I'd been a member of Greenpeace St Andrews for just over a year when the chance came to do Non-Violent Direct Action (NVDA) training. Up until then, while I had done a lot of street campaigning and volunteered at the Glastonbury music festival, the only actual direct action I had done with Greenpeace was to put warning stickers on a particularly dodgy brand of tuna in a local supermarket. This was very worthwhile and successful, creating coordinated pressure across the country on Brand X to change their fishing practices. Simple as the activity might sound, I remember my heart racing as we doled out the stickers (trying not to be noticed by the shop staff), snapped a photo and hurried out of the shop. But I wanted to do something bigger, to make my voice heard louder on the many environmental tragedies we face. So I was excited, and just a bit nervous, at the chance to do NVDA training and the possibility thereafter of taking part in bigger actions. Ones that might make national media, ones where politicians and company execs noticed big-time, but ones that also could come with a serious risk of arrest.
The day of the training itself felt much more serious than other Greenpeace events I had been to. With around ten people there, we began the day with a discussion of Greenpeace's core values, most notably concentrating on non-violence and personal responsibility. Non-violence is at the absolute heart of Greenpeace actions, both as a philosophy and as an effective means of deflecting any violence that may be directed at us. Meanwhile, personal responsibility emphasises the fact that each and every person on an action has chosen to be there because they are passionate enough about the issue to stand up and put themselves at risk to try to bring about change – alongside this comes the need to work together and look out for each other.
One thing I've found Greenpeace to be good at is looking at itself from the outside from time to time. Yes, as Greenpeace activists we might see ourselves as having high moral standards and only taking direct action as a last resort. But what about the imaginary cleaner in a nuclear weapons factory, who works there on the minimum wage in order to feed his family? How will he view the activists blocking the entrance? Is it not the cleaner who, whilst being least responsible for the actions of the factory, will be most inconvenienced by a Greenpeace action? These questions led to an important discussion on who is most responsible for a company or government's behaviour. Our realisation that it is often the system, rather than a specific individual, that is responsible for damaging behaviour led to an even stronger emphasis on the need to be polite and respectful of people we face in a direct action.
Following this came a long discussion of what to do if you are arrested on an action. What you should say and what you should not say. A talk about the legal support mechanisms put in place by Greenpeace. Even mention of which insurance companies will insure someone with a record for non-violent direct action. Whilst it was emphasised that in most cases arrest was reasonably unlikely; it does happen and the concept of arrest is a scary thought for most people. We had a guest speaker, who had been arrested on the Cairn Energy action, who gave us a detailed low-down on how the experience had been. Overall, while you must be prepared to be arrested if you are on a Greenpeace action, it is comforting to know that there is so much support throughout the whole process.
What had been a good but very serious day turned a bit more fun towards the end, when we paired up to practise deflecting aggressive behaviour. There were a variety of exercises, starting from the mundane (a domestic dispute, either augmented or diminished by their partner's response), and leading up to serious situations with an angry guard threatening to 'set the dogs' on the activists.
We then moved on to the final activity of the day: the various blocking positions and what makes a person easy or hard to move out the way. In groups we practised these positions, while the other group attempted to force us apart and drag us away. (Incidentally, there was a children's ballet class taking place in the next door room and I remember a lot of ten year old girls giving us a lot of strange looks through the glass in the door!) But by the time I'd been dragged across the floor a few times, the day was sadly coming to an end. It had been a very informative day and, though there was a bit of fun, it had been serious enough to impress on us all that NVDA is not to be undertaken too lightly.
Overall I'm glad I did the NVDA training, but why did I do it? Whilst I do what I can to live an ecologically sustainable lifestyle, I do not want to be called a hypocrite for challenging unsustainable behaviour that, to an extent, we are all guilty of. Yet we live in a materialistic, consumerist, energy intensive society. A high percentage of our ecological footprint is determined for us by our governments and the social infrastructure that we live in. In fact, in the west, it is almost impossible to live in a truly sustainable manner through our own lifestyle choices alone – at least without withdrawing totally from mainstream society. Yes, I know a number of people who would argue for voluntary simplicity alone. But in my opinion this just doesn't bring about change at the scale and pace we need in order to avert the most catastrophic climate change, nor make significant progress on the plethora of other environmental and social problems we face as a global society.
To be honest, from one day to the next it's not that often that I can stare climate change straight in the face, because the scale of losses humanity stands to witness is honestly too big and too scary to come to terms with on a day to day level. But I try to think of what we can do, not what we can't. I believe each of us has a responsibility to leave the world a bit better than how we found it. And since our own lifestyle choices alone are not enough to set a government on the right track, non-violent activism is a vital tool to bringing about the changes we need. So I will not be apathetic: when action is needed to protect our future, I am prepared to take action.
Galen Brown
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