Subscribe & Order
Change of Address

Issue Highlights

Writings of
Elizabeth Barrette

Contributor Guide
Upcoming Themes
Advertising
Sister Publications
Contact PanGaia
Privacy Statement
Home

Toe to Toe
A Forum for Controversy and Debate

This issue's question is
"Rationality or Rebellion - Does Radical Protest Work?"

NO
You Catch More Flies...
Activism is the process of fomenting change, and it can come in many forms. Protestors can stage huge demonstrations on the street, peacefully marching in an attempt to show public opposition to political policy. Civil disobedience is a technique used to ratchet up a peaceful demonstration; this involves doing something specifically in order to be arrested. But activism can also take place within the political and social system, by making use of the courts, the media and the political process itself. Both types of activism have their places and their uses in fomenting social change and both are necessary techniques in the arsenal of the activist Witch.

Radical activism appeals to the senses and emotions. Sometimes, it is necessary to play upon the emotions to get anything changed. Certainly the visceral impact of seeing Bull Connor's violent response to the peaceful protestors during the Civil Rights Movement galvanized a lot of complacent people.

Rational activism, on the other hand, appeals to the mind. It calls for thought and calm, sensible action. It tends to zero in on an issue, and focus not on gaining the attention of the general public, but on directly affecting the reality surrounding that issue. It often involves concerted efforts to both use the existing political and judicial power structures of society, and to change those power structures, not from without, but from within.

For myself, I tend to favor rational methods of activism. While I recognize the viability and often necessity of more dramatic and showy techniques, I am more drawn to the pragmatic, direct nature of rational activism. I find that radical approaches can sometimes push away the very people activists are trying to reach. Acting up and acting out can be emotionally satisfying, but sometimes it gets nothing done, other than offending the powers-that-be. While I am all for offending those who need to be offended, I prefer trying to reach them with sensible appeals first.

Often, public support for a movement can be lost if radical fringe elements in the movement go too far and violence erupts in an otherwise peaceful demonstration. No matter who starts the violence, once it occurs, public support for an issue is often lost.

My Gram always told me that you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Professional lobbyists for corporate interests know this and have made sweet-talking politicians an art form. While I disagree with what most corporate lobbyists are trying to achieve, I cannot help but admire their methods. I think that, sometimes, we Pagan activists might do better to put down our signs and pretty costumes and take up a business suit and a briefcase in order to achieve our goals.

- Barbara Fisher has been a Witch for twenty-two years and a writer her entire life. She lives in the woods of Central Ohio. There she writes, teaches cooking, and educates others on food self-sufficiency.

Finding Common Ground
Protest is a common scene in modern society. Every controversial issue draws crowds of supporters and opponents. In America, we can trace our history of protest back to the Boston Tea Party.

Why do people protest? One reason is publicity. It's an opportunity to make others aware of a viewpoint. Another is political: a large crowd marching down the streets of downtown is more likely to make a politician take notice than would one person waiting in an office. A third reason, and possibly the most important, is to sway public opinion.

The question is, "What form of protest is most likely to meet these goals? Radical protests, with participants blocking building entrances and streets, shouting at passers-by, or trying to goad police, certainly make the news. They also capture political attention. But what effect do they have on public opinion?
Down on the front lines, it doesn't take long before things get ugly. Emotions run high, and otherwise rational people scream obscenities at one another. Whenever I've been near that sort of situation, I know there's going to be no opportunity to find any middle ground.

The more "in-your-face" one side becomes, the more defensive the other grows. People in the middle, who might have been swayed to find some truth on both sides, find themselves polarized instead. Those people, of course, make up the majority on almost every issue.

One of the problems with radical protest is that it affects many people who are potentially sympathetic, and instead of making them listen, it drives them away. Consider a woman who works at a downtown office. She's a few minutes late on a Monday morning after getting the kids off to school and stopping for a cup of coffee, but she knows she can still be at her desk before the boss notices. As she gets closer to downtown, the streets are blocked, and traffic is snarled in all directions. Her stress level rising, she turns on the radio to discover that she's late for work because protestors are blocking the streets. She hasn't given much thought to their cause before. How sympathetic do you think she's going to be now?

Every issue has more than two sides. The more radical elements tend to believe, "If you're not for us, you're against us," but in reality very few things are so clearly defined. This is where the more rational approach comes in.
Instead of dividing the general public into potential enemies or allies, why not approach them as potential mediators? Among the hordes of people who are not yet involved in the movement may well be a soul or two who can bring both extremes to the bargaining table, to seek common ground.

Rational protest sets out with the goal of making others aware of a viewpoint, while radical protest has the goal of shoving that viewpoint down everyone's throat. The latter may have its place, but the former will more likely result in resolution.
If we take the radical approach, certain in our hearts and minds that we are right, then what we have actually done is to close our minds as surely as those we accuse on the opposite side of the issue.

Protest helps change the world. But it cannot change the world through sheer force of will. True change is affected one soul at a time.

- Kurt lives in Central New York with his wife and a small menagerie. He's a freelance corporate trainer, tech writer and software breaker, when he's not out communing with Nature.

Radicals Preach to the Choir
Radical protests are designed to get attention to a particular cause. The goal may be worthy, but because the protest takes on an attention-grabbing bend, the message must be reduced to short, easy to remember phrases. This not only diminishes the respect the cause deserves, but it modifies the message, and once an issue becomes a sound-bite, the opposition finds it easy to tear apart or simply dismiss it as a fringe issue. Once a cause is labeled this way, those who may have given it credence quickly distance themselves from it so as to avoid being labeled as a "radical."

For example, when a protester from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) paints her body to resemble a cat and locks herself in a cage on the sidewalk, do you think that anyone who sees her suddenly changes their mind about lab testing on animals? Passers-by likely think she's crazy and may remember her message but don't want to be associated with a cause that promotes such a display.

Radical protests also fail because of the short attention span of the average audience. Chaining yourself to a tree stops the logging, but only for a few days, and the story reported by the media becomes one detailing your arrest rather than your cause.

Another way to look at this question is to imagine yourself on the receiving end of a protest, and then ask which type of protest would be more likely to persuade you? Radical protests are great for grabbing attention and stirring emotions, but it is the rational follow-up that embeds the logic of the cause. It is rational protest that changes not only people's hearts, but their minds as well.

- Michael Samhain's writing most recently appeared in newWitch.

YES
Taking Our Power Back
I admit it: I like radical political action; its daring energy and open challenge of convention are key ingredients of the empowerment necessary for change. If some radical political acts are counterproductive and ill-informed, the same can be said of letter-writing campaigns and electoral politics. The fact that we humans don't really think things through sometimes is hardly the fault of any specific form of action.

However, the distinctions between radical and rational action are in some ways a bit fuzzy. Let's say that we want to prevent the logging of an old-growth forest. Whether we present logical arguments based on substantiated data or simply superglue ourselves to City Hall and launch a hunger strike, we are still depending on someone to understand our argument and agree with us. Whether the argument is an emotional plea or a rational debate, our method is still identical: influential politics.

Or, we could just destroy the logging equipment. Whether doing that is really a good idea is debatable - among other things, loggers are people, and they might have become our allies if we hadn't alienated them by breaking their stuff - but what isn't debatable is that those trees are safe for a little while at least. This is direct action, and it doesn't depend on influencing anybody.

Pledging to only buy sustainably harvested wood products is direct action, too, and with enough people, can be very effective. Seeing political action through the lens of direct/influential action is useful because it focuses on how and where the energies of the activists are flowing. It shows why a given action will or won't work within a given situation.

Of course, we really need both types of action; any group that does not bother to seek allies is not only arrogant, it is also doomed. That said, I think it is more important to become a direct activist first.

We are all engaged in direct action already; we are all actively creating the world we live in by living in it. While working for the Green Party of Delaware, the thing I heard most commonly was "I agree with you about these problems, but there is no solution; nothing is going to change, so why try?" One woman I spoke to worked at a store that sold newspapers, but she didn't even realize that it was a Presidential election year! Such people have internalized the idea that the only way they can change anything is to influence someone "in power" and have rightly concluded that those in power do not want to be influenced. Yet who buys the products of the industries that buy the politicians? Who decides not to get involved in local politics where individuals can and do make a big difference?

We have a lot of power, but a lot of us don't seem to realize it. We give it away to politicians and other authority figures. Direct action is about taking our power back, even when it means doing something scary or socially unacceptable. Without this attitude, action seems like an exercise in frustration, and even relatively conservative direct acts like voting lose their appeal. But if one realizes that every act matters, all the choices become ours.

It isn't that action needs to be radical, or even direct to be effective; it is that activists need to be.

- Caroline Ailanthus recently moved to Arizona. She is working on a novel and a book about menarche. A former Green Party leader in Delaware, these days her favorite form of political activism is feeding her friends good vegan food.

Protest Works!
The public is inundated by the messages of the government and the status quo. Protesters are deliberately dramatic because they seek to grab public attention the only way they can for critical issues ranging from global warming to war. Why do we protest? Simply, because it works.

Nonviolent civil disobedience has a noble history in this country, including the Civil Rights struggle and, before that, the Labor movement (the folks that gave you the weekend), women's suffrage, and the abolition of slavery.

I began protesting at age thirteen, when I was in a Quaker school. I vividly remember my first peaceful protest: we children were lined up politely on the steps of one of the Mall buildings in Washington, DC, clutching our candles. Suddenly, there was tear gas and we ran. It was the march on the Pentagon. But remember: it was a decade of protest that finally turned the Vietnam machine around, and it was the protests and actions of Greenpeace that finally got the environmental movement off the ground.

Unfortunately, voting is not the only answer, as some have suggested. Votes are often not counted, or are ignored, and many people feel so alienated from the positions of their government that they can't even bring themselves to go to the polls.

I am working on forming a Pagan affinity group against the war here in my area. There is a lot going on in my little corner of the world, but the media will not pick it up until something dramatic happens like another big protest

- Ellen Evert Hopman is an author, herbalist, and Druid Priestess. Visit her Website at: www.geocities.com/gaias_song/willow.html.

MAYBE
We don't have to choose
Although I haven't been a very active activist for the past few years, I know from experience that we need both radical and rational action. In fact, sometimes radical action is the only rational response.

Each kind of activism reaches its own constituency. There are certainly some who are put-off by the more "in your face" forms of activism. But then, look at the people Julia Butterfly Hill inspired by her year-long-plus tree-sit in Luna.

Media visited her in that tree. People who probably hadn't climbed a tree since childhood had intimate contact with Luna, and it had to change them. The most ancient trees have that effect on people. I interviewed Julia by phone when she was living in Luna and I could feel Luna's presence coming over the phone line.
I've experienced the love of ancient trees in a personal way, too, and it marked me forever. Even now, far from the Pacific Northwest, tears come to my eyes as I remember certain trees I've hung out with. The ancient Cedar in British Columbia who provided sanctuary to those of us who sought her peace and whose picture graces my office wall; the tiny grove of ancients just through a path off the main road on Whidby Island, saved by an individual who loved them; the giant redwood in Northern California who spoke to me in a loud, clear voice on my first trip out west many years ago, whose words have guided my work ever since. These trees and others, the forests in which they live, the creatures and insects and fungi, the rocks and mist, the mosses, the light as it filters through the canopy, all of it and so much more it's all in my heart.

There is nothing rational about this, but the result was years of activism and a passionate hope that often falters but is renewed by Gaia on a daily basis.
In order for lasting change to occur, people need to act from the heart. Yes, information is important but by itself it can stifle change. We become numb to bad news; but when we allow Gaia into our hearts, action naturally follows.

People are leery of "radical" activism because of the fear that if violence occurs it will taint the whole movement. But it is not the street theater people or the tree sitters or the vast majority of demonstrators who resort to violence. It is a very few who use the situation to vent their frustration and anger. The media always plays on this fringe element in an attempt to discredit the whole. We need to remember that and stand strong. Retreating like a beaten dog with his tail between his legs is not the answer.

Over the years I've come to understand that change only happens when we wake up and see the world and our role here with new eyes. We can (and must) work to change laws, enact new policies, hold corporations accountable, and vote. But we must also demonstrate, dance, act out, sit in trees, block logging roads, join with Native people in their efforts to protect and preserve their lands and cultures.
I applaud activists who destroy genetically-engineered crops and disable machinery that will be used to kill ancient trees. I know this isn't a popular opinion in these days when Earth lovers are considered terrorists, but these kinds of actions are sometimes necessary. We need all forms of activism because there are all types of people to reach. There's no either/or. It's all of us, the whole. And it's the Earth, too.

- Susan Meeker-Lowry is a freelance writer and the publisher of Gaian Voices, a newsletter for people who love the Earth. She can be reached at smlowry@pivot.net.

Rational works; radical works even better
I can speak to the question of "radical vs. rational protest" from personal experience. It all started with the remodeling of the Galletin Field Airport. The powers that be began by making the airport much less accessible to people with disabilities. They closed an accessible diner and opened a less accessible one on another level. People with disabilities were forced to use a segregated path of travel. We could use the noisy chair lift and call attention to ourselves or we could use the freight elevator at the back of the diner. The biggest slap in our faces was the fact that we advised the Airport Authority Board before the plans were approved that this was unacceptable and in violation of Federal law.

I remember long days holding signs, being careful not to block the road, crosswalk or doorways. People with disabilities from all around Montana came to pass out information and talk to people about our needs and Federal law. One of our group wore a suitcase over his head and his electric wheelchair bore a sign explaining that people with disabilities were being treated like baggage.

Years passed and the airport went ahead with their plans. After winning a lawsuit the Airport Board disagreed and took us to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The first ruling (in our favor) put a case on the books that would give a few more teeth to the Americans With Disabilities Act but if we lost the appeal, that good work would be undone.

On the day that our case was being heard in court again, we gathered at the airport. This time we wheeled about and hobbled inside the facility and carried signs. One said, "We Wanted an Elevator and We Got the Shaft."

We were very rational. We did not get in anyone's way. We were neither violent nor intimidating. Finally the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals sent us into mediation. The memory of that negotiation still leaves a foul taste in my mouth. Yes, the disability community can now use the facility with dignified access, but we never heard an apology and we never saw a change in attitude. The people who met with us in mediation tied our hands and gagged us.

Before the first demonstration at the airport, I had been writing letters to the local newspaper about the discrimination. I had recently been awarded a certificate of recognition for "the power of her pen and the willingness to use it," by the Coalition of Montanans Concerned with Disabilities. From the time of the Appeals Court date through mediation, no one was allowed to discuss the case, and the Airport Authority Board and lawyer wanted it made especially clear to me that I was not allowed to talk to anyone in our group or the community. I had to put my pen and paper aside and could not write anything about what was going on.

People within our group and people in the community asked what was happening, and I couldn't even say I was gagged. The price of getting an elevator the rational way is time and silence. This is a high price to pay when the group is already oppressed and disenfranchised.

Had we taken a more radical path, we could have kept our voice and our power and grown as a group. Being rational works. Being radical works even better, because it empowers a larger group of people.

- Sally Franklin Christie has been active in disability and civil rights since the 1980s. She lives with her husband and children in a small town in Montana.

Both Sides of the Law
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, I became disillusioned with the establishment. I became involved with labor protests, a few of which involved contact with law enforcement groups. The police had a much mellower attitude toward protest at that time. The procedure was containment, and dispersal was accomplished with a minimum of brutality. I did get a few bruises from police batons, but they were minor compared to today's injuries.

I later became involved with law enforcement myself. My primary duties were weapons training and law enforcement techniques for the reserve deputy program. On a number of occasions, my group was called out to quell civil disorders and protests. We all knew about the anti-protest groups, some of which were known to be semi-professional disrupters. These people would infiltrate the protests and when the opportunity presented itself engage in rock throwing, destruction, and other acts designed to bring discredit on the protestors. Unfortunately, this no longer seems to be common knowledge.

Some officers did get carried away and used excessive force. I have personally stepped in front of another officer after I felt that a young woman was bloodied unnecessarily. From my experience, I would say that 95% of the officers were just ordinary people trying to do a good job; approximately 5% I would classify as "Cowboys" who were mostly interested in the power that the badge and gun gave them, but were not really dangerous, and about two-tenths of a percent were actively dangerous.

- Vendegaar has served as National
Director of The First Celtic Wiccan Church, Inc. and High Priest (Vendegaar) of First Wiccan Church of Escondido since its inception in 1994.

Joining Forces for Change
It's a classic question: a sensible letter-writing campaign, or a chanting throng on the steps outside the halls of power? As a faery witch, I really hate either-or questions. So my answer is - "both."

In my tradition, we frame this polarity by connecting it to two deities, Hera and Dionysus. Hera represents the "rebel within," who belongs to the system and works from inside to change it. Her advantage is that the closer we are to the source of power, the more power we ourselves are likely to have. The main dangers for the "rebel within" are inertia and complacency. She might fear to push too quickly or too hard or grow over-fond of her power and forget her cause.
Dionysus and his Maenads represent the "rebels without," the radicals. Their job is to ask the hard questions, shake up the assumptions that the mainstream culture holds dear, get the conversation moving. Many people find this seductive, and the love of the struggle can overtake the actual needs of the situation. Should the "rebels without" carry things too far, there is also the danger of alienating rather than educating, leaving the public angry at them instead of at the injustice.
Ultimately, these two need each other. Dionysus keeps Hera honest, but without Hera, Dionysus cannot raise real political power. In balance, they change the world.

While the rationals decry the extremism of the radicals and the radicals call the rationals "sellouts," nothing can happen. A house divided against itself must fall. They must act in concert: only then will they become true powers for change.

- Estara T'shirai is an Arch-priestess of the Fellowship of Isis and a member of CoG. s

Back to Top

   PanGaia      SageWoman       The Blessed Bee       NewWitch

The Blessed Bee Newsletter, PanGaia and SageWoman Magazines are trademarks of Blessed Bee, Inc. All other products mentioned are registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective companies. Site maintenance by WJS. Copyright © 1997, 1998, 1999, 2002, 2003, 2004 BBI Media. All rights reserved. Some pages on this site are in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. To view these pages you will need to have the FREE Acrobat Reader. If your system does not have Acrobat installed yet it can be downloaded from the Adobe website at no charge. Get Acrobat Reader.