Dear HCN,
About 15 years ago, I
heard poet and anti-war activist Father Daniel Berrigan speak in
Portland. Berrigan was a leader in the Plowshares movement, whose
participants entered factories and government installations to
physically damage nuclear weapons.
After his
speech, which was both passionate and supremely logical, Berrigan
took questions from the audience. One man asked, “Since we’re about
to win a nuclear freeze,” – which, by the way, never happened –
-don’t you think it’s passé to go around banging on warheads
with hammers?”
Berrigan gave the man a withering
look. “People like me make people like you look reasonable,” he
said. “If they weren’t arresting me for hammering on missiles, they
would come after you for passing petitions.”
I
was reminded of Berrigan while reading Karl Brooks’ essay on the
Vail fire, “Terrorist tactics always undermine progress’ (HCN,
12/7/98). Because of the property damage involved, Brooks would
probably consider Plowshares actions to be “criminal violence.”
Certainly, the U.S. government and defense contractors did. Yet the
brave men and women of Plowshares set an extraordinarily high moral
standard that the rest of us in the peace movement still struggle
to meet.
Brooks uses the labor movement to make
his point about peaceful social change, but it’s a dubious example.
Going back to the original Luddites, the movement has always
included elements of both sabotage and civil disobedience (sit-down
strikes, work slow-downs, etc.). The presence of radicals within
the movement made negotiation and collective bargaining look
reasonable by comparison, and helped force management to the
bargaining table. One only need look at China, where circulating a
petition for an independent union can land you in prison, to
understand that “radical” is a relative
concept.
I have a hard time condoning the Vail
fire, which was both dangerous and overly dramatic. I can’t support
tactics that threaten human life or wildlife. However, I’m careful
not to automatically equate property damage with
terrorism.
Whether or not we agree with their
tactics, we must understand and respect the necessary role that
radicals play in the ecology of social movements. By creating space
for more moderate voices, they push the edge of what is politically
possible.
Andy
Robinson
Tucson,
Arizona
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Radical is a relative concept.
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