Someone selling Peace News at the St Paul’s Occupy site was taken to task for our (front page) description of the camp in the last issue as an “anti-capitalist occupation”. It turns out that there has been a vigorous debate at Occupy LSX over its attitude towards capitalism, resulting in a decision to move away from the “anti-capitalist” tag.
The site newspaper, The Occupied Times, published two views from the camp. One asked: “Is the best you can wish for yourself and your loved one…
"This book", says Tim Gee at the start of the first chapter, "will make a bold claim. That a single idea helps explain why social movements past and present have succeeded, partially succeeded, or failed. Strategically applied, it has helped win campaigns, secure human rights, stop wars and even bring down governments."
The central idea is Counterpower, which he describes as "the resistance of the oppressed". There are three types of Counterpower: Idea Counterpower which challenges…
A group of seven war tax resisters, 'the Peace Tax Seven' are about to commence legal action against the British government by seeking a High Court judicial review of the policy of compulsory military taxation. Some in the peace movement have argued that this approach is not only doomed to failure, but also that it could end up doing more harm than good. Eager to learn more, Peace News asked the two sides to put their case. This is what they said:
Simon Heywood: In our view…
A few years ago, we both took part in a “radical peace movement” gathering. Two of the main issues at the gathering were the thorny question of whether there was such a thing as a “peace movement”, and, alongside that, what it meant to be a “radical” peace activist.
It’s clear that there is a traditional strand of peace organisations and activities, which has persisted for decades. Quaker activities (the Religious Society of Friends began in the 1640s), the pacifist Peace Pledge Union…
Originally published (for Burmese dissidents) in 1993, From Dictatorship to Democracy has since been translated into at least 28 other languages, and has now been reprinted in English by Housmans Peace Bookshop.
Sharp’s analysis – and this short book in particular – has reportedly played a significant inspirational role in a whole series of nonviolent uprisings, from Serbia to Egypt. Nonetheless, his leaden prose, the extremely general nature of much of the analysis and the lack of…
Next month the Camp for Climate Action meets to discuss how we organise. Actually, the agenda will be much broader than process. At issue is not just how we do things but what we do. CCA is, of course, not unique in asking this question. Ever since the farce of COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009 environmentalism – radical and reformist – has been virtually rudderless. Observing that ‘the process is dead’, George Monbiot asked the question directly: So, what do we do now? We do not…
GOALS To help participants move from thinking tactically to strategically; Introduction of a cognitive framework; Consideration of the values of different tactics as they fit within a larger strategy.
TIME
1.5 hours
HOW IT'S DONEAs activists, many of us love tactics! So here's a tool which uses that to help us think about overall strategy more effectively.
Two methods for introduction:
Method 1: Mingling
Hand out letter-sized pieces of blank paper…
This document is described by its author as a, “response to the conviction that protest alone will not make a sufficient impact on the status quo”.
Carey begins by setting out the major threats facing the world today, both in his own words and through extensive quotations from other writers. Much of what appears in the opening section, titled “Prognosis”, will be familiar to PN readers.
This first section is followed by an excellent critique of the environmental, social and…
This book is long overdue. Since Bill Moyer developed the Movement Action Plan (MAP) in the early 1980s, it has only been available in newspaper format, and in two separate parts. Doing Democracy now not only presents the entire MAP, it also includes five case studies, showing how MAP can help in analysing a movement.
The first time I heard about MAP was probably at a seminar in 1993. The eight stages and four roles of social movements then proved to be very helpful in understanding…
The organisation Responding to Conflict, based in Birmingham, Britain, which produced this excel-lent resource-guide, recently had its tenth anniversary celebration.
This book is based on what all the people coming to their courses over the years have learned. As described by Simon Fisher, founder and director of Responding to Conflict, the aim of the organisation and of this book is to help people solve their own problems, and in that it succeeds very well.
It is mainly…
Personally I find the very notion of regulating warfare, of nations and peoples signing up to agree the rules of engagement, truly disturbing. If we believe that war is inherently a bad thing, why should we devote our time and energy to trying to make it a better thing, or a more humane thing. When is cutting peoples throats, dropping bombs from a great height or burning people who you do not even know, humane?
Surely by investing our energies in attempting to reform and improve the…
You may have noticed how terms “real defence” and “credible defence” have become popular in CND circles in the past year. They have a hard-nosed ring to them, indicating that the user isn’t a woolly-minded idealist or a wishy-washy pacifist. The Labour leadership’s failure to present a coherent defence policy in the general election seems to have prompted some people…
