MASONWORLD

On Non-Violent and Violent Activism

A case for ramping up political activism in a world where govenments don't seem to listen. About a minute read.

Australia and other western countries are part of a trend where their governments are strengthening protest and activism law to stifle the actions of non-violent, peaceful protesters. For example: South Australia increased maximum fines for protesters to $50,000 with possible jail time. A protester who obstructs a workplace in Tasmania can face up to a year in prison, and protesters who disrupt logging operations in Victoria can face similar penalties. Activists who blocked a bridge in Melbourne with a truck were sentenced to three weeks of jail in 2024. There is a website that tracks all legislation against the right to peaceful assembly introduced in the US since 2017. Some governments have called peaceful, non-violent activists domestic terrorists and charged them as such. Almost all new anti-activist legislation aims at either protecting large corporations or maintaining a status quo. It's known that protesting is only as effective as its ability to disrupt and disturb, so any new legislation that is anti-protest limits the effectiveness of future protests. If you want some legal protections afforded to protest organisers, you need to ask the government for approval.

Yes please of approve my organised criticism on your lack of climate policy, Mister Government Sir!!

Ridiculous. This privilege wasn't afforded to the 170 demonstrators who peacefully obstructed the world's largest coal port in Newcastle a few months ago, and they were all arrested as a result. In the face of governments around the globe that pass anti-activist legislation that reduce the effectiveness of non-violent protesting, I question why most activists haven't adopted more aggressive tactics yet.

Why should activists adopt more aggressive tactics

  1. Governments seek to limit to impact of non-violent protests: the less successful they become the justification becomes weaker (mentioned above)
  2. Contrary to common justification for non-violence, historically 'non-violent' movements have actually been violent or have been aided by concurrent violent movements.
  3. Climate emergency is a very time-sensitive issue, demanding radical changes to legislation opposed to incremental improvement.
  4. It's a more efficient/cost-effective form of protesting.

Retrospective analysis on historical non-violent movements (see footnote)

Almost every successful movement in history has employed at least some measure of violence.

The civil rights movement has long been used as an example of successful non-violence. In recent years, there has been a retrospective analysis that considers violent activism that occurred concurrently to the CRM helped legitimise the movement. This mechanism for this is called the 'radical flank effect', where a radical wing of a broader movement can make a more moderate faction seem more appealing. The threat of violence often forces governments to push legislation, as evidenced in the civil rights movement. Regardless of the radical flank effect, however, it would be remiss to not include widespread violence across the United States in an analysis of the Civil Rights Movement. This is something that Extinction Rebellion does in their 'handbook'.

The anti-apartheid movement in South Africa was well known for incorporating militant tactics to achieve their goals. The Indian independence movement again had outbreaks of violence and militant groups, and the threat of widespread violence should anything had happened to Gandhi most definitely was on the minds of the British at the time. The difference between these movements and climate activism is that there is no real credible threat of violence, or a real disruption to the status quo. For fear of not being able to seem like a legitimate movement, climate activism loses its ability to create change.

The climate crisis requires urgent, radical action

Australia consistently ranked very low on evaluations of its climate action related policies. Until 2022, climate policy was nearly non-existent under the conservative government at the time. Since Albanese's election, Australia announced its first emission reduction target, joining in the global effort to reduce emissions. Though this is a good change, it is nowhere near enough of a reduction to bring the country in alignment with the Paris Agreement. It was also, at the time, a weaker policy than some of Australia's peers. In fact, there is no country on the planet whose climate action is in accordance with the Paris Agreement. Too little too late? Maybe, for each day targets aren't met the temperature threshold targets increase (remember when we had time to prevent a 1.5C increase?).

Another example: The US will continue to bend at the whims of Donald Trump. Within weeks of his second term he signed over 30 executive orders that either boost fossil fuel production or stifle and eliminate programs aimed to reduce fossil fuel use. Four decades of peaceful, non-violent protesting granted activists incremental progress which is all seemingly destroyed over which side of the bed the president woke up on that morning.

It's clear that time is running out, and activists should respond accordingly.

A more efficient form of protest

To start, I want to clarify that I am only advocating for violence against non-beings, like property and infrastructure.

Here are some examples of efficient, violent protesting:

Compare these actions to the Rising Tide's protest in November 2024, where a group of 7,000 participants and 1,000 volunteers helped to block a port from exporting coal for 30 hours. They delayed a single ship from exporting coal for a single day. Efficiency wise, it's a no-brainer. With the climate emergency being an extremely time-sensitive issue, you could argue that activists are almost required to employ some of these tactics to save as much time as possible. Maybe the ends don't justify the means, though. Reznicek and Montoya are in jail for years over their actions. If activists are going to face years in prison for non-violent protesting however, you might as well face years in prison over something a bit more meaningful than a peaceful protest.

This is just a short justification on why violence (again, strictly violence against non-beings) ought to be seriously considered by climate activists. As I mentioned in the footnote, I had a much longer and in-depth write up but lost the transcript, so in future I think I will write about things I've missed here. Some of the following: what kinds of property violence is permissible, a review of the literature on the radical flank effect, more in-depth historical analysis, etc. I imagine this post will be ever-evolving, and I'll post edits and change history when it gets updated.

Footnotes

I had written a more in-depth, source-laden analysis on this idea but misplaced a file or two and deleted the entire thing, so this is going to be a less robust defence of the premise. Eventually, I will come back to this section of the post to add what needs to be added.

Sources for some of my information and further reading:

- How to Blow up a Pipeline, Andreas Malm

- Climate Action Tracker

- Radical flanks of social movements can increase support for moderate factions

- Eco-sabotage as Defensive Activism

- The Radical Flank: Curse or Blessing of a Social Movement?