Consensus decision-making has become dominant in activist circles. Not everyone practises it, but almost everyone wants to be using it, or to lay some claim to be using it. Among some folk, consensus decision-making has become not only an essential part of social change, but a pre-condition of working in a group.
We discovered in earlier segments of this interview (PN 2544 and 2545), that US activist and trainer George Lakey was one of the people who helped spread the ‘affinity-group-…
As a national member of CND [the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament] since before 1970, and a member of CND national council, I am very interested to know in which direction CND is going. John Hemsley of Kent Area CND brought a motion to CND conference in 2011, asking if CND should concentrate more on core objectives. After a brief discussion, it was decided not to debate this, as it would mean conference finishing late, with all the problems of missing trains, etc.
As it was not…
The police march in London on 10 May was ‘supported’ by some radical protesters, holding sardonic signs: ‘Without us, democracy would triumph’, ‘Kettling: a transitional demand’, and ‘Not all cops are bastards’. People joked that the police might be less conservative than usual in their estimates of how many marched (in the event, Scotland Yard refused to give a figure).
The protest was against plans to cut police numbers by 16,000 over four years, as part of a 20% cut to the policing…
In late May, I was invited to a meeting of the Edge Fund, which is attempting to create an activist-led or -advised grant-making body in the UK, breaking down some of the inequalities that exist even in radical-minded philanthropy. The discussion was lively, and the openness of the Edge Fund to activist input was dizzying in its latitude.
Much of current UK activism depends on grants from bodies like the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (the major donor behind the PN-initiated…
A new radical international project has been launched by Michael Albert, one of the main speakers at the Peace News-initiated Rebellious Media Conference last October, and coordinator of one of the world’s largest radical websites: ZCommunications.
Michael is also a co-founder of Parecon, a vision of how to organise society in the future – and how to organise radical projects today (…
Andrew Cornell’s Oppose and Propose offers an extraordinarily well-researched examination of the 1971-1988 US-based organisation Movement for a New Society (MNS).
Cornell mixes documentary evidence and interviews with key participants in MNS to provide a comprehensive account of the movement, from its roots in Quaker anti-war groups through 17 years of rich and varied history, during which MNS was the only US-wide…
Think of those occasions in a group when it feels like you are collectively crashing into rocks or going round and round in a dreary, draining eddy. Starhawk is the Wise Woman of activism who you want to turn to for a magic spell to make it all better.
While she doesn’t give a magic bullet, she does offer an analysis of how groups can work most productively. She gives tools to embrace conflict rather than avoid it, recognising that the strength of a group is in nurturing its…
While researching strategies of engagement ‘designed to generate individual and social change’, I came across the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army (CIRCA). A ‘bigshoe camp’ (recruitment workshop) was on the horizon. What a great opportunity for a researcher to ‘go native’!
It was an exciting morning at the Buddhist Centre in Bethnal Green. There were 25 officers-to-be, all with the ‘aura of gusto’.
Corporeal Calon, Trwper Twp and Capten Cyboli, our clown masters,…
I have been struck lately by what seems to me mission creep within CND. For example, the conference that followed the London region AGM in January included a session entitled “Why are we war-mongering in the Middle East?” The public forum held after the region’s quarterly meeting on 2 November was a talk with an identical title.
The two presentations were admittedly very different. At the AGM, Greg Muttitt, author of Fuel on the Fire, while not answering the question posed, gave a…
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…
There are similarities between the UK government’s attitude towards the poor and that in Canada. So said AJ, an active member of Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP), on a visit to Glasgow and Edinburgh in mid-September.
AJ told me how people in Britain have a tendency to look upon Canada with affection when actually it is an “a***-hole of a country”. Later, at a meeting in Edinburgh’s Drill Hall, AJ drew comparisons between the UK and the experience in Ontario.
Back in…
A number of groups offered training for G8 actions. This is the perspective of one trainer from one group: the Action Trainers Group - a loose collective of trainers from around the UK working since DSEi 2003 to provide training for mass actions and to develop direct action training in the long term in the UK.
Aims Offering good relevant training to contribute to individual, group and mass actions being as empowering, effective and safe as possible. Training new trainers. Demonstrating…
