Building an antiwar movement
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:
1. Making space for a diversity of voices within the movement.
To insist 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.
2. Making sure that the movement emphasises activities which
everyone can 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.
3. Taking care that the movement isn't run by a handful of
experienced 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 elite. In practice, what we need to do is:
1. Start by talking to other people at work, in the shops, at
home, on 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.
2. Offer people immediate, practical things to do: signing
something, 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.
3. Encourage people to take the next step, and support them if
they don't 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!
4. Educate ourselves: this movement is likely to last a long
time, and 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.
5. Make links: although (almost) anyone who opposes war
should be 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.
6. Try to spread the movement, rather than build little empires.
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):
Convincing ordinary people: meetings, posters, demos, street theatre, leaflets, videos,
etc.
Building the movement: newsletters, mailing lists, teach-ins, websites, gatherings, benefit
gigs, etc.
"Stopping the machine in its tracks": 5-minute strikes for peace, occupations, peace observers,
supporting deserters, blockades, etc.
Influencing governments or the media: petitions, vigils, press 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.
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.
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This article was one of several written for Against War and Terrorism, a PDF booklet
on the war.
Read the articles on the web at http://struggle.ws/issues/war/pamOCT01.html
Print out the PDF file of the booklet from http://struggle.ws/issues/war/pamOCT01.html