Shock Them Back: Resisting Disaster Capitalism and Subverting the Shock Doctrine

The following is the transcript of a talk given by an activist of the Aotearoa Anarchist Network to a Socialist Aotearoa meeting @ Auckland University on Thursday (May 15).

As the state-terror raids in October 2007, demonstrated, and the subsequent government push to tighten the Terrorism Suppression Act and it’s refusal to sign the UN Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, the shock doctrine isn’t something only used in far off lands with funny names but is also a weapon of mass deception used in our own backyards. Now I don’t want to dwell to long on what the Shock Doctrine is, because Naomi Klein describes it a lot better than I ever will, so definitely go and read the book if you haven’t already, it is fantastic. What I am instead going to talk about is; firstly-shock resistance or how we can resist the shock doctrine, secondly- bringing the disaster home- or how activists in the rich world can effectively support peoples resistance to the disaster capitalism in places like Iraq and Palestine, and thirdly I want to discuss a tactic which I think could be used to great effect; I’ll call it “shocking them back”

So firstly, let’s discuss how we can resist the Shock Doctrine, how we can resist capitalist and state attacks on the public sphere, the welfare-state, the “commons”, the environment, on human and civil rights, on democracy and on our everyday lives, in the wake of large scale catastrophes: some of which have happened in this country in the past and may well happen again in the future: for example, stock market crashes and subsequent recessions-like the 1987 one that provided a window of opportunity to capitalists for the destruction of the New Zealand trade union movement via the Employment Contracts Act of 1991. With doom and gloom headlines scrawled across most of the financial papers and growing fears of an ecological meltdown, of peak oil and food scarcity, it’s more pressing than ever that anti-capitalists, anarchists and socialists prepare themselves mentally and physically for the elites to try and use the shock doctrine here. But I do want to stress hear that often times the shock doctrine isn’t used in countries like New Zealand. Cause as we are all glued to the global electronic spectacle flickering from our computer screens and televisions and ipods and play stations, the government can just as easily do what it likes in a low-key manner, and provided no one takes their eyes off America’s Next Top Model or stops poking their friends on facebook they can damn near well get away with stealing a country, or selling one off to the highest bidder, or whatever they want to do…

But in any case if the elites try and use the proverbial bulldozer of the shock doctrine to smash open the public sphere to free market competition or if they pull out the smallest screwdriver to loosen the regulations that control foreign investment, or Genetic engineering or how hospitals contract out services, we need to be prepared.

The easiest and most effective way to beat the shock doctrine is mass confrontational direct action. In the wake of the Boxing Day tsunami, the Thai government tried to clear the beaches of local villagers to make way for new 5 star tourist resorts. Pretty soon, they were met by hundreds of villagers returning home, refusing to be evicted they reoccupied their homes on the coast. In New Orleans as the water receded back through the broken dykes after Hurricane Katrina, the Bush administration started its efforts to use the disaster to clear out the poor and working-class people who call New Orleans home. But determined residents returned home, cleaned up their neighbourhood and told FEMA they were staying put, since then there have been a number of confrontations, some defeats but also many successes for those struggling for their communities’ very survival, as big developers want to demolish the public housing. In Argentina in 2001, millions of people took the streets forced the government from office and forced a default on huge loans racked up by the dictatorship to the International Monetary Fund. The people united and fighting for control of their country on the streets of Buenos Aires showed that if we want to smash the shock doctrine then we must take direct action, we can’t wait for an election or a magnificent leader.

Because whether we like it or not, to defeat disaster capitalism, we need to be our own leaders. One of the main things I took away from Klein’s book is how easily radical peoples and workers movements are demobilized because the leaders have been bought off, been kidnapped, or simply been killed. We need a movement of leaders, with every person committed to a post-capitalist society capable of leading that transformation in their university, in their workplace, in their neighborhood or wherever. We need to be prepared to learn as we go, because we all make mistakes and fuck shit up, but it’s only by being leaders now, will we ever be able to act like leaders when the shock comes. That means the basic skills of organizing, of mobilizing, of educating/agitating and all the rest of it need to be passed on to every activist, because the stronger each individual is, the stronger the movement is, the faster it grows and the quicker we can reclaim our planet from those intent on wrecking it.

We also need to be prepared intellectually. That means every activist, every revolutionary needs to be on the ball all the time. We need to be able to understand complicated stuff, everything from the emissions trading scheme to the provincial reconstruction team, and be able to communicate to people our ideas clearly and passionately without coming across as a lunatic or an ideologue or both. And communicating doesn’t just mean talking it also means listening. Listening to what is important to people, because when the shock comes, there isn’t any point trying to mobilize around saving snails in the south Island, when people can’t put food on the table.

The anti-Vietnam war activists of the 1960s had a slogan, “bring the war home”. And it wasn’t just an empty threat, by the early 1970s, students, workers, draft dodgers, mutinous soldiers and revolutionaries were making the US as ungovernable as Vietnam. Everything from pacifist non-violent destruction of military property and draft records and mass tax evasion right though to the Weather Underground style bombings of recruitment centers and military bases was used to bring the war home to America. And this tactic was remarkably successful. The war did end, partly as a result of this revolt in the heart of the empire.

Well, now we face as Klein says disaster capitalism, spreading across the world, turning war and disaster into a sweet way to make a buck. As Klein says, “we are losing the peace incentive” in Palestine, in Iraq, in Afghanistan. So as the people of those nations fight back, what can we do from Aotearoa in solidarity with their struggles? I’d say we can “bring the disaster home”. The people making a profit from these wars and conflicts have names and addresses. The tentacles of the war-machine reach right into this very city. Oscmar, in Mt. Eden makes weapons training simulators for the Israeli Defense Force, Rakon in Mt. Wellington makes oscillators for use in cruise missiles, the NZ Superannuation Fund, with offices on Customs street, is making a killing by investing your tax-payer money in among other disaster capitalism industries; nuclear weapons and cluster bombs producing corporations. It is really important that anti-capitalists take seriously our commitment to solidarity with all those fighting back against oppression and that means we need to bring the disaster home in Aotearoa.

So finally to conclude I’d like to suggest a strategy that I feel would be useful. It’s based on the premise that you fight fire with fire. So I want to suggest that we need to “shock them back”. If Milton Friedman is right and only crises, actual or perceived produce real change, and that the ideas taken up are those lying around, then we need to start shocking back. I think a good example was when Folole Muliaga was killed by Mercury Energy last year, and Solidarity Union organized very quickly to protest and raise awareness and help ensure that those types of tragedy never happen again. The results of this organizing and the public outcry was that even Labour Party MPs were discussing in reasoned tones whether putting the Auckland electricity supply back into the ownership of the council was a good idea. The neo-liberals had been shocked. It is these crises that produce change and these crises are common place in capitalism. Capitalism is continuous crisis; it is a million crises in a million places every day of the year. Learning how to use these crises to shock the system is our challenge, but it is I believe vital to the very survival of the human race. The tragedy in Burma is not just a time to extend sympathy to the victims but an opportunity for us to get the government to end investment in Total Oil and stop state owned telecommunications company Kordia from building cell phone towers for the junta.

Klein is right. It is crises that change the world and the shock doctrine has been at the core of the neo-liberal free market, free trade, and anti-human agenda for a long time. It’s high time that activists learnt the lessons of the enemy, and organize/educate/agitate and mobilize so when the shock comes, it’s the people and the planet that comes out better off.