Free Speech and Nonviolence: advice to UC protesters at this 45th anniversary of the Free Speech Movement

Poster’s note: check out this guerilla art action on YouTube: 45 Years, No Progress. Very cool artivism! Then please read on for some advice to the movement from Free Speech veteran Michael Nagler.

Here’s to not wasting energy by reinventing the wheel, but rather, to using the energy we have in skillful ways as a force for continued forward movement and transformation!!

45 Years, No Progress: Students at UC Berkeley take part in a guerilla art action to protest the lack of free speech on campus despite the 45th anniversary of the Free Speech Movement.

A respectful letter to students and other participants of the UC protests,
and to those calling for nonviolent change worldwide,

Having been a passionate participant in the Free Speech Movement (how’s that for full disclosure?), and having devoted much of my life since to figuring out where we succeeded and where we failed (unfortunately, more material on that side of the scale) and what nonviolence is and how it works, I would like to share some suggestions about the present unrest at UC Berkeley and other campuses over the fee hikes — and much broader issues.  In the interests of time I will simply list some concrete features that I believe a successful movement, one that really moved us toward permanent change, would have to have.

• I think the core of the ‘revolution’ should be built by faculty, students, staff, workers and — why not? — interested administrators (they also have a stake in a vibrant, stable University) coming together to remind yourselves what education means.  For the last quarter century or thereabouts every spokesperson who tried to represent the value of the University to the general public, state government, etc. stressed one theme: money.  The point of an education is to get the job you want, the purpose (or at least the utility) of the University to the state is income, etc.  No.  Education is for discovering reality, within and around us; for discovering the meaning of our life.  You may not agree; however, that education is about money is surely a travesty; we must come up with a far more inspiring purpose around which a core of engaged people can reach some basic agreement.
• The next step would be for your group to come up with a plan to address the fiscal problems of the University, obviously in more creative ways than the hatchet job that is now being carried out.  In other words, you should take responsibility, and not passively accept  — or reject — the feeble solution that’s being now implemented; more importantly, you should approach the Regents and Administration in a spirit of cooperation: “You and me against the problem.”  Put forward your own plan with confidence.  In the history of nonviolence there is a track record of factories, universities, and other institutions being successfully redesigned by workers and teachers when owners and administrators fail.  In nonviolence, it is essential to come up with your own articulate, realistic plan; not just protest someone else’s.  It’s also very useful to assume that the other party can change and is willing to listen to you — even though they don’t look it.
• But protest there may have to be.  In nonviolence, when appeals to reason go unheeded (they have to be tried first, and in good faith) people who believe that something is simply unacceptable must be prepared to fight it — but by nonviolent methods, in a nonviolent spirit.
• This may be hard.  The ‘Miami Model’ used by law enforcement since the ‘successful’ containment of protests against the FTAA trade agreement in November 2003 in that city, not always by methods worthy of a civilization, means that those who believe change is essential must be ready to suffer to bring it in.
• You must have a long-term strategy.  And today one thing that it must include is some way to deal with protestors who are not nonviolent.  It takes very few of them to capture attention and effectively cancel the effectiveness of a nonviolent action.  Somehow these people have to be brought along, or at least encouraged to stay away.  Monitors who know what they’re doing can deal with a few of them, but as always the best strategy is to make an enemy into a friend — whatever side of the fence he or she is standing on.
• These problems are not going away any time soon.  In the meantime, there is a lot to learn about the methods and principles of nonviolence, and all of you who want to be involved in the struggle should be encouraged to do that learning.  You may just find you’re getting a real education in the process.

Michael Nagler
Metta Center