Not always. We can all list political prisoners who have been tortured, nuns who have been raped, who have emerged from these horrors uttering forgiveness for their tormentors. But this is not, for the most part, the experience of the people I have met—(funny, isn’t it, how the ones who forgive are the ones whose stories we’re most likely to hear: could there possibly be political reasons for this? Remember, all writers are propagandists)—and I’m not convinced that this forgiving response is necessarily and generically better, by which I mean more conducive to the survivor’s future health and happiness, and by which I mean especially more conducive to the halting of future atrocities. Sometimes it may be, and sometimes, as we shall eventually see, it may not.
A story. Seattle, late November, 1999. Massive protests against the World Trade Organization, and more broadly against the consumption of the world by the rich, turn violent, as police shoot tear gas, pepper spray, and rubber bullets against nonviolent, nonresisting protesters. Among the tens of thousands of protesters are several hundred members of what is called the Black Bloc, an anarchist group that doesn’t play by the rules of civil disobedience. Civil disobedience is normally a fairly straightforward dance between police and protesters. There are certain rules, such as trespassing, that protesters and police generally agree protesters will break, after which it is just-as-generally agreed that protesters will be arrested, often roughed up a little bit, and then usually given nominal fines. Sometimes, as in the case of Plowshares activists, whose courage can never be questioned, the dance becomes surreal. The activists show up at military installations, beat on pieces of military technology with hammers (thus the name; beating weapons into plowshares), and pour their own blood onto the devices in symbolic protest of the blood these weapons shed. They then wait for the military police to show up—or call the police themselves to make sure they show up—get arrested, and sentenced to years and years in prison. Other times the dance becomes comical, as when protest organizers provide police with estimates of the numbers of people who have volunteered to be arrested (so police can schedule the right number of paddy wagons), and also provide police with potential arrestee’s IDs so the process of arrest will be smooth and easy on everyone involved. It’s a great system, guaranteed to make all parties feel good. The police get to feel good because they’ve kept the barbarians from the gates, the activists feel good because they’ve made a stand—I got arrested for what I believe in—and those in power feel good because nothing much has changed.
The Black Bloc doesn’t play by these rules (not, as we’ll eventually see, that their rules necessarily work better). In Seattle, they broke windows of targeted corporations in order to protest the primacy of private property rights, which they distinguish from personal property rights: “The latter,” a subgroup of the Black Bloc stated, “is based upon use while the former is based upon trade. The premise of personal property is that each of us has what s/he needs. The premise of private property is that each of us has something that someone else needs or wants. In a society based on private property rights, those who are able to accrue more of what others need or want have greater power. By extension, they wield greater control over what others perceive as needs and desires, usually in the interest of increasing profit to themselves.”98
Although the actions of the Black Bloc have been painted as violent by pacifists, members of the corporate media, and, ironically enough, by gun-wielding police, Black Bloc members themselves deny this: “We contend that property destruction is not a violent activity unless it destroys lives or causes pain in the process. By this definition, private property—especially corporate private property—is itself infinitely more violent than any action taken against it.”99 It seems pretty obvious that unless you’re a hard-core animist, it’s not really possible to perceive breaking a window—especially a store window, as opposed to a bedroom window at three in the morning—as violent. But because of Premise Five, when the window belongs to the rich and the rock to the poor, that act becomes something akin to blasphemy. The anarchists continued, “Private property—and capitalism, by extension—is intrinsically violent and repressive and cannot be reformed or mitigated.”100 Their stated reason for the property destruction was, “When we smash a window, we aim to destroy the thin veneer of legitimacy that surrounds private property rights.”101 Of course the Black Bloc did not target just any property—so don’t worry, they’re not going to break your windows next—but they instead targeted the property of egregiously violent corporations, such as, “Fidelity Investment (major investor in Occidental Petroleum, the bane of the U’wa tribe in Columbia); Bank of America, U.S. Bancorp, Key Bank and Washington Mutual Bank (financial institutions key in the expansion of corporate repression); Old Navy, Banana Republic and the GAP (as Fisher family businesses, rapers of Northwest forest lands and sweatshop laborers); NikeTown and Levi’s (whose [sic] overpriced products are made in sweatshops); McDonald’s (slave-wage fast-food peddlers responsible for destruction of tropical rainforests for grazing land and slaughter of animals); Starbucks (peddlers of an addictive substance whose [sic] products are harvested at below-poverty wages by farmers who are forced to destroy their own forests in the process); Warner Bros. (media monopolists); Planet Hollywood (for being Planet Hollywood).”
Now here’s the interesting thing. As members of the Black Bloc broke windows, the police, who already had their hands full shooting at the civil disobedience crowd (many pacifists later claimed police fired in response to Black Bloc actions, but this is demonstrably untrue: police were shooting long before the first Starbucks window exploded into shards), were unable to protect this corporate property. That’s a good thing, right? Well, according to some of the pacifists, evidently not. They stepped in to protect the corporations, going so far as to physically attack individuals targeting corporate property.102
These protectors of corporate property included many people who otherwise do a lot of good work. For example there were longtime liberal/Green politicians and activists associated with Global Exchange, a “fair trade organization” focusing on corporate accountability and on eradicating sweatshops around the world. One can go to Global Exchange’s website, and learn that “Global Exchange and other human rights organizations have taken steps to eradicate sweatshops by organizing consumer campaigns to pressure corporations such as GAP Inc. (GAP, Old Navy, and Banana Republic) and Nike to pay workers a living wage and respect workers’ basic rights.”103 One can also learn that “Sadly, there is not one major clothing company that has made a commitment to completely eradicate abusive labor practices from its garment factories. While we [Global Exchange] continue to pressure corporations to become socially responsible, we as consumers can support the following alternatives.”104 It’s misleading for Global Exchange to use the plural on alternatives, since the only alternative that follows consists of variations on the theme of their next three words (bolded!): “Buy Fair Trade!”105 Coincidentally enough, shoppers can Buy Fair Trade! right there at the website, as the good people at Global Exchange “offer consumers the opportunity to purchase beautiful, high quality gifts, housewares, jewelry, clothing, and decor from producers that [sic] were paid a fair price for their work.”106 Thus I could buy a Guatemalan Shopping Bag (“for her”) for $43, or a “Traveler’s Basket” (“for him”) priced at a mere $59 (“Say the perfect Bon Voyage to a loved one on pursuit of the next adventure [or treat yourself before the journey begins]. The Traveler’s Basket offers a warm collection of traveling essentials from around the world. Guatemalan Hemp Trifold Wallet from Hempmania, Zip Passport Holder from Guatemala, Handmade Natural Paper Journal from Nepal, Guatemalan Hacky Sack”). The Traveler’s Basket would be really handy if you also have several thousand dollars you can pony up to go on one of Global Exchange’s “Reality Tours” of third world nations (Sheesh, would you quit your worrying? Of course you’ll stay in three-star hotels). Afterwards you’ll be able to tell your friends that you “watched a performance of the band made
up of young people (with tin cans for drums) and toured the favela.” (And geez-Louise, will you get over the whining thing? Of course when you’ve finished the Reality Tour, you won’t have to stay in the favela: you get to come home! )107
Perhaps I’m being too harsh. Global Exchange does offer people the opportunity to change the culture in more ways than merely buying things. For example, by following a link you can “Send a fax to [CEO] Philip Knight asking that Nike take immediate and concrete steps to ensure that the people making the company’s products aren’t facing abuse and intimidation.”108 I’m sure Phil will personally read your fax, and I’m sure yours will be the one that convinces him to give up the practices that have made him one of the richest men in the world.
If the fax doesn’t work, you can always try a rock through his window. But be warned: folks at Global Exchange probably won’t approve (see Premise Five).
Back to Seattle, where black-clad anarchists were throwing rocks through the windows of Nike and other stores, and police were nowhere to be seen. Who was going to protect the stores? Pacifists to the rescue. Many shouted “You’re ruining our demonstration”109 as they formed human chains in front of chain stores. Others began “physically assaulting window smashers while yelling ‘This is a non-violent protest.’”110 One shared her thoughts with a reporter for The New York Times, “Here we are protecting Nike, McDonald’s, the Gap, and all the while I’m thinking, ‘Where are the police? These anarchists should have been arrested.’”111 Local kids—mainly people of color from the Seattle equivalent of the favelas (favela in Brazil, poblacione in Chile, villa miseria in Argentina, cantegril in Uraguay, rancho in Venezuela, banlieue in France, ghetto in the United States112)—joined the anarchists, smashed some windows, and started liberating some of the goods (I believe the technical term for this is looting ). The crowd of vandals—from the Latin Vandalii, of Germanic origin: a member of a Germanic people who lived in an area south of the Baltic between the Vistula and the Oder, overran Gaul, Spain, and northern Africa in the fourth and fifth centuries CE, and in 455 sacked Rome—was the most multicultural and multiracial group of the protest. As one anarchist later commented: “When [writer] Jeffrey St. Clair started to leave town on December 3rd, a black youth rushed up to him and excitedly asked if this WTO thing will come back next year. Sure, the labor march and enviro’s were mostly white folks. But the action against corporate property was the one truly diverse, inclusive, festive action.”113 Pacifists were caught on videotape assaulting young black men—the whole time chanting “non-violent protest”—and attempting to hold them to turn over to police.114 I’m sure that had these youths wanted to do some real damage to Nike, they could have gone to the library, logged onto computers, and sent Phil Knight a bunch of faxes. And when they’d finished at the library, they could have gone back to their ghetto and played tin can drums for tourists.
All of which is to say that pacifism makes strange bedfellows.
To keep dogmatic pacifists from calling the cops and then holding me till they arrive, I need to say that I no more advocate violence than I advocate nonviolence. Further, I think that when our lifestyle is predicated on the violent theft of resources, to advocate nonviolence without advocating the immediate dismantling of the entire system is not, in fact, to advocate nonviolence at all, but to tacitly countenance the violence (unseen by us, of course: see Premise Four) on which the system is based. I advocate speaking honestly about violence (and other things), and I advocate paying attention to circumstances. I advocate not allowing dogma to predetermine my course of action. I advocate keeping an open mind. I advocate a rigorous examination of all possibilities, including fair trade, “Reality Tours,” lawsuits, writing, civil disobedience, vandalism, sabotage, violence, and even voting. (Recently I was talking to a number of college students about the fix we’re in and said, “We need to stop civilization from killing the planet by any means necessary.” An instructor at the college, a longtime pacifist, corrected me, “You mean by any nonviolent means, of course.” I replied that I meant precisely what I said.) I advocate listening to my body. I advocate clean water and clean air. I advocate a world with wild salmon in it, and grizzlies, and sharks, whales (just yesterday I read—not in the capitalist press, obviously—that the federal government recently refused to provide protection for the North Pacific right whale, the world’s most imperiled large whale, because, in the words of an industry spokesperson—oh, sorry, a government spokesperson—“the essential biological requirements of the population . . . are not sufficiently understood”115), red-legged frogs, and Siskiyou Mountain salamanders (then tonight I read—also not in the capitalist press, silly: what do you think their purpose is, to provide useful information?—“The rare Siskiyou Mountain salamander may be facing extinction because the Bureau of Land Management will soon allow Boise Cascade to begin logging in the amphibian’s [last remaining] habitat”116). I advocate a world in which human and nonhuman communities are allowed to live on their own landbases. I advocate not allowing those in power to take resources by force, by law, by convention, or any other real or imagined means. Beyond not allowing, I advocate actively stopping them from doing so.
Most of our discourse surrounding counterviolence in this country runs from nonexistent all the way to superficial. So the course for this book seemed clear. One-by-one I would carefully examine the arguments that are commonly—and I have to say, I’ve learned through long and tedious experience, most often unthinkingly—thrown out against any use of violence in any (especially political) circumstances. You can’t use the master’s tools to take down the master’s house, says the person still attempting to work within religious, philosophical, economic, and political systems—Can you say “green capitalism?”—devised explicitly to serve the rich (John Locke put it succinctly: “Government has no other end than the preservation of property”117). You will become just like they are, say people whose knowledge of violence is almost entirely theoretical (I asked some of my students, in for murder, if killing someone is a psychological or spiritual Rubicon, and some said yes while some said no; unfortunately, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and Geronimo aren’t available for comment, although I’d wager their wars against civilization did not civilize them). Violence doesn’t work, say those who tell us to shop and fax our way to sustainability, and who have to ignore—as is true for most of us working on these issues, else we’d probably go mad—that nothing is working to stop or even significantly slow the destruction. Hell, as I mentioned before, we can’t even slow the destruction’s acceleration! I would say this is partly because those in power have on their side so many tanks and guns and airplanes, as well as writers, therapists, and teachers; partly because we’re all crazy (and our sickness is very strong); partly because in the main neither our violent nor nonviolent responses are attempts to rid us of civilization itself—by allowing the framing conditions to remain we guarantee a continuation of the behaviors these framing conditions necessitate—and partly because we’re all scared spitless about doing what we all know needs to be done.
But in the couple of years between the book’s conception and the start of writing I realized that the question of whether or when to use violence is only a small yet integral part of the real question I’m after. I’m after much bigger game indeed.
LISTENING TO THE LAND
To be civilized is to hold oneself in opposition to nature, which is to hold oneself in opposition to oneself, to be ashamed of the animality of the self, which to the fully civilized means the “filth” of the self. All of this destroys any possibil- ity of communication or entering into communion with any- one but other civilized humans. If we listen to the creatures and to the elements, and even to our bodies, we are then primi- tive, backwards. So we learn very early to put that away. We learn to despise ourselves and to feel ashamed of our bodies, to hate the dirt and to hate everything about us, because we’re human, which means we’re humus: they come from the same Latin root: earth and dirt. But sel
f-loathing is a difficult thing to acknowledge—maybe the most difficult—so all those char- acteristics we must loathe if we are to be civilized, if we are to dominate, get dumped into others who bear the shame and who end up feeling dirty.
Jane Caputi 118
I THINK FOR THE MOST PART IT’S NOT ONLY ABUSERS WHO DON’T change. Most of us don’t. Sure, sometimes somebody or another may have an epiphany, like Saul of Tarsus did in the Bible. But let’s be honest about that one, too: after he saw the light of God and got knocked off his ass, he may have changed his name to Paul, but he was still a domineering asshole. It’s just that now instead of persecuting Christians he used Christianity as a vessel for his pre-existing rigidity, making certain the reasonably new religion mirrored his hierarchical perception of the world.
Most often, change, at least on a social level, occurs the way Max Planck described it: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”119 Years ago I read Oswald Spengler’s Decline of the West. It’s a long book, from which I really remember only one image. I think Spengler would be pleased at which one. A culture is like a plant growing in a particular soil. When the soil is exhausted—presuming a closed system (i.e., the soil isn’t being replenished)—the plant dies. Cultures—or at least historical (as opposed to cyclical) cultures—are the same. The Roman Empire exhausted its possibilities (both physical, in terms of resources, and psychic or spiritual), then hung on decadent—I mean this in its deeper sense of decaying, although the meaning having to do with debauchery works, too—for a thousand years. Other empires are the same. The British Empire. The American Empire. Civilization itself has continued to grow by expanding the zone from which it takes resources. The plant has gotten pretty big, but at the cost of a lot of dead soil.
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