Galindez writes: "It would have been easy for students at UC Davis to riot after watching their classmates being assaulted with pepper spray. Instead, they remained nonviolent. That simple act gave them the moral high ground. And that's how social change movements grow. The Occupy movement must adhere to its guidelines of nonviolence, and distance itself from acts of violence."
I am here to apologize,' Chancellor Katehi (center) told students. 'I know you may not believe anything I am telling you today, and you don’t have to. It is my responsibility to earn your trust.' 11/22/11. (photo: Paul Sakuma/AP)
UC Davis Students Are Role Models
22 November 11
Reader Supported News | Perspective
t would have been easy for students at UC Davis to riot after watching their classmates being assaulted with pepper spray. Instead, they remained nonviolent. That simple act gave them the moral high ground. And that's how social change movements grow.
Rewind a couple of weeks.
Occupy Oakland was in a similar situation. Police had violently cracked down on their encampment. Iraq War veteran Scott Olson almost died. They had the momentum, which led to a successful general strike that closed the Port of Oakland. As night fell on the day of that general strike, some of the protesters became violent. That violence turned public opinion, and slowed their momentum.
It reminds me of a 1988 demonstration at the Pentagon. We had a thousand people committed to nonviolent civil disobedience. We attempted to shut down the south parking lot. We went through nonviolence training prior to the action, and this was key to our success. Affinity groups were all on the same page. The action remained nonviolent and, in the words of Daniel Ellsberg, "Pentagon employees had to step over us to get to work." All went well until a small group decided to start lighting fires - some of them under transit buses. All of that hard work to keep the protest from turning violent quite literally "went up in smoke."
Problems like this have always plagued the progressive movement. The authorities know if they provoke the right groups they will become violent and public opinion will turn against whatever movement they are targeting. Those who keep wondering why the police fan the flames of the Occupy movement will learn the answer to their question if the Occupy movement responds to these provocations with violence.
The Occupy movement must strictly adhere to its guidelines of nonviolence, and publicly distance itself from acts of violence. As tempting as it may be to fight back when you are under attack, all that does is alienate future supporters.
Back to UC Davis.
Yesterday, thousands turned out on campus for a nonviolent rally, one that included an apology from Chancellor Katehi.
If the students reacted violently to the pepper spray, yesterday's rally would have been much smaller and much less effective. It was the nonviolent response that made people who usually don't attend protests, but are sympathetic to the cause, feel safe enough to attend and to stay.
While there is a time and a place for more militant actions like the blockade of the Pentagon, only the hardcore attend these events. If any movement is to grow and flourish, newcomers need to feel safe. One of the pepper-sprayed protesters put it best, "Do not choose the path of violence. Their only weapon is violence. We will prevail."
The authorities will continue to use violence in the hope that they can inspire a violent reaction from us. They know that scenes like the violence in Oakland after the general strike will kill the momentum of the movement.
Let us learn from Oakland, and follow the example set by Occupy Davis. Right now Oakland is struggling to maintain a camp, while Occupy Davis is back, bigger and stronger than ever.
Scott Galindez was formerly the co-founder of Truthout, and is now the Political Director of Reader Supported News.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
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Comments
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OCCUPY OCCUPY OCCUPY!!
Most public and private universities appear nowhere on the advocacy and leadership radar, mute and perhaps frightened to speak up or raise questions. Their absence shares a dim and disappointing light on a generation that is on the verge of being raped and gutted out of any hope of an economic or civil liberties future.
Best speak up now, or wish like hell you did. You will hate the day when your children or grandchildren ask "What happened?" and you reply, "I don't know. I didn't care. And I was afraid to speak up at the time."
The biggest hospital in Cairo today (11//22/11) is open-air in the center of Tahrir Square, where thousands are being consecutively treated for having bravely run to the periphery to confront the military and have become severely injured for acting non-violently in defense of what is more precious than life: 'food, freedom, and respect'. Yes, many are not surviving. There are risks worth taking, circumstances worth occupying, when too much has been taken.
--former UCD librarian, grieving to see my library in a tragic, inevitable setting, yet greatly heartened and supportive
Check the telephone threats to recall petitioners in Wisconsin.
Mike Check" and "Time Out" that was asked for.
The officers were clearly afraid for thier safety, but when the peacefully assembled Occupiers asked them to recognize that they(the PD) were armed and the Occupiers were not and ...'would they please lower thier (assault) weapons...and that "No one was going to harm them, ...Please just leave..." the Shock(shook) Troops" backed out and left...They heard the chants of "Shame" etc and have to know that they were WRONG in what they were doing and what they watched and allowed thier superiors to do. Embarressment and Fear! Bravo UC DAVIS! Bravo!!!!!
All great successful protest leaders, such as Ghandi and MLKJr, understood the dynamic and power of meeting tyranical force with nonviolence. Responding violently always dissolves public support and justifies the force used by the tyranny. Of course, that is why agents provocateurs are so successful and are such a threat going forward. I wouldn't bet my house that some of those masked black-hooded ninjas in Oakland weren't provocateurs...
The owners of America are not going to passively permit this movement to continue to grow because it is the first genuine threat to their stranglehold in more than forty years.
This movement can succeed if it continues to strike at the nation's conscience with weapons of truth and moral courage.
The students began the cycle of violence by refusing to leave, and in some instances resisting being removed.
The act of forcefully occupying a space that you don't have the right to, and depriving others of their lawful rights, is by its very nature a violent act.
You may support the cause and think the violence of the protesters is appropriate, and the response of the police was not, but it's simply not true to characterize this as a nonviolent protest.
I use the legal definition of violence, which includes "the use of force or fear to deprive someone else of their lawful rights or property".
Who was deprived of lawful rights by the occupiers? The only loss of rights here was that of the occupiers to make their constitutionall y guaranteed dissent. Your logic is catastrophicall y flawed.
The answer is four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one, and calling passive resistance violence doesn't make it violence. To try to claim that sitting quietly is the equivalent of pepper spraying someone in the face or beating them with a nightstick is totally and completely dishonest. The only reason this particular "thought" has even entered the discourse is so that sadists can justify their conduct.
And it doesn't fly; at least not in the minds of normal people. If the police response is WRONG, the protesters, by the process of elimination, ARE RIGHT (and everything each side stands for).
My mom & I sat in the living room and cried when the police, on TV, in Selma attacked the young protesters with dogs and billy clubs. That, there, determined forever, which side I was on.
And let's be honest too about what the Occupy movement is all about... If the students at Davis would have had a peaceful lawful assembly, no one would have noticed.
But by provoking a response, it makes big news. That is what Occupy movements are designed to do--provoke responses. That is why protesters will defy authority, break the law, resist arrest, etc. whatever it takes to provoke a response, because it is the response that brings attention to the cause.
More importantly, American Democracy is being occupied by a set of immoral sociopathic people who DO deprive others of voting rights, livelihood, income, a clean environment, and due process under the law, to list only a few grievances. They own the media, they have odious legal decisions that hold those with the most money are the most equal and have the loudest say (no "one person one vote" here), they control the energy sources and flow of money and food supply and transit networks, and they arrogantly run the place without regard to the chattel humans who get in their way.
The only way to get their attention and resist the corrals of pain and suffering they force us into is to occupy public space and become a nuisance. This is what OWS is about.
But it is NOT violent when you get in a bully's face and resist his efforts to demean and rob you of what little you've got. Stop trying to define it as something it's not.
Indian activist Vandana Shiva says, "Bad laws that aren't worth following need to be broken." And that's what we're doing. Reclaiming our power and rights!
The Occupy encampments in Oakland have been exemplary. The point is that protesters must distance themselves from ANY violent activity - indeed, let the police cull them from the peaceful majority. The whole world IS watching, and they cheer on those who are protesting the larger violence that has been visited upon us all.
PS: take care of OUR injured Marine, please.
Most of Occupy Oakland were victims of police violence, but those who were violent that night were not.
The MSM focused on OO as "violent" (broke windows.) Why? To cover the 17 different police agencies asses for overkill and excess cost$ and force on repeated occasions, including beating innocent human bystanders to a pulp. That's the only reason. For instance, there were a few "violent" protesters in NY, SF, LA, Seattle, Denver, etc, etc, but the M$M focuses on OO, precisely and totally because the excessive police response there need$ cover. This has been an ongoing problem with the local M$M collusion and Oakland police for decades.
And it is always about class and race in Oakland--specif ically the excessive brutal repeated predominantly white/male police response to the people of color in Oakland. Ask the people of Harlem NY, when victimized by police, if it's about anything other than class and race there. It isn't.
So here's the point: the M$M crafts this message that Oakland is "violent," vast #$ of police crackdowns, and over decades and decades, a police $tate ensues there as a consequence. And then the nat'l M$M rinse/repeats when it can, and the cycle continues indefinitely. Don't fall into the M$M/FoxNews messaging trap--that's all.
I have not experienced Oakland but have faced pepper spray, tear gas and rubber bullets. I have been assaulted by the police too..
More than once after another protester threw a rock and ran away.
There are agent provocateurs for sure, but we are also in denial if we dont acknowledge that there are elements of our movements that instigate violence.
I was only using that night in Oakland as an example of how momentum was slowed. Oakland had huge momentum and it was squandered by tactics.
I believe whatever tactical adverse elements are present are predominantly (say >95%) Agent Provocateurs, whether from law enforcement, co-opting groups, or opposing groups. Focusing on the
Remaining non-violent is at the heart of success. We have everything to gain!
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