Art Alone Will Move Us: Nonviolence Developments in the Australian Eco-pax Movement 1982-2003

Abstract

This thesis examines the development of nonviolence in Australia from 1983 to 2003. Using case studies (written from an "emic" or insider perspective) which describe blockades and direct actions for environmental sustainability, Aboriginal land rights and peace, the work analyses particularly the important development of "active resistance". This involves modes of action which are more militant than those espoused by "orthodox nonviolence", and include innovations to make blockading more physically effective. This means not just "putting bodies on the line", but burying those bodies up to the neck, chaining, cementing or gluing them to objects or into the ground, climbing tripods or trees, establishing other physical barricades, or hiding in forests. Such methods (along with legal action and lobbying) have proven effective in preserving hundreds of thousands of hectares of "old-growth" forests from logging. Such methods may involve minor property damage, but they entail the nonviolence tenets of "self-suffering" and (an element of) "openness", and should still be considered nonviolent under a revised concept of nonviolence that is more flexible and is 'owned' by the activists themselves. The work also examines the use of the arts in nonviolent praxis. It shows how artforms such as music, street-theatre, banners, photography and film-making have been significant and beneficial, inspiring and assisting "civil disobedience", fortifying its participants, creating solidarity and multiple foci of protest, preventing violence, attracting media attention, and educating audiences on a variety of intellectual,emotional and physical levels. "Artistic activism" has also aided nonviolence training and court-cases, and assisted nonviolence tenets such as "conversion", "holism", "inclusivity", "openness", creation of a "constructive programme", and radically-democratic organisational forms. The work also discusses and suggests solutions to some of the problems encountered within Australian nonviolence pr axis, such as racism, machismo, sexism, incidents leading to violence, and schisms relating to group structures, decision-making processes, and strategies.