°Anti-APEC protests as nationalism
Paddy Gibson, from Solidarity, puts the argument that the anti-APEC protests should be little more than a prelude to the elections that are scheduled to occur soon after. Or, a ‘vote’ against the Liberal-National Coalition Government.
To be precise, this is rendered not as a protest against the Government, but “Howard” - and, of course, there are also those who have portrayed it as a protest against Bush. More on the preoccupation with Bad Leaders here. (And doesn’t an anti-”Bush” protest seem remarkably obsolete at this moment?)
In other words, these protests, Gibson argues, should be reduced to an instance in the election campaign for the Labor Party and the Greens. Which, in effect, means that the protests should be directed toward electing a Labor government. That, perhaps, is to be expected. Though, if one was presumably interested in a Labor win (or Liberal-National loss) at the elections, given the polls I doubt any protests are required to make this happen. This, coupled with the redundancy of protesting against Bush, signals a redefinition of protest as conformity - not changing anything, but ‘going with the flow’.
But in a complete inversion of sense, Gibson suggests that actually protesting against APEC - rather than opportunistically using the occasion as part of an upcoming electoral contest which has very little to do with APEC - would be “abstract”. And there is that curious turn of phrase about failing “to find resonance” (ie, failing to conform with what is already happening).
Now, given the already-announced lockdown of Sydney and other measures, I seriously doubt that energy expended would produce something more than the refinement of policing that has characterised anti-summit gigs for some time.
A statement from Mutiny - who also worry about the convergence between ‘internalised’ policing and that of the state - puts it this way:
Preparing for APEC protests has not been a priority for us as a group. The police preparations seem to strengthen the arguments against summit protest, especially doubts about the value of challenging the state on their terrain and when they are most prepared.
That said, it’s important to consider more fully what Solidarity’s use of “resonance” and the charge of “abstract” means here. As far as I can tell it means insisting that the borders of Australia are necessarily the borders of protest, of address and of political subjectivity. Even while the organisation one is presumably protesting against is the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum.
No concern for the military deployments of Australian troops in the Pacific; no concern for the increasingly integrated border policing in the Asia-Pacific region; no concern even for linking up with radical struggles in Indonesia, Fiji, the Philippines, and so on (even though those struggles have a local presence among migrant groups).
The complete triumph of nationalism (and electoralism) that began with the supposed antiwar protests some years back.
Good point re regional solidarity. Major bloodbath happening in The Philippines.
Also the left should be more active in support of secular forces in islamic states.
danmurf [May 24, 2007 @ 12:57 pm]
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danmurf [May 24, 2007 @ 1:03 pm]
The complete triumph of nationalism and electoralism… This definition is nowhere more fitting than in Turkey right now. There it’s a case of nationalism reviving itself through an election “atmosphere,” that itself is created out of a “military coup atmosphere” which recently is supported by a “terror atmosphere”. It’s hard to believe that power can be so centralized, so much “seated”, blowing any atmosphere as it pleases.
Nor does it seem there is anything it cannot appropriate: the same army that was almost dragging the country alongside the US to war in Iraq in 2003 now claims to be the flag-bearer anti-US and anti-imperialist! All the while getting ready once more to wage war on northern Iraq , to protect the anti-imperialist interests of the nation! What is more, this talk finds support from millions on the street.
But what needs to be thought is, can one simply stay outside the electoral machine under these circumstances. A recent movement by a multiplicity of parties, factions and ngo’s on the left is focusing on determining common independent candidates. I find the effort fruitful, indeed the only promising event recently, not merely as an election strategy–although I think that too is necessary– but as the badly needed common platform before all voices are drowned by the masses drifting under the army and the media.
danmurf, one needs to be careful with the secular-Islamist divide. Secularist state can spurt a no less dangerous theology.
pomegranade [May 26, 2007 @ 12:34 pm]
can one simply stay outside the electoral machine under these circumstances.
Put this way, the question is posed and already answered - as if the sense of urgency about participating in elections is not already an expression of the centralisation you mentioned.
On the other matter, Pom, I agree. I’m wary of secularism as a header - not only because it obscures the prevailing deification of the people, as with nationalism, and more).
But also because in more specific instances - it tends to be a by-word for anti-Islamic. I can’t be sure from the brief comment left here whether that’s what is meant, but I’m quite sure the AU Left does not register the current Government in East Timor as religious or theocratic, since it’s Catholic rather than Muslim.
s0metim3s [May 26, 2007 @ 2:15 pm]
On the APEC protests, I reckon the next line from the Mutiny letter is also relevant: “On the other hand, they also strengthen feelings that it is important to defy police attempts to frighten us.”
The level of fear in this city is already astounding, & it’s deliberate: announcements that known ‘troublemakers’ will be pre-emptively barred, that bail will be denied for the whole period, that cops will have pretty unlimited powers, public reminders of federal shoot-to-kill powers released with SAS training footage of troops kicking down doors, as well as personal ‘warnings’ given to a number of individuals by plain clothes cops. Not to mention the ‘rehearsals’ in the recent G20 raids & the regular deployment of the public order & riot squad.
And all of this has resonances with the fear tactics of the war on terror generally, and the everyday (paramilitary) policing of a whole lot of people, from Redfern to Tonga.
Perhaps the most sensible thing to do would to be ignore the whole damn thing, but it’s hard to ignore. I feel a need to act, if only for ourselves: to find a way to act that is neither acquiescing nor suicidal…
princess mob [May 31, 2007 @ 10:40 am]
I get that. But surely fear and its defiance has to be weighed against what’s at stake - and I’m not sure protesting against Bush or Howard really cut it. Besides, it’s not as if those who want to protest against Howard/Governent have no other site/time for doing so. There are lots of Liberal Party offices? The question of why APEC seems too divorced from what APEC actually is. It’s not really clear to me what’s at stake in these protests.
Anyway, if the issue is that of securitsation, war, etc, then are there not also better times, other places for organising against this? Why walk into a trap?
s0metim3s [June 1, 2007 @ 10:31 pm]
but what is at stake?
sure, i agree that protesting bush or howard (which is kinda a dichotomy being set up by various factions) doesn’t cut, well, anything.
but my point is: we’re already in a trap, whatever way we walk. the question is what connections we make from that, and how we act.
princess mob [June 2, 2007 @ 12:25 am]
Ok, but there’s a difference between the political impasse and the trap, even if they’re strongly related. The second is a quite literal one set by the state, whereas the first has much more to do with the sense of politics. As in: not all politics is about connections (it can also be about disconnecting, refusal, also not acting at times). Only activism assumes all action is political, and that action as such is what politics is defined by. But there are also strikes, flight, leaving a terrain, migration … In any case, some (or many) actions are not politics, but labour - and only a sense of action as labour assumes that all action, or constant action, is of value (ie,. productive).
And the question of ‘how’ still has to be accompanied by what and why - else you end up making up the numbers for those who are focussed on the what (as in: ‘what is to be done’), yes? But, given the impasse - the limits of both the securitisation and more enclosures besides - isn’t what’s at stake what will pass for politics?
Not so coincidentally, Brett and I just gave a talk on this with much more detail in Sydney - the audio of which may be somewhere, or somewhere soon - though we’re not sure where it might go up.
s0metim3s [June 4, 2007 @ 9:30 am]
Your critique is an interesting and valuable one. I think there is a(non-stop the war/bush) meeting planned at some point to talk about tactics for APEC. You should come a long and share your viewpoint.
Max [June 7, 2007 @ 9:53 pm]