August 09, 2004

Ward Churchill Interview

Dismantling the Politics of Comfort : The Satya Interview with Ward Churchill

Satya: Some argue that the ten million people who gathered last year on February 15th to stop a U.S. invasion of Iraq didn’t really amount to much in terms of tangible results. Is there a precedent of experimentation you think people are not looking at?

Churchill:If you conduct your protest activities in a manner which is sanctioned by the state, the state understands that the protest will have no effect on anything.

You can gauge the effectiveness—real or potential at least—of any line of activity by the degree of severity of repression visited upon it by the state. It responds harshly to those things it sees as, at least incipiently, destabilizing. So you look where they are visiting repression: that’s exactly what you need to be doing.

People engaged in the activity that is engendering the repression are the first people who need to be supported—not have discussion groups to endlessly consider the masturbatory implications of the efficacy of their actions or whether or not they are pure enough to be worthy of support. They are by definition worthy. Ultimately, the people debating continuously are unworthy. They are apologists for the state structure; [and] in [effect], try to convince people to be ineffectual.

Nonviolent action can be effectual when harnessed in a way that is absolutely unacceptable to the state: if you actually clog the freeways or occupy sites or whatever to disrupt state functioning with the idea of ultimately making it impossible for the state to function at all, and are willing to incur the consequences of that. That’s very different from people standing with little signs, making a statement. Statements don’t do it. If [they] did, we would have transformed society in this country more than a century ago.

Check out this must read interview...