January 08, 2012

The Occupy movement and the women of Greenham Common

Feminist experience and input into the theory and practice of nonviolence has much to offer a new generation of grassroots Occupy activists. Rebecca Johnson reflects on the lessons of the successful Greenham Common protest.

"When I visited the recently evicted Occupy Wall Street protesters in Zuccotti Park (yes, they returned, but without tents) I was asked how we did “passive resistance” for so many years at Greenham Common. I replied that there had been nothing passive about our nonviolent persistence!  Like some Occupy camps are undergoing, we were evicted many times, but we always came back. We were accused of being ‘fey tinkerbells’ and prematurely declared a failure, yet we achieved our key objectives within 6 years, as shown by the empty silos and restored Common Land.  We had more than our share of people with mental health problems, including drugs and alcohol, and we did our best to protect and help them, without compromising on our opposition to the nuclear weapons.  Like the Occupy Movement, we were committed to nonviolence, but as the Women’s Peace Camp evolved from its beginnings in 1981, so did our analysis and understanding of how to think and act nonviolently and effectively in the face of daily evictions and frequent violence used against us.

Though traditionalists tend to look to Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King for inspiration; we looked closer to home, and developed theories of feminist nonviolence drawing on historical examples like the Suffragettes and lessons from our own experiences.  A 1983 pamphlet from the Feminism and Nonviolence Study Group of War Resisters International described nonviolence thus:  “It is much more than simply an absence of violence. It is both a principle and a technique, a set of ideas about how life should be lived and a strategy for social change. Respect for life is a fundamental feature, together with the desire for liberation. This means not deliberately killing, hurting, threatening or putting fear into others, in short, not treating them as less human than ourselves.” ...

..."Feminist nonviolence is not about notions of biological determinism or stereotypes about women being naturally nicer or more peaceful than men.  More than standard models of passive resistance, nonviolence needs to confront power, the uses of political and personal violence, and the oppressiveness of patriarchy’s masculine and feminine straitjackets.   Whether viewed through a prism of anti-militarism or anti-capitalism, these are also the issues being confronted on Tahrir Square, Zuccotti Park, St Paul’s and all the other vibrant, painful, necessary manifestations of a global new generation seeking peace, justice and freedom from poverty.  Feminist experience and input into the theory and practice of nonviolence has much to offer a new generation of grassroots Occupy activists"

Read article here, on 50.50 openDemocracy