The Revolutionary Process
Press Action
Friday, September 03, 2004
http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/hand09032004/
By Mark Hand
“All the power is in the hands
Of people rich enough to buy it
While we walk the streets
Too chicken to even try it.” –The Clash
In his new book, Mark Andersen reminds us of a very simple, but often overlooked, concept. It’s the notion that we need each other, we need a community to build a solid framework for real change in our society.
“Divided and alone, we are beaten, and our history remains dominated by violence and injustice in all its interrelated forms,” Andersen writes in All the Power: Revolution Without Illusion. “This is where humility, persistence, and love for each other rise to our side.”
In recent years, activists, according to Andersen, only grudgingly have recognized the importance of community organizing and tying global issues to local ones. He believes that true radicalism means talking to your neighbors many more times than it means standing up to the police. He quotes Naomi Klein who writes that among segments of the global justice movement, “the spectacle of displaying a movement is getting confused with the unglamorous building of one.”
One of the main goals of the book, Andersen explains, is to extract the emotional and practical characteristics from activists to help them in their pursuit of freedom and justice. “In doing so, we can draw closer to one another, becoming more able to reclaim all the power – all our power – from the hands of those rich enough to buy it,” he writes.
For those unfamiliar with the work of Andersen, he’s a punk rock enthusiast and social justice activist. Originally from Sheridan County, Montana, in the northeastern corner of the state (a hotbed of socialism in the 1920s), Andersen has called Washington, D.C., home for the past 20 years. During his years in the D.C. area, he’s co-founded Positive Force, a punk collective that works for fundamental social change. He was active in groups opposed to U.S. policies in Central America in the 1980s and remains a steadfast antiwar activist, especially through his work for the Washington Peace Center.
Perhaps Andersen’s greatest commitment during his 20 years in the Nation’s Capital has been to the urban poor, that marginalized demographic that’s always been invisible to the city’s political and media elite.
It’s in this dedication to helping the underprivileged where he acquired the belief that change comes slowly and that we have to be rooted organically in communities. “We must prioritize organizing people where they are, embracing their struggles, not just trying to enlist them to our own,” he says.
With such a strong commitment to helping the impoverished, Andersen at times seems to overlook the possibility that all of society is in need of an overhaul, not just the dead-end streets inhabited by the urban poor. Throughout the book, he worries how “average,” “common,” and “mainstream” Americans might view the message of political and social activists. He cites a passage from an article he wrote for the Washington Peace Letter in 2001: “When the marginalized whose rights we are allegedly trying to defend don’t see the relevance of our actions, it is time to rethink our strategy.”
But what makes those of us who believe in the need for “revolutionary” change in the United States any less “average” than anybody else? Aren’t we all “marginalized” in ways that weaken our ability to cope in this world? “Activists” are just as victimized as others by a government that steals our money to pay for mass murder sprees around the world and a locked political process and creeping police state here at home. “Activists” are victimized by a government-sanctioned economic system that believes in mindless and endless economic growth without concern for its effects on our health, the health of non-human animals and the health of the planet.
While working to transform the lives of D.C.’s impoverished has been his focus for much of the past 20 years, Andersen seems to recognize value in all social activism that has freedom and justice at its core. In All the Power, he confronts those who take issue with what they perceive as his idolatry of human beings. His response is that his book attempts to articulate an idea of revolution as if people mattered and a call for a revolution as if all life mattered.
If we desire to help non-human animals or the Earth, Andersen argues that we must first look to changing the minds of people. “For better or worse, we humans hold the power of life or death in our hands,” he says. “Except in the direst situations, this means that we cannot give up on converting other people.”
For most of the book, Andersen displays patience for those who might disagree with his criticisms of fellow activists. This is likely the case because, as he has stated, much of the analysis that appears in his book is the product of a dissection of his own activism and beliefs.
There are, however, philosophies that Andersen tries to unequivocally reject. For instance, in several sections of the book he attacks writers who have declared war on pacifism (Ward Churchill) and civilization. He describes Churchill as a present-day Eldridge Cleaver, “goading others to ill-defined action. What might emerge from the chaos seems of little import; surely it must be better.”
Andersen, though, cannot completely dismiss Churchill’s contributions. He applauds Churchill’s effort to encourage thinking in strategic terms, to press past a pacifism that is a blind feel-good faith.
In response to the work of anti-civilization writers, Andersen says people need to be careful not to embrace illusions that “inflate the enemy beyond any rational discourse. For some, the struggle is no longer against economic inequality, prejudice, or violence. Our foe now appears to be civilization, perhaps even humanity itself.”
He explains that under such a “monstrous shadow,” people become the enemy. “We bow down before the insatiable, eternal demands of apocalypse. If everything can’t be achieved right now, nothing is worthy. All that is left is ultimate catastrophe.”
While working for a sustainable system, Andersen says we must reject such dead-end visions. “In their place, we must seek a lasting activism, based in the politics of the long distance runner. … To be most meaningful and effective, building revolution must be a life-long process.”
All the Revolution is a thoughtful and eloquent book that is guaranteed to frustrate and irritate much of its target audience. From his frequent references to the words of Democratic Party loyalist Todd Gitlin to his seemingly non-stop criticism of left-wing strategies and tactics, Andersen fulfills his promise to shatter illusions and show us what not to do, rather than addressing what should be done.
But in the end, I think you’ll recognize that his intermittent pronouncements for fundamental change are grounded mostly in reality. As Andersen explains, “practical revolution might seem hard to distinguish from reform, in that it accepts revolution as a process, not a one-time event.”
*Mark Andersen is one of the featured speakers at Press Action’s Oct. 16, 2004 author’s forum, “Outside the Ballot Box."
Mark Hand is editor of Press Action.