, the practice of violent resistance both injures the perpetrator psychologically and morally, and interpellates them into a culture of violent domination. The important point here is to recognise that the kind of resistance we undertake is both produced and productive and constitutive: violent power most often produces and constitutes violent resistance and violent subjects. Critically, in a second step, the kind of resistance we undertake “sets the scope and limits of its politics and possibilities” (2017: 11). In this case, one of the key limits constructed by the use of revolutionary counter-violence is the “primary association of power with notions of sovereignty” and the “unquestioned assumption of power as primarily sovereign power – as the ability to dominate society and people ideologically and institutionally” (2017: 23). The consequence of this is the reproduction and reconstitution of a violent, dominatory order. In short, it can be argued that violent

a defence of revolutionary nonviolence |  35 revolutionary resistance “delimits the scope of social possibility to one of continued sovereignty, an eternal exchanging of rulers and ideologies” (2017: 25) without genuine revolutionary transformation of the underlying political ontology. This likely explains why so many violent revolutions throughout history have resulted in violently oppressive post-revolutionary regimes: the ends of the revolution have been overtaken by the means of the revolution; violent resistance has reached its limits of social possibility and (re)constituted violent power as the dominant political mode. From this perspective, the argument that organised violence is necessary for revolution is part of a long historical discursive hegemony (see Bloom 2017) that actually functions to sustain existing structures and modalities of power. It ensures that even if violent resistance to an existing power structure such as an oppressive state is successful, its replacement will not exceed the limits of the existing (violent) order. The new post-revolutionary state will wield dominatory sovereign power through the same techniques of coercion and consent as the power it opposed, and with its military structures (war system) intact, take its expected place in the existing world order. In other words, it is the commitment to the use of revolutionary violence which acts as a force for the conservation and reification of violently oppressive power in the world today. In part, this explains why pacifists such as Gandhi and Tolstoy were deeply suspicious of the naïve instrumentalism of Marx (and Fanon) which assumed that the state could be violently seized and then used as a tool for revolutionary transformation. Instead, they understood that the state’s very mode of sovereign power, as elucidated by Benjamin and Agamben (see Srivastava 2010: 309, 313), was violent (in all senses) and could therefore not be anything but constitutive of a violent, oppressive order. They argued for the dissolution of the state and its replacement with self-organising communities committed to radically nonviolent politics (see Chabot and Sharifi 2013: 7–11; Bloom 2017: 110).

Violence as the antithesis of politics A second important reason to question whether organised violence is a necessary part of revolutionary transformation is that, following one strand of political theory, it can be argued that physical violence is the opposite of politics; it is “politics’ constitutive outside. It sets the limits of politics” (Frazer and Hutchings 2008:

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92; see also Arendt 1970). To put it another way, as I have argued elsewhere (Jackson 2017b), the essential characteristics of physical violence are the opposite, or the negation of, the essential characteristics of politics. That is: violence treats people as a means to an end, while politics treats people as ends in themselves; violence is dominatory and unilateral, while politics is cooperative and consensual; violence is certain, final and irreversible, while politics is open-ended, experimental and provides for reconsideration and reversibility; violence is antagonistic, while politics is agonistic; violence destroys the public sphere and democratic space, while politics empowers the public sphere and democratic debate; and so on. From this perspective, it can be argued that “regardless of whether violence may have its uses and justifications in relation to politics, the crucial point is that it should never be conflated with politics itself. Politics is conceptually and theoretically distinct from violence” (Frazer and Hutchings 2008: 102). The key point is that the inherent nature of physical violence makes it difficult to argue that the employment of violence as a form of political contestation or resistance could ever function to constitute a new kind of politics based on genuine peace, justice, liberation, non-domination, equality, dignity – or what can be called emancipation. A normative, dialogic, emancipatory form of politics would seem to require the use of means compatible with the same ends, and a form of resistance that was capable of constituting a peaceful form of politics free from oppressive power. Conclusion In this chapter, I have subjected some frequently heard arguments about the necessity of violence in liberating oppressed people to critical examination. The result has been to raise doubts about the potential for violent resistance as a mode of political action to provide the normative and strategic basis for genuine revolutionary transformation towards emancipation. As a consequence, and following Bloom (2017: 9–10), I agree that “what is urgently needed in the present are fresh and more effective forms of expanding social possibilities past prevailing power regimes and norms”. That is, we need “to foster multiplicity and new ways of pushing beyond existing limits of what is currently socially possible” (2017: 13).

a defence of revolutionary nonviolence |  37 In other words, as I have gestured towards in this chapter, pushing beyond social limits is not possible using the same old practices of domination inherent to the use of collective physical violence. Instead, it requires a new kind of revolutionary politics and a new kind of revolutionary subjectivity, one that revolutionises both the means and the ends of politics in order “to escape the stagnant fate of permanent revolution” and instead “revolutionize revolution” itself (Bloom 2017: 193, 167). This requires facing up to the reality that the notion that violent revolution is needed to capture power in order to abolish power has failed, and what is required instead is to re-imagine revolution as the dissolution of current forms and practices of power (Holloway 2002, cited in Bloom 2017: 156) – including the practice of trying to exert power through physical violence and domination. Importantly, this standpoint also implies that liberal pacifism and certain forms of pragmatic or instrumentalist nonviolence, as seen in various cases during the Arab Spring, also provide an insufficient basis for revolutionary transformation (Chabot and Sharifi 2013; Meckfessel 2016), given that they retain the potential for violent resistance if nonviolence fails, and they are committed to retaining the (violent) liberal state order after the revolution. As O’Halloran (2015: 378; emphasis added) argues, “Revolutionary action … is that which inaugurates new concepts of political action and of the human”. From this perspective, organised physical violence cannot be genuinely revolutionary because it reifies the existing political order and its modalities of (violent) sovereign power, and re-inscribes violence onto its human agents. Revolutionary nonviolence or unarmed insurrection, on the other hand, provides the possibility for constructing new political orders precisely because it refuses to employ violent physical domination as a mode of politics. Fortunately, as I have alluded to, history and the current international scene provides numerous examples of large-scale and small-scale social movements who are practising a new kind of nonviolent emancipatory politics in their vision to build a more peaceful and just world (see Anderson and Wallace 2013; Bartkowski 2013; O’Halloran 2015; Kaplan 2017). Crucially, as Bloom (2017: 4; emphasis added) once again notes, “These contemporary [nonviolent] movements point the way towards a new politics that does not

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just resist the existing social order but reinvents it. It is the possibility, for instance, of … the evolution of protests against police abuse into a deeper imagining of how to construct a society that does not need to be policed”. Chabot and Sharifi (2013: 23) make a similar point at the end of their study of the Arab Spring: “We conclude that revolutionaries who recognise the pervasive dangers of imperiality and tentacles of violence are more likely to make other worlds possible by experimenting with Gandhian self-rule, truth-seeking, and nonviolence in their everyday lives and local communities”. The important point is that such movements are frequently based on a political project rooted in human dignity and equality, the recognition of the Other, the acceptance of difference and radical human interdependence, and the impossibility of certainty or absolute truth (see May 2015) – all of which are also the commonly articulated aims of liberation and revolutionary movements. The key difference is that nonviolent movements have the potential to transcend the existing social limits of revolutionary politics which rely on the necessity of domination and violence as the primary mode of resisting power. Importantly, a growing number of revolutionary movements today, notably the Zapatistas, appear to be moving away from their reliance on organised violence as a revolutionary tool (see Chapter 6, this volume). This suggests that Bloom’s (2017) observation that power is constitutive of resistance, and structuration theory’s observation of the constitutive nature of political action, does not amount to determinism. Rather, even when actors have practised organised violence in the past and thereby constituted themselves and their movements in certain ways, they nevertheless retain the requisite agency to change course and remake themselves in new and innovative ways. Finally, we must acknowledge the current limits of nonviolent or pacifist politics, recognising that it is still in the process of invention. That is, while “The potential uses of nonviolent power are tremendous and as yet virtually unrealized” (Dellinger 1970: 374) at the present historical juncture, it is also the case that The theory and practice of active nonviolence are roughly at the stage of development today as those of electricity in the early days of Marconi and Edison. A new source of power has been discovered and crudely utilized in certain specialized situations,

a defence of revolutionary nonviolence |  39 but our experience is so limited and our knowledge so primitive that there is legitimate dispute about its applicability to a wide range of complicated and critical tasks. (1970: 368) In other words, there is still some way to go to realise the effective force and transformative power of revolutionary nonviolence and unarmed insurrection. Discovering how revolutionary nonviolence can be more effective in constructing new kinds of emancipatory politics in different struggles and contexts will take continuing effort, thought and experimentation. However, given the current conditions prevailing in world politics today, there can be few tasks more urgent than finding peaceful ways to resolve differences and create social justice. Acknowledgements I acknowledge the support of the New Zealand Marsden Fund in the preparation of this article, the research for which was conducted under the Marsden Fund proposal, 14-UOO-075, “A New Politics of Peace? Investigations in Contemporary Pacifism and Nonviolence”. References Amery, J., 2005. “The Birth of Man and the Spirit of Violence: Frantz Fanon the Revolutionary”, Wasafiri, 44 (Spring): 13–18. Anderson, M., and Wallace, M., 2013. Opting Out of War: Strategies to Prevent Violent Conflict, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Arendt, H., 1970. On Violence, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World. Bartkowski, M., ed., 2013. Recovering Nonviolent History: Civil Resistance in Liberation Struggles, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Bloom, P., 2017. Beyond Power and Resistance: Politics at the Radical Limits, London: Rowman & Littlefield. Brie, M., 2008. “Emancipation and the Left: The Issue of Violence”, in Panitch, L., and Leys, C., eds., Violence Today: Actually Existing

Barbarism, New York: Monthly Review Press, pp. 239–259. Cady, D., 2010. From Warism to Pacifism: A Moral Continuum, 2nd ed. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Celestino, M., and Gleditsch, K., 2013. “Fresh Carnations or All Thorn, No Rose? Nonviolent Campaigns and Transitions in Autocracies”, Journal of Peace Research, 50(3): 385–400. Chabot, S., and Sharifi, M., 2013. “The Violence of Nonviolence: Problematizing Nonviolent Resistance in Iran and Egypt”, Societies without Borders, 8(2): 205–232. Chenoweth, E., and Stephan, M., 2011. Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict, New York: Columbia University Press.

40  |  richard jackson Darweish, M., and Sellick, P., 2017. “Everyday Resistance among Palestinians Living in Israel 1948–1966”, Journal of Political Power, 10(3): 353–370. Dellinger, D., 1970. Revolutionary Nonviolence: Essays by Dave Dellinger, New York: Anchor Books. Deming, B., 1984. “On Revolution and Equilibrium”, in Meyerding, J., ed., We Are All Part of One Another: A Barbara Deming Reader, Vancouver, Canada: New Society Publishers, pp. 168–188. Dewey, J., 1922. Human Nature and Conduct: An Introduction to Social Psychology, London: George Allen & Unwin. Fanon, F., 1963. The Wretched of the Earth, New York: Grove. Foucault, M., 1990. The History of Sexuality: An Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley, London: Penguin Books. Frazer, E., and Hutchings, K., 2007. “Argument and Rhetoric in the Justification of Political Violence”, European Journal of Political Theory, 6(2): 180–199. Frazer, E., and Hutchings, K., 2008. “On Politics and Violence: Arendt contra Fanon”, Contemporary Political Theory, 7(1): 90–108. Grossman, D., 2009. On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, New York: Little, Brown and Co. Hahirwa, G., Orjuela, C., and Vinthagen, S., 2017. “Resisting Resettlement in Rwanda: Rethinking Dichotomies of ‘Survival’/‘Resistance’ and ‘Dominance’/‘Subordination’”, Journal of Eastern African Studies, 11(4): 734–750. Hoge, W., Castro, A., Messer, C., McGurk, D., Cotting, I., and Koffman, L., 2004. “Combat Duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mental

Health Problems, and Barriers to Care”, The New England Journal of Medicine, 351(1): 13–22. Holloway, J., 2002. Change the World without Taking Power, London: Pluto. Holmes, R., 2013. The Ethics of Nonviolence: Essays by Robert L. Holmes, edited by P. Cicovacki, New York, NY: Bloomsbury. Howes, D., 2013. “The Failure of Pacifism and the Success of Nonviolence”, Perspectives on Politics, 11(2): 427–446. Jackson, R., 2016. “Pacifism and the Ethical Imagination in IR”, paper presented at the Sié Chéou-Kang Center for International Security and Diplomacy, Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver, 17 October 2016. Jackson, R., 2017a. “Pacifism: The Anatomy of a Subjugated Knowledge”, Critical Studies on Security, published online 17 July 2017, DOI: 10.1080/21624887.2017.1342750. Jackson, R., 2017b. “Post-Liberal Peacebuilding and the Pacifist State”, Peacebuilding, published online 14 March 2017, DOI: 10.1080/21647259.2017.1303871. Kaplan, O., 2017. Resisting War: How Communities Protect Themselves, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Lilja, M., Baaz, M., Schulz, M., and Vinthagen, S., 2017. “How Resistance Encourages Resistance: Theorizing the Nexus between Power, ‘Organised Resistance’ and ‘Everyday Resistance’”, Journal of Political Power, 10(1): 40–54. Lindahl, S., 2017. “A CTS Model of Counterterrorism”, Critical Studies on Terrorism, 10(3): 523–541. MacLeish, K., 2013. Making War at Fort Hood: Life and Uncertainty in a

a defence of revolutionary nonviolence |  41 Military Community, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Maguen, S., Metzler, T., Litz, B., Seal, K., Knight, S., and Marmar, C., 2009. “The Impact of Killing in War on Mental Health Symptoms and Related Functioning”, Journal of Traumatic Stress, 22(5): 435–443. May, T., 2015. Nonviolent Resistance: A Philosophical Introduction, Cambridge, UK: Polity. Meckfessel, S., 2016. Nonviolence Ain’t What It Used to Be: Unarmed Insurrection and the Rhetoric of Resistance, Chico, CA: AK Press. O’Halloran, P., 2015. “Moments of Conceptual Potential: Frantz Fanon, the Postcolony, and ‘Nonwar Communities’”, Politics, Groups, and Identities, 3(2): 366–380. Prigerson, G., Maciejewski, K., and Rosenheck, R., 2002. “Population Attributable Fractions of Psychiatric Disorders and Behavioral Outcomes Associated with Combat Exposure among US Men. (Research and Practice)”, The American Journal of Public Health, 92(1): 59–63. Scarry, E., 1985. “Injury and the Structure of War”, Representations 10 (Spring): 1–51. Scarry, E., 1988. The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Schock, K., 2013. “The Practice and Study of Civil Resistance”, Journal of Peace Research, 50(3): 277–290. Scott, J., 1987. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Srivastava, N., 2010. “Towards a Critique of Colonial Violence: Fanon, Gandhi and the Restoration of Agency”, Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 46(3–4): 303–319. Stephan, M., 2015. “Civil Resistance vs. ISIS”, Journal of Resistance Studies, 1(2): 127–150. Trivedi, H., 2011. “Revolutionary Non-Violence”, Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, 13(4): 521–549. Vinthagen, S., 2015. A Theory of Nonviolent Action: How Civil Resistance Works, London: Zed Books. Wallace, M., 2016. Security without Weapons: Rethinking Violence, Violent Action, and Civilian Protection, Abingdon, UK: Routledge. Wallace, M., 2017. “Standing ‘Bare Hands’ against the Syrian Regime: The Turn to Armed Resistance and the Question of Civilian Protection”, Critical Studies on Security, published online 22 September 2017, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080 /21624887.2017.1367359.

2

| LISTEN, LEFTIST! VIOLENCE IS NOT REVOLUTIONARY1

Joseph Llewellyn

Murray Bookchin’s well-known essay Listen, Marxist! argues that Marxist methods of revolution have not been liberating. The essay is a call to leftists to develop the means for a truly liberating society that looks to the future rather than the past and which does not reinforce or recreate hierarchy. The core of Bookchin’s essay is his recognition of the inextricable relationship between means and ends, writing, “the organisation we try to build is the kind of society our revolution will create”. The argument I present in this chapter agrees with Bookchin’s critique, but takes his position on means and ends further. I argue that if leftists want a social revolution, they need to reject organised violence as a method of change.While I do not label Bookchin as violent (he certainly favoured nonviolence but was not a pacifist), I suggest that violence, by its nature, is another major factor that acts to recreate the things that Bookchin sought to remove. In this way, I add to his argument. In this chapter, I challenge common arguments from prominent revolutionary leftists who defend revolutionary violence by propagating three myths about violence: violence as necessary and productive; violence as intrinsically valuable; and violence as psychologically liberating.The conclusion is that if leftist visions of social revolution are to be achieved, leftists need to listen to those pacifist voices that many have failed to take seriously for a long time. Keywords: Anarchism; Marxism; Pacifism; Violence; Nonviolence; Revolution

Bookchin, means and ends, and the left moving forward Bookchin’s (1971) famous essay, Listen, Marxist!, published in the 1970s, provided a head-on critique of the left, especially the Marxist left. He challenged the revolutionary left to live the revolution now in order to create the revolution in the future, writing, “the organization we try to build is the kind of society our revolution will create”. Bookchin’s position is basically that the ends of social transformation – a social transformation that as he writes in the essay, will “dissolve hierarchy, class rule and coercion to make it possible for

listen, leftist! violence is not revolutionary |  43 each individual to gain control of his everyday life” – is inseparable from the means of leftist organisation. He argued that leftists must realise that the classical revolutionaryworker era is over, become more reflexive, and focus on fostering new ways of being rather than leading others and converting them to the “truth”. Specifically, he challenged Marxist positions on “the proletariat” and “the party”. Listen, Marxist! was written as times were changing, moving further away from the last major leftist experiment in Catalonia and towards the neoliberal future. In this moment, Bookchin attempted to look to the future of the left, while offering an honest critique of where it was. After being a Stalinist, and then a Trotskyist, by 1948, Bookchin realised that the working class were not going to be the sole agents of change (Biehl 2007: 20), completing his shift to anarchism. He describes this shift in the documentary Anarchism in America (Fischler and Sucher 1983), stating: The factory, which is supposed to organise the workers … mobilise them and instil in them the class consciousness that is to stem out of a conflict between wage labour and capital, in fact had created habits of mind in the worker that served to regiment the worker. That served, in fact, to assimilate the worker to the work ethic, to the industrial routine, to hierarchical forms of organisation, and that no matter how compellingly Marx had argued that such a movement could have revolutionary consequences, in fact such a movement could have nothing but a purely adaptive function, an adjunct to the capitalist system itself. This led to his exploration of anarchism, and the political programme he dedicated himself to later in life, libertarian municipalism. He continued: I began to try and explore what were movements and ideologies … that really were liberatory … Increasingly, I came to the conclusion that if … we are to avoid, the mistakes that were made over one hundred years of proletarian socialism, if we are to really achieve a liberatory movement, not simply in terms of economic questions but in terms of every aspect of life, we would have to turn to anarchism because it alone posed

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the problem not merely of class domination but hierarchical domination. And it alone posed the question not simply of economic exploitation but exploitation in every sphere of life. Bookchin’s arguments for adopting anarchism over Marxism are based upon two factors. The first is that anarchism challenges the whole problem because it positions itself against domination and exploitation. If these exist, society can be seen as the antithesis of a leftist vision of the desired society. Domination and exploitation are clearly created by capitalism, but also exist in the state, and as Bookchin notes in this interview, in the family, in the school and in sexual relationships. They have existed in many pre-capitalist societies and could exist in future societies. The second factor is the interdependent relationship between means and ends, optimised by Bookchin’s statement that “the organization we try to build is the kind of society our revolution will create”. Put simply, our actions are constitutive. This is a core part of anarchist organisation and practice, as anarchists try to live the revolution now. They remove domination from their organisational and personal relationships, aiming to be anarchists in the present rather than the future. They create spaces that operate in ways that are consistent with anarchist tenets. This second factor is, in fact, the basis of the first. Domination and exploitation are ultimately removed by behaving differently and we are unlikely to see different post-revolutionary behaviours if we do not learn and practise how to behave differently. Bookchin did not accept or advocate for everything that was labelled anarchist.2 Nor did he wholly reject Marxism, instead encouraging leftists to take the best from both Marxism and Anarchism (Bookchin 2014, cited in Harvey 2015). It is not my aim to offer a detailed explanation of Bookchin’s thought. Instead, I take Listen, Marxist! which encompasses Bookchin’s means/ends realisation, as a launching point. Currently, a century on from the Russian Revolution and after 30 years of neoliberalism, the left is in another period of reflection, and is discussing how to move forward. In the last three decades, the left has weakened as unions have been decimated and inequality has risen dramatically (Stiglitz 2012). Alongside this, the environmental crisis intensifies. Meanwhile, there has been a re-emergence

listen, leftist! violence is not revolutionary |  45 of the far right and with it, increased vocal racism and other forms of bigotry. Over this 30-year period, the left has come to adopt a reactive role, responding to right-wing attacks, and rarely offering hopeful visions of the future. Many so-called left proposals for change have effectively become watered-down neoliberal policies. The radical left, of which this article concerns, is small, and much of it could still be seen as falling into the traps that Bookchin eloquently outlines in his work. However, now may be a ripe moment for change. There is a growing recognition that our economic system does not benefit the majority and that we are in an environmental crisis. Since the Occupy movement, terms like “the 99%” have entered mainstream discourse. Politicians such as Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn have generated large support as they have advocated for a more caring and compassionate politics. In the academic world, there is an increasing body of work on post-capitalism and the need to discuss and envisage alternatives (Biehl and Bookchin 1998; Mason 2016; Taylor 2017; De Angelis 2017). Voices on the radical left are recognising the need to discover, talk about and advocate hopeful visions of the future and offer alternatives to capitalism and rightist bigotry. It is this debate which I wish to engage with: leftist strategy building, coming out of a Western context. What does a revolutionary leftist approach to change look like moving forward? How will it create the societies that it desires? I argue, following Bookchin’s statement that “the organization we try to build is the kind of society our revolution will create”, that these discussions about invigorating the left need to take seriously the relationship between means and ends and need to consider this in relation to the use of violence. My argument is that the logic of means and ends, along with the total rejection of domination and exploitation that Bookchin embraces, followed to its proper conclusion, should lead leftists to embrace pacifism. I will argue that violence as a means, due to its very nature, cannot produce the ends desired by leftists. However, nonviolence holds potential for positive transformation. Though discussions of pacifism are laughed away by many on the left, I argue that they should be fundamental. Some might say that debates around the use of violence are irrelevant because people are not about to take up arms, and to this I have three responses.

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First, even if this is true, the theoretical acceptance of violence still allows for violence in the future. Second, while leftist violence currently looks unlikely in the global north, there are leftist movements around the world using violence. There are various Maoist movements, for example, and the anarchist experiment in Rojava, inspired in part by Bookchin’s writings, is a militarised movement. Third, there are arguments within the left for beating up Nazis.3 The logic used to justify this is effectively the same logic that many militarised movements use. I am not advocating that Western leftists should be condemning others living in more violent situations than themselves, but they should be considering the nature of violence, the evidence for nonviolence and the potentials of nonviolence, when they engage with these issues of strategy moving forward. This is seldom done. I do not claim that all leftists are violent, or that leftism is inherently violent. Quite the opposite, leftists envision a nonviolent society. In this way, leftism is in fact anti-violent, even if leftists have advocated for violence as a method of change. This argument should not be read as an attack on leftists, but on a certain attitude towards revolutionary violence within major strands of leftism. Following this, I do not label Bookchin as violent. While some leftists may despise pacifism, Bookchin (1979) certainly does not, as this quote shows: I have a great admiration for pacifism … I detest violence. I have a tremendous respect not only for human life but also for the animal life that I have to live with, and I believe that our destiny as human beings is to become nature-conscious as well as selfconscious, living in loving relationship and in balance and in harmony, not only with one another, but with the entire natural world. I have an enormous respect for it and to a great degree tend to follow it personally: pacifist strategies and approaches, and the pacifistic philosophy.4 Bookchin’s position on means and ends is widely accepted within the anarchist tradition. It is ultimately what led to the split between Bakunin and Marx, as Bakunin expressed that revolutionaries that take control of the state would become like the state, violent and authoritarian (Dolgoff 1972). The same cannot be said as often for Marxists, Leninists, Trotskyists and Maoists who more often have

listen, leftist! violence is not revolutionary |  47 taken a “by any means necessary” approach to change. However, they recognise this means–ends relationship in other ways. For example, they would never accept that capitalism, however much it is reformed, could create the communist society they desire. Anarchist and Marxists, throughout history, have advocated for revolutionary violence – violence to create radical social transformation – believing it to be necessary or useful. I argue that there are two mechanisms that allow for this. The first is through the abstraction of violence. Here, leftists do not analyse the nature of violence, or its historical effectiveness, and therefore do not explore nonviolence. The second is born out of the first, through myth making. The creation of myths, which are rarely subject to critical analysis, cover up the horrific nature of violence, and the result is that the violence of the past can be looked at with rose-tinted glasses.5 I will now deal with each claim in this order. I challenge the limits of violence and the nature of violence, under a similar sub-heading to what Bookchin uses, The Historical Limits of Marxism, replacing Marxism with violence. After discussing the nature of violence, I will challenge common myths about revolutionary violence, as Bookchin does when he challenges Marxist myths. Throughout, I will argue that as an alternative, nonviolence has the potential to produce the ends desired. The historical limits of violence Galtung defines violence as “the avoidable impairment of fundamental human needs” which “lowers the actual degree to which someone is able to meet their needs below that which would otherwise be possible” (Ho 2007, cited in Leech 2012). This can be done directly, physically or psychologically (Galtung 1969). Direct violence is an act or event (Galtung 1977, cited in Galtung 1990: 294). Leftists reject direct violence in that they would not envisage a post-revolution society that allowed for it. Violence can be committed structurally, through social structures (Galtung 1969: 171). This is violence committed through a process (Galtung 1977, cited in Galtung 1990: 294). Leftists reject this kind of violence as they reject capitalism and, immediately (anarchism) or ultimately (Marxism), the state. Violence can also be committed culturally, through stories, beliefs and ways of thinking and speaking that “[make] direct and

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structural violence look, even feel, right – or at least not wrong” (Galtung 1990: 291). All are interconnected and do harm.6 Revolutionary violence is a form of direct violence. Whether it kills or not, its logic is effectively that of war. This is clear when it comes to armed insurrection, such as a guerrilla war, but it is also true of other tactics where leftists clash with police or right-wing groups. Scarry (1985: 63–64) states that, “the main purpose and outcome of war is injuring”. Scarry points out that this is both obvious and omitted from most discussions of war. She continues: one can read many pages of a historic or strategic account of a particular military campaign, or listen to many successive instalments in a newscast narrative of events in a contemporary war, without encountering the acknowledgement that the purpose of the event described is to alter (to burn, to blast, to shell, to cut) human tissue, as well as to alter the surface, shape, and deep entirety of the objects that human beings recognize as extensions of themselves. Following on from Scarry’s discussion of war, revolutionary violence is therefore about enacting physical injury and consequently destroying, or attempting to destroy, bodies in order to create social transformation. I am yet to find a leftist argument for violence that deals with this fact. Revolutionary violence embodies domination in its most extreme form, as one inflicts injury or kills others. The act of injuring is fundamentally an act of inflicting pain, with the winner inflicting the most pain. Scarry (1985: 4) writes that pain is language destroying. Pain is, in its heightened form, inexpressible, diminishing victims to cries and moans. Scarry, by pointing out what should be obvious but is often not, shows that direct violence is literally earth shattering, world-destroying. Going further, revolutionary violence as a strategy is about eliminating the other rather than transforming societal relationships. The logic of eliminating the other, followed to its conclusion, is the logic of Pol Pot rather than emancipation. It requires a mental process of making the other less than human in order to justify the act of injury and the infliction of pain. Violence abolishes people’s rights entirely. Realising this, leftists must ask: Where does this approach lead us? What can it build? The answer is that it cannot build anything

listen, leftist! violence is not revolutionary |  49 because violence, whatever it is used for and however it is justified, is purely about destruction. It has no other function. This is true no matter how extreme the violence is. Whether you hit someone or murder them (and if you hit someone you could end up murdering them), the logic is the same: inflicting injury, pain and destruction on somebody whom you have constructed as less worthy of dignity, respect and life than yourself, your cause or your group. In this way, violence, in its nature, is the ultimate form of domination. It opposes the types of relationships that leftists want to see fostered in society. As Carter (1978), referring to anarchists, puts it, “if anarchists distrust political fictions that justify the denial of actual freedoms, they must distrust more a style of thinking which justifies the most final denial of freedom – death”. Many leftists are aware of this point, including Lenin (1968 [1917]), who wrote: “it is clear that there is no freedom and no democracy where there is suppression and where there is violence”. However, despite flickers of recognition by the likes of Lenin, by and large, the left does not acknowledge the horrific reality of what the violent act is. Once the nature of violence is explored, the key question for all leftists who advocate for revolutionary violence is this: can you inflict great injury upon someone, and as they lie on the floor, maimed, crying, bleeding, with their guts hanging out, with all of their dignity taken away, can you look at them and feel OK with what you have done? And can you stand there, with this person in front of you, and honestly say that this is how you create the nonviolent, non-dominatory world that you seek? I do not invoke this as an abstract scenario to try to manipulate the argument by making it purely about emotions. I invoke it because, free from abstraction, violence is horrific and if you advocate for it you must realise that. Violence has not been successful for the left as it has failed to create positive revolutionary change. In addition, those advocating for or supporting violence rarely discuss any horror produced by it. The Russian Revolution and the Chinese Revolution, the two biggest leftist revolutions in history, resulted in catastrophic violence and authoritarianism. Leftists give various reasons for this. A common one is that Lenin and Trotsky were betrayed by the Stalinists (Trotsky, 1936). Leftists who are critical of the Russian Revolution, namely anarchists, say that the seizure of the state and consequential centralisation of power led to the revolution’s demise. There are

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likely truths to both of these analyses, as the cause of such events and outcomes are complicated and multifaceted. However, neither critique even considers the role of violence, of armies taking control of a state, with a method of creating change that rests on the killing and elimination of others with whom they disagree. The critiques ignore the role this must have had in the civil war that followed, as each group involved – Bolshevik, Menshevik, Makhnovist, some groups also being supported by foreign powers – continued waging war, killing millions. The violence of the Stalinists, who we must remember were part of the Russian Revolution, can be seen as a continuation of this. They eliminated their challengers, murdering opposition, including the likes of Trotsky. In China, we see a similar scenario: a centralised, authoritarian army with the same logic of change by elimination. The result is an authoritarian government, that after it has taken power, continues to eliminate its opposition, both internally, killing Chinese who opposed them, but also externally, invading and colonising Tibet and East Turkestan, again killing millions. In both of these cases, where revolutionary violence “succeeds” it creates a violent mess, not a nonviolent society. Another thing that is missed in leftist discussions of revolutionary violence is that violence can never simply be a tool. Organised direct violence requires an apparatus of violence and a culture of violence to maintain itself. Skilled workers must make tools in factories. The resources for them must be mined. People must be trained to fight. Armies must be clothed and fed. In this way, for the tool to be usable, it must be integrated into society. We see this in Russia and China in the continuation of violence and militarism after leftists gain power. In looking at these historical events, it is also important to acknowledge that times have changed. These failures of leftist revolutionary violence happened in a time when the war technology possessed by the state was less sophisticated. Similar attempts at violent revolution, as in Russia and China, at least in rich countries today, would likely get crushed before power could even be taken. This is due to the increased violent capacity of the state. Leftist strategy building now must also take this into consideration. Bookchin (1971) warned Marxists in the 1970s, in regard to their organisation at the time, “now we are being asked to go back to the ‘class line’, the ‘strategies’, the ‘cadres’ and the organisational forms

listen, leftist! violence is not revolutionary |  51 of that distant period in almost blatant disregard of the new issues and possibilities that have emerged”. Leftists must not echo this when it comes to the use of violence. They must challenge the myths of violence that many currently uphold, and examine the potential of nonviolent alternatives. Now that I have outlined the nature of violence and questioned its role in major leftist events historically, I will challenge myths that continue to make revolutionary violence acceptable. These myths could be seen as demonstrations of cultural violence within leftism that make revolutionary violence “look, even feel, right – or at least not wrong” (Galtung 1990: 291). The myth of violence as necessary [I]t is clear that the liberation of the oppressed class is impossible … without a violent revolution. – Lenin He who desires the end must desire the means. The means for emancipating the working people is revolutionary violence … revolutionary violence takes the form of an organized army. – Trotsky The key myth that perpetuates the acceptance of violence among leftists is that revolutionary violence is necessary for change. This argument is easily put into question if other means can be shown to be as effective, or more effective than violence. Over the last century, nonviolent movements have done this, and a lot of research has emerged which backs this claim. Chenoweth and Stephan (2011) show that over the last hundred years nonviolent movements have been twice as effective at reaching their aims, when compared to violent movements. Looking at all major violent and nonviolent movements, with aims to overthrow or secede from their rulers, between 1900 and 2006, they find that nonviolence has had a 53 per cent success rate, as opposed to the 26 per cent success rate of violence. On top of this, Chenoweth and Schock (2015) show that radical (violent) flanks hinder nonviolent movements, but are more successful than primarily violent movements. This suggests that having a diversity of tactics, as many anarchist activists have argued for, leads to less success than using nonviolence by itself. Nonviolence also produces more favourable long-term outcomes post-revolution. After a nonviolent movement, there is far less

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chance of a war occurring in the ten years following a revolution (Chenoweth and Stephan 2011: 202). Nonviolence also produces more democratic outcomes which last longer (Teorell 2010; Chenoweth and Stephan 2011; Bayer, Bethke and Lambach 2016). Even if they fail, nonviolent movements are more likely to create democratic shifts, than successful violent movements (Chenoweth and Stephan 2011: 202). This could be because nonviolent movements centralise power less than violent movements, which do the opposite (Schock 2013: 285; Celestino and Gleditsch 2013: 391). This is also likely influenced by the fact that the costs that nonviolence imposes are largely reversible, unlike the costs of war, which are difficult to recover from. Gelderloos (2007), who is often referenced, claims that nonviolence supports the state. He makes this argument with little reference to the nonviolence literature. The research on nonviolence outlined suggests that it is nonviolence that is best at undermining the state. It does this by removing pillars of support (Helvey 2004). Elites are held up by people performing tasks that maintain state power. These could be police, the media, bureaucrats, workers, etc. As a revolutionary group, you have two options for breaking pillars of support. Option one is to kill people in these pillars, thus removing state power. Option two is to undermine them using nonviolent techniques of protest and persuasion, non-cooperation, and intervention (Sharp 2011). Sharp (2011) lists 198 methods of how this has been done in the past. It is true that the pragmatic nonviolence literature has often supported the building of new post-revolution states that implement neoliberal reforms (Chabot and Sharifi 2013). However, this problem is not inherent to nonviolence itself, which can be radical, anarchist and decolonising. Nonviolence is not passive, it is forceful. This should not really be surprising to leftists, because alongside arguments for revolutionary violence, it is the general strike that has traditionally been advocated as a vital method of change. Strikes work because they pull down pillars of support. Power ultimately rests with people, not rulers or bosses. The necessity argument is nothing more than a blind just-war theory. Those advocating just-war theory do not explore nonviolent alternatives (Parkin 2016). Neither do those advocating for revolutionary violence. They fail to explore nonviolent options and fail to

listen, leftist! violence is not revolutionary |  53 look at the evidence for the effectiveness of nonviolence in comparison to violence. The myth of violence as intrinsically valuable The masses are always ready to sacrifice themselves; and this is what turns them into a brutal and savage horde, capable of performing heroic and apparently impossible exploits, and since they possess little or nothing … they develop a passion for destruction. This negative … is far from being sufficient to attain the heights of the revolutionary cause; but without it, revolution would be impossible. – Bakunin While the previous argument says that violence is legitimate because it is a necessary tool, this argument says that violence in and of itself has an inherent value. Perspectives which focus on the inherent “value” of violence are less concerned about discussing violence as a tool for success or failure. This is because the idea that violence can create success is simply assumed. This is unlike the necessity of violence argument presented above Here, I refer mostly to the mythology of the inspirational nature of violence. This involves imagery of revolutionary violence – both physical imagery and mental imagery – that portrays violence in a certain way so as to perpetuate it and allow it to be viewed uncritically. Heroic revolutionary imagery is found in many leftist traditions, in different forms. The first is the image of the dead or dying revolutionary as a revolutionary martyr. This image is often bloodless and portrays dead revolutionaries as glorious rather than as a tragedy. Portraying death as glorious removes the horror of the violent death of the revolutionary. It also gives a justification for the horror of the violence committed by the revolutionary. This imagery is needed, both to cope with the injury and pain that has been inflicted, and to keep the movement going. Creating a story of glory rather than tragedy encourages others to do that same act in the future, without questioning whether violence is useful. The alternative image is to see the dead revolutionary as a tragedy. Tragedy, in this context, allows for: first, the acknowledgement of the atrocious nature of violence, and second, for an analysis of that violence. It encourages questions of necessity and effectiveness. It sees dead revolutionaries not as martyrs that spur the movement

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on, but as the loss of the potential of the future. An image of tragedy allows for reflection that has the potential to stop cycles of violence. However, as can be seen in much revolutionary writing and painting, it is the glorious martyr that is portrayed. This is seen in images of the defence of the barricades in the Paris Commune, resolute soldiers in the frontline of Mao’s revolution, and the storming of the Winter Palace gates in 1917. The second romantic image comes from the uneven odds when revolutionaries challenge oppressors. They are the underdog, David fighting Goliath. This imagery is prevalent in many parts of society, not just in leftism. However, here the image is tied to the violence of the revolutionary, their guns and their uniforms, largely because they come out of violent traditions – of the Bolsheviks, Maoists, the Paris Commune – rather than mass nonviolent movements. Violence is also viewed as valuable by some leftists due to what Carter (1978: 339) calls its Dionysian nature. This is the third image, where the revolutionary breaks free from their shackles. This spontaneous violence, favoured by the likes of Bakunin (Friedrich 1972: 175), differs from the organised revolutionary violence advocated by Lenin and Trotsky. Dionysian violence is about breaking free from authoritarianism and domination (Carter 1978). It is an act where the revolutionary or revolutionaries experience a great moment of freedom. Because of this, violence is celebrated. All three of these images – the martyr, the underdog and the chain-breaker – are not analysed for their effectiveness. This makes them difficult to challenge, as they are not logical arguments. They are based on beliefs, feelings and affective attachment to certain revolutionary lineages that hold great meaning in the lives of many leftists. However, as I have suggested above, if nonviolence can be more effective than violence, if nonviolence is more aligned with leftist ideals, and if nonviolence allows for means–ends consistency, then the uncritical acceptance of these images hinders leftist aims. There is another argument about the intrinsic value of violence, namely, that violence fosters class consciousness (Sorel 1999 [1908]). It is less based on imagery, but in reality, it probably cannot be separated from imagery of brave revolutionaries fighting together. It is probably true that being violent together creates solidarity within a group using violence, for example, as in a military unit. This view is echoed by Fanon (2001 [1963]: 73), who writes:

listen, leftist! violence is not revolutionary |  55 The practice of violence binds them together as a whole, since each individual forms a violent link in the great chain, a part of the great organism of violence which has surged upward in reaction to the settler’s violence in the beginning … The armed struggle mobilizes the people, that is to say, it throws them in one way and in one direction. However, the idea that this argument translates to a leftist consciousness outside of those fighting is suspect. Due to their method, armed groups tend to be isolated from the rest of society and therefore, there are barriers to connecting with the rest of society (Chenoweth and Stephan 2011: 32–39). Also, fewer people join them. Far more people join nonviolent movements which are often more diverse and have fewer barriers to participation (Chenoweth and Stephan 2011: 36). More people involved in a movement would suggest a more pervasive and increased consciousness within society. Here, it is participation with others in a movement for change that leads to conscientisation, not the act of violence itself. Action is, as Freire (1996 [1970]) suggests, vital in this. However, injuring others is not. The myth of violence as psychologically liberating Violence is man recreating himself. – Fanon The colonized man finds his freedom in and through violence. – Fanon Fanon shows that oppression and violence involve dehumanisation (2008 [1952]) and that colonisation is a form of violence that is both physical and psychological (2001 [1963]). He does not, however, see revolutionary violence as entirely dehumanising. He proposes violence enacted by the oppressed as a cure; it makes them human again, removing their sense of inferiority. In this way, it is an argument for both the legitimacy of violence and the intrinsic value of violence, and for this reason, I am addressing it as a separate point. The oppressed, by using violence, liberate themselves, psychologically. How Fanon’s views on violence should be read is subject to debate. Spivak’s view, from her preface of the film Concerning Violence (Olsson 2014), is that Fanon does not endorse violence as such, but instead “insists that the tragedy is that the very poor are reduced to

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violence, because there is no other response possible to an absolute absence of response and an absolute exercise of legitimised violence from the colonisers”. As I have suggested, the history of nonviolence tells a different story. Deming (1984 [1968]: 170–188) states that most of Fanon’s arguments for violence could be substituted with “radical and uncompromising action”, and aggression with selfassertion. This may be true. However, Fanon’s theory of violence is certainly not always read this way. If we read the word violence as violence in Fanon, the argument is that violence liberates. I want to challenge the idea that violence is a liberating act rather than Fanon personally, because, as I have said, he can be read in multiple ways. However, I am mentioning Fanon because he is certainly where this idea is linked to. While this is his position, I do not claim that he is bloodthirsty, and in fact, he does recognise means and ends to a certain extent, more than many other proponents of violent revolution (Frazer and Hutchings 2007). Having said this, he does seem to conflate nonviolence with passivity, and only sees resistance as violent. The view that violence is psychologically liberating again ignores the material nature of violence. Clearly, the experience of injury and pain is horrific for the victim of violence, but violence also harms the perpetrator, as Fanon recognises in the case of torturers. Killing is a traumatising experience, as a host of research on soldiers tells us (Grossman 2009). Mental health issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder, intense guilt, fear, substance abuse and in the most extreme situations, suicide, often result from participation in organised killing (Hoge, Auchterlonie and Milliken 2006; Hoge et  al. 2004; Jordan et  al. 1991; Prigerson, Maciejewski and Rosenheck 2002; Prigerson, Maciejewski and Rosenheck 2001; Iowa Persian Gulf Study Group 1997). Killing is also unnatural in that the majority of people need to be trained to overcome very strong psychological barriers to it (Grossman 2009). Does this mean that the oppressed are left with the dilemma of experiencing the violent psychological effects of colonialism, capitalism and/or the state; or choosing the horror and trauma of killing as the alternative? The answer is no. This links back to Freire’s point again: action leads to conscientisation. It is clear that resistance can empower people, increase hope and solidarity. Action does this, but violence, the act of physically injuring, does not.

listen, leftist! violence is not revolutionary |  57 Fanon appears to suffer from a crisis of imagination when it comes to nonviolence, as he is unable to conceive of forceful nonviolent action, therefore concluding that violence is the only form of agency for the oppressed. This is the opposite of Gandhi (1931 [1909]), who in his seminal text Hind Swaraj offers similar insights as Fanon into the nature of colonisation and the colonised mind. However, Gandhi offers nonviolence as the method to overcome the violence of what he called modern civilisation (Shah 2009). Gandhi, while being shunned by many leftists, in fact offers a radical anarchistic, anti-capitalist and anti-colonial critique, as well as a forceful method of resistance, and a plan for a nonviolent society that fits comfortably with leftist visions of the future. Aside from the importance of his demonstration of mass nonviolent action, Gandhi knew that liberation ultimately comes when one has a peaceful state of mind. A violent mind – of wanting to harm others – is a mind of distress. It is a continuous state of unhappiness and unease. The state of mind of those involved in violence is often one of stress, trauma, sadness and despair. This is not, and never can be, psychological liberation. Creating a nonviolent future We are not, as Bookchin observed, in the same place as when some foundational leftist theorists were alive. To be fair to many of them – Lenin, Goldman, Malatesta, Marx, Bakunin, Makhno, the list could go on – they had not seen mass nonviolence. Revolutionary nonviolence is still in its infancy. However, unlike these theorists, today we can see the effects of nonviolence in comparison to violence and must learn from this. Leftist pacifist voices must now be taken seriously. It is important to note, in some discussions about violence and nonviolence, that there is confusion between the terms force, coercion and violence. When Trotsky (1932) said, “no ruling class has ever voluntarily and peacefully abdicated”, we must be clear that force and coercion are necessary, but violence is not. Force needs to be generated, but this can be done nonviolently. One can be coercive nonviolently by giving dignity to others, by not injuring, maiming or killing, and by being open to dialogue (May 2015). It must also be acknowledged that there are additional arguments for violence, and I have not addressed them because they are not arguments for building the future. The first is revenge. This is not a

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tactical argument, it is about punishment, and it contains no strategy for creating a new future. This is true, unless one thinks that killing all of the oppressors, in a way that shadows Pol Pot’s genocide, is a positive option. If people argue for this violence in the extreme (I very much hope nobody does!), they should not be called leftists as they totally bastardise any ideals of equality or equity and steer towards a fascist mentality. If my argument above rejects violence as a tool for revolution, it certainly rejects any attempt to create change through class-cleansing. The second is violent self-defence, which has often failed for leftists, for example, in Catalonia and the Ukraine. Self-defence is about maintenance, not about strategy moving forward. However, it is important to note that large and well-equipped armies most often crush small ones. Also, nonviolent alternatives may exist (Sharp 1990). Selfdefence is Bookchin’s (1979) reason for not being a pacifist. He says: I have a great admiration for pacifism, but I’m not a pacifist, mainly because I would defend myself if I were attacked, and I believe that the American people should defend themselves if any attempt is made to take over the government by coup d’etat, whether by the military or the Marxists or any people who profess to be anarchists. I will not call myself a pacifist for the very simple reason that if something like a Franco should arise in Spain again, or, for that matter, in America, and tried to take away whatever dwindling civil liberties and human rights we retain, I would resist them with a club if I had to. But my admiration for pacifism as an outlook and a sensibility is enormous. I just find that it gets me into contradictions, as it often gets many pacifists into contradictory positions and strategies. We must ask if this is contradictory to his other statements that I have quoted. We must ask, especially in the modern day, if violence can be successful as a defence against well-armed opposition, and if the answer is no, we must ask what the nonviolent alternatives are. As the anarchists of Catalonia failed in their attempt to defend against Franco in a similar way, it is questionable if the anarchists of Rojava, with their policy of violence for defence, will go the same way after the Syrian civil war ends. They may be left with the Turkish government, the Syrian government, and possibly the United States

listen, leftist! violence is not revolutionary |  59 and/or Russia, to contend with – just as the Catalans had to deal with Franco, the Stalinists and Western powers. Powerful governments do not like examples that show that society can be run without elites. Will a military defence against these governments stand up? This is questionable. However, nonviolence offers some hope, as it does not play the same game. When Bookchin says “I would resist them with a club if I had too”, my reply is, if we are organised, there may be other options, and maybe defence with a club against a gun or a tank is not constructive if it will lead to the death rather than preservation of leftist movements. Despite the failures and horror of violence, violence is still argued for by leftists, if not for now, then for a potential future. Ultimately, my conclusion is that violence is not revolutionary. It ignores and makes excuses to get around the relationship between means and ends; a relationship that Bookchin eloquently argued was essential for progression towards the society leftists want to create. As a result, leftist strategy that accepts violence runs the dual risk of creating more violence in many forms and also in choosing an ineffective strategy of change. Nonviolence is not always effective, but it offers more potential. Some leftists are closer to realising this than others, and of course there are many who have: Bart de Ligt, Mahatma Gandhi, Vinoba Bhave, Jayaprakesh Narayan, Dorothy Day, Leo Tolstoy, Paul Goodman, Alex Comfort, among others. So have many movements: The Sarvodaya movement (Ostergaard 1985; Vettickal 2002; Llewellyn 2018), the civil rights movement (King 2000 [1964]), a host of nonviolent revolutionary movements who have overthrown dictators and colonisers around the world (Chenoweth and Stephan 2011). There are others, and while these movements may not be perfect, their learnings and experiences must be explored by leftists with an openness to the positive insights that they hold. I will finish by quoting Bookchin’s (1971) last line in Listen, Marxist!, replacing the word Marxist with leftist. I do this because the root of the problem here, is the same root. Our actions constitute our movements, ourselves and what we create. If we believe this, if we agree with Bookchin’s insight, the left must reject violence as it looks to the future. Listen, leftist: “The organisation we try to build is the kind of society our revolution will create. Either we will shed the past – in ourselves as well as our groups – or there will simply be no future to win”.

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Notes 1 Much of this chapter is adapted from a chapter in my PhD thesis. See Llewellyn (2018). 2 For example, see another famous article called “Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm” (Bookchin, 1995). Bookchin even distanced himself from the anarchist label towards the end of his life (Biehl, 2007). 3 This has been discussed by Chenoweth (2017) in relation to resisting Donald Trump and the right in the USA. 4 In the same interview, Bookchin says why he is not a pacifist. I will quote this in the last section. 5 These myths are not universally accepted within the left.

6 I do not include property damage as violence, unless it actively hinders people’s lives. It is difficult to say that breaking a window does this, for example. It may be inconvenient for the owner of the building but does not really hinder lives. However, blowing up a hospital, especially in a time of war, significantly hinders people, and would therefore be violent. Whether property damage is a good tactic is a point of debate, and the answers to this are certainly different in different circumstances. However, having ruled property damage in-and-of-itself as not being a form of violence, I do not discuss it further here.

References Bayer M, Bethke FS and Lambach D. (2016) The democratic dividend of nonviolent resistance. Journal of Peace Research 53: 758–771. Biehl J. (2007) Bookchin breaks with anarchism. Communalism: International Journal for a Rational Society 12: 1–20. Biehl J and Bookchin M. (1998) The politics of social ecology: libertarian municipalism, Montreal: Black Rose Books. Bookchin M. (1971) Post-scarcity anarchism, Berkeley: Ramparts Press. Bookchin M. (1979) Interview with Murray Bookchin. In: Riggenbach J (ed) Reason Magazine. Retrieved from: http://reason.com/ archives/1979/10/01/interviewwith-murray-bookchin/1 Date: 03/12/2017. Bookchin M. (1995) Social anarchism or lifestyle anarchism: an unbridgeable chasm, Edinburgh: AK Press.

Bookchin M. (2014) The next revolution: popular assemblies and the promise of direct democracy, London: Verso Books. Carter A. (1978) Anarchism and violence. Nomos, 19, 320–340. Celestino MR and Gleditsch KS. (2013) Fresh carnations or all thorn, no rose? Nonviolent campaigns and transitions in autocracies. Journal of Peace Research 50: 385–400. Chabot S and Sharifi M. (2013). The violence of nonviolence: problematizing nonviolent resistance in Iran and Egypt. Societies without Borders 8(2): 205–232. Chenoweth E. (2017) Violence will only hurt the Trump resistance. The New Republic. Retrieved from: https:// newrepublic.com/article/140474/ violence-will-hurt-trump-resistance Date: 19/05/2019. Chenoweth E and Schock K. (2015) Do contemporaneous armed

listen, leftist! violence is not revolutionary |  61 challenges affect the outcomes of mass nonviolent campaigns? Mobilization: An International Quarterly 20: 427–451. Chenoweth E and Stephan MJ. (2011) Why civil resistance works: the strategic logic of nonviolent conflict, New York: Columbia University Press. De Angelis M. (2017) Omnia sunt communia: on the commons and the transformation to postcapitalism, London: Zed Books. Deming B. (1984) On revolution and equilibrium. In: Meyerding J (ed) We are all part of one another: a Barbara Deming reader. Vancouver: New Society Publishers. Dolgoff S. (1972) Bakunin on anarchy, New York: Knopf. Fanon F. (2001) The wretched of the earth, Harmondsworth: Penguin. Fanon F. (2008). Black skin, white masks, New York: Grove Press. Fischler S and Sucher J. (1983) Anarchism in America. USA: Pacific Street Films. Frazer E and Hutchings K. (2007) Argument and rhetoric in the justification of political violence. European Journal of Political Theory 6: 180–199. Freire P. (1996) Pedagogy of the oppressed. London: Penguin Books. Friedrich CJ. (1972) The anarchist controversy over violence. Zeitschrift Politik 19: 167–177. Galtung J. (1969) Violence, peace, and peace research. Journal of Peace Research 6: 167–191. Galtung J. (1977) Essays in methodology: methodology and ideology, Copenhagen: Ejlers. Galtung J. (1990) Cultural violence. Journal of Peace Research 27: 291. Gandhi MK. (1931) Hind swaraj, Madras: G.A. Natesan.

Gelderloos P. (2007) How nonviolence protects the state, Boston: South End Press. Grossman D. (2009) On killing: the psychological cost of learning to kill in war and society, New York: Little, Brown and Co. Harvey D. (2015) “Listen, anarchist!” A personal response to Simon Springer’s “Why a radical geography must be anarchist”. Retrieved from http://davidharvey.org/2015/06/ listen-anarchist-by-david-harvey/. Helvey RL. (2004) On strategic nonviolent conflict: thinking about the fundamentals, Boston: Albert Einstein Institute. Ho K. (2007) Structural violence as a human rights violation. Essex Human Rights Review 4: 1–17. Hoge CW, Auchterlonie JL and Milliken CS. (2006) Mental health problems, use of mental health services, and attrition from military service after returning from deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan. Journal of the American Medical Association 295: 1023–1032. Hoge CW, Castro CA, Messer SC, et al. (2004) Combat duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, mental health problems, and barriers to care. The New England Journal of Medicine 351: 13–22. Iowa Persian Gulf Study Group. (1997) Self-reported illness and health status among Gulf War veterans: a population-based study. (Iowa Persian Gulf Study Group). Journal of the American Medical Association 277: 238–245. Jordan BK, Schlenger WE, Hough R, et al. (1991) Lifetime and current prevalence of specific psychiatric disorders among Vietnam veterans and controls. Archives of General Psychiatry 48: 207–215.

62  |  joseph llewellyn King Jr. ML. (2000) Why we can’t wait, New York: Signet Classics. Leech GM. (2012) Capitalism: a structural genocide, London: Zed Books. Lenin VI. (1968) State and revolution. Retrieved from: www.marxists.org/ archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ Date: 03/12/2017. Llewellyn J. (2018) Envisioning an anarcho-pacifist peace: a case for the convergence of anarchism and pacifism and an exploration of the Gandhian movement for a stateless society. (PhD), University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. Retrieved from: https://ourarchive.otago. ac.nz/handle/10523/8298. Mason P. (2016) Postcapitalism: a guide to our future, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. May T. (2015) Nonviolent resistance: a philosophical introduction, Cambridge: Polity Press. Olsson G. (2014) Concerning violence. Finland: Helsinki Filmi Oy. Ostergaard G. (1985) Nonviolent revolution in India, Sevagram, India: JP Amrit Kosh. Parkin N. (2016) Non-violent resistance and last resort. Journal of Military Ethics 15: 259–274. Prigerson GH, Maciejewski KP and Rosenheck AR. (2001) Combat trauma: trauma with highest risk of delayed onset and unresolved posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms, unemployment, and abuse among men. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 189: 99–108. Prigerson HG, Maciejewski PK and Rosenheck RA. (2002) Population attributable fractions of psychiatric disorders and behavioral outcomes associated with combat exposure

among US men. (Research and Practice). The American Journal of Public Health 92: 59–63. Scarry E. (1985) The body in pain: the making and unmaking of the world, New York: Oxford University Press. Schock K. (2013) The practice and study of civil resistance. Journal of Peace Research 50: 277–290. Shah K. (2009) Gandhi’s “Hind Swaraj”, Goa: Other India Press. Sharp G. (1990) Civilian-based defense: a post-military weapons system, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Sharp G. (2011) From dictatorship to democracy: a conceptual framework for liberation. 4th ed. London: Serpant’s Tail. Sorel G. (1999) Reflections on violence, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stiglitz JE. (2012) The price of inequality, New York: W.W. Norton & Co. Taylor D. (2017) Social movements and democracy in the 21st century, Cham: Springer International Publishing. Teorell J. (2010) Determinants of democratization: explaining regime change in the world, 1972–2006, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Trotsky L. (1932) In defence of October. Retrieved from www.marxists.org/ archive/trotsky/1932/11/oct.htm Date: 03/12/2017. Trotsky L. (1936) The revolution betrayed: what is the Soviet Union and where is it going? Retrieved from: www.marxists.org/archive/ trotsky/1936/revbet/ Date: 03/12/2017. Vettickal T. (2002) Gandhian sarvodaya: realizing a realistic utopia, Delhi: National Gandhi Museum.

3

| SYMBOLIC NONVIOLENCE AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF SOCIETY BEYOND LIBERAL CAPITALISM

Timothy Bryar

Despite decades of protest movements against the impacts of capitalism, no viable alternative beyond capitalism has yet taken hold. In fact, despite our best efforts global inequality continues to rise, the fate of workers is more precarious, and the environment sits on the brink of collapse. It would appear that Margaret Thatcher was right about there being no alternative. However, one must also question the dominant form of resistance to capitalism today which also presents itself as the only viable alternative. This chapter critiques the theoretical presuppositions of pacifist and nonviolent social movements and argues that the democratic form of resistance to capitalism is a form of symbolic violence that prevents the emergence of a politics up to the task of transforming society beyond liberal capitalism. Rather, the chapter seeks to make a case for embracing symbolic nonviolence as the presupposition for a pacifist and nonviolent politics able to go beyond liberal capitalism. Keywords: Violence; Nonviolence; Capitalism; Ideology

Introduction Structural violence is a term used to describe inequities in power, wealth and overall life chances that are the result of the functioning of political and economic systems. Today, structural violence must be considered within the politico-economic coordinates of liberal capitalism1 under which we are witnessing gross economic inequality, the mass degradation of the environment, and the increased precarity of workers amongst other things. The transformation of structural violence is an essential component of positive peace or peace with justice and is of central concern to revolutionary nonviolence or pacifism. As A.J. Muste claims, one must be a revolutionary before one can be a pacifist if one is to deal with the structural violence upon which the liberal capitalist system is based (Chomsky 2011). According to Martin (1999: 1), “nonviolence is the most

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promising method for moving beyond capitalism to a more humane social and economic system”. While there is now widespread evidence supporting the effectiveness of nonviolent movements in creating political change, in particular, with regard to overthrowing dictatorships and colonial regimes and in promoting and protecting civil rights (see Chenoweth and Stephan 2011; Bayer, Bethke and Lambach 2016; Schock 2004), questions remain over the effectiveness of nonviolent action for transforming the persistent structural violence of global liberal capitalism (Badiou 2018; Hardt and Negri 2017). Indeed, it would seem that despite the myriad of examples of anti-capitalist, anti-globalisation or Global Justice movements that have taken place across the globe in the past few decades, the one thing that is certain is that global liberal capitalism has simply marched on and on. In response to this context, Vinthagen (2017) argues that there is a need for further research on movements for autonomy and alternative ways of living against, within and beyond the colonial-capitalist world order. I do not debate the effectiveness of nonviolence “within” and “against” the violence of capitalism here. Rather, I seek to interrogate the effectiveness of nonviolence in transforming the structural violence of liberal capitalism, that is, in transforming society beyond capitalism. It is my contention that what prevents the theory and practice of nonviolence from conceiving and enacting the transformation of society beyond liberal capitalism are its democratic ideological presuppositions supported by a fetish for direct democracy and dialogue. In short, a fetish is what enables us to cope with the unbearable truth of our reality. For example, Dean (2005: 61) writes, if Freud is correct in saying that a fetish not only covers over a trauma but that in doing so it also helps one through a trauma, what might serve as an analogous socio-political trauma today? In my view … a likely answer can be found in the loss of opportunities for political impact and efficacy. In the context of this chapter, the fetish helps us to deal with the absence of evidence supporting the use of nonviolent action for the transformation of society beyond liberal capitalism. In this way, one can argue that spaces of horizontal occupation and dialogue, whether online or in person, become fantasy spaces which enable us to be

symbolic nonviolence |  65 active and deal with the guilt that we might not be doing enough to move beyond capitalism. Drawing on a range of thinkers (e.g. Badiou 2018; Benjamin 1927; Bloom 2017; Žižek 2008b), this chapter proposes the concept of “symbolic nonviolence” as essential for overcoming this fetish and thereby creating moments that short-circuit the violence of the neoliberal capitalist order, enabling a new politics to emerge. I begin with a brief examination of the different ways the absence of evidence supporting the efficacy of nonviolent action in transforming society beyond global liberal capitalism is explained. I then examine critical attempts to move beyond the deadlock of power and resistance under global liberal capitalism in the context of democratic ideology. The final two sections seek to explicate a pacifist politics linked to the concept of symbolic nonviolence. Explaining the absence of evidence A range of explanations have been suggested to defend the lack of success of nonviolent action in transforming society beyond global liberal capitalism. For example, advocates of “Sharpian” nonviolence or nonviolent civil resistance (e.g. Chenoweth and Stephan 2011; Schock 2004; Helvey 2004) tend to respond to claims of a lack of evidence from a goal orientation perspective. For example, nonviolent civil resistance scholar Maciej Bartkowski (2013, italics added) argues, “Indeed, we can criticize a Sharpian approach … but I am not sure if there are grounds for criticizing a Sharpian approach for something it did not really aim to address to begin with – namely, the elimination of all forms of violence”. Therefore, from this perspective, the critique that nonviolent civil resistance is unable to transform other forms of structural violence beyond authoritarian state power is irrelevant because the theory never intended to address them. Furthermore, Bartkowski (2013) links this goal orientation argument to teleology, arguing, By shifting political power away from seemingly powerful to seemingly powerless the transformation of the society and polity occurs at a particular point in time. The sustenance of that transformation (or power shift) is then the key issue in the fight against structural violence. I think this in turn depends – as successful democratizations show – on the continued participation of the society; on the high level of disciplined rebellious

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mobilization that the society is able to summon after a dictator/ regime is gone with the purpose of fighting new or old ills that transpire during ongoing social and economic transformation. Therefore, Bartkowski maintains that it is the democratic shift in power produced by nonviolent civil resistance that will, in the end, enable the conditions for overcoming structural violence. Similarly, Stephen Zunes claims “liberal democracy (even the messy kind which often follows many years of corrupt authoritarian rule) may be a necessary if not sufficient step towards a just society”.2 That the outcomes of the mass nonviolent civil resistance movements, such as the Colour Revolutions and Arab Spring, have failed to shift society beyond liberal capitalism should be evidence enough against such claims (see, for example, Johansen 2007; Beehner 2011; Wahlberg 2011; Prashad 2012; Chabot and Sharifi 2013). For example, Chabot and Sharifi (2013: 21) lament, “Tragically, the majority of Egypt’s population seems to have accepted that there is no alternative to neoliberal forms of freedom and democracy”. Johansen (2007) makes a more general argument that nonviolent civil resistance aimed at removing dictatorships typically results in multi-party elections, US- and EU-friendly foreign policy, and the introduction of neoliberal market economics. Furthermore, one cannot ignore that the structural violence of global liberal capitalism is equally experienced within the well-established democracies of the West. Therefore, while there is little doubt about the efficacy of nonviolent civil resistance movements to overthrow authoritarian power and usher in liberal democracy, its efficacy in transforming society beyond the violence of global liberal capitalism remains to be proven. More than simply being a failure of nonviolence, some scholars argue that nonviolent civil resistance suffers from a Western or European bias that overlooks movements seeking to challenge rather than reproduce global liberal capitalism (Chabot and Vinthagen 2015). As a result, most Western nonviolence scholars take for granted that civil resisters win by progressing towards Western forms of liberal democracy (Chabot and Vinthagen 2015) or what Badiou (2012, 2018) terms “a desire for the West”. Indeed, Most Western readings of the Arab Spring uprising were depicted as people “rising up against their tyrant … as a democratic upwelling of the will to freedom” (Rua Wall 2011: 13) or as a “natural, legitimate

symbolic nonviolence |  67 outcome … under the rubric of ‘victory of democracy’” (Badiou 2012: 52). For example, during the height of the Arab Spring movement, Guardian journalist David Hirst (2011: italics added) wrote, The world is yet to settle on an agreed term for the great events unfolding across the Middle East … [however] It is self-evidently democratic. Other factors, above all the socioeconomic, fuelled it, but the concentration on this single aspect, the virtual absence of other factional or ideological slogans, has been striking. Against this bias of nonviolent civil resistance, a number of contemporary scholars argue that nonviolent action and research needs to move beyond the negative politics of regime change towards a constructive politics (e.g. Chabot and Sharifi 2013; Chabot and Vinthagen 2015; Johansen 2007; Graeber 2013). For these advocates, the lack of evidence to support nonviolent action in moving beyond capitalism is due to an over-emphasis on taking state power at the expense of building a new, alternative society. For example, Johansen (2011) observes that nonviolent political revolutionary movements have been strongest in creating change by removing political leadership, but much less successful in building alternative political and social systems. Therefore, Chabot and Sharifi (2013) argue that nonviolent movements should experiment in a Gandhian “constructive programme” in order to create alternatives to neoliberal capitalism. Fundamental to this constructive approach is the concept of prefiguration, or the inextricable link between means and ends. That is, if the goal is a society without organized violence, nonviolent action has all these prefigurative advantages. It provides experiences in living without using violence; it reduces immediate violence in the here and now, even when campaigns fail; and it ensures that efforts are in a nonviolent direction. (Martin 2008: 5) In addition to nonviolence, pre-figurative movements emphasise horizontal structures, dialogue and direct democracy. Several social movement scholars argue that pre-figuration is the most strategic and effective means for bringing about the transformation of capitalist

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society (e.g. Graeber 2013; Maekelbergh 2011). Graeber (2013: 4) discusses how in contrast to the Arab Spring, Occupy was the outbreak of a mass movement based on direct democracy, which he claims was “an outcome, in its own way”. Further, he argues that after the experiences of the Global Justice Movement, “Pretty much everyone in the activist community had come around to the idea of pre-figurative politics” (Graeber 2013: 23). Maekelbergh (2011) discusses how pre-figuration captures the shift in the focus of social movements away from a conquering of the society towards the process of building something new. She argues that the aim of prefigurative politics is to create more inclusive forms of democracy that directly challenge liberal-representative democracy (Maekelbergh 2011). In tracing the emergence of the Occupy movement within the world system of neoliberal capitalism, Macpherson and Smith (2013: 370) argue, “More broadly, general models of organization go beyond simply a set of protest tactics. These new democratic methods are increasingly cast as the basis for a new politics that is more participatory than parliamentary routines”. In short, Graeber (2013: xxi) claims that in today’s global capitalist order where the state and financial power work hand in hand to benefit the 1%, “any awakening of the democratic impulse can only be a revolutionary urge”. Rethinking power and resistance Pre-figurative politics is therefore posited as an answer to the failures of nonviolent civil resistance to effect social change beyond global capitalism. However, experience shows that such movements too have had limited success in moving beyond capitalism. For example, Hardt and Negri (2017: xiii) open their recent work Assembly by stating, The script is by now familiar: inspiring social movements rise up against injustice and domination, briefly grab local headlines, and then fade from view … Why have the movements, which address the needs and desires of so many, not been able to achieve lasting change and create a new, more democratic and just society? Similar questions have led to a deep theoretical rethinking of power and resistance (Bloom 2017; Newman 2004a, 2004b, 2004c;

symbolic nonviolence |  69 Vinthagen 2015), enabled by contemporary theories of power, in particular that of Foucault (1977, 1978, 1982). For example, nonviolent action scholar, Stellan Vinthagen (2015), sees power as produced at the micro level of our lives, in everyday habits, stories, communication and so on. Vinthagen (2015: 174) is thus aware of the difficult task of social transformation given “that power is incorporated within us as individuals and in our culture … even thinking and talking about resistance may be marked by the features of power”. Nonetheless, Vinthagen (2015) claims that at the foundation of power is the active subordination of actors. Subsequently, despite the pervasiveness of power, resistance remains an option as there are always spaces that exist that are free from power. Importantly, Vinthagen (2015: 189) claims, active subordination in power relations is “a distortion of the ideal form of cooperation, participation and understanding for which the nonviolent movement strives”. Through ideology, direct force, manipulation and so on, power distorts or undermines this ideal social form. Therefore power is only “a special case of interaction” and alternative interactions can be cooperative, based on dialogue and mutual and equal agreements which power does not affect in any crucial way” (2015: 195). As such, nonviolent action methods, “in the best case scenario, lead to dialogue and negotiation with various power groups, which can enable a new and more acceptable social order” (2015: 204). A key task for a nonviolent action movement, therefore, is “to force its opponent to enter into dialogue about a solution to the conflict” through overcoming the distortion created by power (Vinthagen 2015: 122). This logic is akin to that advocated by peace theory approaches to structural violence transformation (see Galtung 1973, 2010; Rubenstein 2017), in which power is seen as distorting a fundamental collaborative horizontal space of dialogue. For example, Johan Galtung’s (1973) theory of power negation describes how structural conflict transformation requires a shift from a vertical relation structure to a horizontal one, which takes place through the organisation of actors and consciousness formation (Galtung 1973). In fact, Galtung (1973: 104; italics added) claims that “power negation is not a road to peace but peace itself”. Similarly, Rubenstein (2017) suggests that conflict specialists could facilitate “social-constitutional dialogues” between conflicting parties to explore what is wrong with the existing system and what new alternatives could be constructed.

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The theoretical point that power is a distortion of a fundamental, ideal form of nonviolent interaction rests upon an ideological fantasy. To be clear, the understanding of ideology offered here is not the typical one in which ideology is seen to distort some objective truth (as claimed above in the manner that power distorts an ideal form of the social), but rather ideology as a distortion of the place of enunciation, or the concealment of power relations operating there (Newman 2004a). In this way, the function of ideology shifts from the appeal to some fundamental horizontal structure that is distorted by power to an attempt to cover over the lack in our knowledge of how nonviolence can move us beyond capitalism. More specifically, authoritarian actors who seek to exercise vertical power serve as an ideological displacement of this lack. For the pacifist subject, “the realisation of this lack is unbearable because it means that his identity, as constituted through the symbolic, is also lacking. Fantasy is a way of coming to grips with this trauma” (Newman 2004a: 162–163). Therefore, to deal with the lack, the pacifist subject’s appeal to the fundamental nonviolent horizontal space acts as a fantasy screen upon which to project external actors who rob us of our liberties and freedoms. In this way, one can understand why Vinthagen (2015) prefers to use the term “colonial-capitalist world order” rather than simply “capitalism”. The addition of “colonial” before capitalism reinforces the idea that the task for social transformation beyond capitalism is to reject the apparent external and vertical imposition (by the state) of capitalism on society. Post-anarchist scholar Saul Newman undertakes an extensive rethinking of power and resistance across a series of articles (see Newman 2004a, 2004b, 2004c) in which he seeks to overcome this ideological fantasy of resistance in order to explicate a “space beyond power” from which an emancipatory politics can be conceptualised. While Foucault claims that the dynamic of power and resistance means that there are always possibilities for destabilising power relations, Newman (2004a) argues every act of resistance only reaffirms the power it is supposedly working against. Newman (2004a: 150) claims that this is “the ruse of power according to Foucault” that rather than there being an essential subject that is repressed by power, “subjectivity is produced in such a way that its assertion or identification, rather than being an act of liberation that transgresses power, is something that only supports or reaffirms power”.

symbolic nonviolence |  71 This leads Newman (2004a: 152) to propose that “there needs to be some sort of ‘space’ beyond power if a coherent project of resistance is to be conceptualised”. His search for an emancipatory space beyond reciprocal relations of power and resistance ultimately leads him to Claude Lefort (1988) who claims that the form of power underpinning modern democracy exists as an empty place of power. That is, The modern democratic symbolic order did not appear ex nihilo, but rather developed from the decline of the ancient regime. Similarly, the place of power did not just appear as empty, but rather remained as empty – it was emptied as the regime fell. (Roess 2012: 180–181) Thus, from this perspective, power exists a priori as an empty place that until the advent of democracy was occupied by some form of “power holder”. The advent of democracy was therefore able to restore the empty place of power, and the ongoing task is to ensure that this place of power remains free from illegitimate, and ultimately authoritarian appropriation. Newman argues therefore that rather than a politics of difference in which particular identities compete with each other, there is competition for hegemony over the partial fixing of the empty place of power. In seeking a practical politics to help explain his theoretical rethinking, Newman (2004b: 311) turns to the anti-globalisation movement, which he describes as a, common struggle that is not determined in advance, but that is articulated in a contingent way during the struggle and that it now targets new sites of oppression and domination within the capitalist system: corporate power and greed, G-M products, workplace surveillance, environmental degradation, and so on. In this way, whereas the democratic invention was able to formally deal with social conflict through institutionalising the empty place of power in state apparatuses, Newman seeks to appropriate this place away from the state in favour of a movement-based version that aims to keep the place of power free from occupation. However, the critical point to emphasise here is that Lefort’s empty place of power fails to take into consideration its own performative dimension. As Žižek (2008a: 276) highlights,

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The fundamental operation of the “democratic invention” is thus of a purely symbolic nature: it is misleading to say that the “democratic invention” finds the locus of power empty – the point is rather that it constitutes, constructs it as empty. In other words, the empty place of power is not a positively existing thing within society but is rather the presupposition which serves as a point of reference for our actions. Again, it acts as a kind of fantasy screen that guarantees that our experience of structural violence under liberal capitalism is never “the system” as such, but always some authoritarian power that seeks to take hold of power. Ultimately, this means the depoliticisation of structural violence transformation, or in other words, that the political domain in which the struggle takes place has already been chosen (i.e. democracy). For example, in contrast to Newman’s endorsement of the anti-globalisation movement, Žižek (2007), in reflecting on the disappearance of the word “capitalism” from public discourse, asks, But what about the upsurge of the anti-globalization movement in the last years? Does it not clearly contradict this diagnostic? No: a close look quickly shows how this movement also succumbs to “the temptation to transform a critique of capitalism itself (centered on economic mechanisms, forms of work organization, and profit extraction) into a critique of ‘imperialism’”. In this way, when one talks about “globalization and its agents”, the enemy is externalized (usually in the form of vulgar anti-Americanism). Indeed, Vighi (2010: 113) argues that action aimed at undermining the threat of authority, while necessary, “is less and less sufficient, for the simple reason that the rejection or exposure of explicit forms of authority is one of the key conditions upon which capital thrives”. The conclusion to be drawn here is that it is the insistence on the democratic form of resistance by pacifists and nonviolent advocates that prevents us from moving beyond capitalism. Indeed, Žižek (2007) argues that what today prevents the radical questioning of capitalism itself is precisely the belief in the democratic form of struggle against it. Alain Badiou (2018) claims “the democratic ideology” has both statist and “movementist” forms, with the latter,

symbolic nonviolence |  73 practically concentrated in the cult of immediate action, singularly in terms of street mobilization or even combat as the ultimate aim of political consciousness. Organisationally, it is concentrated in the cult of egalitarian collectives or associations particularized by their objectives. According to Badiou (2018: 24), what both statist and movementist versions of democratic ideology have in common “is their wholly false idea that individual opinion – the living freedom of each person – must be at the basis of political engagement”. While acknowledging the importance of recent mass protest movements, including the Arab Spring and Occupy, Badiou (2018: 34; italics added) nonetheless observes, overall, no new way of thinking politics emerged from these initiatives … So I think that what we are experiencing is that most of the political categories that movement activists try to use to think through effective situations and transform them are, in their current condition, largely inoperative. Therefore, he concludes, “one of this [liberal capitalism] enemy’s most important victories was its symbolic success … we now use the enemy’s preferred terms as if they could somehow be our own. This is particularly true … of the word democracy”. This reference to a symbolic dimension returns us to the ideological and performative dimensions raised earlier. Indeed, Badiou (in Žižek 2019: 17–18) argues that “the main function of ideological censorship today is not to crush actual resistance – this is the job of repressive state apparatuses – but to crush hope, to denounce immediately every critical project as opening a path at the end of which lies something like a gulag”. This is not to dismiss the impact of mass protest movements and the “egalitarian discharge” (Dean 2016) they create. Rather, one must endorse the assessment made by Alain Badiou (2012: 46) that the opening created by the revolutionary moment “does not by itself offer any alternative to the power it intends to overthrow”. Rather, Badiou (2012: 109) claims, The event is the abrupt creation not of a new reality, but of a myriad of new possibilities. None of them is a repetition of

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what is already known. That is why it is obscurantist to say “this movement is demanding democracy” (meaning the kind we enjoy in the West). Indeed, in even stronger terms, Badiou (2018: 29) claims, “democratic ideology is and will remain impotent, no matter what the actions or convictions of its militants, however courageous”. It is in this context that Peter Bloom (2017) offers perhaps a more convincing rethinking of power and resistance. He critiques the externalisation of the enemy as a fundamental fantasy supporting the persistence of the binary of power and resistance as the limit of our social imaginary. In contrast, Bloom (2017: 156) seeks to answer, “whether or not it is possible to craft a new type of affective investment that is not beholden to this desire for or against sovereignty”. Similar to Newman and Vinthagen, Bloom sees power as incomplete, “never still, never fully represented, always partially hidden, an impossibility lying in wait to become possible”. However, rather than seeking to locate a place from which to challenge sovereign power, Bloom (2017: 3) claims, What is needed is a new perspective that replaces desires to resist sovereign power with political movements that expand individual and collective capacities in order to give them new forms of political agency to transcend the existing limits of social possibility. In practice, a growing number of social movements are moving away from direct confrontation with power holders, in favour of community building. Overcoming power and resistance requires rejecting the fantasy of some ideal form of the social that provides us with a secure identity and to re-channel desire towards aspirations for liberation and equality (Bloom 2017). He turns briefly to Jodi Dean (2016) who argues that while the mass protest of the crowd creates an egalitarian rupture in capitalist society, there is a necessary role for “the party” to hold open this gap for enabling this rechannelling of desire. As Dean (2016: 6) puts it, “The party is a body that can carry the egalitarian discharge after the crowds disperse channeling its divisive promise of justice into organized political struggle”. In this way, the revolutionary subject is “driven by the excitement and longing for

symbolic nonviolence |  75 keeping possibilities open and seeing how far they can be concretely pursued” (Bloom 2017: 157). Bloom and Dean here both point towards what I refer to in this chapter as symbolic nonviolence by suggesting a politics that does not rely on the democratic form of resistance to capitalism. Rather than succumbing to the fetish of dialogue or imposing the imperative of pre-figurative nonviolence, they invite us to suspend the democratic ideology of resistance in order to enable a new politics beyond capitalism to emerge. The next section further explores the concept of symbolic nonviolence through Benjamin’s concept of divine violence, with a particular focus on challenging the pacifist fetish with pre-figuration. Violence or nonviolence? Yes please! To understand what I mean by the term “symbolic nonviolence” it is necessary to consider Žižek’s (2009a) concept of symbolic violence. Žižek (2008a: 1) observes how peace advocates claim, In language, instead of exerting direct violence on each other, we are meant to debate, to exchange words, and such an exchange, even when aggressive, presupposes a minimum recognition of the other. The entry into language and the renunciation of violence are often understood as two aspects of one and the same gesture. In contrast, Žižek explains how there is a fundamental violence “that pertains to language as such, to its imposition of a certain universe of meaning” (Žižek 2009a: 1). That is, when we perceive something as violent, “we measure it by a presupposed standard of what the ‘normal’ nonviolent situation is – and the highest form of violence is the imposition of this standard … This is why language itself, the very medium of non-violence, of mutual recognition, involves unconditional violence” (Žižek 2008a: 2). This “symbolic violence” imposes a “sense making” upon us all through which to make sense of both our predicament and what to do about it. For example, Žižek observes that “when workers protest their exploitation, they do not protest a simple reality, but an experience of their real predicament made meaningful through language” (2008a). In this way, there is a direct link between the ontological violence and

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the texture of social violence (of sustaining relations of enforced domination) that pertains to language (Žižek 2009b). In order to move beyond the symbolic violence of democratic ideology Žižek (2010: 88) argues that “Closely linked to the necessary de-fetishization of ‘democratic institutions’ is the de-fetishization of their negative counter-part: violence”. In the continued absence of evidence to support nonviolence in transforming society beyond global liberal capitalism, pacifists and advocates of nonviolence nonetheless argue that maintaining nonviolence is crucial. They argue that violence begets violence and therefore the only guaranteed outcome of a violent social movement is more violence. Rather, consistent with a pre-figuration, only a nonviolent social movement can guarantee a nonviolent outcome. However, such claims face challenges not only from critics of nonviolence (e.g. Gelderloos 2007) but from the experiences of real social movements. For example, in August 2013, in the wake of the Egyptian Arab Spring nonviolent civil resistance movement, the Rabaa massacre resulted in the murder of an estimated 600 to 1,000 civilians (Schielke 2017). Women in the wake of the Arab Spring also reported how the 18 days of “utopia” in Tahrir Square subsequently gave way to an ugly reality (Sussman 2011). Whereas during the revolution, women were able to fully participate, have their voices heard, and all without threat of sexual related violence, this “freedom” all but disappeared in “post-revolution” Egypt (Sussman 2011). Another example from the other direction is the case of Bougainville, a violent revolutionary uprising that, while certainly being met with the violence of the Papua New Guinea security forces with support from Australia, nonetheless led to a really existing society beyond capitalism. The commune-based society that existed beyond the state and capitalism for almost ten years was, however, unable to be sustained in the long-term. Indeed, perhaps the key lesson from Bougainville’s experience is not simply that violence did or did not work, but rather that of the hard reality of what it means to implement an enduring alternative in the world of global capital. Indeed, when such alternatives do emerge, tremendous forces are unleashed to stop them (Douzinas 2016). As discussed earlier, I argue the emphasis on pre-figuration by pacifists reflects an ideological fetish which serves to disavow the absence of evidence to support the efficacy of nonviolence against

symbolic nonviolence |  77 liberal capitalism. Therefore, there is a need to re-think violence and nonviolence in a way that de-fetishises pre-figurative nonviolence as a guarantee for social change. In his Critique of Violence, Walter Benjamin (1927: 287) asks whether “there are no other than violent means for regulating the conflict of human interests” and explores this question by seeking to examine violence as a means in and of itself, as separate from the ends, whether just or otherwise, that it may serve. Benjamin argues that such a critique is excluded from what he terms “natural law”, in which violence can be legitimised if it serves just ends. Conversely, “positive law” sees violence as a product of history, thereby only concerned with its means. Violence used for natural law ends is characterised as a law-making violence and a second function of violence is “law preserving”, leading to the conclusion that all violence as means is either law making or law preserving. This point leads to Benjamin’s (1927) question about the possibility of the nonviolent resolution of conflict and subsequently to the claim that law itself is violent and hence why it is only in the relationships of private persons that the nonviolent resolution of conflict can be achieved. He links such nonviolent relationships to values of courtesy, sympathy, peaceableness and trust, or what he terms as the subjective preconditions of the nonviolent resolution of conflict. At this point, Benjamin’s argument would appear to be consistent with peace and nonviolence theory discussed earlier which sees language and dialogue as the medium for nonviolent structural conflict resolution (e.g. Vinthagen 2015; Galtung 2010; Rubenstein 2017). Nonetheless, Benjamin (1927) argues that “pure means” in politics is analogous to those which govern peaceful intercourse between private persons. Through this concept of “pure means”, Benjamin (1927) attempts to locate a standpoint outside both law-making and law-preserving violence in order to be able to critique violence. From such a standpoint, one might perhaps consider the surprising possibility that the law’s interest in a monopoly of violence vis-à-vis individuals is not explained by the intention of preserving legal ends but, rather, by that of preserving the law itself; that violence, when not in the hands of the law, threatens it not by the ends that it may pursue but by its mere existence outside the law. (Benjamin 1927: 281; emphasis added)

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In other words, power is most threatened by that which remains excluded or “outside of” its ideological socio-symbolic order. Benjamin (1927) makes reference Sorel’s distinction between the general political strike and the proletarian strike to emphasise this point further. The general political strike seeks only concessions from the state, thereby strengthening state power, whereas the proletarian strike seeks to destroy state power. Benjamin therefore concludes that the former is violent in the law-making sense in that it seeks only external modification of labour conditions, whereas the latter is “pure means” and therefore nonviolent, for it aims at the transformation of work, no longer enforced by the state (Benjamin 1927: 291–292). In other words, the standpoint that persists outside both law-making and law-preserving violence is, according to Benjamin, a place of nonviolence. Despite this reference to “pure means” as being nonviolent, Benjamin (1927) nonetheless argues that every solution to human problems remains impossible if violence is totally excluded in principle. This leads him to ask what other kinds of violence outside of legal violence exist. To identify such violence, Benjamin (1927: 293) argues that it must reject the claim “just ends can be attained by justified means, justified means used for just ends”, or in other words, it must reject the notion of pre-figuration. He defines two other forms of violence, mythical violence and divine violence. The former, like legal violence, is also “law making” but rather than pursuing as its end what is to be established by law it instead constitutes power. That is, “Lawmaking is power making, and, to that extent, an immediate manifestation of violence” (Benjamin 1927: 295). In contrast, divine violence is law destroying and therefore nonviolent, and for Benjamin (1927), the highest manifestation of pure or divine violence is revolutionary violence. Benjamin’s reference to divine violence then refers precisely to the suspension of the symbolic violence imposed by ideology. It is an act which does not produce an end (it is neither law making nor law preserving) but rather only an opening for (potentially) a new beginning. Somewhat paradoxically then, for Benjamin it is only through divine violence that we can identify the possibility of the nonviolent resolution of conflict. Benjamin’s critique offers the possibility of rethinking the “nonviolence” at the heart of pacifism in a manner that can enable us to shed the dominant democratic form of resistance thereby

symbolic nonviolence |  79 enabling the opening of possibilities for transforming society beyond liberal capitalism. That is, building on Žižek’s notion of symbolic violence discussed earlier, Benjamin highlights a form of symbolic nonviolence that enables the suspension of democratic ideology through de-fetishising pre-figurative nonviolence. For example, drawing on Benjamin’s divine violence, Žižek (2009a) radicalises the relationship between symbolic violence and outbursts of direct physical violence (or following Lacan, what he refers to as the “passage à l’acte”). The latter, according to Žižek, is a blind acting out, an impotent irruption of violence by those with no formal place in the socio-symbolic network (that is, of those excluded from society, the oppressed). Divine violence, Žižek (2009a: 170) argues, is the sign of injustice of the world and therefore is also an indication of impotence (of society), and “all that changes between divine violence and a blind passage à l’acte is the site of impotence”. Or in other words, “When those outside the structured social field strike ‘blindly’, demanding and enacting immediate justice/vengeance, this is divine violence” (2009a: 171). Therefore, it is not simply that an act of divine violence produces symbolic nonviolence, but rather that they are two sides of the same coin. Whether an act of protest (violent or nonviolent) will be one of an impotent outburst or of revolutionary potential is whether the outburst of the passage a l’acte stops at this moment or whether its transformative potential is politicised and taken “to the end”. As discussed earlier, the democratic form of resistance grounded in the ideological fantasy of pre-figuration that predominates today prevents this necessary politicisation from taking place. It is perhaps important to point out that none of the above means that pacifists need to give up on their commitment to nonviolent tactics. An act of divine violence is not a priori an act of violence at the level of our “real-life” actions. From the position of symbolic nonviolence, whether the tactics of protestors are violent or nonviolent at the level of “real-life” actions is irrelevant. Rather, what a commitment to symbolic nonviolence does challenge us to do is to accept that an act of divine violence may result from an act of violence at the level of “real-life” actions. That is, we must also be attentive to when symbolic nonviolence emerges in a manner that is not of our doing and seize the opportunity to politicise it in favour of moving beyond liberal capitalism. Wars,

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coups, natural disasters, elections and other unanticipated events can cause the suspension of the socio-symbolic order and power in ways that open the space of symbolic nonviolence through which revolutionary potential could emerge. Indeed, as anarchist scholar Simon Critchley (2010) describes, The point is that we are doubly bound, both to follow the plumb-line of the divine commandment [i.e. of nonviolence] and to accept responsibility for choosing not to follow it … we always find ourselves in a concrete socio-political-legal situation of violence and we have with a plumb-line of non-violence, of life’s sanctity. There are no transcendental guarantees and no clean hands. We act, we invent. Conceiving of a plumb line of symbolic nonviolence perhaps provides a political re-orientation for pacifists to determine when one may choose not to follow the plumb line of direct physical nonviolence. That is, to return to Bloom, symbolic nonviolence as the pacifist “place of enunciation” enables the rejection of the fantasy of some ideal form of the social that provides us with a secure identity. We are free to act and invent. Hardt and Negri (2017) believe that in response to the ongoing failures of the horizontal politics of the multitude to transform society beyond global capitalism there is a need to revisit the rejection of leadership in contemporary revolutionary movements. Such a call for leadership should be read in the same manner as Dean’s (2016) call for “the Party” and it is perhaps in this way that we can conceive of the practical role symbolic nonviolence provides for a reinvigorated pacifism today; that is, pacifists as “leaders” of “the party” whose task it is to occupy the “place” of symbolic nonviolence in order carry the egalitarian discharge into an organised political struggle that would transform society beyond global liberal capitalism. Notes 1 I use the term ‘liberal capitalism’ throughout to refer to capitalism and its political-ideological supplement that is liberal representative democracy, with its emphasis on inclusion, multiculturalism and participation.

2 This statement appeared in the comments section in response to a 2008 online blog by Javier Gárate titled “Training for what? It is not all about strategies and tactics” www.wri-irg.org/ node/6258.

symbolic nonviolence |  81 References Badiou, A. 2012, The Rebirth of History, Verso, London. Badiou, A. 2018, Greece and the Re-invention of Politics, Verso, London. Bartkowski, M. 2013, Personal communication. Bayer, M., Bethke, F. S., and Lambach, D. 2016, “The democratic dividend of nonviolent resistance”, Journal of Peace Research, vol. 53, no. 6, pp. 758–771. Beehner, L. (2011, March 6). “From one revolution to another”. Retrieved from www.guardian.co.uk. Benjamin, W. 1927, “Critique of violence”, in Walter Benjamin, Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiography, Writings, ed. P., Demetz, 1986, Schocken Books, New York, pp. 277–300. Bloom, P. 2017, Beyond Power and Resistance: Politics at the Radical Limits, Roman and Littlefield, London. Chabot, S. and Sharifi, M. 2013, “The violence of nonviolence: Problematizing nonviolent resistance in Iran and Egypt”, Societies without Borders, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 205–232. Chabot, S. and Vinthagen, S. 2015, “Decolonizing civil resistance”, Mobilization, vol. 20, no. 4, pp. 517–522. Chenoweth, E. and Stephan, M. J. 2011, Why Civil Resistance Works, Columbia University Press, New York. Chomsky, S. 2011, Revolutionary Pacifism: Choices and Prospects, Text of lecture given upon being awarded the Sydney Peace Prize, 1 November. Viewed at https:// chomsky.info/20111101-2/. Critchley, S. 2010, Violent Thoughts about Slavoj Žižek, 19 September

[Web blog post]. www.nakedpunch. com/articles/39. Dean, J. 2005, “Communicative capitalism: Circulation and the foreclosure of politics”, Cultural Politics, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 51–74. Dean, J. 2016, Crowds and Party, Verso, New York. Douzinas, C. 2016, “The left in power? Notes on Syriza’s rise, fall, and (possible) second rise”, Near Futures Online, March. http:// nearfuturesonline.org/the-left-inpower-notes-on-syrizas-rise-falland-possible-second-rise/#en-62-1. Foucault, M. 1977, Discipline and Punish, Pantheon Books, New York. Foucault, M. 1978, The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction, Pantheon Books, New York. Foucault, M. 1982, “The subject and power”, in H. Dreyfus and P. Rabinow (eds), Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp. 208–226. Galtung, J. 1973, Theories of Conflict: Definitions, Dimensions, Negations, Formations. Retrieved from www. transcend.org. Galtung, J. 2010, A Theory of Conflict, Transcend University Press, Bergen. Gelderloos, P. 2007, How Nonviolence Protects the State, South End Press, Cambridge, MA. Graeber, D. 2013, The Democracy Project: A History, a Crises, a Movement, Allen Lane, London. Hardt, M. and Negri, A. 2017, Assembly, Oxford University Press, New York. Helvey, R. 2004, On Strategic Nonviolent Conflict: Thinking about the Fundamentals, Albert Einstein Institution, Boston. Hirst, D. 2011, “Arab revolution is far from over”, The Guardian Weekly, 25 February–3 March, p. 1.

82  |  timothy bryar Johansen, J. 2007, “Nonviolence: More than the absence of violence”, in C. Webel and J. Galtung (eds), Handbook of Peace and Conflict Studies, Routledge, London, pp. 143–159. Johansen, J. 2011, Civil Resistance from Ghandi to Present Time [Online webinar], 5 April. Retrieved from www.nonviolent-conflict.org. Lefort, C. 1988, Democracy and Political Theory, Polity, Cambridge. Macpherson, R. and Smith, D. A. 2013, “Occupy as a world anti-systemic movement”, Peace Review, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 367–375. Maekelbergh, M. 2011, “Doing is believing: Prefiguration as strategic practice in the alterglobalization movement”, Social Movement Studies, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 1–20. Martin, B. 1999, “Nonviolence versus capitalism”, Gandhi Marg, vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 283–312. Martin, B. 2008, “How nonviolence is misrepresented”, Gandhi Marg, vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 235–257. Newman, S. 2004a, “New reflections on the theory of power: A Lacanian perspective”, Contemporary Political Theory, vol. 3, pp. 148–167. Newman, S. 2004b, “Interrogating the master: Lacan and radical politics”, Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society, vol. 9, pp. 298–314. Newman, S. 2004c, “The place of power in political discourse”, International Political Science Review, vol. 25, pp. 139–157. Prashad, V. 2012, Arab Spring, Libyan Winter, AK Press, Oakland, CA. Roess, M. 2012, “Pluralism, democracy, and the ‘empty place of power’: Using Lefort’s political theory to address the problem of tolerance”, PhD Thesis, Stony Brook University. Rua Wall, I. 2011, “A different constituent power: Agamben

and Tunisia”, in M. Stone, I Rua Wall, and C. Douzinas (eds) New Critical Legal Thinking: Law and the Political, Birbeck Law Press, Abingdon, pp. 46–66. Rubenstein, R. E. 2017, Resolving Structural Conflicts: How Violent Systems Can Be Transformed, Routledge, New York. Schielke, S. 2017, “There will be blood: Expectations and ethics of violence during Egypt’s stormy season”, Middle East Critique, vol. 26, no. 3, pp. 205–220. Schock, K. 2004, Unarmed Insurrections: People Power Movements in Nondemocracies, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis. Sussman, A. 2011, “Prominent during the revolution, Egyptian women vanish in new order”. Retrieved from www.theatlantic.com/ international. Vighi, F. 2010, On Žižek’s Dialectics: Surplus, Subtraction, Sublimation, Continuum, London. Vinthagen, S. 2015, A Theory of Nonviolent Action: How Civil Resistance Works, Zed Books, London. Vinthagen, S. 2017, Revolutionary Nonviolence: The Case of the Zapatistas, keynote address at “Rethinking Pacifism Conference”, University of Otago. www.youtube. com/watch?v=HR4fhzMkG_ E&list=PLBRyasMFuj7Uq9oOljQcw QN9UuDORoZFv. Wahlberg, E. 2011, “Egypt/Serbia/ Georgia: Learning from others’ mistakes”. Retrieved from www. transcend.org/tms. Žižek, S. 2007, “Censorship today: violence, or ecology as a new opium for the masses” [weblog]. Viewed 15 July 2015, www.lacan.com/ zizecology1.htm.

symbolic nonviolence |  83 Žižek, S. 2008a, “Language, violence and nonviolence”, International Journal of Žižek Studies, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 1–12. Žižek, S. 2008b, For They Know Not What They Do, Verso, London. Žižek, S. 2009a, Violence: Six Sideways Reflections, Profile Books, London.

Žižek, S. 2009b, In Defense of Lost Causes, Verso, London. Žižek, S. 2010, “A permanent economic emergency”, New Left Review, 64, pp. 85–95. Žižek, S. 2019, The Relevance of the Communist Manifesto. Polity, Cambridge.

4

| ERADICATING WARISM: OUR MOST DANGEROUS DISEASE1

Duane L. Cady

My thesis is that three obstacles to pacifism are reflected in conventional wisdom: (1) warism – that is, taking war for granted as normal, natural, morally acceptable and even morally required; (2) pacifism is stereotyped as a moral extreme, an absolute easily dismissed as unrealistic, naïve idealism; and (3) pacifism is seen to be negative, that is, anti-war but nothing more. My task is to remove these obstacles to taking pacifism seriously. My emphasis is on recognising and eliminating warism, because it is a fundamental yet for the most part unnoticed condition that prejudices most people against envisioning a peaceful world now and for future generations, and because the elimination of warism is necessary for points (2) and (3) to be addressed. Keywords: Just War; Pacifism;Warism

Introduction Ki mai koe a au, he ahate mea nui o te, He tangata! He tangata! He tangata! (If you ask what is the most important thing in the world, it is the people! The People! The People!) – Māori saying Pacifism is dismissed by the dominant culture, embraced by few individuals and not as effective as even pacifists would like it to be. Yet pacifism is a powerful and positive outlook that promises revolutionary change. Its history, especially over the past century with the work of Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., establishes a basis for further success at transforming our social order for the better. Nonetheless, pervasive misunderstandings stand in the way of moving toward a pacifist future. In what follows, I defend the thesis that three conditions of conventional wisdom are obstacles preventing pacifism from being taken seriously: (1) warism – that is, taking war for granted as normal, natural, morally acceptable and even morally required; (2) stereotypes of pacifism as a moral extreme, an absolute easily dismissed as unrealistic, naïve idealism;

eradicating warism |  85 and (3) seeing pacifism to be negative, that is, opposed to war but offering nothing more. My task is to challenge these obstacles to pacifism, clearing the way for the development of pacifist approaches to security, public policy and fundamental social change.2 When warism – taking war for granted as morally acceptable – is recognised to be, like racism and sexism, a prejudice that distorts our better judgement, then we can try to set this bias aside and openly consider varieties of pacifism. Warism is the condition that makes possible the other obstacles to taking pacifism seriously, namely, stereotyping it as extreme and as wholly negative. Pacifism and just war “Pacifism” means peacemaking. It should not be mistaken for “passivism”, which means being passive, suffering acceptance, not resisting evil. Because the two words sound alike, people often confuse one for the other. In fact, pacifists rarely are passivists; more often they are activists, working for peace. Pacifism takes many forms, all of them rejecting war and other forms of violence. Beyond this negative position of being opposed to war, pacifism involves various positive strategies for making peace. So, there are two sides of pacifism: the negative, anti-war, anti-violence side, and the positive side, offering peaceful alternatives to violence. While pacifists are dismissed as naïve by a dominant culture that caricatures pacifism as a moral extreme, in fact, pacifism grows out of the predominant values of Western culture. Over the past 1,500 years a just war tradition has been developed by scholars and strategists and is accepted by the vast majority of people. Those believing that just war is possible do not say “all’s fair in war” or “in war, anything goes”. Such a view would be war realism. But those believing in just war have ethical criteria guiding their decisions about war. According to the tradition, moral guidelines are needed to answer two basic questions: when are we justified in going to war? And, what moral restraints are required within a just war? Regarding the first question, going to war requires meeting six conditions: (1) the war must be made on behalf of a just cause; (2) any decision to go to war must be made by proper authorities; (3) participants in war must have a good intention rather than revenge or greed as goals; (4) peace must be likely to emerge after the war; (5) going to

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war must be a last resort; and (6) the total amount of evil resulting from making war must be outweighed by the good likely to come of it. Once all six conditions are satisfied we can turn to the second question: what moral restraints make possible fighting a war justly? There are two principles to meet in order to fight a war justly: discrimination and proportionality. First, a war is fought justly only if those making war discriminate between legitimate and illegitimate targets. Children, the elderly, those hospitalised or in nursing homes, even ordinary citizens not part of the war effort, all are illegitimate targets. Only soldiers and those working to advance war making can be targeted. The second standard, proportionality, requires that the evil of each individual act within war must be offset by the good it brings about. Those supporting just war allow for “spillage”, where bombs may target weapons factories or enemy soldiers but inadvertently injure or kill non-combatants. But, again, such so-called “collateral damage” must be offset by the good accomplished by the war. For a war to be just, it must meet all the conditions and answer both questions. Meeting just a few of the conditions is not enough. Just wars require moral justification for going to war as well as moral restraint within war once it begins. War would be less problematic if those who believe in just war would understand and satisfy the moral conditions of their own tradition. Pacifism emerges as people take the moral restraints on war ever more seriously. Varieties of pacifism differ by degree. It is helpful to understand various forms of pacifism by thinking of degrees of moral restraint along a continuum between accepting the just war tradition and accepting absolute pacifism. The weakest form of pacifism, operating alongside versions of just war thinking, is called “pragmatic pacifism”. Here war is not opposed in principle but is opposed in particular cases because violence is not likely to work in the situation at hand; resorting to violence would only make matters worse. Pragmatic pacifists sometimes support and at other times oppose war, depending on their judgement concerning the most practical solution to the problem at hand. Pragmatic pacifists will grant that war can be justified in some cases, but hold that, as a matter of practical utility, avoiding war is more likely to be effective in achieving the goals of a given conflict. For example, one might find slavery sufficiently evil to warrant

eradicating warism |  87 war to free the enslaved, but may think that violence would only give slave owners an excuse to use extreme violence against any freedom movement among slaves. The objection to war is for pragmatic reasons, not in principle. A somewhat stronger view along the pacifist spectrum is “nuclear pacifism”. Here, nuclear war is prohibited because it cannot meet the just war conditions of discrimination and proportionality. There is no way to hit only legitimate targets with nuclear weapons. They are inherently indiscriminate, destroying children, the elderly, hospitals and civilian homes as readily as military installations and weapons factories. And nuclear war is never a pragmatic solution. Nuclear pacifists often reject the nuclear option on moral grounds yet cling to conventional warfare as sometimes justifiable. This brings us to “technological pacifism”, the view that the technology of modern war has made conventional warfare nearly as indiscriminate as nuclear war, so that the just war requirements are never met nowadays due to the inevitable impact on innocents. Modern conventional war frequently spills over to harm more innocent bystanders than it harms legitimate military targets. Perhaps war was justified many years ago when volunteers met on remote battlefields with spears, but war as we know it today is simply too big and too difficult to control. Consequently, modern war cannot be morally justified. At the beginning of the twentieth century most casualties of war were military, but by the end of the twentieth century, most casualties of war were civilian. If we rigorously enforce the just war guidelines, modern war doesn’t qualify as just since modern war inevitably violates the principles both of proportionality and discrimination. Even on the smaller scale of drone warfare, the principle of discrimination is routinely violated as innocent bystanders are injured and killed in numbers well beyond the injuries and deaths of “terrorists” or other allegedly legitimate targets. The nature of modern war has made the idea of just war obsolete. Increasing awareness of the fragility of our environment has also resulted in “ecological pacifism”, a version of technological pacifism where moral concern goes beyond the impact of war on people and society to focus on the implications of war for our planet, its ecosystems and the host of species they support, as well as for the sustainability of air and water quality for current and future generations of all living things. Ecological pacifists point out that the largest

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single threat to the global environment is military, not least because Earth’s military systems are the greatest sources of environmental contamination, including consuming the most fossil fuel. While individuals worry about their personal carbon footprints, their taxes support carbon footprints made by militaries contributing to environmental damage exponentially beyond the impact of individuals. If preserving or restoring our environment is a concern, then curbing the pollution and consumption by the world’s military organisations must be paramount. Such concern often leads to ecological pacifism. “Fallibility pacifism” is the view that even if some modern wars could meet the just war conditions in principle, our knowledge is too limited to substantiate their application in fact. Due to the sheer scale of war, we cannot know relevant factors with sufficient confidence to warrant violent actions between nations. Given the subtlety and complexity of issues, the history of tensions, biases of involved parties, propaganda, vested interests, manipulation of news media and the various inequalities among nations – economic, political, military, geographical – our knowledge cannot be sufficiently secure to justify war, even if war might otherwise seem theoretically justifiable. “Collectivist pacifism” is the position that violence may be morally justifiable in particular small-scale situations, such as in the execution of a convicted murderer, or fending off a violent attacker by force, but that war cannot be justified due to its sheer magnitude. For instance, although collective pacifists always object to the mass killing that characterises war, they may allow defensive interpersonal violence when an individual does something so evil that by so doing they thereby forgo any legitimate expectation of the upholding of their human right to be protected from violence themselves. There is no inconsistency in the collectivist pacifist allowing interpersonal violence but rejecting war, since using personal weapons to defend one’s self or one’s family from attack is sufficiently different in scale from participating in war, with its mass violence and enemy anonymity. Finally, as we describe the range of anti-war pacifist positions, we approach “absolute pacifism”. On this position, it is wrong always, everywhere, for everyone to use violence against another living thing. We can imagine even more absolute pacifisms, where all violence including violence against non-living things is prohibited. Few if any pacifists espouse such an extreme view. Even Gandhi said that if the choice were between violence and cowardice, he would choose

eradicating warism |  89 violence (Gandhi 1951: 132). The point is that pacifism admits to degrees along a continuum between pragmatic and absolute pacifism, and that most of us find ourselves somewhere between the extremes of the scale. Pacifism and peace Having described the range of anti-war pacifism and thus setting aside the accusation that all pacifists hold a single, monolithic, absolute view, we can now turn to the accusation that pacifism is always and only negative. Pacifists do not merely oppose war and violence to varying degrees; they also promote a range of alternatives to violence, a range of practices contributing to positive peace. By “peace” they mean not just the absence of war and violence but the presence of a harmonious and cooperative social order. This order arises from among participants rather than being imposed on them from the outside. Positive peace is characterised by cooperation within groups. The Cold War was well named: “cold” because overt violence (e.g. bombing and other killing) was avoided; yet “war” because relations were deeply strained, and overt violence seemed to be held at bay only by each side threatening the other with annihilation. The uneasy lack of overt violence in Eastern Europe from the close of the Second World War until the collapse of the Soviet Union was negative peace at best. By contrast, positive peace involves no threats, no massing of troops or weapons, no coercive force. Pacifism – literally agreement making (from the Latin pax, peace + facere, building) – happens when a sense of community, shared purpose and mutual interest all prevail over divisiveness, opposing purposes and disunity. This is why people of common heritage, shared values and familiar experiences usually find it easier to be at peace with one another than with those of different traditions, religions, cultures or ethnicities. Getting along by self-control from within groups comes more naturally when groups are, or seem to be, more alike than foreign. But whether they are as large as nations or as small as nuclear families, when groups or their members are at odds with one another, tension and conflict inevitably arise. For pacifists, the better people understand one another the less likely their conflicts will result in violence. The challenge is to foster a sense of community, of participation, sufficiently strong to overcome divisiveness, differences and misunderstandings. This harmonious ideal

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is anchored by a spirit of tolerance and respect, where differences are seen as enhancing possibilities for human experience rather than as threats that must be dominated or destroyed. Pacifists try to internalise practices to foster within themselves – and within their families, neighbourhoods, houses of worship, workplaces, states, nations and so on – the ideal of cooperative community. Such practices are nonviolent because violence always ruptures relationships – the basis of community – and because violence is incompatible with an internally ordered peaceful whole. All of us succeed at living peacefully to some extent, in any context dependent on cooperative behaviour: perhaps with immediate family, close friends, co-workers, team members, neighbours, customers or even drivers with whom we share the roadways. One of the fascinating features of positive peace, when it happens, is that it rarely occurs to those living peacefully that it is peace they are making; it is simply how they live and interact, habitual and taken for granted. Positive peace is nearly invisible. Unfortunately, there are limits to our peacefulness, and few of us can take cooperation for granted as how we can interact with everyone. Ignorance, fear, impatience, intolerance, all get the upper hand at times, and some individuals are disruptively self-interested, putting themselves above others, or are even bigoted and disrespectful. In the extreme, this becomes criminal behaviour, and those who rupture the peace must be dealt with. The mark of truly peaceful people is whether their methods of dealing with peace-breakers are consistent with their visions of peace. Of course, the most obvious peaceful method to resolve conflict and achieve agreement is discussion. Where individuals and groups cannot work out agreement by discussion, resolution may be achieved by appeal to an impartial third party. When such arbitration fails, courts may be used to settle disputes. But some conflicts do not get resolution by various legal means. I cannot delineate all methods of nonviolent peace-building here, but in The Politics of Nonviolent Action (1973), Gene Sharp cites nearly 200 techniques. All are ways to confront power nonviolently by taking advantage of power’s main vulnerability: that ruling requires the consent of the ruled, a fundamental principle from Gandhi. Beyond discussion, arbitration and the courts, we find political protest and persuasion – acts demonstrating support or opposition.

eradicating warism |  91 Personal and group letters, lobbying, petitioning, picketing, wearing symbols, marching, singing and teach-ins, all are examples of this level of nonviolent struggle. Beyond protest and persuasion are methods of noncooperation: strikes, boycotts, slow-downs, withholding funds, reporting in “sick”, walkouts and embargos. Moving beyond noncooperation are methods of nonviolent intervention: sit-ins, fasting, forming shadow governments, underground newspapers and electronic media, and acts of civil disobedience. All of these methods of nonviolent direct action can be seen as acts along a spectrum expressing increasing degrees of physical confrontation, increasing degrees of coercion, from cooperative discussion to nonviolent intervention. Just as pacifists may occupy any point along the anti-war continuum, they may inhabit any point on the positive peace-building spectrum. The next step would be violent intervention, which is outside the pacifist range of peace-building options. For the pacifist, leaving the nonviolent range of peace-building techniques is tantamount to surrender because it amounts to betraying one’s ideals in pursuit of them. But perhaps this is too quick; after all, there are legitimate versions of pacifism where a small-scale, personal resort to violence, while never desired, can be warranted – such as force used by police to apprehend a criminal for trial. Still, no pacifist can resort to war. When warism is recognised and taking war for granted is challenged, a variety of pacifist positions become possible. And, as it turns out, pacifism is not naïve or unrealistic at all. In fact, all of us are pacifists to some degree, since all of us oppose violence as a means of interaction in many aspects of our lives. Building on this active nonviolence can expand our capacity for peace-building and make us increasingly wary of war as a solution to conflict. The challenge of warism This brings us back to warism, which I consider the major obstacle to a more peaceful world. Warism is the view that war is morally justifiable in principle and often morally justified in fact. War is considered to be a natural and normal activity of nations. War is simply what nations do. It seems so obvious to most people that war is morally acceptable that they do not realise it is war they are assuming. Warism is like racism or sexism: a prejudicial bias built into conceptions and judgements without awareness that it is presupposed. Given the prevalence of warism, national focus tends to be on

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making war effectively or allying with nations who do. Questioning the morality of war per se simply never arises. Warism is like an international epidemic. It threatens our very survival because it supports the prevailing means of organising our world, namely, the war system. Warism is especially insidious because it is nearly invisible behind our building, maintaining and ever expanding the means of war. Some of us condemn the practices of weapons production, conducting foreign policy by way of military threats – and actions – and devoting growing percentages of national resources to war making. But condemning warism is like condemning cancer: it doesn’t do much good. We have yet to discover sufficient ways of exposing and eradicating the sickness that is warism. These would clear the way to replacing the war system with positive peacemaking, a revolutionary pacifism that would assure both security and constructive social change. Racism and sexism have been drastically reduced because they were exposed, dragged out of hiding, and made to be seen for what they are: prejudicial biases that distort our judgements, pervert our values and mislead us into thinking we know when we do not. Warism is similarly invisible, behind our thoughts and actions, shaping and distorting our perspectives and thus our behaviour. Central to exposing warism is shining a light on it, pointing it out, revealing the role it plays behind decisions public and private. Exposing warism is especially difficult because warism is so widely held. Exposing warism by pointing it out, by bringing it to light, is made especially difficult by the increasing control governments place on the media when it comes to war. During the Second World War, reporters had broad access to soldiers on front lines, often at personal risk. By the US war in Vietnam 20 years later, political considerations began to control media access to troops in action. Government control of media coverage of flag-draped caskets containing remains of soldiers killed in action increased after the Vietnam War, primarily to thwart opposition to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ownership of the bulk of large media outlets by relatively few multinational corporations contributes to the difficulty as well. Nonetheless, good work is done. I’m thinking of rare reporting of US torture in Iraq and the relationship between torture and converting Middle Eastern citizens into terrorists (“American Prison was Terrorist University” 2014), of civilian casualties of the US drone warfare programme, and of

eradicating warism |  93 work like that of Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson, exposing United States/New Zealand atrocities in Afghanistan along with government cover up (Hager and Stephenson 2017). Such reporting of the truth of war and how it is fought today, reporting without misinformation or cover up, helps to shift the wider culture away from the prevalent warist paradigm. But we need such work to be common rather than rare. This is made especially difficult in an era of “fake news” and “alternative facts”, when politicians simply making assertions or believing claims strongly enough seems persuasive to many without requiring the verification of factual evidence. Conclusion Sadly, there is no easy or quick fix to the broad cultural addiction to war and the war system that organises our world. But resisting stereotypes of pacifism by showing the range of pacifist views, demonstrating the positive aspects of pacifism, and exposing the warism behind our values and political decisions all are conditions for taking pacifism seriously. Until we do, our global future promises more violence, more killing, more war. The choice is not merely between war and peace; it is between war and survival. Only a transformation from warism to pacifism, a revolutionary vision for our world, can help us to build a sustainable future. If we are to have a long-term future we have no choice but to embrace pacifism. Notes 1 I am grateful to David Boersma, William Gay, Robert Holmes, Karen Warren and Richard Werner for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this essay.

2 I generally follow my argument in From Warism to Pacifism: A Moral Continuum (1989).

References “American Prison was Terrorist University”, 2014. Star Tribune, 5 November, p. A-6. Cady, Duane L., 2010 [1989]. From Warism to Pacifism: A Moral Continuum, Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Gandhi, Mohandas K., 1951. “The Doctrine of the Sword”, in Bharatan Kumarappa (ed.)

Nonviolent Resistance, New York: Schocken. Hager, Nicky, and Stephenson, Jon, 2017. Hit and Run: The New Zealand SAS in Afghanistan and the Meaning of Honor, Nelson, New Zealand: Potton & Burton. Sharp, Gene, 1973. The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Boston, MA: Porter Sargent.

5

| SOCIAL DEFENCE: A REVOLUTIONARY AGENDA

Brian Martin

Despite the recent upsurge in the use of and interest in nonviolent action, there has been little progress in transforming military systems. One important option is social defence, which is nonviolent community resistance to aggression as an alternative to military defence. Introducing a social defence system would have major implications for training, workplaces, communications, infrastructure and much else. Furthermore, social defence offers an agenda for citizen empowerment that can be used to help guide campaigns in the direction of revolutionary grassroots empowerment. Keywords: Social Defence; Nonviolent Action; Military Defence; Civilianbased Defence

Introduction In the past two decades, there has been a remarkable surge in the use of nonviolent action and an associated recognition of its power. Nonviolent campaigns have been instrumental in challenges to autocratic governments in Serbia, Lebanon, Ukraine, Tunisia, Egypt and other countries. The movements called the Arab Spring led to mass media coverage of nonviolence ideas. Within the environmental, peace, antiracist and other social movements, nonviolence ideas are dominant. Among scholars, the pioneering work by Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan (2011) has contributed to a dramatic increase in interest in nonviolent action, also called civil resistance. Yet during all this time, there is one key institution, an institution premised on the threat and use of violence, that seems to have been almost untouched by the increasing use and interest in nonviolent action: the military. Throughout the world, militaries continue to receive massive funding used to train and pay soldiers, develop and deploy more advanced technologies for killing, and implement more sophisticated information-gathering capacities. As well, in many countries militaries have considerable popular support.

social defence |  95 The military system serves multiple functions. In some countries, military forces are the backbone of repressive governments, used to quell popular movements. Elsewhere, military forces are used to invade other countries and fight seemingly perpetual wars. Everywhere, the military is the ultimate defender of the state and economic inequality. Peace movements have long challenged wars, weapons and military systems. There have been many remarkable campaigns that have led to constraints on weapons systems and helped to deter warmaking. Yet despite these successes, peace movements have made relatively little progress in developing and promoting alternatives to the military. A century ago, during the First World War, the famous philosopher Bertrand Russell (1915) proposed that a defence system could be constructed around the use of nonviolent methods. At that time, the idea of nonviolent action as a mode of struggle was relatively new. The struggles against oppressive rulers in Hungary in the mid-1800s (Csapody and Weber 2007) and Finland at the end of the 1800s (Huxley 1990), using various forms of noncooperation, inspired both thinkers and activists, notably Gandhi, to consider what today is called nonviolent action or civil resistance as a method for challenging oppression and injustice. What Russell and others then did was to apply this idea for the purpose of defending against foreign aggression. Instead of military defence, nonviolent methods could be used. In the following decades, this idea was developed by a number of writers and researchers (Boserup and Mack 1974; Burrowes 1996; Drago 2006; Ebert 1968; Geeraerts 1977; King-Hall 1958; Lyttle 1958; Martin 1993; Niezing 1987; Randle 1994; Roberts 1967; Sharp 1985, 1990; Zahn 1996). By the 1980s, in part inspired by the massive movement against nuclear weapons, there were a number of groups studying and promoting social defence, including in Australia, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. In the Netherlands, there were a dozen groups, each with a specific focus, for example on women and on public servants. However, this engagement dissipated after the end of the Cold War. Both the peace movement and interest in social defence went into steep decline (Martin 2014). This was curious, because with the end of the Cold War there was a widespread expectation of a “peace dividend”: resources directed to

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war preparedness and war could be redirected to peaceful purposes, such as health and education. However, there was hardly any reduction in military spending. This should have been a sign that defence against foreign enemies was, in large part, a pretext for military spending rather than the real reason. The military-industrial complex was entrenched in the US and other countries. For several years, advocates for Western military systems sought a plausible public rationale, and finally obtained one in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Terrorism became the new public enemy #1, justifying wars despite the fact that military interventions may stimulate the threat as much as contain it, and that there are many alternatives to military-based counter-terrorism, including diplomacy, reducing media coverage (Schmid and de Graaf 1982) and addressing underlying grievances. Government anti-terrorism rhetoric, amplified by most of the mass media, made publics afraid of the terrorist threat to security. This left the peace movement in an awkward position. There was a massive mobilisation against the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but the wider visions of alternatives seemed to have little sway. The idea of peace conversion or economic conversion – conversion of military production to production for human needs (Melman 1970) – had been influential in the 1970s and 1980s but fell off the agenda. Likewise, the idea of a nonviolent alternative to military defence mostly disappeared, while suggestions for nonviolent anti-terrorism approaches remained at the level of ideas, with little practical implementation (Hastings 2004; Martin 2002; Ram and Summy 2008). One explanation for the lack of interest in social defence is that it is deeply threatening to national and global power structures. The 1980s, when interest in social defence peaked, was also the time when neoliberalism grew in strength, countering the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Social movements were put on the defensive, and visions of alternatives became a lower priority than before. In the rest of this chapter, I argue that social defence has potentially revolutionary implications. In the next section, I outline some of the facets of a social defence system. Then I address the implications of social defence for current power systems, and note that the increased interest in nonviolent action has not yet encompassed social defence. Finally, I present ideas about how social defence can be a guide to the sort of activism that tackles oppressive structures.

social defence |  97 In practice, nonviolent action can be used for various goals, including defending the status quo, such as when opposing military coups (Roberts 1967), pushing for reforms as in many environmental campaigns, challenging repressive regimes (Chenoweth and Stephan 2011), and in fundamentally changing social relationships and institutions. What can be called revolutionary nonviolence is in pursuit of this latter goal, which can include challenging and building alternatives to patriarchy, capitalism, the state and other systems of inequality and hierarchy (de Ligt 1937; Dellinger 1970; Lakey 1973; Martin 1993). Unlike the idea of revolution as capturing and wielding state power, revolutionary nonviolence rejects both violence as a means and the capacity to use violence as an end point. As will be seen in the following discussion, the promotion of social defence at a grassroots level can be considered part of revolutionary nonviolence. Social defence In many conceptions (e.g. Roberts 1967; Sharp 1985), social defence is a direct replacement for military defence designed primarily to deter and defend against foreign military threats using nonviolent methods such as rallies, strikes, boycotts and fasts. On the surface, to many people this sounds absurd: how could such methods be effective against a determined opponent armed with the latest weaponry, or even just guns? But of course this is the same line of thinking that assumes nonviolent action can never succeed against an armed opponent, the same thinking that is inadequate to explain the many successes of nonviolent campaigns against dictators and against entrenched systems of oppression. The usual explanation for the possibility that nonviolent resistance can win against an opponent wielding violence draws on the consent theory of power: power depends on cooperation (Sharp 1973). The key here is the cooperation of the agents of the opponent, especially troops (Nepstad 2011). If they refuse to obey orders, then the opponent lacks the capacity to impose rule. Noncooperation goes beyond soldiers, because invaders depend on a degree of acquiescence to do anything, for example, to obtain food and send messages. This raises the question of the purpose of aggression. Instrumentally, it is to control a population and sometimes to extract resources or to use the land for colonisation. Hardly ever is the sole purpose of

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aggression to kill all the population. The only times in which this occurs is during wars, when both sides are using violence. One of the most powerful tools of a social defence system is its refusal to use violence. This alone would be a threat to the loyalty of troops called upon to attack and occupy the territory of an unarmed population. However, social defence is much more than a refusal to use violence. It involves plans, preparation and training to resist invasion and occupation. One goal of an aggressor might be to extract resources, for example, agricultural products, natural resources and factory production. In these and other areas, there is a great dependence on people and technologies. Suppose, for example, an aggressor wanted to take control of mining operations. Resisters could refuse to operate machinery, so the aggressor would have to recruit other workers or bring in its own. But even this would be difficult if mining workers were prepared. Major pieces of equipment could be designed so that outsiders could not operate them, for example due to special codes put into computer systems. Alternatively, equipment could be sabotaged. The aggressor might learn about preparations for resistance and thus be ready with some workers to run the mining operations. Therefore resisters need to have plans that would be effective even if they were fully known. Mining requires more than digging minerals out of the ground. They also have to be transported, and this introduces a new set of opportunities for resistance. Transport workers could refuse to cooperate. Suppose the transport is by truck, and the aggressor soldiers threaten to kill drivers unless they cooperate. One resistance option is to sacrifice one’s life; a more palatable option is to design trucks with an emergency control mechanism. For example, when the emergency button is pressed (perhaps with a safeguard: at least two workers have to press it simultaneously), the truck cannot operate except with the input of codes known only to two individuals, one of them on the other side of the country or the world. Torturing the worker would not get the truck moving, and finding the second individual knowing the code could be a challenge. The details here are less important than the general approach: design human-technology systems so that, if resistance is desired, an opponent cannot operate them (Martin 2001). Another crucial part of a social defence system is communication. Defenders need secure communications to coordinate their

social defence |  99 activities and to prevent attackers from using surveillance methods to identify leaders. Despite the Gandhian imperative to be completely open, including revealing plans to opponents, confidentiality is often important when resisting aggression. This is especially the case when individuals within the attacking forces decide to assist the resistance, for example, by providing information about planned arrests or use of torture. Communication is also important for making contact with the population of actual or potential aggressors. Typically in any military aggression, propaganda to justify actions is directed at people on the home front as well as soldiers. Therefore, an effective resistance will be prepared to counter such propaganda by telling what is really happening and being able to get this information to opposing forces and the associated population. This form of communication, a type of anti-propaganda, is important for deterrence. Well in advance of any assault, defenders would monitor politics and activities in any part of the world from which an attack might be made and develop means of convincingly communicating with populations. For example, it might be useful to invite credible figures from areas hosting potential threats to live in the community and provide regular reports about what it is like, including information about a commitment to nonviolence. In such an endeavour, communication is crucial, including capacities to counter hostile propaganda. Another important facet of a social defence system is the capacity to operate parallel government and other vital functions. An aggressor might well target the official or de facto leaders in the society attacked – politicians, government officials, writers, celebrities or figures in business or churches – killing or arresting them or coercing their collaboration through threats to them or their families. To maintain the resistance, others need to be prepared to step into leadership positions and, just as importantly, every person needs to be able to continue their activities, not being dependent on leaders for guidance. In a workplace, if the boss is removed, then others need to have the skills and knowledge to take their place. Alternatively, workers might cooperate to do the work without a formal boss, so that the absence of one person does not greatly hinder activities. This sort of resilience would be important in every vital area, for example, transport, agriculture, energy, water and communication.

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These three aspects of a social defence system – technology design, communication and capacity to protect vital functions – are sufficient to illustrate a key point: each one of them is threatening to government or corporate elites or both. For workers to be able to shut down production gives them immense power that can be used against bosses. For citizens to be able to communicate securely means being able to avoid surveillance by spy agencies. Being able to run parallel government operations means being able to coordinate the operations of society without current powerholders or without any powerholders at all. In short, a population prepared to defend nonviolently against foreign aggression is also prepared to use the same skills against its own rulers in government, the corporate sector and elsewhere. This may be the underlying reason why governments have been so reluctant to introduce social defence, or even investigate it, despite the evidence suggesting its potential. Social defence solves one of the problems inherent in having military forces. Militaries, though justified as needed to deter and defend against external enemies, are more commonly used to oppress their own people. In one insightful analysis (Tilly 1985), militaries are described as operating protection rackets: they demand payment (funding), otherwise they may assault the people they are supposed to be protecting. Social defence, in contrast, does not have the same capacity to oppress a population, because only nonviolent means are used. With social defence, there is no prospect of a military coup. Although it is possible to imagine nonviolent struggles over various issues, such as salaries or building projects, the struggles do not involve violence. Furthermore, to the extent that popular participation in nonviolent struggles engenders a widespread understanding of the principles underlying nonviolence, including a Gandhian commitment to conflict resolution, there will be greater respect for others. Ideally, the introduction of social defence might trigger a spiral of ever greater commitment to nonviolence, the opposite of the more familiar arms races. In contemporary societies, there is an ever-increasing division of labour and an assignment of tasks to specialists. This is apparent in health, education, food production and numerous other areas. This engenders an assumption that in nearly every activity, someone else is responsible. Food is bought at supermarkets supplied by farmers.

social defence |  101 Ill health is treated by doctors. Learning is seen as something provided by teachers. Electricity is provided by a grid powered by distant generators and petrol is bought at service stations. This is a dramatic change from an era, not so long ago, when many people lived on the land and were relatively self-reliant. The rise of professional militaries fits within the contemporary shift to reliance on specialists. The idea of social defence is challenging because it clashes with the usual dependence on professionals. Instead of relying on someone else for defence, it becomes a community responsibility. Despite (or because of) the increasing dependence on professionals in all sorts of activities (Derber, Schwartz and Magrass 1990), there is a countervailing movement towards cooperation and collective self-reliance, which includes locally grown food, patient support groups for particular conditions, independent learning, and local renewable energy generation (Galtung, O’Brien and Preiswerk 1980). There are even some local policing initiatives such as the Guardian Angels in which citizens patrol streets and deal with disturbances. However, this sort of local self-reliance has yet to take hold in relation to defence. A revolutionary agenda In many formulations, social defence is seen as a policy measure introduced by governments as a better option than military defence (e.g. Sharp 1985). This approach has never gained much support, arguably because empowering the population for resistance is threatening to governments, even the more enlightened ones. If, on the other hand, social defence is seen as a grassroots initiative, there is no need to convince governments to support it. Indeed, governments are likely to be prime opponents. Social defence becomes society defending itself against the state. In this picture, social defence is not defence of the nation but defence of community or of ideals. Stephen King-Hall (1958) argued that the key thing to be defended was not territory but a way of life. Beyond this, given that social defence has such far-reaching implications for power structures, it can be used as a guide for social change in the direction of citizen empowerment (Martin 1993). This can be illustrated in a number of areas. For workplaces, the implication of preparing to resist aggression and repression is for workers to develop the skills to run operations

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without managers or against the orders of managers, so that if a hostile force attempted to take over the workplace or to use outputs for its purposes, such efforts could be resisted. Being able to run operations without managers is needed in case managers are arrested or killed. Being able to run operations against the orders of managers is needed in case new managers are installed to serve the aggressors or in case existing managers are coerced to acquiesce. This workplace agenda is quite close to the long-standing objective of workers’ self-management or workers’ control (Hunnius, Garson and Case 1973; Roberts 1973). For maximum effectiveness, worker power against repression needs to be supplemented by the power of customers and communities. For example, if rail workers refuse to assist movement of aggressor troops and materiel, they need to be supported by local communities, for example, to hide workers sought for arrest or to refuse to leave trains when demanded by troops. They also need to be prepared if rail workers disable trains to prevent their use by aggressors. If this occurs, communities need to be able to get by without trains. That means the transport system needs to be resilient, for example, being designed around walking and cycling. This would enable basic functions to be carried out if aggressors occupied train lines or blocked major roads as means of inducing acquiescence to demands. Likewise, communities need to be self-reliant in food, water, energy and medicines. The implication is that massive, capital-intensive facilities – such as fertiliser plants, large coal-fired electricity generators, massive solar arrays and large dams – should be avoided, because they are vulnerable to takeover or destruction. (They are also targets for terrorists.) Instead, smaller-scale, less costly options lay the basis for greater resilience. This includes organic farming, solar building design, local solar and wind power, and dwellings with water tanks. This direction for technological systems meshes with a long-standing push for appropriate technology. A social defence system needs a communications infrastructure that enables defenders to communicate with each other, securely if desired, and to communicate with potential supporters as well as opponents. Mass media are not well placed for this. Indeed, television and radio stations are commonly the first targets in military coups. In general, broadcast media are potentially useful for

social defence |  103 repressive regimes whereas secure network media are more useful for resisters. Network media are now ubiquitous, with email, texts, smartphones and social media widely used. However, few of these media are secure. Surveillance of content and metadata is carried out routinely, often in the name of anti-terrorism, which means spy agencies have the capacity to monitor the activity of groups seen as threats. This also means that a repressive government, or one taken over by hostile forces, has the capacity to monitor opposition. For a social defence system, the communications infrastructure would be designed to minimise the possibility of hostile surveillance. There are several ways to do this. One is secure encryption. This is not enough, because collection of metadata (such as the numbers called from a phone and when the calls were made) can enable mapping of communication patterns. Part of the solution is for the systems used by Internet service providers and telecommunications providers to be developed specifically to enable resistance to aggression. In other words, system design and system operation are integrated into resistance planning. What this might entail would depend on evolving technological possibilities. What would be avoided is any system in which information about individuals is available to a small group having the capacity to use it adversely, namely the current situation in which national security operatives collect massive amounts of communication data with no community-level control, a situation ideal for use by a repressive government. The agenda for communications for a social defence system aligns with campaigning by electronic freedom groups such as the Electronic Frontiers Foundation. This agenda can also provide a direction for future campaigning initiatives, as well as programming initiatives. In summary, planning for social defence offers an agenda for initiatives in workplaces, infrastructure and communications. Other areas are also important, including learning about foreign cultures and languages, developing skills in persuasion, developing processes for cooperative decision-making in a crisis, undermining the legitimacy of using violence, and restructuring economic and political systems to be resilient in the face of an attack or takeover. Conclusion Despite the increasing awareness and use of nonviolent action since the end of the Cold War, there has been declining awareness

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of the idea of social defence, starting from a low base. It seems that military systems are so taken for granted that a nonviolent alternative is implausible, indeed utopian. Yet it is precisely in being utopian that social defence has revolutionary implications. One of the problems is that social defence has so often been seen as a straightforward replacement for military systems, to be implemented because it is more effective. Given that states are based on monopolies over legitimate violence within territories, it is not surprising that few governments have ever shown any interest in social defence and that those that have shown an interest have kept it contained. The wider ramifications of social defence can be encapsulated in the idea of grassroots empowerment. Rather than entrusting defence to a segment of the population (the military), it becomes a community responsibility. This has implications for education, skill development, town planning, communication systems, economic systems, workplaces and a host of other areas. In nearly every area, the agenda for social defence aligns with an agenda for individual and community empowerment and for building grassroots resilience against attack. The skills and systems for social defence can readily be turned against governments, bosses and other sources of oppression and exploitation. This helps explain why social defence has been ignored. Instead, governments tout the dangers of terrorism and foreign aggression, assuming the solution is increasing reliance on the police and the military. Participation in nonviolent action is commonly an empowering experience. It also enables a vision of a world in which struggles are waged nonviolently. The expansion of the use of nonviolent action and its greater legitimacy provide the most promising basis for the re-emergence of interest in social defence. Social defence, if implemented in a far-reaching fashion, naturally leads to grassroots empowerment, thereby enabling challenges to systems of unequal power. This includes the military, most obviously, but also the power of owners and bosses over workers, of men over women, and of governments over citizens, among others. The agenda of promoting social defence as grassroots empowerment, including the transformation of social institutions, should be seen as an important facet of revolutionary nonviolence.

social defence |  105 Acknowledgements Thanks to Jørgen Johansen for valuable comments on a draft. References Boserup, Anders and Andrew Mack. 1974. War without Weapons: Nonviolence in National Defence. London: Frances Pinter. Burrowes, Robert J. 1996. The Strategy of Nonviolent Defense: A Gandhian Approach. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Chenoweth, Erica and Maria J. Stephan. 2011. Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict. New York: Columbia University Press. Csapody, Tamás and Thomas Weber. 2007. “Hungarian Nonviolent Resistance against Austria and its Place in the History of Nonviolence”. Peace & Change 32, no. 4: 499–519. de Ligt, Bart. 1937. The Conquest of Violence: An Essay on War and Revolution. London: George Routledge & Sons. Dellinger, Dave. 1970. Revolutionary Nonviolence: Essays. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill. Derber, Charles, William A. Schwartz and Yale Magrass. 1990. Power in the Highest Degree: Professionals and the Rise of a New Mandarin Order. New York: Oxford University Press. Drago, Antonino. 2006. Difesa popolare nonviolenta: Premesse teoriche, principi politici e nuovi scenari. Turin: EGA. Ebert, Theodor. 1968. Gewaltfreier Aufstand: Alternative zum Bürgerkrieg. Freiburg: Rombach. Galtung, Johan, Peter O’Brien and Roy Preiswerk, eds. 1980. Self-Reliance: A Strategy for Development. London: Bogle-L’Ouverture.

Geeraerts, Gustaaf, ed. 1977. Possibilities of Civilian Defence in Western Europe. Amsterdam: Swets and Zeitlinger. Hastings, Tom H. 2004. Nonviolent Responses to Terrorism. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Hunnius, Gerry, G. David Garson and John Case, eds. 1973. Workers’ Control: A Reader on Labor and Social Change. New York: Vintage. Huxley, Steven Duncan. 1990. Constitutionalist Insurgency in Finland: Finnish “Passive Resistance” against Russification as a Case of Nonmilitary Struggle in the European Resistance Tradition. Helsinki: Finnish Historical Society. King-Hall, Stephen. 1958. Defence in the Nuclear Age. London: Victor Gollancz. Lakey, George. 1973. Strategy for a Living Revolution. New York: Grossman. Lyttle, Bradford. 1958. National Defense thru Nonviolent Resistance. Chicago, IL: Shahn-ti Sena. Martin, Brian. 1993. Social Defence, Social Change. London: Freedom Press. Martin, Brian. 2001. Technology for Nonviolent Struggle. London: War Resisters’ International. Martin, Brian. 2002. “Nonviolence versus terrorism”. Social Alternatives 21, no. 2: 6–9. Martin, Brian. 2014. “Whatever happened to social defence?” Social Alternatives 33, no. 4: 55–60. Melman, Seymour. 1970. The Defense Economy: Conversion of Industries and Occupations to Civilian Needs. New York: Praeger.

106  |  brian martin Nepstad, Sharon Erickson. 2011. Nonviolent Revolutions: Civil Resistance in the Late 20th Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Niezing, Johan. 1987. Sociale Verdediging als Logisch Alternatief: Van Utopie naar Optie. Assen, Netherlands: Van Gorcum. Ram, Senthil and Ralph Summy, eds. 2008. Nonviolence: An Alternative for Defeating Global Terror(ism). New York: Nova Science Publishers. Randle, Michael. 1994. Civil Resistance. London: Fontana. Roberts, Adam, ed. 1967. The Strategy of Civilian Defence: Non-violent Resistance to Aggression. London: Faber and Faber. Roberts, Ernie. 1973. Workers’ Control. London: Allen & Unwin. Russell, Bertrand. 1915. “War and nonresistance”. Atlantic Monthly 116 (August): 266–274. Schmid, Alex P. and Janny de Graaf. 1982. Violence as Communication: Insurgent Terrorism and the

Western News Media. London: Sage. Sharp, Gene. 1973. The Politics of Nonviolent Action. Boston, MA: Porter Sargent. Sharp, Gene. 1985. Making Europe Unconquerable: The Potential of Civilian-based Deterrence and Defense. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger. Sharp, Gene with the assistance of Bruce Jenkins. 1990. Civilian-based Defense: A Post-Military Weapons System. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Tilly, Charles. 1985. “War making and state making as organized crime”. In Bringing the State Back In, edited by Peter B. Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer and Theda Skocpol, 169–191. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zahn, Franklin. 1996. Alternative to the Pentagon: Nonviolent Methods of Defending a Nation. Nyack, NY: Fellowship Publications.

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| ONE NO AGAINST VIOLENCE, MANY YESES BEYOND VIOLENCE: ZAPATISTA DIGNITY, AUTONOMY, COUNTER-CONDUCT

Sean Chabot and Stellan Vinthagen

Leading nonviolent resistance scholars have interpreted nonviolence as an effective strategy for political reform within the violent world-system. In contrast, a revolutionary approach requires us to change the violent world-system by creating alternative ways of life. Nonviolence is not just a strategy without and against violence; it is a holistic and constructive process for making other worlds without-against-and-beyond violence possible. It involves one No against systemic violence, as well as many Yeses beyond it. Although Zapatista rebels asserted their dignity with Fire, they learned to confront and move beyond violence with Word and Autonomy as weapons. Revolutionary Zapatista women engaging in counter-conduct within the movement are on the frontlines of contemporary struggles without-against-and-beyond violence. In this chapter, we propose 11 theses to reflect critically on the state of nonviolent resistance studies, utilising practices and insights of the Zapatista movement to exemplify revolutionary nonviolence and encourage further research on struggles for autonomy and alternative ways of life. Keywords: Zapatista; Violence; Revolution; Autonomy; Counter-conduct

Introduction The peripheral field of “nonviolent action studies” that took shape in the 1970s, particularly with the now classic work of Gene Sharp (1973), was for a long time an almost invisible area related to other more prominent fields exploring activism, such as social movement studies. However, during the last decade it has emerged as a popular framework for understanding unarmed popular uprisings, such as those in the Arab rebellions of 2011. With the publication of the celebrated work of Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan (2011), there has been a virtual explosion of interest and research in the subject. At the backdrop of this

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development, this chapter engages in a critical problematisation of the enthusiasm for “regime change”, “nonviolence” and “civil resistance”. Our underlying aim is to contribute by linking current research interest in nonviolent action with critique and perspectives from decolonising resistance. Leading nonviolent resistance scholars have interpreted nonviolence as an effective strategy for political reform within the violent world-system. In contrast, a revolutionary approach requires us to change the violent world-system by creating alternative ways of life. Nonviolence is not just a strategy without and against violence; it is a holistic and constructive process for making other worlds without-against-and-beyond violence possible. As the indigenous Maya Indians of the Zapatista movement in Chiapas, Mexico, show: it involves one No against systemic violence, as well as many Yeses beyond violence. That is, nonviolence involves a collaborative struggle against all forms of violence inherent in the contemporary world-system, while we experiment with a range of revolutionary alternatives for going beyond it. Although Zapatista rebels asserted their dignity with “Fire” (a short-lived and initial armed uprising), they learned to confront and move beyond violence with “Word” (negotiations and mass mobilisation of civil society groups on a local, national and transnational scale) and “Autonomy” (the creation of health, educational, economic and political institutions enabling the self-governing of their villages) as their weapons. This ongoing experimental revolutionary struggle does not only engage with the Mexican state’s colonisation of indigenous territories, lives and culture, or with the world capitalist system, but also with internal patriarchal violence in Zapatista communities. Revolutionary Zapatista women engaging in counterconduct within the movement are on the frontlines of contemporary struggles without-against-and-beyond violence. In this chapter, we propose 11 theses to reflect critically on the state of nonviolent resistance studies and to move beyond its focus on liberal regime change and its limited view on “nonviolence”. We do this by utilising practices and insights of the Zapatista movement to exemplify revolutionary nonviolence and encourage further research on struggles for autonomy and alternative ways of life. The first two theses assess current approaches to nonviolent resistance, whereas theses 3–9 draw on the Zapatista’s approach

violence: one no against, many yeses beyond |  109 to revolutionary nonviolence. The last two theses (10 and 11) are our conclusions on resistance and the future of resistance research. The Zapatista movement mobilises several indigenous communities in the state of Chiapas, southern Mexico, and they became known to the world when they made an armed uprising in January 1994 and took over governmental institutions and towns all over Chiapas. Since then, they have utilised many unarmed means of struggle, and also tried negotiations with the Mexican state, as well as organised civil society groups both in Mexico at large, and internationally. We find the Zapatistas to be helpful guides because their app­ roach is revolutionary and rooted in specific contexts. They display a refreshing and unconventional openness toward learning and experimentation, and they eagerly share their experiences with others waging similar struggles against neoliberalism and for humanity. As they “make the road by walking”, they embrace a revolutionary nonviolence that we find inspirational. Thesis 1: Conventional concepts of nonviolent resistance strategies promote regime change and liberal democracy within a colonial-capitalist world-system Nonviolent resistance scholars generally see nonviolent resistance as a standard form of “unconventional warfare” against oppressive rulers, involving nonviolent weapons, strategies and mechanisms of change with similar characteristics in different contexts. Nonviolent weapons consist of a wide range of protest and persuasion methods, including public discourse, noncooperation, boycotts, strikes, unarmed interventions, alternative institutions and civil disobedience. Nonviolent strategies focus on mobilising popular support, training participants, withdrawing consent and support from regimes, and engaging in collective actions that increase pressure on rulers and force them to meet unarmed activists’ demands. And nonviolent mechanisms of change entail dynamics and manoeuvres that lead to conversion of opponents, accommodation of some demands, coercion of opponents against their will or disintegration of ruling institutions resulting in the regime’s collapse. From this perspective, nonviolent resistance succeeds when it skilfully uses the correct strategy and means to bring down authoritarian regimes and build or reform liberal-democratic regimes. According to the conventional view, the main purpose

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of nonviolent resistance is to achieve regime change and progress toward “enlightened” liberal democracy. Thesis 2: Revolutionary nonviolent strategies shift focus from the “politics of demand” within and against violent regimes, to the “politics of dignity” within-against-andbeyond the violent system In our field, the politics of demand involves mobilised groups of nonviolent resisters pressuring violent political authorities and state regimes to act on their behalf in the future. In liberal-democratic societies, relatively powerless people try to pressure powerful representatives to improve oppressive conditions for them, by granting recognition, passing legislation, conceding rights or including them in the state regime. In authoritarian societies, they seek to remove oppressive rulers and replace them with democratically elected representatives willing to respond to their requests. But whether they fight against the state or want concessions within the state, the politics of demand means that nonviolent resisters are state-centred: they allow the state (and power elites associated with it) to determine the rules of engagement and channels for emancipation. Although this kind of politics often produces legal reform or regime change with short-term benefits for some social groups, it cannot adequately address the direct, structural, psychological and routine violence of the colonial-capitalist world-system. The nonviolent US civil rights movement, for example, pushed the US government to pass civil rights and voting rights laws, but did not enable sustained alternatives to the violence of US imperialism and capitalism, or address persistent oppression among the poorest African Americans. Enduring emancipation of society’s most oppressed and violated human beings clearly requires another kind of politics. Our notion of revolutionary politics of dignity is very different from reformist politics of demand. For us, dignity refers to oppressed people’s power to actively refuse submission to the violent colonialcapitalist world-system. This negation of what is negating subjects encourages them to take responsibility for developing their own capacities and creating their own social relationships and ways of life. Dignity starts with the self’s assertion of denied subjectivity, but grows in connection to other subjectivities. Our concept draws on the experiences and insights of the Zapatistas in Mexico, for whom dignity is born in the shift from submission to struggle, as a response to

violence: one no against, many yeses beyond |  111 the multiple dimensions of colonial-capitalist violence. A 30 January 1994 letter read on the Zapatista radio station La Palabra states: Then that suffering that united us made us speak, and we recognized that in our words there was truth, we knew that not only pain and suffering lived in our tongue, we recognized that there is hope still in our hearts … [W]e saw … that all that we had was DIGNITY … and dignity returned to live in our hearts, and we were new again, and the dead, our dead, saw that we were new again and they called us again, to dignity, to struggle. Contrary to liberal concepts of dignity as identifying an inherent individual quality or universal human right, therefore, our revolutionary concept of dignity implies the capacity of “the indignant” to move within-against-and-beyond particular forms of direct, structural, psychological and routine violence. Whereas direct violence is clearly visible and destructive, structural violence refers to less-visible, institutionalised, yet often more deadly forms of suffering such as capitalist exploitation, patriarchy, poverty and curable diseases. And whereas psychological violence points to the injuries and humiliations damaging individual or collective subjectivities, routine violence highlights the pervasive process of exclusion shaping everyday lives, as well as interpersonal relationships among the marginalised. Like the Zapatistas, we argue that revolutionary politics of dignity does not call for one great (violent or nonviolent) struggle to overthrow the evil regime and end all suffering, but for multiple struggles within-against-and-beyond the violent system that open spaces for new beginnings, subjectivities, relationships and communities. We also argue that scholars of nonviolent resistance need to start paying attention to all dimensions of the violent system – visible and invisible, direct and indirect, objective and subjective – not just to the violence of opposing regimes. Thesis 3: Despite maintaining its capacity for armed struggle, the Zapatista movement exemplifies the possibilities of revolutionary nonviolent strategies in the world today On 1 January 1994, the political-military branch of the Zapatista movement (EZLN) declared war on the Mexican government and

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initiated an armed uprising in Chiapas. Zapatista rebels emerged victorious from their surprise attack and managed to occupy seven towns and many acres of land in the region. They engaged in bloody battles with local military forces and gained the attention of people in Mexico and around the world with their First Declaration of the Lacandona Jungle: We, free men and women of integrity, are conscious that the war we declared is a measure of last resort, but just. The dictators have been carrying out an undeclared dirty war against our peoples for many years, so we ask your committed participation to support this plan of the Mexican people who struggle for work, land, housing, food, health, education, independence, freedom, democracy, justice and peace. We declare that we will not quit fighting until we achieve fulfillment of these basic demands of our people, forming a free and democratic government of our country. Twelve days later, Zapatista combatants agreed to a ceasefire and announced that they wanted their guns to be silent. Since then, they have never again initiated violent attacks, although they maintain the capacity to wage armed struggle in the future, if necessary. They listened to Mexican and global supporters in civil society, who agreed with the cause yet criticised the means, and started prioritising a strategy of “the Word” over a strategy of “the Fire”. The Zapatistas proclaimed that “our words are our weapons”, engaged in contentious dialogues with the Mexican government and nongovernmental organisations, and staged typical nonviolent resistance campaigns to achieve their demands for basic resources, human rights and selfdetermination. Ten years later, however, they realised that neither violent nor nonviolent politics of demand had enhanced the capacity of indigenous people and communities in Chiapas to take charge of their own lives and create autonomous communities. According to Gloria Muñoz Ramírez’s authoritative, The Fire and the Word (2008), the Zapatistas prioritised armed struggle (Fire) in its first decade, public dialogue and political negotiation (Word) in its second decade, and communal self-rule (Autonomy) since then. After preparing for and initiating military action between 1983 and early-1994, they responded to supporters in civil society by relying

violence: one no against, many yeses beyond |  113 primarily on declarations and symbolic resistance between 1994 and 2003. Gradually, however, they transformed the familiar politics of demand into a unique politics of dignity, as they turned most of their attention toward experimentation with collective self-organisation and mutual aid in Zapatista territories. This shift began on 1 January 2003, when the EZLN decided to implement the negotiated agreement recognising indigenous rights and self-determination (known as the San Andrés Accords), despite its betrayal by the Mexican state. Afterward, the Zapatistas announced that they would no longer depend on the federal government, political parties, nongovernmental organisations and international institutions, and founded Good Government Juntas to coordinate its Rebel Autonomous Municipalities. While they remain committed to the Fire and the Word, and while they envisioned Autonomy from the start, they have learned that only ongoing “struggles for autonomy” in their lives, relationships and communities can sustain social and political transformation of the violent system in Chiapas. They demonstrate that, while state-centred strategies can achieve short-term reforms, autonomy-oriented strategies can revolutionise ways of life and communities in the long run. Whereas cases considered successful by nonviolent resistance scholars (such as the US civil rights movement) usually last a few years or at most a decade, the Zapatista movement is still surviving and growing after 34 years in one of the most violent regions of the world. Scholars in the field generally focus on visible tactics and strategies, mobilisation of mass campaigns against unjust authorities, and pro-democracy regime change as criteria for deciding whether resistance is violent or nonviolent, successful or unsuccessful. From this mainstream perspective, the Zapatista movement is not a particularly relevant or successful example of nonviolent resistance. Its adoption of armed means puts it in the “violent” instead of “nonviolent” category, while its recent decline in mass mobilisation campaigns and inability to reform the Mexican state point to political failure. From our perspective, however, the Zapatistas are revolutionary pioneers who combine violent with nonviolent strategies, prioritise communal construction over state-centred contention, and work toward individual as well as collective emancipation. As we will show below, they are reinventing decolonising forms of resistance and building self-ruling communities within-against-and-beyond the violent colonial-capitalist system.

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Instead of seeing the Zapatista movement as a violent struggle that has failed to seize state power, therefore, we regard it as an enduring and transformative struggle that is making nonviolent subjectivities, experiments, social relationships and ways of life possible. Thesis 4: The Zapatista movement demonstrates that nonviolent politics of dignity starts with one NO in/against violence and experiments with many YESES beyond violence The politics of demand approach to nonviolent resistance assumes that unarmed activists oppose violence enabled, condoned or committed by the state and its representatives. Yet this approach also presupposes that the state and its representatives (which rely on a monopoly of “legitimate violence”) can substantively address violence by implementing liberal-democratic reforms. It suggests that both the NO against violence and YES responding to violence rely on the state. The Zapatistas’ politics of dignity approach, in contrast, starts with screams of NO against the violent system as a whole, which shapes internal and external social relationships – not just relationships between the state and citizens. This is clarified in their communiqué “No to War”: No honest man or woman can remain silent and indifferent at this moment. All of us, each one in our own voice, in our own way, in our own language, by our own action, must say “NO”. And, if the powerful wish to universalize fear through death and destruction, we must universalize the “NO”. Because the “NO” to this war is also a “NO” to fear, a “NO” to resignation, a “NO” to surrender, a “NO” to the forgetting, a “NO” to renouncing our humanness. It is a “NO” for humanity and against neoliberalism. We would hope that this “NO” would transcend borders … Because there are negations which unite and dignify. Because there are negations which affirm men and women in the best of themselves, that is, in their dignity. This NO not only confronts state and capitalist wars, but also calls on negated subjects around the world to join the “war against oblivion” – the war against internalised violence stifling people’s dignities and connections. This NO opens moments, spaces and bridges for the creation of many YESES that are not state-centred.

violence: one no against, many yeses beyond |  115 It initiates and nurtures multiple struggles for autonomy that construct subjectivities, interactions and communities within-against-andbeyond violence. Thus, these nonviolent experiments do not follow a single blueprint or script, but encourage diverse participants in diverse locations to make their own worlds in their own ways. While total escape from systemic violence is impossible, there is always room for further efforts to become less violent in confronting and moving beyond violence. Thesis 5: The Zapatista movement’s struggles for autonomy occur within-against-and-beyond the capitalist market and the state To realise and sustain their politics of dignity, the Zapatista movement now focuses on various struggles for autonomy to construct alternative social relationships in response to the violent system. Liberal understandings of autonomy define it as the ability of free and equal individuals to act upon their own moral principles (without external imposition), determining for themselves how to behave as rational human beings within liberal social, economic and political institutions. The Zapatistas, in contrast, seek collective autonomy from the capitalist market and liberal-democratic state ruling mainstream civil society in Mexico and throughout the world. Their struggles for autonomy highlight self-government, selfreliance and self-organisation in their own territories, as community members work together on the basis of mutual aid to construct alternative ways of living that do not fully depend on the dominant logic of global capitalism and liberal democracy. Signs at the entrance of Rebel Zapatista Autonomous Municipalities therefore read: “Here the people govern and the government obeys”. The liberal concept of autonomy clearly prevails in studies on nonviolent resistance and social movements. On the one hand, scholars in the field take the inherent autonomy of individuals for granted, rather than seeing it as an ongoing collective process. On the other hand, they accept as proven fact that rational activists relying on their own moral principles adopt nonviolent strategies to increase the likelihood of successfully forcing state opponents to meet their demands for free and inclusive liberal democracy. As Leandro Vergara-Camus points out in Land and Freedom (2014), however, the Zapatistas declared from the beginning that their

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“political project and strategy were not about taking state power but rather about changing the relationship between the rulers and the ruled” (2014: 257). While they initially tried the Fire and the Word – violent and nonviolent means – to confront indigenous suffering and transform power relations, they eventually realised that these strategies remained captured by the state-centred politics of demand. Major Moisés explains why they began prioritising autonomyoriented strategies to open up new practices, social spaces and possibilities for emancipation: The villages realized that … the government never asked the people what they wanted. The government does not want to address the needs of the villages; it only wants to maintain itself. And from there the idea was born that we have to be autonomous, that we have to impose our will, that we should be respected, and that we have to do something so that what the people want will be taken into account. (Muñoz Ramírez 2008: 76) For the Zapatistas, autonomy does not only mean minimising subordination to the state and the capitalist market it serves, but also maximising communal capacities for independence within local municipalities and interdependence among them. It not only involves “social movements” against governments and corporations in the system, but also “societies in movement” beyond the dominant logic. The Zapatista movement’s nonviolent experiment with autonomy has a material, political and social dimension. Working and living off the land is crucial for material autonomy among indigenous peasants in Chiapas. After the uprising in 1994, the Zapatista movement organised land occupations across the region, allowing it to take charge of land redistribution of over 600,000 acres among its participants. Families on reclaimed Zapatista territories engage in collective subsistence farming and various cooperatives to improve food security and gain some economic control over their communal destinies. Drawing on indigenous traditions and current ecological methods, cooperatives produce goods like agricultural crops, handicrafts, clothing, bread and coffee, while providing training opportunities for youth and adults eager to learn crafts that benefit their sense of purpose as well as the community. Although exploitation and poverty

violence: one no against, many yeses beyond |  117 remain severe, material conditions have improved dramatically in the past two decades. Occupying land also enables political autonomy among the Zapatistas. They are learning to organise and govern themselves by reinventing indigenous cultures and processes. Although they refuse to accept government aid and intervention, they are not a separatist movement opposed to any interaction with the Mexican state. Instead, they focus on building a grassroots and bottom-up framework for “government from below”, rooted in local assemblies, autonomous municipalities, regional political centres known as Caracoles, and Good Government Councils that regularly meet to make decisions based on people’s needs and participation. The guiding political-ethical principle in autonomous territories is mandar obedeciendo (“lead by obeying”), which ensures that political leaders act as public service providers working for the common good rather than as self-centred politicians promoting their own ambitions. Local leaders accept positions on a rotating basis, don’t campaign for office, receive no salary and can be recalled at any time. The legitimacy of Zapatista leaders emerges from nurtured relationships of listening to the basis – the communities – not from occasional elections, like in liberal democracy. Knowing that their positions as rulers are temporary, they listen to people’s concerns, organise community projects, resolve local conflicts, collaborate with other Zapatista leaders, and communicate with non-Zapatistas in and beyond Chiapas. Unlike elected representatives in capitalist liberal democracies, therefore, they try to obey local communities by engaging in transparent dialogue, mediating the different interests of rulers as well as ruled, and building collective trust as they continue the endless struggle toward autonomous self-governance. As an EZLN slogan puts it: “Everything for everyone. Nothing for ourselves”. And finally, Zapatista territories are committed to transforming the reproduction of everyday life through social autonomy. They are taking the construction of social institutions into their own hands instead of relying exclusively on capitalist development or state funding, especially in the areas of health and education. Many rebel municipalities have built their own hospitals and health clinics, while training hundreds of doctors and health promoters to serve people’s physical needs. As highlighted on the Schools for Chiapas website,

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they have also created an alternative educational network, with hundreds of new schools and educational promoters, and even an autonomous university centre, to serve people’s intellectual needs. In the process, they are learning to make other social worlds possible by shaping their own bodies, minds and subjectivities. They are resisting the system’s “colonization of the lifeworld” – articulated in the work of Jürgen Habermas – by refusing to fully depend on the existing system and creating alternative ways of schooling, healing and reproducing themselves. So, although they sometimes take advantage of medical and educational resources from the outside, the Zapatistas believe that the resources for addressing their most urgent challenges lay within themselves and their communities. Yet despite impressive growth in self-government, self-reliance and self-organisation, it is important to emphasise that autonomy is a flawed, experimental and open-ended process with many ups and downs, rather than a finished achievement. Struggles for autonomy occur as much within the violent capitalist and state system as against-and-beyond it. Nevertheless, it is clear that the Zapatista movement’s strategy since 2004 has done more to enhance material, political and social dignity in the poorest indigenous communities of Chiapas than violent or nonviolent strategies of demand ever did. Thesis 6: Zapatista struggles for autonomy make, deepen and connect “cracks” within and against the violent system and create new ways of doing beyond it While the Zapatistas protest against the destruction, exploitation and humiliation of capitalist corporations and national states, they also want to create other worlds and ways of living. They break with the logic of dominant elites and institutions, and take the initiative by setting the agenda for their own (trans)local struggles, experiments and constructive projects. They see that the wall of oppression is coming closer and expanding, but also look for cracks in the wall that they can deepen and connect, or try to make cracks where they can’t find any. As the Zapatista-oriented Marxist, John Holloway, points out in Crack Capitalism (2010: 9): The method of the crack is the method of crisis: we wish to understand the wall not from its solidity but from its cracks; we

violence: one no against, many yeses beyond |  119 wish to understand capitalism not as domination, but from the perspective of its crisis, its contradictions, its weaknesses, and we want to understand how we ourselves are those contradictions … We want to understand the force of our misfitting, we want to know how banging our head against the wall over and over again will bring the wall crumbling down. In other words, the Zapatistas reject the totality and permanence of the system, and explore ways to turn their one NO into multiple YESES. They construct movements to dissolve the system by transforming particular subjectivities and communities, and building bridges among them. So, while they realise that they cannot change the world by overthrowing the state and capitalism, they believe that millions of ordinary people can change the world by creatively thinking and acting according to a different logic in countless interactions and social spaces of everyday life. The method of the crack is part of another movement strategy with a different way of relating to the state and thinking about success. Instead of playing the typical game of representative democracy and party politics, the “other politics” of the Zapatistas seeks to utilise the gaps left by ruling authorities and institutions. Rooted in indigenous culture and practices, they seek to end conditions of political dependence by taking care of their own individual and communal needs, especially in the areas of health, education and agricultural production. Instead of prioritising electoral victories and inclusion in governments, they evaluate outcomes according to growth in dignity, quality of life and collective autonomy among the most vulnerable in indigenous municipalities. The Zapatistas therefore directly confront the capitalist and state system’s logic by struggling to be without-against-and-beyond violence as a holistic way of life rather than just an instrumental strategy or technique. They prefer to engage in their own grassroots politics, as they did when they forged translocal connections with other oppressed and marginalised groups throughout Mexico during The Other Campaign in 2006. And they supported an indigenous woman and health worker as presidential candidate in the 2018 election to mobilise indigenous people in Mexican society, despite having no chance of winning according to conventional criteria.

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Thesis 7: Zapatista struggles for autonomy are reinventing participatory democracy to create “another world in which many worlds fit” In the field of nonviolent resistance and social movement studies, democracy still primarily refers to the state system’s liberal procedures and institutions for ruling civil society and national citizens. For the Zapatistas, however, democracy involves participation from below in struggles for individual and collective autonomy that “crack” and push beyond the capitalist and state logic. Their approach to participatory democracy consists of four major components. First, the political and military leadership of the EZLN remains important to the Zapatista movement. But the hierarchical structures and habits of the EZLN no longer prevail in the civilian affairs of the municipalities, which now encourage horizontal relationships and decision-making based on the “lead by obeying” principle. Second, crucial decisions in Zapatista territories emerge from various local and translocal consultations, involving communal, municipal and regional assemblies and elections. This dynamic process continues until participants reach a mutually accepted agreement. Third, civilian government in autonomous zones occurs through so-called Good Government Councils that manage key municipal issues (such as economic affairs and conflict resolution), provide key social services (such as autonomous education and health care) and relate to non-Zapatistas and guests through the regional Caracoles centres. Community members serve as volunteers and gain experience with ruling as well as being ruled. And fourth, the Zapatista movement engages in various campaigns and gatherings to learn from and build solidarity with non-Zapatistas. During The Other Campaign, for example, its leaders listened and responded to the different ideas and experiences of non-Zapatista rebels around Mexico, with the intent of spreading “the other politics” beyond Zapatista territories. And it continues to invite allies from abroad to intergalactic encuentros and meetings, so that everyone can hear the Zapatistas speak in their own languages, learn from each other’s stories, and construct joint positions on global matters. Thus, while Zapatista struggles for autonomy have subjective and local roots, they are

violence: one no against, many yeses beyond |  121 directed outward, toward another world that blends unity (one NO) with diversity (many YESES). From the perspective of the Zapatistas, human emancipation is not a gift handed down by the state or sustained by the capitalist market. Instead, it comes from diverse human beings in all kinds of social contexts – whether in streets, ruling institutions or everyday life – willing to imagine and do things differently, according to a logic that does not violate human dignity and communal autonomy. The Fourth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle (1996) articulates their notion of another world: Many words walk in the world. Many worlds are made. Many worlds are made for us. There are words and worlds which are lies and injustices. There are words and worlds which are truths and truthful. We make true words. We have been made from true words. In the world of the powerful there is no space for anyone but themselves and their servants. In the world we want everyone fits. In the world we want many worlds to fit. The Nation which we construct is one where all communities and languages fit, where all steps may walk, where all may have laughter, where all may live the dawn. Whereas the existing world is only designed for people who conform to capitalist and state elites, therefore, another world in which many worlds fit appears whenever and wherever people create their own ways of being, speak their own languages, learn on their own terms, construct their own social relationships, and enjoy good and sustainable lives. With this vision as compass, the Zapatistas are committed to confronting the system’s multiple forms of violence, both beyond and within their subjectivities or communities. As they say in The Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle (2005): “[W]hat we are going to do in Mexico and the world, we are going to do without arms, with a civil and peaceful movement, and without neglecting nor ceasing to support our communities”. Again, the Zapatistas keep pursuing new paths and practices of “without-against-and-beyond violence” within the violent context of neoliberal globalisation.

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Thesis 8: Revolutionary Zapatista women engage in various forms of “counter-conduct” to critique and enhance the Zapatista struggles for autonomy As mentioned earlier, struggles for autonomy necessarily take place within (as well as against-and-beyond) the existing system. As a result, they always face the danger of reproducing direct, structural, psychological and routine violence associated with the state and capitalism. Although the Zapatista movement’s struggles for autonomy have allowed participants to organise their own communities, they have also perpetuated sexual domination and violence suffered by many Zapatista women. Female rebels address internal patriarchy as members of movement institutions (e.g. as EZLN commanders) as well as at home and in local communities (e.g. as leaders of cooperatives). Michel Foucault’s concept of counter-conduct is especially useful for investigating Zapatista women’s resistance to abusive relations of power and ways of governing conduct. To go beyond his earlier understanding of power, Foucault in Security, Territory, Population (2009) redefines “government” by linking how individuals are governed by others to how they govern themselves. In other words, government consists of “the conduct of conduct” by political authorities and discourses (e.g. the state and law), as well as by ethical “relations of the self with the self” in everyday life. (For Foucault, the word “conduct” has many meanings, referring to the act of leading others, to how individuals behave, and to how individuals let others rule their behaviour.) Subjects are conducted by existing fields of power and knowledge, but also conduct themselves – or let themselves be conducted – by either conforming or refusing to conform to these fields. How subjects govern or conduct themselves, moreover, shapes how they govern or conduct others. To go beyond conventional notions of resistance, Foucault introduces the term “counter-conduct” to depict struggles highlighting how individuals and collectives conduct themselves, are being conducted and conduct others. These struggles are specific “revolts of conduct” aimed at “wanting to be conducted differently, by other leaders … towards other objectives and forms of salvation, and through other procedures or methods”. Counter-conduct is not about “not being governed at all”, but about “the art of not being governed like that and at that cost … the art of not being governed quite so much” (Foucault 2009: 194–195). It involves “voluntary

violence: one no against, many yeses beyond |  123 insubordination” and “reflected intractability” by subjects who refuse to submit to oppressive situations, and who attempt to create other ways of governing the self and others in “counter-societies” (Foucault 2009: 199). Revolutionary Zapatista women have responded to direct, structural, psychological and routine forms of internal violence within the Zapatista movement by engaging in the kind of counter-conduct that Foucault had in mind. As activist-ethnographer Hilary Klein describes in her book, Compañeras: Zapatista Women’s Stories (2015), the colonial-capitalist system’s impact on indigenous subjects is violent and totalising, affecting social relationships in public as well as private life. While Zapatista women bear the brunt of these oppressive and destructive forces, they are also at the forefront of struggles for dignified, autonomous and nonviolent ways of life. Before 1994, indigenous women had almost no control over their own lives, families and local communities. They usually had to marry against their will, give birth to an average of seven or more children (many of whom died as infants), and face a constant threat of rape, while lacking contraception and reproductive rights. They often suffered from domestic abuse due to alcoholism and could not leave the house without permission from their fathers or husbands. Indigenous women generally had to stay at home to provide for spouses and children, making it impossible for them to develop their unique abilities or participate in communal politics. These forms of violence took direct, structural, psychological and routine forms. The emergence of the Zapatista movement encouraged female militants to actively refuse such violent gender relations. Female combatants who joined the EZLN in the early 1980s learned that they were no less capable of organisational leadership and courageous battle than their male compañeros. As EZLN major Ana María recounts: Within our organization there is respect, especially among the combatants. In the communities … women are still abused, but within the ranks of the army there is a great deal of equality. The work that men do, women can do as well. We receive the same training, and we can achieve the same military ranks and level of responsibility. For example, I have the rank of insurgent major. I command a battalion of soldiers, I direct them when we’re at war, in combat, and I know I can lead them. (Klein 2015: 48)

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By playing prominent roles in the initial armed struggle, therefore, Zapatista compañeras gained an empowering sense of subjectivity and autonomy, which prepared them to train other women to become leaders of the current counter-conduct struggles. The most dramatic example of counter-conduct by compañeras is the Revolutionary Women’s Law. After years of organising indigenous people in Chiapas, Zapatista women began creating a legal framework to guide their “revolt of conduct” and assert their rights within the home, community and movement. As EZLN captain Isabel describes: We gave women space to talk, to express their feelings and how they wanted to change all this: life in the family, with their husband, with their children. That was where the ideas came from: if things are this bad, we asked ourselves, why not change it? Change men’s ideas as well and find a way, as an organization, to turn these ideas into a law. And that’s how the Women’s Revolutionary Law was born: talking, venting, analyzing. It’s not something from outside – it came from our own ideas, our experiences. (Klein 2015: 69) The EZLN’s political leadership committee passed the legal document in 1993 and published it along with the Zapatista movement’s other revolutionary laws. The text of the Women’s Revolutionary Law starts by stating that “the EZLN incorporates women into the revolutionary struggle, regardless of their race, creed, color, or political affiliation”. It then lists and clarifies ten specific rights: the right to distinct participation in the revolutionary struggle, to work and fair pay, to decide the number of child births, to be elected to community positions, to basic health care, to education, to select marriage partners, to physical and sexual protection (through prohibition of alcohol in Zapatista territories), to leadership in revolutionary organisations, and to all rights in other Revolutionary Laws (Klein 2015: 71). While these laws might not seem radical to Western eyes, their implementation has had concrete transformative effects on Zapatista women’s lives and relationships. Women now increasingly defend themselves against abuse by men, who can no longer violently discipline their daughters and wives without getting punished by Zapatista authorities.

violence: one no against, many yeses beyond |  125 Compañeras no longer fear denouncing attackers in public, thereby facilitating collective resolution of conflicts with men. It is therefore not surprising that Subcomandante Marcos regards the radical changes associated with the Women’s Revolutionary Laws as a revolution that makes revolution possible. Despite Zapatista women’s courageous opposition to patriarchy and sexual violence, oppressive gender practices persist. In 2004, Subcomandante Marcos wrote an essay entitled “Two Flaws”, in which he concedes that the lack of women’s equality and participation remains a major problem in the Zapatista movement: Government is still the prerogative of the men … [T]here are still no spaces for women who are participating in the zapatista social base to be reflected in government positions. And not only that. Despite the fact that zapatista women have had, and have, a fundamental role in the resistance, respect for their rights continues, in some cases, to be just words on paper. Domestic violence has decreased, it is true, but more through the limitations on alcohol consumption than through a new family and gender culture. In response to this problem, Zapatista women are forming a kind of “counter-society” to reduce the gap between the women’s revolutionary laws and their everyday realities. They create various alternatives to sexist forms of government and “conduct of conduct” by learning to govern themselves and others differently. First, they work together to expand and support the participation of Zapatista women in EZLN’s political structure. They accept appointments as local representatives and regional coordinators, while organising constructive work and contentious campaigns to demonstrate the capacities of female political leaders – to themselves and others. Second, they initiate women’s cooperatives to promote economic selfsufficiency, political education, vocal participation in assemblies and tenacious struggles against-and-beyond sexual domination. And finally, they organise regional women’s encuentros where hundreds of female representatives of Zapatista territories meet to share local knowledge and coordinate translocal projects (Klein 2015: Chapter 6). At a women’s gathering named after the late-Comandanta Ramona, one speaker described what she does as regional coordinator:

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It’s our responsibility to organise the communities and encourage them. We visit the villages to see how the cooperatives are doing. If one of the cooperatives has failed, that’s not a reason to give up. Quite the opposite – we put our heads together, the coordinators and community members, to look for new alternatives and ideas to keep moving forward. We work together to solve problems. When something has gone well, we share the information with the coordinators from other regions. (Klein 2015: 140) Clearly, Zapatista women recognise that building a countersociety without and against sexual violence and for ways of life beyond violence requires ongoing counter-conduct struggles within the movement. Thesis 9: Revolutionary Zapatista women’s counter-conduct involves refusal of violent practices and the creation of practices without-against-and-beyond violence within the movement As shown above, Zapatista women say NO to multiple forms of violence associated with gender relations and sexualities. They not only refuse to submit to direct acts of domination and abuse by Zapatista men, but also confront deep structures of colonialism, capitalism and patriarchy imposed by 500 years of colonial rule and manifested in indigenous communities. And they not only refuse to accept the psychological degradations undermining their subjectivity and dignity, but also contest the routine interactions and practices in everyday life that dehumanise them. The Zapatista women’s NO, however, goes hand in hand with many YESES created by their struggles to “give birth to new worlds” (Klein 2015: 135). In the process, they are reinventing the concept of nonviolence as consisting of relationships and practices “without-against-and-beyond violence”. In A Theory of Nonviolent Action, Vinthagen (2015) proposes that nonviolence implies two basic kinds of action: “without violence” and “against violence”. Without violence means that actors strive to avoid using violent methods themselves, while against violence means that they oppose the violence of other actors and social structures. Vinthagen argues that significant forms of nonviolence include both dimensions: “Practitioners of nonviolence see various forms of violence as immoral and undesirable and assert the necessity of

violence: one no against, many yeses beyond |  127 a nonviolent way of life in the hope of establishing practices that counteract violence” (2015: 61). The Zapatista women’s counterconduct in the face of ongoing sexual violence not only involves acts without and against violence, but also acts beyond violence. Instead of just asserting “the necessity of a nonviolent way of life” in the future, they engage in many small yet revolutionary experiments with nonviolent ways of life in the here and now, and try to forge connections among them. As mentioned in the previous thesis, Zapatista women are engaging in various forms of counter-conduct toward creating an alternative counter-society beyond violence by running their own artisan, weaving and food cooperatives, among many other initiatives. Whereas nonviolence as a struggle to be “without-and-against violence” can effectively stage mass mobilisations and defeat state rulers in the short term, nonviolence as “without-against-andbeyond violence” is capable of sustained transformation over the long haul – as the Zapatista women demonstrate. Thesis 10: The Zapatista movement’s struggles for autonomy and Zapatista women’s counter-conduct demonstrate that other nonviolent resistance strategies are possible Academic discourse on nonviolent strategies for popular resistance against oppressive states is as vibrant and fertile as ever. After decades in the margins, specialists now receive considerable attention in the mainstream media as well as in established social and political sciences. Prominent social movement scholars, for example, now recognise nonviolent resistance as a legitimate area of study and value efforts to bridge differences in research approach. Nevertheless, we argue that the field remains rooted in conventional premises and perspectives developed about 50 years ago. Nonviolent resistance still primarily involves mass protest campaigns that “impose costly sanctions on their opponents, resulting in strategic gains”, as Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan write in Why Civil Resistance Works (2011). This closely resembles Gene Sharp’s influential definition in The Politics of Nonviolent Action (1973): “Nonviolent action is a technique used to control, combat, and destroy the opponents’ power by nonviolent means of wielding power”. But is nonviolent resistance only relevant when it successfully undermines the power of the state and expands the power of unarmed protest groups in relation to the state? Is it exclusively a

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form of “unconventional warfare” that pits contentious challengers against tyrannical regimes in a zero-sum game for inclusion in or formation of liberal-democratic states? And is nonviolent action only a strategy to deal with the direct violence of the state and its armies, or can it also deal with more systemic forms of violence, such as injustices that diminish people’s life and dignity? In our view, the Zapatista movement is a promising example of another kind of nonviolent resistance strategy, oriented toward transformative struggles for dignity, autonomy and counter-conduct. While the Zapatistas retain their armed capacity out of necessity as a last resort, they also acknowledge and try to counter the risks of unwittingly nurturing violent behaviour, roles and values in their communities. This is evident, for example, in their ban of alcohol and focus on emancipation of women. Thus, the Zapatista movement proposes another way of understanding and enacting nonviolence – as a struggle to be “without-against-and-beyond violence” – that resonates among subaltern revolutionaries around the world, from the Puerto Rican Movement in El Barrio in New York to the Kurdish Movement for a Democratic Society in Rojava. We see these movements as addressing sources and manifestations of violence that are deeply integrated in our societies, discourses and lifestyles. As such, they carry the promise of transforming societies, subjectivities, social relationships and the logic of states and capitalism. Thesis 11: Scholars have hitherto only studied nonviolent resistance within the world as it is; the point is to make the world anew As social and political scientists, we tend to see nonviolent activists and social movements as unconventional players within the established social-political order. Using academic theories and methods, we categorise nonviolent resistance as successful when it removes authoritarian regimes or reforms liberal-democratic regimes, and unsuccessful when it fails to do so. In either case, we normalise “the world as it is” instead of envisioning “the world as it might become”. And we overlook the less-visible transformation of social relationships, political subjectivities and local institutions that allows the marginalised and dispossessed to reclaim dignity, autonomy and initiative. We produce objective knowledge about the existing world of nonviolent resistance rather than engage in inter-subjective dialogue with resisters

violence: one no against, many yeses beyond |  129 constructing new worlds beyond violence. What is lacking, therefore, is research oriented toward the radical imagination of revolutionary subjects as well as researchers themselves. The radical imagination is the human capacity to refuse the assumption that “there is no alternative” to the logic of the colonialcapitalist system, and to insist that there are many ways to make the world anew. It fully recognises the global forces of domination undermining subjectivities and social relationships, yet affirms people’s ability to be creative, constructive and cooperative – even in extremely violent areas like Chiapas. And it is a collective process rather than an individual possession, something that groups do together in and across local spaces. Thus, as Max Haiven and Alex Khashnabish write in The Radical Imagination (2014: 4): Through shared experiences, language, stories, ideas, art and theory we share part of our imagination. We create, with those around us, multiple, overlapping, contradictory and coexistent imaginary landscapes, horizons of common possibility and shared understanding. These shared landscapes are shaped by and also shape the imagination and the actions of their participant individuals. It is clear that transformative social movements such as the Zapatistas produce, practice and inspire the radical imagination within and far beyond their local communities. But how can academic researchers in universities that are integral to the colonial-capitalist system enact and encourage the radical imagination? How can nonviolent resistance scholars contribute to “the world as it might become”? For one, we can share, validate and amplify the stories, experiences, theories and creations of courageous resisters around the world confronting multiple forms of violence. Instead of merely using academic language for objective analysis, we can use terms emerging from participating subjects (such as dignity and autonomy) and introduce terms with special relevance for their situations (such as counter-conduct). Frantz Fanon, despite his reputation as a prophet of violence, says it best: “we must turn over a new leaf, we must work out new concepts, and try to set afoot a new man” (2004 [1963]). Second, we need to rethink how nonviolent contention emerges

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from nonviolent construction, drawing on scholars that acknowledge Mohandas Gandhi’s transformative approach to nonviolent subjectivity, constructive work, ways of life and struggles for autonomy. Third, as nonviolent resistance scholars and educators, we can enrich and practice radical imagination in our own social spaces and relationships – in our offices, classrooms and encounters with ourselves, each other, students, administrators and colleagues in other universities. Instead of analysing, advocating or speaking for courageous resisters, we should articulate and wage our own struggles in the “here and now”. As academics, for instance, we are deeply embedded in (and thereby complicit with) a colonial-capitalist world-system that reinforces modern (usually Western) forms of knowledge and hierarchy, while subjugating and destroying other knowledge traditions. We have our own forces of domination to confront and resist. This means that we need to wage our own battles and create our own alternatives, while keeping in mind the words expressed at the opening of the First Encuentro against Neoliberalism and for Humanity (1996): Behind our black mask. Behind our armed voice. Behind our unnamable name. Behind what you see of us. Behind this, we are you … The same forgotten men and women. The same excluded. The same untolerated. The same persecuted. The same as you. Behind this, we are you. But most importantly, we can inspire each other to experiment with many different kinds of research activities and projects. Instead of merely producing academic knowledge about nonviolent struggles and movements, we can use our intellectual tools to articulate our own screams of NO without and against the violent world-system and participate in each other’s creation of many YESES beyond it. The question is: are YOU ready to listen and ask as YOU walk alongside the Zapatistas and anyone else trying to change the world without taking power? References Chenoweth, Erica, and Maria J. Stephan. 2011. Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict. New York: Columbia University Press.

Fanon, Frantz. 2004 [1963]. The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove. Foucault, Michel. 2009. Security, Territory, Population. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

violence: one no against, many yeses beyond |  131 Haiven, Max, and Alex Khashnabish. 2014. The Radical Imagination. London: Zed Books. Holloway, John. 2010. Crack Capitalism. London: Pluto Press. Klein, Hilary. 2015. Compañeras: Zapatista Women’s Stories. New York: Seven Stories Press. Muñoz Ramírez, Gloria. 2008. The Fire and the Word. San Francisco, CA: City Lights.

Sharp, Gene. 1973. The Politics of Nonviolent Action. Boston, MA: Sargent. Vergara-Camus, Leandro. 2014. Land and Freedom: The MST, the Zapatistas and Peasant Alternatives to Neoliberalism. London: Zed Books. Vinthagen, Stellan. 2015. A Theory of Nonviolent Action: How Civil Resistance Works. London: Zed Books.

Zapatista statements Fourth Declaration (January 1996). www. struggle.ws/mexico/ezln/jung4. html (visited 20 July 2018). Opening statement at the First Intercontinental Encuentro for Humanity and against Neoliberalism (1996). https://archive.org/stream/

ZapatistasRebellionFromThe GrassrootsToTheGlobal/ Zapatistas_Rebellion_from_the_ Grassroots_to_the_Global_djvu.txt (visited 20 July 2018). Sixth Declaration (July 2005). www. anarkismo.net/newswire.php?story_ id=805 (visited 20 July 2018).

7

| NONVIOLENCE WITHIN NATIONAL MOVEMENTS: BDS AND THE FORMAL PALESTINIAN POLITICAL PROCESS

Pippa Barnes

The failure of the Oslo peace process, and subsequent further negotiation attempts, has seen a revival of Palestinian civil society and grassroots nonviolent resistance. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has become a central strategy and organisation to the Palestinian national liberation movement. Built entirely upon nonviolent practices, the movement relies in large part upon international networks and involvement, purposely circumventing the formal political system. It claims to seek no formal leadership or political role, while it does seek to influence the national liberation movement of Palestine.The growth of the BDS movement is forcing political tensions between different leadership groups to the surface of the Palestinian national movement. This chapter refocuses nonviolence analysis on the issue of intra-liberation movement leadership dynamics. The Palestinian Authority is caught between its cooperation agreements with Israel and its inability to neither support nor denounce BDS outright. Although both are part of the same liberation movement, support for one does not mean support for the other. There is an undeniable clash between the statist approach and the grassroots popular resistance. As a result, BDS is challenging both Israeli and Palestinian political power structures. Keywords: Palestine; Nonviolence; Leadership; Liberation; Legitimacy

Introduction The failure of the Oslo peace process, and subsequent further negotiation attempts, has seen a revival of Palestinian civil society and grassroots nonviolent resistance. Jamjoum (2011: 138) writes that “with the erosion of the Palestinian national movement after the Oslo agreements and the ambivalence of the new Palestinian Authority towards the liberation struggle, Palestinian civil society stepped in to continue the march to freedom”. Built entirely upon nonviolent practices, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has become a central strategy and organisation to the Palestinian national liberation movement, purposely seeking

nonviolence within national movements |  133 to circumvent the formal political system. It claims to pursue no formal leadership or political role, while seeking to influence the national liberation movement. In its success some have argued that BDS has sidelined the traditional statist approach and recognised official actors. The fallout from recent atrocities in Gaza have only further demonstrated the need to centrally locate nonviolence in the political discourse. Asking “where is the Palestinian leadership amid this catastrophe?” Jalal Abukhater (2018) states that the internal political situation “resembles a swamp”. The multiple bodies of formal Palestinian political leadership maintain a deeply complicated, and at times unclear, relationship with different forms of nonviolent resistance. In locating nonviolent resistance amongst the mainstream political leadership, analysis can be expanded beyond the question of the effectiveness of nonviolence in challenging the resistor–oppressor power structure. How can nonviolent resistance affect the politics within its own national movement? More specifically, what are the consequences of the BDS movement upon the Palestinian political actors as the movement continues to straddle liberation and state-building processes? Both the nonviolent and armed resistance of the First and Second Intifadas have been examined in the wider context of the Palestinian national liberation movement, leadership relations and legitimacy. However, this discussion needs to be progressed into the post-Oslo phase as the formal political process is increasingly viewed with scepticism and the dynamic national liberation movement continually develops. The fallout of Oslo saw the focus reoriented towards political institutions. However, with the subsequent failure of Oslo there has been a reorientation on the ground away from political institutions. Karmi (2018) writes that “the last decade has seen an extraordinary revival of national consciousness. Each locality where Palestinians live has developed its own form of resistance activity, whether inside Palestine or out. The boycott, divestment and sanctions movement is but one of these”. Furthermore, Qumsiyeh (2015: 95) states, “[Although] there is a growing understanding of its nonviolent dimension, there are still many questions to answer from an academic standpoint on the nature and dynamics of popular resistance”. He implores the continuation of examining the dynamic nature of ever-evolving forms of Palestinian nonviolent resistance.

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In its rapid growth and constant development, the BDS movement remains an under-analysed element in the highly researched field of the Palestinian national liberation movement with comparisons to the South African anti-apartheid movement dominating the landscape. Though there is strong criticism from the Israeli state and Zionists, BDS as a nonviolent movement has come to be viewed as a positive development in a stilted national liberation movement punctuated with varying levels of violence. While BDS formally operates around implementing and pressuring boycotts, divestments and sanctions against Israel, the impact of the movement rests in changing international opinion and the discourse towards the Israeli occupation. With the Israeli occupation as the central target and modus operandi of BDS, the question of how BDS is affecting the formal Palestinian political leadership and peace process has been overlooked. Non­violent resistance has long been a driving force of the Palestinian national movement and questions about the formal political leadership’s handling of it are pressing, with nonviolence now propelling the liberation movement. Hallward and Norman (2011: 170) point to the need to question “the power dynamics within Palestinian society over who determines what constitutes ‘legitimate’ resistance as well as what the goals of the resistance might be”. Nonviolent resistance must be situated amongst what is seen as the political mainstream and not analysed in isolation. In its organisational mode, BDS has been able to operate without the restrictions that both the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) incur. Co-founder Omar Barghouti states that “BDS is a grassroots and civil society movement that is entirely independent of the official Palestinian structures and any government” (Younis 2015). But herein lies the issue. BDS does not claim to be political, nor does it seek political power or status in any future Palestinian state; it holds no position on a state-based solution. It positions itself as purely human rights-based. However, with BDS reigniting the Palestinian national liberation movement with a method that purposely disengages from the formal political system, does this impact upon the perceived legitimacy of the system and peace- and state-building processes? The BDS movement needs to be examined not only with regards to Israeli state legitimacy, but also that of the Palestinian formal leadership.

nonviolence within national movements |  135 This chapter deals with the Palestinian elements of the BDS movement. It is not a normative judgement on forms of resistance and their effects, but rather aims to expand the discussion around the internal impact of nonviolent resistance within national liberation movements. The case of Palestine is used to examine the tensions between a nonviolent resistance that circumvents formal politics and a state-based peace process approach. One is purposively non-political and the other solely political; each claims to operate within the same national movement. Nonviolent resistance Nonviolent resistance is largely viewed in positive terms, particularly with regards to national liberation movements and as the alternative to violent resistance. One need only compare the discourse surrounding the First and Second Intifadas to see this. Nonviolent resistance is commonly examined in terms of its effectiveness in weakening or delegitimising an opponent, or in its advancement and legitimisation of a liberation movement. While this chapter treats BDS as a nonviolent movement, it would be remiss not to examine the implications of this categorisation. The use of terminology inherently creates an “other” against which to situate nonviolence. Like other dichotomies, the nonviolent vs armed resistance binary must be problematised if it is to be meaningfully employed. Chenoweth and Stephan (2011: 12) summarise a useful foundational definition: Sharp defines nonviolent resistance as “a technique of sociopolitical action for applying power in a conflict without the use of violence” (1997, 567). The term resistance implies that the campaigns of interest are noninstitutional and generally confrontational in nature … Although institutional methods of political action often accompany nonviolent struggles, writes sociologist Kurt Schock, nonviolent action occurs outside the bounds of institutional political channels. In keeping with other national liberation movements, nonviolence is not a homogenously accepted concept in Palestinian society; “nonviolent” can be a loaded concept when used as a central labelling tool. Questions arise as to what qualifies as violence

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and whether the presence of violence is then seen to undermine nonviolent resistance. For example, stone throwing can be a common occurrence at the weekly “nonviolent” demonstrations in the West Bank. Does the stone throwing against armed combat soldiers register as violent resistance and do such acts require the weekly demonstrations to be denied the label of nonviolent? Qumsiyeh (2015: 78) illuminates the issue of the label “nonviolent” in Palestinian resistance by explaining that common categories in Palestine are: Muqawama Sha’ibiya (civil or popular resistance) emanating from Sha’b – resistance in which the wider population participates. This is contrasted with Muqawama Musallaha (armed resistance) which is specialised. Despite his examination of the nuances of Palestinian resistance, Qumsiyeh (2015: 93) still returns to the problem of how stone throwing, or indeed boycotts, should be categorised: It would be futile to portray them as falling into two camps that support either violent or nonviolent resistance, because polls indicate that the majority generally supports a combination of both – with some variations according to circumstances (Kohanteb, 2012) … Claiming a schism between both clusters of tactics only exists in academic discussions. An additional issue that arises is that those involved in nonviolent resistance do not necessarily denounce violent resistance, are not adherents to pacifism, and worry that such labels can be used to delegitimise violent resistance. Jamal Juma’, BDS co-founder, BDS National Committee member and coordinator of Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, states: All of us refuse to, strongly, to call ourselves nonviolent. Simply because we know there are political things behind that … When you call yourself a nonviolent movement, it means that you are justifying yourself in front of somebody and I want to distinguish myself from the violent movement on my side. I will not delegitimise any Palestinian’s existence. (Juma’ 2016) Juma’ presents a pragmatic view of nonviolence. However, BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti advocates the recognition of BDS as a nonviolent movement due both to the fact that all of BDS’s resistance

nonviolence within national movements |  137 tactics are strictly nonviolent and as a means of frame resonance to garner international support. The BDS movement aligns with Sharp’s (1999: 567) definition of nonviolent resistance, with BDS relying on “acts of omission”. While the constructed division between forms of resistance is problematic, this is not to say that this negates the identification and examination of nonviolent resistance. Nonviolence has a unique means of challenging power and authority, and it is worth examining this notion in regard to the authorities within national movements. In their exploration of resistance, Baaz et al. (2016: 142) write that “it is important not to dichotomize resisters and dominators since that would mean to ignore the multiple systems of hierarchy and that individuals can be simultaneously powerful and powerless within different systems”. This approach is central to the Palestinian case where we see these multiple systems of hierarchy and power, and therefore, multiple levels of resistance to above powers. In her critical work on Palestine and nonviolence, Norman (2011: 2–3) directly questions “how do power dynamics among and between different groups affect understandings and applications of nonviolence?” Through her examination Norman states that this is not to place normative value on types of resistance, but rather to delve into the broad and complex concept of nonviolence and its resulting controversies that have been overlooked in the field. It is from this line of questioning that the chapter departs in the exploratory discussion in analysing alternative relations of nonviolent movements and their liberation counterparts. Too often, forms of protest are sectioned into separate literatures, such as nonviolence and social movement theory, armed resistance with the field of conflict. In reality, “neither mass political violence, nor terrorism, nor peaceful protest, nor nonviolent resistance can be explained in vacuo” (DeNardo 1985: 262). Pearlman (2011) has criticised the near dominant placement of nonviolence within social movement theory. Nonviolence is intrinsically intersectional which, ironically, may have contributed to the inconsistent integration and application amongst connected fields. The intersectionality of different scholarships is also central to the Palestinian national movement. There is a web of relations between armed and nonviolence resistance, political institutions, political parties, social movements and civil society. The national liberation movement underpins all these elements and forces their interconnectivity – for better or for worse.

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The case has been made for the close linking of social movement theory when examining a national liberation movement due to the extensive work on the success/failure of social movements. Ghanem (2010: 5) compares the overlap between the two fields: Like national movements, social movements aim for social and political change; thus they bear at least some similarities to national movements. Moreover, social movements generally use non-establishment forms of struggle and political participation, just like national. Nonviolence has largely been isolated within social movement theory, which itself has been kept apart from mainstream politics. However, Palestine presents a clear case for reconsidering both the theoretical approaches in themselves and their application alongside other literatures. This speaks to a wider issue of the relationship between contentious politics and formal political systems and peace processes. Contentious politics can encompass both armed and unarmed resistance. By definition, contentious politics acts outside the realm of conventional political channels and institutions: “they violate or bypass the routine conflict resolution procedures of a political system” (Dudouet 2015: 3). However, there exists an assumption that contentious political actors in a national liberation movement seek to assume or directly affect power. The effects of armed contentious actors involved in resistance movements who do not necessarily directly seek power can be seen in analyses of “spoilers” and the like. But what of nonviolent contentious actors in a national liberation movement? There is a gap in the examination of such leadership groups who do not (or at least claim not to) seek official political power. This becomes even more critical to examine in the Palestinian case. Qumsiyeh (2015: 78) states that given the length and nature of Palestinian oppression, relatively few Palestinians engage in violent resistance; nonviolent resistance has been a much more common feature of the self-determination movement. Legitimacy beyond Oslo The effects of Oslo on both civil society and popular resistance are clear. Leone (2011: 13–14) presents a succinct overview of flow-on

nonviolence within national movements |  139 effects. As NGOs conformed to donor institutions, both the grassroots and nationalistic approach were shut out; the discourse of alternative and appropriate resistance was thus confined and narrowed: Before the Oslo period, resistance was once so broadly defined as to include a range of activities from nonviolence to martyrdom. Yet, in this post-Oslo atmosphere, where large components of civil society are entangled with foreign donors and beholden to their development priorities, the space between the personal and the national continues to widen. (Leone 2011: 28) The result was a dramatic reduction in space for the grassroots resistance. It is this process that provides the foundations as to how the BDS movement may affect the formal political system. Moving to the issue of legitimacy, Möller and Schierenbeck (2009: s. 22) provide a succinct rationale as to why it is that legitimacy is critical in relation to authority: Despite the widely acknowledged status of Weber’s work, not much analysis of political leadership has recognized the usefulness of examining the sources of legitimacy upon which a political leadership gain authority. Arguably, an analysis of political leadership needs to take into account, not necessarily personal skills, and not necessarily all contextual circumstances, but the sources that condition any given political leadership authority. Authority is a source of power; legitimacy is a source of authority. Suchman (as quoted in Call 2012: 41) proposes that legitimacy exists as a form of perception: “legitimacy is a generalized perception or assumption that the actions of an entity are desirable, proper, or appropriate within some socially constructed system of norms, values, beliefs, and definitions”. Specifically drawing from a constructionist approach to legitimacy, Bukovansky (2002: s. 211) proposes that “beliefs about legitimacy are forged through cultural discourse, and without legitimacy power cannot endure”. Legitimacy is a constant negotiation of powers and perceptions and therefore dynamic and multiple in nature – critically so for a multifaceted national movement.

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The legitimacy of the PLO has already been examined with regard to the shift from “terrorist organisation” to official negotiation partner, largely with respect to international legitimacy. However, Kelman (2001: 63) makes an interesting point in saying that why the PLO was central to negotiations was that “they had widespread support in their respective communities; they enjoyed a high level of legitimacy in the eyes of their populations”. Within the national liberation movement the key to legitimacy was the Palestinian people and subsequent representation of them. Previously, Arafat was able to proclaim legitimacy of the PLO as the sole and unique representative of the Palestinians due to “‘sacrifice’ and ‘dedicated leadership’ and had been ‘granted’ it by the choice of the Palestinian people as a whole. Legitimacy also rested on the PLO’s capacity to ‘represent’ all factions, unions and groups within the Palestinian people” (Finlay 2010: 287). Of course, one only need look at Hamas to see the “umbrella” imagery of the PLO has become outdated. Alaa Tartir (2017) asserts that Oslo was marked by parallel and conflicting projects: national liberation and state building. While the dominance of Arafat post-Oslo saw this tension momentarily suppressed, the problem has resurfaced and can be examined through the current nonviolent popular resistance. Despite the support for the PLO, Oslo was not entirely unopposed. The leftist opposition (DFLP and PFLP) within the PLO did not support Oslo despite their support towards a two-state peace (Shikaki 1998). In November 1997 34% of Palestinians opposed the Oslo agreements (Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research 1997). However, polling in December 2016 showed 62% now support abandoning the Oslo agreements (Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research 2016). That same survey showed that Palestinians view the most effective means for the establishment of a Palestinian state as: armed action – 37%; negotiations – 33%; popular nonviolent resistance – 24%. However, with a cessation of negotiations, support for popular nonviolent resistance is 62% and armed resistance is 53% (polled in separate questions). The impetus of the legitimisation of the PLO, and its negotiation of the peace process, came from the authority it held within the Palestinian population. Its support (and faith in the peace process) has diminished, while support for the non-statist BDS movement has increased.

nonviolence within national movements |  141 Jamjoum also argues that Oslo transformed the character of the Palestinian national movement – from liberation to limited state building. Furthermore, and critically for the question of resistance and legitimacy: Since the Palestinian leadership itself was engaged in direct and public relations with the state of Israel, how were supporters of Palestinian rights supposed to take a position that was “more Palestinian than the Palestinians” in working toward the isolation of Israel? (Jamjoum 2011: 134–135) While Jamjoum angles this issue to external supporters of Palestine, the question is one that plagues Palestinian society, particularly with regard to popular resistance. This was illustrated recently in the protests over the security coordination between the PA and Israel in the arrest and killing of activist Basil al-Araj. Peaceful demonstrations at the court case were violently repressed by the PA. Thaer Anis, activist of the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee (coalition member of BDS), stated that “in Basil’s idea, there is a new message. ‘We have two things we must struggle against: the politics in Palestine and the occupation’” (Gostoli 2017). Legitimacy is not a zero-sum game and arguably neither side would profess this view with regard to internal Palestinian politics. However, the interactions between the different actors involved within the national liberation movement requires further examination beyond what is officially presented in statements and policies. Although the PLO is cited as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, a perceived blurring of institutional boundaries between it and the PA has occurred. Despite officially having different functions, both are controlled by a Fatah majority, led by Mahmoud Abbas, and crucial to the formal political processes. Therefore, the PA and PLO are examined equally as part of the formal political system. Zaru, writing on nonviolence and Palestine, believes nonviolence threatens status quo power holders as nonviolence undermines the façades of moral authority: “Nonviolence reconceptualizes power and it gives the ordinary person power to effect change. Nonviolence exposes and then challenges the structures of domination and not just the overt symptoms” (2008: 73). It is clear how the nonviolence of the BDS movement challenges the Israeli regime and occupation.

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But what if the PA and PLO were the subjects instead? It is possible to reorient the theoretical approach on nonviolent movements so that the internal dynamics of the wider national liberation movement are scrutinised using the same language. The interactions and related consequences between nonviolent resisters and oppressors receive much focus. Helvey (2004: 150) writes of “political jiujitsu” whereby opponents’ violent and negative reactions to nonviolent resistance are used against them to strengthen the support and power positioning of the resistance. Israel is examined under this logic, but what of the PA who has on multiple occasions suppressed and arrested nonviolence resistance/resisters? The nonviolent resistance and PA are seemingly on the same side of the Palestinian national liberation movement, causing their interactions to be overlooked in favour of the opposing state of Israel. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement The BDS movement was formally launched in 2005 by 170 Palestinian unions, organisations, parties, networks and civil society organisations. It models itself as a coalition of coalitions, with the West Bank-based BDS National Committee (BNC) acting as a central leadership group. The movement is based upon three goals (Israeli obligations) which are non-negotiable: ending the occupation and dismantling the wall; equality for Arab-Palestinian citizens in Israel; and the right of return for Palestinian refugees as per UN General Assembly resolution 194 (Palestinian Civil Society 2005). The movement purposely limits itself to its three objectives, claiming to not engage with Palestinian politics beyond self-determination. It must be noted that part of this semi-apolitical approach includes not specifying the form self-determination should take and therefore does not necessarily imply an independent Palestinian state as per the two-state solution. There are 29 members of the BNC, each representing a wider coalition or union rather than individual interests. The main foci of the BNC are strengthening the movement, strategising and coordination, and Palestinian ownership. Within the BNC sits the 11-seat secretariat elected every two years by the BNC. It comprises two subcommittees: the local and Arab committee; and the international committee. There is also a seat on the secretariat for the coalition of all Palestinian political parties.

nonviolence within national movements |  143 On the surface, the BDS movement appears to adhere to the inclusionary conception of representation by arguing that the three objectives of the movement speak to every element of the Palestinian population – the West Bank and Gaza, within Israel, and refugees/ diaspora. Jamal Juma’ (2016), BNC member, states: Ending the occupation of Israel represents 38% of the Palestinian population. Ending the racial discrimination against the Palestinians inside the 1948 borders is 12%. And the right of return of refugees which is 50% of the Palestinian population. By this we cover the Palestinian people’s existence, in the diaspora, inside historical Palestinian people. Within the BNC and secretariat are representatives from all major sites in the West Bank and Gaza. With no quota system or formalised mirror system of representation, representation of the three elements of the Palestinian population defaults to representation by proxy.1 There are links within the numerous signatories of the BDS movement to these three different Palestinian populations, as the 2005 BDS call itself states that the signatories represent all three parts. However, if we look at the large refugee groups in neighbouring countries, numerous refugee rights organisations are listed as BDS signatories in Lebanon and Syria (Aidun Group, Palestinian Return Association etc.) and there is an implication that alignment to the BDS movement equates to representation by the BDS movement. Refugees do not elect or nominate representatives; the wide range of signatories is assumed to adequately capture representation of the refugees. This is one level by which the BDS movement perceives representation. Additionally, the BDS movement views representation as a means of implementing and managing a consensus organisational model – in turn with strong ties to the concept of cohesion. Representation is managed by the consensus principle. Aware that the BDS movement cannot work with the thousands of individual organisations, the leadership aims to incorporate the main bodies of Palestinian representation. For example the Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO) is a BNC member and itself consists of, and therefore represents, 135 national NGOs. Juma’ (2016) presents the reasoning behind the set-up:

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We start mobilising the community and making organisations, and we are not talking about individual organisations, when we address the Palestinian organisations, we address the coalitions, the networks, the unions. So the major bodies representing the Palestinian majority of the people. Because you have thousands of organisations and we can’t reach all so we want to reach the main bodies that are representing Palestinians … That’s why we call this a consensus movement of the Palestinian people. The BDS model of representation becomes a coalition of coalitions and therefore avoids traditional leader–follower patterns as there are no individual mandates. Representation occurs at two levels due to the dual nature of the movement: the Palestinian level as part of the national liberation movement; internal signatory coalition representation as a social movement. The assumption is that the internal representation by coalitions captures the necessary elements of the broader Palestinian representation and therefore argues the existence of a consensus model at both levels. While it is harder to demonstrate that the movement is truly a consensus of the Palestinian people, as this is by proxy at best, this approach is more a reflection of past and present issues of the Palestinian national liberation movement. The divisions within both the wider liberation movement and different groups with claims to this movement have shaped the BDS movement’s perception of representation to attempt to create intra and inter consensus. Consensus is also the principle underlying the BDS movement’s approach to cohesion. The central basis of cohesion for BDS is the decision to define the movement as human rights-based. Any member of the BDS movement must agree to the three objectives and the BDS principles, both of which are human rights-based. The BDS leadership sees this as the most important element in maintaining unity of the BDS movement. Mahmoud Nawajaa (2016), BNC general coordinator, explains: We do not have a political mandate and this is one of the most important things. Many of them are one-state and others are two-state solution. And because we do not have that, we have the three objectives that everybody agreed on, every Palestinian agreed on … And because of this there is a consensus behind

nonviolence within national movements |  145 the BDS movement. Because we stick to our three objectives we do not cause political mandates. And when there will be a contradiction or argument, anything, we just stick to our mandates. The belief is that were the movement to assume a political character, the one-state versus two-state question would arise along with political divisions. Pearlman argues that “when a movement is unable to centralize authority and institutionalize command and control, it easily becomes racked by divisions” (2011: 217). Ideal cohesion is only met when a movement is largely governed by single leadership and an institutional framework. Such an approach has been aptly shown to explain both the successes and failures of the fragmented formal leadership bodies involved in the Palestinian national movement (e.g. the PLO, PA and Fatah). Pearlman singles out the degree of cohesion/fragmentation as the key characteristic of organisational structure which may determine the nature of a movement. But in keeping within traditional theoretical confines, assessment of movement cohesion becomes a measure of unified, centralised and therefore hegemonic leadership. Palestinian nonviolent resistance leadership has transitioned into a decentralised, uninstitutionalised and transnational movement, divorced from traditional leadership bodies. There is differentiation between fragmentation and pluralism, but this still fails to account for the modern movements which seek cohesion through self-adopted principles without classical centralised, authoritative leadership. A high degree of distribution can sacrifice the collective power of the movement. However, distribution and decentralisation can be seen to be part of how the BDS movement perceives developing a culture of cohesion. The BDS movement’s linking of representation with both participation and consensus has inevitability filtered into the rationale around levels of centralisation – or rather lack thereof. This approach places the movement at the risk of losing cohesion. However, although factionalism has been identified as one of the most significant obstacles to effective leadership, hierarchy does not necessarily promote unification (Widzer 2015: 24). Palestinian political history is fraught with factionalism, especially amongst elites, and it becomes clear how the BDS movement has drawn from

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their own context to shift the balance in favour of decentralisation to manage cohesion, rather than a traditional hierarchical system. The leadership model has provided an alternative outlet that circumvents the restrictive formal political process; but BDS does not seek the institutionalised power that any future Palestinian state requires. As Erakat (2012) writes of the BNC’s approach, “[it] provides for a compass but does not provide a destination”. Returning to Chenoweth and Stephan’s (2011) view of nonviolent resistance, by definition, BDS operates outside institutional and formal political realms. What is potentially problematic is that Falk (2014) goes as far as arguing that BDS not only circumvents these pressures tied to a statist approach, but has grown sufficiently to sideline formal leadership: “At this time governments have been temporarily marginalised as political actors in relation to the struggle. This is itself a momentous development” (Falk 2014). The successful South African case dominates the boycott movement landscape. But the history, context and fraught internal politics of the Palestinian national liberation movement require expanding the dialogue to ask critical questions of such a nonviolent movement in a different set of circumstances. “Effects of the BDS movement” does not result in a single line drawn to “(legitimacy of) the state of Israel”. Perhaps it is not for a self-labelled, apolitical nonviolent movement to consider the political effects of their actions or positioning; but there is certainly a space in the literature for a critical discussion around the political complications of nonviolent movements in their capacity as part of a wider liberation movement. Nonviolence and the political system BDS is based upon a boycott of all Israeli companies and Israeliproduced goods; the PA is based upon economic cooperation2 with Israel. While numerous questions can be asked of the feasibility of BDS within Palestinian territories, by default, the BDS movement opposes the PA’s governance. BDS co-founder Jamal Juma’ summarises the tensions between the two: “The Authority feels that any popular movement that can grow up and strengthen is a threat to them. So they want everything to be under control”. He continues, “the Authority, at least the regime, they don’t identify themselves as a liberation movement. They are acting as a state; a state is not existent. This is the irony” (Juma’ 2016). The peace process saw the

nonviolence within national movements |  147 formal political leadership shift away from a resistance movement and towards a statist entity through the administrative PA. Officially the BDS movement does not have goals or rhetoric that speak to the Palestinian political bodies, but by default this form of contentious politics has challenged the formal political system. Interviews with key BDS figures evidence this direct challenge to the legitimacy of the PA: Unelected and unrepresentative Palestinian officials have gone way too far in conceding our basic rights – without any mandate to do so. Even if they had reached an agreement with Israel it wouldn’t be worth the ink it was written with, because it has no legitimacy from the majority of the Palestinian people. (Omar Barghouti, as quoted in Anon 2011) The Authority became the obstacle; it means the Palestinian people have to decide whether they want to keep this Authority or get rid of it. So in a way, the Authority has turned the struggle internal and this is dangerous. This is the dark side of the whole issue and this is the difficulties facing the BDS and inside the BDS. (Juma’ 2016) At the same time, those in the BDS central leadership acknowledge that the PLO still has a level of legitimacy, but it is increasingly fragile: The PLO has legitimacy still, but very weak. It’s now decreasing and decreasing, they in the political powers didn’t stand up quickly and strongly. (Juma’ 2016) They [the PLO] still have legitimacy, not for Palestinian people, for the people they pay their salaries. They have legitimacy through these employees only but not on the Palestinian people. Palestinians do not trust the PA because of the whole situation – the corruption, nepotism, clientalism – all these types of corrupted people in the PLO. (Mahmoud Nawajaa, BNC general coordinator 2016) What can begin to be seen through the above perspectives is how elements of BDS could be viewed as resistance to the formal

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Palestinian political system and not just the officially declared state of Israel. There is a strong desire to reinvigorate the PLO and its legitimacy, but what is not acknowledged is how the BDS movement may have an impact upon this. There is a differentiation between the PLO and PA in this case. The PLO is viewed more favourably as a tool for the national liberation movement moving forward, as indeed it is the formal negotiating body, whereas the role of the PA garners little favour amongst the grassroots resistance. Senior advisor to Abbas, Mohammed Shtayyeh, has stated that the PA must be revised from “a service provider” to “a resistance authority” (as quoted in Qandil 2014). The PA is also viewed critically by the Palestinian population at large: 50% view the PA as a burden; 67% want Abbas to resign; and 59% believe it is not possible to criticise the PA without fear (Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research 2017). Given that resistance is a central element of the Palestinian liberation process, this can explain why the BDS movement favours legitimisation of the PLO over the PA given their different engagements with the liberation and state-building processes. If we revisit Kelman’s approach to understanding Palestinian legitimacy and the peace process, this was based upon the formal body (then PLO) having the essential support of the population and thus a claim to representation. This created a mandate for both the negotiation and implementation of the Oslo agreements. But two decades on and the fallout of Oslo has seen diminishing levels of support. The PA now dominates internal politics and the president’s office has been inconsistent with its positioning on grassroots nonviolent resistance – and the BDS movement specifically. On boycott-based resistance, Abbas stated in 2013, “We don’t ask anyone to boycott Israel itself. We have relations with Israel, we have mutual recognition of Israel” (as quoted in Kane 2013). The PA instead endorses boycotts limited to products from West Bank settlements. Abbas’s position on the BDS movement caused internal divisions, with the South African Palestine Embassy releasing a statement declaring its support for the BDS movement and clarifying that “The Palestine Liberation Organisation and the State of Palestine is not opposed to the Palestinian civil society-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel” (as quoted in Kane 2013). Despite this, BDS activists have been arrested by the PA and nonviolent protests continually

nonviolence within national movements |  149 shut down (Abunimah 2014). Then in President Abbas’s 2017 speech to the UN General Assembly, using the voice of both the PLO and PA, he “saluted” the nonviolent popular resistance that had taken place in Jerusalem vis-à-vis Al-Aqsa (Haaretz 2017). However, there has never been official support of the BDS movement and indeed, statements can be read as more of a denunciation (see Sherwood 2013). The question of engagement with Israel is one of the most significant points of difference between the PA and BDS. Where the PA is contractually obligated in its relations with Israel, BDS takes a very firm position on anti-normalisation. The increasing tensions were exemplified through the Women Wage Peace march in Israel and Palestine in October 2017. Thousands of women from both sides of the conflict walked across the territories for two weeks in a call for negotiations and peace. While Abbas supported the action, both BDS and Hamas did not, as it was viewed as an act of normalisation. The march can be seen as a form of nonviolent popular resistance, yet BDS went as far as calling for its sabotage (Carroll 2017).3 The premises of re-entering into negotiations are based on both engagement and recognition of the Israeli state. BDS claims to be apolitical while positioning itself in a manner laden with political implications. Furthermore, it is near impossible to see the achievement of the three BDS objectives without political negotiation. Though the BDS movement does not denounce negotiations, there is a clear critical stance towards the formal peace process. The approach to handling nonviolence resistance also illustrates the issue between the blurring of the boundaries of formal political organisations. Ziad Khalil Abu Zayyad, Fatah spokesperson but speaking from his personal perspective, highlighted this with the peace march: “The President sent a woman to say his speech, and one of the Central Committee is participating. And most of those who attacked it are coming from Fatah itself. They attacked the demonstrations – not physically. But most of them were Fatah” (Abu Zayyad 2017). Amal Ahmad (2016) argues that such cycles of confrontation are indeed necessary as they “help to break the monopoly over politics held by the Palestinian Authority and may help to hasten and legitimize the search for alternative strategies”. If resistance is most strongly linked to the liberation process, this immediately presents an issue for the state-building process and

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associated legitimisation. Following the initiation of the state-building process, civil society was severely curtailed in an attempt to shift away from the liberation-based legitimisation and authority to aid legitimisation of the PA. However, civil society and popular resistance has re-emerged in the space of a languishing state-building process that has shown liberation to be incomplete. There is no direct causal mechanism between how the rise of BDS affects the process of legitimisation of the formal political system as there are numerous internal and external factors involved. Nonetheless, the BDS movement influences the wider environment underlying the processes of legitimisation in increasing the role of the liberation process as a basis for such. Resistance has been lifted in importance for legitimisation and therein lies the problem for the PA as their engagement with and reliance upon the state-building process presents limitations for how the PA interacts with resistance. Resistance, nonviolent or otherwise, is inherently part of the liberation process and the presence of the liberation process undermines the statist approach. Where the effect of BDS upon Israel’s legitimacy is an open talking point, the effect of BDS upon the formal Palestinian political system is not being openly addressed. While stating support for nonviolent popular resistance, the PA makes the BDS movement an exception to this rule. Equally, BDS is highly critical towards legitimacy issues surrounding internal Palestinian politics, while not acknowledging their potential role in this due to their “apolitical” self-labelling. This is not meant as a normative judgement on the approach of either channels, but rather to open up a dialogue around the impact the nonviolent BDS movement can have upon legitimacy beyond the state of Israel. Jamal Zakout was part of the First Intifada leadership, former senior PA advisor, spokesperson, and member of the PNC. He views the lack of strategy as the reason for the tension between the formal leadership and popular resistance. Questions must be asked of both: The resilience is connected to the resistance. What’s the main parameter of the success of the government and the failure of the government? We need the popular movement or not? If we need the public movement and nonviolence or peaceful resistance, why do we not encourage the BDS? Is BDS a

nonviolence within national movements |  151 legitimate tool or not? It seems maybe I’m not supporting the BDS as some lump. We should be more tactical, because what’s the main aim of the BDS? Is it to make Israel to pay the price? It couldn’t happen as we are fragmented. It couldn’t happen as we have double strategies – public movement and government – which are contradiction strategies. (Jamal Zakout 2017) Without delving into the extensive, yet critical, field on the concept of power, it is necessary to draw from it in the questioning of resistance and legitimacy. Hoy (2005: 82) writes that “power needs resistance, and would not be operative without it. Power depends on points of resistance to spread itself more extensively through the social network”. Like the concept of legitimacy, this can be turned so the focus is internal Palestinian politics whereby the power is the PLO/PA and not the traditional oppositional power that would be the Israeli state. It is no shock that Israel has reacted against the BDS movement, but the PA has often sought to repress elements of a nonviolent movement that holds similar end goals. Palestinian resistance has been “reframed as criminal insurgency or instability” not by Israel, but by the PA (Tartir 2017). This is not to say that one branch or approach of the Palestinian national liberation movement should be deemed more legitimate than another, but the issue is of the underlying consequences upon the legitimacy of each. Furthermore, as the PA is a product of the Oslo peace process negotiated by the PLO, the legitimacy of a formal peace process is inherently tied to the above issue. Conclusion Arguably, the BDS movement, and other grassroots resistance, emerged in the post-Oslo era due to the stagnation of and frustration with the formal political system. Popular nonviolent resistance was rejuvenated as an alternative means to closed-door elite diplomacy. Furthermore, the organisational structure of the BDS movement has been a reaction against perceived issues within the formal political system. Though such groups never proposed to be an alternative to the entire political system, there has been a narrative emerging around this – one that is starting to be translated to an on-the-ground reality. What is occurring vis-à-vis internal Palestinian politics is demonstrably different from that of the South

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African anti-apartheid boycott movement. In no way should this discourage or be used to quell the Palestinian BDS movement. The argument could easily flow that the effect of pressuring the formal political leadership is a by-product of the popular resistance – and a positive one at that. But there should be a critical discussion problematising the effects of nonviolent movements in different political contexts. The two sides of the coin must be accounted for. The nonviolent grassroots resistance has been at the helm of stimulating a languishing national liberation movement for which the formal political leadership cannot take credit – while the label of apolitical does not wash away the political effects of nonviolent resistance within the wider Palestinian political system. While there is not necessarily a coherent or consistent position amongst the PA (or PLO), the above examples of altercations between popular resistance and the PA demonstrates the perceived competition. Although both are part of the same liberation movement, support for one does not mean support for the other. There is an undeniable clash between the statist approach of the PA/PLO and the grassroots popular resistance situated firmly in the liberation process. Contentious politics acts outside the formal political system for a reason. However, as the BDS movement seeks significant political “concessions”4 from the Israeli state and yet does not seek political involvement, this puts BDS in a unique position, particularly as part of a national liberation movement. Nonviolent resistance can play a key role in liberation movements. But in this case the nonviolent resistance may have the potential to have a positive impact upon the larger national movement, while having a detrimental impact upon the formal political leadership of the national movement by the very fact that it exists to circumvent this process. It is not novel for grassroots resistance to be critical of the formal political bodies within the same liberation movement. BDS does affect the legitimacy of the institutional organisations, and therefore their engagement in the formal peace process, but it does not stand as a potential alternative to the political bodies in any stated capacity. Whether nonviolent movements should account for these effects and related consequences has no straightforward answer. Rather, perhaps it can remain a point of critical thought moving forward in the application of strategies of contention. Consequently, the impact of BDS upon the legitimacy of the Israeli occupation is the

nonviolence within national movements |  153 movement’s central focus; the impact of BDS upon the legitimacy upon formal Palestinian politics may become the increasingly critical question. Notes 1 Proxy here is used in the nonlegal sense and does not imply formal authorisation. 2 An acknowledgement must be made of the problematic use of the terms “cooperation” and “coordination” in this case. As Chomsky (1997: 249) writes, “The outcome of cooperation between an elephant and a fly is not hard to predict”. 3 Juma’ (2017) expressed that not only was there official BDS opposition to the march due to the principle of anti-normalisation, but due to the

hypocrisy that he believes was at the heart of this nonviolent protest. He believes preaching nonviolence and peace to the Palestinian population is akin to preaching to the choir. The march did not target this message to Israel, continuing the issue of the nonviolence discourse only focusing on the Palestinian side. 4 This is political negotiation terminology and is not intended to imply that Israel has legitimate ownership that would be given up.

References Abu Zayyad, Z., 2017. Interviewed by: Barnes, P. (October). Abukhater, J., 2018. Where is the Palestinian leadership amid this catastrophe? [Online] Available at: www.aljazeera.com/indepth/ opinion/palestinian-leadershipcatastrophe-180515110228635.html [Accessed May 2018]. Abunimah, A., 2014. Amnesty urges Abbas to drop criminal charges against Palestinian boycott activists. [Online] Available at: http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ ali-abunimah/amnesty-urges-abbasdrop-criminal-charges-againstpalestinian-boycott-activists. Ahmad, A., 2016. Reflections on Palestinian strategy. [Online] Available at: https://al-shabaka. org/commentaries/reflections-onpalestinian-strategy/. Anon, 2011. Interview: Omar Barghouti on the boycott campaign for Palestine. [Online] Available at:

http://right2edu.birzeit.edu/ academic-freedom-case/. Baaz, M., Lilja, M., Schulz, M. and Vinthagen, S., 2016. Defining and analyzing “resistance”: Possible entrances to the study of subversive practices. Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 41(3), pp. 137–153. Bukovansky, M., 2002. Legitimacy and power politics: The American and French revolutions in international political culture. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Call, C., 2012. Why peace fails: The causes and prevention of civil war recurrence. Washington: Georgetown University Press. Carroll, G., 2017. Israeli-Palestinian women’s peace march exposes the Palestinian divides. [Online] Available at: www.timesofisrael.com/ israeli-palestinian-womens-peacemarch-exposes-palestinian-divides/. Chenoweth, E. and Stephan, M., 2011. Why civil resistance works: The strategic

154  |  pippa barnes logic of nonviolent conflict. New York: Columbia University Press. Chomsky, N., 1997. World orders, old and new. London: Pluto Press. DeNardo, J., 1985. Power in numbers: The political strategy of protest and rebellion. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Dudouet, V., 2015. Introduction. In: V. Dudouet, ed. Civil resistance and conflict transformation: Transitions from armed to nonviolent struggle. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 1–19. Erakat, N., 2012. Beyond sterile negotiations: Looking for a leadership with a strategy. [Online] Available at: http://al-shabaka. org/sites/default/files/policybrief/ en/beyond-sterile-negotiationslooking-leadership-strategy/ beyond-sterile-negotiationslooking-leadership-strategy.pdf. Falk, R., 2014. Palestine’s future: What are the options? [Online] Available at: www.aljazeera.com/indepth/ opinion/2014/06/palestine-israelnegotiations-2014618115526131341. html. Finlay, C., 2010. Legitimacy and nonstate political violence. The Journal of Political Philosophy, 18(3), pp. 287–312. Ghanem, A., 2010. Palestinian politics after Arafat: A failed national movement. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Gostoli, Y., 2017. Basil al-Araj: Police break up protest over court case. [Online] Available at: www. aljazeera.com/news/2017/03/ basel-al-araj-police-break-protestcourt-case-170312172626573.html. Haaretz, 2017. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Address to UN General Assembly. [Online] Available at: www. haaretz.com/middle-east-news/ palestinians/1.813524.

Hallward, M. and Norman, J., 2011. Conclusion: Prospects for nonviolent resistance in PalestineIsrael. In: M. Hallward and J. Norman, eds. Nonviolent resistance in the Second Intifada: Activism and advocacy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 161–175. Helvey, R., 2004. On strategic nonviolent conflict: Thinking about the fundamentals. Boston: Albert Einstein Institution. Hoy, C., 2005. Critical resistance: From poststructuralism to post-critique. Cambridge: The MIT Press. Jamjoum, H., 2011. The global campaign for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel. In: M. Hallward and J. Norman, eds. Nonviolent resistance in the Second Intifada: Activism and advocacy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 133–151. Juma’, J., 2016. Interviewed by: Barnes, P. (November). Juma’, J., 2017. Personal communication [Interview] (October). Kane, A., 2013. Palestinian officials come out in support of BDS movement after Abbas’ disavowal. [Online] Available at: http://mondoweiss. net/2013/12/palestinian-officialsremarks. Karmi, G., 2018. At 70, Israel is a bellicose regional giant. [Online] Available at: https:// electronicintifada.net/content/70israel-bellicose-regional-giant/24291 [Accessed May 2018]. Kelman, H., 2001. Reflections on social and psychological processes of legitimization and delegitimization. In: J. Jost and B. Major, eds. The psychology of legitimacy: Emerging perspectives on ideology, justice, and intergroup relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 54–73.

nonviolence within national movements |  155 Leone, A., 2011. Civil education in post-Oslo Palestine: Discursive domestication. In: M. Hallward and J. Norman, eds. Nonviolent resistance in the Second Intifada: Activism and advocacy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 13–31. Möller, U. and Schierenbeck, I., 2009. Hidden treasure or sinking ship? Diagnosing the study of political leadership. QoG Working Paper Series, 27. Nawajaa, M., 2016. Interviewed by: Barnes, P. (December). Norman, J., 2011. Introduction: Nonviolent resistance in the Second Intifada. In: M. Hallward and J. Norman, eds. Nonviolent resistance in the Second Intifada: Activism and advocacy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 1–11. Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, 1997. CPRS Public Opinion Poll 30. [Online] Available at: www.pcpsr.org/sites/default/ files/Palestinian%20Public%20 Opinion%20Poll%20No%20 %2830%29%20CPRS.pdf. Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, 2016. Public Opinion Poll No (62). [Online] Available at: www.pcpsr.org/sites/default/files/ poll%2062%20English%20full%20 text.pdf. Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, 2017. Public Opinion Poll No (65). [Online] Available at: www. pcpsr.org/sites/default/files/Poll65-English%20-Full%20Text%20 desgine.pdf. Palestinian Civil Society, 2005. Palestinian Civil Society call for BDS. [Online] Available at: www. bdsmovement.net/call. Pearlman, W., 2011. Violence, nonviolence, and the Palestinian national movement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Qandil, Q., 2014. Palestinians denounce West Bank leadership. [Online] Available at: www.aljazeera. com/news/middleeast/2014/07/ palestinians-denounce-west-bankleadership-201479132239444774. html. Qumsiyeh, M., 2015. Evolution of armed to unarmed resistance in Palestine. In: V. Dudouet, ed. Civil resistance and conflict transformation: Transitions from armed to nonviolent struggle. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 77–99. Sharp, G., 1999. Nonviolent action. In: Encyclopedia of violence, peace, and conflict: Volume 2. London: Academic Press, pp. 567–574. Sherwood, H., 2013. Mahmoud Abbas accused of being traitor over rejection of Israel boycott. [Online] Available at: www.theguardian. com/world/2013/dec/22/mahmoudabbas-rejection-israel-boycott. Shikaki, K., 1998. Peace now or Hamas later. Foreign Affairs, 77(4), pp. 29–43. Tartir, A., 2017. The Palestinian Authority security forces: Whose security? [Online] Available at: https://al-shabaka.org/briefs/ palestinian-authority-securityforces-whose-security/. Widzer, M., 2015. Becoming a state: Zionist and Palestinian movements for national liberation. Doctoral thesis, University of Denver. Younis, R., 2015. Interview: The man behind the BDS movement. [Online] Available at: https://972mag.com/ interview-the-man-behind-the-bdsmovement/107771/. Zakout, J., 2017. Interviewed by: Barnes, P. (October). Zaru, J., 2008. Occupied with nonviolence: A Palestinian woman speaks. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

8

| “MEDIA JUJUTSU”: RESISTANCE AND THE MEDIA POWER OF OPPONENTS

Isabel McIntosh

Social media platforms and digital technologies have revolutionised access for grassroots actors to build networks, circulate media objects and engage in public discussions with a diversity of actors.While there is no shortage of research into the grassroots protest opportunity of today’s hybrid media system (Chadwick 2013) to communicate dissent and mobilise, how it is used as resistance to disrupt hegemonic power and hold its narrators to account is largely unexamined. Translating the strategic civil resistance concepts of “moral jiu-jitsu” (Gregg 1934) and “political jiu-jitsu” (Sharp 1973), this chapter coins the term ‘media jujutsu’ to analyse how resistance actors in Australia’s movement against coal seam gas leveraged the media power of opponents for movement gain. Critical to this was the sustained commitment of grassroots actors to build decentralised social media networks, self-generate and frame media content and directly challenge the regime narrative. Key words: Resistance; Social Media; Activism; Public Narrative; Grass­ roots Activism

‘Media jujutsu’: resistance and the media power of opponents Late one Saturday evening, Gloucester coal seam gas activist Mark Anning tweeted a grainy photo of a police car imprinted with the logo of one of Australia’s largest gas producers and commented: “Queensland Police Force … proudly brought to you by Santos” (@1EarthMedia 2014a).1 Twenty minutes later, Anning tweeted again, “Santos Queensland Police Service ‘Stay on Track Outback’ launch for real” (@1EarthMedia 2014b). This time as evidence he included a link to the Queensland Police webpage (www.mypolice. qld.gov.au) displaying the cars. It appeared that Santos, the proponent of a contentious coal seam gas field in Australia’s largest state of New South Wales (NSW) was paying for its logo to be promoted on government police cars.

“media jujutsu” |  157 It was a spectacular narrative thread for the activist movement opposing the establishment of a coal seam gas industry in Australia: the same police arresting peaceful activists at blockades were driving cars paid for by the mining company whose interests they were protecting. Yet, Santos’ funding of the Queensland Police programme ‘Stay on Track Outback’ wasn’t new or secret. Santos had been a corporate sponsor for more than three years, the slogan “Proudly brought to you by Santos. We have the energy”, promoted extensively in a government campaign to reduce road deaths on outback roads. What Anning did was reframe the sponsorship to a highly engaged digital network of coal seam gas activists, journalists and movement observers, re-presenting it in the context of the contentious politics of the NSW coal seam gas movement. The public relations campaign that Santos had seen as a positive had been translated as part of a powerful resistance narrative. From Anning’s initial tweets came a cascade of digital engagement and online corroboration that quickly crossed to other social media platforms, alternative news sites and then mainstream news. The closeness of the relationship between Santos and state actors was put in the spotlight and questions of political influence interrogated. The Queensland government was forced to explain why a mining corporation was allowed to donate to its police force. The question of political donations and influence drew in new actors mobilising a “bystander public” (Thomas and Louis 2014) to pick a side. Santos’ own media power, and its own media objects, were used against it to add value to movement messages. Eventually, under sustained pressure, the Queensland government changed its donations policy to increase transparency of its corporate donors. The meme, “Santos police cars”, continued as short-hand for the “why” of grassroots resistance. Strategic civil resistance scholars Richard Gregg (1934) and Gene Sharp (1973) used the terms “moral jiu-jitsu” and “political jiu-jitsu” respectively to describe how resistance actors leverage the power of well-resourced opponents to increase their legitimacy and public support. Gregg’s concept of “moral jiu-jitsu” focused on strategic actions that evoked shame in oppressors. Sharp (1973) renamed the dynamic “political jiu-jitsu” to show the effect on the bystander public when nonviolent protest is subdued with an overly aggressive response by a militant opposition. While Sharp’s emphasis of

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“political jiu-jitsu” was the mediation of nonviolent civil resistance in the physical protest sphere, in the digital age I define as “media jujutsu” the process for resistance actors to leverage the media power of opponents. “Media jujutsu” is a method of strategic resistance that shifts protest to intent to confront and disrupt the hegemonic narrative, make visible opposition and shift pillars of support. The fossil fuel regime The scholarship on strategic civil resistance tends to target violent regimes and their infliction of suffering within the context of political dominance in the nation state (Bartkowski 2013; Chenoweth and Stephan 2011; Nepstad 2013). Fossil fuels are a major contributor to the greenhouse emissions causing climate change, the systems perpetuating fossil fuels causing mass human suffering through a swathe of impacts including droughts, sea-level rises and extreme weather events.2 Against this structural violence (Galtung 1969; Galtung and Höivik 1971) there is an urgency to apply the practice and theory of strategic civil resistance scholarship to campaigns against the fossil regime. The mining industry, like other powerful industries, is not simply a collection of mining companies but a system of power embedded in a supply chain that criss-crosses the globe, supported by private and government finance and a legislative framework embedded in the processes of democratic governments and socio-political and cultural structures. Unlike a state-based authoritarian regime, the fossil fuel regime does not have a singular dictator and is without borders, held in place by a multitude of legislative, political, social and economic actors that entrance its hegemonic narrative through an “uncontested realm of media discourse that results in media content appearing as transparent descriptions of reality, not as interpretation” (Berglez and Olausson 2014). A movement against an industry regime requires unpicking and removing the multiple pillars holding in place a narrative. Rather than through parallel communications, media jujutsu leverages the media power of opponents to achieve this. The New South Wales movement against CSG (2011–2016) Australia is the world’s largest exporter of coal, the industry continuing to develop and expand mines with significant economic

“media jujutsu” |  159 subsidies and support from both sides of politics, state-based and Commonwealth (Grudnoff 2013). In the mid-2000s, coal seam gas, a fossil fuel and new energy source and export opportunity for Australia was targeted by industry and political power as Australia’s next economic opportunity. Coal seam gas (CSG) is natural gas composed mostly of methane (up to 90 per cent) trapped in the pores of hard coal seams hundreds of metres beneath the earth’s surface. Its recovery through thousands of gas wells uses the same technological advances as the hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) and horizontal drilling that drove the shale gas (natural gas trapped in shale rock) mining boom across the United States in the early 21st century. In the United States, proponents drilled more than 500,000 extractive wells on farmlands, town belts and private land in the first decade (US Energy Information Administration 2017). Australia’s state of Queensland was another earlier adopter, sinking 5,000 CSG wells between 2002 and 2012. The New South Wales government wanted to replicate Queensland’s economic boom, and with industry stakeholders, had put in place the policy to transform NSW into a “gas state”. The industry promised the government a “motza in royalties” and soaring returns for investors (Keane 2011). International deals worth tens of billions of dollars to export liquified gas were signed and the NSW government had blanketed a third of the state’s 850,000 square kilometres with more than 80 petroleum exploration licences (PELs) before climate activists even knew what fracking was, before Josh Fox’s Gasland had been released. The environmental, health and social impact (Buttny and Feldpausch-Parker 2016; Mayer 2016; Nikiforuk 2015; Veenstra, Lyons and Fowler-Dawson 2016; Willow and Wylie 2014) that would lead to a global mobilisation and make “fracking” part of everyday discourse was still localised and uncoordinated. Business journalists drove the economic narrative of this greenfield opportunity and neither the industry nor government were going to pause for the science to catch up. Opposition started from a standing-start against an army of coal seam gas rigs destined for the prime farming land of the Liverpool Plains, the biodiversity hotspot of the Pilliga State Forest, the lush hinterland of the Northern Rivers, the Gloucester Valley, the Hunter Valleys wine-growing region and Sydney’s public water

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catchment area and inner city suburbs. Inner city urbanites and “greenies” joined the NSW farmers in calling on a government moratorium to temper a CSG mining industry “allowed to flourish without proper concern for the threat they pose to farmland and water resources” (McGrane 2010). The government responded by emphasising “co-existence” and a moratorium on new licences. It did not alter strategic regional land use plans or declare any land off limits to future mining. Before the 2015 state election, the NSW premier reiterated NSW as a gas state with a rhetorical affirmation: “Do we want coal seam gas? Absolutely we do” (Godfrey 2014). To date in 2018, NSW still has not banned fracking, nor CSG mining. Yet, between 2013 and 2016, one by one, companies cancelled their plans, withdrawing from the state or selling licences back to the government, until in 2016, only Santos was left, its plans in NSW limited to a single, heavily contested site. Against a government narrative of support for the industry, a diverse set of actors built a disruptive nonviolent movement that confronted CSG proponents in situ and built broad public support for a sustained campaign of direct action and civil disobedience that included eight (seven successful) blockades at NSW mine sites. A feature of the mobilisation was the proliferation of media content generated and circulated by grassroots actors that sustained and negotiated media power. Not only did thousands of people sustain on-the-ground visibility but a multitude of self-organising actors including experts and eye-witnesses, community groups and alternative news outlets created “challenger” media objects and disseminated them across social media and digital media channels. Rather than elite power broadcasting its own mediated reality, a spotlight was shone on opponents to explain and defend in front of an increasingly literate public. Networks and power Anning’s first tweet was retweeted 150 times in the first 24 hours and ranked in the top one percentile for retweets around the globe. Two Sydney Morning Herald journalists with more than 20,000 followers between them, and independent journalist Margot Kingston (24,000+ followers) retweeted it, amplifying reach to NSW’s non-activist networks. Movement actors tailored new tweets and found new photos to add, layering the narrative

“media jujutsu” |  161 with new content as well as reach. Ten minutes after Anning’s first tweet movement organisation, Lock the Gate Alliance, posted its own tweet with a different photo: “Yep, it seems that Santos is sponsoring the Qld Police #QldInc. Nothing odd about that! (coff)” (@LockTheGate 2014a).3 Incredulity was a feature of early engagement, one tweet exclaiming about a photo, “IT’S NOT PHOTOSHOPPED” (@Gatorau 2014). Anning’s first tweets were launched directly into a CSG-literate network of more than 2,000 social media followers. Like movement organising, building a social media network takes time, an example of the sustained commitment that is a definition of resistance (Engler and Engler 2016). Over time, Anning had built credibility as a knowledge source on CSG, actively disseminating evidence on the risks of coal seam gas mining, the chemicals used in fracking, peerreview health studies on the impact of methane, tracking political donations by coal seam gas companies. Activists spend significant time searching the Internet, following up leads in the way a professional journalist would, and undertaking investigative research to add weight to the movement narrative. Social media networks are a springboard to share this knowledge and engage audiences, this active process of engagement rather than the content itself the key to creating leverage and media power. Anning’s news angle quickly crossed over to other digital platforms where it was vetted for veracity. On the social news and discussion website Reddit (www.reddit.com), Seaharechasr posted Anning’s claim and exclaimed “WHAT???????”, then a few minutes later adding, “I just had another look. This must be fake. But if it’s real there needs to be a shitstorm” (Seaharechasr 2014). The thread makes visible the grassroots process of adding value to a resistance narrative, Seaharechasr in the background undertaking his own Internet investigation and the active sharing of new knowledge. Seaharechasr: It’s real there’s a shot of NSW police vehicles parked by a Narrabri/Coona/New England Hwy roadsign too – will try to find it. Bennelong: The mural on the car alone is quite acceptable, but it looks like the Santos logo has been Photoshopped later. EDIT: I stand corrected about the Photoshopping. It’s genuine.

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LineNoise: Not photoshopped. [includes a link to mypolice.qld. gov.au website] You’ll notice it’s not a service vehicle. It’s still pretty tacky. Anning also kept investigating and adding to the narrative tweeting a photo of two police cars with the Santos logo in front of a road sign for Narrabri, the town nearest Santos’ contested CSG mine site in NSW’s Pilliga State Forest. The image looks “fresh”, as though it had been recently snapped on location, maybe by an activist, maybe a journalist. In reality, it was again scraped by Anning from the Queensland Police website. Activists re-used and circulated the image to make relevant the story of political donations for NSW audiences and create a direct connection to the Pilliga conflict. This photo became the main meme, emblematic of the problematic and chosen not by news media but by social media users to frame the story. Later media articles reporting on the generic issue of political donations would use the photo to symbolise the conflict of interest without referencing Santos or coal seam gas (see, for example, Goldsworthy 2015). Multi-frame, multi-object, multi-actor Early on Monday morning, 36 hours after Anning’s first tweet, Lock the Gate Alliance posted the Narrabri photo with this question for its Facebook network: “What do you think about the practice of Police having corporate sponsors and branding their vehicles with logos such as this one with Santos?” (Lock the Gate Alliance 2014). The post is rapidly shared more than 500 times and reaches over 57,000 Facebook users. A few hours later independent news site Crikey (www.crikey.com.au) is the first media outlet to respond to the below-the-line media furore. But, rather than the question of political donations, Crikey chooses as its frame the escalation of engagement on social media. In the tic-tac media build now typical between grassroots media actors and news media, Lock the Gate Alliance retweets the article but with a political frame, “Crikey on #Santosgate. Safe Roads - for a price. Just what has Santos bought?” (@LockTheGate 2014b). Resistance narratives gain traction through the multiple media objects such as photos, news stories, conversations, tweets and Facebook posts that occupy the mediated public sphere. In the

“media jujutsu” |  163 absence of a government response the Santos police car media object gathered narrative power, engaging non-protest networks and a general public as it circulated in need of an answer. A SumOfUs.org.au petition orbited with a request that the Queensland police “give the branded vehicles back to Santos”. As a stand-alone media object it is shared nearly 5,000 times on Facebook and in 150 auto-generated tweets with the statement, “Queensland Police Service: brought to you by the gas-fracking industry” (data as at 22 September 2015).4 There is no specific hashtag for the story; it is the number of media objects created and circulated through pro-active grassroots activity that is adding to the value. Like Crikey, other media outlets also use the extensive circulation on social media as its news frame. The Guardian reported “opponents of CSG circulated images at the weekend showing police vehicles bearing Santos’s name” (Safi 2014). One reason for this angle is that journalists producing news within the “hegemonic ideology” (Gitlin 1980) did not see Santos’ corporate relationship with the police as newsworthy in its own right. Like a physical rally on the street media uses the spectacle of protestors as the story, they frame the numbers or presence of protest and not the “other” being opposed. The Sunshine Coast Daily sources Twitter for a quote from Stop Brisbane Coal Trains spokesman John Gordon saying the sponsorship was “a bloody disgrace” and that Santos logos should be removed (Egan 2014). The Brisbane Times attributed Anning’s first photo to No CSG Coonabarabran the name of the @CRAG_Coona Twitter account, an indication that its source of news to develop the story was also social media. To shift power grassroots resistance networks must confront and challenge the narrative of elite power-holders. Grassroots actors sustained the interrogation, leveraging Santos’ sponsorship to prosecute mining’s close relationship with government and the corruptibility of corporate donations. Online forums show how a bystander public not concerned about CSG started being concerned such as this Reddit user: “I didn’t know or care about [Santos] until now anyway. Now I’m a horrified at where their name has been placed and well aware of them. Win?” (Seaharechasr 2014). “Santos’ police-cars” became what Latour (2005) calls a mediator, a transformer of meaning in the actor-network made up of both humans and non-human actors. Santos’ public relations success

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was transformed into a disruptive actor that forced the government to defend and explain, each response risking further scrutiny and interrogation by a diverse range of networks. Resistance networks expanded the themes to erode legitimacy for Santos’ CSG projects, challenge CSG’s social licence (Bice 2014; Black and Bice 2013) and add value to media stories about AGL Energy and its political donations – at the same time as the government was approving its Gloucester CSG project. The scrutiny on mining approvals had increased grassroots literacy of the strategies of corporations to manufacture social licence. During the television screening of the documentary GasLeak!, about AGL Energy’s coal seam gas plans for the small town of Gloucester, Stop CSG Brisbane tweeted, “Key #CSG questions remain unanswered. Industry spend PR $ rather than protecting Australians” (@StopCSGBrishane 2013). A comment on Lock the Gate’s Facebook page shows the denaturalisation of the political frame: “It’s disgusting, but at least it’s honest. Corporations run this planet anyway, now we can see the true colours of their ‘army’ …” (Lock the Gate Alliance 2014). Social researcher Rebecca Huntley says focus groups now regularly bring up the negative issue of third-party influence on government through political donations: “If you’d asked me five or six years ago I’d have said it occasionally gets flown around unprompted in groups. And now it comes up again and again and again” (Huntley 2018). Santos police cars became another media object that added to the angst, storifying and making tangible for new audiences the movement’s question of the influence of political donations and independence of government decision-making on fossil fuel projects. Each new frame, each new media object generated by social media users, experts and grassroots media added to the anti-CSG movement’s network of attachments (Latour 2005), this surge of actor connections working to transform meaning and shift public discourse and the shared narrative. Contesting narrative power The transformation of public discourse defines the legacy of a movement and is a direct marker of success. The Women’s Rights movement shifted public discourse to create a new social narrative that, even if it didn’t always fully endorse women’s equality, did not actively condemn it. The US Civil Rights movement created

“media jujutsu” |  165 new narratives and removed legitimacy for language and policy that systemised black segregation. The Gay Rights movement changed the way homosexuality was talked about in the public sphere. Each movement identified and named the systemic oppression, making legible its inequities and introducing a new discourse. More recently the public narrative of marriage equality has increased acceptance for LGBTQI rights, calling out the inequality embedded by this discrimination and its structural violence that puts gay people at risk. No longer is it socially acceptable to treat or talk about gay people as less than equal. Revolutions in public discourse take place as grassroots actors committed to change actively disrupt and challenge accepted frames. This takes place in everyday conversations – both online and face-to-face – and becomes the driver for political change as elected representatives strive to reflect the zeitgeist. The anti-smoking narrative was established long before governments clamped down on the tobacco industry, the change in smoking’s acceptability driven by a health narrative that led to its social ban in hospitals, on airlines, chess clubs, schools. It was similar for the more recent marriage equality movement. Nonviolent resistance as a method for social change is not about a general public voting “Green” or becoming an advocate on an issue; rather, it is about the acceptance of a new norm – de facto relationships, divorce, anti-discrimination, women’s equality, marriage equality, the divestment from fossil fuels – and the end of a system that entrenched its violent alternative.5 Writing on the delivery of social change in America, but equally applicable to a democracy like Australia, Borosage (2015) writes: “the great changes in America have been ratified – not won – at the ballot box”. The fossil fuel regime will never be removed through an election, nor will the revolution be led by news media outlets. How vested interest – both political and industry – uses its power to influence news media is a significant cleavage for media research. The hegemonic narrative only shifts when the routine of their journalists is disrupted and they begin to “produce news that no longer harmonizes with the hegemonic ideology, or with important elite interests as the elites construe them” (Gitlin 1980: 13). Social media has become a way to disrupt these routines as well as add to the number of a population visibly active that is needed to shift entrenched power.6

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The sustained commitment to occupying social media with a qualitative discourse for change and adding value to the revolutionary narrative is critical. Like news media channels – both commercial and alternative – social media is “embedded into contradictions and the power structures of contemporary society” (Fuchs 2013: 207), with elite actors increasingly turning to it to achieve aims. The same social media platforms used by resistance actors to create media power are also used by elite power to negate it. Politicians use Facebook pages and Twitter accounts to frame political messaging and increasingly share “fake news” that has a tenuous link to facts or reality (Tandoc Jr, Lim and Ling 2018; Allcott and Gentzkow 2017). The digital media power of vested interest is far less transparent due to, not only the opaqueness of the operators, but the use of targeted below-the-line messaging to tailored audiences. Third-party data analytic companies such as Cambridge Analytica are paid by political parties to harvest and use personal data to sway voters (Berghel 2018). A blurred line of finance by elite industry and political interest funds “internet farms”, these semi-professional workforces paid to operate a plethora of “fake” social media accounts and circulate fake news that erodes support for progressive reform. This influence as well as that of Facebook algorithms themselves is invisible to mainstream audiences, less interested in understanding “who” and why they’re receiving content than accepting the face value of the message. Industry lobby groups also use social media to promote their interests and challenge dissent. However, when done top-down without a network of supports, its clunky implementation can be used as media jujutsu by grassroots actors. Within hours of the Australian Minerals Council’s launch of pro-coal campaign “Australians For Coal” in April 2014, the hashtag #australiansforcoal was trending on Twitter, redefined by activists for comedic affect: #australiansforcoal because “polar icecaps are for losers”, “wind farms are such a blight on the landscape”, “I wish my city had more of that sooty, Dickensian charm”, “#climatechange is merely a conspiracy”. Like Santos’ police cars, mainstream news media treated the activism as the story and, instead of using mining’s media kit ran headlines focused on the hashtag as the “latest sign of an industry in values freefall” (Guardian Australia) and “How Twitter obliterated the mining industry’s latest lobbying campaign” (Business

“media jujutsu” |  167 Spectator). A year later the same escalation occurred when the coal lobby launched its new “Coal Is Amazing” television advertisement, the hashtag #CoalIsAmazing this time used by activists to ridicule the message. In both cases, Twitter was used to directly disrupt an industry narrative, reframing and resisting through a network of Twitter users that dwarfed the regime’s both in numbers, connections and reach. Whereas the industry had few accounts and few followers per account, the network of activists tweeting had many and were able to escalate the hashtag and dominate the narrative, leveraging industry’s investment for movement gain. Resistance is the sustained, committed story-telling and the generation of media objects by grassroots actors that transform the hegemonic narrative to introduce a new reality. Critics argue the Occupy movement failed for its inability to achieve a specific policy outcome, blaming its absence of high-profile (aka media) leaders and an unclear political strategy. Yet, Occupy shifted the public narrative and made legible the capture of democratic power by a financial elite (Taylor 2017). It integrated frames of inequity and inequality into not only social discourse but political discourse with Pew Research showing “two thirds of Americans saw growing inequality as a problem and were willing to demand greater government support, economic investment, and that the rich pay higher taxes” (Langman 2013: 521). Social media and public narrative Ganz (2011) writes that movements don’t win through facts or “rearranging economics and politics”, they achieve change when they “rearrange meaning”. This is a process that comes from the ongoing way that individuals talk about an issue. He named the process “public narrative” (Ganz 2011, 2013), and lists this along with strategy and structure as the three key factors for social movement success. Shifts in power come when people start talking differently about an issue, shifting from a mode of protest to one of strategy. Ganz (2013) developed an applied activist workshop to train activists on how to tell their own “Story of me, us, now” and use this to insert themselves as an actor for change. New digital technologies and social media platforms have expanded the opportunities for public narrative to not simply engage but directly intersect and confront opponents with public narrative that is movement power.

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Social media becomes a strategic platform for grassroots actors not simply to tell one story but through networks and connections to narrate resistance themes through ongoing personalised stories that document participation in the change. Mediated story-telling extends its reach beyond who you know to connect to the actornetwork as an actor in its own right, each social media account an addition to the star-shaped web of connections and influence. Public narrative is a strategic activist practice that is more than participation in the public discourse underpinning Habermas’s theory of the public sphere. It is the enactment of the mediated public sphere (see Couldry, Livingstone and Markham 2007; Şen 2012; Tufte 2011) as resistance. A social change narrative doesn’t circulate on its own, but is created through story-telling (Bird and Dardenne 2009). Grassroots actors can use social media to circulate stories, the story itself an actor to connect and disrupt hegemony. Each actor telling a story, each story as a media object adds to the number count of the participation needed for social change. These media nodes and media objects – first person witness accounts, community newsletters, social media, news stories with local voices, photos, gonzo journalism, videos and film uploaded and distributed across the virtual world – add to this count of participation critical for movement success. CSG resistance actors using below-the-line media platforms dwarfed the handful of regime actors making the case for the industry. News media continued to report government and industry speeches at business conferences and reproduce media statements but there was a uniformity to the messaging repeated and rehashed by the same line-up of regime spokespeople. In contrast the number of grassroots actors building direct relationships on Twitter with news journalists and power-brokers, the number of Facebook users leveraging the platform as digital “produsers” of frames and scripts (Bird 2011) continued to grow. Rather than the faceless mass of the crowd, one way to read the resilience of movement power is through the number of actors actively using social media platforms to advance a movement discourse, and the number of media objects generated and shared by a diverse range of actors. Achieving success against a powerful regime is a numbers game. If the campaign is nonviolent, more citizens are likely to participate, and the greater the participation the greater the

“media jujutsu” |  169 chance of success (Chenoweth and Stephan 2011). It is not only the number of actors but their diversity and connection to different audiences that increases leverage and can be used to measure value of a resistance. The translation of movement messages into social infrastructure such as churches, schools and workplaces makes it more difficult for a regime to differentiate between movement and non-movement participants. It is also more difficult to manufacture consent through top-down political messaging and media power if there is a large number of grassroots actors participating on social media and generating and circulating media objects that challenge and reframe reality. Media theorist Nick Couldry (2000: 24) points to the “denaturalisation of the media frame” when first time protestors notice the gap between what they know and see, and what is reported in mainstream news. Social media has created a channel to challenge this reporting. It also creates a broadsheet to document and expand on the reporting of events and movements, creating an alternative reality to hegemony by unpicking its pillars of truth and writing an alternative. In the week following Anning’s first tweet, narrative value was created by a proliferation of photos, spokespeople, commentary, discussion and news stories, the circulation facilitated by the movement foundation of resistance narrators already using social media. Over two years, there had been a surge in active Facebook pages with identity profiles linked to the movement against gas: Gasfield Free Northern Rivers, Stop CSG Sydney, CSG Free Ingleburn, CSG Free Lismore, Stop CSG Illawarra, Gloucester Groundswell, Girls Against Gas, Dogs Against Gas, Knitting Nannas Against Gas. Lock the Gate Alliance as its own “communications platform” (Lash and Lury 2007) to synthesis resistance frames, amplified through individual social media actors like Lock the Gate Mid North Coast, Lock the Nambucca Valley, Lock the Tweed, Rock the Gate (“Musicians against Gas”). On Twitter individual users changed their handles or created new handles to give visibility to the opposition, whether on topic or off, in every tweet: @nocsgjacinta, @nocsgjosie, @NoCSGGurley, @StopCSGSydney and my own account @CSGStinks. These media nodes in the actor-network (Latour 2005) did not simply generate and share content, but used media practice to build extensive networks and reach, this ever-expanding

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web of engagement escalating and sustaining narrative power through the numbers of actors participating. A plethora of non-elite actors generated an alternative reality through social media, industry and union communications, regional newspapers and independent digital news sites such as The Conversation, No Fibs and New Matilda that diluted the industry’s media power through the sustained production of a challenger narrative. In response, the industry and government used political messaging (or what now might be called “fake news”) to manufacture a gas crisis if expansion didn’t proceed. Michael Fraser, CEO of one of Australia’s largest retail energy companies, AGL, told the 2013 Australian Domestic Gas Outlook Conference that the failure to develop large coal seam gas reserves in the state would make gas unaffordable and lead to the loss of manufacturing jobs. News outlets reported the warnings with headlines such as “NSW will face gas crisis, says AGL” (Sydney Morning Herald 2013). Using an AAP wire release, the Sydney Morning Herald directly quotes AGL Energy group general manager Mike Moraza warning of his company’s impending crisis due to operating delays, “We are facing a crisis, that’s a fact. We’ve run out of time. We are not going to be able to fill those supply gaps that are going to emerge at the end of 2016” (Sydney Morning Herald 2013). The Australian Financial Review quotes Federal Resources Minister Ian Macfarlane, telling the public it wasn’t if but when: “NSW is facing a situation now where it will run short of gas by 2016” (Macdonald-Smith 2013). The NSW minister for resources blamed the disruption on the roll-out of gas for putting 300,000 gas-related jobs in NSW in jeopardy and, in a sign of the tension emerging between government and industry, urged industry to turn around public opposition (Claughton 2015). When AGL announced its withdrawal from all gas assets in NSW in 2016, economist Rod Campbell from the progressive think tank, The Australia Institute (TAI), tweeted: “AGL ditch CSG!! Fools! Don’t they know about the GAS CRISIS?? Tell them quick” (@R_o_d_C 2016). Calling power to account: mediated cut-through Strategic questioning is another form of media jujutsu that leverages industry’s media power through a requirement they respond. The sustained scrutiny on Santos’ sponsorship on social media by a

“media jujutsu” |  171 diverse set of actors created a new set of questions for the bystander public. On Facebook: “What exactly have (stet) Santos bought?” (Protecting the Pilliga 2014), “So now CSG company Santos own the Queensland Police Force?” (Jeremy Buckingham 2014). ABC journalist Jess Hill used Anning’s original photo for a new tweet: “Santos sponsors the Police? Or are the police working for Santos?” (@jessradio 2014). Lock the Gate President Drew Hutton asked: “How can you enforce the law impartially against a company that’s sponsoring you?” (Safi 2014). The Queensland Police were forced to defend its Santos sponsorship, and the Queensland government was put on a back foot to defend and explain its own actions. Journalists interviewed government spokespeople and movement actors side-by-side juxtaposing the testimony of elite power-holders with the case against CSG. Whatever way the regime responds creates an opportunity for the movement to reassert its claims. The Queensland Police Commissioner Ian Stewart defended its relationship with Santos in an ABC interview. These are PR vehicles that we use at shows, we use at expos, all of those sorts of things just as any PR machine would be used by a company or another government organisation. This is not just Queensland Police that do this, I think every police agency in Australia does the same thing. We’re always looking for sponsorships for particular programs that quite literally we want to focus on. (Small 2014) This answer created the opportunity for Hutton to draw attention to the power imbalance and perceived conflict of interest: “advertising a company like Santos … on the side of vehicles of the police whose job it is to enforce the law … against protestors who don’t like coal seam gas, is a really bad idea” (Small 2014). Escalating tension From Birmingham Jail, where he was incarcerated for civil disobedience, Martin Luther King wrote of the necessity to escalate tension across society in order to bring about change. To succeed, he argued that grassroots resistance had “to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation” (King 2012: 179). Attempts by a government to restrict information

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flows between citizens and quell networks of dissent can itself work as political jujutsu due to the ubiquitousness of the impact locally and the reporting by global media that inevitably reaches citizens in the countries whose access is restricted. No censorship or digital shutdown is ever complete, and as in the case of China’s social media platform Weibo, the work-around for self-censorship becomes entangled in new digital practices of resistance (Poell, De Kloet and Zeng 2014). This grassroots media expanded the reach of the “networked journalism” during the Milosovic regime when professional journalists from different publications agreed to disseminate content and information not allowed for distribution inside the country to news outlets outside Serbia (Van der Haak, Parks and Castells 2012). The diversity of actors actively challenging the CSG regime to explain and defend put significant pressure on power-holders. NSW Deputy Premier Troy Grant called the intensity of the community’s response on the issue of CSG “one of the most difficult things we’ve had to grapple with in government” (Foschia 2015). Santos CEO David Knox described how difficult he personally found the process of defending coal seam gas: This whole issue of explaining our story in public … it’s been a real challenge for me. It has taken a lot longer and it has been a lot more challenging than we envisaged … The industry was simply unprepared for the storm of negative sentiment that emerged as it sought to follow the same approach in NSW. (Evans 2014) The constant pressure of interrogation on CEOs of mining companies and industry spokespeople, at public forums, by journalists in one-on-one interviews or broadcast debates against experts and activists, took its toll. Instead of the podium of industry conferences and the offices of government ministers, executives of Australia’s largest energy companies had to explain and defend the processes and impact of coal seam gas production at public forums and community meetings, sharing a platform with an articulate opposition. In media interviews, journalists interrogated industry actors over community concerns of groundwater, risk, environmental impact and water security, their answers then interrogated across movement networks. Each interview created new risk for the industry, but there was no option but to front up.

“media jujutsu” |  173 The mining industry in Australia spends more on communications and lobbying than any other industry (Denniss 2015). It is the largest employer of communications professionals and its well-resourced peak body APPEA spent millions of dollars on pro-CSG-integrated advertising campaigns. Industry leaders were unable to contain their frustration as projects stalled and they were called to account, some verbally name-calling or blaming activists, the documentation of this response another example of media jujutsu. Michael Roche, CEO of the Queensland Resources Council (QRC) complained to industry insiders at an Australian Pipeline Industry Association dinner how “the top dozen activist groups are combining their resources to go up against fossil fuels” (Aston 2015). The QRC and other mining peak bodies were unable to identify or respond to the self-organising movement power and sustained resistance of lowprofile actors like Anning. A small regional newspaper in Lismore reported when the NSW deputy premier Andrew Stoner told the 2012 Nationals Party conference: “We won’t be dealing with extremists on this crucial issue (of CSG) for our state” (Harlum 2012). Two years later, when Stoner called anti-CSG protestors “professional bludgers” at the 2014 Nationals conference, Lismore’s federal member of parliament, and Nationals Party member, Chris Gulaptis was forced to counter the framing and appease conservative voters actively involved in the local mobilisation against gas: “As much as some conservatives may like to … label them as long-haired and braided protesters – and there were some of those people – there were also ordinary everyday people who do work and who do live on the land

 

 

figure 8.1  Images of police cars carrying the logo of mining company Santos that circulated on social media and materialised questions about the political influence of corporate donations by the mining industry.

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and do have genuine concerns” (Easton 2014). Gulaptis from the same political party as Stoner had to deviate from the unity of party political messaging to represent his community. Policy shifts The issue of Santos and its police car sponsorship circulated on the mediatised public stage for more than three months, momentum continuing as new audiences engaged with the media objects and questions. When the story first broke, ABC journalist Josh Bavas asked the Queensland police for a list of its sponsors and sponsorship amounts. Four months later, in April 2015, the information arrived: 23 corporate donations totalling $475,000 given to Queensland police in the past financial year. Each sponsor’s name was blacked out, creating a new media angle for the ABC to ask why, the scope of the question extending to all donors. ABC’s The World Today hosted a debate between the Queensland Police Commissioner, Drew Hutton from Lock the Gate and Terry O’Gorman from the Australian Council for Civil Liberties, on the lack of transparency (Bavas 2015a). The Police Commissioner said it was “unnecessary” to release the details of Queensland police sponsorships. O’Gorman demanded better openness and transparency in government, a message backed up by Hutton, who reiterated the democratic conflict of interest. The scrutiny continued and the government was still on the back foot defending and explaining. One day later, the new Queensland Police Minister Jo-Ann Miller overrode the Police Commissioner to introduce a new policy for corporate donations to the QP, explaining “it’s very important that any sponsorship with the Queensland Police Service should be available for everyone to see. So, every quarter, any sponsorships will be put on the QPS website for anyone to see – it’s about being open” (Bavas 2015b). In this 980-word ABC news story, Santos is not mentioned at all, yet in three separate places there is a hyperlink to December’s Santos-focused ABC news story, one of these links and the photo caption of the emblematic photo, the only reference to Santos.7 The Queensland Police relaunched its “Stay on Track” programme in May 2015 with a video of police and children dancing in front of a caravan that carried two logos: Santos’ logo was not

“media jujutsu” |  175 one, nor was it one of the multitude of sponsors listed on the “Stay on Track” website later that year. Conclusion @1EarthMedia’s tweet, not only Mark Anning, was the resistance actor in this essay’s case-study. Anning packaged the story as a tweet but it was his extensive actor-network of engaged social media actors that made it act, facilitated its trajectory and transformation from storyteller to a transformer of power. The tweet gained value as its message circulated into new networks, reframed, repackaged, re-presented by a multitude of actors, and spawning new media objects. Its circulation, like a hurricane hitting land, was the disruptive event that put public scrutiny on the government’s relationship with the mining regime and eroded legitimacy for its elite narrators. The tangible story of Santos presented through the imagery of police cars became its own emblematic meme to represent a suite of public concerns including the relationship between political donations and the independence of government decision-making on fossil fuel projects. Santos media objects intended to create positive media power were used as media jujutsu by movement actors to add value to the movement’s narrative. The media power of opponents is a significant opportunity for movements to create leverage and disrupt hegemony. Instead of movements using the spectacle of a colourful event to grab media attention and hope to build awareness, media jujutsu turns the spotlight onto the opponent to explain and defend. Social media networks can work as strategic power to facilitate this. Critical to media jujutsu as movement power is the sustained commitment of grassroots activists to building social media networks and using these to erode the legitimacy of elite narrators and hegemonic power. Wielding power against a well-resourced opponent is a numbers game and social media networks and their circulation of public narrative become significant to this count that is necessary to achieve social change. How grassroots actors use mediated connections to circulate new frames, media objects and engage new audiences as public narrative is a practice of activism. How this is then leveraged to hold hegemonic narrators to account, reframe and embed a new narrative reality, is the foundation of digital media’s revolutionary opportunity.

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Notes 1 When referencing is a Twitter account, I cite the Twitter handle including the @. This is to recognise the account as a media actor. 2 See Friedmann and McMichael’s (1989) scholarship on the “food regime”, another multi-actor system of control without borders. 3 All social media quotes reproduced verbatim without edits for grammar or spelling. 4 Another petition was also initiated by Michelle Maloney from Australian Earth Laws Alliance on the community platform, communityrun. org. See www.communityrun.org/

petitions/stop-the-sponsorship-of-thequeensland-police-service-by-santos. 5 I use the word violent here in the context of Galtung and Höivik’s (1971) definition of “structural violence” that may not be directly physical but leads to the unnecessary suffering of people. 6 Chenoweth (2013) gives the magic number of 3.5% of a population visibly active in nonviolent action as a key factor for achieving success in anti-regime, antioccupation and secession conflicts. 7 The photo caption reads: “The Santos logos visible on Queensland Police cars raised the ire of environmental groups earlier this year”.

References 2013. NSW will face gas crisis, says AGL. Sydney Morning Herald [Online]. Available: www.smh.com.au/nsw/ nsw-will-face-gas-crisis-says-agl20130410-2hlyv.html. 2014. Tips and rumours. Crikey [Online]. Available: www.crikey. com.au/2014/12/08/tips-andrumours-1268. @1EarthMedia 2014a, December 6, 9.51pm. Queensland Police Force … proudly brought to you by Santos coal seam gas #AusPol #QldPol #CSG #NSWpol #QldInc [tweet] https://twitter.com/1EarthMedia/ status/541183202207858689. @1EarthMedia 2014b, December 6, 10.11pm. Santos Queensland Police Service “Stay on Track Outback” launch for real [tweet] https://twitter.com/1EarthMedia/ status/541188248156925953. @Gatorau 2014, December 7. Replying to @Gatorau @AustralisTerry @CartwheelPrint. OMFG IT’S NOT PHOTOSHOPPED. [tweet] https://twitter.com/Gatorau/ status/541333265785708544.

@LockTheGate 2014a, December 6, 10.55pm. Yep, it seems that Santos is sponsoring the Qld Police … [tweet] https://twitter.com/LockTheGate/ status/541199228978995202. @LockTheGate 2014b, December 8. Crikey on #Santosgate … [tweet] https://twitter.com/LockTheGate/ status/541784051879649280. @R_o_d_C 2016, February 4. AGL ditch CSG!! Fools! Don’t they know about the GAS CRISIS?? [tweet] https://twitter.com/R_o_d_C/ status/695009509010329600. @StopCSGBrisbane 2013, April 1. www. abc.net.au/7.30/content/2012/ s3633004.htm … Key #csg questions remain unanswered. [tweet] https:// twitter.com/StopCSGBrisbane/ status/318672956215668737. Allcott, H. and Gentzkow, M. 2017. Social media and fake news in the 2016 election. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 31, 211–236. Aston, H. 2015. Preventing political advocacy by environment groups an “attack on democracy”. Sydney Morning Herald [Online].

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essential-social-licence-to-operate/ [Accessed 12 September 2015]. Borosage, R. L. 2015. The populist moment has finally arrived. The Nation [Online]. Available: www. thenation.com/article/occupy-andorganize/#. Buckingham, J. 2014, December 8. So now CSG company Santos own the Queensland Police Force? [Facebook]. www.facebook. com/791925860826604/ photos/a.838854276133762/ 893798207306035. Buttny, R. and Feldpausch-Parker, A. 2016. Communicating hydrofracking. Environmental Communication, 10, 298–291. Chadwick, A. 2013. The hybrid media system: politics and power, Oxford University Press. Chenoweth, E. 2013. Civil resistance and the “3.5% rule”. rationalinsurgent. com [Online]. Available: https:// rationalinsurgent.com/2013/11/04/ my-talk-at-tedxboulder-civilresistance-and-the-3-5-rule/ [Accessed 4 November 2015]. Chenoweth, E. and Stephan, M. J. 2011. Why civil resistance works: the strategic logic of nonviolent conflict, Columbia University Press. Claughton, D. 2015. Central Petroleum general manager Richard Cottee says the coal seam gas industry has failed to sell itself. ABC Rural [Online]. Available: www.abc.net. au/news/2015-04-06/richardcottee-on-gas-industry/6373098. Couldry, N. 2000. The place of media power: pilgrims and witnesses of the media age, Routledge. Couldry, N., Livingstone, S. and Markham, T. 2007. Connection or disconnection? Tracking the mediated public sphere in everyday life. In: Butsch, R. (ed.) Media and public spheres, Palgrave Macmillan.

178  |  isabel mcintosh Denniss, R. 2015. Don’t tax green speech. Australian Financial Review [Online], June 1. Available: www. afr.com/opinion/dont-tax-greenspeech-20150601-ghe7v1. Easton, A. 2014. Stoner labels anti-CSG protesters “professional bludgers”. Northern Star [Online], June 17. Available: www.northernstar.com. au/news/protesters-outrage-atprofessional-bludgers-jibe/2291297/. Egan, G. 2014. Santos sponsorship above board: minister. Sunshine Coast Daily [Online]. Available: www. sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/news/ santos-sponsorship-above-boardminister/2478547/. Engler, M. and Engler, P. 2016. This is an uprising: how nonviolent revolt is shaping the twenty-first century, Nation Books. Evans, S. 2014. Santos’s David Knox and the $21bn gas gamble. The Australian Financial Review, p. 26. Foschia, L. 2015. NSW nationals launch campaign for state election, promise country trains and better mobile coverage. ABC [Online]. Available: www.abc.net.au/ news/2015-03-15/nsw-nationalslaunch-campaign/6321154. Friedman, H. and McMichael, P. 1989. Agriculture and the state system: the rise and decline of national agricultures, 1870 to the present. Sociologia Ruralis, 29, 93–117. Fuchs, C. 2013. Social media: a critical introduction, Sage. Galtung, J. 1969. Violence, peace, and peace research. Journal of Peace Research, 6, 167–191. Galtung, J. and Höivik, T. 1971. Structural and direct violence: a note on operationalization. Journal of Peace Research, 8, 73–76. Ganz, M. 2011. Public narrative, collective action, and power. In:

Odugbemi, S. and Lee, T. (eds.) Accountability through public opinion: from inertia to public action, World Bank Publications. Ganz, M. 2013. Marshall Ganz on making social movements matter. Bill Moyers [Online]. Available: www. billmoyers.com. Gitlin, T. 1980. The whole world is watching: mass media in the making and unmaking of the new left, University of California Press. Godfrey, M. 2014. Premier Mike Baird could reopen coal seam gas industry as part of government’s new gas policy. Daily Telegraph [Online]. Available: www. dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/ premier-mike-baird-could-reopencoal-seam-gas-industry-as-partof-governments-new-gas-policy/ news-story/154b6335c2ecbfc850ba9 5d5feaa5aa0. Goldsworthy, T. 2015. Australian police tread a thin blue line on corporate sponsors. The Conversation [Online]. Available: https://theconversation.com/ australian-police-tread-a-thin-blueline-on-corporate-sponsors-40068. Gregg, R. B. 2013 [1934]. The power of non-violence, Read Books. Grudnoff, M. 2013. Pouring more fuel on the fire. The Australia Institute. Harlum, S. 2012. Stoner feels fury. Northern Star [Online], June 30. Available: www.northernstar.com. au/news/stoner-feels-fury-forusing-extremist-tag/1437055/. Huntley, R. 2018. The Drum Monday September 3 (25′59″). The Drum. www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-03/ the-drum-monday-september3/10197076:ABC. Keane, S. 2011. Coal seam gas: is it too late to Lock the Gate? Independent Australia [Online]. Available: https://independentaustralia.net/

“media jujutsu” |  179 environment/environment-display/ coal-seam-gas-is-it-too-late-to-lockthe-gate,3362. King, M. L. 2012. Letter from Birmingham jail. In: Gottlieb, R. (ed.) Liberating faith: religious voices for justice, peace, and ecological wisdom, Rowman and Littlefield. Langman, L. 2013. Occupy: a new new social movement. Current Sociology, 61, 510–524. Lash, S. and Lury, C. 2007. Global culture industry, Polity Press. Latour, B. 2005. Reassembling the social: an introduction to actor-network theory, Oxford University Press. Lock the Gate Alliance 2014, December 8. What do you think about the practice of police having corporate sponsors and branding their vehicles with logos such as this one with Santos? [Facebook] www. facebook.com/Lock.The.Gate. Alliance/photos/a.1936231040430 98/800618886676847/?type=3&pe rmPage=1. Macdonald-Smith, A. 2013. NSW needs to start drilling for CSG, says Macfarlane. Australian Financial Review [Online]. Available: www. afr.com. Mayer, A. 2016. Risk and benefits in a fracking boom: evidence from Colorado. The Extractive Industries and Society, 3, 744–753. McGrane, D. 2010. NSW miners blast farmers’ moratorium call. Sydney Morning Herald [Online]. Available: www.smh. com.au/breaking-news-national/ nsw-miners-blast-farmersmoratorium-call-20101026-171nx.html. Nepstad, S. E. 2013. Mutiny and nonviolence in the Arab Spring: exploring military defections and loyalty in Egypt, Bahrain, and Syria. Journal of Peace Research, 50, 337–349.

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9

| WIREMU PATENE AND THE EARLY PEACE MOVEMENT AT KARAKARIKI

Anaru Eketone

Karakariki became an influential village on the Waipā River in the immediate lead-up to, and aftermath of, the British invasion of the Waikato in the 1860s. It became a village accepted by both sides as one that promoted peace, especially through the leadership of Wiremu Patene, an early Māori Methodist minister. This chapter describes the work of Wiremu Patene and what he and the other members of the village contributed to the work of peace through a time marked by resistance, war and land confiscations. Key words: Māori; Kīngitanga; Karakariki; Peace

Introduction The village of Karakariki was in existence for less than 40 years, but in that time it experienced the force of the colonising enterprise of imperial Britain. This chapter introduces an early New Zealand indigenous peace movement led by Wiremu Patene and his relatives from the Ngāti Tamainupō hapū of Waikato-Tainui in the village of Karakariki on the Waipā River, 15 kilometres south of Ngāruawahia. In the interest of full disclosure, this chapter includes mention of a number of my ancestors. One side of my family, Ngāti Maniapoto, were active combatants in the land wars. They struggled against the imposition of British rule in the 19th century and decided to meet force with force. Unbowed militarily, they were eventually subverted by unfulfilled political promises. Another side of my family, Ngāti Tamainupō, were totally against war and sought to bring a peaceful end to the conflicts that emerged around them. As someone speaking with a foot in a number of camps, it is important that the context of the times is understood to see why people may have acted in the ways that they did. As a descendant of the Tainui tribes, we have a tradition of presenting our history as it was, and our ancestors as they were. The naming of Tamainupō is problematic to our modern sensibilities

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and the actions of ancestors such as Hoturoa and Te Wharetiipeti (Jones 1995: 110, 54, 282) would be covered up by any descendant if protecting the good name of the family was the uppermost thought in their mind. There are a couple of comments about Wiremu Patene that I have not included, not because of their negativity, but because they were made by modern authors with no reference to where the comments came from. This is important because there were at least five Māori leaders called Wiremu Patene and so it is essential that any research identifies the right person at the right place at the right time. Even though I have tried to bring forth Wiremu Patene’s perspective, I realise that this can create an incomplete picture. However, very little of his story has been told in modern times and his legacy is a controversial one even amongst his own tribe. Context When Māori and the British set up a formal relationship through the 1840 signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, the British were able to marginalise Māori by taking advantage of the existing social and political structures. Every part of New Zealand had an iwi (tribal group) that belonged to it (King 2003). However, it was often a loose structure of numerous villages made up of closely connected kin who belonged to hapū (clan), usually descended from an eponymous ancestor. The hapū was often the strongest political unit, and while it would have strong connections to the wider iwi, each hapū could decide for themselves when and where they would fight, based on their own alliances and priorities (King 2003). With each iwi and hapū having a degree of autonomy, resistance movements lacked a national cohesion. The British were able to exploit this lack of coordination between hapū, within iwi and between iwi around the country, by highlighting divisions and could fight at different times with different iwi. The independence of the iwi and the hapū meant that Britain’s war with a neighbouring iwi may have had nothing to do with them. In fact, some iwi may have enjoyed seeing old foes chastised. This meant that any resistance to British settlement was uncoordinated and usually specific to what was occurring in their own region. However, by the 1850s the growing greed of the government and its settlers was creating such consternation amongst a growing

wiremu patene and the movement at karakariki |  183 number of Māori iwi and leaders that it became self-evident to many that they needed to band together against the settlers; not to attack them, persecute them or drive them back to where they came from, but to form alliances to protect the vulnerable tribes from being exploited by settlers (Jones 2012). To this end, the Māori King Movement (Kīngitanga) was established to place all the land of the participating tribes under one person’s mana (authority and prestige) so that it couldn’t be sold unless agreed to by a wider group. The hope was that with the loss of the fear of land alienation, then such lands as Māori possessed could be developed for the benefit of their people. This was an intolerable situation for the Crown. It was not the instituting of a Māori king in itself that was the problem, because the British often set up kings and princes to help rule their empire (Kwarteng 2013). In fact, it is claimed that the idea for a Māori king originated in the 1840s through a discussion between Queen Victoria and Sir George Grey about who would be suitable to set up as a Māori king (Jones 2012). The problem was that the Māori King Movement could not be controlled or contained by the British, therefore it had to be destroyed. It was into this environment that Wiremu Patene emerged, caught between the Crown, those resisting colonial imperialism and those who resisted a new political structure outside the traditional village/hapū structure. Wi Patene Wiremu Patene, or Wi Patene as he was usually called, was probably born at Kaniwhaniwha, a tributary of the Waipā River (Patene 1903) in the Waikato region. Some state that it was in 1810 (Schofield 1940), but there is a claim that he was part of the warring party that drove Te Rauparaha out of Kawhia in 1821 and so he may have been older (Barrett 2013). His father was Te Whata and his mother Rangihuia, both from the Ngāti Tamainupō iwi that is part of the wider Waikato confederation of tribes. They lived through the invasion of the Ngā Puhi tribe in 1822, although we are not sure if they were at the large Matakitaki Pā (fortification) that fell with many killed (Kelly 1949). It was claimed that Te Whata was captured and taken north, to what fate we are unsure (Watarau 1903), but it was also claimed in 1903 that he is buried not far from Karakariki at Pukekowhetewhete (Patene 1903).

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Patene married Haara Ngaoko from the neighbouring Ngāti Apakura tribe and together they had at least six children. By the mid-1830s, a number of Christian missionaries became active in the Waikato region. The first time Wi Patene came into contact with a Christian missionary was on the battlefield when the Methodist John Whiteley stood between two warring tribes, bravely advocating for peace (Morley 1900). Another missionary, James Wallis, had just set up a mission station on the Whaingaroa (Raglan) harbour and Patene soon came to his attention when a wounded man turned up who had allowed his pigs to trespass onto a sacred site of Patene’s tribe. Patene shot both him and another companion who was killed (Luxton 1965). Wallis nursed the injured man back to health and challenged Patene’s violence (Luxton 1965). These examples of compassion, along with Wallis’s and Whiteley’s bravery in standing up for peace, appear to have drawn Patene to the mission and he started to attend regular services. Eventually, he decided to convert to Christianity and so became baptised. We do not know what Patene’s true name was because, as was the custom, when he was baptised he took on a Christian name in place of his Māori name. He was named William Barton after a well-known Methodist preacher in England which was transliterated into the Māori form of Wiremu Patene (Luxton 1965). The Methodists weren’t very creative and would reuse names time and time again, meaning that there are at least four others named Wiremu Patene; one of them was also a chief living further south on the Waipā River and the others resided in Tauranga, Whanganui and Hokianga. Wallis was forced to leave Whaingaroa in 1835 due to the restructuring of the mission stations, and with the closure of the Whaingaroa mission Patene eventually began working as a lay preacher in the Waikato (Luxton 1965). Three Kings In 1848, Patene sent at least three of his children to attend the Wesleyan Native Institution at Three Kings in Auckland (Patene 1878). This was a Methodist school that taught academic subjects such as maths, English and geography, also teaching carpentry, blacksmithing and farming to boys and sewing and other domestic skills to girls. It also happened to be the place where Māori clergymen were trained (Morley 1900). In 1850, Patene packed up his

wiremu patene and the movement at karakariki |  185 entire family and moved to Three Kings. One of his sons later wrote that he thought the move was to stop them running away back to the Waipā (Patene 1878). Whatever the reason, Patene soon found himself assisting at the school where his children were excelling. The 1850s were the highpoint of the Three Kings Institution. The students were mostly teenagers with a large group of single and married adults, described as monitors, who were looking to learn both the ways of the Pākehā (British settlers) and of their chosen religion (Morley 1900). At Three Kings, there developed a tight knit group of Waikato Māori who were from Ngāti Tamainupō, a number of whom eventually became the leaders of the soon to be established Karakariki village. Te Huirama Riutoto became a teacher at Karakariki. His father’s cousin Heramahina, along with her husband Hone Eketone, became a native missionary couple in Mōkau, but when Hone died, Heramahina later moved to Karakariki to marry her new husband Anatipa, a relative of Wiremu Patene, who also attended Three Kings (Daily Southern Cross 17/3/1871). Six of Patene’s children, Anaru, Maata, Aperahama, Wiremu, Mere and Hone, were educated at Three Kings. One of the characteristics of New Zealand’s Methodist missionaries was their focus on personal sinfulness (Owens 1973). Conversion was expected to be based on an individual’s response to the need to be reconciled with God where, to achieve salvation, they needed to show penitence and then live a pious life (Owens 1973). The converts that missionaries really looked favourably upon were those who appeared to show a deep repentance for the sinfulness of their life, where the redemptive power of Christ could be proven to transform the life of even the most sinful soul (Lawry cited in Barrett 1852). An individual’s guilt before God would have been a powerful motivator when coupled with the promise of the atoning power of the sacrifice of Christ. This meant, for men like Patene who had killed and indulged in the atrocities common at that time (Luxton 1965), salvation was a serious business. He would have believed he had much to be forgiven of and he lived in an iwi where vengeance was so ingrained that many had names like Riutoto and Te Whata that were deliberately given to remind the iwi to gain vengeance for the death of tribal members (Kelly 1949). For a man like Patene he would have taken seriously the words of Jesus Christ when he said in Chapter 6 of the gospel of Luke,

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27. But I say to you who hear: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28. bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you. 29. To him who strikes you on the one cheek, offer the other also … love your enemies … and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil. 36. Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. (New King James Version 1990) These were challenging and confronting statements that were hard to be equivocal about. Patene’s first two engagements with missionaries appear to have had a profound effect on him, where their roles as peacemakers must have had a lasting impression. In fact, in the first year of Patene’s ministry in 1860, he and Te Huirama Riutoto stood between two well-armed warring factions and persuaded them to resolve their differences (Patene 1902). It is probable that his personal experience of living through the intertribal musket wars of the 1820s and 1830s had an effect on him as he had personally experienced the horrors of war both in victory and defeat. Patene was ordained a minister in 1859 (Lange 2003), whereupon his people asked for him to come back to Karakariki on the Waipā to be their minister. Karakariki The village of Karakariki was named after a local stream and was not a traditional village. By 1857, representatives from many iwi (tribes) had come together to select a Māori king in whose mana (prestige) the remaining lands in Māori hands would be vested to prevent any more land being sold to white settlers (King 1977). The aged chief Pōtatau Te Wherowhero from Waikato was the favourite to be chosen to head the movement as its first king. However, there were many in Waikato itself that disagreed over the need for a king. Some thought it a deliberately provocative action that would invite the British to punish the king’s followers by taking their land (Fenton 1860). Some of the disagreements became heated and the village of Te Whakapaku on the Waipā River split in half, with Ngāti Tamainupō threatening to build another village further up the river at Karakariki (Fenton 1860). A meeting was held there encouraged by government magistrate Francis Fenton, who also wanted to use

wiremu patene and the movement at karakariki |  187 it as a base for his courts and saw it as an opportunity to set up government supported rūnanga (tribal committees) (Fenton 1860). Fenton had proposed that rūnanga, made up of 12 men with set written rules based on British law, would run the affairs of the village. Nine hapū (sub-tribes) met to establish a new village where, in Fenton’s words, “law and order can be carried out without interruption from the Kingites” (Fenton 1860: 22). It was resolved that this village would be at Karakariki and a flour mill and school were to be established. Wi Patene’s daughter, Maata, was an early graduate of the Three Kings Institute and was engaged to start a new school at Karakariki in 1858 (Stephenson 2009). A school was built and she started teaching there as the sole teacher, being described as the first headmistress of a school in New Zealand (Barrett 2013). The following year, Wi Patene moved back with his family to his tribal lands at Karakariki, holding the position of assistant missionary “to promote literacy, entrepreneurism and religion in order to achieve the economic, social and spiritual development” (Barrett 2013: 7) of his people. In his first few months there, word came of a possible altercation over a disputed piece of land on the Paritata peninsula between his own people, Ngāti Tamainupō, and the neighbouring hapū, Ngāti Māhanga. The Ngāti Māhanga iwi from Raglan, were considered “loyal natives” in comparison to the Kīngitanga and so the government gave them arms and ammunition to defend themselves and Pākehā (British settlers) from any possible Kīngitanga aggression (Daily Southern Cross 24/8/1860). However, Ngāti Māhanga decided to use their newly acquired firepower against Ngāti Tamainupō to try to claim the peninsula as theirs. A house had been burnt down and shots had been fired. While the newspapers of the time played down the actions of what they hoped would be a key ally against the King Movement (Daily Southern Cross 24/8/1860), Māori Land Court testimony referred to it as a “pakanga”, a battle, and it was into this cauldron that Wi Patene and his assistant Te Huirama Riutoto walked (Patene 1902). He stood in the middle of the warring parties as he had seen Pākehā missionaries do 25 years before. As one side were his own people, he could have been seen as not being impartial. He was also potentially taking a significant risk as the men he shot 25 years earlier were probably from Ngāti Māhanga. Patene was known as a fine orator (Graham and Payne 1989) and

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his mana and his message must have been effective, as all the combatants returned to their own villages. Karakariki increasingly came to prominence because it was on the main thoroughfare between the Waikato River and the Ngāti Maniapoto iwi. Waka (canoes) would travel up and down the Waipā River, thus avoiding the treacherous West Coast seas. By 1860, they had built a church, the school was operating well and their flour mill was processing the wheat they grew in the area. Patene became a regular spokesman for peace. In 1860, a meeting of Waikato chiefs was held to decide on whether to join the war resisting the British in Taranaki. Patene spoke for negotiation and, agreeing with the proposal to “cast all weapons of war into the sea”, called on the leaders to “lead us in the way of righteousness” (Buddle 1860: 52). However, trouble was not only brewing in Taranaki. In the early 1860s, Auckland was filling up with settlers who were wanting to buy land, but the King Movement was preventing land sales. From January 1862, the Crown had decided to push things to a head and had made preparations to invade the Waikato by building the Great South Road from Auckland to the Waikato River to ensure they had an unbroken supply chain (Belich 1986). By March 1863, Methodist missionaries noticed the ominous signs of the build-up of troops (Glen 1957). All the British needed was a pretext to invade. In June 1863, the Ngāti Maniapoto leader Aporo visited Auckland and was arrested over the destruction of a government printing press in his area that was printing propaganda material (Hot Lakes Chronicle 8/7/1896). This incensed many of the Waikato and Ngāti Maniapoto tribes who gathered together in Ngāruawahia to meet with King Tāwhiao to discuss whether to attack Auckland in response. Many there spoke in favour of invading Auckland, but Patene spoke out strongly against it (Patene 1863). Patene was openly criticised because, at all the councils of the Waikato chiefs, he always objected to any form of violence (Patene 1863). He wrote to a mentor of his, the Rev. Thomas Buddle who was a Methodist missionary, telling him all that was happening in his discussion with the Waikato tribes and also telling him of how Ngāti Maniapoto advocated an attack on Auckland, including how some other hapū had agreed with them (Patene 1863). On receiving the letter on 9 July, Buddle immediately went to New Zealand’s Governor George Grey with the letter, plus two others he

wiremu patene and the movement at karakariki |  189 had received (Glen 1957). This was the opportunity Grey had been waiting for. He set the wheels in motion and three days later the British army invaded the Waikato (Belich 1986). In the meantime, Patene was also writing to, and visiting, any villages under his influence in the Raglan, Kawhia and Waipā areas, warning them not to rise up if war came (Patene 1863). It is important to realise that in the Waikato there were many tribes with different agendas and different relationships with the Crown. There were five types of groups. Firstly, there were those who were actively resisting the influence of the Crown and advocated attacking Auckland. These were from a variety of hapū within Waikato and Maniapoto (Patene 1863). Next, there were those who were prepared to fight to maintain their tino rangatiratanga (autonomy), but only if attacked. Wiremu Tamihana from Ngāti Haua was a leader in this group. He always spoke for peace, but when invaded felt compelled to respond in defence of his homeland (Stokes 1990). Conversely, there were some who sided whole heartedly with the Crown and actively supported them, providing men as support to the military. Te Wheoro was one such leader, although his men were never used in combat (Scott 1990). There were those who supported the Crown, choosing not to participate in the wars, and who were committed to protecting Pākehā settlers in their area. Ngāti Māhanga in Raglan are an example where, for many months, their Pākehā population were entirely isolated by land from the government, but where not a shot was fired (Luxton 1965). Then there were those who refused to fight on either side and saw themselves as trying to bring the two sides together. This is the role Wiremu Patene and Ngāti Tamainupō played, where their neutrality enabled them to deal with both sides. By the time Patene had returned home from his mission to advocate for peace, the invasion had already started. However, some of his efforts had worked and Patene was soundly abused by many of Waikato because he had persuaded Ngāti Maniapoto (the main advocates for war) and many Waikato not to fight (Patene 1863). It meant that the defensive forces were seriously undermanned, only having 150 men at the first battle at Koheroa near Mercer (Belich 1986). At the next battle site of Meremere, he again spoke to the tribes gathered there encouraging them to go home. He said in a letter to Buddle that some of them listened and some of them did not

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(Patene 1863). However, while waiting for the battle to start, he and Pita Wharemana worked as ministers offering prayers and spiritual support for the King’s forces (Barrett 2013). Later, in 1863, it became clear to him, and the Waikato tribes resisting the British, that it was his letters that may have precipitated the war. He wrote that he had reflected on it, but decided he had followed his principles and had advised people on the right path to travel to the fullest extent. He had believed in the promises made by the government and he had dealt with everyone transparently and so his conscience was clear (Patene 1863). Patene opened up Karakariki as a refuge for those affected by the war. He took in the widows and orphans of some of the men who had been killed in the fighting (Patene 1878), and when the Waikato fighters had been defeated and had retreated into the hill country of Ngāti Maniapoto some of them were able to leave their families at Karakariki (Hayward-Chase 2013). He also escorted stranded Pākehā to Raglan under his protection (Patene 1863). On the day General Cameron and the British took the Kīngitanga capital of Ngāruawahia Patene sent his eldest son, Anaru, to meet with Cameron and to explain the peaceful nature of the Karakariki village, which was accepted by the British (Patene 1878). Patene and Karakariki also supplied food to the army without charge for three weeks (Patene 1905). However, it did not stop tribal property, such as the flour mill, from being damaged by the soldiers (St. Clair 1901). It also did not stop Ngāti Tamainupō land from being confiscated (Orange 2004). In 1864, after the invasion by the Crown and the defeat of the King Movement, all of the land down to the Waitetuna River and Pirongia had been confiscated by the Crown, including all the lands of Ngāti Tamainupō and all the lands of the Crown’s ally Ngāti Tīpā (Orange 2004). The best Waikato lands were confiscated from those that fought, from those that stayed neutral and from those that had served on the government’s side. The land was in the army’s hands and the government needed that land as it was the promised payment to those soldiers who had enlisted to fight (Belich 1986). The Crown tried to mitigate this injustice by sending a government land purchaser to offer a number of tribes who hadn’t gone to war £1,000 for their rights to all the lands between the Waipā and Waikato rivers (Turton 1877). There may have been some deal stated such as, “sign away this land and we will see what we can do for the lands on the westward

wiremu patene and the movement at karakariki |  191 side of the Waipā River”. Wiremu Patene signed on behalf of Ngāti Tamainupō whose share was a receipt for £234 (Patene 1866). Many of Ngāti Tamainupō were outraged. They referred to it as “a black penny” and wanted nothing to do with the payment (Huirama 2015). Patene was forced to write to the Crown rescinding the purchase and telling the government to keep the money, as the tribe wanted to keep their land (Patene 1866). It was of course ignored. They were never to get those lands back and it is uncertain what happened to the money. However, in 1867 Wi Patene successfully petitioned the Compensation Court for the return of 25,000 acres from the Waipā River to the Raglan harbour (The Evening Post 4/3/1867). Following the government invasion, for the next 20 years what became known as the King Country became isolated and was an autonomous territory where no Pākehā could travel unescorted without the threat of summary execution (Cowan 1922), and where Patene worked continuously to bring the two sides together. In this, he was joined by other Tainui leaders like Te Wheoro who had sided with the British (Scott 1990). Patene was constantly looking for opportunities to try to bring the two sides together visiting King Tāwhiao regularly. Both Patene and Te Wheoro emerged as go-betweens for various government representatives, often escorting officials to meet King Tāwhiao. The officials Patene escorted included Major Mair of the Armed Constabulary in 1871 (Mair 1872), representatives of the Armed Constabulary in 1872 (Edwards 1872), Native Minister Sir Donald Maclean in 1876 (Te Waka Maori 11/7/1876) and Premier Sir George Grey in 1879 (New Zealand Herald 26/5/1879). Sometimes their companions were not welcome as in 1869 when they were told to leave a government magistrate behind (Daily Southern Cross 19/4/1869). When Patene heard that Queen Victoria’s second son Prince Alfred was coming to Auckland he arranged for an invitation for the Governor and Alfred to meet with King Tāwhiao “so that peace and goodwill may arise in this Island of troubles” (Wheoro and Patene 1869: 8). Patene and Te Wheoro wrote to Alfred: If you and the Governor go there, then perhaps good will grow up in New Zealand, and great will be the gladness of the heart of the Queen on your return to her, when she hears that it was you who made peace in this Island. (Wheoro and Patene 1869: 8)

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Patene wrote a number of letters to advocate for the meeting and engaged in shuttle diplomacy, travelling back and forth to Tāwhiao (MacKay 1869). Unfortunately, the meeting did not occur and the opportunity was lost. All through the 1870s, Patene conducted church services with the King Movement sometimes with as many as 300 people in attendance (Leadley 2013). Patene’s journeys were not just about religion or diplomacy; sometimes it was about the King Movement’s economic condition as demonstrated in 1872 when he purchased two hand flour mills on their behalf and transported them to Te Kuiti to grind up the wheat they were growing (Bush 1872). As well as his work trying to resolve this separation of the King Movement from the government, he had a number of other projects to commit his time and energy to. He had his work as a Methodist minister. He oversaw the school where, all through the 1860s and 1870s, Karakariki had a very good school. Patene’s daughter Maata proved to be a fine teacher who was able to teach the children in English and Māori (Stephenson 2009). In 1873, he set up an anti-drinking campaign at Karakariki where 100 people pledged themselves to give up alcohol (Te Waka Maori 6/7/1875). In 1875, they set up the “Association of Waikato, Hauraki for the suppression of drinking”, to try to resolve some of the social issues that accompanied alcohol consumption (Te Waka Maori 6/7/1875). Patene was also heavily involved in the economic development of Ngāti Tamainupō. He and his sons tried to bring in new ways of farming, setting up one of the first share floats of a Māori company called the “Raglan and Waikato Māori Company” where they mortgaged their lands to build a store and bought a 40-ton ship, the Dawn, to take their produce directly to Auckland. Unfortunately, it was a disaster with the ship destroyed in a gale at Waitara in 1877 (New Zealand Times 16/6/1877) and then the store burnt down. They only managed to keep their lands because the government forgave the mortgage (The Special Powers and Contacts Act, 1882). In 1883, the Ngāti Maniapoto tribes agreed to open up the King Country for the building of the railway after an amnesty was offered to all those who had taken up arms against the Queen and, with the peace, King Tāwhiao returned to Ngāruawahia which ended his exile in the King Country (McCan 2001). Wi Patene survived to see this happen and died in December 1884. His obituary stated: “his

wiremu patene and the movement at karakariki |  193 last utterances were those of a Christian man and his end was peace” (cited in Methodist Church 2013). He was buried at Hopetui near Karakariki (Patene 1903). The population in Karakariki was gradually diminishing in number as roads were built and the Waipā River was no longer the main highway. In 1893, the Waipā River flooded to the point that all the potato and wheat crops of the Karakariki village were destroyed and many of the houses flooded. The people along the river were so destitute that a public fundraising attempt was made by an Auckland newspaper to try to raise £100 for relief efforts. They declared, “The position of these natives is most lamentable and they are in imminent danger of dying of starvation and will undoubtedly do so unless the charitable and kindly disposed of both races promptly come to their relief” (Auckland Star 3/2/1893). This was undoubtedly an exaggeration, but was an indication of the problems they were enduring. It must have been the final straw for the village. After the death of Wiremu Patene, his son-in-law Pepene Eketone became the head of the Karakariki (The Press 2/1/1889), but the flood appears to have ended the village. In 1895, Pepene mortgaged Karakariki and the land around it (Armstrong 2009). The mortgage was defaulted on in 1914 and the Courts transferred the land to the holder of the mortgage (Armstrong 2009). The site of the school and its 22 acres was still held in the hands of the descendants of Wi Patene, Te Huirama and Pepene Eketone up until 1946 when it was swapped for Crown land at Ngāruawahia next to Tūrangawaewae marae for the papakāinga (residential village) for Kīngitanga supporters (Native Purchasing Bill 1943). Today, Wi Patene’s reputation is mixed and is looked on by the tribe with some ambivalence. To some, he undermined his own people by being an effective advocate for peace. Some wonder if he hadn’t stopped so many men from fighting against the British, that maybe Waikato could have won the war. A fantasy really. Waikato could never summon the resources that were at the disposal of the British whose empire was the most powerful of the time. His signing away of some of the tribal lands for the “black penny” is seen as inexcusable. However, he also gets a great deal of praise for getting most of the confiscated Ngāti Tamainupō land back into the hands of the people. Even today the tribe still holds over 60 per cent of those lands (Barrett 2013), which is by far the largest landholding still in Waikato hands.

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Legacy While Karakariki probably isn’t an example of resistance to colonisation, it certainly resisted the trap that the British set to provoke the indigenous people into armed resistance to justify the confiscation of their land. Interestingly they also resisted pressure from their own relatives in the Kīngitanga movement to join the armed response to the British. Instead, they chose peace, mediation and manaakitanga (hospitality). With 21st-century eyes, it is possible to identify the key characteristics of what took place at Karakariki and what allowed it to be a place that promoted peace and was a refuge to those affected by the Crown’s invasion. The marked characteristics of Karakariki’s work for peace are: •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• ••

•• •• ••

Its Methodist/Christian foundations. That the leadership had built strong relationships at the Three Kings Native Institution. The individual leadership of Wiremu Patene. Its reliance on whakapapa, particularly Ngāti Tamainupō. That the leaders always worked in groups of at least two. Their own past experiences of war. The rejection of war as a way to resolve differences. The rejection of vengeance. Its advocacy for peace at all times. The continual advocacy for reconciliation. The use of face-to-face meetings with Māori. The goodwill achieved with Pākehā that was used both to seek reconciliation between the Crown and the Kīngitanga and to demand justice for themselves. Its compassion and taking in anyone who needed refuge. Its focus on quality education. The drive to maintain their rangatiratanga (autonomy) by the use of Western methods of industry, trade, business and farming for the material benefits of its people.

As to the legacy of peace achieved by Wiremu Patene and the village of Karakariki, it is here that it is possibly appropriate to discuss it from the position of a descendant to show a lineage of commitment to peace. In 1896, Wi Patene’s successor and son-in-law Pepene Eketone persuaded a group of Ngāti Maniapoto, who were going to use force

wiremu patene and the movement at karakariki |  195 to resist the surveying of the Karuotewhenua block, that it was not necessary to resort to violence saying that “it was sufficient for them to protest” (Eketone 1896: 86). He also strove for justice politically, through the courts and joined Wiremu Ratana’s voyage to Europe to lay their case before King George V and the League of Nations. By 1913, Patene’s grandson, Anaru Eketone, had joined forces with the Kīngitanga movement becoming King Te Rata’s private secretary (New Zealand Herald 24/1/1913). In 1914, Te Rata and the Kīngitanga movement refused to take part in the First World War in response to King Tāwhiao’s declaration in 1881 banning war and the taking of blood (King 1977). As a consequence of this stand, certain Waikato families were to be made an example of by the government by conscripting their young men. Anaru’s two oldest sons were conscripted in 1918 (New Zealand Herald 9/8/1918). Even though the legal age to enter the army was 20 this was ignored in the desire to punish Waikato families. My great uncle Areka, at the age of 18, and my grandfather Arapeta, at the age of 17, were conscripted into the army reserve. Thankfully, the war ended before they were sent overseas. My father, Albert Eketone, refused to do compulsory military service in the late 1950s and ran away from the King Country to Invercargill. He later went on to become a unionist where his court case, Eketone v. Alliance Textiles before the Court of Appeal on unfair bargaining practices, set the standard for “freedom of association” under the Bill of Rights (Anderson 2002). The case also led to legislation ensuring that wage bargaining be done in good faith (Rudman 2013). My own path includes that I was part of the reconciliation movement from Pukekohe in the early 1990s that sought to educate Pākehā people on the Treaty of Waitangi and bring reconciliation between Māori and Pākehā, and this has been a major part of my 17 years teaching in the University of Otago. Finally, while the Māori village of Karakariki has disappeared it could be argued that it lives on in the land that the school reserve was swapped for, the site of the papakāinga at Tūrangawaewae marae, where arguably the country’s largest pacifist organisation continues to operate. Conclusion Wi Patene was like many of his contemporaries in 19th-century colonial New Zealand. The situations they faced were very complex where it was impossible to see the implications of your actions

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and all a person could do was live by their principles. Maybe Wi Patene felt guilty for his part in giving the Crown the justification they needed to invade the Waikato, but the truth is the Crown had been preparing for the invasion for many months; it was going to happen, only the timing was in doubt. If only the missionaries and the others of their ilk had stood between the warring forces of the Crown and the Waikato tribes, as they had done in the early days of the Christian mission, maybe that would have averted the war. Patene lived according to his convictions. No one talks of him as a charismatic religious leader; he was not a prophet like Te Whiti, Rua Kenana or Ratana. Wi Patene was an ordinary man joined by other ordinary men and women who had been shaped by extraordinary events and who endeavoured to lead their people by example based on a melding of their traditional Māori beliefs and those that had been adopted from Christianity. No reira, Ki a koutou, ngā rangatira o mua, moe mai, moe mai, moe mai rā i ngā ringaringa o te Atua. Therefore, to those leaders of old, sleep in peace, sleep in peace, sleep in peace in the hands of God. References Anderson, G. (2002) Employment Law: The Richardson Years. Victoria University Wellington Law Review, 33(3–4), 887–894. Armstrong, A. (2009) The Karakariki Valley 1850–1950. Hamilton, Anthony Armstrong. Auckland Star. (3 February 1893) The Floods in Waikato. Auckland Star, Vol. 24, Issue 28. Barrett, A. (1852) The Life of the Rev. John Hewgill Bumby. London, J. Mason. Barrett, G. (2013) Regarding Wai 775 Claim on Behalf of Ngāti Tamainpo. Ngāti Tamainupō Oral and Traditional History Report Summary. For Wai 898 Waitangi Tribunal Te Rohe Potae Inquiry.

Belich, J. (1986) The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian Interpretation of Racial Conflict. Auckland, Auckland University. Buddle, T. (1860) The Maori King Movement in New Zealand, with a Full Report on the Native Meetings Held at Waikato, April and May, 1860. Auckland, The New Zealander Office. Available from: http:// nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/ tei-BudMaor.html [Accessed: 10 November 2017]. Bush, R. S. (1872) Robert S. Bush, Ngaruawahi, to the Hon. The Native Minister. AJHR 1872 Session 1 F03. Cowan, J. (1922) The New Zealand Wars: A History of the Maori Campaigns and the Pioneering Period. Volume II:

wiremu patene and the movement at karakariki |  197 The Hauhau Wars, 1864–72. Wellington, R. E. Owen. Daily Southern Cross. (24 August 1860) Raglan. Daily Southern Cross. Vol. 17, Issue 1324. Daily Southern Cross. (19 April 1869) Important from the Waikato. The Great Native Meeting. Daily Southern Cross. Vol. 25, Issue 3666. Daily Southern Cross. (17 March 1871) A Maori Wedding. Daily Southern Cross. Vol. 27, Issue 4240, p. 3. Edwards, B. F. J. (1872) B. F. J. Edwards. Interpreter, Constabulary Force, to Lieut.-Colonel Lyon. AJHR 1872 F-No 3a. Eketone, P. (1896) Otorohanga Minute Book 11. Maori Land Court, 13/6/1896, p. 86. Fenton, F. D. (1860) Reports from Mr. Fenton, R. M. as to Native Affairs in the Waikato District. AJHR 1860 Session 1 E-No 1c. Glen, F. G. (1957) Methodism in Auckland during the Maori Wars 1860–1864. Wesley Historical Society (NZ) 16 (1 and 2). Graham, V. and Payne, D. (1989) Cross Currents: 125 Years of Settler Methodism in Kirikiriroa – Hamilton. Hamilton, Hamilton Parish History Committee. Hayward-Chase, P. (2013) Tainakiti Mokau Rakena (1861–1926). Available from: http://tairakena. blogspot.co.nz [Accessed: 10 November 2017]. Hot Lakes Chronicle. (8 July 1896) Death of Aporo Tarututu. Hot Lakes Chronicle. Vol. 4, Issue 188. Huirama, D. (2015) Personal Communication to Anaru Eketone at Mai Uenuku ki te Whenua Marae, December 2015. Jones, P., Te H. (1995) Nga iwi o Tainui: The Traditional History of the Tainui People. Auckland, Auckland University Press.

Jones, P., Te H. (2012). King Potatau: An Account of the Life of Potatau Te Wherowhero the First Maori King (No. 55). Wellington, Huia Publishers. Kelly, L. G. (1949) Tainui: The Story of Hoturoa and His Descendants (Vol. 25). Polynesian Society. King, M. (1977) Te Puea, a Biography. Auckland, Hodder and Stoughton. King, M. (2003) Penguin History of New Zealand. London, Penguin. Kwarteng, K. (2013) Ghosts of Empire: Britain’s Legacies in the Modern World. Public Affairs. Lange, R. (2003) Ordained Ministry in Maori Christianity, 1853–1900. Journal of Religious History, 27(1), 47–66. Leadley, A. (9 November 2013) A Pilgrimage to Kawhia “The Heart of West Coast Methodism”. Available from: www.methodist. org.nz/files/docs/waikato%20 waiariki/kawhia%20pilgrimage.pdf [Accessed: 10 November 2017]. Luxton, C. T. J. (March 1965) The Rev. James Wallis of the Wesleyan Missionary Society. The Wesley Historical Society (New Zealand) Proceedings, Vol. 21, Nos. 1 and 2. MacKay. (1869) Report by Commissioner MacKay. Relative to a meeting at Ngāruawahia. AJHR 1869 A-No 5. Mair, W. G. (1872) W.G. Mair to the Civil Commissioner. Auckland. AJHR 1872 F-No 3a. McCan, D. (2001) Whatiwhatihoe: The Waikato Raupatu Claim. Wellington, Huia Publishers, pp. 136–140. Methodist Church. (2013) Martyrs Sunday: Heroes on the Faith. Leadership Resources Unpublished. Available from: www.methodist.org. nz/files/docs/mcnz%20admin%20 office/refresh/2013/martyrs%20 sunday%20-%20heroes%20of%20

198  |  anaru eketone the%20faith.docx [Accessed: 10 November 2017]. Morley, W. (1900) The History of Methodism in New Zealand. Wellington, McKee & Co. Native Purposes Bill. (1943) Parliamentary Debates. Fifth Session, Twenty-sixth Parliament. Legislative Council and House of Representatives. Volume 263. Comprising the period from 25 June to 26 August 1943. New King James Version. (1990) Holy Bible – New King James Version. American Bible Society. New Zealand Herald. (26 May 1879) The Native Meeting. New Zealand Herald. Vol. 16, Issue 5467. New Zealand Herald. (24 January 1913) Wedding Invitation. New Zealand Herald. Vol. 50, Issue 15209. New Zealand Herald. (9 August 1918) Maoris Called Up. New Zealand Herald. Vol. 55, Issue 1924. New Zealand Times. (16 June 1877) New Plymouth. New Zealand Times. Vol. 32, Issue 5064. Orange, C. (2004) An Illustrated History of the Treaty of Waitangi. Second Edition. Wellington, Allen & Unwin. Owens, J. M. R. (1973) The Wesleyan Missionaries to New Zealand before 1840. Journal of Religious History, 7(4), 324–341. Patene, A. K. (1878) Life of Anaru Patene. Wananga. Vol 5, Issue 36, 7 September. Patene, H. (1903) Mercer Minute Book 7. Maori Land Court. 17/6/1903, p. 318, 19/6/1903, p. 332. Patene, H. (1905) Hone Patene Examined. Report and evidence of the royal commission on the Porirua, Otaki, Waikato, Kaikokirikiri and Motueka School Trust. AJHR 1905 Session I G-05, p. 53.

Patene, M. (1902) Mercer Minute Book 7. Maori Land Court Records. 23/8/1902, p. 221. Patene, W. (1863) Letter from W. Patene, a Wesleyan Minister. Three Kings, 28 November 1863, AJHR 1863 Session I E-05b. Patene, W. (1866) Petition of William Barton, of Waipa Waikato, for return to him of certain lands in the Waikato which have been confiscated. AJHR 1866 G-3. Press (2 January 1889) A Cruise in a Catamaran. Press. Vol. 46, Issue 7244. Rudman, R. (2013) New Zealand Employment Law Guide. 2013 Edition. Christchurch, New Zealand Limited. Schofield, G. H. (1940) A Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Volume II. Wellington, Department of Internal Affairs. Scott, G. (1990) Te Wheoro, Wiremu Te Morehu Maipapa. In A Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Wellington, Department of Internal Affairs. St. Clair, H. J. W. (1901) Waikato Minute Book 30. Maori Land Court. 9/3/1901, p. 151. Stephenson, M. (2009) Setting the Record Straight: The Selection, Subordination and Silencing of Maata Patene, Teacher. Journal of Educational Administration and History, 41(1), 11–27. Stokes, E. (1990) Te Waharoa, Wiremu Tamihana Tarapipipi. In A Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Wellington, Department of Internal Affairs. Te Waka Maori. (6 July 1875) The Association of Waikato, Hauraki, for the Suppression of Drinking. Te Waka Maori. Vol. 11, Issue 13. Te Waka Maori. (11 July 1876) Te Kitenga o te Minita mo te taha Maori raua

wiremu patene and the movement at karakariki |  199 ko Tawhiao. Te Waka Maori. Vol. 12, Issue 14. The Evening Post (4 March 1867) The Evening Post. Vol. 2, Issue 328. The Special Powers and Contacts Act. (1882) The Special Powers and Contract Act. New Zealand, No. 29, p. 943. Turton, H. H. (1877) Horotiu and Waipa Block, Upper Waikato District. Maori Deeds of Land Purchases in the North Island of New Zealand:

Volume 1. George Didsbury, Government Printer. Available from: http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/ tm/scholarly/tei-Tur01Nort-t1-g1-g1g1-g13-t20-g1-t2.html [Accessed: 10 November 2017]. Watarau, H. (1903) Mercer Minute Book 7. Maori Land Court. 18/6/1903, p. 323. Wheoro, W. and Patene, W. (1869) Kia te Piriniha te Tuku o Erinapara. AJHR 1869 A-No 5.

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| RECLAIMING THE ROLE OF RONGO: A REVOLUTIONARY AND RADICAL FORM OF NONVIOLENT POLITICS

Tonga Karena

In this chapter, I explore the potential of Rongo to be a spiritual and political force as a profound and key part of Māori customary law. I argue that the invisibility of Rongo, the traditional god of peace, is connected to the subjugation of indigenous peace traditions and is also bound to the political history of Parihaka. I assert Rongo as a viable and relevant political ideology to replace the notion of ‘passive resistance’, and show through an analysis of Parihaka songs and general discourse on peace studies, another viewpoint on pacifism.The final section of the chapter analyses the “Kawenata o Rongo” – the “Covenant of Rongo” or the “Deed of Reconciliation” between the Crown and the Parihaka community – and explores the normative ideals written into the deed. Key words: Rongo; Parihaka; Pacifism; Indigenous Peace Traditions; Te Whiti o Rongomai; Tohu Kakahi

Introduction This chapter seeks to introduce a form of radical politics centred on the role of Rongo, the Māori god of peace. As part of the focus on Rongo, this chapter will develop a typology of Rongo, some areas that show the moral impetus of Rongo, the pacifist traditions of Parihaka, the Day of Reconciliation and a theoretical analysis of the traditional waiata or Māori songs. These waiata will demonstrate the message of nonviolent resistance as it relates to Parihaka and Rongo. The central question of this chapter asks whether the pacifism of the past, which was influenced by the scriptures, is now less influential and needs to be replaced by an understanding of Rongo – a revolutionary and radical form of nonviolent politics. It is revolutionary in that it responds to the cultural revitalisation of the Māori people by reinstating their own god of peace; it is radical in that it essentialises the pursuit of peace in a framework of nonviolent resistance, one that is profoundly connected to the ideology of Parihaka.

reclaiming the role of rongo |  201 The history and political context of Parihaka Parihaka, a community in Taranaki, New Zealand, has a rich history and has been the subject of inquiry by numerous academics, especially historians (Buchanan 2005, 2009, 2011; Cowan 1934; Gadd 1966; Keenan 2015; Reeves 1989; Riseborough 1987, 1989, 2001, 2010; Rusden 1885; Scott 1975, 1989, 2014; Smith 1990, 1993; WAI-143 1996). The voices of the people of Parihaka have only started to recently emerge, such as when the book, Parihaka: The Art of Passive Resistance (2001), was published as part of an art exhibition that travelled throughout New Zealand. More importantly, Parihaka signed a Deed of Reconciliation, Te Kawenata o Rongo, with the Crown on 9 June 2018, ending the political standoff with the community since 1867. This was a huge departure from the 19th century when Parihaka and its conflict with the Crown gained international attention when the escalation of events at Parihaka reverberated around the world. An 1882 article in The Manchester Guardian newspaper describing “The Maori Troubles in New Zealand”, written by an “occasional correspondent”, recounted the events on 5 November when the Crown militarily invaded Parihaka. Avoiding this conflict in the international press also proved difficult when John Bryce sued George Rusden for defamation when Rusden accused Bryce of being the “Bully of Parihaka” in his book, Aureretanga: Groans of the Maoris (1885). W. Ross Clendon studies this case at length and it is useful for understanding John Bryce’s determination to be vindicated (Clendon 1973). Academics and artists who focused on the cultural and sociopolitical aspects of Parihaka have also featured in the past few decades (N. Hohaia 2016–2017; T. M. Hohaia 2001, 2011–2015; Hond 2001; Karena 2013; Paringatai 2004). Parihaka is also an integral part of the wider colonisation narrative of New Zealand (Elsmore 1989, 1999; Walker 1984, 1990), especially in relation to the experiences of the Taranaki Iwi (WAI-143 1996). Unsurprisingly, there is also an abundance of racist and bigoted literature about Parihaka that still gets published which is aimed at maintaining the discourse of white supremacy (John Robinson et al. 2013). Other narratives of resistance to colonisation at an international level, such as those led by Ghandi (Low and Smith 1996; Nielson 2009) and Martin Luther King Jnr, can be compared to the legacy and resistance narrative of Parihaka. The comparison to Gandhi and

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the history of passive resistance is highlighted by Rachel Buchanan (2011) in her analysis of the statue erected in Wellington in 2007. Despite the invisibility of Parihaka in mainstream discourse, she makes the following resolution: [T]he history of passive resistance begins with indigenous actors in Aotearoa, spreads to Ireland and then on to India before making its way across to the United States … an inventive whakapapa (genealogy) of non-violent protest in which the seeds of the family tree of passive resistance were planted by Tohu and Te Whiti at Parihaka. With this genealogy in mind, the arrival of Gandhi in Wellington makes perfect sense. He is paying homage to those who came before him, to the Maori leaders who are yet to be cast in either local, national or global memorial landscapes. (Buchanan 2011: 1089) It is important to note the wider invisibility of the Parihaka narrative, compelling a constant re-telling of this history, as is noted in Buchanan’s challenge towards the mainstream for erecting the statue in the first place. Considering this situation, I will give a brief historical overview of Parihaka. Parihaka was established in 1867 in Taranaki, the west coast of the North Island of New Zealand. It wasn’t the first Māori settlement of peace in Taranaki; it followed on from other attempts to establish peaceful communities at Warea, Ngākumikumi, Te Puru, Kēkēua and Waikoukou. The leaders of the movement, Te Whiti o Rongomai and Tohu Kakahi, were well versed in the bible and decided to provide refuge to the landless Māori of Taranaki and other Iwi who had suffered from the government land confiscations in the 1860s. Although the land was confiscated, it wasn’t enforced north of the Waingōngoro River from 1865 to 1878 (Riseborough 1989: 31). The influence of Parihaka grew over time, and it became difficult for government officials to bypass Te Whiti and Tohu, who were patient in waiting for the reserves that were promised to them. The resistance movement was reinforced by the monthly hui (meetings) held at Parihaka, where decisions were made to counter the encroachment into Māori land and ensure the continued maintenance of Iwi knowledge, and where feasting, singing and promoting a

reclaiming the role of rongo |  203 sense of community solidarity took place. A meeting in March 1870 was attended by Robert Parris who went to encourage Te Whiti to allow the building of the roads into Taranaki. Hazel Riseborough (1989) shares the following sentiment regarding Te Whiti’s position on the roadmaking: Te Whiti knew full well that roadmaking was but the thin end of the wedge of European encroachment and warned the gathering to beware lest by agreeing to this first step, they lose their land and become homeless. “Take the people with you” he said to Parris, “make the road, take them to town, let them have access to everything, and if they steal or get drunk, mind you do not imprison them”. (Riseborough 1989: 35, 36) Another meeting in September 1870, attended by up to 1,200 people, was called to discuss “the question of peace and war with the English”. As the influence of Te Whiti and Tohu grew, other iwi and hapū who were disenchanted by the weak promises of the government to provide reserves decided to join the Parihaka community. They were the Ngāti Rahiri people of Te Ātiawa, the Ngāti Tūpaea hapū of Ngāti Ruanui, and the Ngāti Mutunga people who had just returned from the Chatham Islands and were excluded from the Compensation Court awards (Riseborough 1989: 36). Government attempts to quell the resistance movement involved enlisting the help from outside chiefs, namely Rewi Maniapoto, who organised a meeting in Whaitara: About 5,000 people poured into Whaitara from the four winds, including all the leading chiefs from Whanganui, Wellington, Ōtaki, Waikanae, Heretaunga and Maniapoto territory. A public holiday was to be proclaimed in New Plymouth and its surroundings and the leading citizens planned a banquet and ball on a “suitable scale” to commemorate the occasion. (Riseborough 1989: 39) Te Whiti and Tohu never attended this meeting, but instead sent “thirty, forty, fifty cartloads of food”. Despite their non-attendance, by feeding the visitors who arrived, it was made clear that Parihaka was an economic and political force that would decide on a process

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of peace-making according to the authority of the prophets, not an outsider chief. Once the surveying began in 1878, it sparked resistance from Parihaka, beginning with the removal of surveyor’s pegs in 1879. Riseborough describes the government’s actions as “provocative”, and an “indifference to Maori sensibility and to justice and morality”: Failure to make reserves on the ground was not just careless, but a reflection of a deeply rooted view that Europeans could do what they liked in the country they governed, and that their actions in the interests of the colony were ipso facto in the interests of the Maori people. (Riseborough 1989: 55) Importantly, the surveys and the resistance spurred a torrent of communications between the government officials and Te Whiti that demonstrated his resoluteness to not bow down to parliamentary supremacy. Te Whiti’s language in this communication is replete with imagery and exquisite metaphor – and clearly a staunch position against the legitimacy of colonial law and their right to conquest: The government has no claim on the lands this side of Waingongoro … Why did you not occupy them at the time of your conquest? According to Maori custom you should have done so … My blanket is mine … You want to cut my blanket in two. It will be too small for me then. (Riseborough 1989: 60) John Sheehan, the Native Minister of the time, had a “disastrous” meeting with Te Whiti on 22 March 1879 where the “confrontation accelerated” (Waterson 1993). It led to Te Whiti to begin the ploughing of land: “On Sunday 25 May 1879, in a symbolic assertion of proprietorship, he sent his ploughman, unarmed, to cut his moko into the land at Oakura where the second Taranaki war began in 1863” (Riseborough 1989: 68). Eventually it would force the hand of the government to start arresting the ploughman, which they did on 29 June: “The first batch of eleven ploughmen was committed for trial on 5 July … charged with malicious injury, forcible entry and riot … the arrests continued throughout the month on 5 July 90 ploughman were in custody, the next day 105” (Riseborough 1989: 76).

reclaiming the role of rongo |  205 When the government under the leadership of John Bryce, the Native Minister from 1879 to 1884, and William Rolleston decided to invade Parihaka on 5 November 1881 for the civil and nonviolent resistance of the followers of Te Whiti and Tohu, the community of Parihaka experienced the “Rā Pāhua” or the “Day of Plunder”. It became a defining moment in the history of Parihaka and New Zealand. The armed constabulary and 1,600 volunteers invaded Parihaka. They destroyed the village and forced the inhabitants to disperse, and they arrested Tohu and Te Whiti. Moreover, subsequently, “The government managed to suppress all official documents relating to these events, and their publication in New Zealand was delayed until 1883 and 1884” (Riseborough 1993). On the day, they were met by a protest line of singing and dancing children, and 2,000 seated followers of Tohu and Te Whiti, who without violence, allowed the arrests of the prophets to take place. Both Tohu and Te Whiti were imprisoned for 16 months. A detailed sketch of their imprisonment is described in John P. Ward’s (1883) book, Wanderings with the Maori Prophets Te Whiti and Tohu. Importantly, according to Joe Ritai “they went down in Maori clothing and came back in European clothing, signifying that they had accepted the Pakeha way of life” (Smith 1990: 118). Te Whiti decided to use money as a source of “koha” or donation to provide for Parihaka, when he said: “E te iwi, tohungia atu i te tōta nei. He aha te āhua o te puta mai i roto i a ia?” He turned the saucer up, he put his hand in his pocket and placed a shilling in the saucer, and said, “E te iwi, ko tō arohā, ko tō kete kai, ō mataitai ō kumara ō tuna, ka mutu i tēnei rā. Mā tēnei e ora ai te tangata …” My people from this day your kit of food, your arohā, your mātaitai – that’s your seafood – your tuna (and all the things that people were living on, karaka berries and all that), are finished. (Smith 1990: 119) Since then, on the 18th and 19th of every month, Parihaka has celebrated this custom as part of the monthly meetings. Te Whiti was re-arrested in 1886, and again in 1889, the first time for the people building make-shift buildings on confiscated land, and the second arrest was for a disputed debt of 203 pounds (Parihaka 2017). The last prisoners to be released back to Parihaka returned in 1898.

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Both Tohu and Te Whiti died in 1907, leaving a 40-year legacy of resistance as leaders who stood their ground and never faulted from their position over their legitimate right to govern their land. Te Rā o te Haeata – The Day of Reconciliation The Crown responded to peace with tyranny, to unity with division, and to autonomy with oppression. (Te Kawenata o Rongo Deed of Reconciliation 2017: 10) On 9 June 2017, the Crown officially apologised and began a process of reconciliation with the community of Parihaka. Spearheaded by the Papa Kāinga Trustees, the Deed of Reconciliation or Te Kawenata o Rongo, set out the following as the purpose of the agreement: • • •

recognise the importance of Parihaka and its legacy; acknowledge the significant historical events that occurred at Parihaka; and provide support for Parihaka’s future development.

On that basis, Te Kawenata o Rongo records the following matters agreed by Parihaka and the Crown: • • • • • •

a legacy statement; a Crown apology to the Parihaka community; the development of a draft Parihaka bill; a Parihaka–Crown leader’s forum; a relationship agreement with specified local authorities and Crown agencies; and a fund to support Parihaka’s future development (Te Kawenata o Rongo Deed of Reconciliation 2017: 3).

It has taken 150 years for the government of New Zealand to reconcile with the Parihaka people since the establishment of the community in 1867. It also took 150 years for the Parihaka community to formally reach an agreement with the Crown, as well. Te Kawenata o Rongo literally means the Covenant of Rongo (the god of peace), although it may be confused for being the Deed of Reconciliation. It essentially means a sacred agreement between the agreed parties and the god of peace – Rongo. That aside, Te Rā

reclaiming the role of rongo |  207 o te Haeata – which is a new dawning, or to be more specific, a new beginning – represents a new era for Parihaka. It is a chance to rebuild a community that has survived, despite the length of time it was ignored. To a certain extent, when reconciliation can be seen, as described in the quote below, it opens a lot of possibilities: Reconciliation depends on the Arendtian moment of the political because it is a revolutionary moment in which “the people” constitutes itself by taking back power from the state. For, in so far as it is a political undertaking, reconciliation is not about restoring a moral order but initiating a new political order. When conceived in these terms, reconciliation is not about settling accounts but remains as an unsettling experience since it seeks to enact a radical break with the social order that underpinned the violence of the past. (Schaap 2006: 272) A “radical break with the social order” can be seen at many levels. Already, there have been a lot of innovative projects starting to take place at Parihaka, such as Taiepa Tiketike.1 Although it has only been a year since the Day of Reconciliation, the community is as vibrant as ever, and continues to maintain the traditions that are specific to Parihaka. The way forward will undoubtedly be the continuation of the current traditions that are followed in Parihaka, as well as the provisions set out in Te Kawenata o Rongo. Other initiatives, such as the idea to have an annual Parihaka Day on 5 November as a day of commemoration for the wider New Zealand society will be a challenge, but could also be an important catalyst for change. This raises the question as to whether Parihaka still practises pacifism or not. Understanding the resistance narrative(s) of Parihaka Not all acts of resistance are the same; each is conditioned by particular locational and historical contexts that risk being suppressed under the weight of any homogenizing rubric. (Wakeham 2012: 25) Asking the question of whether Parihaka has a pacifist tradition or not, and whether this is an appendage of a long-term colonial legacy that has reinforced the notion of Parihaka as indeed being exactly that – a pacifist community – is relevant. The political

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resistance strategies employed by the Parihaka people have been illustrated by Peter Low and Ailsa Smith (1996: 166; original emphasis) as follows: Methods of nonviolent protest and persuasion used by the Parihaka people included the following: public speeches, wearing of symbols, singing, marches and assemblies of protest and support. Methods of social non-cooperation were consumer boycott, a policy of austerity, refusal to leave property, revenue refusal and refusal of government money. Methods of political non-cooperation were refusal to assist enforcement agents, “sit down” and disobeying of illegitimate laws. Methods of nonviolent intervention included hunger strike, nonviolent harassment, nonviolent obstruction, overloading of facilities, alternative social institutions and the seeking of imprisonment. It can be argued, at least historically, that pacifism or the nonviolent action of Parihaka, was robust, certainly the opposite of passive. Although the notion of what a “pacifist community” may be is highly subjective, by at least raising the discussion to a point where we can traverse the “indigenous pacifist” landscape and see the extent to which Parihaka and its tradition(s) fit or not, may answer these questions. It is important to “redress the balance” (Devere et  al. 2017: 54) and add to the dearth of academic literature on indigenous pacifism, and in particular, raise the insider voices of Parihaka. Bridging the divide between peace tradition(s) and pacifism, from a Western and an indigenous perspective, is a complex task given the socio-historical and cultural differences that exist. Nevertheless, the “local turn” that comes from being part of the “global south” (Mac Ginty and Richmond 2013: 763), as part of wider indigenous peace-making traditions, has implications as well for global initiatives to help with “peace-making interventions” (Mac Ginty 2008: 140). It also raises other pertinent questions: What is an indigenous or Māori pacifist tradition and who practises it? Did these movements identify with pacifism as a unique feature of their founding philosophy? Or were their philosophies misunderstood because of the lack of indigenous or Māori knowledge being utilised to see the nuances,

reclaiming the role of rongo |  209 the tribal differences, the role of Tūmatauenga and other deities? Just as relevant, what can the socio-historical narrative of Parihaka offer by uncovering some of the conceptual differences and similarities if its syncretic nature is part of a wider struggle for recognition of indigenous pacifism? In turn, is this a unique part of Aotearoa New Zealand? Is there a connection that pacifism has with the concept of “mana” that is unlike the connection between “power” and “pacifism”? How do Māori communities that do not subscribe to pacifism view those that do? What is a conscientious objector in Māori society? The definition of pacifism can be expanded upon and in doing so, reveal some distinctive features that are particularly Māori, and part of a geopolitical context that is particularly Taranaki – which in turn influenced the resistance narratives of Parihaka. Pushing the Taranaki worldview and the interface it has had with Parihaka, as part of a recognition of the importance of the local and traditional influence, is relevant. Tore Wig argues that: “groups with strong traditional institutions that are not in control of government are less likely to be involved in civil wars, because they have a high capacity for nonviolent bargaining” (Wig 2016: 520, 521). Taranaki Iwi are replete with narratives of peace-making that are integral to understanding the existing tribal worldview prior to the establishment of Parihaka. In the first instance, the spiritual worldview was informed by the existence of many gods – Rongomaraeroa being one of them. Te Ao o Rongomaraeroa: the world of Rongomaraeroa – the Māori god of peace Before the Pākehā taught him that there was such a thing as religion, the Maori had no term to show that he knew such a thing existed; but his reformers very quickly found that whilst he may have had no set term for it, the “state” of religion was something he was very well acquainted with, though he lived in it without actually professing it; it coloured the routine of his whole daily life. (Andersen 1940: 513) Isolating Rongo away from other deities, or looking at ways as to how Rongo intersects with other deities, can be fruitful if it exists as part of the cultural norms and customs of Te Ao Māori. More importantly, if Rongo is part of a wider political phenomenon of

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indigenous resistance to colonialism – as it is an integral part of the identity of Parihaka – then coming to an understanding of Rongo and how this god influences Māori forms of ontology and political discourse can be illuminating. Moreover, to not recognise a potential source of peace that has been presiding – explicitly or not – over Māori ways of asserting political influence is to not recognise the current “peace” that exists in Aotearoa New Zealand. Opening up to an ontology that is grounded in tradition and part of whakapapa, and how this is centred in indigenous knowledge traditions, will help create the path to engagement with Rongo. Rongomaraeroa, the god of peace, is recognised as the deity that signifies the Māori concept of peace. Rongomātane, another god – who is the deity that presides over cultivated food – is less known as being responsible for peace, despite the obvious sharing of the word “Rongo”. According to the latest research on indigenous peace traditions, the following provides a description of Rongo: The whare is the domain of Rongo, the atua of peace (also called Rongo Hīrea, Rongo-marae-roa-ā-Rangi, Rongo-mā-Tāne), who also presides over the entrance of the whare. He is the deity responsible for peace, humanitarian elements, emotions, generosity, sympathy and everything that comes under manaakitanga or hospitality. (Devere et al. 2017: 55) Dispute resolution, or peacebuilding, can be described as “Hohou te rongo”, where peace is “entered into”, or can “come in”. The Rongo-ā-marae is peace entered through the guidance of men, whereas Rongo-ā-whare is enacted by women (Mead 2003). Typical of many Māori words, Rongo is both a noun and a verb. The name of the god of peace on one side, and to listen, feel, intuit, on the other. Both states coexist as an external recognition of Rongo, the deity, and an internal process of engagement with the environment, or with oneself. Significantly, this is used as the translation of the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies in New Zealand.2 The translation is sufficient to convey the concept of peace, but is remiss in precluding the translation of conflict – which belongs to the domain of Tūmatauenga, the god of war and the god of people. Tūmatauenga is an important god and has wider appeal than Rongo, and is responsible for

reclaiming the role of rongo |  211 the warrior class – one of the factors which gave Māori their popular reputation (Vayda 1960). Spurred on by European settlement, violence in Māori society increased, according to Andrew Vayda (1961), and even had the subsequent effect of improving the expansion into the wider environment (Vayda, 1956). The following quote rationalises the use of war in terms of tribal and territorial expansion: [W]arfare had the function of maintaining the dispersion of people over the land and that this function was adaptive for the Māoris as a whole because it entailed a more extensive exploitation of the total New Zealand environment which, in turn, enabled the Māori population to continue to grow without the over-exploitation and degradation of particular localities. (Vayda 1970: 563) To a certain extent, the classical relationship between peace and war, good and evil, can be compared to that of Tū and Rongo. This, however, presumes that peace and war from a Māori point of view are diametrically opposed to each other, and all forms of violence and virtue are sourced from this classical struggle between good and evil. The moral division between good and evil as representative of the division between peace and war as a simple juxtaposition and as an explanatory rationale for Māori understandings, is only partially true. It fails to grasp the basic and fundamental aspects of Māori ways of engaging with the metaphysical realm and Māori spirituality, by employing a judicial level of moral coercion within the narrative. The ethical framework that underpinned the morality of the political social order of Māori was a virtue ethical framework, as described by John Patterson (1991: 185): “An ethics of being rather than an ethics of doing” was the predominating way that cultivated better behaviour. The lack of emphasis on “a mere set of rules” that “cannot capture the complexity of the ethical life” was a notable feature of the research when an Aristotelian social and moral order was compared to Māori society values and ethics. Tribal traditions are varied and relevant, given the extent to which the tribal differences influence the many definitions of Rongo and Tū. Differences of understandings around ritual and the relationship between Tū and Rongo are varied – because of the essence of tribal epistemologies which don’t provide a consolidated view.

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Rongomātane, the god of cultivated food, has another complimentary deity, namely, Haumietiketike, the god of uncultivated food. An important aspect of Rongo in this role as a deity who presides over cooked food is the ritual function of removing the tapu, or freeing up the spiritual restrictions, that came with certain activities. This regulatory function of “whakanoa” allows a person or place to re-engage with society and is symbolic of the multi-layers of relationships that come with Rongomaraeroa and Rongomātane. An integral part of this decolonial narrative is the intersections, the discursive formations and the interactions they produce. The “emancipatory space creation” (Llewellyn 2017: 9) and the “decolonial turn” (Mignolo 2011: 62) are integral to this space. The relationship between mana and Rongo exists in a totally different space from Western notions of “power” and “pacifism”. The relationship “Rongo” has had, and will continue to have, with “Mana” is, in my view, unlike the asymmetrical bond endured by pacifism and Western notions of power – although this would require more analysis and more research. However, it is important to recognise the theological differences of Rongo to that of other religions or spiritualities that have their own socio-political and historical roots, and which have influenced the social and political context of pacifism. Rongomaraeroa – the god of peace – lacks scripture; moral instruction is not a part of the domain of Rongo. Rongo does not exist as part of a dynamic to extol and cultivate virtue, nor has Rongo been instrumentalised to conquer and colonise. Elsdon Best gives this interesting narrative of Rongo: A Bay of Plenty version of the old primal myths shows that, in the dawn of time, when the offspring of Rangi and Papa fell a-quarrelling, Rongo desired that the conduct of affairs be placed in his hands. This proposal his brothers would not agree to, hence war and many other troubles ever afflict mankind. Had Rongo but obtained the direction of affairs, then peace would have prevailed on earth for all time. Man would have confined his energies to peaceful arts; quarrels and war would have been unknown. (Best 1924: 179) I do note that the lack of tribal reference neglects a potential enriching of this narrative. Best also offers the following waiata,

reclaiming the role of rongo |  213 recorded as being sung by the Ringatū prophet, Te Kooti Rikirangi. It is revealing in that it exposes a classical tension between peace and war. When peace takes the upper hand, it is the “moenga kura” or the “bed of treasure”. When Tū gains the upper hand, it becomes the “moenga toto” or the “bed of blood”. He waiata nā Te Kooti Māori

English

E mahi ana anō a Tū rāua ko Rongo I tā rāua māra, koia Pōhutukawa Ka patua tētehi, koia moenga kura Ka patua tētehi, koia moenga toto Na rāua anō ka hē i te riri Ka tīkina ki raro rā, kia Marere-ō-tonga Ki a Timu-whakairia E ora ana te wānanga-e Mauria mai nei ko te rongo-ā-whare Ko te rongo-taketake Ki mua ki te atua Ka whakaoti te riri-e. (Best 1903: 198)

Such was the intensity of the force created by Tū and Rongo over their garden it created the Pōhutukawa. As they both struck each other, the “bed of treasure” and the “bed of blood” came forth. They were both responsible for the conflict. And so, it was obtained from Marere-ōtonga and Timuwhakairia, to promote the legacy of knowledge. To usher in the peace of the feminine, the matriarchal and the mother as permanent peace – in front of the gods and cease all violence! (My own translation)

This song is also recorded in “Ngā Mōteatea” (Ngata 2005: 80–83), but is referenced as coming from Ngāti Kahungunu. It differs from Best’s version and is already translated by Pei Te Hurinui Jones. It is called a peace-making song and has the following account that Apirana Ngata included to highlight some of the deeper themes in the song: Rongomaraeroa and Tūmātauenga quarrelled over a cultivation at Tawarua and Tawararo. Tūmatauenga arose in the evening and overcame Moengakura (The Warrior’s Couch). In the morning the other arose and overcame Moengatoto (The Blood-Soaked Couch). Io (The Supreme Being) set about constructing a palisaded fort complete with an elevated platform. ‘Uehā then bethought himself that mankind would disappear, and there would be no survivors in the world. How was mankind to survive? He therefore upon went out to Mārereōtonga, to bring about peace-making. He came but did not quite succeed. ‘Mohanuiterangi was then fetched, and peace was made; peace

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in the house, a sacred peace in the presence of God; fighting then ceased. ‘Rongomaraeroa occupied himself in the cultivation of food, the assembling of travelling parties, dances, and the building of houses. Tūmātauenga occupied himself in warfare and fighting. The work of Io is to build palisaded forts. This song is therefore appropriate. (Ngata 2005: 81) In other words, it is important to give more depth to the context of Rongo – a deeper conceptual description – because the discourse on Rongo can reveal the inner workings of Rongo and how his relevance as a force of indigenous peace can be understood. The following table represents a conceptual analysis, an initial start of a typology of Rongo. Rongo-tau-tangata-matua is a term explained to me by our local Kaumatua, Huirangi Waikerepuru, which he refers to as the first child of the Sun, Rāngī and Papatūānuku, our Mother Earth. He makes the argument that being the first child, his role was to ensure planetary balance between the sun, the earth and the rest of the solar system. I’ve attempted to give more contemporary translations of our gods, where each god and their translation could potentially open new areas of research. The second column represents a type of moral impetus that underpins the activities that come with Rongo. I must emphasise this is only a beginning. Comparative analysis with other tribes, and other indigenous peoples would enrich our understanding of an important Polynesian and Māori god and how this can further our understanding of indigenous forms of peace. The Many Names and Faces of Rongo Rongomaraeroa: Everyday peace Rongomātane: Sustainable peace Rongo-Tau-Tangata-Matua: Universal peace Rongo-mau: Recently enacted peace Rongo-taketake: Established peace Rongo-ā-marae: Male enacted peace Rongo-ā-whare: Female enacted peace

Celestial Beginnings. Political and Economic Horizons. Guiding the Covenant. Giving Voice to the Silenced. Never Conforms to Hunger. Remover of Restrictions. Interplanetary Balance. Diametrically Opposed to War. Punishes the Self-Centred. Counter-Hegemonic. Caught in an Asymmetrical Position with Tu.

reclaiming the role of rongo |  215 Rongopai: Christian peace Rongoā: Generic term for medicine Te Kawenata o Rongo: The compact of trust with Parihaka

Pre-exists Sovereignty Based Forms of Peace. Food Sovereignty Agonistic Politics

Some of these descriptions may prove to be contentious to some, including the gender-based limitations, the broad stroke of translation and the isolation away from the other gods. It is a beginning at the very least. Passive resistance and Rongo “Passive resistance” (Scott 1975, 1989, 2014), as coined by Dick Scott, has been the predominating description for the type of resistance used by Parihaka. Ranginui Walker describes the approach as a “modus vivendi” (Walker 1984: 271) – a Latin term that refers to an agreement or arrangement that allows conflicting parties to coexist in peace. Lacking a definitive term can explain the relative “neglect” in modern society of nonviolence. Kevin Clements asks: “Is it an ethical belief, an attitude, a tactic, or a strategy, or all of the above?” (Clements 2015: 2). Gene Sharp, the foremost scholar on the strategies of civil resistance, gives the following definition: “Passive resistance is a method of conducting and achieving or thwarting social, economic, or political changes … The aim is to harass the opponent without employing physical violence and to force him to make the desired concessions whether or not he desires to do so” (Sharp 1959: 53). For other theorists, it is “an idea whose time has come” (Chenoweth 2014a, 2014b), and a “self-conscious tradition … making headway” (Schock 2013). Katherine Sanders points towards the strategic function of the protests at Parihaka: “The acts of protest spoke to the relationship between legality and legitimacy … If legality and legitimacy are linked, even if only emotively, the power to govern is framed by an expectation that law and the system of law-making should aspire to meet moral and ethical standards” (Sanders 2005: 197). Despite the lack of moral and ethical response, Parihaka’s resistance continued, despite Richard Jackson’s argument that pacifism is subjugated knowledge (Jackson 2017a). He goes on to suggest that if there could be “a peacebuilding model in which a radically

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pacifist, locally organised, agonistic politics replaces the Westernoriented, top-down state-building blueprint which is currently central to peacebuilding theory and practice” (Jackson 2017b: 1–2), then there could be additional “theoretical and empirical resources for thinking through the challenges of peacebuilding theory and practice”. Parihaka, and a focus on Rongo, could offer these theoretical resources as part of the enhancement of our knowledge about Parihaka. A part of rethinking pacifism can be about seeing the preEuropean roots of Māori, and how those peace traditions can inform our thinking about pacifism in the modern context. The other significant area, and just as important, is the modern interpretation of pacifism or peace as an instrument of resistance. Nonviolent resistance has an empirical record for having a higher success rate in removing repressive regimes as opposed to violent direct action (Chenoweth 2014a, 2014b). The lack of moral impetus behind Rongo is in my view the missing link between historical descriptors of peace and the current academic work being conducted in the peace studies arena. Iain Atack supports this notion of the role of moral impetus: the moral impetus encapsulated in pacifism remains vital to the success of war resistance as a form of political action. It is this moral concern that provides the values and vision necessary for effective action directed towards structural change in the form of recognizable and achievable political goals. (Atack 2001: 185) Incidentally, “Te Parewhairiri”, my great, great grandmother, was given this name about the act of passive resistance as told to me by my Father. It is a term that is bound to our whakapapa and is generally not known. Seeking the message of resistance in song For the purposes of understanding the philosophies and resistance narrative of Parihaka, I’ve decided to focus on three waiata (songs). The first is written by Tohu Kākahi; it is called a ngeri, a type of haka that does not require the hand actions to be in unison.

reclaiming the role of rongo |  217 The second waiata is termed a harihari kai or song that is sung when visitors are arriving to take part in a feast. The third song is a recent composition which is another ngeri composed by our elder Huirangi Waikerepuru. He ngeri3 nā Tohu Māori

English

Maka atu ai e Tohu te kupu taimaha! Ki runga ki te Pirimia Ha, ha ha Tū tonu, tū tonu, Ue noa, ue noa Mou tonu, mou tonu, Ue noa, ue noa Tē taea te ueue Tēnei to kai ko taku tenetene Piri ki te hūhā A ha ha Hapainga ake taku raparapa taki ture Nāku ko koe, nāku te motu, nāku te ao! E Whiua, e Tāia aue! Whakarongo mai te motu nei, whakarongo te Iwi nei Ahakoa whakapiri koe ki a Tauiwi E kore e taka tō ingoa Māori Ki runga i a koe! He mangumangu taipō hoki tātou pakia! Te kupu a Tohu ki ngā iwi e rua! E kore e piri te uku ki te rino Ka whitingia e te rā ka ngāhoro Ki, ki, ki, ki, ha! Tēnā ka ngāhoro. Ki, ki, ki, ki, ha! Tēnā kōpaia! Kā, kā, aue Hi

So, it shall be! The prime minister will suffer the derision of Tohu! Forever standing! Never moving! Forever resolute! Never moving! This force is immovable! Here is your food, nothing but my resistance! Clinging to my thighs! Raising my adorned thighs that seeks the law! You belong to me! The land belongs to me! The world belongs to me! Share it! Create it! Take heed everybody! Those of the land and the people! Despite our assimilation You will never be considered as a Māori person! We are just black little devils! As Tohu professes to the two peoples, that Clay will never stick to iron. It will be shined upon and eventually fall away. That’s right! So, it shall fall! That’s right! To the end we proceed! And so, it shall burn!

Morehu kore kai Māori

English

Mōrehu kore kai Hi! Mōrehu kore kai Hi! Mōrehu kore kai mo te tina mo te tī Mo te parakuikui Hi!

We survive even without food! We survive even without food! We survive even without dinner, tea or even breakfast

218  |  tonga karena Titiro, titiro! Māori

English

Titiro, titiro Ki te Maunga tītōhea Runga o Parihaka, Waitotoroa Ngāti Moeahu, Ngāti Haupoto Ko te tākiritanga i te Kahu O Wikitoria, Kaitoa! Kaitoa! Ko Tohu, Ko Te Whiti Ngā Manu e Rua I patu te hoariri ki te Rangimārie Ahakoa i te pāhuatanga o Parihaka Hue! Hue! Hue! Ha!

Let your eyes take hold And you will see the barren top mountain Where Parihaka, and the river Waitotoroa are. The subtribes being Ngāti Moeahu and Ngāti Haupoto Victoria’s cloak will be cast off. And so, it shall be! Tohu and Te Whiti are the two sacred birds Who fought the enemies with peace And despite the plunder of Parihaka It will be affirmed.

Analysing the meanings and symbolisms in the above waiata reveals some underpinning ideas of the political philosophies of Parihaka in the past, as well as the present. The first ngeri can be described as the Taranaki “national” haka; when sports teams represent Taranaki, be it rugby or rugby league, this tends to be the haka that is performed. The first verse of this haka has just been recently revitalised in Taranaki tribal haka competitions, and I hope in the future it will be the standard format. It is clear in its message however, and shows the bite and irreverence Tohu had for the government: “You belong to me! The land belongs to me! The world belongs to me! You will never be considered as a Maori person! We are just black little devils!” The second waiata, “Mōrehu kore kai”, was sung a lot by my grandmother and the other kaitiaki, Aunty Marjorie, Aunty Neta and Aunty Ina during their time as a kaitiaki of Te Niho o te Ātiawa. It is also sung during the “Pāhua Day” commemorations when the visitors carry their food into Te Rānui, the dining hall on Toroānui marae. “Mōrehu kore kai”, the survivors without food, is connected to the time immediately following the Rā Pāhua when food was scant, the gardens were destroyed and the people were unable to travel to the coastline to gather food. It is usually sung with a lot of vigour and joy and serves as a reminder of the struggle and depth of starvation experienced by the people of Parihaka each time a group of visitors are ushered into the dining hall to partake in the feast.

reclaiming the role of rongo |  219 The third ngeri is a tribute to the prophets, the landmarks and the philosophy of resistance according to Huirangi Waikerepuru, a well-known expert in Māori customs and language, as well as the philosophies of Parihaka. “Ko te tākiritanga i te kahu o Wikitoria” literally means the casting away, or the throwing away, of Victoria’s cloak which came to symbolise the encroachment and colonisation of the land by the colonial and settler state. It is part of the repertoire sung by the younger generation since the language revitalisation period began in the 1980s. Despite the time lapse since the Te Rā Pāhua, and the death of the prophets since 1907, Parihaka waiata have continued to be sung, analysed and shared with those who come to Parihaka. They form an integral part to the maintenance of the rituals on the marae and are significant pathways to understanding the historical narrative of Parihaka. As part of my methodology, I have only selected songs that I can sing. Part of the duty on the paepae is to always have memorised songs on hand to follow on from the speeches. These songs are usually reserved for formal stages of the gatherings and are sacred in nature. Rapua te mea ngaro - Seek that which is lost E Whiti e Tohu, Rapua te mea ngaro Me hoki ki tā Rawiri he roimata taku kai i te ao i te pō Me whakatupu ki te hua o te rengarenga Me whakapakari ki te hua o te kawariki Pay heed Te Whiti and Tohu, seek that which is lost Find comfort in the psalms of David where your tears will consume you each night and day Use the healing fruits of the rengarenga to help you grow Use the kawariki to help you grow stronger. The above Kupu Whakaari of Tāwhiao, the second Māori king, is a plea to Tohu and Te Whiti to seek that which is lost, and to follow the psalms of David, to be consumed by tears each day, and each night. Using the nourishment of the rengarenga lily and the kawariki plant will help ease the pain. The central argument in this chapter is that Rongo, the Māori god of peace, is an effective way of engaging with Māori peace traditions. This is not an attempt to dissolve or dilute

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the historical influence of the scriptures on Parihaka. It is to a certain extent a methodological argument that begins at the core of understanding Māori culture which is to understand the pre-European influences that preceded the advent of Christianity. The brief analysis of waiata reveals the depth of passion that came with being resistant towards the Crown. They also demonstrate the extent to which the community uses these songs as a form of critical reflection to understand the impacts of history and colonisation. Parihaka, as a living community, is at a stage where the Kawenata o Rongo now needs to be implemented and upheld by the next generation of followers. Being informed by the radicalism and nonviolent pacifism of the past is critical to understanding the philosophies that come with the peace traditions of Parihaka. Just as significant is the inter-generational legacy that will ensure the future generations are equipped to participate in both worlds. Giving Rongo a modern context and using language that enables us to hear and see the moral, economic and political impetus behind Rongo is part of the exercise. By introducing a discourse on Parihaka, indigenous peace traditions and Rongo into the sphere of peace and conflict studies, it allows Māori to conceptualise their own tribal peace traditions within their own geopolitical context and history, and provides a pathway for the international community to be able to engage with the cultural foundations of indigenous ideas behind their peace traditions. Ē Rongo whakairihia ake ki runga, tūturu whakamoua kia tīnā, tīnā – Hui ē Tāiki e. Notes 1 Taiepa Tiketike was a collaborative project with the Parihaka Papa kainga trust and Massey University. The research focused on analysing the energy needs of the community with a focus on sustainable forms of energy provision. More information

on this project can be found at www. parihaka.org. 2 The website for the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies can be found at the following link: www. otago.ac.nz/ncpacs/index.html. 3 A ngeri is a type of haka that has no pre-set actions.

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222  |  tonga karena Llewellyn, J. (2017). Building Emancipatory Peace through Anarcho-Pacifism. Critical Studies on Security, 1–14. doi: 10.1080/21624887.2017.1345034. Low, P. and Smith, A. (1996). Nonviolence at Parihaka during New Zealand’s Colonial Period. In P. L. Mahendra Kumar (Ed.), Legacy and Future of Nonviolence. New Delhi: Rajagopal P.V. for the Gandhi Peace Foundation, pp. 221–223. Mac Ginty, R. (2008). Indigenous Peace-Making Versus the Liberal Peace. Cooperation and Conflict, 43(2), 139–163. doi: 10.1177/0010836708089080. Mac Ginty, R. and Richmond, O. P. (2013). The Local Turn in Peace Building: A Critical Agenda for Peace. Third World Quarterly, 34(5), 763–783. doi: 10.1080/01436597.2013.800750. Mead, H. (2003). Tikanga Maori: Living by Maori Values. Wellington: Huia Publishers. Mignolo, W. D. (2011). Epistemic Disobedience and the Decolonial Option: A Manifesto. Transmodernity: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World, 1(2), 44–66. The Native Troubles in New Zealand. (1882, 31 January). The Manchester Guardian, p. 5. Ngata, A. T. (2005). Nga Moteatea: The Songs Part II. Trans. P. T. H. Jones. Vol. 2. Auckland: Auckland University Press. Nielson, H. (2009). Te Whiti o Rongomai: A Forerunner of Gandhi. The Gandhi Foundation. https:// gandhifoundation.org/2009/05/28/ te-whiti-o-rongomai-a-forerunnerof-gandhi/. Parihaka, P. K. (2017). Parihaka, Past, Present and Future. http://parihaka. maori.nz/.

Paringatai, K. (2004). Poia mai taku poi Unearthing the Knowledge of the Past: A Critical Review of Written Literature on the poi in the New Zealand and the Pacific. Master of Arts, University of Otago, Dunedin, Otago. Patterson, R. W. P. a. J. (1991). Virtue Ethics and Maori Ethics. Philosophy East and West, 41(2), 185–202. Reeves, J. (1989). Maori Prisoners in Dunedin 1869–72 and 1879–81: Exile for a Cause. B.A Hons, University of Otago, Dunedin, Otago. Riseborough, H. (1987). Policies and Prophecies: Aspects of Government Native Policy in Taranaki 1878–1884. PhD, Massey University. Riseborough, H. (1989). Days of Darkness: The Government and Parihaka Taranaki 1878–1884. Auckland: Penguin Books. Riseborough, H. (1993). John Bryce. Dictionary of New Zealand Biography: Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand. https://teara.govt.nz/ en/biographies/2b44/bryce-john. Riseborough, H. (2001). Te Pahuatanga o Parihaka. In G. O. B. L. S. Te Miringa Hohaia (Ed.), Parihaka: The Art of Passive Resistance. Wellington: Victoria University Press. Riseborough, H. (2010). A New Kind of Resistance: Parihaka and the Struggle for Peace. In K. Day (Ed.), Contested Ground: Te Whenua i Tohea. Wellington: Huia Publishers. Rusden, G. (1885). Aureretanga: Groans of the Maoris: London: W. Ridgway. Sanders, K. (2005). Parihaka and the Rule of Law. Te Mata Koi Auckland University Law Review, 11, 174–200. Schaap, A. (2006). Agonism in divided societies. Philosophy & Social Criticism, 32(2), 255–277. doi: 10.1177/0191453706061095.

reclaiming the role of rongo |  223 Schock, K. (2013). The Practice and Study of Civil Resistance. Journal of Peace Research, 50(3), 277–290. doi: 10.1177/0022343313476530. Scott, D. (1975). Ask That Mountain. Auckland: Heinemann. Scott, D. (1989, 20 May). Documenting the Death of Parihaka, Book Review. The Evening Post. Scott, D. (2014). Parihaka Invaded. Wellington: Bridget Williams Books. Sharp, G. (1959). The Meanings of Nonviolence: A Typology. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 3(1), 41–64. Smith, A. (1990). Ko Tohu te Matua: The Story of Tohu Kakahi of Parihaka. Master of Arts, University of Canterbury. Smith, A. (1993). Songs and Stories of Taranaki: He tuhituhinga Tai Hau-auru. From the writings of Te Kahui Kararehe. Christchurch: Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies. Te Kawenata o Rongo Deed of Reconciliation. (2017). Wellington: New Zealand Government. Vayda, A. P. (1956). Maori Conquests in Relation to the New Zealand Environment. Journal of the Polynesian Society, 65(3), 204–211. Vayda, A. P. (1960). Maori Women and Maori Cannibalism. Man, 60. Vayda, A. P. (1961). Maori Prisoners and

Slaves in the Nineteenth Century. Ethnohistory, 8(2), 144–155. Vayda, A. P. (1970). Maoris and Muskets in New Zealand: Disruption of a War System. Political Science Quarterly, 85(4), 560–584. WAI-143. (1996). The Taranaki Report: Kaupapa Tuatahi (WAI 143). Muru me te Raupatu. The Muru and Raupatu of the Taranaki Land and People. Wellington: The Waitangi Tribunal. Wakeham, P. (2012). Reconciling “Terror”: Managing Indigenous Resistance in the Age of Apology. The American Indian Quarterly, 36(1), 1–33. Walker, R. (1984). The Genesis of Maori Activism. Journal of the Polynesian Society, 93(3), 267–282. Walker, R. (1990). Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou: Struggle without End. Auckland: Penguin Books. Waterson, D. B. (1993). John Sheehan. Dictionary of New Zealand Biography: Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand. https://teara.govt.nz/ en/biographies/2s19/sheehan-john. Wig, T. (2016). Peace from the Past: Pre-colonial Political Institutions and Civil Wars in Africa. Journal of Peace Research, 53(4), 509–524. doi: 10.1177/0022343316640595.

11

| UNDERSTANDING BAXTER’S “DUNEDIN LAWYER”: ALFRED RICHARD BARCLAY AND THE SIGNIFICANCE OF BOER WAR OPPOSITION IN NEW ZEALAND

Tim Leadbeater

Archibald Baxter’s famous memoir, We Will Not Cease, contains numerous references to socialist ideas and class politics. This article traces his socialist outlook back to a speech given in 1902 to the workers of the Hillside Railway Workshops in Dunedin by Liberal minister, Alfred Richard Barclay. Using newspaper reports from the Boer War period, Barclay’s radical anti-capitalist objections are described and located within the context of New Zealand opposition to the Boer War. Baxter’s pacifism thus emerges as a distinctively political stance, with historical resonances which have contemporary relevance. Keywords: Alfred Richard Barclay; Archibald Baxter; Boer War; Imper­ ialism; Pacifism; Socialism

Dunedin, Saturday 25 January 1902 The whistle has just blown “knock off” time at the Hillside Railway Workshops, and a large group of men walk out of the entrance and into a nearby paddock. One of the men stands out from the crowd of overalls and grease-stained clothes. He is dressed in a suit, and is clearly a visitor to the workshops. As the men follow this newcomer over to the paddock, there is a heated buzz and sense of tension in the air. Some of the men yell out aggressively, “Come along dinner’s more important than Barclay!” and “We have no time for him”. A couple of men have a more positive attitude and greet their guest with handshakes and polite introductions. As they perform these gestures some of the other men grimace and cry “Shame!!” The suited guest is Alfred Richard Barclay, Liberal Party member and representative of the Dunedin North electorate. He is one of a very small number of people in New Zealand to make a public stand against New Zealand’s involvement in the Boer War (1899–1902).1 Although his opinions on this topic are regarded as traitorous and

understanding baxter’s “dunedin lawyer” |  225 improper by many, his views will have a profound impact on one member of the group: a 20-year-old farmer from Brighton who has come into town to pick up his father from one of the pubs in nearby Caversham. His name is now famous: Archibald Baxter. From out of the entrance to the workshops another group of men join the crowd, carrying a huge Union Jack flag. There is a keen sense of tension and heightened emotion as these patriotic workers encourage the assembled crowd to follow the calls, “Three cheers for the Right Honourable Joseph Chamberlain”, and “Three Hoots for Barclay”. According to the author of the newspaper article this description is based on, the crowd cheered “lustily” in response. The foreman chairing the meeting is clearly offended by the idea that Barclay should have any more opportunities to speak, and does his best to shut him down completely: [The Chairman moves] That this meeting consider that ample opportunity has been given to Mr A. R. Barclay through the public press to utter his unpatriotic opinions on the war in South Africa, and to offer his infamous criticisms on the Imperial Government and British statesmen the world over; and that the time has arrived when a loyal community should refuse to listen further to his traitorous utterances. (Loud applause.) Does anyone second the motion? “I second it” was cried out by several voices. The Chairman: The motion is seconded in half-a-dozen places. A Voice from the crowd: “I say, we should give Mr Barclay an opportunity of explaining”. Mr Barclay was understood to remark that he would like to speak, but the Chairman observed that he would have an opportunity afterwards. The Chairman: “Now then, all together,” and the National Anthem was struck up. All joined in the hymn with heartiness, none more heartily than Mr Barclay, and none more heartily, in the three succeeding cheers, than Mr Barclay. The Chairman said I declare the meeting closed. It’s over so far as I am concerned. He then abruptly left, and the large bulk of the hands followed suit, calling out to their comrades who were inclined to linger behind to join them. About 60 remained, however, and Mr Barclay, addressing these, said … (Otago Witness, 5 February 1902)

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The newspaper article goes on to describe Barclay’s speech word for word. It is a lengthy and passionate plea to consider the politics behind the war, denouncing the capitalist interests motivating the British invasion into the Transvaal. Influenced by socialist and radical liberal perspectives of the time, Barclay argued that the reasons for war had nothing to do with justice and democracy. The massive gold reserves of the Witwatersrand region and the diamond mines were the real source of the conflict. The speech itself is noteworthy as a rare, perhaps singular, example of publicly espoused left-wing opposition to a war which attracted widespread support. This chapter shall attempt to cast some light on the context and consequences of this speech. The young Archibald Baxter New Zealand’s involvement in the Boer War was, by the standards of the time, significant and consequential. Over 6,000 New Zealanders were sent to fight for British interests, out of a population of under one million. When the first New Zealand contingent left Wellington in late 1899, Premier Richard John Seddon delivered a rousing patriotic speech to over 40,000 onlookers. This was the first time that New Zealand troops had left the country to participate in an international conflict. Ian McGibbon convincingly argues that “[t]he South African War … played an important part in fostering the militarisation of New Zealand society in the period leading up to the First World War and in many respects set the pattern for New Zealand participation in the major conflicts of the twentieth century” (Crawford and McGibbon 2003). The cultural and psychological implications are also noteworthy and deeply rooted. The Boer War period provides us with a rich case study of the sense of “Greater Britishness” heightened by our physical distance from the Mother country (Loveridge 2014). The period is also a window into the soul of what Jock Phillips describes as “colonial masculinity”, with the burly and bellicose figure of Richard John Seddon acting as a sort of national archetype (Phillips 1996). Greater events cast large shadows, however, and the impact of the First World War was so much more consequential than that of the Boer War. It is little wonder that this period is now a fairly obscure episode in New Zealand history. Figures such as Barclay suffer a double obscurity: the turn of the century is eclipsed by the events of

understanding baxter’s “dunedin lawyer” |  227 1914–1918, and the dissenters from that more momentous conflict are the ones who stand out most prominently in the public memory. Of these famous dissenters, Archibald Baxter is without doubt the single most famous, largely because of the influence of his memoir, We Will Not Cease. Baxter’s shadow itself renders the figure of Alfred Richard Barclay into a minor footnote in the historiography of peace activism. Yet there are two considerations which should counter the effects of these obscuring influences. The first has to do with the tendency to treat Baxter as a very singular and uniquely moral person who objects to war because his conscience will not allow him to fight. The very term “conscientious objector” has an unfortunate connection with the idea that people such as Baxter opposed war just because they possessed, as individuals, a particular kind of moral conscience which led them to abhor violence. The recent television film, Field Punishment No. 1, exemplifies this approach, with Baxter’s pacifism being framed in fairly simplistic moral terms. The outstanding and undeniable fact that Archibald Baxter did indeed possess distinctive and admirable moral qualities arguably makes it harder to see the pacifist stance taken by Baxter in broader and more political terms. The narrative force and brilliance of We Will Not Cease has a lot to do with its autobiographical framing of a single man opposing a huge and much more powerful military machine. Although political themes and ideas are present in the text, the origins of Baxter’s pacifism are hinted at on the first page without being developed or explained at all in later writings. Millicent Baxter claims in her memoir that “Archie as a very young man, adventurous, had actually thought of enlisting for the Boer war” (Baxter 1981). The speech by the “Dunedin lawyer” mentioned on the opening page of We Will Not Cease changes his mind, and leads him to develop his pacifist beliefs (Baxter 2014). There are several reasons to be curious about this profound change of heart. Born in December 1881, Archie would have been aged just 17 when the Boer War started in October 1899 and 20 when it finished in May 1902. In the year 1898, Archie won a small block of land on Scrogg’s Hill, Brighton – a small town about 18 km south of Dunedin. He stocked the farm with animals and handed it over to his father. Unfortunately, his father was not very good with money, and

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also had a drinking problem. He did not manage the farm successfully and went into debt. Archie was forced to quit his work rabbiting in Central Otago and return to the farm. He re-purchased the farm from the bailiffs and made it profitable again. This episode, and the other scanty facts we have about this early period, paint a picture of hard work and few privileges. Leaving school at 12, and playing a leading role in his family as breadwinner and organiser – a role his own father was not able to fulfil – Archie’s adolescence was tough and full of responsibilities (McKay 1990). In December 1901 the age of enlistment was lowered to 19. Baxter would have been legally able to join the Eighth Contingent which left New Zealand in February 1902. He would have been released from his familial responsibilities and the limiting confines of rural Otago. It is also highly likely that the 20-year-old Archibald lacked, as did most of his contemporaries, the awareness of the “horrors of war” taken for granted today. Images of things like napalm and concentration camps did not exist, and there was no popular notion of war as a dehumanising activity. Ian McGibbon describes 1899 New Zealand as a society which largely shared “a widespread acceptance of war as a legitimate means of settling disputes and establishing power relationships”. This acceptance also tended to include an uncritical view of British imperialism. As Malcolm McKinnon notes, imperialism “had not yet become a wholly negative word and still carried positive connotations of empire unity and advancement” (Crawford 2003). The widespread suspicion and cynicism directed at Bush and Blair by millions of Western observers in 2003 simply had no cultural parallel in turn of the century New Zealand society. With all of these personal and historical considerations in mind, the content of Barclay’s speech will hopefully offer some insight into the origins of Archibald Baxter’s pacifism. Barclay will help us to place Baxter’s pacifism in a specific historical context with connections to a variety of political movements and ideas. Barclay and his opposition to the Boer War is also an interesting and worthwhile subject in its own right. New Zealand’s involvement in the Boer War was the first example in a long series of military commitments to overseas wars led by major imperial powers. Whereas more recent involvements, such as the Vietnam War in the 1960s and the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, have been opposed by a large and vigorous New Zealand peace movement, the Boer War

understanding baxter’s “dunedin lawyer” |  229 was opposed by a tiny and uninfluential minority. This minority, however, contained the ideological seeds of later growth in the antiwar movement. Barclay’s opposition and its connections to a wider world of political currents informs understanding of the early character and content of peace activism in New Zealand and some of the reasons for its later development and growth. Alfred Richard Barclay Alfred Richard Barclay was born in Ireland in 1859 and arrived in New Zealand as a six-year-old. His father was a respected Presbyterian minister. Barclay was one of the earliest graduates of Otago University, and deserves recognition for his political pamphlets. In 1899 he wrote a pamphlet on Karl Marx and his labour theory of value. In 1909 he wrote on unemployment, and in 1910, wrote a stinging and perceptive account on the shortcomings of the Ward ministry. Although not nearly as famous as contemporaries such as Edward Tregear or William Pember Reeves, Barclay’s writings show clear evidence of an intelligent and critical political thinker who was well read in the international literature of the period. Many left-wing historians point out the numerous failings and weaknesses of the Liberal era under Seddon. Although they recognise the significance of the land reforms of the 1890s, and the initial impetus of the labour reforms introduced by William Pember Reeves, they argue that the Liberal Party ultimately acted as a preservative force: it maintained class privilege and absorbed and tamed the radical interests of its working-class supporters. Critics of settler colonialism also point out the massive amount of Māori land confiscated during this period.2 The Liberals were also a broad and diverse group of people, and Barclay was part of the radical flank. His radical views led him to become very frustrated with the Liberal Party, and his Fabian socialist outlook involved him taking controversial positions on a number of issues. In David Hamer’s (1988) study of the Liberal era, Barclay merits several mentions, all of which position him firmly on the left. His criticisms of Joseph Ward were vehement and bitter: in 1901, he denounced Ward for accepting a knighthood, and in 1908, Barclay attacked the conservative “standing still policy” adopted by Ward in the face of widespread labour movement agitation. Hamer describes Barclay’s political positions

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as both atypical of what most Liberal politicians supported and also as “unrealistic” by establishment standards. In an address delivered to the Fabian Society in April 1899 entitled “The Origin of Wealth, Being the Theory of Karl Marx in Simple Form”, Barclay (1899) credits Marx as one of the main influential sources of New Zealand’s 1890s labour reforms. In an opinion piece written just before the Hillside speech, motivated principally by a desire to undermine and ridicule Barclay’s anti-war stance, the editor generously concedes to the fact that Barclay is a formidable politician. His “speeches were very frequently distinguished by a resource in argument, a facility in allusion, and a command of information which made them much superior to the ordinary run of members’ speeches” (Southland Times, January 1902). Barclay’s outspoken opposition to the Boer War, however, took some time to develop. The speech which Baxter heard outside the Hillside Railway Workshops in early 1902 represents a very radical stance which would have been risky for a newly appointed minister in Seddon’s Liberal government. According to newspaper sources from the period, the first time Barclay makes public statements against New Zealand involvement in the Boer War is in mid-1901 (Evening Star, July 1901). In what follows, I shall sketch out a context for Barclay’s unusual and risky views, before returning to consider the Hillside speech and its wider implications.3 NZ opposition to the Boer War: context and history 1899–1902 New Zealand’s commitment to the Boer War was significant and attracted widespread popular support. Richard John Seddon, the popular and influential premier, was an ardent royalist and unquestioning supporter of British imperial interests. The New Zealand press was ferociously pro-Empire. Although there was significant opposition within Britain to the war, little if any news of the critical perspectives held by these opponents made it into the national newspapers. Without doubt the widespread support for the war was not just about ruling-class interests and media manipulation. Many of the workers at Hillside Railway Workshops, for example, took great pride in their fellow workers who enlisted and were enthusiastic members of patriotic celebrations throughout the 1899–1902

understanding baxter’s “dunedin lawyer” |  231 period. In the victory celebrations following the relief of the siege of Mafeking for example, “[p]rocessions, with every known musical instrument from a bass drum to a tea-tray, spontaneously formed, dissolved, reformed, drifted hither and thither. From Hillside the railway workmen marched in, 200 strong, with banners and emblems a “Long Tom, Boer prisoners, a guillotine for Kruger” (Otago Witness, May 1900). Steven Loveridge’s (2014) “cultural mobilisation” thesis is compelling: the large majority of pakeha New Zealanders were not opposed to the Boer War, and a significant and influential section of them were passionately in favour of it. This war fever had a great deal to do with a sense of identity: New Zealanders considered themselves British first and foremost, and wanted to prove their loyalty. Many shared James Allen’s unquestioning sentiment: “I do not know what the quarrel is but I believe our cause to be just” (NZPD, 1899). In this cultural context of empire loyalty and jingoistic sentiment, opposition to the Boer War was very much a minority pursuit. Yet the small but vocal minority of New Zealanders who did raise their voices were a very diverse and significant group of people. They included a small group of Liberal ministers, a handful of outspoken feminists and a sprinkling of radical Catholics and Irish Nationalists. As far as Barclay is concerned, two of these are particularly relevant. The first in historical order is J. Grattan Grey, the chief Hansard reporter. Grattan Grey was clearly much more than a government functionary; he was also a keen observer of international events. On 27 October 1899, just after the Boer War had started, he wrote a letter to the New York Times in which he criticised New Zealand involvement in the Boer War. He was subsequently attacked by the editor of a powerful New Zealand newspaper, and his article was leaked to Premier Richard John Seddon. In April 1900, he was fired from his post as Hansard reporter, and ended up leaving the country. Grattan Grey’s (1900) pamphlet “Freedom of Thought and Speech in New Zealand” is a fascinating document which arguably complicates the consensus narrative, with references to “many letters” from people in New Zealand supportive of his critical stance. One from Dunedin says, “I hope one day will be disclosed how the existing excitement in New Zealand originated and has been worked up. It was not spontaneous”. Another letter signed by “several gentlemen” from Auckland states, “There are hundreds of genuine liberals

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who feel on this matter as we do”. These claims, even if exaggerated, run against the grain of received wisdom, and arguably complicate the “cultural mobilisation thesis” of Loveridge mentioned above. There is little doubt that Barclay would have observed this sequence of events, and would have been keenly aware of the potential consequences of speaking out against the war. As a new member of the House of Representatives, who had gained his seat partly through proclaiming himself an “out and out” Seddon supporter, Barclay would have found it very difficult initially to voice what would have been taken to be a treasonous position (New Zealand Herald, December 1899). In May 1900 the National Council of Women held their conference in Dunedin. Several of the women made critical comments about the Boer War. The most outspoken and radical was Wilhelmina Sheriff Bain. Elsie Locke (1992) describes the passionate internationalism of Bain’s views, and notes that she was not the only feminist at the conference to oppose the war. Mrs Margaret Sievwright of Gisborne, foreshadowing Barclay’s own anti-capitalist position on the war, “said brave men were being sacrificed to fill the pockets of millionaires with the gold and diamonds of South Africa.” Shortly after the conference, The Fabian Society hosted a social event and invited women from the National Council of Women to attend. The Fabians spoke out in favour of freedom of speech, without actually endorsing any of the critical views voiced by the women. Barclay was a prominent member of the Fabian Society, and made a statement to the press supporting the feminists in which he apologised to the women for the “brutal treatment” meted out to them by “the Press and some of the residents of Dunedin” (Evening Star, May 1900). The “brutal treatment” involved vicious attacks on the feminists by the press, who went as far as advocating a charge of treason. The women were mocked as stupid, naive and unpatriotic for their critical pacifist opinions. Barclay in his turn was also labelled a “pro Boer”, even though at this early stage he had not made any criticisms of New Zealand involvement in the Boer War. The end of the feminists’ conference and the Fabian soirée coincided with a key event in the Boer War: the “Relief of Mafeking”. Mafeking was a small British enclave cut off by Boer forces in the early stages of the war, and was under siege for several months.

reclaiming the role of rongo |  223 Schock, K. (2013). The Practice and Study of Civil Resistance. Journal of Peace Research, 50(3), 277–290. doi: 10.1177/0022343313476530. Scott, D. (1975). Ask That Mountain. Auckland: Heinemann. Scott, D. (1989, 20 May). Documenting the Death of Parihaka, Book Review. The Evening Post. Scott, D. (2014). Parihaka Invaded. Wellington: Bridget Williams Books. Sharp, G. (1959). The Meanings of Nonviolence: A Typology. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 3(1), 41–64. Smith, A. (1990). Ko Tohu te Matua: The Story of Tohu Kakahi of Parihaka. Master of Arts, University of Canterbury. Smith, A. (1993). Songs and Stories of Taranaki: He tuhituhinga Tai Hau-auru. From the writings of Te Kahui Kararehe. Christchurch: Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies. Te Kawenata o Rongo Deed of Reconciliation. (2017). Wellington: New Zealand Government. Vayda, A. P. (1956). Maori Conquests in Relation to the New Zealand Environment. Journal of the Polynesian Society, 65(3), 204–211. Vayda, A. P. (1960). Maori Women and Maori Cannibalism. Man, 60.

Vayda, A. P. (1961). Maori Prisoners and Slaves in the Nineteenth Century. Ethnohistory, 8(2), 144–155. Vayda, A. P. (1970). Maoris and Muskets in New Zealand: Disruption of a War System. Political Science Quarterly, 85(4), 560–584. WAI-143. (1996). The Taranaki Report: Kaupapa Tuatahi (WAI 143). Muru me te Raupatu. The Muru and Raupatu of the Taranaki Land and People. Wellington: The Waitangi Tribunal. Wakeham, P. (2012). Reconciling “Terror”: Managing Indigenous Resistance in the Age of Apology. The American Indian Quarterly, 36(1), 1–33. Walker, R. (1984). The Genesis of Maori Activism. Journal of the Polynesian Society, 93(3), 267–282. Walker, R. (1990). Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou: Struggle without End. Auckland: Penguin Books. Waterson, D. B. (1993). John Sheehan. Dictionary of New Zealand Biography: Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand. https://teara.govt.nz/ en/biographies/2s19/sheehan-john. Wig, T. (2016). Peace from the Past: Pre-colonial Political Institutions and Civil Wars in Africa. Journal of Peace Research, 53(4), 509–524. doi: 10.1177/0022343316640595.

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the jeers described above reflect a deep patriarchal imperative: to exclude women from political power and viciously attack any man who challenges this consensus. It appears that these silencing tactics were effective for a period. Barclay does not speak out again on this issue until mid-1901. Reading between the lines, it is clear that Barclay, like J. Grattan Grey, came to regard British motives with critical suspicion. As Ian McGibbon observes, war weariness and reflections on motive informed the views of many Boer War critics: “[t]he certainty with which the issues were regarded by New Zealanders in 1899 was eroded … by new perceptions of the events leading to the crisis and of British motives” (Crawford 2003). Barclay was a keen observer of international events who read beyond the limited and partisan sphere of national newspapers. From his later letters, it is evident that Barclay was familiar with both the scandalous report on the South African concentration camps made by Emily Hobhouse in June 1901, and the critical economic appraisal of the Boer War by J. A. Hobson (1900). Both these influences are visible in a noteworthy exchange between Barclay and Seddon in mid-1901 (Evening Star, July 1901), and are passionately and eloquently expressed in a long letter printed by the Otago newspapers in late December 1901. Barclay refers to the “methods of warfare adopted by General Weyler in Cuba”, a reference to both the “concentration camps” used in the Boer War and the deadly tactics adopted by the Spanish military in the Cuban War of Independence (1895–1898). In both cases, civilian non-combatants were targeted and physically contained: in the Cuban situation the rural population was forced into towns and cities, in the South African case women and children were crammed into huge camps of tents. Although the term “concentration camp” is misleading (the South African camps are more comparable to modern-day refugee camps than they are to places such as Auschwitz), the human cost of these methods was without doubt huge and appalling. Over 26,000 people died in the South African camps, and most of these were children. It is most likely that Barclay’s source for this claim was based on that of Emily Hobhouse’s “Report of a Visit to the Camps of Women and Children in the Cape and Orange River Colonies” (June 1901). Hobhouse’s humanitarian critique of the deaths of thousands of

understanding baxter’s “dunedin lawyer” |  235 women and children in the British camps had a huge impact in Britain, and serves as an early example of critical investigative war journalism. A search of the “Paper’s Past” New Zealand archive for Emily Hobhouse during this period reveals a scant record of newspaper articles covering her influential report. Those that do mention her work are derogatory and dismissive. It therefore seems fairly certain that Barclay’s sources were liberal British newspapers. A number of caveats need to be mentioned here. Hobhouse’s work was used as ammunition by Afrikaaner nationalists in the aftermath of the Boer War, and it completely ignores the existence of black concentration camps. Indeed, the very term “concentration camp”, with its usual associations of Nazis and gas chambers, is quite problematic here. Ian R. Smith and Andreas Stucki (2011) convincingly emphasise the importance of counter-guerrilla strategies as the principal motive for the British camps, rather than genocidal intent. Acknowledging these complexities, what stands out here is the high numbers of innocent civilians who died. This humanitarian critique of the effects of war of course gathered strength profoundly throughout the course of the twentieth century, as wars became more and more deadly for non-combatants. Rather than images of gas chambers, we can think of the British camps used during the Boer War as early examples of modern containment strategies for populations displaced by war: refugee camps. The historical echoes of Barclay’s humanitarian critique of the Boer are therefore highly pertinent, even if the historical details are somewhat obscure and complicated by other issues. The Hillside speech According to Erik Olssen’s (1995) detailed study of Caversham in this period, “[b]y 1905 Hillside was New Zealand’s second largest engineering shop, employing 400 men”. The sixty-odd workers who stayed to listen to Barclay’s speech in early 1902 clearly represent a minority of the workers. This group is less than half of the 200 workers who took part in the patriotic Mafeking victory parades mentioned above, and a tiny fraction of the 40,000 people who gathered to see off the first New Zealand contingent in 1899. It is little wonder, therefore, that this speech has become an obscure and forgotten historical event. Acknowledging the marginal nature of the incident, it is nevertheless a source of some value for our

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understanding of Archibald Baxter, and, more broadly, the origins of anti-imperialism as a key current within the peace movement. Barclay’s speech revolves around an appeal to the worker’s class consciousness. The central part of the speech is a quote from a British leaflet signed by 84 Labour leaders, including Keir Hardie, a Scottish socialist who would later oppose the First World War and was another big influence on Archibald Baxter. Barclay urges the workers to listen to these Labour leaders instead of the conservative press: “These names are familiar to you. They are the names of men who for years past have been identified with the cause of labour the most honest and honourable men in England. I would sooner trust them in labour matters than any other men in England”. Barclay then proceeds to read from the leaflet,4 which denounces the Boer War as a capitalist enterprise: [I]t is a war waged by capitalists with the object of gaining greater profits through cheap nigger labour … In the Kimberley mines, controlled by Mr Rhodes, the ordinary wage of Kaffirs is from 1s to 2s per day for a day of 10 hours, and the law allows them, to be worked seven days a week. The ordinary wage of Kaffirs in the Transvaal is 1s 3d to 2s 6d per day. They only work eight hours per day, and by the Transvaal law six days in the week. It is clear that the owners of the Transvaal gold mines hope by means of war to reduce their Kaffirs to the same conditions as those of Kimberley. Away, then, with the delusion that this war is waged in order to open up new territory to British colonists. The capitalists who bought up or hired the press both in South Africa and England to clamour for war are largely foreigners. The cry which they raised about the Uitlanders’ grievances, the arming of the Boers, a Dutch conspiracy, etc., were mere pretexts to deceive you. The enormous sums which they made out of the Rhodesian diamond mines emboldened them to become absolute masters of the Transvaal gold mines also. They have all along wanted war to double their profits by cheap forced native labour. This is now proved out of the mouths of the capitalists themselves. (Otago Witness, February 1902) Reading Barclay’s speech from a 21st-century perspective, the most initially striking aspect is the use of racist terms. Although it is

understanding baxter’s “dunedin lawyer” |  233 The news of the relief of the siege hit New Zealand on 18 May, and there were huge patriotic celebrations all over the colony. There was a massive procession in Dunedin featuring 200 Hillside Railway workers with banners and Kruger effigies, and a half-day holiday was declared (Otago Witness, May 1900). At this early stage of the war, the patriotic “war fever” was at fever pitch, and Mafeking was a perfect victory. Even though Britain was the superpower aggressor, the Mafeking victory played into the propaganda narrative which painted a picture of “brave Britons” defending themselves from an evil foe. Barclay was attacked both via the vitriolic opinion pieces of all the major newspapers, and also in public as a dignitary involved with patriotic celebrations. In a hall packed with 3,000 patriots shortly after the Mafeking victory, Barclay was openly taunted and abused by hundreds of people: There was, however, an unfortunate and jarring note, which at times became wearisome and disagreeable, running throughout the greater portion of the proceedings. Nearly every speaker and singer had to commence his or her part under a perfect storm of “Barclays”. The word was hurled at the mayor, flung at the platform, pelted at the speaker, and aimed at the singer. No sooner had the item been rendered than from floor to gallery and front seat to back seat the word was shouted by a hundred throats. In vain the mayor, like the town crier, rang his bell; in vain the speakers sought to ignore the word; in vain the cries of “Order, order” were shouted; the crowd would not have it, and the term Barclay! Barclay! Barclay! rang through the auditorium. (Evening Star, May 1900) These attacks continue for several weeks, even after Barclay writes a statement to the papers in which he insists on his patriotism and attempts to distance himself from the unpopular feminists. It is surely pertinent to note here the relevance of Jock Phillip’s (1996 [1984]) account of this period: the Boer War, and the passionate jingoistic support that it inspired in New Zealand, had a lot to do with the broader culture of colonial masculinity. Barclay’s defence of the free speech rights of the feminists in the context of a Fabian soirée would have been deeply at odds with the dominant expectations of this male culture. The aggression and inarticulateness of

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expressed by Barclay in his speech to the Hillside Railway workers Baxter heard in 1902, to Baxter’s class-conscious opposition to the First World War 12 years later. A more speculative observation has less to do with the politics of Barclay’s stance, and more to do with the moral courage Barclay needed to stand up against the immense pressures of conformist popular pro-war sentiment. In his letter to the Otago papers written just before the Hillside speech, Barclay states: Probably many people will profess to be shocked at what I have written, and call me names of various kinds. But that will not in the least alter the facts, which are just as I say. For my part, I say a man is not worth his salt who has not the courage to speak out for what he believes to be the truth, and so far as I am concerned, be the cost what it will, I should only have a profound contempt for myself if I failed to do so on this occasion. (Evening Star, December 1901) Barclay’s speech to the Hillside workers can be seen in two ways: as a socialist argument against war, and also as simply a man with a very unpopular opinion standing up for what he believes in. The moral example is clear: moral integrity is worth more than whatever negative consequences might follow from conforming to the popular will. The consequences of Baxter’s principled opposition to war were far harsher than those suffered by Barclay, yet the seeds of Baxter’s dissent are visible in the image of a maligned politician standing up against the tide in a paddock next to the Hillside Railway Workshops in 1902. Reflections on the significance of Barclay’s speech Stephen Loveridge’s book, Calls to Arms, provides a compelling and detailed account of a wide-ranging consensus in support of the British Empire and its military activities. This consensus makes sense of the undeniable fact that large numbers of early 20th-century New Zealanders understood themselves in terms of a “greater Britishness” which led them to identify the cause of Empire with their own identity, values and interests. In the terms of this cultural and ideological template, it is no surprise that opposition to the Boer War was a castigated and largely unpopular

understanding baxter’s “dunedin lawyer” |  239 minority pursuit. The speech given outside the Hillside Railway Workshops was consequential for Archibald Baxter, yet surely counts as a minor footnote in the history of New Zealand society and its attitudes towards war. Yet the ferocity and extent of pro-Empire views should not be completely taken for granted, and there is at least some evidence for a more cautious appraisal. Baxter (2014) himself notes that Barclay was “returned to Parliament at the next election with a greatly increased majority”, proving that anti-militarist views were not “altogether unpopular”. Baxter’s claim here is not quite accurate: Barclay lost the 1902 election, but was returned to parliament in the 1905 elections. Yet the figures for the 1902 election do not indicate a public rejection of Barclay. Comparing the total number of votes cast for Barclay in 1899 (7,334) with the total in 1902 (7,034) there is a decrease of just 300 votes (Evening Star, December 1899; Evening Post, November 1902). There are of course many other variables in play here, but it is notable that Barclay’s public opposition to the Boer War did not cost him his parliamentary career. Another issue which complicates the consensus narrative concerns the place of Scottish and Irish identity. Barclay’s letter written to the newspapers just prior to the speech includes this effort to communicate to the predominantly Scottish Dunedin community, employing an appeal to both ethnic and religious identity to encourage critical reflection on the motives behind the Boer War: It is sometimes a wonder to me to see Presbyterians in Scottish Otago – and Presbyterian clergymen too – shrieking for the blood of practically their brothers in the faith – the descendants of the Huguenots and Dutch Protestants, men of the type of the Scottish Covenanters – and all, forsooth! in order that the lust for gold that devours a few unscrupulous schemers may be gratified. (Evening Star, December 1901) David Tombs (2016), in his essay exploring the religious dimension of Baxter’s pacifism, speculates that Baxter’s opposition to war “may also have been strengthened by his sense of being Scottish rather than English”. It is surely conceivable that Barclay’s Irish voice appealed to Baxter, as a fellow member of

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a non-English minority. Malcolm McKinnon identifies Irish nationalism as one of five major motivations for Boer War opposition, and notes the fiery stance taken by Patrick O’Regan in this context (Crawford 2003). Baxter’s Scottish heritage and Barclay’s Irish heritage fit into this picture, highlighting the tensions within the “Greater Britishness” consensus. These types of reflections also allow for broader international comparisons, and to locate the content of Baxter’s pacifist stance in a wider political context. The period between the Boer War and the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 is tumultuous and rich with contradictory social and ideological forces. Although the consensus narrative rightly identifies the hegemonic nature of empire loyalism and militarism, it arguably fails to recognise the significance of developing opposition from the left. The rise of labour militancy which crests in the Great Strike of 1913, the impetus of first wave feminism and the impact of Irish nationalism, are threads in the same cloth out of which Baxter’s pacifism takes shape. All of these currents have international parallels, as does the specifically pacifist content of Baxter’s views. The connection between Baxter and major international figures such as Keir Hardie is full of these political resonances, which are not always immediately apparent under the heading of “conscientious objector”. Barclay’s opposition to the Boer War is an early thread in this wider narrative, and what it lacks in size or influence in 1902 it surely makes up for in its long-term political legacy. Elsie Locke (1992) identifies Boer War opposition as a single episode in a much longer peace tradition, stretching from the late 19th century through to the Vietnam War-era protests in the 1970s. This tradition has been informed by a number of ideological perspectives including feminism, pacifism and socialism. A notable thread in this heterogeneous peace tradition is anti-imperialism. The idea that capitalist nation-states wage war for reasons to do with resources and geopolitical power has become a popular and widespread belief in the 21st century. This idea played a major role in motivating people across the world to protest against the 2003 invasion of Iraq, an event recognised by social movement researchers as “the largest protest event in human history” (Walgrave and Pucht 2010), involving up to 30 million people across the globe. In Dunedin, around 3,000 people protested against the invasion. The tiny gathering of

understanding baxter’s “dunedin lawyer” |  237 clear that in the context of 1902, Barclay’s use of these terms would not have raised any eyebrows, it needs to be duly noted that there lies submerged a vast continent of colonial racism and dispossession, of which Barclay’s unthinking use of racist terms is but the tip of a proverbial iceberg. The sentence “[a]way, then, with the delusion that this war is waged in order to open up new territory to British colonists” is also noteworthy. Liberal and labour radicals who opposed the Boer War were not necessarily opposed to colonialism per se. In his discussion of the place of Africans in the debates between imperialists and their critics in this period, Arthur Davey (1978) observes that “this issue was almost peripheral and of modest dimensions and weight”. Noting that this topic is beyond the scope of this article, mention should also be made of the critical anti-racist stance of Keir Hardie in his controversial visit to South Africa in 1907 (Plaut 2014), and the similarly anti-racist commentary of Baxter himself in the South African chapter of We Will Not Cease. For the young Archibald Baxter, however, we can confidently assume that the most striking and convincing aspect of Barclay’s speech was the portrayal of capitalist economic interests driving the war. The message which surely resonated was that the war had been deceptively sold to the public as a defence of democratic freedoms, whereas in fact it was a war about money and exploitation. Was this the first exposure Baxter had to socialist arguments? Quite likely it was not: Baxter was a keen reader and had probably encountered socialist literature in some shape or form prior to this speech. His social position as a poor agricultural labourer would have informed his sympathies and political interests. Many of the Hillside Railway workers may also have had considerable exposure to radical literature; they were keen readers who had access to an entire library on site (Tedeschi 2013). Baxter’s pacifism, therefore, has its origins in a radical, classconscious politics opposed to capitalism. The period between 1890 and 1914 in New Zealand witnessed the rise and development of a radical labour movement. As an agricultural worker, Baxter was on the fringes of this movement, but it is clear that he was familiar with and supportive of socialist ideals and politics. These ideals and politics are clearly in evidence on the pages of We Will Not Cease, in which Baxter uses the language of class and socialism to back up his anti-war stance. There is a direct line from the socialist ideals

242  |  tim leadbeater the costs of printing and distributing three million copies to workshops, lodges and homes”. The citation reads: TAP 32: “Labour Leaders and the

War” (National Arbitration League) 1900; Gardiner: Cadbury, p. 139. This is either the same leaflet, or some version of it.

References Barclay, A. R. (1899). The Origin of Wealth, Being the Theory of Karl Marx in Simple Form: An Address Delivered by A. R. Barclay at Roslyn, Dunedin, on Tuesday April 11 1899. Dunedin. Pamphlet held in McNab Collection. Barclay, A. R. (1909). The “Achilles Heel” of Civilisation: Being a Consideration of the Question of Unemployment. Dunedin. Pamphlet held in McNab Collection. Barclay, A. R. (1910). The Premier and His Troubles: Being an Address Delivered at the Trades Hall, Dunedin. Dunedin. Pamphlet held in McNab Collection. Baxter, A. (2014). We Will Not Cease. Auckland: Cape Catley. Baxter, M. (1981). The Memoirs of Millicent Baxter. Auckland: Cape Catley. Crawford, J. and McGibbon, I. (2003). One Flag, One Queen, One Tongue: New Zealand, the British Empire and the South African War. Auckland: Auckland University Press. Davey, A. (1978). The British Pro-Boers 1877–1902. Cape Town: Tafelberg Publishers. Griffith, P. (2015). Out of the Shadows: The Life of Millicent Baxter. Wellington: PenPublishing. Hamer, D. (1988). The New Zealand Liberals: The Years of Power, 1891–1912. Auckland: Auckland University Press. Hobhouse, E. (1901). Report of a Visit to the Camps of Women and Children in the Cape and

Orange River Colonies. Available at: https://digital.lib.sun.ac.za/ handle/10019.2/2530. Hobson, J. A. (1900). The War in South Africa: Its Causes and Effects. London: Nisbet. Available at: https://archive.org/details/ warinsouthafrica00hobsuoft. Locke, E. (1992). Peace People. Christchurch: Hazard Press. Loveridge, S. (2014). Calls to Arms: New Zealand Society and the Commitment to the Great War. Wellington: Victoria University Press. McKay, F. (1990). The Life of James K. Baxter. New Zealand: Oxford University Press. New Zealand Government. (1899). New Zealand Parliamentary Debates v.110: September 27 to October 23. Available at: https://babel. hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.321060 19788170;view=1up;seq=7. New Zealand Government. (1900). Appendix to the Journals of the New Zealand House of Representatives, Session I, H-29: Correspondence between the Rt. Hon. the Premier and the Chief Hansard Reporter. Available at: https://paperspast.natlib.govt. nz/parliamentary/appendix-tothe-journals-of-the-house-ofrepresentatives/1900/I/3367. Olssen, E. (1995). Building the New World. Auckland: Auckland University Press. Phillips, J. (1996). A Man’s Country?: The Image of the Pakeha Male. A History. Auckland: Penguin Books.

understanding baxter’s “dunedin lawyer” |  243 Plaut, M. (2014). Keir Hardie in South Africa. [Blog] Hatful of History. Available at: https://hatfulofhistory. wordpress.com/2014/08/16/keirhardie-in-south-africa/ [Accessed 27 May 2018]. Sangster, N. (2013). The South African War of 1899–1902: A Historiography. Historia, 22, pp. 100–121. Simpson, T. (1984). A Vision Betrayed: The Decline of Democracy in New Zealand. Auckland: Hodder and Stoughton. Smith, I. R. and Stucki, A. (2011). The Colonial Development of Concentration Camps (1868–1902). The Journal of Imperial and

Commonwealth History, (39)3, pp. 417–437. Tedeschi, A. (2013). The Hillside Railway Workshops’ Library. [Blog] Antipodean Footnotes. Available at: http://antipodeanfootnotes. blogspot.co.nz/2013/02/the-hillsiderailway-workshops-library.html [Accessed 27 May 2018]. Tombs, D. (2016). Under the Surface: Archibald Baxter’s Christian Faith. [unpublished essay]. Walgrave, S. and Pucht, D. (2010). The World Says No to War: Demonstrators against the War on Iraq. Social Movements, Protest and Contention 33. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

INDEX

Afghanistan, 92, 93 Agamben, Giorgio, 35 agency, 5, 18, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 30, 31, 38, 57, 74, 171 Al-Araj, Basil, 141 Amery, Jean, 25 anarchism/anarchist, 11, 18, 43, 44, 46, 47, 49, 51, 52, 57, 58, 70, 80 anarcho-pacifism, 9 anti-apartheid, 134, 136, 152 anti-globalisation movement, 71, 72 anti-imperialism, 236, 240 armed struggle, 2, 8, 9, 111–112, 124 Arab Spring/Arab rebellion, 2, 37, 38, 66, 67, 68, 73, 76, 94, Arendt, Hannah, 22, 30, 33, 36, 207 Athens, 2 Auschwitz, 234 Australia, 11, 15, 76, 95, 156, 157, 158, 159, 164, 165, 166, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, Bakunin, Mikhail, 46, 53, 54, 57 Baltimore, 2 Barghouti, Omar, 134, 136, 147 Baxter, Archibald, 16, 224–225, 226, 227, 228, 230, 236, 237, 238, 239, 240–241 Benjamin, Walter, 77 Berlin, 2, 8 Berlin Wall, 8 Bhave, Vinoba, 59 biopolitics/biopolitical, 4 Boer War, 16, 224, 226, 227, 228, 230–231, 232–235, 237, 238, 239, 240 Bookchin, Murray, 12, 13, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 50, 57, 58, 59 Bougainville, 76 bystander public, 157, 163, 171 Cairo, 2 Cambridge Analytica, 166

capitalism, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 13, 44, 45, 47, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 70, 72, 73, 75, 76, 77, 79, 80, 97, 110, 115, 118, 119, 126, 128, 237 Catalonia, 43, 58 Charlotte, 2 Chatham Islands, 203 Chenoweth, Erica, 1, 2, 8, 23, 24, 30, 51, 52, 55, 59, 64, 65, 94, 97, 107, 127, 135, 146, 158, 169, 176, 215, 216; see also Stephen, Maria China, 50, 172 Chinese revolution, 49 Cincinnati, 2 civil rights movement, 28, 59, 110, 113, 164 Clausewitz, Carl von, 24, 29 Cold War, 89, 95, 103 colonialism, 11, 15, 18, 56, 126, 210, 229, 237 coloniality, 10 Colour Revolution, 2, 66, 175 Comfort, Alex, 59 community, 2, 5, 9, 10, 11, 14, 16, 23, 68, 74, 89, 90, 94, 99, 101, 103, 104, 115–117, 120, 124, 126, 144, 160, 166, 168, 172, 174, 176, 200, 201, 203, 205, 206, 207, 208, 220, 225, 239 concentration camps, 234, 235 conscientious objector, 209, 240 constructive project, 9, 10, 118 Corbyn, Jeremy, 45 Cuba, 234 Day, Dorothy, 59 decolonial/decoloniality, 6, 10, 16, 212 Deming, Barbara, 22, 24, 27, 28, 29, 31, 56 DFLP, 140 dignity, 9, 14, 23, 25, 36, 38, 49, 57, 107, 108, 110, 111, 113, 114, 115, 118, 119, 121, 126, 128, 129

246  |  index ecological justice/environmental justice, 6, 11 Egypt, 66, 76, 94 Electronic Frontiers Foundation, 103 emancipation, 9, 18, 29, 30, 31, 36, 48, 113, 116, 121, 128 everyday resistance, 23 Extinction Rebellion, 4 Fabian Society, 230, 232 Facebook, 162, 163, 164, 166, 168 169, 171 fake news, 93, 166, 170 Fanon, Franz, 25, 26, 27, 33, 34, 35, 54, 55, 56, 57, 129 feminist/feminism, 11, 231, 232, 233, 240 Ferguson, 2 Finland, 95 Foucault, Michel, 23, 29, 34, 69, 70, 122, 123 Freire, Paolo, 55, 56 Galtung, Johan, 47, 51, 69, 77, 101, 158, 176 Gandhi, Mohandus, 19, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 35, 38, 41, 57, 59, 67, 84, 88, 89, 90, 95, 99, 100, 130, 201, 202 gay rights movement, 165 Germany, 95 global justice movement, 64, 68 Goodman, Paul, 59 Graeber, David, 67, 68 grassroots, 2, 9, 14, 15, 94, 97, 101, 104, 117, 119, 131, 132, 134, 136, 138, 139, 148, 151, 152, 156, 157, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 171, 172, 175 Habermas, Jurgen, 118, 168 Hamas, 140, 149 hidden resistance, 23 hierarchy, 13, 42, 97, 137, 145 Hong Kong, 2, 8 humanitarian intervention, 21 Hungary, 95 inequality, 3, 13, 44, 63, 95, 97, 165, 167 Internet farms, 166

intersectionality, 5, 137 Intifada(s); First; Second, 133, 135, 150 Iraq, 23, 92, 96, 228, 240 ISIS, 23 Istanbul, 2 Italy, 95 Jerusalem, 149 jiu-jitsu; moral; political, 15, 142, 156, 157, 158 just-war theory, 52 Khartoum, 2 King Jr., Martin Luther, 84, 171, 201

Land and Freedom, 115 League of Nations, 195 Lebanon, 94, 143 legitimacy, 3, 28, 55, 104, 117, 133, 134, 138, 139, 140, 141, 147, 148, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 157, 164, 165, 175, 180, 204, 215 Leninism/Leninist, 46 LGBTQI, 165 London, 2 Madrid, 2 Mafeking, 231–233, 235 Maori King Movement, 183, 187, 192 Marx, Karl, 31, 35, 43, 46, 57, 229, 230 Marxist/Marxism, 12, 18, 25, 30, 42, 43, 44, 46, 47, 50, 58, 59, 118 McDonalds, 8 Milosovic, 172 Milwaukee, 2 moral injury, 25; see also PTSD Movement for a Democratic Society, 128 Movement in El Barrio, 128 National Council of Women, 232 nationalism, 3, 232, 240 Narayan, Jayaprakash, 59 neoliberal, 3, 5, 7, 43, 44, 45, 52, 65, 67, 68, 96, 109, 114, 121, 130 Netherlands, 95

index |  247 New Zealand, 10, 15, 16, 39, 93, 181, 182, 185, 187, 188, 191, 192, 195, 201, 202, 205, 206, 207, 209, 210, 211, 224, 226, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 237, 238, 239, 241 nonviolence; pragmatic; principled, 1–2, 6–15, 17–21, 23–25, 27–31, 37–42, 45–47, 51–54, 56–57, 59, 63–67, 70, 75–80, 91, 94, 97, 99, 100, 104, 107, 108, 109, 126, 127, 128, 132, 133, 134–139, 141–142, 149–150, 153, 155, 179, 215 Norway, 95 nuclear war, 87 Occupy movement, 2, 3, 45, 68, 167 Oslo, 14, 132–133, 138, 139, 140, 141, 148, 151, 155 pacifism; absolute; collective; ecological; fallibility; liberal; nuclear; pragmatic; technological, 7, 9, 12–14, 16, 18, 19, 20, 28, 29, 31, 37, 39, 42, 45, 46, 58, 63, 78, 80, 84–89, 91–93, 136, 200, 207–209, 212, 215–216, 220, 224, 227–228, 237, 239, 240 Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO), 143 Papua New Guinea, 76 Paris, 2 Paris Commune, 54 passive resistance, 28, 200, 201, 202, 215, 216 patriarchy, 97, 111, 122, 125, 126 PFLP, 140 Pol Pot, 48, 58 populism, 3 Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), 25; see also moral injury power, 4, 5, 6, 8, 12, 15, 18–23, 26–27, 29–30, 32, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39, 49, 52, 63, 65–74, 78, 80, 90, 96, 97, 101, 102, 104, 110, 114, 116, 122, 127, 130, 132, 133, 134, 135, 138, 139, 141, 142, 145, 146, 151, 153, 156, 157, 158–161, 163, 165–173,

175, 185, 192, 207, 209, 212, 215, 228, 234, 240 pragmatic nonviolence, 7, 11, 20, 37, 52 pre-figure/pre-figuration/prefigured, 67, 68, 75–79 protest, 3, 8, 13, 15, 28, 38, 52, 63, 68, 73, 74, 75, 79, 90, 91, 109, 118, 127, 137, 148, 153, 156, 157, 158, 163, 167, 169, 171, 173, 180, 195, 202, 205, 208, 215, 239, 240, 241 Puerto Rican, 128 Rabaa massacre, 76 racism, 3, 20, 45, 85, 91, 92, 237 radical democracy, 9 reformism/reformist, 6–8, 12, 28, 110 resistance, 1–2, 4–9, 10–21, 23–24, 27–31, 34–38, 56–57, 63, 65, 67–76, 78, 79, 94, 95, 97, 98, 99, 101, 103, 107, 108, 109, 110–115, 120, 122, 125, 127–130, 132–142, 145–152, 156, 157, 158, 161–169, 171–173, 175, 177, 181, 182, 194, 200–210, 215–217, 219 respectability politics, 20 Rojava, 46, 58, 128 Russell, Bertrand, 95 Russian revolution, 44, 49, 50 San Andres Accords, 113 Sanders, Bernie, 45 Sarvodaya movement, 59 Sao Paulo, 2 Seddon, Richard John, 226, 229, 230, 231, 232, 234 Serbia, 94, 172 sexism, 85, 91, 92 Sharp, Gene, 90, 107, 127, 135, 157, 215 social justice movements, 7, 8, 10 Sorel, Georges, 78 South Africa, 134, 146, 148, 225, 226, 232, 234, 236, 237, 241 Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty, 55 Stalinist, 43, 49, 50, 59 Stephen, Maria, 94, 107, 127; see also Chenoweth, Erica Stockholm, 2

248  |  index subaltern, 22, 128 subjectivity, 10, 18, 21, 27, 31, 37, 70, 110, 124, 126 Sweden, 95 Te Kooti Rikirangi, 213 Tel Aviv, 2 terrorism, 96, 103, 104, 137 Thatcher, Margaret, 13, 63 Tibet, 50 Tolstoy, Leo, 35, 59 torture, 56, 92, 99 Trotsky, Leon, 49, 50, 51, 54, 57 Trotskyist, 43, 46 Tunisia, 94 Turkestan, 50

unarmed insurrection, 2, 19, 30, 37, 39 urban revolt/insurrection, 2, 3, 4, 8 USA, 60 Vietnam; war, 92, 228, 240 violence; cultural; direct; epistemic; structural, 3, 5, 19, 20, 51, 158 Waitangi, Treaty of, 182, 195 Walker, Ranginui, 215 We Will Not Cease, 16, 224, 227, 237 white privilege, 20 white saviour complex, 20, 24 Women’s Rights movement, 112, 123, 124, 125, 164 yellow shirts, 8

Ukraine, 58, 94 UN, 142

Žižek, Slavoj, 65, 71–73, 75, 76, 79