So there’s this thing that I see repeating over and over:
Often respectable non-violent activist groups who speak to power in a civilized manner get no where for decades because the system doesn’t need to listen to them, because it loses nothing from ignoring them.
But then a radical activist group shows up who are prepared to just burn the system down. And then suddenly listening to that reasonable non-violent group becomes very attractive to those in power.
And the non-violent group will always claim that their non-violence was what changed the system, but it was the fear of something worse that made the system change.
When we get both hands working together that’s when we win
I highly doubt that.
The respectable non-violent activists are only accepted
those in power
because they are unconnected from the radical activists and do not share
their radical goals. If they declared their solidarity they would
immediately lose their position as a respectable partner to those in power.
The respectable non-violent activists are
accepted by those in power with the conscious intention of pacifying the movement. The
goals of those in power that make this choice are fundamentally at odds
with the goal of the radicals.
Theoretically, the non-violent branch could secretly work with the radical activists behind the scene while maintaining it’s respectable public face, but this can rarely be maintained for long.
A group with a
respectable public face
attracts more volunteers, sponsors, board members etc who like the respectable face. Sooner or later they outnumber to original more radical members and the group gets taken over by people who like that public face. In practice, those people end up calling the cops on the radical group and capitalizing on the influence they can get by kicking the radical group.
The non-violent group can work with the radicals by openly committing themselves to a diversity of tactics and when they do the result is one stronger movement that can not be pacified, but to achieve that the non-violent group must accept losing the social capital of being liked by those in power, it must denounce all next invitations to work with those in power (who will only ever use it to pacify the movement) and
it must commit to never publicly condemn the violence of comrades
.
I have not seen many
non-violent groups capable of that commitment when the social capital of a policy ‘win’ and a shiny seat at the table of political committees is offered by those in power.
QueerAnarchism 