Strategy

1 March 2012Review

2011; 87 minutes; available for £11.99 + p&p from TVF: tvinternational.com

A common argument in the leadup to the 2003 invasion of Iraq was that Saddam Hussein could only be toppled by a foreign invasion, that it was impossible for Iraqis themselves to remove such a brutal dictator.

An insightful and stirring look at the life and work of Gene Sharp, How To Start A Revolution demolishes this argument. Countering the widely accepted view of nonviolence as hopelessly naïve, the 84-year-old professor of political science has spent his life documenting the…

24 January 2012Letter

I was really confused by your latest editorial on the Occupy movement. Has PN become victim of Occupy’s growing contagion of ambivalence about capitalism? (Has the movement been infiltrated by the London Stock Exchange?)

In the second half of paragraph seven, the paper for nonviolent revolution expresses the expediency of reform over revolution: “we can only hope to modify dominant institutions. For the foreseeable future, immediate modification rather than immediate revolution must…

1 December 2011Comment

What is it we are against and what is it that we are for? Questions that arise more sharply, perhaps, in the age of Occupy.

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…

1 December 2011Review

New Internationalist. Oxford. 2011. 224 pp; £9.99

"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…

13 August 2011Feature

Taxes for war — it's not just a case of whether to pay or not. Andreas Speck and Simon Heywood debate the merits of campaign strategies for effecting changes in the law.

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…

1 July 2011Comment

“If it’s not revolutionary, it’s not our kind of nonviolence.”

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…

1 June 2011Review

Housmans Bookshop, 2011; 94pp; £5.95 + p&p from Housmans, 0207 837 4473 or www.housmans.com

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…

31 January 2011Blog

<p>PN's Wales editor reflects on the UK climate change movement</p>

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…

1 September 2004Feature

 

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 DONE

As 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…

1 April 2004Review

Published independently, 2003. For more information contact Graham Carey, 6 Granville Terrace, Bingley, W. Yorks, BD16 4HW, Britain. Tel +44 1274 568973; email c/o andrew@holytrinity.com

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…

1 September 2001Review

New Society Publishers 2001. ISBN 0 86571 418 5. 256 pp

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…

1 September 2001Review

Zed Books, London, in association with Responding to Conflict, Birmingham, 2000. ISBN 1 85649 837 9. 185 pp

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…

3 January 2001Comment

It is an oft-repeated question: does reform undermine revolution, or can they co-exist? In semi-response to George Farebrothers article The Law v Nuclear Weapons (PN 2440) Janet Kilburn argues "probably not".

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…

3 July 1984Feature

From 3 July 1984

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…