I began my recent dip into Slavoj Zizek’s Violence with a question that he raises but never quite answers: “How can one wholly repudiate violence when struggle and aggression are part of life?” What he offers, instead, is an analysis of the violence that goes unacknowledged simply because we are so accustomed to it, because it is woven into the systemic order of society’s power relationships. But the crucial importance of this question to those of us invested in the theory and practice of nonviolence—forced to notice that it threatens to undermine our entire enterprise—kept me looking for other texts to help me think through it. At the end of that post, I promised a turn to Judith Butler’s Frames of War, which is what I’ll do now.

Butler is, says Cornel West on the dustjacket, “the most creative and courageous social theorist writing today.” A professor of comparative literature at Berkeley, she has played a defining role in the poststructural analysis of gender and sexuality, bringing Hegel, Nietzsche, Levinas, and others to bear on the foundational questions of human identity. I quote West most of all because I’ve mainly encountered Butler on panels alongside him, and their remarkable repartee has conditioned some of the most riveting intellectual experiences of my life. West plays the prophet and Butler the meticulous artificer, whose inventions tread along subtle gears to astonishing results. Together, they give me hope that the disciplined imagination still has something to say to our ever-more technocratic way of doing politics.

Frames of War is a series of essays on the horrific violence of US power during the last Bush administration. The book’s subtitle is When Is Life Grievable?, and it points to the heart of Butler’s argument: the senselessness of this violence stems from an inability (or unwillingness) to grieve for the human beings who fall victim to our weapons. Implicitly, we don’t even seem to consider those people really alive. She calls for “a new bodily ontology” (Butler’s prose is infamously technical) that allows us to recognize how intertwined we are with them. Other human beings are inevitably woven into, as she puts it, the conditions that make life livable for us, and consequently we have obligations to them. Grief would be a start.

What suggested to me the relevance of this text to the issue at hand was the discovery, while perusing it in Bluestockings bookstore, of the problem that orients its final chapter, titled “The Claim of Non-Violence.” It is a restatement of Zizek’s unanswered question:

I was asked by the philosopher Catherine Mills to consider an apparent paradox. Mills points out that there is a violence through which the subject is formed, and that the norms that found the subject are by definition violent. She asks how, then, if this is the case, I can make a call for non-violence.

Read the rest of this article »

• Hundreds of activists with the Gaza Freedom March are staging continued demonstrations and sit-ins in Cairo to protest the Egyptian government’s refusal to allow them to cross the border into Gaza. Organizers say an offer by Egyptian authorities this morning to allow just 100 members of the group to go to Gaza was not sufficient.

• A ‘day of mourning’ was observed across Sindh on Tuesday, including a general strike in Hyperabad, in protest against the killing of over 40 people in a suicide attack on the central procession of Ashura in Karachi on Monday.

• The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) has called on consumers to boycott Coca-Cola for four hours a day in support of soft drink workers picketing in Pretoria. This follows a march by 700 Amalgamated Beverage Industries (ABI) workers, affiliated with the Food and Allied Worker’s Union (Fawu), at the company’s Pretoria plant on Tuesday following collapsed talks with management. 3,500 Fawu workers are already on strike, and may soon be joined by an additional 4,500 workers.

• Journalists in Mauritania held a protest on Monday in Nouakchott to call for the release of the jailed editor of a leading opposition website.

• Several Jordanian families began a hunger strike on Monday and said they would appeal to Amman’s governor through the Arab Organisation for Human Rights (AOHR) to erect a tent in front of the Iraqi embassy in Amman to call for the release of their family members who are imprisoned in Iraq.

Land seizure has become a major problem in China over the last few years. For instance, over a million people were displaced from their homes and businesses to make way for last year’s Olympic venues. Now, due to a government stimulus package passed earlier this year to aid new construction, even more evictions are taking place and not just for the so called “public interest” but for the private development of shopping malls and luxury apartments.

The new landlords tend to be quite ruthless when dealing with the removal of the previous owners. They hire thugs to drag people off the property and if they still persist in not leaving, demotion crews have on occasion been known to crush the building with protesting occupants still inside.

Despite these rather trying conditions, protests continue. Recently, the Associated Press called attention to one particular family’s fight–a rather unique and inspiring one, in fact:

Wanted: One live-in protester, $146 a month, no days off.

When the managers of a Beijing restaurant marked for demolition were too busy to fight it, they posted an Internet ad and hired a stranger to stay there around the clock. The job seems to be a first for China, where frenzied urban construction has led to violent evictions, protests and even suicide.

Huddled on a makeshift bed in the trash-strewn, freezing restaurant, Lu Daren said he once worked for a demolition crew and understands their tactics.

“I’m tired,” the 46-year-old said Thursday, after a long night of fending off the latest visit from what he suspects were hired thugs by the landlord. “Tired, tired, tired.” He stays — wrapped in blankets, reading the newspaper or writing idle poetry, occasionally taking short walks— because he thinks the restaurateurs have been treated unfairly.

As interesting as the want ad for a protester may be, it’s completely overshadowed by Lu Daren’s conversion from working for the ruthless landlords to working against them nonviolently. It even seems to be having an effect:

In a sign that the government may really be ready to pursue reform, mainland media have been allowed to write about Lu and his unusual new job. Lu has pasted newspaper reports to the windows, next to a small protest banner with a poem that ends, “the landlord has no shame.”

At another of the threatened restaurants down the street, Zhang Weimi wonders about Lu — and his past experience on the other side of the wrecking ball — but admires his dedication. When Zhang, who is trying to save his own restaurant, wakes up in the middle of the night, he sometimes sees Lu in his overcoat, pacing on the sidewalk.

“Maybe it’s his conscience,” the 30-year-old Zhang said. “Maybe now he felt he had to do something.”

Bicyclists in Brooklyn were upset when Mayor Bloomberg recently closed a bike lane in Williamsburg over purported safety concerns. But they were even more upset when rumors started circulating that it had more to do with the neighborhood’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish residents, who complained of seeing too many scantily-clad female bikers.

To protest this decision, Brooklyn bicyclists planned what they called a “Freedom Ride”, or, more accurately, a topless ride. But when the day came, temperatures were too low to go without some sort of insulation. So many of the bikers pinned fake breasts over their clothes.

Haaretz reported on the event:

The bike lane battle is pitting Hasids against hipsters and, in some cases, Jew against Jew.

Those who say safety is the main reason for doing away with the lane “are lying,” says Herzfeld, who was born a Satmar but says certain practices should be abolished.

“The mayor made a deal with religious fanatics trying to enforce old traditions that don’t belong in the 21st century,” he said.

Our own Nathan Schneider also covered the protest over at Religion Dispatches:

It was sponsored by Candy Rain, “a lifestyle magazine for women that love d**ks,” according to Calisha Jenkins, who works for the magazine. She said in an interview while riding her bike, “They’re essentially moving it because they don’t want to look at girls dressed like sluts. And I want to dress like a slut.” Lead organizer Heather Loop, a 27-year-old bicycle messenger with a purple fixed-gear and a septum ring, added, “I feel like they’re forcing their beliefs on us. It’s in the Bill of Rights to not force your religion on anybody.”

The evening’s weather turned out to be especially hostile, with a snowstorm already underway, so all the cyclists remained fully clothed. Of the 40 or so present, at least half were journalists, disappointed to miss the prime photo-op of more-than-half-naked hipsters and bewildered Hasidim. Many rode with the activists as part-participant, part-observer. Trailing them, with lights flashing, was a police car and a van full of officers at the ready.

Having lived in Williamsburg, I can attest to the tension that exists between Hasids and other residents of the neighborhood. It’s somewhat predictable, if not understandable. The Hasids live very seperately and tend not to interact with anyone who is not Hasidic, unless it’s for business. Meanwhile, the young hipster population has very little patience for any kind of conservative religious behavior.

Read the rest of this article »

On December 18, a group of about 20 women who are members of the wonderful Granny Peace Brigade and the Raging Grannies participated in a creative protest against the sale of toys that promote war and violence at a Target store in Brooklyn. According to a recap on the action by Joan Wile, who is a Peace Granny herself:

Although warned by the police earlier in the day to not attempt to conduct any mischief inside TARGET, the grannies nevertheless “invaded” the store at approximately 4 p.m. and quickly went to the toy department where they filled up four carts and some baskets with the most violent toys ever conceived.

The grannies then rode them down the escalator while unfurling many bright yellow banners imprinted with the black letters, “WAR IS NOT A GAME” and “NO MORE WAR TOYS.” As they rode down to the next floor, they sang the famous John Lennon refrain, “Give Peace a Chance.” 
Read the rest of this article »

Rising Tide North America has created a new website that assembles “images, reports, videos, and education resources” from the UN Climate Conference in Denmark as a tribute to the thousands of activists who came to Copenhagen in support of climate justice. While www.WhatIsCop15.net seems like a great idea, it sounds like the intentions of the site might be a little too celebratory. In a post for the youth activist blog It’s Getting Hot In Here, Rising Tide organizer Cascadia Brian wrote:

Much has been said about the failure and collapse of the climate of COP15 last weekend to reach a binding agreement, and you’ll find lots of analysis at www.WhatIsCop15.net.

But the real story from the climate summit — which at best was expected expand the carbon market and entrench corporate control of climate policy — is a happy one.

It’s the massive organizing success and coming of age of the climate justice movement. 100,000 in the streets, tens of thousands in attendance at the climate justice oriented Klimaforum, and countless actions against the root causes of climate change.

While we certainly shouldn’t belittle the efforts of the thousands who traveled to Copenhagen and put their freedom and safety on the line to protest the inaction of world leaders, I’m not sure we should celebrate either. With as little time as there is to prevent catastrophic climate change, activists should be analyzing their efforts in Copenhagen to figure out what went wrong and how to improve.

It seems like far too many of the exciting actions planned to disrupt the UN meetings were foiled by a massive police crackdown. For instance, the Bike Bloc, which we wrote about, was broken up by police before it ever formed. The UK group Camp for Climate Action, which organized the action, never even updated its blog to reflect upon what happened.

More than anything, activists need to examine the movement’s failure to anticipate the police crackdown or deal with it in a way that benefited the movement. Ideally the footage of nonviolent protesters getting beaten by police would have gotten some mainstream press attention. But, as should have been expected, they instead focused on the small and scattered acts of vandalism committed by a few misguided anarchists.

All of this isn’t to say that activists shouldn’t draw attention to the injustices perpetrated by law enforcement or the media, but these institutions act in predictable patterns. It’s time climate activists put as much thought into self-analysis as they do into their creative protests.

• Iranian riot police fired tear gas in clashes with thousands of opposition supporters who shouted anti-government slogans during a Shiite mourning event on Saturday. On Sunday, at least 15 protesters were killed as the demonstrations, which at times turned violent, continued. 

• Students at several universities in Germany staged a campus sit-in over Christmas to protest the worsening of study conditions and rising fees.

• Members of two of Turkey’s largest unions started work after an hour-long delay Friday to protest layoffs and the closure of offices that resulted from privatization. They plan to continue holding one hour protests every week until the ruling party hears their demands.

• Palestinians have held a mass demonstration against Egypt’s construction of an underground wall along the border with the Gaza Strip which claimed its first victim on Friday.

• More than 200 workers organized a sit-in Thursday morning in front of the Social Affairs Center in Jabriya, Kuwait to protest the withholding of their salaries for more than seven months, bad housing conditions and not having their residency permits renewed.

• Rallies, hunger strikes and demonstrations continued for the fourth consecutive day on Saturday in the Telangana region of India, where the demand for a separate state keeps gaining momentum.

• Taxi drivers in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki went on strike Saturday to protest the murder of a fellow taxi-driver in the region of Pylaia on Christmas Day.

To mark the one year anniversary of the three-week Israeli assault on Gaza and to draw the world’s attention to the ongoing humanitarian crisis there, over 1,300 people from more than 40 countries, along with an estimated 50,000 Palestinians, will participate in a nonviolent rally and 5-km (3-mile) march from Abu Drabo - a Palestinian community that has been almost entirely destroyed - to the Erez border crossing into Israel on December 31.

According to its website, the Gaza Freedom March – which is being organized by the International Coalition to End the Illegal Siege of Gaza – will:

…feature hip hop music (including a song written especially for the march) and commentary on the impact of the siege by farmers, fishermen, merchants and others.  Upon reaching Erez crossing, balloons, kites and/or flags will be flown to express solidarity with Palestinians and Israeli peace activists on the other side.    

Almost all of the international delegates participating in the march are first meeting in Cairo, and will head from there to the Egyptian border with Gaza.

Last Sunday, however, organizers for the march ran into a problem. After months of negotiating with the Egyptian government, the Foreign Ministry announced that the Rafah border crossing would be closed due to the “sensitive situation” in Gaza.

Read the rest of this article »

It’s hard not to mourn the extent to which the origin of Christmas is lost in the orgy of holiday shopping. One veteran of the peace movement recently told me that she even hoped a judge would expedite her case and let her serve the month in jail that she is expecting for a previous action now, so that she could escape the madness.

While we must always use this time to remind folks that this holiday is ultimately a celebration of the birth of Jesus – who not only taught the gospel of nonviolence, but perfectly embodied his teaching to “love your enemies” by voluntarily dying on the cross - a fascinating article in The Cowl, Providence College’s student newspaper, recently alerted me of another connection between Christmas and nonviolence that should be highlighted.   

The 1970 classic stop motion film, Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town, could actually be seen as a story of nonviolent resistance. As Tim Fleming recounts:

…it’s the movie that tells the story of Santa Claus from start to finish. It explains how he chose to enter homes via chimneys and how one man can be named Kris Kringle, Santa Claus, and Saint Nick at the same time. The birth of the Christmas stocking is explained, and Winter Warlock is introduced as the in-charge director of seasonal cold and snow. However, as I watched this film with my eight-year-old sister I couldn’t help but think that we were viewing, for all intents and purposes, different films. For her the movie was about the history of Christmas, but I saw something different. It’s possible that my being a global studies major had influenced this perceived difference but I saw a case study in Yuletide civil disobedience.

Unfortunately for the children of Little Sombertown, toys had been outlawed by the evil Burgermeister Meisterburger. This unjust decree was enacted on the basis that toys do not foster civil productivity, but instead lead to laziness, dependence, and in the worst case scenario, a healthy imagination. Kris Kringle, however, will not stand for such intolerable rules. He is told over and over that his practices of delivering toys on “the holiest day of the year,” Christ’s birthday, are morally, socially, and lawfully wrong, yet he refuses to cease and desist as his orders prescribe. When he no longer can work in the daylight because of the law, he continues under the cover of night. When he can no longer walk freely through the front doors of houses, he resorts to chimneys. He starts stuffing socks with small toys to hide them from the Burgermeister’s guards when they begin searching houses. In my eyes Kris Kringle was one of the original champions of civil disobedience.

Leo Tolstoy

One idea that I find intriguing is the notion that peace can be obtained through anarchy, which Webster’s defines as “a utopian society of individuals who enjoy complete freedom without government.” One of the original proponents of this concept was Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy believed that all violence was wrong, including personal self-defense against imminent attack. Furthermore, as Peter Kropotkin wrote: “Robbers, [Tolstoy] says, are far less dangerous than a well-organized government.”

These convictions continue to inspire pacifists today. Colman McCarthy, the Director of American University’s Center for Teaching Peace, bemoans the fact that, in the minds of his students, the word “anarchy” invariably means “chaos.” His reply? “Instead of fantasizing about the pending calamites that might happen, think about the calamities that are happening now; war, poverty, and the degradations of violence sanctioned by political power and laws.”

McCarthy worries that youth that “dress in all black and mass-migrate to protests at the World Bank” have given anarchists a bad name by engaging in “verbal violence.” But these are not the people I would worry about if the government was disbanded.

Instead, my mind turns to the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when a heavily armed private militia patrolled the streets of predominantly-white Algiers Point and shot African-Americans at will.

I think about Glenn Beck’s 2014 civil war scenario called “The Bubba Effect,” where angry Americans hole up in armed camps in the South and West and shoot anyone who comes near their land.

I think of Chris Broughton bringing an AR-15 assault rifle to a health care reform rally in Phoenix and declaring, “We will forcefully resist people imposing their will on us through the strength of the majority with a vote.”

These are some of the people who we’d be counting on to live peacefully among their fellow human beings in an anarchy? And we’d expect them to embrace an egalitarian—and possibly collectivized—society?

Read the rest of this article »