Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Postmodernism in the Streets: the tactics of protest are changing

Jonathan Moses (repost) | 28.12.2010 13:05 | Education | Public sector cuts | Social Struggles

Whilst MPs voted for the privatisation of Higher Education on December 9th, another British institution – the protest march – was undergoing a transformative moment.

Outside, protesters caught in a police “containment area” were experiencing, many for the first time, a political education: that property comes before people; the rights of the former supersede those of the latter. The extent to which the mainstream media has mourned for windows and car doors, for the monarchy and the mausoleums, is more than facile hypocrisy. It is an indictment of a society which has internalised the value systems of capital to the point that a young student being arbitrarily batoned into brain surgery is largely ignored, and outrage is reserved for property vandalism over police violence. Yet ultimately, that violence is also an argument that we must change tack.



Three things were revealed by the recent wave of nationwide student protest. Firstly, the demonstrations represented a new political mood, capable of manifesting itself in excess and formless anger. Secondly, they cannot go on as they are: unwieldy, monolithic marches are difficult to control, easily frustrated by tactics such as kettling, and likely to descend into unfocused, pointless skirmishes. Thirdly, the landscape of political organisation is changing, and a new infrastructure is proving capable of rapidly mobilising disparate, localised groups in a way that can give form to the emergent appetite for direct action.

In place of the traditional, top-down organisational models, groups like UK Uncut are pioneering co-ordinated direct action orchestrated through social media and rolling days of local action. For their own part, the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts adopted a similar model on November 24th, following the initial NUS demonstration two weeks beforehand, triggering waves of university occupations and other protests across the country. There is no leadership in either organisation. Rather, they channel a coalition of local groups relying on key activists and organic leaders to supplant anachronistic formulas of vanguards and steering committees. My intention is not to disparage conventional tactics employed by long-established organisations like the TUC (whose own protest takes place on March 25th), but it is clearly outmoded to continue applying uniform formulas to heterogeneous social actors.

What makes a fluid approach particularly appropriate within the context of the student movement is the way in which the informal networks crystallised during the very process of direct action can be utilised to enable its advancement. The recent occupations are instrumental not just in politicising campuses and building opposition to higher education reform, but in creating nascent ‘strike-teams’ capable of coming together at short-notice to take part in autonomous, targeted actions. From the UCL occupation alone, a flash mob staged a teach-in of tax-avoiding high street stores like Topshop under the mantra that “if you marketise our education, we’ll educate your markets”.

What binds these groups internally? What prevents them – leaderless, and in part, self-defining – from a confusion of agendas? Nothing so crude as an ideology, but collective experiences, affections and trust. Call this fey, but the defence of a shared spatial project is a powerful psychological tool for bonding humans in politically tangible ways. It overrides the weaknesses inherent to sectarian ideological foundations; it develops a far sharper appreciation of respective skills and talents. This is political action for the ephemerality of the postmodern era: antiform, anarchic, decentred and spontaneous. Yet it simultaneously avoids the dangers inherent to ‘clicktivism’ and the masquerading aesthetics of A-B marching that are too often appropriated by the very structures they set out to challenge. It restores risk and physicality to protest in a way which disrupts with creative authenticity.

Crucially, these tactics have a broad appeal. Billy Bragg is right to note that the student movement is “determined to avoid… ideological nitpicking” – its instincts lie in a philosophy more akin to avant-garde movements like Situationism than potentially alienating leftist discourses centred around political economy. This is not to dilute its objectives: fighting the marketisation and privatisation of our institutions, the proliferation of generic tax-avoiding corporations with their generic contempt for the societies they operate in. Situationism – with its critiques of the destitution of an urban experience held captive to the agendas and spectacle of late-capitalism – offers a pertinent and playful form of resistance to the flattening vacuity of celebrity and consumerism.

By moving away from the set-piece confrontations that enable riot police to gear up and create battle-lines exploited by those looking for a fight on either side, we can begin to fulfil not just political objectives but a duty of care. Flash mobs are one approach, but we should now be discussing how newly networked groups can contribute in major, long-term projects of spatial reclamation in which protest can reciprocate with alternative visions of social participation. Most importantly of all we should not be prescriptive: the old institutions – the mass media, the police, the government – have struggled to classify the emergence of this leaderless, energetic movement. I see no reason to assist them: for once we can be asserting rather than reacting to the political agenda.

Jonathan Moses (repost)
- Homepage: http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/jonathan-moses/postmodernism-in-streets-tactics-of-protest-are-changing

Comments

Display the following 2 comments

  1. Jean Baudrillard did not take place — ex factory worker
  2. More reading — ex libris
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech