This is a revised version of a talk I did for Occupy University at Occupy Dublin (9 Nov 2011), very much in a personal capacity.
In this talk I want to look at three things: the idea that
we are living in the middle of a wave of social movements; what the impact of
such waves has been historically; and what the practical implications of that
are for social movements.
Global movement waves
Waves of social
movements are a normal feature of life in capitalism. They
include the “Atlantic Revolutions” of the late 18th century
(America, France, 1798 in Ireland and the Haitian revolution which ended
slavery); the revolutions of 1848 across Europe; the wave of 1916-23 which left
new states of very different kinds in Ireland and Russia but saw revolutionary
situations in many if not most European countries; the anti-fascist resistance
from (say) the Spanish Civil War to 1945; Asian and African anti-colonial
movements which led to independence from empire for most of the world’s
population; the global wave of 1968, from Mexico to Japan; the revolutions of
1989-90 which brought down state socialism in most places (but were defeated in
China); and the Latin American “pink tide” which has seen a string of
revolutionary situations and movement-linked states in South America in
particular.
In the present day, the anti-capitalist and anti-war
movements of the early 2000s have faded into European anti-austerity movements
(from the 2008 Icelandic “pots and pans revolution” and Greek unrest), the Arab
Spring, and the indignados / Occupy
movement. (NB that I am not trying to list every movement here, just those
where there was visibly a wave of large-scale participation in radical
movements across many countries.)
The causes of such waves are widely debated. One reading links
them to the long Kondratieff waves of capitalist development and tries to see a
structural link to the ebbs and flows of political economy. Another highlights
weakened states (for example, at the end of wars). George Katsiaficas has
talked about an “eros effect” of contagion from one revolution to the next.
Others have celebrated “networking” processes.
My own take is to see them as linked to the rise and fall of
regimes of accumulation – that they represent both a crisis in such regimes and
a moment in which popular forces have an opportunity to push events in a
different direction: enforcing democracy against monarchy or dictatorship,
independence against empire, welfare against capitalism, and so on. For the
purposes of today’s talk, in any case, it is less important to analyse why they happen than to note that they happen, and to think about
their effects and what that says to us.
The impact of
movement waves
Global waves of social movements have been among the major
social forces in the history of recent centuries. Decolonisation – whether the
US in the 18th century, Latin America in the 19th,
Ireland in the 1920s or Asia after WWII – is one major outcome. Democracy – in
the French Revolution, the European resistance to fascism or the events of 1989-90
– is another. Social justice has been a common theme, from the Haitian
revolution via the European uprisings at the end of WWI to the Latin American
pink tide. A democratisation of everyday life – in particular after 1968 – is
another.
The current wave is happening in a very particular global
context. The wave of 1989-90 saw the Soviet Union lose its satellites and then
disintegrate, and Putin has not been able to restore its reach. The pink tide
demonstrated the US’ inability, for the first time in a century or more, to
impose its will (in military, foreign policy or economic terms) on its Latin
American “backyard”, while events in Egypt in particular have underlined its
limited purchase on the strategically crucial Arab world (a process begun by
the failure of the “war on terror” in Afghanistan and Iraq).
More generally there is a rumbling challenge to
neoliberalism: started by the “IMF riots” of the 1980s and early 1990s,
articulated by the Zapatistas, the World Social Forum, summit protests and the
2001 Argentinazo, institutionalised
by radical governments in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, most recently on the
streets and shaking governments in Iceland, Greece and the UK and now in the
form of Spanish indignados, “Occupy”
in the belly of the US beast and even a revival of protest in Italy.
This challenge is particularly significant as the tentative
criticisms of neoliberalism made at the start of the current crisis by figures
like Gordon Brown have had no real implication beyond the narrowly technical
(“quantitative easing” etc.) It is clear to anyone who reads the newspapers
that there is no significant dissent within elites – political and financial,
or their hired mouths in academia and journalism – about the proposal that the
only way forward is more austerity, more neoliberalism, more privatisations. If
you want to imagine the future, imagine a debt burden pressing into human faces
forever. Unless, of course, we stop it – and the fact that elites are so
resistant to alternatives is one of the major factors forcing ordinary people
into radical resistance.
Implications for
social movements
Firstly, of course, we need to understand the current
movement wave as international; we need to see its time scale (in relation to
anti-capitalism and in relation to the anti-austerity protests from 2008 on as
well as in relation to the Arab Spring and Occupy); we need to understand that
it has many different organisational forms; and that this situation will not
last for ever.
The weakness of neoliberal structures is precisely in the
closed consensus of elites – and their belief that they do not need to convince
or gain the consent of their populations, simply tell them that austerity is
necessary and the reporters and economists will do the rest. Of course every regime
that has ever fallen, controlled or censored the media and had its own paid
hacks in the newsrooms and universities: it did not keep them in power.
There is a substantial crisis of legitimacy for
neoliberalism which anti-capitalism laid the groundwork for and the new
movements are articulating dramatically. It is above all an inability to lead: to articulate the political and
social aspirations of large groups of people in the way that (for example)
Thatcherite and Reaganite populism could.
Its global grip – from the Middle East to Latin America, in
the belly of the US beast and across key European states, where unemployment
figures have reached unheard-of levels – has never been weaker. We miss this if
we take their definition of reality (political parties in a situation where
there were more spoiled votes in Spain than votes for the PP, an official media
which repeats an elite consensus, the co-option of historic movement
organisations etc.) too seriously. Real social change comes about precisely when
ordinary people look at the reality of their own lives and contrast it to these
official versions of the truth, and organise differently. It can happen very
quickly: Colin Barker’s Revolutionary
rehearsals is one book which shows what this means in practice.
For social movement participants and organisers, this
potential means, firstly, that we should do what is possible now, while the
situation is still open (it will not remain so indefinitely: we will see a new
fascism, a new fundamentalism, or some other new elite-led way out of the
impasse if we wait too long). Secondly, we should try to understand ourselves
on a global stage. In Ireland this means – while seeing the increasing
political bankruptcy of the new government, the leftward drift of voters, resistance
to all aspects of the financial crisis and new movements springing up – making
the case that we are part of a wider European wave of opposition to
neo-liberalism. “Europe” is not all-powerful because it is not simply the
leaders of the EU. It is also our fellow Europeans, rising up in revolt against
“Europe” as debt collector, bailiff, liquidator and technocrat.
We need, of course, to keep highlighting that the challenge
is neo-liberalism, not just this or that policy. So it is important at every opportunity
to make the links between the giveaway of oil and gas in Mayo, Leitrim or
Dalkey; bailing out the Anglo bondholders (and others); European-imposed
austerity regimes; the household tax and other iniquitous ways of making the
poor pay for the crisis; loyalty to the euro at any price rather than the
Argentinian and Icelandic default option; the privatisation of public services;
low corporation tax and union-free multinationals; and all the rest of the
sorry shebang. We need to think what is possible in Latin American terms, not
the ones set by the Irish Times, RTE,
the ESRI or Joan Burton – and to develop an alternative understanding of social
movements in Ireland (see this paper).
Lastly, we need to think how we can construct alternative
institutions, at any level. “Occupy NAMA” and other strategies of taking
occupation outwards are important ones. Resisting the household tax, and
reviving community organising, is another. Supporting strikes and workplace
occupations is fundamental, and trying to involve radicals within the unions.
Challenging the economics of bailout and bondholders, tied to specific issues
like repayment of Anglo debt, is important. Resisting Shell at Rossport, fracking
in the west Midlands and drilling of Dalkey builds important alliances.
Bringing together activists across different organisations and movements to
develop solidarity is strategically key. And so on.
If there is one guiding line, it should be bottom-up
democracy: the construction of new institutions responding to human needs and
outside the current orthodoxy. That means holding the more authoritarian left
groups to account and making them serve the movement rather than try to own it.
It equally means being wary of fake movements like “Claiming our future”,
ICTU-led token protests and other strategies which are led by individuals and
organisations who are structurally tied to neoliberal politics and the current
government.
Whether that means “ignore”, “challenge from the outside” or
“participate and raise hell internally” is something everyone has to work out
for themselves: my own guess is that we cannot ignore the fact that to date the
unions are the only body capable of
bringing out real numbers of people against government policy, and we should
argue within these protests and try to take them further. Conversely, it is
simply wasting time to talk to Labour Party hacks pretending to be radical
activists. But these are not the most fundamental questions.
Lastly, and most importantly, our question has to be “How
can we take the movement further?” How can we find ways of engaging people who
are being hit badly and show them where the problems are coming from? How can
we talk to people who believe that their local councillor or union rep has only
their best interests at heart and don’t know about the political bottom line of
their party whip or union policy? How do we link up the different struggles
that are happening rather than let them be played off against each other and
treated as separate issues on the “we’ll give you a concession if you come back
within the tent” logic? And how do we find new ways of talking to and working
with each other which are adequate to the kinds of movements that we have seen across
the world these last twelve years?
I think we may be about to find out.
