Word.
Come on, FR, be reasonable.
...Come to think of it, this is probably not the right blog for starting a comment like that. But anyway.
If people organising a protest did somehow discourage the giant puppets and the stilt walkers and the street-theatre stuff, do you really think that this would force the Murdoch press to start reporting the protest accurately? I suspect that the papers would instead print descriptions of how street marches have lost their spontaneity and degenerated into boring unenjoyable Borg-like conformity.
No.
The problem with this, and everything essentially like it, is that there is an insuperable contradiction between prescriptive ideas as to what should be done, and having large numbers of people involved to do it. "Don't do this" is not really a very good argument and nor is it a necessary one, since it's quite possible, for instance, for people both to go on marches and do other things as well.
If you want people to be involved, then they're going to be involved on their own terms, and in a movment of a couple of million people, that's necessarily going to mean any number of people going things you consider unhelpful and holding views you consider unconstructive (or worse).
Also - the odd thing (as so often when people say that a contemporary situation is very different to some historical situation to which it is compared) is that when you say things have changed since the Sixties, you actually echo what a lot of people said then. There were plenty of people who said that marches didn't change anybody's mind and that the State was a huge powerful profit-seeking machine that didn't care what people thought and didn't change in nature when the personnel nominally in charge were changed.
They weren't really wrong as such, but they found themselves, as a result of their conclusions, moving in ever smaller circles trying to find ways to wake up the population and hit the system where it hurts. And it ends roughly with Aldo Moro's body in the boot of a car and a lot of penitent autobiographies in the bookshops.
I would propose instead that numbers are good, that it is very difficult to change things and that we should not curse and condemn ourselves if we do not succeed, and that if more radical measures are needed then we need to persuade those numbers of that.
A thoughtful and thought-provoking post. We now live in an (increasingly) openly authoritarian corporatist state, where crony capital has free reign and labour is utterly subdued. Bones are thrown to the public-sector (or military-industrial/financial) employed middle classes to prevent them getting too pissed off.
Let me clarify here - the problem isn't people showing up with puppets etc. It's that people are encouraged to show up with puppets, and told to express themselves.
You know what a million people in fancy dress look like? They look like a disorganised rabble of individuals, rather than a unified force. It's that central problem of unity that allowed the government and the media to dismiss the protest so easily.
And this is the point - that's exactly what Tony Blair did. He took one look at the protest, declared he was glad people were able to protest, and come Monday it was as if the marches never happened.
I've read countless tools and tossers rattling on about how modern capitalism has granted most of the major wishes of the socialist movement - the NHS, protection from employers etc. This totally misses the point that we got these concessions because the ruling classes of the day were terrified of crowds storming the British winter palace - they saw the people as a threat that had to be bought off.
Well, nobody thinks we're a threat these days. That's why the largest demonstrations in British history were so easily dismissed... And this is an important point that needs to be emphasised, again an again - the marchers were utterly dismissed. Dismissed as irrelevant, histrionic, not worth taking seriously. That's a fucking catastrophe for any political movement, and we need to look at why that happened and make sure it doesn't happen again.
I'd recommend simple measures to begin with - the next time there's a major demonstration against some policy or other, everybody shows up wearing the same colour. It's hardly a radical change, but it sends a message... That a million people with the organisation to achieve simple things like this may just have the organisation to do things that the state is actually afraid of.
So Justin, I take your points on board, and I imagine posts like this don't help movements that essentially thrive on hope and idealism.
What I will say is that there were anti-war protests about Vietnam for years, but the media and business classes didn't turn against the war until it was obvious that it was unwinnable and extortionately expensive in political and financial terms.
That's where future protests will have to look - to making stupid wars of choice far too expensive for governments to contemplate.
Oswald Moseley had the right idea with his blackshirts?
Mass street protests almost never work. The demonstrations outside the Pentagon and in Washington D.C. during the Vietnam War did not end it; most of the protests stopped by 1970-1 and the war ended in 1975.
Frustration with the ineffectiveness of the street protests led many activists in the late 60s and early 70s to turn to violent action (such as the Weatherman bombing campaign) and the propaganda of the deed.
The 1984 Miner's Strike failed utterly to prevent the destruction of the UK Coal industry and the 1926 General Strike also had little effect on the government of the day.
The 1989 Tiananmen Square protest ended with a massacre and an increase in state repression.
The one street protest that did bring about a significant change in UK government policy is the 1990 Poll Tax riot. In the face of street violence, burning cars and smashed up shop fronts Thatcher capitulated.
Had the 2003 demonstrators done the same then the invasion of Iraq might not have taken place with British support (the US would've gone in anyway).
Another great post Mr Rodent, but I do think you're too harsh on the stilt-walkers. To my mind it's them who've got the right idea. Just imagine if all of the millions of anti-Iraq protesters had shown up on stilts, instead of just the odd few. Surely the government would have had no choice but to sit up and take notice?
the next time there's a major demonstration against some policy or other, everybody shows up wearing the same colour.
How would you manage to achieve that in any demonstration involving more than a few people?
How would you manage to achieve that...?
Hell, give out free T-shirts, make all your promotion posters turquoise, call it Turquoise Day, I don't know...
I have no history in protest groups, probably for the reasons outlined above. All I'll say is that, if the police can muster 20,000 marchers all wearing the same hat...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/72.../uk/
7203839.stm
...surely the public can do something similar.
Honestly, when have you ever known me to offer solutions to the things I complain about?
everybody shows up wearing the same colour.
They manage to do that for cup finals, after all.
Such fun reading that arch-liberal, Sergeant-Major Rodent, laying down correct dress regs for the great unwashed. He'll be organising drill parades next. And now we have a hint as to what it is he dreams on - great masses of The People, step-marching in huge phalanxes, all dressed in exactly the same uniforms and all chanting the same Pythonesque slogan: "WE'RE ALL INDIVIDUALS"!
The only thing that stopped my side-splitting hilarity was the jolt I received from reading Justin's comment - AND AGREEING WITH IT - SHLOCK-HORROR! I may have to go and lie down.
Duffles - it's precisely because the majority of British newspapers pander to bitter, resentful shits like yourself that this is a problem in the first place.
Mind you, you are gullible and full of swinish belligerence, so you're probably a good person to ask about this. Is there anything that the anti-war marchers could've said or done that would've changed your opinion on the war?
I doubt it, but you never know.
'Ratty', unlike your good self, and the other starry-eyed (starey-eyed?), impressionable 'youfs' and 'youfettes' who people this blog, I make up my own mind on the issues of the day. The fact that a million (give or take 1/2 a million) decide one way or another about anything has no impact on me whatsoever. Why would it on you? Somebody nick your brain?
Protests have little or no impact on politicians, unless it is on an issue they know they can be politically damaged by. The problem was that the protests came too late - wheels were already in motion by the time millions hit the streets, and 1 million people marching wasn't going to change Blair's mind when he knew slightly over 50% of the country agreed with him to go to war.
Perhaps a determined protest early on in the lead-up to war might have made Blair change his mind before it was completely set, might have jolted him into political awareness. But this is the problem with protests - it needs to be pretty dire straits before you can get hundreds of thousands on the streets. By which point the politicians have made their minds up anyway.
So how could we have stopped Blair going to war? Answer: not through protests. They are almost as archaic in affecting the democractic process as having the Queen opening parliament each year.
Not through rational argument either. If there is a single scrap of good to come out of the whole Iraq debacle, then at least it shall serve as an example to future generations the terrible damage that can be caused by one silver-tongued pied piper serving his manipulative, hubristic, bullying, warmongering American friends.
"Just imagine if all of the millions of anti-Iraq protesters had shown up on stilts... the government would have had no choice but to sit up and take notice"
Crane their necks and take notice, more like.
You are a brave man FR for pissing on a third rail of progressive politics. Marching is one of the most revered small-c conservative practices of my fellow radical types (even new technology like facebook is being used to organize very Chartist-like stomps along the boulevards- cf the recent anti-FARC, anti-gvmt protests in Colombia). As pointed out above, the state has decided to become a sponge, gently absorbing the waves of protest and discreetly wringing out dissent into a bucket unnoticed by most.
How then do we stop soaking the sponge? Perhaps a refusal to play society's game is the key, but I'm buggered if I know how it would come about.
(And as for all the single colour naysayers, I offer up the various "colour revolutions" recent years wherein orange, rose, and so on were used to unify crowds that acted as catalysts for democratic (rather than fascist or conformity-based) change. The post colour revolution situations are of course a different matter- but as a tool of protest as opposed to a mechanism for governing matching t-shirts have a lot going for them.
"manipulative, hubristic, bullying, warmongering American friends."
Would that be the "manipulative, hubristic, bullying, warmongering American friends" who needed a suprise attack on Pearl Harbour before they could be jogged into doing something about a homicidal, fascist maniac who had over-run Europe?
Or is it that they just don't teach history any more in our wonderful 'edukashun servis'?
David,
Describing FDR as "manipulative, hubristic, bullying, warmongering" might be a bit of a stretch, even for those who like a challenge.
Do you think it at all possible I might only be referring to the neo-cons? The context of the discussion in the Iraq war is a clue.
Hold on, Don, you mean FDR isn't the American president any more? What, he died in 1945? Some chap called Bush you say? World War II is over you say?! Whaaat!!?!
Jeez, a lot sure has happened since I went to school.
Actually, Don, "manipulative, hubristic, bullying, warmongering" would fit FDR rather well, certainly the first three in spades, and the last, if perhaps a slight exaggeration, certainly he was all for war but only on terms that would not endanger his own re-election. The Japs saved him from taking a difficult decision.
However, as a very shrewd Yank once said, "History is just one damn thing after another", and he should have added that it is usually the *same* damn thing, only in a different uniform. Thus, the dis-armed, pacifist, isolationist America of the '20s and '30s, a state of affairs which you appear to hold in some admiration only draws from me the ancient Chinese admonition to beware of what you wish for! We have powerful enemies out there and in such a situation it is well to have powerful friends, even if they are sometimes a tad clumsy. Or, to put it another way, how would it be if the only allies we had in the world were the Europeans? You know, er, 'plucky little Belgium' and so forth.
I make up my own mind on the issues of the day
I have great respect for your independent thinking, David. Granted, it's so independent that it's usually devoid of facts, logic or reason, and you generally stick to the same beliefs regardless of contradictory evidence...
...But I suppose it doesn't get much more independent than that.
You are a brave man FR for pissing on a third rail of progressive politics...
Well, most of the people who know me think I'm an arsehole, so why break with tradition?
Thought-provoking post. I'll leave a couple of comments and perhaps return to this at a later date, if I may?
Short of criminal actions, the state has adapted to and absorbed anything peaceful protest movements can throw at them.
I think someone above made a similar point: there isn't a great deal of historical evidence that large-scale demonstrations achieve much. I'd argue that even where there is criminal actions, this is so. One example often cited by fans of direct action is the Suffragette's campaign of civil disobedience and destruction to property. I have to say I think this is largely a myth - the success of it, I mean. Whether the militant campaign would have eventually gained votes for women is impossible to say but I think most historians would now agree that it was calling off the direct action in order to participate in the war effort that proved crucial. Large scale demonstrations really only serve to draw attention to an issue that wouldn't otherwise grace the pages or screens of the MSM. Perhaps they can do more but they have to be much more sustained than the ones we had in this country.
The real story of the day should've been about the largest marches in British history, drawing support from all classes and all over the political spectrum...
I'm not sure you're right to suggest this story didn't get across. It did to me and I wasn't there obviously. Can I suggest that this actually illustrates the weakness and disorganisation of the anti-war marches you mention elsewhere? I certainly didn't agree with some of my fellow 'decents' (god, who the hell came up with that?) who went on about the marches being objectively pro-fascist. This was obviously nonsense. Opposition to the war was really the only thing you could assume about those present. But since people opposed the war for a myriad of reasons - an agreement amongst people who had absolutely nothing else in common politically - this meant disorganisation was inherent in the movement from the beginning. Attempts to broaden the agenda, or as some might argue, to conflate the issues involved meant a number of people were alienated from the original purpose of the marches and were unlikely to participate in any further actions. Or at least this was the case for a number of friends of mine who attended the march and the tail-off in attendance would tend to indicate that they were fairly representative.
I know what you mean about the state being able to absorb with impunity this form of now-routinised protest but there's at least one good reason for this. It is argued that the participation in the anti-war marches showed an emerging willingness on the part of 'ordinary people' to participate in politics. I'm afraid I have to disagree. Involvement in single-issue campaigns is indicative of the exact opposite. Membership of political parties, trades unions, friendly societies, clubs, rel
Oops - cut off by haloscan, probaly rightly. Anyway...
Membership of political parties, trades unions, friendly societies, clubs, religious organisations etc. are all in decline. But single-issue campaigns and various forms of direct action are increasingly popular. This, I would argue, indicates an unwillingness among people to compromise what they see as their individuality - but without such a willingness, it's difficult to see how any collective action that isn't fleeting and ultimately insubstantial is possible.
Finally, something I'm sure you'll agree with: Saturday? Now there's a god-awful book...
"Well, most of the people who know me think I'm an arsehole, so why break with tradition?"
It is awfully hard to read intonation in blog comments so I'll just reiterate (at the risk of sounding more foolish than usual) that I was (and am) in your corner on this one, and would never describe you as an arsehole. Half a piss flap on your worst days maybe, but never an arsehole.
Per ardua ad Asda (I need a tin of beans and some mixers, but it is up hill to the supermarket).
I think someone above made a similar point: there isn't a great deal of historical evidence that large-scale demonstrations achieve much.
I don't know; it seems to work pretty well in France. They know how to do the uncivil-disobedience thing. All it takes is for the President of the day to threaten a new policy of austerity... the next thing you know there are farmers' tractors in the streets of Paris, lorries blocking the highways, and cars burning out in the suburbs. You'd think it would save time if they simply set fire to the tractors and lorries, but efficiency is not the main criterion.
It probably helps that they have historical precedents that make the threat from the angry mobs more credible.
But that used to be true of Britain as well, and it isn't any more. I suspect that the same thing will be true in France before too long: eventually, and probably soon, a big campaign of strikes and demonstration will be defeated and after that you'll have a general belief that that sort of thing doesn't work any more, it's all in the past and besides we've got all the gadgets and adverts we can possibly want to keep us going.
I don't know; it seems to work pretty well in France.
Yes, you're right - that just occurred to me after I'd written the above. I should've added the following qualifications: demonstrations work when a) they are indicative of a refusal to co-operate with whatever is being protested against, so following from this b) they are likely to work when the co-operation of those protesting is required.
So in France, you get this sort of collective bargain by riot if, say, the government wants to change civil service pensions or whatever.
Or you could take the anti-poll tax demos - these being indicative of a wider refusal to co-operate.
This obviously doesn't apply in the case of the war since civilian co-operation isn't, by definition, required - especially when you have a professional army.
In a more general sense you could say demos are likely to work in direct proportion to how small, specific, localised the issue is.
Stopping a war, on the other hand, is a bit of a tall order, when you think about it. Then you climb the ladder of abstraction and get to things like the anti-globalisation protests. These are fairly obviously a waste of time, I'd have thought.
I'd say this for the anti-war demos, though: they are probably a factor in making future actions less likely. Though you might not expect me to say so, I think this is probably no bad thing.
Should've added...
It probably helps that they have historical precedents that make the threat from the angry mobs more credible.
Maybe not so much credible but legitimate? Part of the romantic notions of republican revolution? Difficult for a polity based on popular uprising to turn around and say all this taking to the streets just isn't on.
Unsurprisingly on a 'liberal' site no mention is made of democracy. Instead the actions of the mob (I choose the word with care) is to be the final arbiter on the decisions of our democratically elected government. No voice for those who only sit at home!
Duh, yeah, how stupid of us not to have foreseen the 2003 Iraq war when we voted in the 2001 election.
And how stupid of us, Rip, not to have remembered 2003 when we voted Blair back in in 2005.
Generally I agree with Shuggy - especially re atomisation. Political involvement means (or used to) more than turning up on a demo or having a standing order to Greenpeace.
Ratty is right about one thing - ('Whatever your alternative lifestyle choices, idiosyncratic fashions or rebellious political opinions, it's already on offer on the High Street at very competitive prices') revolt has been pretty effectively turned into style over the last 40 years. People like Guido and Sam Cameron came out of the 80s rave scene ... but it's that very atomisation, that splitting into subcultures, that means mass political action (by native Brits) is a thing of the past.
Why not take a look back and work out how the Labour Party of Mr Keir Hardie made it from a couple of seats in the early (1
nineties to government within the next thirty years ? And all without wearing uniforms or blowing things up, two options which I get a wee hint of from Ratty's piece ?
Whatever happened to voting in general elections as a way of bringing about change, O Enlightened One ?
It's all a bit pointless anyway - because whatever happens over the next few years, I can't see any more Iraqs or Afghanistans on the horizon. And that is because some people (with non-atomised cultures) HAVE learned how to be a threat. I'm sure the lessons of 7/7 have been marked. Little incidents like the abuse handed out to wounded soldiers in public hospitals will have helped too. If the US fancies a crack at Iran I fancy they'll be on their own.
"the war was a stupid idea argued for by proven liars and it was certain to get very large numbers of people killed"
Ah, but in March 2003 it was going to be our brave lads who got killed, as the Arab Street rose in fury and Baghdad became a second Stalingrad.
Who was predicting "if we invade, the Sunnis will slaughter the Shiites in huge numbers and vice-versa" ? That hasty amendment to the script was written with hindsight.
Ah well. Next year will be five years since 450,000 people - hardly any of whom were students and nearly all of whom had jobs - marched against the hunting ban. And yet it went ahead all the same - just cos they had a majority in Parliament ! What do we do, Ratty, what do we do ?
From his nom-de-keyboard one might suppose that 'Rip van Dinkle' is either of Dutch origin, or a dozey disposition, either of which would explain his total ignorance of:
a) Strategy - wars often spring up and take us by surprise and our enemies do not always bother to consult with the British people first!
b) Constitutional history - our parliamentary system in which the government, the executive, decides on matters of war and peace whilst permitting, if time is available, parliament, the consultative assembly, to discuss it without giving it a veto one way or the other.
*yawn* wake me up when the windbag crew have finished speaking.
There's a hell of a lot to pick up here, but I'll give it a bash...
I'm not pissing over the concept of political action to pressurise the government, and I'm not having a go at the stilt-walkers for no reason. I'm saying that protests as we currently do them are ineffective, and we have to be honest about why that is. I think that stuff like that gives away a massive propaganda victory before you even start, simply because of the way the media works.
I really don't think protests work on issues like war, in the short term at least. I read an article the other day describing the great enthusiasm at the time for "taking action against the war" - the author spoke to a lot of people with the desire to do it, but they were basically waiting for someone to tell them what to do. When the response was Let's have another march, people began to drift away.
I think the point about the French and non-cooperation is spot on... It's worth recalling that it wasn't just the riot that convinced the Tories to ditch the poll tax. A large number of people also refused to pay it, meaning less money to the Treasury, more being spent on enforcement actions etc. The protesters made it more hassle trying to maintain than it was worth.
Like I said about the Vietnam war, it just became too expensive to pursue any further. No doubt the protests contributed, but it was just unwinnable, expensive and politically prohibitative. That's why I quoted Matt Taibbi, who puts it rather well... The modern state only takes notice when the wheels of commerce start grinding to a halt.
That surely means civil disobedience, strikes and boycotts, even blockades. And no, not blowing things up Laban.
Now, that's the kind of thing you get jail time for, and I have no idea how you'd go about convincing people to put their backsides on the line - that's why I'm an office drone rather than a revolutionary.
'Ratty', you're the sort of officer who shouts "Go on!" to his troops, as opposed to those who cry "Come on!" Still, at least you're honest - well done.
The graveyards are full of brave, dead officers David.
Please, though, don't let my abject cowardice prevent you from immolating yourself in front of Greenpeace's London office, as an example to us all.
Mr Taibbi is surely right - at least up to a point. PIRA killed lots of police/Prods/squaddies to little avail - it seemed to be the Baltic Exchange/Canary Wharf which concentrated the minds of HMG. And the poll tax refuseniks were at least as, if not more influential than the rioters.
But my main point still stands. The government has policies that you - and a large number of others - didn't and don't like. Despite that they went ahead with said policies. They then got re-elected. And you're wondering what combination of "civil disobedience, strikes and boycotts, even blockades" can stop them doing other things you don't like.
I don't like the policies of mass immigration combined with minimal integration that we've had for the last 30-odd years. I think they're dangerous to all of us. Nonetheless I have to recognise that, while a majority of my countrymen have consistently expressed their opposition to the policies when asked by opinion pollsters, they've not been bothered enough to actually vote for different policies. It didn't occur to me that what I should have been doing was organising "civil disobedience, strikes and boycotts, even blockades".
Do you consider that at that point one ceases to be a democrat, or do you see it as giving democracy a shove in the "right" direction - i.e. the one you agree with ?
A caveat there. Nowt wrong with strikes and boycotts - unless you enforce them with violence.
But blockades - well, that's a use of force. And 'civil disobedience' covers a multitude of sins - from refusing to pay your poll tax like wot I did, to the kind of vandalism we see at Faslane and Fairford.
Laban, you're deliberately reading violent intent into everything I'm saying. I appreciate that you're playing your usual Oooh, check out the hypocrisy on the liberals game here, and it's just as entertaining as ever, but until I start raving about nuclear strikes on London you can assume that I'm not advocating violence.
I mention these options - which have been employed non-violently by everyone from greenies to truckers - because I've criticised the failures of the anti-war protests. In response, I've been asked "What would you do about it then, smartarse?" to which I can only answer, "I don't have a damn clue - here, have some feeble generalisations."
If I had lots of good ideas, I would've written about them instead, and while I appreciate your suggestions on founding a democratic socialist party and campaigning on an anti-war platform, that's not very useful if Wee Gordon Broon decides to bomb Lithuania next week.
Laban, do you support the fox-hunters who are flouting the ban? And, in refusing to pay your poll tax did you cease to be a democrat? Or were you just giving democracy a "shove" in the right direction?
(Your fundamental question is a good and interesting one: at what point in opposing the actions of your democratic country do you cease to be a democrat? But it seems unfair that the Rodent should have to answer it alone.)
It is indeed completely ridiculous that the Flying Rodent should be asked to answer on behalf of those that stood up and protested. I did, presumeably at the same march he was on. I talked to a few folk, who didn't, frankly, have anything much in common with me apart from their view that it was a stupid policy.
Which is where single issue politics has it's strengths, and weaknesses too. It's strengths are that it cuts across party lines, it weakness is that - because it does - it is not a movement, as such, it is merely a protest.
No, there is no solution, as long as we keep electing folk that don't listen.
I missed the stilt walkers, right enough.
In lieu of anything useful to contribute, here's an image of Greek stilt walkers leading a protest to the Acropolis in the 6th century BC. I believe they're protesting against the invasion of Boeotia.
Good post discussing the failure of the anti-war movement here
Herr Doktor;
Interesting fact about the Greek stilt walkers; they are indeed protesting warfare but not in some pathetic "Bread & Puppets" circus workers for peace way. Rather, young Greek students would clamber up on stilts in order to make their bottoms unaccessible to randy warriors (the "Lysistrata" defence). The resulting fluid back-up would render the common linothorax armour unwearable due to swelling of the nuttage.
OK WW, I googled 'linothorax', but I still don't believe that it's a real word. It sounds too much like the name of an embossed wall covering. Or possibly a patent cough medicine.
This is what a British boarding school education gets you: I can match the right era playwright to the right style of Attic light infantry armour for the time (linen armour? Those kooks!) almost on demand, but can't help thinking I would have been better off with a BTEC and an understanding of C++.
I don't like the policies of mass immigration combined with minimal integration that we've had for the last 30-odd years.
Actually for the last thirty years the UK has seen neither mass immigration nor minimal integration, but what the fuck eh?
was still an awsome day though FR, I met lost of people on the Glasgow march who I thought would never be there.
The big demos are for us, not the media. A way to gauge together how many people agree with our line.
I remember saying to my best mate 'well thats us fucked for the next 20 years, we'll never top this"
But it was worth it
(Also, as deputy chief steward I had to call the cops on Nicola Sturgeon, so much for our potential romance!)
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