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Another world is under construction? Social movement responses to inequality and crisis. Laurence Cox Participatory action research programme in social movement practice / Grassroots Gatherings. Green Party experience.
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Another world is under construction?Social movement responses to inequality and crisis Laurence Cox Participatory action research programme in social movement practice / Grassroots Gatherings
Green Party experience • 1998 editorial (DL and Labour in power): we are fools to see the state, EU, media and legal systems as our natural allies • Betting on elites abandons popular mobilisation (and hands it to the right) • GP in government did sell out allied movements on Shannon, Tara, Rossport • 2009 attack on unions on behalf of media • Making our organisations dependent on elites comes at a heavy political cost
Inequality is no accident • Structured constellations of power, interest and culture underpin systemic inequality • Serious struggles for equality involve confronting these directly • Central role of independent social movements of those without power and wealth • Power from below: numbers, delegitimising elites and capacity to disrupt • “Bait and switch” where we forget this and seek to convince the powerful instead
The antidote to inequality is popular movements • For most of the world democracy, independence from empire and (where they exist) welfare states arrived in living memory • They were forced on elites by massive popular movements which overthrew empires, remade states and forced preventative concessions • Defusing this basic historical fact – and normalising existing arrangements as eternal – is crucial to “business as usual”
Popular movements in Ireland • Land War transformed class structure • Civil Rights Movement in North • Women’s movement defeated church, broke “private patriarchy” • LGBTQ movements reshaped Irish sexuality • Defeat of nuclear power at Carnsore • Scale of community action, from housing campaigns via CPAD to Tenants First • Rossport still holding off Shell and state • Irish movement experience different, but not less than e.g. W Europe or Latin America
Squaring the circle – for a little while • Brief period in Ireland of advancing equality while avoiding direct confrontation with state power • Some movements helped elites modernise Irish society (“pushing on an open door”) • EU and Celtic Tiger enabled funding without redistribution • Structural transformation went on long finger • Historical context and strategic thinking forgotten • Institutional / policy framework assumed as given • This period is now ending as quickly as it came
Movements into “sectors” • This process has affected trade unions, community action, women’s organisations, LBGTQ activism, environmentalists, youth workers, development / solidarity groups, health / disability groups, anti-racism etc… • As we have become “sectoralised” we have lost track of what’s happened to each other and focussed on the state
Business as usual is over • Elites see decreasing “rate of return” from institutionalised movements (union experience) • The Irish state no longer wants independent advocates for equality (which tells us something) • Inconvenient groups shut down, shut up or assimilated into the state • Parallels earlier US experience of “War on Poverty” • This predates the crisis, but crisis provides an excuse • “Partnership” rules are being unilaterally rewritten • State “responds to P – K4 with a lob over the net” • Many groups have no alternative strategy but to plead for the re-establishment of partnership
Global neo-liberal context • Welfare states in W and national developmentalism in S represented elite compromises with popular movements (anti-fascist resistance, anti-colonial nationalism, organised working class) • Neo-liberalism can’t make such deals constant problem of legitimacy and consent • Hence right-wing populism, fundamentalism, “opinion” as leisure activity, etc. • Search for “progressive” consent
Global “civil society” as simulation of consent • New meaning of “civil society” as approved interlocutors of power (contrast with 1980s) • Often violently opposed to “incivil society”, movements of the poor (RSA, India, Thailand…) • Movement language and processes borrowed for neo-liberal “governance” (consultation etc.) • Cut-price service delivery in majority world • Economic gains for small constituencies or cultural ones for larger ones sometimes possible • NGOs etc. used as cheap sources of legitimacy in return for official status and / or funding
Neo-liberalism in systemic crisis • “Globalisation from below” of popular movements against neo-liberalism (esp. Latin America, India, South Africa, W. Europe) • Crisis of legitimacy (summit protests, failure of war to restore “authority”) • Foreign policy crisis (in Middle East, “pink tide” in Latin America) • Economic failures (financial crash, food crisis, global warming)
Why systemic crisis? • Regimes of accumulation are medium-term institutional arrangements, subject to change albeit at a cost; they’re provisional only • When they no longer work for elite groups, they abandon them (as in 1970s) for alternative strategies, wise or unwise • Similarly, many NGOs seeking to turn back into SMOs: “respectable face of the movement”, not “caring face of capitalism”
… and Ireland? • Crisis of developmentalism came early • Belief that inequality etc. came from “lagging behind”, lack of state commitment etc. • State and European elites seen as “on the side” of movements or capable of being so • Generational “coming in from the cold” • 1990s conversion of social movement organisations (SMOs) into NGOs
Boiling the frog, slowly • Intense sectoral fragmentation on state terms – unions, community, environmental, development / solidarity, peace / left… • Professional core has become key to what were once movement organisations • Specialising in policy, funding, media etc. • Non-career participants unable to keep up, progressively demobilised “clients” • Groups which have not fitted the new forms and structures have gone to the wall
“You and whose army?” • Structural weakness faced with aggressive attacks from state and media elites • Loss of broader activist base, ability to mobilise large numbers, capacity to disrupt • Need for participation, legitimacy, funding etc. to continue organisations • Hence “the means justify the ends” • State can happily roll up separate “sectors” on its own terms, in its own time
People’s Global Action experience • Zapatista-sponsored Encuentro, 1996 • Asian peasant organisations: “we came here to shut down the financial institutions” • Seattle: direct action on the streets and new confidence of majority world countries collapse World Trade Organisation meeting • No new “round” possible since then • This achieved by popular movements refusing to let elites set the terms of debate
Strategic crisis of Irish movement organisations • Financial dependency on state, EU, donors • Two decades of professionalisation, demobilisation and respectability • Such organisations now find it hard to defend themselves, never mind their broader agenda, against their sponsors • State, EU and (most) donors will ultimately side with powerful, wealthy and culturally dominant against the poor and powerless • Where can movements for equality stand that is not dependent on their opponents?
Is there life after partnership? • Think seriously about how we can win • Routine politics, when the rules are rewritten from above, are a strategy for being sidelined • Relativise our routines / known world of “the sector” – make new allies on unofficial terms • Stand up to the state, together and publicly • Build sustainable movement-based groups • Stop making ourselves dependent • Remember we used to do this stuff!
What does this mean in practice? • Take our stand not in official legitimacy but in popular struggles mass challenge to power • Raise large themes, not just technical objections • Move from funding-led to membership-led, in finances, activities and strategies • Rethink role of core workers: from career-based to mass-based organising strategies • From “working the system” to campaigning, mobilising, popular education for structural change • Strategy for successful confrontation with power starts with how we organise ourselves
Reasserting equality within movement organisations • Move from being transmission belt for priorities and structures set from above, back to grassroots-controlled organisations • Change in training and education: from convincing elites / securing funding to mobilising, radicalising, winning • Rely on natural strengths of popular movements: delegitimising power, disrupting business as usual, setting alternative agendas • See ourselves as part of movement, not part of state
What role for NGOs etc. after partnership? • Service delivery, lobbying etc. useful and necessary, but no substitute for mobilising • Complementarity to popular movements as “respectable interlocutors” for state • This only works if there is a popular movement to force the state to negotiate • … and if NGOs etc. act out of solidarity with popular movements rather than in competition with them, as would-be monopoly representatives of civil society
Solidarity across movements • State’s new priorities cannot be effectively challenged using “the master’s tools” • “Ecology of knowledges” and languages has to be developed in struggle, from below • Movements need each other to move outside state, media, academic definitions of reality • “Your struggles are also my struggles” – if our goal is equality
Learning from each other’s practice: what we can do • Survivor struggles highlighting the structural violence of the past and elite collusion • Rossport alliance across movements and issues in face of overwhelming force • Tenants First etc. moving outside “sector” • Migrant-led organisations and Bloom! • Return of disruptive tactics and popular voice • Loss of popular legitimacy for state policy
Delegitimising the elites • Government, Finance, EU, media etc. claim to speak for the general interest • This enables them to attack our organisations, create new inequalities and deepen existing gulfs • Movements have to set popular terms of debate, not remain on hostile terrain defined by statute, administrative practice and academic specialisations • Stand outside purely national / EU setting
“Another world is under construction”: some proposals • A counter-summit linking movements and sectors to visibly challenge and delegitimise state practice • Movement-based: large-scale participation, democratic processes and popular (not technical) priorities • Tied to strategic mass action for equality outside “channels”
Learning to be loyal to each other, not organisations • Summer schools etc. to bring activists from different movements together in self-controlled, self-funded spaces • Build collective strength, self-confidence, shared perspective for the long haul • Change sense of “we” from professionals in sector to popular movements in action • Learn from international experiences • Highlander Folk School model may help
A national conversation outside the state • Model of Zapatista “Other campaign” • Slow, non-party tour of the country • Listening to communities, workplaces, movements and others • Conversation with each other about needs, equality and power • “Beyond alliances of activists … to building general cultures of politics and life” • Remaking the country “from below and on the left”
Hanging together – or hanging separately • Our practice has conceded elites the right to set the agenda and take equality off the table • To fight for equality we have to step outside their terrain and become independently powerful actors again, on our own terms • There is no textbook for doing this – but plenty of historical experience and “globalisation from below” to learn from
We can do it, ourselves • “Our liberties were won in wars and revolutions so terrible that we do not fear our governors: they fear us. Our children giggle and eat ice-cream in the palaces of past rulers. We snap our fingers at kings. We laugh at popes. When we have built up tyrants, we have brought them down.”(Ken MacLeod)