....Vine and Fig Tree Planters - go Beyond Protest....

Following the recent arrest and detention of nine planters at Aldermaston, on the eve of the 60th Anniversary of the atrocity of Hiroshima, some analysis is offered to look at the usefulness and necessity of 'post-protest' and also a further invitation to others to join us in further peace gardening at military bases.

Writer Per Herngren who is active in the plowshares movement which nonviolently disarms weapons using hammers inspired by Mike 4:2-4 observes: "Nonviolence is poetry. Poetry used here as the Greek poiesis: to make, to produce, to create. Poetry is not simply signs pointing at something else; it creates a whole world. By creating a new world, the poem disturbs, challenges, comforts and inspires. Poetry is direct action."

"Poetic teaches us the technique of poetry: Show, don’t tell. Don’t explain, make it evident." "proactive resistance materializes visions and morals. This nonviolent incarnation happens inside military bases, companies, prisons. Nonviolence is to imprint."

The vine and fig tree planters became an intentional community with the purpose of planting Vine and Fig Trees at military bases, and in particular at the Aldermaston Nuclear Weapons base. "I liked the way we did some enhancements’ to the fence to make garden gates, and promoted a different culture and set of values in what is a strange and dangerous place" (Les Gibbons).

The planting of the trees (vines and figs) was particularly poignant and a delightful experience. "Henry David Thoreau believed the obstacles for
change would not be governments but the ones who protest but still obey (1849). He initiated civil disobedience as something built on another logic than protesting: expressing discontent, mainly being against. Some years later, Mahatma Gandhi introduced nonviolence where the aim and the means were interchangeable. The aim is the mean."

Disarmament, economic conversion and nonviolence are vital ingredients for creating a just world in which everyone enjoys the earth's abundance. In these fearful, suspicious times, we invite people all around the world to transform military bases into gardens of peace in which beauty and life shall flourish.

In Stephen Hancock's recent article on 'beyond protest' he affirms these intentions: First up: disarmament. The nuclear swords should be hammered, the cluster-bomb-tipped spears too. Taking that responsibility upon our shoulders – and within our elbows – means risking prison.

Second: the military economy should be converted, into ploughs and pruning hooks, into peaceful and appropriate technologies and skills, into health and education and leisure – into whatever tickles our fancy. To update the postcard that adorned so many fridges in the eighties: “It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the military has to collect Tesco vouchers in order to buy a new bomber.”

Third: no more fighting. And no more threats of fighting. There’s enough understanding and experience of creative conflict resolution, enough good people willing to offer their services, enough will and imagination in the world to sink the need for battleships once and for all.

Fourth: no more training for war. Demilitarise our culture, de-glorify war for our children, teach ourselves basic emotional literacy and conflict-solving skills, offer working class men and their higher class superiors genuine forms of “travel and adventure”.

Fifth: give people back their vines and fig trees. Especially in Israel/Palestine. We’re all longing to eat your surplus grapes and figs with a clear conscience. Two of our arresting officers wore “Make Poverty History” bracelets; one of them chastised us for not offering him fairly-traded grapes. Quite right. Fair trade means fair land ownership – resources in the hands of the people who handle them.

Sixth: don’t forget to spend time sitting underneath your vine or fig tree.
When we first arrived at AWE Aldermaston we actually lay underneath our small plants and looked up at the clouds in the sky. With the full potential and fear of the base right there next to us, it was a naïve act, a sweet and wishful glimpsing.

There’s a seventh step we noticed in the prophecy too: no protest. Protest has for me involved too much complaining and asking others to act on my behalf. It reinforces both my passivity and the hierarchy’s power. It leaves us, at the end of the day, with dog-eared placards and our fate still in the hands of distant leaders invariably seduced by the heady culture of power. A healthy and democratically fluid definition of leadership is: whoever takes responsibility for this situation.

If you spell-check the word nonviolence, Microsoft will suggest a hyphen. But its hyphenlessness is a deliberate compression and synthesis on our part. The “non” to violence is a good start, but we have to go further, beyond protest, into the realms of resistance and creation. Gandhi used such terms as satyagraha (loosely, Truth Force) and constructive programme. We’re also making it up as we go along.

In the anti-war protests of 2002 and 2003 a dominant slogan was “Not In My Name.” The powers that be concurred, and launched a war that wasn’t committed in our names. Just imagine if even a tenth of the million of us who marched in London had crossed out the “Not” and instead had engaged in creative nonviolent action.

For more information about the Vine and Fig Tree Planters and 'post protest'/ access to writings and photos etc see:

"They shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. Instead, everyone shall sit underneath their vine and fig tree and none shall make them afraid." (Micah 4:3)