The importance of civil disobedience
FIRSTLY, I want to thank Alex Schmaus and Jessica Hansen-Weaver for their excellent coverage of the Occupy Education Day of Action March 5 at the California State Capitol ("Looking back on March 5"). As someone who will be an incoming university student in California this fall, I'm excited that the state is at the forefront of student struggles nationwide, and that so many thousands came out to defend education.
Analyzing the politics of demonstrations like this one are crucial to ensure that the struggle against austerity moves forward, and I agree that organized labor must play a central role in those struggles. However, I disagreed with their critique of the 68 demonstrators who choose to remain in the Capitol and face arrest.
It makes the mistake of conflating a large group of people engaging in constitutionally protected assembly--and standing their ground--with ultra-leftists initiating small group actions against the state because they substitute themselves for the masses. There is a clear line between the two, and it is extremely important to distinguish between them as we face future struggles.
In this instance, a group that was part of a larger demonstration decided that they would be willing to risk arrest in order to stand against the repressive police forces who were breaking up the demonstration. They did so in a manner that did not pose a risk to those who were unable to get arrested--as the article states, most people left together when the police threat became immediate.
They also did so in a manner that did not risk the integrity of the larger demonstration. Rather, the arrests served to increase media attention on the larger demonstration and awareness of the campaign to defend education.
The Occupy Movement would not have blossomed without the mass arrests of hundreds of activists that served to galvanize others into action. Rather than discourage people from participating in struggle, arrests that occur as part of a peaceful, mass demonstration can serve to break the illusion of the neutral state and/or police force.
Ultimately, risking arrest is a tactic--one that can be used effectively or ineffectively. Although it may not be appropriate as a tactic for smaller demonstrations, it should not be dismissed altogether as a "barrier to involvement."
I was arrested October 30 in my neighborhood park--one of 27 demonstrators who refused to disperse from a peaceful, constitutionally protected assembly during a sit-in, much like the one at the California Capitol. Less than two weeks after my arrest, over 8,000 demonstrators defied a similar order to disperse from the main Occupy Portland encampment--demonstrators who had witnessed previous crackdowns and instances of police brutality occur.
Recently, my co-defendants and I won a preliminary court victory that could strengthen the legal rights of every person arrested for a misdemeanor offense in Oregon.
In short, while I agree that demonstrations must be as large as possible and as broad as possible, civil disobedience as a tactic for those who are able to engage in it still has an important strategic role in play in the Occupy movement. Our goal is to win as many people as possible to the struggle against capitalism, and peacefully resisting attacks by the state on our right to dissent has proven to be an effective strategy for winning activists over to that struggle.
Matthew Denney, Portland, Ore.
