The changing face of activism (or not)

Recent events in the Middle East and North Africa have revealed to the general public new and surprising forms of political activism and reinforced long standing ones. The mass uprising in Egypt has sparked a wave of protest across the region as populations held down for decades under the sway of oppressive regimes have broken out in open rebellion. Yemen, Algeria, Bahrain, Jordan and Libya have all seen mass demonstrations met by varying degrees of bafflement combined with the use of brute force from regimes unable to cope with the speed of the expressions of dissent and the visceral intensity of their deeply wounded but now fearless peoples. That the demonstrations have been largely non-violent by design and intent has made it doubly difficult for regimes to control the propaganda surrounding them. Armed attacks on demonstrators by paramilitary and state security forces have only served to embolden the spirit of the protesters who quite rightly regard those killed and injured as martyrs to their collective cause. 

The use of state sanctioned violence against peaceful if determined crowds has played very badly in the international media and brought great pressure to bear on those Western powers that have long sponsored the oligarchs and tyrants of the Arabian Peninsula and surrounding regions. Al Jazeera TV's dissemination of close coverage and highly informed commentary on these developments had played a highly significant role in shaping global public opinion. Al Jazeera has almost single-handedly provided a credible, sober antidote to the hysterical whining of the Fox News crew and other species of nuts. 

Much has been made of the impact of social media on the effectiveness of the mass movements. In Egypt, the Google executive Wael Ghonim who set up the Facebook page that purportedly sparked the Tahrir Square occupation has been widely lauded as a hero of the revolution. The April 6 Youth Movement, too, has been a spearhead in the use of Facebook, Twitter and blogging during the heat of the revolution. Flickr and Youtube have been used to distribute powerful imagery from the streets. However, as has been pointed out here at Left Flank and in my recent Overland post, the roots of the revolution in Egypt and the nascent struggles in other areas of the region are firmly grounded in the time-honoured causes of mass dissent: social inequality and political oppression. In Egypt, for instance, Tahrir Square was the culmination of years of agitation by the urban poor and low paid workers who defied the state controlled trade unions in campaigns of sit-ins and strikes. The people of the Middle East are rising up because they want a better, fairer political and economic system. Social media may be the accelerant of change but it is not the key driver. 

The burgeoning of mass popular activism in the Middle East is a powerful foil to the impact of Wikileaks. Together these two forces are transforming the way governments and corporate interests think and act. The old strategies are no longer effective and events are moving so quickly that these monolithic power bases are struggling to find ways of countering the momentum for change. Wikileaks has cracked open the centuries old alignment between the political and business elites across the globe. Citizens everywhere now have direct access to information that reveals the inner machinations of corporate business practices, diplomatic and military strategy and the actions of key individuals in the management of global affairs. Machiavelli’s political philosophy is under cross-examination in the courts of public interest in democratic and not-so-democratic nations. The mass media has been riven by Wikileaks as it too struggles to recognise its avowed allegiance to the principles of free speech and open societies with the need to protect the corporate interests of its proprietors.

In the streets, it is the political philosophy of Mohandas K. Ghandi that provides the historical legacy of the non-violent strategy that has been so effective in winning over the support of the populations and in making the blunt tactics of oppression vivid in the eyes of a world mesmerised by what determined, focused and fearless people can achieve. In the end, despite all the positive influence and impressive whizbangery of the new channels of communication, it is masses of truly aggrieved and oppressed or even just plain old angry people occupying public space and engaging in civil disobedience that has made the difference.

Western political activists and concerned citizens who were deeply disappointed by the ineffectiveness of the world wide and historic demonstrations against the invasion of Iraq 
in 2003 must be somewhat agog at the efficacy of their Arabian counterparts. And yet we can find encouragement in the mass demonstrations by workers and students taking place in the UK as people refuse to accept 'austerity measures' imposed by the governing coalition as a remedy for the ills arising from the GFC, ills that were the product of the profligacy of a bloated, global financial sector. In the US, where workers have been hit hard by the socialisation of corporate debt, trade unionists are protesting in Wisconsin against cuts to public service sector wages and conditions, including attacks on the right to collectively bargain. In Greece, Ireland and Spain workers have taken to the streets to assert their rights and make a claim on their dignity and desire for decent life.

These mass movements are non-sectarian in character. In Egypt they are fiercely nationalistic. The national flag was the key symbol of the first stage of the revolution because it was the one which united the people, trumping sectarian differences over religious affiliation and partisan political allegiance. In the UK and US the tenor of the popular movements are decidedly not nationalistic. Groups are coalescing around specific issues of social justice and equity without the need, at this point at least, to rally around the flag. In the US, it will be intriguing to see how the battle for symbolic ownership of the stars and stripes will play out between Tea Party/Republican forces and emergent progressive movements like US Uncut.

The Serbian student activist group Otpor! (Resistance!) was a significant influence on the organisation of the Egyptian revolution. Formed in 1998 with the aim of overthrowing Milosevic, the movement developed a range of effective strategies to circumvent the ban on public protest. As the movement gained momentum its tactics became more militant but retained its essential non-violent characteristics. Like the popular movements in the Middle East, Otpor! was unequivocally opposed to reformism. Its singular goal was the removal of the regime. Once the regime was removed meaningful change could begin to be implemented. We see the same strategic enterprise underway in Egypt. The Otpor! clenched fist logo has been adapted for use by Egyptian activists. Following the overthrow of Milosevic, Otpor! was criticised for having received funds from US sources, including USAID, and of having taken advice from for retired US Army Col. Robert Helvey, a colleague of American academic Gene Sharp whose writing on the tactics non violent protests have been widely influential in activist circles. Significantly, Otpor! was most successful in its early form as student movement and soon lost influence in the post-Milosevic era when it ran for office as a political party.

Otpor! members went on to establish Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS), a sort of university for non violent political action in Belgrade and in the summer of 2009 Mohamed Adel, a 20-year-old blogger and April 6 activist, attended course there. The lessons were not in the use of social media. Adel learned how to train and organise people of the streets. Back in Egypt the lessons were adopted by the April 6 Youth Movement and another group, Kefaya. Tahrir Square was the proving ground of the CANVAS tactics as Egyptian activists worked them into the spontaneity and energy erupting on the streets of Cairo and Alexandria and then across the nation.

Gene Sharp Gene Sharp's influence in all this rates a mention. From his academic post at the Albert Einstein Institute, Sharp provides both a convincing theory of power relations and the state and an outreach program to assist activists in the field. Sharp's analysis of state power goes like this: Power is not monolithic. Rather than lying intrinsically with the hegemonic entity, of any political persuasion, power is effectively conferred upon the powerful by the powerless who abide by the rules set by the regime. If the powerless refuse to follow the rules the power relations shift and the regime falls. It is, in a sense, a form of cultural deception in which the ruler constructs himself as omnipotent by acting with unilateral cruelty and vengeance. Obedience is managed through systems and institutions of reward and punishment. Again, Wikileaks continues to play an important role in the process of exposing the structures and methodologies of monolithic neocorporate power hubs. Inspired by the work of Ghandi and the writing of David Henry Thoreau, Sharp's books have become manuals for non violent activism around the world. Sharp has attracted criticism from all quarters. He has been condemned by Hugo Chavez and accused of having CIA affiliations and yet his work has drawn praise from those who have worked closely with him in implementing his ideas and tactics. It would be wrong to analogise the Australian situation with that of the Middle East and North Africa or even the USA and UK. Australia has, to date, remained relatively immune from the negative impact of the GFC, unemployment remains low, as do inflation and interest rates. Australians have reacted to the GFC by a heightened fiscal conservatism demonstrated by decreases in personal debt, household spending and increases in savings. In a rather false conception, citizens have come to equate the responsible management of government finances with that of their own domestic budget. The general climate of austerity makes it easy for neoliberal forces from all sides of the parliamentary debate, including the Greens, to implement cost cutting measures in the name of responsible governance.  What is lacking is an open debate on the distribution of wealth and power in Australian society. Expressed in simple but accurate terms this information could be used to alert the broad mass of citizens to the systemic inequities they are subject to at the hands of the political and corporate elites. There have been some excellent examples of this kind of frank and fearless advice to the citizenry in the UK and USA, especially around the issue of corporate tax avoidance. In Australia, while economic circumstances remain relatively prosperous and overt political oppression virtually absent from the public eye it is highly unlikely that Australians will follow their northern hemisphere brothers and sisters into the streets. That being the case, the political battleground tends to gather around highly charged cultural issues like refugees, immigration and racism. These issues are used very effectively by neoconservative forces to appropriate the allegiance of vital sections of the working class who do hold entrenched views on these matters. Howard was a master of dog whistling to these citizens and Abbott is proving himself a worthy apprentice to the sorcerer.

Courtesy @UKuncut

The pressure point in Australian politics lies in the zone between the burgeoning left wing vote recently attracted to the Greens and sections of the working class currently under the sway of neoliberalism. The largely urban, middle class Green cohort is remote from the cultural and socio-economic interests of a fractured working class and until this gap is bridged it will be difficult to bind the Left into a cohesive, effective force against the combined influence of the ALP and Coalition, the Tweedledum and Tweedledee of Australian politics. A split between the ALP and large sections of the trade union movement could provide an opportunity for constructive engagement between the Greens, especially those aligned with the traditional Left agenda, and workers who wish to engage in revitalised forms of direct action against the neocorporatist power base. The success of the anti Work Choices campaign proved the capability is there when given a focus.

For the foreseeable future, this remains an unlikely scenario but, as current global events illustrate, change can happen swiftly and unexpectedly. The lesson for Australian activists to take from the Arab uprising and actions in the UK, USA and Europe, is to be prepared. A campaign of simple, direct information about the construction of power relations in our country could be a good place to start. Change can arrive leaderless, energised and urgent but only when the groundwork has been done.