Social Movements Today

Priyamvada Gopal piece (G 010811) argues that while the anger of the Norwegian gunman was one kind, another – and justifiable – is being shown in the public reaction to Murdoch and co. And while Niall Ferguson dismisses popular protests as ‘global temper tantrums’ – now even Charles Moore is saying:

“I’m starting to think the left might actually be right… The rich run a global system that allows them to accumulate capital and pay the lowest possible price for labour. The freedom that results applies only to them. The many simply have to work harder, in conditions that grow ever more insecure, to enrich the few.”

Art of anger:

See Guardian pieces for article by Jonathan Jones (21.11.11) and illustrations of posters:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/20/occupy-movement-posters-inspiration-comics?INTCMP=SRCH

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/nov/21/occupy-movement-art

Piece by Patrick Kingsley: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/may/26/stokes-croft-protest-tesco-rioting?INTCMP=SRCH

Also see the Deterritorial Support Group: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/15/ikea-anarchists-derritorial-support-group?INTCMP=SRCH – I particularly like ‘THE POST-POLITICAL = THE MOST POLITICAL’ ... Posters at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/dec/15/deterritorial-support-group-posters (and links to other relevant articles here).

Avaaz:

Note article, G2 21.07.11 on Avaaz (Patrick Kingsley) and ‘clicktivism’… http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/20/avaaz-activism-slactivism-clicktivism

Citizen Jury:

Note also Neal Lawson (Compass) and Andrew Simms (NEF) on the idea of a citizen jury… G 01.08.11 See www.compassonline.org.uk We are in the midst of a ‘crisis of elites’ – corporate, media and political (and financial!!!) – and Britain has lost ‘any real notion of public interest and pride in the public domain’. A people’s jury would put British public interest first (not the state, the political elite, or the market etc). To make elites (always with us…) accountable.

Ecology and social justice: – article by Paul Hawken, author of Blessed Unrest (Viking Press 2007) in Ecologist magazine July/August 2007: estimated that there are possibly one or two million organisations around the globe fighting for ecological sustainability and social justice (including indigenous rights). This is not a ‘movement’ since it has no manifesto and no overriding authority. It arises from the bottom up. Is it an organic, instinctive reaction to a global threat? This is the largest social movement in history – no one knows its scope, and how it functions is more mysterious than what meets the eye. The movement (as distinct from events it creates viz. demonstrations, marches) is not visible. It has at its core two principles: the Golden Rule and the sacredness of life. It is unified by ideas not ideologies (the latter justify and dictate, while ideas question and liberate).

It functions like an immune system (im munis = ready to serve, BTWs) achieving balance, mediating (not just fighting off) and depending on its diversity to maintain resilience. Connectivity allows constituent groups to focus on specific actions etc. It achieves incremental success, and works by consensus, operating within informal structures. The web, etc, have created perfect conditions for this to flourish.

Ensuring the future of life on earth is an ‘infinite game’ (James Carse).

Far right:

Note also the rise of the far right – Russell Shorto, Observer Mag 26.06.11 profiles Marine le Pen. Interesting is how she combines anti-immigrant stance with economic populism (e.g. hostility to bankers etc – a ‘critique of capitalism’?) and national patriotism. She opposes Sarkozy’s interventions in Libya etc, and sees the Middle East uprisings as a reaction to IMF WTO etc and ‘impoverishment of North African countries’. Has moved from crude anti-semitism to saying the problem is the imposition of Muslim values on e.g. French people…

See also Swiss People’s Party, Northern League (Italy), Freedom Party (Netherlands – Geert Wilders), Pegida....

And recent book: New British Fascism: Rise of the BNP by Matthew J Goodwin, Routledge, GBP 26.99 – reviewed Matthew Taylor, G 30.07.11. BNP may be tearing itself apart, but ‘the end of one party is not the end of the far-right threat’ (MT).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jul/27/new-british-fascism-matthew-goodwin-review?INTCMP=SRCH

On whether we have learned from Nazism etc: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/16/hitlers-world-may-not-be-so-far-away Timothy Snyder: Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning (Bodley Head 2015)

Labour Party: a social movement only? Owen Jones again:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/27/mass-membership-labour-social-movement-community Has interesting points on social class of LP members: around half belong to AB, which is only 22% of the population; 21% of membership is working class, which comprises 47% of the population. Nearly half live in London or south east, and a large majority have university degrees. Also about half are over 55 (and same was true before Corbyn).

Luddites:

2012 is 200^th anniversary of the Luddites; textile workers in the Midlands and North of England smashed machinery they considered was ‘hurtful to Commonality’. The uprising was put down by troops, at the cost of 50 lives. The view that they were ‘anti-progress’ was invented in the 1950s (from article in Freedom March 2012). A group in Huddersfield is celebrating the anniversary on 28^th April. See: www.luddites200.org.uk and Facebook at: events/295701293828114

The new anti-globalisation movement:

John Harris: on historical parallels between 2011 and previous revolutionary movements: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/15/global-protests-2011-change-the-world

Mason, Paul: Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere: the new global revolution (Verso £9.99, 2013). Extract: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/05/arab-spring-global-revolution Argues that there has been a change in consciousness since ‘it all kicked off’ in 2011. Ends with a warning that (i) the movement may have to get involved in what it despises – the politics of power, compromise etc and (ii) if there is a parallel with the 1930s then we must watch out for the rise of a fascist reaction or response...

Further extracts: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/31/where-revolution-goes-from-here and http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/03/how-the-revolution-went-viral

Review in New Statesman (George Eaton) summarises: several phenomena that have changed everything: the rise of social media, the ‘graduate with no future’ and the collapse of the neo-liberal consensus... and comments that Mason has no time for social democracy and reformism (even though there have been achievements here, and more so than by Occupy), and is in danger of treating the movement as an end in itself. Still, it’s an ‘exuberant’ account.

http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2012/01/global-revolutions-mason-arab

Occupy: (Source: The Guardian, unless otherwise stated)

Pleased to see that students at Glasgow University have occupied a building – the former Hetherington Research Club despite an eviction attempt involving 80 officers, a helicopter, 28 vehicles and a dog squad! Their methods seem very much the same as the old ‘60s ‘teach-in’ occupations (repeated in the ‘70s with the first anti-cuts demonstrations). Article by Jack Ferguson and Natalia Bain, Guardian 25^th march 2011 (below a cynical piece by Simon Jenkins – demos don’t change anything.

Oct 2011, Madeleine Bunting argues that ‘space’ is the theme that runs through much of what the protesters say – the current system is unsustainable, undemocratic and unjust – the movement wants to create space to think of alternatives. Cities are designed to facilitate working, transport and shopping – with as little human interaction as possible. Occupy seeks space for human interaction, conviviality, participation, and to free space for the imagination.

Dec 2011, Richard Price in Freedom argues the danger with the 99% vs 1% slogan is that the 1% are seen as an elite, not as an inevitable outcome of the capitalist system. ‘Capitalism is not a conspiracy’ – see http://rififibloomington.wordpress.com/2011/11/05/99~problems. Another danger is that the ‘conspiracy’ approach ties in with zany ideas like those of David Icke, or with anti-Semitism (Jews are part of the problem) – also that the occupiers are white middle-class males, and BEM and women are excluded. See: http://globalcomment.com/2011/how-occupys-non-power-structure-enables-sexism

Feb 2012, Gary Younge argues the movement has not disappeared – e.g. an intervention by Organising for Occupation O4O - during an auction of foreclosed homes at Queens supreme court in New York. The ‘political vagrants’ of the left have found their latest home in Occupy. OWS and others have spawned many concrete actions – e.g. O4O have been working on housing. In Nashville Occupy Our Homes forced JP Morgan to back off foreclosure on Helen Bailey, 78 year old civil rights activist. Similarly WeAreOregon, Unsettle Portland. He also refutes the view (cf Price, above) that the movement was run by elites.

Polle show more Americans support OWS than oppose it and 77% of Americans believe there is too much power in the hands of a small group of rich people.

Feb 2012, Naomi Colvin and George Barda: ‘Minds are changed when common sense shifts on to the side of the erstwhile heretic (not by singular actions, however singular)’ (Conor Gearty). The success or otherwise of the movement will be judged by what happens next: will banks be regulated, will we avoid an environmental catastrophe? One achievement has been the shift in perceptions of ‘workfare’. UK Uncut, Move Your Money, Anonymous – shows the diversity. ‘If you identify with the aims of this movement, then it is yours.’

Despite the potential for exchange of information of e.g. Twitter, late capitalism has a great deal of power in negating any recognition of possibilities beyond itself – see Mark Fisher: Capitalist Realism. Key is to break down the psychological barriers to action – the movement’s shared sense of responsibility towards each other is the basis.

(This piece was written after the eviction of the London occupiers – 4 and a half months after it started).

9^th May 2012: Katherine Ainger: the indignados always recognised the struggle was political as well as economic, demanding a fundamental renewal of democratic politics by participatory democracy. Demands include:

- not one more euro to rescue the banks,

- quality education and health

- dignified and guaranteed housing.

In Spain youth unemployment is over 50%, university fees have doubled, and Bankia is about to receive up to $10 billion of public money. Police have used rubber bullets during a strike, new laws have been brought in to restrict protest. Response on Twitter: #HolaDictatura...

They also demand a popular audit of Spain’s national debt – most of which is private debt, and a universal basic rent. They have published Manual of Economic Disobedience, and over 200 time banks (see Corporate Social Responsibility - Chapter 8: Inequalities and Imagining Other - Alternatives) have been established.

Katherine Ainger is co-editor of We Are Everywhere: the irresistible rise of global anti-capitalism.

Podemos and other movements/alternative parties - Owen Jones: on hope for the left

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/16/podemos-left-crisis-ukip-anti-immigrant

Social media and political protest:

Adam Price, former Plaid Cymru MP and fellow at Harvard Kennedy School (G 14.02.12) argues Twitter response to proposal by cancer charity Susan G Komen to de-fund the abortion advice service Planned Parenthood led to a reversal (half-a-million a day tweets were sent, 80 to 1 against the decision) - also a factor was a YouTube video by a cancer survivor; the internet bills Sop and Pipa were killed off in January; Bank of America called off a plan to charge for debit-card usage etc. The American left learned its emotional intelligence in the culture wars of the 70s and 80s – opposing Bush et al. Importance of ‘framing’... [check]. Prof Marshall Ganz dropped out of Harvard to organise migrant workers in 1965. All this has inspired grassroots movements. Would-be influential individuals need: story of Self (why they need to act), of Us (how this stance etc relates to the audience), and of Now (what needs to be done). Ed Miliband could learn from this!

The American left is where the old world of community organising and the new world of social media meet.

Whereas in Europe the left is ‘in freefall’... http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/feb/13/reenergised-us-left-dismal-european-counterparts?INTCMP=SRCH

Books etc:

Katherine Ainger: We Are Everywhere: the irresistible rise of global anti-capitalism.

Robin Cohen, Shirin Rae, Global Social Movements – Athlone Press 2000

Mark Fisher: Capitalist Realism.

David Graeber: The Democracy Project: a history, a crisis, a movement, Allen lane 2013 (£14.99) – reviewed by John Kampfner, Observer 31.03.13:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/30/democracy-project-david-graeber-review?INTCMP=SRCH

Paul Mason: Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere: the new global revolution (Verso £9.99, 2013).

Timothy Snyder: Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning (Bodley Head 2015)