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From Protest to Resistance

by Roberta Bacic

ince the bombing of Afghanistan began in October, the question of how actually to stop a war has acquired new urgency among antimilitarists everywhere, and nowhere more than here at War Resisters’ International.

An editorial in the December 2001/February 2002 Peace News (published in cooperation with War Resisters’ International) expresses this clearly:

. . . [W]hile many of us will undoubtedly expend energy in opposing this war, particularly those of us who live in Britain and the [United States], we must all remain unswervingly focused on the fact that war is a product. It is a product of a militaristic mentality, of a series of oppressive power relationships, of a desire to maintain or advance a political ideology, to reinforce the belief that extreme violence can provide political solutions and perhaps, in this specific instance, to remind us all who’s the boss . . . But our concerns, our alternatives, and our strong antimilitarist voices need to be heard above the simplistic and agenda-related chanting. And we must behave in ways that inspire and empower others to act to resist militarism. If we fail to do this now, in a time of heightened public awareness and debate about the nature and the meaning of war, then we truly have no claim in representing the future.

As I began this article early last December, I had in front of me a press release sent out by a group of people planning to come together for a resistance action on December 10. The release clarifies what I/we mean by resisting:

Antiwar activists to shut down British Command and Control base. Britain to give up war for International Human Rights Day! Hundreds of determined antiwar activists will gather at 7:30 a.m. next Monday, December 10, International Human Rights Day, at British Military Joint Forces HQ Northwood, in a nonviolent blockade aimed at closing the base and halting Britain’s military aggression around the world.

Another face of resistance: Roberta Bacic’s granddaughter Eva reads a plaque in memory of Diana Frida Aron Svigilisky, a victim of the Chilean terror. On February 2, members of Amnesty International planted a tree in Brill, England, as a living memorial to Svigilisky. It was the first tree of the Ecomemoría Project, which will plant such memorials around the world. Courtesy ECO Memoria

Ghosts of Chile
Those concerns have been on my mind since September 11, which was both the day the new war began and the 28th anniversary of the 1973 coup in Chile. This past September 11, at 3 p.m. London time, a group of Chileans including myself was protesting in front of the Chilean Embassy. We were continuing our struggle for the right to justice, as confirmed in international law. We had placed a bunch of flowers under a photo of President Salvador Allende, just in front of the stairs of the embassy. We were shouting, “We want justice! Vivos se los llevaron, vivos los queremos!” (“They were taken alive, and alive we want them back.”) At that point I had heard nothing about the bombing of the twin towers in New York.

A few minutes later, just after we ended our action, we began to hear about the events of the day. I cannot recall the different messages and pieces of news that people gave. I can, though—almost in detail—give an account of the feelings that arose. I felt lonely, distant and uneasy—not panicked, as I was in Chile on September 11, 1973, but frozen. The sense of community felt at the beginning of the day was broken, as it was in 1973. Who was who? People were “friends” or “enemies,” not just people. Someone said, “The Americans got what they deserved—the impunity that has covered the roads to justice must end.” It was clear that I did not belong there, if that was the answer. Unity had broken again. The sense of belonging fell into pieces—it happened in 1973 at La Moneda, the government palace in Santiago de Chile, and when I heard about the Twin Towers in 2001 (both on a Tuesday, both September 11).

Up until now I have only been able to see the Twin Towers in still pictures. Whenever I’m exposed to on-screen images, I do not see them. My heart contracts and beats strongly, my skin feels cold and goose-pimply, then cold sweat moistens the very cold skin, and I cannot speak. I only see La Moneda being bombed by the Chilean Air Force. Occasionally I can smell smoke and perceive a deadly long and dark silence. And that is that.

The Way Forward
What now? There are many, many, many of us who do not back either the destruction of the Twin Towers, nor the response to that atrocity nor the use of media and power politics to show that what is going on in Afghanistan is an unavoidable response to what has happened in New York.

It is not unavoidable. It is certainly not, as it is bringing more death, poverty and, for sure, hatred and mistrust. And it does not help to repair the damage caused to the city, nor to heal the wounds of the relatives who ask, “Why?”

The experience of injustice never fades away. I have learnt this over the years through my own personal and social history as well as through working alongside the relatives of the detained- disappeared in Chile. Fernando Oyarzún, the Chilean psychiatrist who used to be part of a group of academics who met once a month to discuss, in depth, our feelings about the ongoing dictatorship, said in 1983, “The only action that can restore confidence in a better society and partially repair injustice, is justice. You will have to learn to live with the fact that you have been treated unfairly.”

This article is not an arena to do either a political or historical analysis on why things have happened the way they have. Confronted with the questions on what to do and what is the way forward, I will try to focus on the dilemmas and initiatives being discussed and developed by antimilitarists.

I have worked for War Resisters’ International in London since 1998 and have been closely connected to it for the last 13 years of my life. To set the stage from which this approach and life commitment comes from, I will quote our Chilean Nobel Prize poet, Pablo Neruda (in “Canto General, Que Despierte el Leñador, VI”—“General Song: Have the Woodcutter Awake, VI”):

. . . No quiero que vuelva la sangre
a empapar el pan, los frijoles,
la música: quiero que venga
conmigo el minero, la niña,
el abogado, el marinero,
el fabricante de muñecas
que entremos al cine y salgamos
a beber el vino más rojo. . .
Yo vine aquí para cantar
Y para que cantes conmigo

… I don’t want blood to soak
the bread, beans, music,
again: I want the miner,
the little girl, the lawyer, the sailor,
the doll manufacturer
to accompany me
let’s go to the movies and set out
to drink the reddest wine …
I came here to sing
so that you’d sing with me

As I look back at my recent experience with WRI, including being responsible for networking among 85 affiliates in more than 40 countries, I must say that I have not come across anybody who supports the war. At the same time, I am also aware that the war machine does not stop and that we can be driven to despair by the knowledge that we can take our time to see what is best to do, but that the people who are living through it cannot wait. This can become terrifying and immobilizing. We cannot let it happen. In connection with the peace movement response, Andreas Speck, Angela McCann and I wrote as staff of WRI (Peace News, Dec 2001/Feb 2002):

After the 11th of September, it didn’t take long for the “peace movement” (whatever that is) to put itself together and organize an impressive number of vigils, rallies, demonstrations, petitions, and statements … But we have strong concerns. While it is easy to sum up all the demonstrations against the war from all over the world (and the numbers we get over the Internet are impressive), a more careful view needs to be taken. Who is protesting against what? What are their means? What are the aims? Aren’t they just looking for a space to express their anger and unhappiness or further their own political agenda? What chance is there actually of stopping the war?

We acknowledge that it is important to mobilize as many people as possible; that it is healthy to have a space to shout out what we think, feel and let our anger be expressed but that is clearly not enough. We will not stop being present whenever possible in protests. But what next? What else? Up to here I have stressed the fact that it is relevant to be part of a society moving, opposing, highlighting the social injustice all around us, but as I said before it is not enough. We know it only too well from the past. Protests alone have not changed things. For a start, we have not been able to prevent new wars. We did not learn from the Kosovo/a experience, if cynically we could say that something could be learned from war experiences. We are in a very privileged position, from two points of view. We observe, from the outside, the butchery that is ongoing; we are where the war machine is activated. Further, by focusing on what is happening in Afghanistan, we start not looking at other places where other wars are ongoing and terror is taking over.

In December, a slaughter at Qala-I-Jahngi prison in Afghanistan left more than 500 imprisoned people dead. Amnesty International and Mary Robinson, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, called for an inquiry into that massacre. Such an inquiry has to happen, but will that satisfy the relatives of the victims and all of us who struggle for justice? Not long afterward, a similar event occurred in a jail in Bolivia, although fewer people died. I have not seen those events in the news. Indigenous poor people are not on the agenda. Most debate is focused on Afghanistan and, as Eduardo Galeano, the famous writer from Uruguay, has said,

Even the map lies. We learn about the world’s geography on a map that does not show the world the way it is in reality, but as their owners want it to be. In the traditional planisphere, the one which is used at schools and everywhere, the equator is not in the middle: the North occupies two thirds and the South one. Scandinavia looks bigger than India, when actually it is three times smaller …

Necessary Empowerment
War Resisters’ International has existed for more than 80 years, and as resisters we should have something to say, which brings me back to the December 10 action. Before the event, my colleague Andreas (one of the action’s organizers) wrote:

People are coming together in nonviolent action to disrupt the smooth running of the war machine. Our message for International Human Rights Day is aimed at people all over the world, soldiers and civilians. There is nothing inevitable about war. Ordinary people can stop war; people can stop war all over the world by refusing to co-operate.

On December 10, Andreas said, “A group of about 40 nonviolent activists blockaded the British Permanent Joint Forces Headquarters at Northwood, northwest of London. Two activists managed to get inside the base, and were arrested there; five others were arrested outside. That day the ‘smooth running of the war machine’ was at least slightly disrupted.”

He went on to note, “More important are the longterm effects of this nonviolent direct action. The group that prepared the action continues to meet, and is planning further direct action at Northwood and other appropriate places. Other groups are planning actions at Northwood too. Although still quite limited, this might be the beginning of resistance to militarism, which goes far beyond the present ‘war on terrorism.’”

It was not a massive action. But Andreas’ statements give an account of what is meant by resistance, which goes beyond protest. To empower ourselves and others seems basic and unavoidable if we want to subscribe to the principle that war is a crime against humanity.

Roberta Bacic is a Chilean human rights researcher. She works for the War Resisters’ International in London. (For more information, see www.wri-irg.org.)