[Back to Starhawk's Home Page]
November, 2001
Every day when I check my email or look through the alternative
newspapers or turn on the radio, I hear something that arouses my
fear. A new bill threatening our civil liberties has been passed, or
is being passed, here or abroad. An activist has been stopped at an
airport, a border; a student has been prevented from flying because
of a book he was carrying. Most of these stories are true: some,
because of the way they are framed or the lack of full information,
are more in the nature of rumors.
We need to know these stories, to monitor the level of state
repression that is happening. But each one also contributes to the
climate of fear that surrounds us. Every act of repression creates
ripples of anxiety, alarm, and rumor that amplify its power. When
we're afraid, we make bad choices and often do the work of the
oppressors for them, stopping ourselves from speaking out and taking
risks. We need to keep that fear in
perspective, and remember that acts of resistance can also have a broad impact.
Here's a true story:
On November 12, 2001, I was travelling to Ottawa for the protests
against the IMF/World Bank/G20 meetings, together with Lisa Fithian,
my friend and fellow member of the R.A.N.T. trainers' collective. We
were stopped by Immigration at the airport, questioned and searched,
for about five hours. My computer was seized to be examined by
Canadian Intelligence, and Lisa was required to return the next
morning for an interview to determine whether she could be allowed to
stay in Canada. At that meeting, she was told she could leave Canada
voluntarily on the next plane, or be arrested. She chose to be
arrested in order to stay in the country and fight the decision, and
to make a political stand around the issues of freedom of speech and
open borders. Within hours, our story became one of those bouncing
around the internet and reported on by at least the Canadian media.
Lisa's choice became a powerful political act.
Those are some of the bare facts of what was, of course, a complex,
emotional and stressful incident to live through. On the vast scale
of repression, what happened to us was a relatively small incident,
but there are some important lessons to be learned from it.
Repression is spotty and somewhat random:
When we hear about someone being stopped at a border, or taken off a
plane, we immediately think, "No one can get through! We won't be
able to travel!" We don't generally hear about those who do get
across with no difficulties, or think of the thousands of leftists
and activists who are flying every day with no problems.
Three other friends of ours from San Francisco went through
Immigration at the Ottawa airport at various times. It was clear to
Immigration that each was going to the protest -- and all got
through, even though two had arrest records, one had dreadlocks, and
one had a baby with a tiny Circle A anarchist T-shirt that said,
"Infantile Leftism" on one side and "Don't trust anyone over 30
pounds" on the other.
The authorities are not omnipotent:
It's easy to inflate the power of the authorities. Agents of the
state try to make us believe they are all powerful and omnipotent.
"I know everything," the official at Immigration told me when I asked
how he knew I'd been arrested in Seattle. But in fact, he didn't
know everything. It became clear in the course of the evening that
there were vast and significant realms of information about both me
and Lisa, information which
had never been secret and had at least at one time been a matter of
public record, which they didn't know. Not only that, but a lot of
what they do know is wrong, or so distorted as to not actually be
useful to them. The more they focus on collecting and trying to make
sense of that information, the more confused they'll be. The woman
at Customs who was carefully reading every scrap of paper among my
belongings was staring for a long time at the manual for my cell
phone. I wondered what was so interesting; finally I noticed that on
the back was a note that said, "Pass Code Redwood" -- the code that
lets me check my messages. For all I know, the Canadian authorities
are now trying that code on every potential ecoterrorist file in
their jurisdiction.
Encountering repression is a learning
experience:
We made a lot of mistakes. Had we not flown directly into a city
which was about to host a protest, we probably wouldn't have been
stopped. Lisa, in fact, originally was waved through Immigration: I
was stopped because their computers showed I'd been arrested in
Seattle at the WTO protests. We now know that this is a potential
problem, and next time I want to go to Canada, I'll be prepared and
can take steps ahead of time to pre-clear my name through the
Canadian consulate.
Lisa was tagged when I went up to her to tell her I was going to be
delayed. I was simultaneously trying to call our support people and
a guard was yelling at me to get off my cell phone. If I had stayed
quietly in the Immigration line and let her go through, she would
have had no problem. If we'd been more alert, watching out for each
other, I wouldn't have felt the need to contact her. We hadn't
prepared a strategy for what we would do if we were stopped, hadn't
thought ahead about how we would answer questions. I had cleaned out
my bags and pockets before travelling, but not nearly as thoroughly
as I could have. The Customs Inspector found leaflets from a 1997
Earth First! Action at Headwaters forest tucked in the back of a
jacket pocket I had forgotten about (definitely suspicious when you
factor in Passcode Redwood!) I had phone numbers written on scratch
paper that had old emails on it about past actions. We were not as
well prepared as we should have been. But then, we are not
international spies or clandestine operatives. We're activists,
trainers, and organizers who work openly and we've spent our time
developing skills like talking to the media or preparing people to
deescalate police violence rather than honing the tradecraft of an
operative in a Le Carre novel.
We also did some things right. We stayed calm. We never showed
either anger or fear. We remained confident and cheerful, in spite
of starting out sick and exhausted. We remained friendly to all the
authorities and enlisted their friendship without ever falling into
the trap of trusting it. We cooperated with every reasonable
request, and some unreasonable ones when we assessed that objecting
would get us nowhere. And we never wavered in our inner conviction
that we have a right to cross borders to protest global institutions
which themselves transcend borders, and that letting us into Canada
would serve the interests of Canada. Which is to say, we identified
the interests of Canada as being with the service of democracy, which
includes open dissent, not with the policies of the IMF/World
Bank/G20, or with those of the police or Intelligence services. We
never saw ourselves as enemies of the state, but remained proud of
being who and what we are.
Repression can be fought:
Why did Lisa choose to go to jail, and risk being banned from Canada
for life? Repressive systems cannot function if they actually have
to use force to back up every ruling or decree. It becomes too
costly for them. Instead, they rely on our compliance, out of fear
or out of hope of some gain. The more we refuse to comply, the more
we undermine their power. Had Lisa gotten on the plane and gone
home, she would have been safer, but there would have been no
challenge to the system's authority. By staying, she forced the
system to defend itself, costing it time, money, staff power, and
public censure.
Of course, resistance is also costly. While Lisa was debating what
to do, she asked two questions, "Is there a larger political gain to
be made here?" and "Do I have support? Is this a battle the local
organizers want to fight?" The answer to both was "yes." Canada is
presently debating two "Anti-Terrorist" measures that would restrict
civil liberties, and the local organizers saw her arrest as an
opportunity to raise the issue of how these
bills would target democratic dissent. We received great support
from the Global Democracy Ottawa coalition and all the groups
organizing the action, from Mothers and Midwives and the Ontario
Public Interest Research Group who helped us find legal counsel, set
up press conferences and take care of all the practical details.
Through our networks we could alert people around the world who
called, wrote, and put political pressure on the Canadian
authorities. Without that support, her choice might have been an act
of fruitless martyrdom rather than an effective political strategy.
We won. After two days, Canadian Immigration released Lisa and
allowed her to enter the country without conditions. We were
officially welcomed to Canada by Svend Robinson, the NDP Minister of
Parliament. Throughout, we got good media coverage and were able to
draw attention to the dangers of restricting civil rights.
We need a larger solidarity:
All those phone calls, faxes, emails, and letters you are urged to
make or send really do make a difference. Public opinion is starting
to shift, to question the loss of our civil liberties. We have many
opportunities to mobilize it in favor of real democracy.
To do so, we need to nurture the broad solidarity we already have in
the movement. That means we need to be careful to check out stories
and rumors before we spread them, to be sure support is really needed
or outrage justified before we ask for it. And when it is, we need
to be committed to backing each other up. The small acts, the faxes
and phone calls, are as important as the large acts -- they are what
make it possible to take the risks of noncooperation, and they build
the momentum that can turn the tide.
Real repression is growing. Again, what happened to us was small.
Currently, eleven or thirteen or fifteen hundred people (now Ashcroft
is saying six hundred) have disappeared into indefinite detainment by
U.S. Immigration. Thousands of other are subject to questioning and
interrogation simply because they happen to be Middle Eastern. Grand
juries are being convened in Oregon to investigate "ecoterrorism."
We may each get our turn to be on the front lines of the struggle.
Hard as that is, when we know we have support, each battle can become
an opportunity to strengthen our movement instead of letting it
fragment, to raise the costs for the system, to shift public opinion
and make people crave real democracy. We're very grateful to all
those who supported us, from offering us free legal services to
calling the Canadian embassy on our behalf. Next time, if it's you,
you can count on us to watch your back.
*** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.***