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Title: Anarchist Politics & Direct Action Author: Rob Sparrow Date: 1997 Language: en Topics: direct action, media, reformism, the State Source: Retrieved on September 19, 2009 from http://www.spunk.org/texts/intro/sp001641.html
This paper discusses Direct Action — the proper method of anarchist
activist action. In it I try to consider some theoretical issues that we
don’t usually get a chance to discuss in the midst of political
campaigns. Some of the issues raised will be, the role of anarchists in
other political movements, the difference between direct action and
symbolic action, the various traditional types of direct action and the
proper attitude of activists towards the police and the media.
“Direct Action” is the distinctive contribution of anarchists in the
realm of political method. While reformists advocate the ballot box,
liberals have their lobbying and their letter writing, bureaucrats have
their work through “the proper channels” and socialists have their
vanguard parties, we anarchists have direct action. Political tendencies
other than anarchism may adopt direct action as a method but its
historical origins and its most vigorous proponents are anarchist.
Because direct action is a political method, before we can properly
understand it and its place in anarchist practice we must first examine
the nature of anarchist political activity.
Ideally, anarchist political activity promotes anarchism and attempts to
create anarchy. It seeks to establish a society without
capitalism,patriarchy or State, where people govern themselves
democratically without domination or hierarchy. As I have argued
elsewhere, this is an activity which is inescapably revolutionary in
nature and which is best carried out collectively in an organisation
dedicated to that purpose. While anarchists remain without a political
organisation of their own, the main avenue for promoting anarchism is to
participate in, contribute to and provide leadership in other political
movements. Our objective in participating in other political movements
and campaigns should be to show that anarchist methods and ways of
organising work. The best advertisement for anarchism is the
intelligence of the contributions of our activists and the success of
our methods. Anarchists should strive to provide living examples of
anarchy in action. As we will see, direct action is one of the best
possible ways of doing this.
Before I go on, I want to highlight here two problems which may occur
with anarchist political activity which both stem from a tendency to be
utopian in our political demands. Anarchists are often utopian in their
rejection of any political activity oriented towards the state and in
their failure to establish a realistic connection between their ends and
their means. This sort of utopianism is not a virtue but instead
contributes to anarchism’s continuing political irrelevance to the
majority of Australians.
In a capitalist economy the activities of “private enterprise” are
rigorously excluded from public scrutiny and control. We have no input
into the decisions about production and investment which determine the
basic conditions of our existence and which are made in corporate board
rooms. In many cases, if we don’t like what we see happening around us,
the only option open to us is to try to change government policy. Thus
most forms of politics today are oriented towards the state. Most
obviously, electoral politics seeks to determine the identity of those
few individuals who supposedly “control” the state. Most forms of
“political protest” also hope to induce, or to force, the state to take
some action to address the protesters’ concerns. Yet anarchism is
largely defined by its rejection of the state as a mode of organising to
meet social needs and anarchists have traditionally — and rightly — been
extremely suspicious of any suggestion that we can succeed in using the
state to serve our ends. It may therefore be tempting for anarchists to
proffer “social revolution” as the solution to all problems.
Anarchists may argue that the problems that people face are the results
of an insane social and economic order and that only a revolution and
consequent creation of anarchy will solve them. But people have problems
and face difficulties here and now which need to be addressed and they
cannot wait for the revolution to solve them. Thus in rejecting attempts
to force the state to address our needs or serve our political ends we
must offer realistic alternative methods of achieving our goals, if we
are to be relevant to the struggles of people today. Sometimes this may
be possible. Sometimes we can organise together, without relying on the
state, to address and solve our problems here and now. As we shall see
below, this is the essence of “direct action”.
Often, however, it won’t be possible to provide genuine solutions to
people’s problems, within the existing order, without recourse to the
state. Whether we like it or not certain social needs are, in current
circumstances, only going to be addressed by the state. Access to
medical resources, secure housing, educational qualifications or income
support are for most people only going to be available as the result of
state action. Relations between the sexes are also another area where
the state seems to be the only plausible existing instrument of social
policy. Domestic violence protection orders and state funded refuges may
not be much of a solution to the problems created by violent or abusive
partners but for some women they are all there is. For many women they
are a necessary step on the road to escaping a cycle of abuse. The
society wide education campaigns which are necessary to challenge sexist
attitudes likewise can only be carried out with state support.
Until anarchists constitute a sizeable portion of the community and are
capable of providing these services — or alternatives — themselves,
activists concerned about these issues will be justified in turning to
the state for help in addressing them.
Furthermore, legislation by the state can represent a real political
victory. This may be because the passing of legislation acknowledges and
gives weight to changes which have already occurred in the political
consciousness of society at large or it may be because the legislation
actually makes a real difference to the living conditions of ordinary
people. Legislation guaranteeing a minimum wage, public health-care,
health and safety standards at work or a decent standard of living for
those excluded from work represents a genuine political victory for the
majority over the ruling class. Not only do such state provided services
make a vast difference in the quality of life of those who otherwise
would have no or little access to them but they also dramatically
increase the possibility of political action. The less time people have
to spend struggling to meet their basic needs, the more time they have
to criticise and challenge the existing order.
The traditional anarchist hostility towards the state then should be
tempered by the recognition that, while it continues to exist, it is an
important site of class struggle. If we reject attempts to exert
pressure on the state we may render ourselves irrelevant to the real
needs of large elements in society. Calling only for revolution is not
going to interest anyone who needs real change now. Anarchists must
provide workable solutions for people here and now. Sometimes this will
involve recourse to the state.
One of anarchism’s historical strengths has been its insistence on the
connection between ends and means. Anarchists have insisted that
libertarian outcomes will not result from authoritarian means and, more
generally, have been sensitive towards the ways in which compromises
made in the realm of political methods may corrupt us or infect our
goals. Sometimes, however, this has lead to an over simplistic equation
betweens our means and our ends. Anarchists often fail to address
properly the political question of how our methods relate to our goals.
An example of this is the pacifist claim “If everyone refused to fight
there would be no wars” Now this is clearly true, in fact tautologically
so. But pacifism does not follow from this truism. It does not follow
that the best way to prevent wars is to make an individual commitment to
refuse to fight in them. The connection between our actions and the goal
of peaceful world is a political one. It is political because it
involves the workings of the whole set of power and economic relations
which structure our social and personal decision making. For our
activities to have their intended effect they must be taken up by others
and whether or not this will take place will depend on a whole set of
political and economic factors. It is not at all clear that our refusing
to fight will cause sufficient numbers of others to do so and thus make
war impossible (in fact, this just seems wildly implausible). The best
way to prevent wars may be to address the social systems and the
injustices which cause them. It may even involve fighting.
More generally then, for our means to be suitable to the ends we seek we
must be able to tell a realistic story about exactly how our activities
will bring our ends about. This story will have to take account of the
economic and political realities which affect our lives. It is often not
realistic to believe that everyone else around us will immediately
follow our example.
The best forms of anarchist politics avoid these two forms of dangerous
utopianism and offer people genuine hope and occasional success in their
struggle for a better world. Direct action is a crucial component of
such a politics.
The distinguishing feature of direct action is that it aims to achieve
our goals through our own activity rather than through the actions of
others. Direct action seeks to exert power directly over affairs and
situations which concern us. Thus it is about people taking power for
themselves. In this it is distinguished from most other forms of
political action such as voting, lobbying, attempting to exert political
pressure though industrial action or through the media. All of these
activities aim to get others to achieve our goals for us. Such forms of
actions operate on a tacit acceptance of our own powerlessness. They
concede that we ourselves have neither the right nor the power to affect
change. Such forms of action are therefore implicitly conservative. They
concede the authority of existing institutions and work to prevent us
from acting ourselves to change the status quo.
Direct action repudiates such acceptance of the existing order and
suggests that we have both the right and the power to change the world.
It demonstrates this by doing it. Examples of direct action include
blockades, pickets, sabotage, squatting, tree spiking, lockouts,
occupations, rolling strikes, slow downs, the revolutionary general
strike. In the community it involves, amongst other things, establishing
our own organisations such as food co-ops and community access radio and
tv to provide for our social needs, blocking the freeway developments
which divide and poison our communities and taking and squatting the
houses that we need to live in. In the forests, direct action interposes
our bodies, our will and our ingenuity between wilderness and those who
would destroy it and acts against the profits of the organisations which
direct the exploitation of nature and against those organisations
themselves. In industry and in the workplace direct action aims either
to extend workers control or to directly attack the profits of the
employers. Sabotage and “go slows” are time-honoured and popular
techniques to deny employers the profits from their exploitation of
their wage-slaves. Rolling and “wildcat” strikes are forms of open
industrial struggle which strike directly at the profits of the
employers. However, industrial action which is undertaken merely as a
tactic as part of negotiations to win wage or other concessions from an
employer is not an example of direct action.
As the examples of direct action in the community above suggest, there
is more to direct action than responding to injustices or threats by the
state. Direct action is not only a method of protest but also a way of
“building the future now”. Any situation where people organise to extend
control over their own circumstances without recourse to capital or
state constitutes direct action. “Doing it ourselves” is the essence of
direct action and it does not matter whether what we are doing is
resisting injustice or attempting to create a better world now by
organising to meet our own social needs. Direct action of this sort,
because it is self-directed rather than a response to the activities of
capital or state, offers far more opportunities for continuing action
and also for success. We can define our own goals and achieve them
through our own efforts.
One of the most important aspects of direct action is the organisation
involved in order for it to be successful. By organising to achieve our
goals ourselves we learn valuable skills and discover that organisation
without hierarchy is possible. Where it succeeds, direct action shows
that people can control their own lives — in effect, that anarchy is
possible. We can see here that direct action and anarchist organisation
are in fact two sides of the same coin. When we demonstrate the success
of one we demonstrate the reality of the other.
Direct action must be distinguished from symbolic actions. Direct action
is bolting a gate rather than tying a yellow ribbon around it. Its
purpose is to exercise power and control over our own lives rather than
merely portray the semblance of it. This distinguishes it from many
forms of action, for example “banner drops” such as those often engaged
in by Greenpeace, that look militant but, in my opinion, aren’t. These
actions do not directly attack the injustices they highlight, but
instead seek to influence the public and politicians through the media.
Any action directed primarily towards the media concedes that others,
rather than ourselves, have the power to change things.
Direct action must also be distinguished from moral action. It is not
moral protest. By moral protest I mean protest which is justified by
reference to the moral relation to some institution or injustice that it
demonstrates. Moral protest usually takes the form of a boycott of a
product or refusal to participate in some institution. Such actions seek
to avoid our complicity in the evils for which existing institutions are
responsible. No doubt this is morally admirable. But unless these
actions themselves have some perceivable effect on the institutions
which they target, they do not constitute direct action. Direct action
must have some immediate affect to demonstrate that we can exert power.
It should not rely entirely on others taking up our example. Our own
action should have such an affect that we can point it out to others as
an example of how they can change — and not just protest — those things
which concern them. Boycotts, for instance, therefore are not examples
of direct action. If only those who organise a boycott participate in
it, it will almost invariably be ineffective.
Of course, these distinctions are overdrawn. Any action at all involves
some exercise of power. By acting at all, in any way, we overcome our
passivity and deny that we are helpless to affect change. Any action
short of revolution is to some extent both moral and symbolic. Capital,
patriarchy and state have the power to undo all our efforts short of
revolution. Any form of protest can be effectively prevented if the
state is willing to employ the full range of its resources for
authoritarian repression and control. The only form of “direct action”
which cannot be contained by the state is popular revolution. This is
the ultimate direct action that anarchists should aim for, when all
people organise to destroy the existing order and cooperate to run
society without capitalism, patriarchy or authority.
So given that any action will be less than ideal, how should we assess
potential direct actions? I would suggest that possible direct actions
should be assessed both as examples of direct action as described here
and against the broader criteria for anarchist actions set out above.
That is, of any action we should ask:
it?
will it build the anarchist movement?
Some further questions we can ask ourselves to help determine the
answers to these are as follows. Firstly, will it draw others in? Is it
the sort of activity which encourages other people to become interested
and involved? Actions which necessitate a high degree of detailed
organisation or secrecy are unlikely to score highly against this
criterion. Will it succeed in achieving its defined objectives? For
instance, will a blockade actually stop work on a site for some period?
Successful actions are the best advertisement for anarchist methods. Are
the politics of the action obvious or at least clearly conveyed to those
who witness it? If the targets of our actions relate only obliquely to
the issue which they are intended to address or the goals of our
activities unclear to those not “in the know” then we are unlikely to
convince others of the relevancy of anarchism. For this reason we must
always be conscious of the messages which our activities convey to other
people and try to ensure that this is the most appropriate possible.
What consequences will result from the action for those involved in it?
Actions which involve a high risk of police beating or of arrest with
consequent heavy fines or imprisonment may reduce the willingness or
capacity of those affected to engage in further political activities, if
any of these things occur. Very few people are radicalised by being hurt
by the police, most are just scared. Often the hours spent dealing with
legal hassles for months after an arrest could have been more
productively spent in other political activity, if the arrest was not
necessary. Finally, how will the action transform the consciousness of
those involved in it? We should aim to engage in activities which
establish within us an increased awareness of radical social and
political possibilities, broaden our base of skills and leave us
confident and empowered. Sometimes actions may have other, less welcome,
effects on the psychology of those involved. Unsuccessful actions may
leave us feeling disempowered and embittered. Actions which involve a
high degree of aggression, confrontation or potential violence may breed
hostility and aggression within us which might hamper our ability to
work productively in other political circumstances.
By assessing our political activities against these criteria and asking
these questions and others like them, I believe that we can ensure that
our actions have the greatest chance of achieving our goals and thus
demonstrate the superiority of anarchist methods of political action.
The relation of activists and demonstrators to the police is a
contentious issue in activist politics in Australia. This is not the
place to give a detailed treatment of the politics of various ways of
relating to the police. But a brief consideration of some of the matters
discussed in this paper can, I believe, aid discussion of the issue by
ruling out a number of possible (bad) answers to the question of how we
should treat the police.
The first implication of the politics of direct action with regards to
our relations with the police is that, wherever possible, we should
disregard the authority of the police. Direct action is action which
acknowledges our own power and right to exercise it. To the same extent
that we recognise the authority of the police and obey their
instructions we are relinquishing our own right and power to act as we
would wish to. So it is actually essential to direct action that we do
not concede the right of the representatives of the state to restrict
our activities. Of course, for tactical reasons, we may have to
acknowledge the consequences that may occur when we ignore the law and
may even have to negotiate with police in the attempt to minimise these.
But it is important that, in doing so, we remember at all times that
although they have the means to do so, they have no right to restrict us
in our liberty.
The discussion of the necessity of a political analysis of the relation
between our ends and our means is also crucial here. Any strategy of
dealing with the police must take account of their role as a political —
and ultimately a class — force. The police force exists to defend the
status quo and the interests of the ruling class. Individual police
officers may occasionally have reservations about doing so but, when
push comes to shove, that is their job. A police officer who doesn’t
follow the orders of the state is no longer a police officer. As
anarchists therefore, the police, not as individuals but as an
institution, are our enemies. They exist to defend all that we wish to
destroy. In their defence of private property and the state, the police
are backed up by the armed force of the state. Behind the police lies
the military who, as numerous historical examples illustrate, are ready
to step in and restore “order” if the civilian population becomes too
unruly.
Once we recognise the police force as a political institution and that
its members therefore necessarily stand in a certain political relation
to us then a number of things become clear.
Firstly, any attempt to “win over” the police, one by one, is doomed. We
can win the cooperation of the police for precisely as long as we fail
to genuinely threaten the existing social order. As soon as our
activities begin to threaten the interests of the state or the profits
of the ruling class the police will move to disperse/arrest/beat us, as
sure as night follows day. Of course, individual police may be moved by
personal convictions. But as I suggested above, this does not change
their political relation to us and the necessity of them acting against
us. It’s their job and if they refuse to do it they will (ultimately)
lose it. A gentle cop does not remain a cop for long. Attempts to win
over the police may succeed in winning over individuals then, but at the
cost of them ceasing to be members of the police force. We will never to
able to win the cooperation of the police as a political force when it
counts.
Secondly, the fact that the police are ultimately backed by the armed
force of the state determines that any attempt to resist or overcome the
police through violence will ultimately fail. While the state and ruling
class are secure politically and can succeed in maintaining the
passivity of the majority of the population, they can defeat any attempt
to threaten them through violent means. The state has more repressive
force at its command than we can ever hope to muster. This is not a
pacifist position. We have every right to employ force in the attempt to
resist the violence of the state. Where a specific act of violence
against the state will achieve a particular tactical objective, without
provoking crippling repression or a disastrous political backlash, then
we would be justified in committing it. But as a political strategy, in
a non-revolutionary period, attempting to overcome the state through
force is doomed.
The beginnings of an anarchist politics with regards to the police
force, then, are to be found in a conscious hostility towards them as an
institution, tempered by an awareness of the tactical realities of
dealing with them. Recognising that the police are our class enemy is
itself an important gain in political consciousness. This is not to
deny, however, that there may be tactical advantages to not antagonising
the police. Indeed, antagonising the police is a sure way to guarantee
extra hassles for protesters. So it should never be done unnecessarily.
But in our care to avoid creating unnecessary trouble for ourselves we
must remember that the source of the confrontation and violence which
sometimes occurs around the police is the police themselves in their
attempts to protect an unjust — and ultimately itself violent — social
order.
The other important area of politics where my discussion of direct
action has significant practical consequences is in protesters’ relation
to the media. This is an issue which often generates heated discussion
within activist groups and which can have a significant effect on their
politics. Again consideration of the politics of direct action allows us
to go some way towards settling this question.
As I suggested earlier any protest where protester’s are acting entirely
for the sake of media attention or — as actually often occurs — are even
being directed in their activities by the media is not a case of direct
action. Such “media stunts” do not themselves seek to address the
problems which they highlight and are instead directed to getting other
people (usually the government) to solve them. Thus in as far as we are
concerned to be practicing direct action we should shun this sort of
involvement with the media. We should not “perform” for the cameras or
reporters.
Yet, because an important criteria for a successful anarchist action is
its success in reaching other people and convincing them of the efficacy
of anarchist techniques, we can’t really ignore the media. Sadly, the
only contact many people have with political events around them is
through television or the papers.
From these two facts, I believe, the rudiments of an anarchist stance
towards the media emerge. Anarchists should neither ignore the media or
perform for it. Instead we should remain true to our own politics and
seek to achieve our ends through our own efforts. While we do so we
should welcome media attention which might spread news of our activities
and so help build an anarchist movement. When we cooperate with the
media we should do so without compromising the integrity of our own
politics and without distorting either ourselves or our message. Once we
compromise our politics for the sake of media attention then we are no
longer conveying the success of anarchist methods.
Finally the advantages of direct action should encourage us to make
maximum use of our own and community media in attempting to reach out to
others. Rather than relying on the capitalist press to communicate our
message to the people we should do it ourselves. Community papers, radio
and television are themselves examples of direct action in the media.
This paper has discussed and advocated the politics of direct action
within the broader context of the purpose of an anarchist politics.
Direct action has many virtues, not least that it is, in essence, itself
anarchy in action. But direct action is not the only form of worthwhile
political action. Anarchists should remain open to the possibilities of
an entire spectrum of political methods. Any form of politics that
involves people and transforms their consciousness in a progressive way
may be useful in the struggle to build an anarchist movement and
ultimately a revolution to create anarchy. Which particular political
movements and methods deserve our support can only been decided within
the framework of a well theorised, consciously anarchist, politics. This
paper is intended as one small contribution to the project of developing
such a framework.