"A group of eight activists
blockaded the entrance to AWE
Aldermaston this morning at
6.45am. Using steel lock-on
tubes the group have completely
blocked the road. Thus stopping
all construction traffic entering
or leaving the site. This has
caused a large tailback and the
police turned all traffic away
from the site."
("Aldermaston shut down",
Indymedia UK, 3 January 2007)
"Twenty-two (22) Trident
Ploughshares activists using
heavy `lock-on' tubes shut down
all gates at the Faslane Naval
Base on the Clyde today for
more than two hours.... MoD
cutting teams worked for two
hours to remove the protesters,
while traffic was completely pre-
vented from entering or leaving
the base. "
(Faslane 365 press release,
"Two hour blockade shuts down
all entrances to Faslane Trident
sub base", 13 April 2007)
In an almost "guerilla tac-
tic" style, these direct
actions focus on small
groups of people having a
high impact using ever more
sophisticated techniques.
"Impact" or "success" is often
measured in terms of how
long it takes the police to
remove the blockade.
(One technique is the "lock-
on", where blockaders chain
their hands together inside a
long tube so they cannot be
moved without the tube being
cut, which is slow and requires
special equipment which may
have to be brought a long way.)
It's always fun to see the
police struggling with lock-ons
or other tools, but what does
this achieve?
How nonviolence works
Nonviolent direct action means
having a direct impact on what
we are opposed to  the con-
struction of a nuclear weapons
factory, say.
In contrast to "pure" civil dis-
obedience  the symbolic break-
ing of a law  direct action has
less focus on arrests and court
cases, and more focus on disrup-
tion.
I would argue that even with
direct action, the more impor-
tant political impact comes from
its symbolic nature rather than
the disruption it causes.
According to Gene Sharp's
Consent Theory of Power, an elite
can rule only with society's con-
sent (Sharp 1973). The power of
the ruler will collapse if consent
is withdrawn in an active way.
The "active" here is vital. A
government will not be threat-
ened by grumbling, alienation
or critical analyses alone (Martin
1989).
This applies, I believe, in
Western liberal democracies,
and to social movements in such
democracies  which mostly aim
to achieve reforms rather than to
overthrow the social order.
Nonviolent direct action as
major movement strategy aims
to trigger what Felix Kolb calls
"the disruption mechanism" to
effect social change.
In order to trigger this mech-
anism, "mass defiance on a scale
needed to cause political crisis"
is needed. In addition, "some
degree of elite conflict and elec-
toral instability are political
opportunities required for the
triggering of the disruption
mechanism" (Kolb 2007).
Mass action
A recent example is the anti-
Castor movement in Germany,
which mobilised (and still
mobilises) thousands of people
for blockades of Castor nuclear
waste transports to a storage
facility in Gorleben, in the
Wendland region.
The impact of these direct
actions cannot be measured in
terms of the time it takes the
police to clear the blockade, but
in the loss of legitimacy to the
local and national governments.
In 1998, there was "elite con-
flict" and "electoral instability"
in Germany (the ruling Christ-
ian Democrats lost the following
elections), and the mass defiance
in the Wendland triggered the
disruption mechanism.
The Christian Democrats used
the contamination of Castor con-
tainers to temporarily halt all
nuclear waste transports.
Small actions
When they are relatively weak,
social movements can use small-
scale nonviolent actions to raise
awareness about issues and put
them on the public and political
agenda.
At this stage, the main objec-
tives of a nonviolent (direct)
action should be twofold: reach
out to the broader public about
the issue at stake, and empower
social movement activists to
take direct action.
However, the nonviolent
direct action "scene" sometimes
seems more concerned with ever
more sophisticated tools to
enhance "effectiveness" in the
sense of causing maximum dis-
ruption than with reaching out
to the public.
This form of nonviolence leads
to an "arms race" between pro-
testers and police, a competition
about who has the better tools
for blockading or removing
blockaders.
This is not a fight for the
hearts and minds of the people.
When Rosa Parks in 1955
refused to leave her seat to make
space for a white passenger on a
bus in Montgomery, she did not
need any tool, but she sparked
the Montgomery bus boycott,
which triggered the US civil
rights movement.
Supporting mass action
However, even in mass nonvio-
lent movements there can be a
role for more sophisticated
direct action techniques, which
can support mass actions.
For example, the main gate at
Northwood headquarters (used
to command British forces
abroad) was blockaded by about
200 protesters in January 2003
 before the start of the Iraq war.
Six activists also blocked the
second gate using lock-ons, so
the entire base was blockaded.
"Effectiveness-enhancing
tools" should not be used as a
substitute for broader support,
but in support of mass nonvio-
lent action.
If sophisticated direct action
is more focused on causing dis-
ruption than on the creation of a
movement, then direct action
turns into a matter of policing,
and does not contribute to creat-
ing the conditions for social
change.
It can even turn counter-pro-
ductive, when it alienates the
public support that already
exists.
Andreas Speck is the conscientious
objection campaigning worker at
War Resisters International.
A longer version of this essay is
available from
http://andreasspeck.info/?q=en/node/95
Sources: Kolb, Felix, 2007: Protest
and Opportunities. The Political
Outcomes of Social Movements,
Campus, Frankfurt/Main; Martin,
Brian, 1989: "Gene Sharp's Theory
of Power", Journal of Peace
Research, vol 26, no 2, pp213-22,
http://tinyurl.com/25svo9; Moyer,
Bill et al, 2001: Doing Democracy.
The MAP Model for Organizing
Social Movements, New Society
Publishers, Gabriola Island; Moyer,
Bill, 1987: Movement Action Plan,
Social Movement Empowerment
Project, San Francisco; Sharp,
Gene, 1973: The Politics of Nonvio-
lent Action. Part One: Power and
Struggle, Porter Sargent, Boston.
