Activism: Taking the Direct Approach

This is an article by Ed Hamer, in the July/August 2007 issue of  the British environmental magazine Ecologist:

TAKING THE DIRECT APPROACH

Non-violent direct action can be an effective and sometimes necessary, part of a campaign.  Go on, says Ed Hamer, dare to throw a spanner in the works.

It is nearly 2000 years since the working-class hero Ned Ludd inspired a campaign of social discontent from the heart of the Black Country. The Luddites saw the dismantling of the newly mechanised cotton mills as their only defence against the job losses and poverty that accompanied the advancing industrial revolution.

Today, the kind of inequalities that first inspired Ludd are growing daily, and on a global scale. Fortunately, so too are the numbers of individuals willing to throw a spanner in the works. From the high-profile road protest movement of the 1990s to recent climate change demonstrations at Britain's airports, direct action is alive and very much kicking.

The object of direct action is immediate and effective change; in some cases this involves civil disobedience which may be illegal. Says John Sauven, Executive Director of Greenpeace, 'Non-violent direct action enables the stopping of wrongs and the highlighting of solutions. Concerned people taking non-violent direction action is exactly how Greenpeace was founded.'

Renowned environmentalist Jonathon Porritt is also a believer in direction action: applied intelligently and effecively, it can strengthen conventional campaigns. 'Historically, non-violent direct action has always played an important part in the UK environment movement, and, in my opinion, always will,' he says, 'Those who claim this undermines the credibility of mainstream environmental organisations are plain wrong.'