Harry Targ
(This
was part of an essay that was written a decade ago. Thie issues and debates
still matter)
Social movement activism has spread like wildfire across the entire globe over the last decade. One group of scholars studied “protest incidents” in over 80 countries from 2006-2013. They found 840 protests in these countries with at least half motivated by demands for economic changes and democratization. A centerpiece of movements from Greece to Chile, to Spain, to Canada to the United States has been outrage against neoliberal policies (sometimes referred to as “austerity” policies). Fundamentally these policies involve shifting wealth from the vast majority to the tiny minority. In the United States, the Occupy Movement introduced an accurate metaphor for this transformation: the one percent versus the 99 percent. Moral Mondays movements in over a dozen states in the South and Midwest emerged as one large-scale protest against the imposition of austerity and the weakening of democratic institutions.
David Harvey, a political theorist, has posited a “co-revolutionary theory” about social movements. He argues that because there are so many problems in so many different locations in society political activism can and must start anywhere. If one is at a university or elsewhere in the education system struggles over “mental constructs’ matter. If persons are engaged in or near the electoral arena targeting politicians must be done. Work in the corporate sector, the media, government institutions are all sites for the application of political pressure and organizing. What needs to be remembered however is that all the separate struggles are interconnected and that activists need to understand how each struggle relates to every other struggle. Also, victory in one place and time does not mean that the goals of struggle have been achieved. In the end, Harvey argues that the interconnected crises relating to class, race, gender, homophobia, war and peace, and the environment are intimately connected to the capitalist system.
Further, activists debate the utility of political engagement around elections and legislation compared to mass movement activity. Some progressives have proposed as a solution to this dilemma, developing an “inside/outside” strategy. The inside/outside strategy argues for pursuing electoral work, electing candidates who might act on the people’s behalf, and lobbying to secure legislative victories, even if such efforts cannot solve the panoply of economic, environmental, war, racial and other problems that are faced. Electoral and legislative work, however, needs to be supplemented by “street heat;” building a mass movement that can be mobilized to publicly demonstrate its outrage and its demands for change. The outside strategy might include creating a large, disciplined organization with resources that can respond to and lead the mass movement of people for change. It is through the outside strategy that politicians can be forced to carry out the will of the people.
Rev. William Barber ten years ago through his “fusion politics” approach incorporated all of the above thinking. Fusion politics, he said, emphasizes the need for progressive groups to work together in coalitions, in partnerships, in common organizational fronts to bring the energy of all groups together. Ruling classes or power elites do not respond to change unless masses of organizations and people come together to make demands.
The 99 percent do not have the material resources- the money, ownership of media outlets, influence over education and police power-to bring about change. All they have potentially are their numbers. And the fusion politics model is about mobilizing masses of people, developing effective and democratic organizations, and applying people power all across the political and economic map.
Moving Ahead in 2025 the Following Questions Remain
1.How do we organize locally and statewide, particularly in “red states”
2.How do we develop in our literature and public agenda the view that what we are struggling against is a forty-year program of austerity, redistributing the wealth and power from the many to the few. And how can we effectively show that our local struggles parallel those in other states and countries.
4.How can we take the general worldview and discuss:
https://www.brandeis.edu/peace-conflict/pdfs/198-methods-non-violent-action.pdf
Conclusion
The world is in turmoil. Protests all across the globe have some common origins, causes, and solutions. While communities have their own problems they are not too different from those elsewhere. The ongoing work must involve addressing the particular while being cognizant of the general, building coalitions of shared responsibility and respect, organizing people power from the centers of power to the streets, and reconstructing institutions that serve, not oppress the people.
