Consider viewing a political march as if you were seeing it for the first time: You would see a group of people assembling at some point in a city, possibly giving speeches to themselves and certainly having a good catch-up session amongst themselves. Then you’d watch them walk along the road as a group, directed by protest marshals and police seemingly working together to direct the crowd. Many are carrying signs and screaming chants and seemingly trying to convince those others on the streets with the loudness of their chants and the size of their banners. Those on the street largely continue with their shopping, some stop and watch. After much walking, the crowd will stop and regroup. Again, they’ll give speeches to themselves. They’ll individually disperse and later that day will be found in front of televisions looking if they can see themselves on that night’s news.
So, please tell me, exactly which part of this is supposed to be effective political action?
I tried to do some extensive research on the origins of the political march (I clicked the next button in my google search 15 times!) but I’ve failed to find any information. The most likely origin, as far as I can see, is the military march. This would involve a strategic grouping of forces outside a city and then a march into the city, as an overwhelming display of strength, to take control of the city. Or else, failing the servitude of the local population, it would mean battle.
It seems to me that this tactic, originally quite self-conscious of its aims, has somehow become a mere political ritual, utterly ignorant of its history and original intentions, and completely unreflexive of its effectiveness. Gone is the overwhelming display of force, gone is the original aim of using the march as a form of tactical grouping to effect direct action elsewhere, gone is any conscious notion of exactly how a march effects change.
Instead, say hello to the media spectacle. Any actual physical display of force has been replaced with a deferred show of force in the media, upon which the power of those present is utterly reliant. A show of numbers, colourful costumes, the creation of pseudo-contestations, scuffles with the police and arrests are all used to promote the value of a march as a media spectacle. Far from building the strength of those present in the march, the march-come-media-spectacle works to reinforce the institutions of the media and political apparatus and leaves those present, more often than not, feeling particularly disempowered.
“Building the movement” is the only other justification I have ever heard for the march. It’s the notion of small steps to bigger things, getting people hooked. The assumptions here are that, presently, we are too weak to have any real effect or that anything of direct effect will simply scare away the politically uninitiated. Eternally “building the movement”, we seem to be teaching people that political activity is always and only a symbolic, disempowering spectacle rather than exploring new forms of direct action that are open to mass participation. In contrast, the 2006 Te Papa demo is a good example of mass direct action (which, incidentally, employed the use of the march as a grouping tactic).
It’s time to get passed unreflexive, unconscious and ritualised political activity, and I think this begins with the end of the spectacularised march.
anarchafairy 
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January 30, 2007 at 11:06 pm
georgedarroch
I’d say that the idea of a march as a display of force pretty much holds true.
A march seems pretty similar to a large static public meeting, and both serve to rally/excite/inspire the participants, which is often an end in itself. Beyond that, in terms of actually effecting (reformist and radical) change, they serve a purpose when they show that there is a force to reckoned with. If the numbers are sufficiently large, and the politicians think that their votes will be affected, they’ll respond accordingly. But even where the Government is steadfastly opposed, the sense of unity and empowerment a strong protest march can create can be very useful. I’m thinking of a few where the march concentrated the energies of those on the periphery, as well as the centre. Sometimes they can just be a demonstration of the willingness of those committed to a cause to take action.
That said, this isn’t a defense of marches. I largely agree with you, and usually avoid protests that I think are largely symbolic in nature, and have little empowering/unifying/radicalising potential. To go to a march that is badly publicised, lacks real popular support, and represents a large drop in numbers and energy from a point in the past can be pretty disempowering. And it represents a waste of effort for the organisers and participants. Proper publicisation is often hard work, and again a large investment of energy which often has little impact, but it doesn’t seem worth having a march unless it can demonstrate something concrete. I’d rather just spend the day doing something I actually enjoy than go to a march and have my passion sucked away by feeling that what I’m doing is purely symbolic.
The reason I got involved in activism was beeing given the feeling that I could actually change the world. Every time I’ve felt like taking a step back, it’s been in part due to feelings of the opposite. Marches have inspired both…
Here’s to actions that empower, and actually challenge power!
January 31, 2007 at 11:40 am
Scott
‘It seems to me’
Maybe so. But your gut is not really much of a substitute for a little empirical evidence, when you’re making post after post dismissing forms of organisation and action that have been used by millions of people on the left for centuries as obsolete.
A person who is seeing a march for the first time is not the best person to understand the phenomenon. Any march needs to be understood with reference to a particular context – the goals of the participants, the mix of organisations they represent, the divisions within their ranks over strategy and tactics, the level of support they have, the attitude of the state towards them, and so on and so forth. Every week hundreds of marches are held around the world, in all sorts of different social and political contexts. It’s impossible to make reliable blanket statements about the phenomenon.
I’ve been on marches that reflected an escalation and radicalisation of a movement, and other marches which were used to hold a movement back. On May Day a few years back a bunch of militant workers insisted on marching to the US consulate, even though some union leaders wanted to head straight from the rally to the pub, citing awful weather. On another occasion I remember people at a candlelit vigil for Palestine spontaneously deciding to march and express their anger. I remember one of the organisers of the vigil desperately trying to keep them off Queen St.
On the other hand, I remember one occasion back in the late ’90s when student leaders defied calls for an occupation and led students on an exhausting march around the CBD to take the wind out of their sails. I also remember conflicts within the movement against the war in Iraq because some of the leaders didn’t want the big marches used as stepping stones to direct action to shut down the US consulate, which was close to the route of marches.
It isn’t always or even usually wrong to organise symbolic protests. In a country like New Zealand, very few people are going to suddenly see the need for militant direct action. Even getting some of them on a ‘passive’ demonstration is a real achievement. There is usually a long process of education and radicalisation which needs to take place before people will be prepared to do anything that breaks the law. In the anti-war movement in Auckland this process took many months, and even then only a minority, albeit a sizeable minority, was prepared to contemplate measures like blockading the US consulate.
It’s important to remember, too, that only mass direct action can be successful and (hopefully) protect its perpetrators from being persecuted. During the student protests of the late ’90s, when occupations of buildings were common, I smashed windows and glass doors on a number of occasions, in order to open up rooms that had been locked by the authorities. I was never arrested because I was surrounded by hundreds of people and acting with their support.
January 31, 2007 at 11:57 pm
militantstudent
Since Scott brought up the anti-war movement in Auckland, let’s use that as our laboratory of struggle, on which to test out our theories.
What would these “new forms of direct action that are open to mass participation” look like for the Auckland anti-war movement?
Scott mentioned blockading the US consulate, but blockades are hardly new forms of DA and the fact that any blockade would only really be effective on a weekday between 9 and 5 means that it ain’t gonna be half-accesible to the numbers a weekend march is.
February 1, 2007 at 4:17 am
Adam
Interesting points there. I think the building the movement thing, the getting on telly bit, and the catching-up malarkey are all parts of the same thing. The A to B march is a show of force not to the government (who all but newbies realise will just ignore us), but to ‘the movement’ and people who are considering joining ‘the movement’.
However, this is clearly a total failure. Of the two million people who marched through London in February 2003, very few now play an active role in politics. Maybe a war in Iran will stir them up again, but direct action will have to be at the heart of our efforts. After all, only direct action can actually stop wars, and only direct action helps people break out of the cycle of passive reliance on the supposed benevolence of the state.
Marches have become just one more thing that capitalist society allows us to consume. Politicians pat us on the head for exercising ‘democratic rights’ they are continually eroding, then turn away.
February 1, 2007 at 11:54 am
Scott
Well, let’s discuss the consulate actions. During the early stages of the war in Iraq there was a continuous picket of the consulate by a small number of people, complemented by thrice-daily demonstrations by larger groups of people. These actions were organised by a United Front called Direct Anti War Action, which grew out of the earlier Anti Imperialist Coalition formed after 9/11. DAWA organised a petition calling on the the consulate to be closed, as a way of raising awareness about its existence, and began to circulate material amongst trade unionists calling for industrial action to shut it down. Large marches organised by the broader Global Peace and Justice group, in which DAWA was active, regularly stopped at the consulate.
Together, these actions can be considered the rough draft of a strategy to shut down the consulate. What would be necessary for a successful shutdown would be a mass picket, supported by industrial action by workers in the building and workers who service the building (eg rubbish collectors and cleaners). A shutdown of the consulate in Auckland and the embassy in Wellington would infuriate the US, provide a model for other Western countries, and throw down the gauntlet to our own government, forcing it to side either with the will of ordinary people or the US.
It’s quite true that the anti-war movement failed in its aim, both in New Zealand and around the world. The reasons for this failure need to be considered carefully. It is true that the war could have only have been stopped by direct action, and that the leadership of the movement largely prevented this by suggesting that symbolic protest was enough. DAWA argued on an almost daily basis that symbolic action needed to be transformed into direct action in the lead-up to the war. We also organised ‘bridging’ actions – the consulate pickets, a picket of Whenuapai air base – in an effort to concretise our arguments.
To reject symbolic actions altogether, though, is no sort of response to the failure of the anti-war movement. Rejecting symbolic actions in favour of direct action is like rejecting union branch meetings in favour of strikes. Symbolic action and widespread propagandising are necessary if the support is to be built for direct action.
AIC/DAWA spent most if its time propagandising – distributing leaflets at markets in working class parts of Auckland, soapbox speaking at markets and on street corners, leafleting union meetings, postering – trying to build support for GPJA marches *and* direct action against the war. Inside the large marches we tried to form a bloc, chanting in favour of direct action and the right of Iraq to self-defence, handing out leaflets to other marchers, etc
We scored some victories – persuading the seafarers to become one of the only NZ unions to oppose the war on Afghanistan, getting seafarers to distribute our leaflets on their ships, winning GPJA’s predecessor the Anti War Coalition to more militant slogans than its leaders wanted at mass meetings, organising some biggish actions independently outside the consulate – but ultimately we couldn’t break through and get masses of people taking direct action against the war. I think the three main reasons for this were the resistance of the GPJA leaders to such action, the continuing illusions of most in the anti-war movement in the possibility of some sort of UN solution to the crisis, and the widespread working class apathy toward political issues which was part of the legacy of the defeats for organised labour in the late ’80s and ’90s.
The idea that we and others like us could have achieved success if we’d abandoned all action except direct action and thrown ourselves at the police in small numbers if not really tenable.
February 1, 2007 at 12:48 pm
Scott
I’ve put a document from 2003 up on my site to amplify some of these points:
http://readingthemaps.blogspot.com/2007/02/rewinding-to-2003.html
February 1, 2007 at 9:19 pm
militantstudent
Well, anti-war season is nearly here. GPJA are planning a march on the 17th of March. Maybe it is time for the anti-imperialist bloc to rise up again.
February 1, 2007 at 10:08 pm
yuda
Yah, protest as a ritualised event, see you at waihopai next year
February 8, 2007 at 7:19 pm
Cdawg
Marches can be good but they need to be backed up with direct action. I like the tactics the protesters at the Weapons Conference at Te Papa used. Using a march as a feeder to something bigger.
Marches can be a good way to get people into the movement. Going to the big 10,000 strong anti-war march on Feb 15 2003 is how I first got into contact with activists, by signing up to a few email lists.
February 22, 2007 at 2:28 pm
Duncan Eddy
anarchafairy, I’mwith you on this. protest marches aren’t my cup of tea. march, banners, speakers… same old same old, disempowering, going through the motions… and you go home and wonder ‘why?’
however, such symbolic activity does play a part. working out what part they play in the wider picture of a particular campaign should be a vital part of the planning. marches are definately not the be all and end all. that said, i’ve been involved in some wicked protests that have involved a march… i think it’s about putting things in perspective.