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Title: Building an antiwar movement Author: Laurence Cox Date: October 2001 Language: en Topics: anti-war Source: Retrieved on 16th December 2021 from http://struggle.ws/issues/war/afghan/pamwt/antiwar.html Notes: Laurence Cox (Dublin) has been involved in social movements for nearly 20 years, including opposing the Falklands War, the nuclear arms race and the second Gulf War. He’s an academic specialist in social movements research, currently studying working-class community politics in Ireland.
It’s easy to feel despair, isolation and frustration at what’s presented
to us as an inevitable drive into an indefinitely long war. The key
ingredients of success in building a successful anti-war movement are
confidence in ordinary people’s potential, solidarity with each other
and a long-term view: we have not been able to prevent the first bombs
falling, but over time we can reverse the dynamic and stop the war.
Historical experience — desertion and mutinies at the end of World War
I, the international movement against the war in Vietnam, the
anti-nuclear movement of the 1980s — shows that movements can stop or
divert even large-scale processes of militarisation, but only when large
numbers of ordinary people are actively involved. The experience of
active involvement in turn gives people more confidence in their own
capacities to think and act for themselves, which is an important
element in building a better world. This means:
on expressing only the most radical line will isolate activists at the
very time when many ordinary people are looking for a way out. To insist
on being as “mainstream” as possible will stop the movement developing
and restrict participation to a small section of the population. So a
good “platform” will include as wide a range of anti-war voices as
possible. This enables the movement to speak to different people and is
part of learning from each other.
take part in. It’s important to remember that most actions don’t have an
immediate chance of stopping the war; but if they give people a chance
to learn how to become active, to gain confidence and to develop their
own understanding, they can help build a movement that does have a
chance.
people to the exclusion of everyone else. While activists may have
particular skills, their job is to share them and pass them on. Stopping
this war is likely to be a long campaign, so we will need to develop
everyone’s ability to take part at every level.
In terms of strategy, it’s important for people to mobilise within their
own everyday contexts, both to root the movement in the real world and
to change the existing social relationships that ultimately give rise to
war. While the movement will also need to reach out into public space
and develop a “political” face, this shouldn’t become separate from the
rest of the movement. The point is for ordinary people to politicise
themselves, not to develop a separate political Ă©lite. In practice, what
we need to do is:
the bus, in school, online — anywhere where people already know us. This
may seem challenging at times, but it’s becoming clear that far more
people are uneasy about the prospect of war than the media leads us to
think. By opening up this new space for communication, we undermine some
of the usual power relationships and creating space for new kinds of
solidarity and friendship.
going on a march, coming to a meeting, putting up posters, circulating a
letter. We’re trying to “push people’s boundaries” enough so that they
feel they are becoming active, but not so much that they see activism as
beyond their reach.
yet know how: ask them to speak at meetings or write leaflets, help them
to put press releases or websites together, show them how to organise a
public meeting or a march. Be careful of patronising people: the trick
is to be confident that they can do whatever they set their mind to, and
make sure they have the backup they need to do it. The second time
somebody does something, we should leave them to it!
most of us are going to have to find out more about all kinds of issues,
from foreign policy to Islam to international law. This also gives us a
chance to build connections by inviting speakers from other groups, from
local Muslim associations to college lecturers to development
organisations.
welcomed, we should work and argue for making links to other issues,
most importantly foreign policy, “development” and world economics,
racism and intolerance, and civil liberties. To stop the war and leave
the system ready for another war tomorrow is not enough.
Encourage people to take independent action (and support them when they
do); work to create networks between different groups and initiatives,
without imposing a single “line” that everyone has to follow.
This war may run for years in various forms, and a movement that can
stop it will need to include many different social groups. So there’s
space for all sorts of different action, and it’s important to respect
this, because it’s how new people will both find their way to the
movement and how other people can contribute something we might not have
thought of. Different actions also have different purposes (though some
overlap):
leaflets, videos, etc.
websites, gatherings, benefit gigs, etc.
occupations, peace observers, supporting deserters, blockades, etc.
releases, photo opportunities, etc.
We learn as movements, not just as individuals, and the dialogue between
us is important. There is no book that can tell us authoritatively how
we are going to stop this war; it’s something we will work out together
in practice. We can certainly learn from other movements and past
history (several campaigns have produced excellent “how-to” guides that
are a real goldmine of ideas), but at the end of the day none of us
knows exactly what will work, and we won’t know until we’ve managed to
stop the war (if then!) In the process, though, we are also learning
something else of immense value: how to treat each other as equals, how
to cooperate and communicate without bosses and laws, and how to build
the kind of world that we want to live in.