Workshop explores non-violent protest
JL JL
Women's group offers
insights to disobedience
By Thomas Henderson
Of the Emerald
A group of people, mostly women, lie silently on
the floor of a darkened room in the First Presbyterian
Church, while a woman bearing an ironic
resemblance to Joan Baez invites them to become one
with the “web” of the universe.
This is not part of a religious ceremony, nor a
class on stress reduction; it is a serious training ses
sion for political action.
Participants in the group are learning to be non
violent, a skill apparently more complex than merely
resisting the impulse to communicate with one’s
neighbor by using a ball peen hammer.
On Saturday, Women’s Action for Nuclear Disar
mament sponsored the all-day workshop on non
violence, exploring non-violence, civil disobedience
and their legal ramifications through a series of a lec
tures, exercises and interpersonal encounters.
Pat Bryan, the voice of the meditation session, led
the workshop along with Nancy Hale and Laura
Stockford. According to Bryan, anti-nuclear groups
are beginning to realize they have exhausted the chan
nels of mainstream politics to achieve their ends and
are starting to look toward non-violent civil
disobedience.
“We choose non-violence because it works,” she
said. “Non-violence excludes flight and it excludes
capitulation.”
Unlike Bryan and Hale, who have been involved
in non-violence for a number of years, Stockford said
she has only become active in non-violent civil
disobedience in the past few years, and is "scared
shitless” by the prospect of arrest.
Apprehensions similar to Stockford’s frequently
surfaced in a role-playing exercise where participants
acted out the parts of both protesters and police. Many
of those playing protesters said the exercise gave them
a greater sensitivity to the trauma of being arrested.
Bryan, who played a police officer, said she began to
empathize with the police’s point of view, and felt
some of the resentment police must experience when
their authority is questioned.
Non-violent political action does not necessarily
entail risking arrest, and the workshop outlined
several means of participating in such actions short of
direct civil disobedience. Among the means cited
were acting as a liaison between protesters and the
■
Photo by Sbu-Shin* Chon
At the Women’s Action for Nuclear Disarmament’s non-violence workshop Saturday, two “affinity
groups’’ were formed to simulate the way specific protests are organized.
outside world, as well as serving as a legal witness.
There are also several kinds of non-violent pro
test, as explained in the workshop, of which civil
disobedience is only one branch.
First, workshop leaders explained, there is
“direct action,” employing the more mainstream and
legal means of protest, including pickets, vigils,
boycotts and other economic sanctions, organizing,
voting, letter writing, marching, singing, and non
violence training itself.
A more disruptive method of direct action is
“shadowing” an adversary by constantly following
him and thereby, as one workshop participant put it,
“giving him the creeps.” Another method of badger
ing an opponent discussed was “phone-jamming,” or
flooding a person with calls to prevent other calls
from getting through.
Civil disobedience, it was explained, involves
direct violation of laws seen as injust or unimportant
in light of greater social “crimes.” Acts of civil
disobedience may include blockades, occupations,
tax resistance and “overland” activities.
Overland activities entail trespassing somewhere
via a back entrance to make some form of protest.
(Sneaking into a military base and pouring blood on a
computer was the example used in the workshop.) Oc
cupations, usually in the form of sit-down strikes and
blockades, are more common means of civil
disobedience.
The legal ramifications of civil disobedience were
discussed in the form of a game where participants
were given cards with words like “arrest,” “sentenc
ing” and “walk or go limp” written on them. Players
were then directed to place the card in the appropriate
spot on a wall chart tracing the legal process.
Specific protests, workshop leaders said, are
usually organized through “affinity groups.” The
groups consist of a relatively small number of people
who rule by consensus. One person’s negative vote
will kill a proposal.
To demonstrate how these groups operate, the
workshop divided participants into two affinity
groups. The groups were given a practice problem
and asked to come to a consensus. One group was ask
ed to occupy an abortion clinic to protect it from an
Continued on page 18
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