TACTICS - WHY NOT JUST SIT DOWN?

T | 04.12.2005 12:39

On the climate change march yesterday, a group of intrepid marchers suddenly took it on themselves to become "sitters". They all sat down in the road, and the police were unable to stop them. Why is this peaceful tactic not being widely used and encouraged, and why has the SWP (sorry, the Stop the War Coalition) consistently failed to even come up with the idea?

It's not brain surgery. Imagine the impact of the Stop the War marches if, instead of trundling obediently through the capital and out again, even a tenth of the people who came just sat down and refused to leave.

That would be people power. They could then demand a face to face meeting with the politicians, instead of just humbly delivering a "petition". They could demand a televised debate. Or they could demand the immediate withdrawal of troops, say.

But no. Instead, we have the same sorry spectacle of self-elected "leaders" with microphones telling everyone to go away, that the show is over. At the climate change march, a man who said he was something to do with the march's inner committee rushed up and told the sitters that what they were doing was not allowed; that the tactic hadn't been sanctioned, or words to that effect.

Now, why? Who are these people "leading" the people, and why are they not trying to actually be effective? It's no wonder that the peace movement hasn't actually produced any results, apart from signifying that the British people are widely against invading other countries illegally. You have an army of hundreds of thousands of people and you collect them together and then you tell them to go home again? Great.

Sitting down is an incredibly effective and peaceful tactic which left police at the climate change march apparently baffled. But to be successful it needs to be done by lots of people, which is why the Stop the War coalition - seem to me to be almost criminally culpable for not having seized the opportunity presented to them by the people. They seized the microphones, the money and the power, but not the opportunity.

Time to question them about it, I think. Perhaps it actually didn't occur to them?

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Mindless marching

04.12.2005 16:22

Clever stuff, T, and an inspirational approach to protesting, to suggest not to protest in the way that the authorities (the government's or our own) tell us we can protest.

I didn't see people sitting down yesterday, except someone in a tree - picture it, and we've been told for so long that cats are the creatures that can climb trees! - but we rebel clowns would have welcomed a chance for a sit down somewhere, because all this marching is altogether tiring. Also, if part of our demonstration is to shut down all that nasty traffic, why do we stay on one side of the road? I saw this being taken to absurd lengths on an anti-war march in Sheffield where I was (I think) the only demonstrator not to go round a roundabout the right way (like we were pretending to be riding a big invisble bendy-bus).

On occasions like that, wayward spirits who take another direction are often lambasted as much by the more organised for threatening the integrity of the demonstration, as by police. Yesterday, we clowns realised that green party stewards are not natural allies of clowns after being thrown off the pavement. Boo, down with the ringmasters, this is our circus!

It seems like many were content for the demonstration to function as a symbol of environmentalist presence. By the time we got to the American Bombassy, I was of this way of thinking, but perhaps a good tea-break outside or inside Downing Street would have revitalised us. Also having coaches to catch, and chiddlers to tuck into bed, or being mermaids who can't stay out of the water too long might have put protesters off taking up a longer-term occupancy of the streets.

Perhaps a good way of encouraging people to stop where they are would be to plonk a refreshments and entertainments point half-way along, like a service station for the bendy-bus?

Corporal Deniability

rubbish

04.12.2005 17:16

stupid idea. no-one in this peace movement wants to change anything anyway. probably don't think they can either and theyd be right

anarchrist

Lest we forget

04.12.2005 17:19

The Stop the War Coalition actively opposed direct action against the war, even sit down protests. No difference now. You just have be better organised than they are, something that we are really pretty crap at most of the time.

x
Homepage: http://www.schnews.org.uk/sotw/monopolise-resistance.htm

to a T

04.12.2005 17:24

a comment to T.........................What a sorry sectarian you are.Yesterday was one of the largest environmental demonstrations evr seen in Britain and climate change has been pushed up the political agenda ....and your first and only response is to attack the SWP .........You sad person...and you dont even sign your name to your suggestion!
Hedd Wyn

Hedd Wyn

Clowns are clever

04.12.2005 17:35

Refreshment stop - very good idea! And if the people who can sit down do, then all the mermaids & mothers who have to leave them can come back the day after. With more refreshments, perhaps.

Hedd Wynn

04.12.2005 19:15

You mistake me. I am not being sectarian. Nor am I attacking the SWP. I have friends who are SWP members. I am questioning the way in which a small number of people, who seem to be mainly representatives of a small political party, have seized effective control (microphones, stages) of a mass popular movement. I am also questioning the fact that, as the last war march showed, there did not even appear to have been any thought given to intelligent peaceful tactics, or any idea of what actually the "leadership" expected to happen as a response to their direction.

I find your tone a bit strange. Hurrah for the climate marchers - again, many of them are my friends. Do you think the ones who sat down were wrong? Do you agree that someone on the committe had a right to tell them to get up?

And finally, I thought about putting my full name to this (T is what my friends call me) - I notice you haven't either. I decided against it because this is not an ego thing, you see.

Elitism?

04.12.2005 19:57

If memory serves, and unless they have undergone yet another change of 'line', the SWP consider direct action to be 'elitist' and are prone to criticise it and its adherents at every turn.

Not that this deep-rooted criticism stops them from using the laguage of direct action as and when it suits them, naturally.

They want nice, fluffy A to B parades where they can sell as many papers as they like. The last thing they want is people actually daring to think for themselves.

The sooner the SWP go fully into reformist politics, by liquidating themselves into RESPECT, the better as far as I am concerned.

Pilgrim

2T

04.12.2005 21:37

To T.....Oh come on T don't be coy....you are one sad sectarian...you may be plenty of other good things but I recognise a sectarian when I read one .There was a positive mix of red and green on the march yesterday and all you can come up with ,or rather sit down with, is some puerile criticisms of the SWP and the Stop The War Coalition.Get a grip man and get out a bit.I bet if there had been a mass sit down for 2 hours outside Downing St you would have been the first to accuse the SWP for not leading the storming parliament.
Of course there is a need to discuss and apply tactics but to trot out those hoary old myths about the SWP is a bit sorry and....sad.
Hedd Wynn

Hedd Wynn

Michael Meacher

04.12.2005 22:49

Any protest tactic that would force the likes of Michael Meacher to dissociate themselves from the movement would be good.

If you tolerate too much co-optation and spectacle, before you know it, the link between the radicals and the moderates has been broken, the movement's been divided and conquered, and you end up with [Climate¦War¦State Terror]8

anon

Hedd Wynn!

05.12.2005 01:23

You are quite possibly right. I get an instinctive clenching of the teeth when I think of the way the leaders of the SWP (which is a political party) annexed an apolitical movement - the peace movement. If that makes me sound sectarian, I apologise. And I guess you could fairly argue that, political party or not, maybe the SWP really exists to provide the organisation and structure needed for a mass peace movement to organise, and so it is no bad thing in its own right.

But I was really trying to call attention to the actions and decisions of the leaders in the peace and other movements, and you haven't answered my questions. Perhaps sitting down really is a new idea! But do you agree that we should be thinking of new tactics? And do you agree that if protestors are committed to utterly peaceful mass sitting down, which involved not even the damage of property caused by non-violent direct action, they should be discouraged (which is what happened on the climate change march, although I agree it was a delightful and positive event in itself).

Schnews

05.12.2005 02:50

"We want a movement that doesn’t compromise with war, with racism, with exploitation, with all the day-to-day shit that capitalism throws at us."

Quoted from the Schnews website mentioned above.

Do you think the anarchist movement has made any progress in achieving this aim in the last 5 or 6 years since the J18 or Seattle protests?

I doubt it. The SWP are indeed a nauseating group of people, but by being even more left wing I don't think really helps, as recent history would show.

The anarchist movement hasn't had a great burst of new members. In fact, quite the opposite, May Day is now reduced to a sham where the pigs block in the SWP who have to piss themselves because they can't go to the toilet.

What's more, the working class can't stand the SWP and their middle class, politically correct feminist screeching, so what chance do the anarchist revolutionaries have. Maybe it's a London thing.

Presumably, as revolutionaries the anarchists must have a plan of how the revolution will come about. I assume this involves the working class. Well I would suggest to you that sitting down in Piccadilly Circus, or wherever, won't make the blindest bit of impact on whether Blair bombs more Muslim countries, and it certainly won't encourage the working class to join you.

All the best, anyway.

Observer

Sit down!

05.12.2005 08:09

I totally agree. I remember at a march in Edinburgh when Bush came a visiting about 1,000 of us sat down in the street. The STW folk started panicing when we stayed sitting down above the agreed 5 minutes. Eventually we did march on because we were heading for the American Embassy. But I agree that the sitdown tactic needs to be more widely used.

Bob

tactics - come to climatecamp.org.uk

05.12.2005 13:23

Come and make actions happen, in advance or at a climate change camp next summer. For details of it and a January public meeting, check out their website.

camper
Homepage: http://climatecamp.org.uk

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TACTICS

05.12.2005 17:00

I think what you friends are posing is the need to really understand what are you doing when yo do something, and the need to really understand how power is ready to handle you, and to think about what kind of things you are ready to do...ALONE... so as to say... or alone FIRST and then maybe with others who join you... and HOW LONG as power threatens or beats you... This is what that old word TACTICS means. Tactics means deployment, anticipation of possible movements in the future, attempts to block or envelope your target, disposition to hold on or withdraw... This is what tactics is about, and parties, and government and police all of them have an acute sense of tactics when they see you come donw the street...

sitting mind

TACTICS

05.12.2005 17:00

sitting mind

T ....talking through your hat

05.12.2005 17:55

T...
you really are talking through your hat if you think that the SWP has annexed the peace movement...that is such a bizarre notion and a fantasy worthy of Tolkien.
Between one and two million marched to oppose the war in Feb 2003 and they were not annexed by the SWP and neither has the SWP claimed anything remotely like that.You have been reading far too much sectarian nonsense and should not be taken in such rubbish.
However, the SWP was central in setting up the Stop The War Coalition in the immmediate aftermath of the attack on New York and events have wholly vindicated the united front approach adopted by the Stop The War Coalition.Incidentally, the SWP has only a very few of its members on the national committee of the STW.
The Climate Change demonstration has also been a united front and has been all the better and more effective for that approach.
Hedd Wynn

Hedd Wynn

Tactics

05.12.2005 17:58

I think the idea of sitting down is good. Of course it's a single person who first sits down and then others follow, or maybe a person has the idea but doesn't sit down until a friend or someone else agrees and then they all sit down. Maybe others will then sit down all around or maybe not. Maybe someone claiming to be "a representantive" or "organizer" will ask them to stand up and keep on marching and will give reasons for it. If this happens there may be an open discussion with the organizer if he is nearby, or with other marchers otherwise. Maybe those who ask to march on will explain there are old people or children or disabled people who didn't know in advance that this could happen, and now they risk a police charge. Then there is a chance to wait for the police to show what they are ready to do to peaceful protesters sitting down and then go on or give it up, according to discussion, intuition, solidarity and courage. Or maybe the organizers will just remind us we are breeching a law. Then those demonstrating have a chance to think about what this law means, and why it exists, and why should they respect it if its breeching is harmeless for real people and just harmful for the State and mental images. Or maybe the organizers will just remind them this march is allowed to go without restrictions due to a personal gentle agreement between some authority and the demonstrators representatives. Then there is a chance to think about the reason why people ask for gentle morally binding agreements with people they intend to press hard into changing their way. If they have power, if they are proud of it, if we do our best to get rid of those myths through which power separates from one another and from our own thinking, loving and being strong to give us programmed chances to feel alive when we work and watch tv... why should we add some warm agreement, as if those who back themselves with scores of people armed with batons were our equals... not potentially, not when they decide not to be power people any more... but now, when they are playing mass-handling tactics... and we are the mass, the canaille. So there is a chance to think about desobedience. A chance to decide to do things unexpectedly and run the risk and see what happens then and think and decide again and so on. This is what tactics are about. About movement in the field and consideration of possibilities and risks and back to thinking and so on, with advancement and withdrawal always in mind. But this is what you do when you want to see what you can do, whay they can do, what this is about, test it and learn from it. Instead of their perfect engine, ready to take some demostrations and dissolve them into nothing, friction in the machine, a need for the government to think what will come next, not tired out demonstrators, demoralized idealists, but true preassure felt by power. This is something, if not enough. But it's maybe a good remedy against deep depression and submission, for those who start thinking again. This is what that old word r v l t n was about. Now rvltn is not a single sudden event, but a process. It consists of lots of people getting rid of mental submission, getting rid of sadness and deep hopelessness, and considering every little step they walk as a poetic pleasure. It consists of learning what you can do alone and what you can do with others now, and by doing it learning new possibilities and knowing they are true. It consists of not trusting hierarchy of any kind any more, so you don't trust "your" organizations any more. You trust free thinking and assemblies. You learn to imagine the best way to be free in a free dancing world, not the best way to be a slave or a slave driver or a soldier or accountant. You learn little by little, but you learn.

at sea

Observer!

05.12.2005 18:09

Just in case you're still reading this. I was working when the war started. None of the other workers (who I guess you would call working class) were under any illusion that the war was not a pile of horror and lies: they were all against it. Unfortunately they were all too busy working 60 plus hours a week and looking after their families to engage with it. I am probably what you would call a middle class feminist - at least, I sound middle class, and I am a feminist in the same way that I am a man-ist. I am also single, without children. I also know people in London. So I was able to go to the massive anti-war march, while they were not, but I went lots of names on a placard, because people had asked me to represent them. I was proud, actually.

I think that there will always be people too exhausted by working, or caring for relatives, to engage with any attempts to promote peaceful change and resist brutality.
It is a real problem. But I don't share your view of the "working class" as prejudiced, in fact I think I have had one person respond to me like that in my life.

1 million in london

05.12.2005 20:50

When this cunt tree decides to go to war with Iran will us millions who protest the day of teh vote be prepared to storm parliament in order to stop the vote? If not we are accomplises. When the rulling class pove to us that western democracy is a failure, then we have the right to bring about change in any way we want.

all power to the people

T and cakes

06.12.2005 22:12

"But I don't share your view of the "working class" as prejudiced, in fact I think I have had one person respond to me like that in my life."

I don't think the working class are prejudiced and I don't know where in my post you could have got that idea. If you mean my comments about the SWP, then it is not without experience. I was an active member of the SWP for a couple of years, and I have observed on the internet the way in which they destroyed the Socialist Alliance and created the Muslim Party - Respect (sic). If only they did have respect for people.

"and I am a feminist in the same way that I am a man-ist."

I think the term is masculist, but if you simply beleive in equality then why do you describe yourself with the emotionally-overloaded term feminist which puts off many women but especially men. I believe in equal rights for men and women. See the following website for a few mens issues (though not socialist site, but anti war):

http://www.angryharry.com/

I agree that many working people have long working hours and families to support, or don't live near London to go on all the protests. My argument is that we need a socialist party to stand in elections to represent those people, and as far as I am concerned the SWP and Respect are not it. Surely, there must be some other option than simply to switch from Labour to the Liberals or Greens.

Regarding your original post about sit-down protests, I agree. I was on the STW marches in London in October 2002 and Feb 2003. In Oct 2002 (500,000 people) while passing through Piccadilly Circus (if that's the bit with the neon signs), about 30 people or so sat down in the road blocking it three quarters across. If many more people had the courage to join this the police would have had a difficult situation. Some even braver souls removed a barrier and were going to start blocking the traffic on the other side. Sounds like a good way to get arrested :-)

Observer

Not Spontanious.

06.12.2005 23:45

I can tell you exactly how the sit down occured. It was instigated by a small group of people within a much bigger group who were all chanting together, who all decided to sit down together, one of the people leading the chants came and whispered to several people that they were going to sit down outside parliament, and so when the 2 people at the front of the group indicated to slow down and stop and sit down they were all ready and got the people around them to copy. It was not 1 person spontainiusly deciding to sit down, it was planned before hand.

The same group of people also instigated a brief sit down followed by a charge further back, presumably to test the tactic out before trying it outside parliment.

The man who came and told people to move, the reason he gave for wanting people to move was aparently that there was a shortage of people outside Number 10.

Also, the reason everyone eventually moved was that the police came over and started threatening people, also it was raining and our bottoms were geting wet.

I was there

Fair enough.

07.12.2005 01:15

So who were the group?

Observer

I'm back.

07.12.2005 01:43

Naive question possibly.

But does it matter if it was spontaneous or pre-arranged?

Observer

the swp was central to the sit down

07.12.2005 13:34

maybe you missed it, but the vast majority of the people involved in the sit-down were from the swp. that part of the demo was fairly obvious by the fact that it was the only part doing any serious chanting.

northern left

You were there

07.12.2005 13:58

So we have a good chance to see how things happen. There is a "group", something we recognize as a group, able to start singing and go on until others "join" them. But the group itself, now an "inner group", retains the ability to start things, while you retain your ability to decide if you like those things or not, and join or give up. Oh, you retain your ability to start things we people you knew or not in advance and you find around you in the demonstration. And inside that group, is there a hierarchy, hidden or manifest? Or is there a feeling that single people can have ideas, talk about them, and find friends ready to think them over and faithfully turn them down or push them through? Are there any people in the group who are more imaginative or bolder to see WHAT IS POSSIBLE or running risks or showing to others the pleasure of running risks? Or does the group consist of people who need people -social animals, you know- for love, intelligence, games and action, and who learn together to get rid of patterns of submission, commonplace ideas of what you can do inside and outside reality, to have ideas, no matter how naive, and show them to everybody, not only to close friends after many tests, to make decisions about risks, to give and take support, to imagine new ways of being here without becoming lost intellectuals, lost tv watchers, lost workers in love with discipline and self-sacrifice? Is the group open to all, is it preparing itself to become an institution, to manage others as a mass good against other leading groups and their masses? When we demonstrate or sit down we are really adding numbers, and governments and parties reckon what it will mean in the future, when they need massive support in elections or to complex policies. But we have also a chance to meet people, not numbers, to exchange ideas, to start things. A sit-in may be threatened of dissolved by rain or a feeling of absurd or boredom, but those who sat may have found a technique but also a personal disposition to do it again. They may be ready to do it again when a party or a small group thinks it's useful or possible -according to their thinking-, but they may learn to start it when they want, and again go on for a while until others join or not, and even go on by themselves for a while before getting tired or frustrated. Things in the street, schools, factories are very much like writing here. When we learn to think by ourselves, to communicate it freely, we are right. When we tell the truth about what we saw and felt we are building a good network outside the mass media and their manipulative messages. If we get tired, we'll recover and come back. When there is a good amount of people thinking and writing it doesn't mind if I am online or doing anything else. Doing things outside requires thinking, self-training, true communication with people, a disposition to try, fail, try again. And the same principles of truth, respect of life, respect of others. We are learning not to need parties, leaders, parents, priests, not to need masses. We learn to have ideas, share them, try them, cheer up one another. We invent a non-hierarchical cooperative thinking and doing, we test it and learn again. We understand what happens elsewhere and make it into what we will do one day, when we feel brave enough, and in good company.

at sea

from Labour to the Liberals

07.12.2005 22:36

"Surely, there must be some other option than simply to switch from Labour to the Liberals or Greens."

Yes. Switch from supporting a genocidal regime to being free. Switch from seeking to represent other people and letting other people represent you and realise you only ever represent youself. Switch from obeying everything to questioning everything. Switch from their rulebook to your rulebook and impose those rules only on yourself. Switch from the party line to your line, and stop expecting the party to fix the issues that you really care about, you really have to do that for yourself. Politicians are the ultimate parasite.

The SWP have ruined many a good demo simply because they weren't allowed to control it, ignore them and they go away. Sit down protests are excellent ways for elderly or infirm people to contribute but if you can do more than just sit-down then what are you waiting for ?

Danny

at sea with verbal diarrhoea

08.12.2005 00:05

"maybe you missed it, but the vast majority of the people involved in the sit-down were from the swp. that part of the demo was fairly obvious by the fact that it was the only part doing any serious chanting."

To northern left,
I must not have been able to recognise that they were SWP as they weren't all carrying exactly the same placard and trying to sell the Socialist Worker.

"Switch from supporting a genocidal regime to being free."

Danny,
The last time I looked I didn't.

"Sit down protests are excellent ways for elderly or infirm people to contribute"

I'm not so sure about that, they might not be able to get back up again!

Observer

'diarrhoea' - so thats how you spell that

08.12.2005 01:12

Whoever named the skits diaarrhoea also suffered from dyslexia, although I must admit as a word it does resemble its meaning.
You did say your choice was to switch from Labour, and the Labour government is commiting genocide in Iraq. So the last time you looked must've been more than a few years ago. Little s socialists don't need to belong to any Socialist party to practice socialism any more than environmentalists have to join the Green Party. Nor should they. Nor are those parties filled with socialists or greens, they are filled with political wanna-bes's and busy-bodies.

And, yes, the more difficult it gets to get up as we get older, the longer the sit-down protests last. 10,000 pensioners could close London for a week attempting to rise, the peace movement has missed a trick not mobilising us greyer, wrinklier folk en force. The cold ground does go for my bladder though, I'd rather be up a fence or warming myself around a police car.

Danny

The skits or the trots

08.12.2005 03:44

"10,000 pensioners could close London for a week attempting to rise"

:-)

Observer

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