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Title: Violence, Non-Violence, Diversity of Tactics
Author: Peter Gelderloos
Date: 2021
Language: en
Topics: historical memory, non-violence, violence, diversity of tactics, ecological crisis, Extinction Rebellion, climate change, counter-insurgency, recuperation, Return Fire, NGOs, social war, land connection
Notes: Transcribed to accompany Return Fire vol.6 chap.4 (summer 2022) — PDFs of Return Fire and related publications can be read, downloaded and printed by visiting returnfire.noblogs.org or emailing returnfire@riseup.net

Peter Gelderloos

Violence, Non-Violence, Diversity of Tactics

Note from Return Fire

This interview was conducted in 2021, but a frequently cutting-out

internet connection heavily marred the audio version it was first

released as, leading to much frustration and repetition during the

conversation, which has here been edited out. Doubtless much richness

was lost in the parts that were untranscribable from the original, but

we hope this version will extend the reach and audience for this

perennial conversation.

As the interviewing host stated, “I think it’s really important that we

have these discussions, especially now when I think a lot of

environmental movements that have limited themselves to this type of

non-violence are starting to show their limitations and their failings,

so it’s really important that we push a better alternative; both in

words, but also in actions, in showing these things in practice.”

With recent groups such as This Is Not a Drill[1] emerging in the UK –

yet still with a code of non-violence, albeit having discarded the

idiotic categorisation of property damage as violence – we think it’s as

necessary as ever to promote a vision of struggle which (no matter what

tactics we use) ties us back into our histories, and forms a bridge to

our comrades and allies fighting in other lands. We want such groups to

continue, gain experiences and perspectives to share, and also that they

can benefit from the collective knowledge built up over generations and

generations of struggles, which the newest iteration of the ‘climate

justice movement’ has often failed to heed or integrate.

To this end we present this transcription; additionally, as any movement

which forgets the prisoners in the end forgets the struggle itself, this

is now released to coincide with the annual International Week of

Solidarity with Anarchist Prisoners.[2] Let’s not forget jailed

eco-defence fighters like Marius Mason, whose participation in the Earth

Liberation Front (ELF) of two decades past reveals much wisdom to absorb

from that cycle of action, reaction and repression. (Regarding the topic

of this interview, a recommended resource for how that conversation

played out during those years can be found in the article ‘The Telescope

or the Kaleidoscope: A Critique of the ELF’, specifically regarding the

non-violence code of the latter.)

Lastly, please refer to the end of the text for the details of prisoners

from last year’s Kill the Bill riot in Bristol:[3] people who were on

the streets and often fighting back to defend the conditions for even

‘non-violent’ action.

– R.F., August 2022

returnfire.noblogs.org

---

An interview with Peter Gelderloos

– So, first of all I think this is what we’re generally going to be

talking about: the topics of violence, non-violence, diversity of

tactics, and all of these discussions that have been happening for quite

some time in social movements. So maybe to start with it would be good

to know, if you could tell us a bit, where does this debate come from?

What’s the history? Why is it such a divisive issue, and a bit of

history of this conversation that has been happening.

For starters, when we talk about non-violence, we’re talking about an

exclusive practice that tries to only allow tactics or methods that they

define as non-violent. And so the counter to that: not violence, but a

diversity of tactics, and a diversity of methods, and beliefs and

strategies, without an obsessive focus on often moralistic definitions

of whether or not a specific action is violent.

There are as many histories to this debate as there are people who can

tell it. In my experience, coming of age around the anti-globalisation

movement and then the anti-war [ed. – in Iraq] movement, late ‘90s,

early ‘00s, it was very much a question of a non-violent hegemony that

for the most part social movements in the Global North were dominated

by. Non-violent groups who often co-operated with the media and the

police to prevent anyone from breaking with the action plans that they

set out, or the limitations on tactics. So in that context it was very

much an effort of some people to reconnect with histories of struggle

that were more radical, that were more effective, and that used a very

wide range of tactics. We had to break the strangle-hold on discourse,

on strategy, and reconnect with these histories: which had largely been

silenced.

But to be fair, there’s going to be a lot of other histories, other

points that that debate comes out of. So some folks who survived certain

struggles in the ‘60s and ‘70s: there were also moments of debate where

maybe a specific movement was very locked into a more militaristic

strategy. To me, to criticise that effectively, that’s a critique of

militarism, and not of violence per se: which is of course a very vague

category. But there were certainly other moments when people were

getting into this debate over what tactics and strategies are

appropriate from a completely different angle.

– And has it always been the case... well, not always, but in the

current period has it always been the case that nation-states and other

institutions, part of the establishment, have tried to use this rhetoric

of labelling people violent or non-violent? Or is this a modern

phenomenon?

It’s been going on for a very long time. I don’t think the word

violence, the category, was used systematically to describe – or police

– the actions of people in social movements until the 20^(th) century;

really especially with the popularity (particularly Gandhian)

non-violence. Although certainly categories of violence were used to

generate social alarm about supposed dangers to society, certainly going

back to the 19^(th) century and before.

Governments will particularly encourage people on the Right, on the

right-wing, to attack other members of society who are portrayed as

dangerous or disloyal. But then they’re very, very invested in policing

anyone who is talking about some kind of liberatory, emancipatory,

revolutionary change to society: anyone who’s talking about a world in

which everyone can be free, a world in which we actually address these

very deep oppressions that run all throughout our society. Anyone who’s

coming at social change from that angle is of course held to these

strict standards of non-violence by the media, by politicians, and by

all institutions of the State.

– Although, something that we’ve seen a lot recently in some of our

movements (in particular in the environmental movement, in the UK and

other countries) is that activists themselves have taken this rhetoric

of non-violence, and advocating it as the most effective strategy. What

do you think are the main issues with this enforcement and promotion of

non-violence in political movements?

Referring specifically to the newer formations in ecological movements,

just the level of historical amnesia is a huge problem. And the level of

disrespect to other ongoing movements. The environmental movement isn’t

new, there are just some new players on the scene, that have been

getting a lot of media attention. They not only have ignored a lot of

historical movements that were very important, and that give us a lot of

experiences that we can learn from: but they also ignore movements that

are ongoing today, or that have been extremely recent: like the various

ZADs in France, “zones to defend”, especially the most famous one at

(pardon my French) Notre-Dame-des-Landes which stopped an airport. It

stopped a project linked to one of the industries most involved in the

destruction of the planet. They successfully stopped that airport

project, and in the meantime all sorts of people create a completely

different relationship with the land: one that’s based in knowing the

land and respecting the land, becoming a part of the land rather than

these sort of alienated machines that just move over and outside of

nature...

That’s extremely important, that’s a major victory. And it was won using

a diversity of tactics. All of the struggles against pipelines in North

America, inspired by and in many cases centered on indigenous

resistance... There would be a diversity of tactics there, and connected

to a much longer history of struggle. Struggles in indigenous territory

all over the world, shutting down mines, stopping hydro-electric dams,

forestry plantations, and use a diversity of tactics...

And it’s just absolutely arrogant to come onto the scene and not connect

with those other struggles, not learn from them, not engage in dialogue

in them. Of course every new movement can offer something new, any new

person or a group of people who starts participating in the struggle

have something new to bring and they have something new to say that’s

valid. But not if they’re not able to listen, not if they’re not at all

interested in the people who are already out there, holding it down and

who’ve been passing on experiences of how to fight back for generations.

Which is probably why exactly those movements are getting so much media

attention: because they’re helping accomplish the break that capitalists

need and that politicians need so that the very people and institutions

who are responsible for destroying the planet can be the ones that sell

us back the solutions. Which is basically green capitalism, government

financing for huge infrastructure projects that will let those who

already own everything profit a little bit more.

All of that’s impossible if you have a view of defending the Earth

that’s sees people as a part of nature, that’s connected to indigenous

struggles and worldviews, that’s connected to an anti-capitalist or

anarchist analysis.

In general I think across the board, with any struggle, I think a good

basic rule is: don’t trust people or organisations that don’t show

solidarity with prisoners of the struggle. So there are people who are

in prison right now because they’ve been breaking capitalist laws to

defend a forest, to defend a swamp or a salt-marsh or a specific

species, or to defend that they grow food in relation with the land, or

to strike back against animal testing; or any of a number of things,

there are people in prison right now for those reasons. I think the

motivations of a supposedly environmentalist organisation that doesn’t

even mention them, that just lets them rot in prison, are highly

suspect.

– Why do you think such activist movements adopt these ideas? Are there

institutions which play a role in promoting them, like NGOs, political

parties, progressive media, and stuff like that? And how do they

accomplish that?

That’s a problem with the Left in general. And any critique of the Left:

it’s very messy. These organisations, these movements, they bring

together people who are absolutely sincere – with whom it’s completely

possible to be in solidarity – together with opportunists, with powerful

institutions which are part of the problem, which are seeking to profit

off of the problem. So it’s tricky to make these criticisms in a way

that that don’t make potential allies stick closer to those who we need

to fight against.

I think I need to answer that question on different levels at once. On

the one hand, what’s happening to life on this planet, what’s happening

to all of us, and all of the living beings that we live in relation with

is extremely depressing. And when something is so depressing, when so

much harm is being caused by such a huge, inexorable machine, the

easiest thing is to either ignore it – just close your eyes, pull up the

covers, and hope that it’ll go away – or rush to magic-wand solutions.

By a magic wand solution, I’m talking about something where we think we

can just pull a lever, where we don’t have to give anything back, we

don’t have to engage in any fundamental transformation, and it will just

spit out a solution. So governments that have been ensuring that ecocide

continues apace will suddenly be the ones who are protecting the

environment; or the corporations that are making billions off of

exploiting people, exploiting other living beings, exploiting the planet

as a living system will suddenly start producing products that protect

the planet.

That’s absurd; any reasonable person can see that that’s absurd. But all

of us have a huge emotional interest in not seeing the absurdity of that

because otherwise it means it’s on us. Otherwise it means we have to do

the really hard work and face the very serious risks of changing this,

of putting a stop to this ecocidal machine.

So people on the base; that’s on the one hand a sincere, honest mistake

of why they’re supporting methods that aren’t going to help, and that

might even make things worse. On the other hand, governments stay in

power by mobilising social conflicts and by presenting themselves as the

arbiters of social conflicts and social crises; so if anyone’s going to

solve it the governments have to be at the table, they have to be able

to define the process. So we get things that have really no hope of

(even in terms of this very limited, technocratic focus on climate

change) preventing the tipping points that we need to prevent, like the

Paris Accords. The important thing is that people are spectators

watching ‘their’ governments, ‘our’ governments supposedly, talk about

solving those things.

Capitalism is facing a pretty huge crisis of accumulation, they need

constant interventions, constant financing, constant investment

opportunities. There needs to be a new industrial expansion and switch

to so-called green energy, that would be certainly a great boon to

capitalism. So they’re very interested in financing an environmental

movement that is domesticated, that plays ball, and that aids in this

more technocratic reductionist approach. Which is mostly only looking at

atmospheric carbon rather than looking at the earth as an interconnected

web of relationships of which we are a part; in which every single thing

affects every other thing. So you can’t look at atmospheric carbon

without looking at sea otter populations, without looking at hunting

practices, without looking at how we grow our food, etc. etc. etc.

And you also have NGOs in there whose directors make huge fricking

salaries and who are involved in genocide, like the WWF which is

involved in genocidal practices in Africa; because they’re still locked

into this colonial mentality where nature and humans are mutually

exclusive. So they’re helping fund paramilitaries that are attacking

indigenous people and kicking indigenous people off their land.

The problem’s not humans: humans have been around for a really long

time. Planetary-scale ecological disaster is relatively recent problem;

it’s caused by capitalism, it’s caused by colonialism. And then the

regional- or continental-scale problems that you saw before that; they

didn’t happen everywhere. There are plenty of human societies that still

exist today that know how to exist as a healthy part of their ecosystem.

Whether we want to be or not, we are a part of the ecosystem always. We

can continue to rationalise nature, to turn it into a factory and

control outputs, inputs, and so forth; preserve a few spots as nature

reserves that we can charge tourists money to access. Or we can actually

realise that we’re a part of the earth, and we’re connected to all other

living things; and to get rid of capitalism, to get rid of all the

social machinery that alienates us and that prevents us from acting that

way.

– Yeah, absolutely. And also in terms of how these ideas spread and what

role do they play in the machinations of the State, there’s this idea of

counter-insurgency that the states use in order to undermine social

movements. And I wanted to know a bit, if you could talk about what that

is, and how it’s related to non-violence; and how do the governments use

it to accomplish their objectives?

In the science of the State, they’re studying things for social control:

for maintaining and increasing their power. In the past, in the more

modern period – using this Hobbsian metaphor of society as a body, with

the State as its brain – peace was thought to be the natural order of

society. (With the note of course that the only society they’re

interested in is a society ruled by a State. So they’re ignoring the

possibility that other kinds of societies.) So they were inclined by

their prejudices to believe that peace was the natural state of the

statist society, and so using the biologicism that was common during

modernity they would look at disorder as an infection, a sickness that

was caused by some agent coming from the outside.

So frequently in the late 19^(th) and early 20^(th) century, these

police agencies that were cooperating across Europe and North America,

sharing information (at that moment in particular about anarchist

agitators): they frequently used the metaphor – which one gets the

impression they weren’t even aware was a metaphor – of these anarchist

immigrants as a pestilence, as this external sickness that needed to be

expunged from the social body in order to make the social body healthy.

That police philosophy and that science of social control proved again

and again to be ineffective. And so finally (with the British actually

taking the lead in this, primarily with their experience against the

independence movements and anti-colonial movements in Kenya, but

immediately connecting this to experiences and the science of social

control in Ireland, in India, elsewhere; and immediately connecting

other colonial/neo-colonial and settler states like France and the US),

they realised that in fact it’s much more helpful and more accurate to

realise that the natural condition of society under the State is

constant warfare. Which interestingly enough is very similar to the idea

of social war developed by the anti-authoritarian feminist André Leó,

who was a veteran of the Paris Commune, a century earlier; and since

then really elaborated by insurrectionary anarchists and others, this

idea of social war.

So basically that’s the reality: the State is warfare against all of us

constantly. States actually have to realise that their existence hinges

on warfare; against their own populations. Because counter-insurgency

methodology pretty much immediately was adapted by States to use against

their own privileged citizen populations (privileged citizen in the

sense of it was initially developed in Kenya; it as quickly brought to

Brixton, Bristol, Los Angeles and Detroit). So it was never really a

marginal reality for the colonies; it’s something that in a way unites

how States view any of their subjects, colonial or otherwise. So they

had to realise that the conflict was permanent, and that they couldn’t

ever... even though they continued to use the troupe of outside

agitators because it’s a good way to delegitimise people, they couldn’t

actually think like that. They had to realise that they’re in constant

conflict with their society, and what they had to do was manage the

conflict.

So that means, for example, intelligence agencies and police agencies:

sometimes they’ll let a certain amount of stuff fly. They might be doing

intelligence gathering and they’ll be aware of illegal activities and

decide not to arrest anyone because if you arrest people, then you’re

shocking the movement; you’re giving away information on what you know.

And then the movement has the opportunity to improve their security

practices. Whereas if you just keep spying on them and watching, and do

social mapping, then you have a better chance of knowing everything

that’s going on, and your opponent – your enemy, the social movements –

will hopefully (for the State) continue to be lax about their security

practices.

So that’s just one practical difference that counter-insurgency strategy

brings about. Basically the broad goal of counter-insurgency strategy is

that conflict stays at the least level; which is non-violence. Frank

Kitson, this British military figure theorised three different levels of

social conflict, with the lowest being preparation, being non-violence;

and the highest being full-blown insurgency. So basically the State

wants to avoid the conflict getting to full-blown insurgency, which is

basically the point at which all of us – all the subjects of the State –

realise that we are are war, and fight back. The State would prefer for

this to be a one-sided war.

And so non-violence is useful to the State within counter-insurgency

methodology because it disciplines people to formulate their struggle as

demands, in dialogue with the State. Which of course ensures that the

State will always have a role in that: and can prevent being negated in

the process of the struggle.

– This is a topic that is a bit difficult to research, because you can

find out a lot of information about it online, even you can buy some of

the field manuals from the US Army (you can find the PDF online, I think

it’s the 3–24, something like that), or you can even buy the one that

you see in NATO and all of that kind of shit. But that’s always written

from their perspective. And it’s really useful to read about it, to read

them to learn how they think. But also it’s difficult to extrapolate

what they are actually trying to do. So what are good resources or ways

that people can better understand how the State approaches these

tactics; what strategies they use?

There’s a really good history of policing in the United States (although

some references are made to the UK) by Kristian Williams; Our Enemies in

Blue. And there are a number of... I think a lot more anarchists are

starting to deploy this thinking in our analysis of ongoing social

conflicts. Even the concept of recuperation which figures very heavily

in [Alfredo M.] Bonanno, or in Ai Ferri Corti (At Daggers Drawn); that’s

– in different language – a very direct reference to how the State

works, including with methodologies of counter-insurgency. That is

without a doubt useful.

There have been some essays that have been written that have been very

good, analysing the anti-racist/anti-police rebellion that began (or

began again) after George Floyd’s murder in the US this past summer; and

which of course spread to many other places, the UK included. At the

moment I can’t remember the title of the main article I’m thinking

about...

– Is it one of the ones published by Ill Will Editions, maybe?

Yeah, they definitely incorporate that thinking; that would be

available. And I’ll try to think of others and type them in as we go.

Also if anyone out there has read anything good? That’s definitely a

recent case in which people were analysing counter-insurgency

strategies. Oh crap, I wrote something too, looking at how the outside

agitator troupe was used to delegitimise the resistance: ‘The Other

White Vigilante’. So please, anyone who’s listening, feel free to share

articles or recommendations. But that lens have been very prevalent in

analysing. Especially from the Left: because interestingly enough, even

though the right-wing and the cops have killed several dozen people in

the course of that uprising, it seems that it’s actually been the

institutional Left and the centre-left that have been more effective in

pacifying those rebellions.

– That’s a really interesting point. Why do you think that’s the case?

I think that’s frequently the case. The right-wing needs to make

recourse to a far greater level of violence in order to just completely

stamp out movements and social struggles; which of course they’ve done

in the past, famously. But that level of violence and that level of

murder and repression also tends to have disruptive effects on

capitalism. Whereas the institutional Left is better positioned to

divide and pacify the movement; at least for a while. We saw how quickly

city council members and what-not went from advocating abolition to

defunding the police in a month... With the institutional Left being

closer to the movement (and sometimes part of the movement), they have

better intelligence, they can identify different, divide the movement

into sectors, identify radicals and isolate them through discourses of

non-violence. Through discourses of responsible reform.

And when the movement is divided like that, and the radicals are

isolated, then police repression also becomes more effective. Because

the police are not very intelligent, and often the way that they direct

their violence radicalises more people, encourages more people to fight

back, destabilises things even more.

– Yeah, I think that’s something that is very important for people

involved in social movements to be aware of. Because it’s quite

disheartening for a lot of people; and sometimes hard to believe, that

movements, organisations and people that you may see as your ally: they

can play this role in the counter-insurgency strategy of the State. I

think it’s something people should be aware of for sure. So, we’ve

talked a bit about how non-violent proponents hide the history of social

movements in order to make their points. But something that I think you

talk about in your books is that diversity of tactics is not only

something that has always been present but also that tends to be

actually effective, and actually deliver better results than keeping to

just non-violence, whatever that means. Why do you think it’s the case?

Why do you think allowing for different strategies to exist together;

why’s that more effective for social movements?

For a lot of different reasons. In situations of conflict in the streets

it’s just a lot more difficult for a centralized, unified enemy – like

the State, like police forces – to go up against a very complex,

heterogeneous (and sometimes even chaotic) opponent; which in one place

is using peaceful tactics like a candle-light vigil or a peaceful march,

or shaming officers; and in another place it has a shield-line and is

trying to push past the police: and in another place in engaging in

running street-battles, vandalizing, looting, attacking and

disappearing. That’s historically (and there’s recent examples of that

as well, and old examples of that) always been much more difficult for

States to go up against.

In terms of the ecosystem of a social movement, the more breadth and

diversity and difference there is, the healthier that social movement

is. The healthier debate there is. The more different practices you can

try out at once; it can work as a laboratory. It can tackle multiple

issues of the problem at the same time.

Centralised decision-making is actually very connected to unity; the

unity of tactics, and the unity of strategies that the Left is usually

referring to. That unity; it has to pass through some kind of

centralised point of decision-making and legitimacy. And centralised

decision-making is never more effective, it’s never faster: the only

advantage that it has is it allows authoritarian control of a larger

body, by creating a choke-point where legitimacy can be doled out.

So a diversity of tactics and methods is more effective for all those

reasons and more.

– How can we prevent these institutions who spread these ideas of

non-violence, who impose the ideas of non-violence; how can we keep the

diversity of tactics alive and healthy in our movements? How can we

promote it? What kind of strategies have you seen? What have you tried?

What kind of ideas can you give us to do it ourselves?

One thing that I think is really important and I think is not thought

about enough (at least in the English-speaking world), is this idea of

historical memory. Which is just translating from Catalan; it’s also

common in Spanish and Italian. Which isn’t this idea of history as

something that lives in books but something that exists in groups, in

collective sharing of experience. So in this view history is something

that we have to keep alive, it’s not something to just have in archives,

and in a movement that means constantly reconnecting with the past, with

experiences of struggle, reconnecting with the people who survived those

struggles who are still alive today, sharing stories from even older

struggles. And keeping them alive, keeping them in the streets; having

events about these histories of struggle and how they directly connect

to the present in our social centres, in our events and so on and so

forth.

I’ve noticed that non-violence – exclusive non-violence – is strongly

connected to historical amnesia. It’s strongly connected to movements

that forget their past. I think it’s good to check in every now and then

– how many people in a movement have a good strategic memory of things

that happened five and ten years ago? Whether it’s cases of repression,

or a big protest movement and riot, or a particularly effective

resistance, and just having conversations with folks who maybe you knew

them five or ten years ago and checking in with them if they know about

these arrests, if they know about those riots, if they know about such

and such campaign. And if a significant number of people don’t even have

a strategic memory of things that happened five and ten years ago... and

by strategic memory, I mean they don’t have to be able to write a

fricking doctoral thesis on it, but at least they should be able to know

enough about the meaning of that event that they can use it as a

strategic reference. Like, oh when that happened, it really really

helped that people started having potlucks among all the friends and

family members of all the people who got arrested, because it let us see

each other, we could support each other emotionally, and so on and so

forth.

That’s what I mean by strategic memory; at least enough details that

we’ve learned something from it. If a significant number of people in a

movement don’t have a strategic memory of things just five and ten years

ago, then we’re in trouble. So that’s one thing, this continuity of

history. I don’t know how things are in the place where everyone lives

right now, but if you’re in a moment of social peace, if you’re in a

moment when the State is successfully hiding, covering up the main

conflicts: mostly these tactics and these strategies they live on in

movements, but if there’s not a strong movement at the moment then we

can do events popularising movements that inspire us. You can be

inspired by the ZAD and block the airport. You can do a video-call with

people who participated in the struggle at Standing Rock, or trying to

stop oil pipelines and so forth. So we have to actively keep memory

alive, we have to actively build relationships and build connections,

they don’t just pop up by themselves. And I find that when we do that,

then people are most inclined to be really aware of the tactics and

methods that have been used to win the few victories that we’ve won, to

protect the few things that we still have that we can call our own;

whether they’re traditional governance, whether they’re labour rights,

or whether they’re wetlands or forests that haven’t been destroyed.

– Yeah, I think that’s definitely very, very important. Personally,

learning about the history of our struggle from the places I was born:

that was completely hidden from me when I was growing up. It was

extremely important in my radicalisation, and I think that’s the case

with many, many other people. I think that’s something very important to

keep alive. Talking about the victories we’ve had, something that you

talk about in The Failure of Non-Violence is that sometimes the criteria

that non-violent campaigners often use to determine what a victory is,

and to claim a victory, doesn’t really represent a meaningful victory

for what we want. And instead you talk about a different criteria that

we can use to evaluate the victories that we do have. So if you could

talk a bit about that, that’d be great.

Personally, the main example for me is that as I was growing up and as I

was starting to become active in social movements, referring to the

Civil Rights movement in the US (the ‘50s and ‘60s, the movement that

got rid of legal segregation by race in the US): basically all the white

people that I spoke with considered the movement a victory. And all the

black comrades I spoke with did not consider the movement a victory;

they considered it either a failure, or something that was still going.

That’s a very distinctive difference.

If a victory can win a change that makes survival a little bit easier

for a group of people, or if a movement can win a symbolic change which

effects how a group of people is viewed by the rest of society, or how

they view themselves: that’s important. That’s not something to ignore.

But when a problem is so deep-rooted that it runs through every aspect

of society – like capitalism, like white-supremacy, like the

exploitation and the destruction of the environment – it’s just

completely insincere to claim a major victory when the only thing that’s

been won is at best a step towards a meaningful victory. And it’s

obviously very much in the interests of power (and this is certainly in

line with counter-insurgency thinking) to spread the narrative that a

movement won, if that movement had potential.

So any movement that questions environmental destruction has the

potential for being radical, because – like you pointed out in the

introduction – anyone who’s willing to open their eyes, they’re going to

start staring capitalism right in the face. Because capitalism is

inherently ecocidal. Anyone who’s concerned about racism and

white-supremacy; that’s potentially very radical, because they have the

potential to see how that’s an organising principle across society, how

it’s connected to colonisation (which is how Western society became

global in the first place). It’s connected to the birth of capitalism.

So it would require us to start criticising all of these other aspects

of our society.

It’s very much in the interests of the State for people to think that a

struggle against racism was successful. Because then people can think

“oh good, there’s no more racism; or there’s only a few backwards people

who are still racist today.” Or in the case of a decolonisation

movement, it’s very useful for the State to get people to think that the

independence movement in India was a complete success; because then

we’re not going to be looking at neo-colonialism. We’re not going to be

looking at how that power can continue in some other form.

And then a different example (also extremely useful): it’s very, very

helpful for people to think that non-violence in the anti-war movement

was the decisive factor in ending the war against Vietnam. Which is of

course historically a total manipulation: that’s not the case at all.

But non-violence advocates believed their own lies; which the State and

the capitalist media certainly helped them to promote, such that in

2003, when the US and the UK and other countries were getting ready to

invade Iraq again, there were all these people who thought that a

peaceful protest movement would actually be able to prevent the

invasion. So after the largest protests in human history, in March of

2003 – which were in most countries exclusively or almost exclusively

non-violent – all of the non-violent campaigners then predicted that it

would be impossible for those states to invade Iraq, because they had

this movement that was even larger than the peace movement over Vietnam.

And of course that was delusional; that did not end up being how that

played down.

So that’s a very direct example of how the State – by helping to spread

a non-violent version of history – was able to protect itself from real,

forceful and dangerous resistance.

– So I don’t want to take much more time, I want to give the opportunity

to people to ask questions and make contributions. So if people want to

ask questions on the chat, or even if they want to un-mute themselves,

just let me know on the chat. Or if they want to make contributions,

talk about useful memories of resistance that they want to share with

us, experience with non-violence campaigners and how that’s affected

them and stuff like that: just really anything, feel free to do so. So

we have a couple of questions in the chat: one of them is, do you have

any advice on convincing groups or individuals to reject exclusive

non-violence? So this would be a typical case of, you have a friend, or

you are in some assembly or something and people are really stuck on the

non-violent thing... How would you go about trying to move that

conversation into a more useful space?

First I want to say sorry for being long-winded: and for the questions

I’ll try to be more concise and make room for other people. And also, to

repeat, by all means don’t feel obliged to ask a question: if you’d like

to share your own experience or something, it doesn’t have to be in that

frame.

For the first question, on convincing individuals to reject an exclusive

non-violence: I would say that it’s very important to encourage people

to understand the types of movements that are already happening.

Particularly indigenous resistance (which is crucial to challenging

colonialism, to challenging capitalism, and also in terms of protecting

biodiversity around the world); so it’s just absolutely absurd to try to

conceptualise an environmental movement that doesn’t include the present

of indigenous resistance.

– If people want some example of indigenous resistance that they can

draw from, we did do a live-stream a little bit ago about the Mapuche

struggle for autonomy. We’ve got someone from the Mapuche Solidarity

Network, or Chile Solidarity Network, to talk about their history and

their struggle and their fight. I think they are a really great example

that we can draw upon. So if you wanted to learn a bit more about that,

that could be a place to start.

If you can convince people to recognise indigenous and anti-colonial

struggles connecting with those other struggles that are going on,

rather than just invisibilising them, really the next step will be to

say “well, it’s great over there, but it’s inappropriate or ineffective

over in...” insert wealthy, white-majority country wherever they happen

to be living. And so then you just need to the critique of

not-in-my-back-yard politics (or ‘nimby’ politics); which has long been

pointed out to be a racist politics, a way of dividing globally... How

convenient: the people in these poorer countries have to face all the

risks, whereas we have to pour fake blood on ourselves on the steps of

Parliament. So it’s just an acceptable division of risk.

So that can be useful to convince people. If people have based their

idea on these statistical studies that have gone around that supposedly

prove that non-violence is more effective, you just need to point out

that those studies – aside from being formulated by and promoted by

people who worked for the US government, for the State Department and

the Defence Department, and aside from getting rewarded very richly by

current power structures – it doesn’t uphold the most basic standards

for a statistical comparison. Because they don’t even use the same

standards for deciding which examples get included in Group A and which

examples get included in Group B. So it’s basically a trash study which

went international because it’s saying what corporate media want people

to hear. And I break that study down in more detail in The Failure of

Non-Violence and also in an article that I got published recently...

‘Debunking the Myths Around Nonviolent Resistance’.

– So we have another question: what are your thoughts on non-human

resistance and on anti-speciesism being a fundamental aspect to consider

in order to achieve a total liberation? Have your views on it changed

after your ‘Veganism: Why Not’ essay was published?

I think non-human resistance is really important: honestly, I think

anti-speciesism tends to be a liberal philosophical framework. It seems

to be just a sort of extension of the basic concept of the liberal

framework. And I also completely disagree with this arbitrary taxonomy

or distinction between animals and other forms of life: I don’t think

that’s either respectful or realistic, or very helpful.

I think we absolutely need to understand ourselves and constitute

ourselves as respectful parts of our ecosystems; not any better or more

important than any other form of life, not something that exists on top

of the ecosystem. We shouldn’t understand other forms of life as things

that exist for our exploitation. And I certainly don’t think that any

living thing should live in a cage. But I also think that we need to be

very guarded about consumer politics, or politics that have that

potential for just diverting into ethical consumerism: which is a trap,

which is encouraged. I mean, the United Nations is encouraging a vegan

dietary politics, there’s plenty of progressive cities, like Barcelona,

the city government is encouraging that kind of ethical consumer

politics... The strategies that are most effective in terms of humans

relating with their environment, for example there’s just tons of

struggles for traditional hunting and fishing rights within indigenous

movements across the Americas: a culture that’s based on supermarkets

really has no grounds for criticising that deeper and much more

intelligent way of relating with other living beings.

Here in Catalunya there’s actually movements connected to a very long

history of commoning, of preserving the commons and also sustaining a

more sustainable and respectful role for humans within their

environment, that are actually coming from pastoralists, from shepherds

who in the region of the Pyrenees. You move the whole flock from the

highlands to the lowlands or vice versa; that actually pits them against

the individualised property regime that was brought in by capitalism.

– Someone else on the chat made a really good point that another way to

undo the narrative of non-violence is to challenge what we define as

violence. Violence can be seen as poverty, as oppression, not just

physical violence or property damage, and I think that’s a really,

really good point. And Peter, you have done it in other places as well,

and I think it’s one of the biggest hypocrisies: I’ve seen a lot of

non-violent movements, what they consider non-violence, why they

consider violence, what they don’t consider violence... So we have

another question as well: how do those using diversity of tactics find

ways to collaborate with ethical pacifists? For example, people who are

non-violent for religious reasons rather than pragmatic reasons. Is

there anyone in the chat who wants to do any contribution, like we were

saying: share a bit of their experiences with struggles, how they’ve

tackled them, any of that? If you’ve tried to educate anyone about these

topics or anything like that; if you’ve had any issues. This would be a

great time. I know people are always a bit shy to un-mute themselves and

speak... but don’t really worry about it! Oh, someone is just saying

they just received a very angry message in a group for sharing this

event on Twitter; which is very relateable, for sure...

I appreciate the question. The first time I went to jail, my cell-mate

for two weeks was this Franciscan monk, Jerry Zawada, who dedicated his

life to going onto military bases and getting arrested again and again

to draw attention to US militarism, to death-squads and nuclear weapons;

and he was a total pacifist, and this really beautiful human being. I

think it’s really important to make connections with folks like that and

to talk sincerely about a diversity of tactics in which there really is

room for all kinds of people, all kinds of sensibilities. In which we

place great value on peaceful tactics that are around communication, or

mediation, or conflict-resolution, art, healing, all these other things.

There’s a place for everything: or almost everything, not snitching...

can’t have that of course.

Sometimes part of the problem is that the context that we’re in, the

hegemony of non-violence is often enforced as the rule; like sharing a

tweet about a discussion – so far I don’t think anyone there is hitting

anyone else or anything like that, so I think this discussion so far has

been pretty peaceful.... But just the fact that we’re questioning

non-violence, they’re getting angry about it.

Arguing in favour of the value of combative tactics and destructive

tactics and illegal tactics: we really have to fight sometimes to get

people to recognise the value of these tactics that have been so

delegitamised and so demonised. But we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact

that a diversity of tactics is not effective if it’s a ladder of

tactics. From the less important tactics to the more important tactics.

Because that’s just inviting certain social hierarchies to creep into

our movements, and make it hard to make effective or strategic analysis

of what we do.

We really do need to value different forms of being in the movement, and

being in the struggle, that includes many peaceful activities that are

vital to any healthy movement.

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