Center for Artistic Activism

Before anyone on the Left was talking about the importance of understanding the cognitive science of political decision making and action, and the necessity of framing, metaphor, story and association, there was George Lakoff. He’s been telling his story to anyone who will listen for more than a quarter-century. Here he is giving his rap in a little over three minutes.

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Sometimes having your creative activist methodology appropriated by the powers-that-be has an upside. Witness the Yes Men style pro-bono campaign the Chicago-based advertising heavy, Leo Burnett, waged to save a small library in Troy, Michigan from the Tea Party.

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The following is a short piece I wrote for an on-line journal called freq.uenci.es who asked me to write about spirituality. At first I said no; I don’t think of myself as a spiritual person. But then I started thinking about some of the training work that Lambert and I do in the School for Creative Activism, and the following is the result:

My Political Faith
Stephen Duncombe

Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.

1 Corinthians 9:19-22

A few Sundays ago I was in what I suppose passes for my church: an activist space in an old warehouse on the edge of the city. I was there with my partner to train a group of veteran organizers on how to employ creativity and the arts in their activism in order to become more effective political players in our media-saturated, culture-rich world. Standing in front of the organizers, I got to a point in my stock presentation where I introduce Jesus as an example of a creative activist. My proselytizing was of a secular rather than religious nature: it wasn’t the spiritual figure of Christ I was interested in but the purely historical Jesus, a radical Mediterranean Jewish peasant building a revolutionary movement two millennia ago. Jesus, I explained, understood the fundamentals of using story and spectacle, signs and symbols as means to criticize the status quo and offer up an alternative vision. When, for example, he entered the main temple of Jerusalem and overturned the tables of the money changers and sellers of ritual objects he was staging an effective political performance. He could have stood outside and harangued the passerby with his opinions, the ancient equivalent of the activist on the soapbox, but instead he demonstrated his politics though a spectacular act of civil disobedience. Through such an action he not only demonstrated visually and bodily his political ideals, but did it in such a provocative way that news of his deed, and therefore his message, was sure to travel. In modern parlance: Jesus went viral.

I then spoke of Jesus’ use of parables and how, by employing these often oblique stories, he created an opening for his audience to make the message their own. Unlike a list of grievances or demands, easily understood and just as easily ignored, the parables asked listeners to puzzle through the mystery of the stories and their meanings. It was an “invitational form of speech” to quote the Bible scholar Marcus Borg, which does not command, but instead works in its “ability to involve and affect the imagination.” One can almost imagine the scene following an impromptu teaching by Jesus: people walking away, debating amongst themselves exactly what this crazy holy man meant by comparing the kingdom of heaven to a mustard seed. But with every argument and counter-argument, Jesus’ words ceased to be his alone and became the common property of his audience.

Finally, I discussed how Jesus was able to prefigure his vision of a better world tomorrow though creative actions situated in the present day. By sitting down to dinner—a deeply meaningful ritual in Biblical times—with women, tax collectors, sinners and the ill, he enacted in the here and now the egalitarian community he prophesized for the future. Similarly, by entering Jerusalem on a donkey, the titular “Son of God” seated upon a lowly ass, he acted out his ideal of a world turned upside down in which “the last shall be first, and the first last.” Jesus, I concluded, took the ideal of a political “demonstration” quite literally… and thus employed it very effectively.

I was done with this lesson and ready to move on to a discussion concerning the use of creative tactics in the American Revolution when one of the participants raised their hand and asked me if I was a Christian. The question threw me, and I had to think for a moment. I was raised Christian and I know my Bible, my father and grandfather were both ministers and, most other Sundays, I attend a “real” Church with my family. But am I a Christian?

By way of an answer I explained that a large majority of Americans—anywhere from 76 to 83 percent, in fact—identify themselves as Christian and that many of the guiding myths, symbols and ideals of the United States have their roots in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles. I argued that religion, as a compendium of stories, a system of ethics, and a model of behavior could be drawn upon as a popular alternative to norms and ideals of competitive consumer capitalism. I admitted that there’s much to condemn in religion, its bigotry and intolerance for starters, but also pointed out that most religions also extol such virtues as love, community and responsibility for others. Good material for an astute organizer to work with.

I also reminded the activists in the room of the first rule of guerilla warfare: know your terrain and use it to your advantage. Whether we approve of it or not Christianity forms the contours of much of American life and consciousness; it is a, if not the, lingua franca. If you want to be an effective activist in the this country you need to be able to talk the talk, even if you are uneasy walking the walk. We might profit, I concluded, from the words of the Apostle Paul, the crackerjack community organizer of the early Church, who wrote: “Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible… I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.”

By the end of my jeremiad I realized I had my answer. I am a Christian, but only because I believe it makes me a more effective political activist. In a word, I am an opportunistic Christian. (A public admission made more awkward by the fact that the minister of my—albeit activist—”other” Church was participating in the workshop). So much for the authenticity of my faith. But sitting down to retell this story now I realize something else. I do have faith in Jesus, but a particular and perhaps peculiar faith. Do I believe that Jesus walked on water? No. Do I believe in the divinity of Christ? No. Do I believe in God? No. But do I believe that Jesus cared about those who are used, abused or forgotten by society? Do I believe that Jesus wanted to radically transform the world? Do I believe that Jesus can teach me something about how to be an effective political organizer? The answer is Yes, yes and, again, yes.

I believe. I believe that all history, to paraphrase Marx and Engels, is the history of social struggle. It is a bloody and brutal history of those who use their power and privilege to kill, oppress, demean and regulate others in order to maintain and increase their own power and privilege. But there is another history too: a long tradition of people who have stood up to those in power and teached and preached and organized and demanded the redistribution of power and privilege. And there is an even more radical history of those who have envisioned and demanded a world in which power and privilege are abolished altogether.

Jesus is part of this history, as is Moses and Buddha and the Prophet Mohammed; Karl Marx, Emma Goldman and Martin Luther King too. This is my community of faith. I may be opportunistic in the material I draw upon for inspiration and lessons. I will readily become a Christian amongst the Christians, a Jew amongst Jews, and a Muslim amongst Muslims, not to mention a Communist or Anarchist amongst Communists or Anarchists—“I have become all things to all people.” And while this sounds coldly instrumental, I can assure you it is not; it’s something deeply spiritual. I feel impossibly yet intimately connected to those who have fought, and continue to fight, to radically transform the world. Their history is my history and mine theirs. Together we share a faith that we can make heaven here on earth.

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Nathan Schneider, from Waging NonViolence makes an excellent point here in his coverage of the mass arrests of Occupy Wallstreet on the Brooklyn Bridge about what are we trying to “demonstrate” in our demonstrations: “One might wonder, however, whether causing such an obstruction is really the proper mode of civil disobedience given the purposes of the protest. It’s helpful to recall a maxim of Gene Sharp’s: “Either you
do something you’re not supposed to do, or you don’t something you are supposed to do.” To put it another way: do something good that’s against the law, or refuse
to do something bad that the law demands of you.”

Read on for the full report….

Mass Arrests On The Brooklyn Bridge: Is This What
Civil Disobedience Looks Like?
by Nathan Schneider
Waging NonViolence
October 1, 2011
http://wagingnonviolence.org/2011/10/mass-arrests-on-the-brooklyn-bridge/

News is by now getting around that today there were mass
arrests of Occupy Wall Street protesters-700 or more-on
the Brooklyn Bridge. As over a thousand marchers made
their way toward the bridge a few minutes after 3 p.m.,
they split into two groups. Some followed members of the
Direct Action Committee who led the way up the elevated
pedestrian walkway in the middle of the bridge. Another
group, however, broke away and took to the Brooklyn-
bound road on the bridge’s south side, eventually
filling the whole roadway so that no traffic could get
through. The front row of them locked arms and
proceeded. At first, police had blocked neither
entrance.

“That was not planned at all,” Direct Action Committee
member Sandy Nurse told me, looking down from the
pedestrian walkway onto those marching on the roadway.
“I think there’s a lot of people in that group that
don’t realize what they’re getting into.”

Before the marchers on the roadway reached the first
stone tower, and having been led by a phalanx of senior
police officers, they were intercepted from the other
side. (Even The New York Times offers evidence that the
police intended to lure marchers into a trap.) Out came
dozens of dark-blue shirted officers with plastic cuffs-
actually, cardboard boxes full of them. Some officers
unrolled the same type of orange nets they had used the
previous Saturday to make nearly 100 arrests, while
others lined up opposite the protesters, halted them,
and began to apprehend and cuff them, one by one.

For a few minutes, the scene was very tense, as could be
observed from above on the pedestrian walkway, where
hundreds more marchers were passing by. On the roadway,
there were scuffles as some force was used against those
being apprehended. “This Is a Peaceful Protest!” people
chanted. And: “No! Sleep! Till Brooklyn!” But soon the
whole process assumed the appearance of routine, and,
for those waiting to be taken away, of solemn dignity.

At the front and back, with the crowd of marchers on the
roadway surrounded on three sides by nets, police
continued cuffing them and leading them away, one at a
time. Slowly. Most of the marchers sat down and waited.
“If you sit down, there is no fear,” called one marcher,
each phrase echoed by the others in the “people’s
microphone.” They talked, and smoked cigarettes, sang
songs, and chanted. Many smiled as they were led away.

Meanwhile, more police arrived on the pedestrian
walkway, and they used more nets to cordon off the area
directly in front of where the arrests were happening.
And so it went on and on over the course of hours, as
police vans and city buses arrived to take away those
arrested. It started raining-lightly, at first, and then
hard.

The several hundred marchers who had been on the
pedestrian walkway and had been turned back down to the
Manhattan side rallied at the base of the bridge. They
marched around some in the rain, including to 1 Police
Plaza to demand the release of their comrades. Then they
debated where to go next, and finally agreed to return
to Liberty Plaza. On the way, they were joined by
several hundred more, who had made it to Brooklyn on the
pedestrian walkway and returned on the Manhattan Bridge.
As a mass, together, they all returned with a sense of
victory to the plaza.

It was dark by then. Dinner was ready, and they
celebrated and started planning the next move.

This was the second major Saturday march halted by a
mass arrest, largely on account of obstructing traffic.
One might wonder, however, whether causing such an
obstruction is really the proper mode of civil
disobedience given the purposes of the protest. It’s
helpful to recall a maxim of Gene Sharp’s: “Either you
do something you’re not supposed to do, or you don’t
something you are supposed to do.” To put it another
way: do something good that’s against the law, or refuse
to do something bad that the law demands of you.

Creating such an obstruction certainly does fulfill the
purpose of occupation-it is a way of reclaiming public
space, of being heard, and of stopping business as
usual. But it also obstructs a lot of people who are not
the protest’s targets. Therefore, this may not be the
most appropriate law to be arrested for breaking-or at
least not the one that sends the clearest message.

What might be better? Perhaps something along the lines
of Tim DeChristopher’s well-known obstruction of an
illegal oil and gas lease auction, for instance. In this
and other classic cases of civil disobedience, from
Gandhi’s salt march, to the sit-ins at segregated lunch
counters, to the Freedom Rides, to Rosa Parks’ choice of
seat on a Montgomery bus, resisters took care to break
the precise laws or rules or customs that they opposed.
Their message, even without having to say anything, was
absolutely evident. Especially since many people
complain that there isn’t enough clarity of message from
Occupy Wall Street, more clarity of action might go a
long way to winning even more people to the rapidly-
growing cause.

Today, hundreds of people were arrested, many surely for
the first time. More seem likely to follow. The world
was watching (including tens of thousands on the
movement’s livestream TV channel), and what it saw were
entirely peaceful protesters, in the streets to oppose
an unjust economy and a corrupt political order, being
arrested en masse while bringing their messages across
one of New York’s greatest landmarks.

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Steve sent me this article in response to a question we were batting about around why there is seemingly no public outrage surrounding the burn the public or boil the public “debate” on the debt limit, especially in comparison to what has happened or is happening in Egypt, Spain, Israel and elsewhere. I think the author is pretty spot-on in his analysis of the barriers in the way of youth mobilization, and it’s definitely worth reading, but there’s something that really bugs me about this type of lament — one that’s all too common on the Left. The problem is that there’s nothing we can do about any of this. In essence, it’s a recipe for depression because these are all structural/institutional problems and the best we can do at this point is say NO! Don’t watch TV, NO! Don’t go to school, NO! Don’t pay your student debt, etc. I think our job is to get to YES.

(Also I’m betting that in Israel a month ago, Spain six months ago or Egypt a year ago, they were writing the same type of thing)

8 Reasons Young Americans Don’t Fight Back: How the US Crushed Youth Resistance

By Bruce E. Levine, AlterNet
Posted on July 31, 2011, Printed on August 9, 2011
Link to AlterNet story
Traditionally, young people have energized democratic movements. So it is a major coup for the ruling elite to have created societal institutions that have subdued young Americans and broken their spirit of resistance to domination. (more…)

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The following is an article about the artist Tania Bruguera and and her year-long project of living with and “as” an immigrant in NYC. This raises the question of: How does this art address and/or effect poor immigrants’ lives? The most charitable reading is that the artist intends to use her position of power and access (she is being written about in the Times after all) to shine a light on the conditions of  immigrants in NYC.  But does anyone really not know about the poverty and living conditions of most immigrants? And…does knowledge really change anything anyway? But this position of “Artist as Truth Teller,” as Steve likes to call it, is a common fallacy; what disturbs me even more is the possibility that the artist is using the poor immigrants as mere subject matter, or worse: as a source for inspiration. As Walter Benjamin commented upon in an essay long ago (The Author as Producer) there is a big difference between art about poor people, and art that eradicates poverty.

An Artist’s Performance: A Year as a Poor Immigrant
New York Times, May 18 2011
Sam Dolnik

Tania Bruguera has eaten dirt, hung a dead lamb from her neck and served trays of cocaine to a gallery audience, all in the name of art. She has shown her work at the Venice Biennale, been feted at the Pompidou Center in Paris and landed a Guggenheim fellowship.

But now she is sharing a tiny apartment in Corona, Queens, with five illegal immigrants and their six children, including a newborn, while scraping by on the minimum wage, without health insurance.

She has not fallen on hard times. Ms. Bruguera is performing a yearlong art piece meant to improve the image of immigrants and highlight their plight. And she is bringing her high-concept brand of provocation to a low-wattage precinct of taco stands and auto-body shops, where the neighbors have responded with varying degrees of curiosity, amusement and befuddlement.

Complete article here

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