Translated from Swedish by Margaret Rainey 1993, revised by Per Herngren 2004. Scanned for the web. Please, contact the authors if you find any mistakes in the text.

INTRODUCTION: A HANDBOOK IS BORN

One of my first lessons in civil disobedience came when my brother was born. He was a glowing red package that arrived on my twelfth birthday. At first I refused to even touch this fragile creature. Then I carefully picked him up. After a while I could sit for hours with David in my arms. His uncomplicated assertion of will fascinated me: when something was wrong, he simply refused to cooperate. I was, on the other hand, a very obedient son.

Don't get me wrong. I don't mean that I never protested. I protested wildly. I screamed and argued. But when everything was said and done, I obeyed anyway. The contrast between me and my brother has helped me to understand clearly the difference between resistance and protest. Today "resistance" is a fashionable word, and all types of protest are suddenly being called resistance. This is unfortunate. Resistance is disobedience. Protest can in some situations be more appropriate, but it is not the same as resistance (though under a dictatorship, even a protest can be illegal and can therefore become a form of resistance).

Many years later, when I had a few years of prison ahead of me because I had disarmed nuclear weapons components in a Plowshares action, I finally came to understand the full challenge in my brother's behavior. Earlier, I had skimmed through my father's Martin Luther King collection. By taking courses in civil disobedience, I tried to learn what I could about current discussions on the subject. I participated in several actions against Swedish arms exports and against the new nuclear weapons that the Soviet Union had placed in Europe. In order to get more firsthand experience I moved to the U.S.

All of this education was necessary in order to understand how deeply obedience was rooted in me and how difficult it is to overcome. After being moved among about ten different prisons in the U.S. during the period of a year, I realized how vitally important the struggle against obedience is. We must struggle with fear; we must struggle with ourselves. When I confronted my own fear, I realized that disobedience isn't a leisure-time activity. It is a lifelong task for each and every one of us. When I faced the personal consequences of my disobedience, I felt I had touched the central nerve of our modern society: our self-imposed obedience.

In this handbook, I have tried to write about how to resist obedience in a practical way. During the first few years of my life, as I saw in my baby brother, resistance was probably a natural reaction. But through contact with other people, I learned to obey. Today I need to learn how to overcome obedience. This book is about that process.

During my time in jail, I decided to write a civil disobedience handbook. I had collected a dozen different handbooks from the U.S., England, and India. Primarily written before actions, these handbooks were excerpts about the most fundamental experiences in how to organize and carry out civil disobedience. But these handbooks were too elementary for my broader purposes. There is a lot of experience within the nonviolence movement. However, this experience is communicated mainly in discussions or other kinds of personal contacts between individuals. Nobody seems to have taken the time to write this collective experience down. This handbook is an attempt to get recent experience in nonviolence down on paper. I discuss the past few years of organizing actions through sections on affinity groups, retreats, training, advanced forms of democracy, etc. Each and every one of these subjects could fill a book, but this treatment is, in any case, more comprehensive than other books written on the subject. My intent is that this handbook will be useful for a variety of situations, including support work for refugees, solidarity work with the Third World, protection of the environment, disarmament, furthering the demands of disabled citizens, and struggles for labor rights. This book is a discussion about contemporary, hands-on civil disobedience that has, up until now, occurred only among activists. Civil disobedience has developed and changed radically during the past few years. Resistance during the nineties will hopefully profit by the mistakes of the past. It is important to continue to develop civil disobedience; otherwise, resistance will become only a marginal political phenomenon.

This handbook is divided into nine chapters. The first chapter introduces the idea of civil disobedience in a democracy, the ethical prerequisites for resistance, a definition of civil disobedience, and the importance of nonviolence. The rest of the book discusses actions of civil disobedience, focusing on the practical and ethical difficulties and potential of the different stages of an action-from preparations, to the choice of a particular action, to the trial, to punishment for the action.

The second chapter is an overview of the preparations necessary before an action: establishing an affinity group, preparing the action itself, and doing research. It begins with a historical and philosophical summary of the importance of conflict in the creation of a resistance community, and the importance of this community in the fight against fear of punishment. It then discusses the dynamics and responsibilities of affinity groups and how the group can research the information needed for an action. Chapter 3 deals with different kinds of civil disobedience one might choose to do, such as the Sanctuary movement's experiences in hiding refugees and my experiences with the Plowshares movement's disarmament actions. Conscientious objection, blockades, and other types of actions are also discussed. The fourth chapter describes how to organize actions. It focuses primarily on the possibilities of starting a dialogue using arrest, interrogation, and other communication channels.

Trial and punishment are often mistakenly viewed as unfortunate consequences of civil disobedience. For this reason, the importance of each of these factors in the fight against our passivity is discussed in two separate chapters, 5 and 6. The trial provides an opportunity to start a dialogue. If the trial results in a prison sentence or fines, then new possibilities for resistance are created. Chapter 7 explains the new democratic tools used throughout the peace and alternative movements. The development of democratic methods intensified during the seventies and eighties. Therefore, this chapter presents experience with the new tools for democracy, mediation techniques, and consensus decision-making. My intent is to describe methods that undermine both hierarchical power structures and oppression. The final chapter contains my reflections about the future and the possibilities created by civil disobedience.

This handbook should not be read as a set of detailed instructions about how you should deal with any particular situation. Rather, it is the responsibility of the reader to utilize these experiences and synthesize them into new actions that will challenge obedience to an even greater extent.

CHAPTER I
THE PATH OF RESISTANCE: ABOUT CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

WHAT IS CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE?

Disobedience is nothing new. Civil disobedience, however, is a fairly new phenomenon. The idea of civil disobedience first came from the American writer Henry David Thoreau, and was argued in his classic essay, "Civil Disobedience," published in 1849.¹ As a protest against slavery, oppression, and the U.S. war against Mexico, he refused to pay war taxes. Refusal to pay taxes was not a new idea: it was used by anti-slavery abolitionists, among others. Karl Marx had also tried to organize a campaign to convince people to refuse to pay taxes during the revolution in Europe in 1848. The originality in Thoreau's idea was that he insisted that society react. Thoreau saw civil disobedience as a whole entity, where punishment was at least as important as the action of breaking the law. This made civil disobedience a very special form of action. Punishment-or overcoming the power of punishment-is the very foundation of civil disobedience. Thoreau had asserted that "action from principle, the perception and the performance of right," is above the law, and fundamentally revolutionary.² A country's government is powerless without the cooperation and obedience of its citizens. Mahatma Gandhi, who led the struggle against English colonialism in India, demonstrated concretely that massive disobedience can render the state power ineffective. "If man will only realize that it is unmanly to obey laws that are unjust, no man's tyranny will enslave him," Gandhi said (sorry about the old sexist language).³

This brings us to another original aspect of Thoreau. His resistance was directed toward obedient citizens, not toward the government which instigated what he saw as unjust deeds. It was citizens that made and make up the most important target group for civil disobedience. Thoreau considered the "most conscientious supporters" of injustice and "the most serious obstacles" to reform to be the people, those who, in spite of being opposed to the government, "yield to it their allegiance and support. "⁴ He assumed that there were enough people to put a stop to war and slavery if they moved from having opinions to active disobedience.

The problem is, however, that most of us are obedient. But when some people accept the consequences of disobedience by doing civil disobedience, others are challenged to break unjust laws and decisions. In this way, they show us, as Thoreau showed us, that one of the obstacles to creating a just world-fear of personal consequences-can be overcome.

Understanding Civil Disobedience

Civil disobedience has developed from liberal and humanist traditions. People who have honestly grappled with the dilemma of modern democracies have tried civil disobedience as a democratic means for minorities and other groups that are oppressed to obtain justice (though not just Western democracies, but also dictatorships in the Third World and socialist one-party countries have been confronted with civil disobedience). The dynamic of the method is based on the very foundation of democracy - the dialogue. Civil disobedience functions only because of its democratic dynamic. Keeping this conversation about right action going is essential to seeing an unjust law overturned. This principle of dialogue is one difference between this method and methods that are directly effective, like boycott, strike, disobedience on a massive scale, or direct action. These methods can also improve democracy, but function above all as a means of creating political pressure.

What is the role of civil disobedience in a democracy? In his now classic book, A Theory of Justice from 1971, John Rawls examines the role of civil disobedience in a "nearly just regime. "⁵According to Rawls, civil disobedience is not difficult to justify in an unjust regime, that is in a country whose government does not follow the will of the majority. Problems arise, however, in a nearly just regime. His theory implies that those who practice civil disobedience belong to a minority that has turned against the will of the majority

According to Rawls, it is not possible to justify civil disobedience by pleading religious or private views. Instead, one must appeal to the society's sense of justice. He assumes that in a nearly just regime the citizens have a general understanding of justice. Civil disobedience then provides a minority with a method that makes the majority reflect upon whether the validity of the act of civil disobedience is in accordance with its sense of justice or not. An action functions in this case as an appeal.

He emphasizes that it is up to the individual to decide when it is right to practice civil disobedience. Each and every person is responsible for his or her actions. This does not mean that we can make any decision we want to. To be a responsible citizen means to heed the political principles that make up the legal foundation for our kind of democracies. Civil disobedience is, writes Rawls, an action that is public, nonviolent, conscientious, political, and illegal. The goal of civil disobedience is usually to change the law or change a government's decision. An action appeals to the majority's sense of justice, and its message is that the principles of social cooperation between free and equal people have not been respected. Rawls makes even one more distinction, that "direct" civil disobedience should be aimed at the law that is broken. It is this law that must change. "Indirect" civil disobedience, on the other hand, is aimed at a different law or decision from the one that should change.

My understanding of civil disobedience might be both more general and yet somewhat narrower than Rawls's definition. This is how I would describe it:

Civil disobedience is a public action.
It is based on nonviolence.
The action is illegal or defies a command or decision.
The direct intent of the action is to preserve or change a phenomenon in the society.
The personal consequences of the action are vital for the resistance to punishment as the tool for obedience.

"Civil" usually means pertaining to the citizen. In the nonviolence movement, "civil" has a more narrow definition. Civil is, in this context, the opposite of violence. Those who do acts of civil disobedience behave in a civilized manner, with respect for the opponent as a person. By "opponent" I mean discussion partner, the one the action is directed towards. Discussion partners at one action can be representatives of the law and at another the owners of a company.

My definition is broader than Rawls's definition in the sense that I do not include, as he does, the demand that one must have a serious personal conviction. I am interested in an action that has a special political dynamic. I do not see any reason to include a judgment of an activist's psyche and consciousness in a definition. Civil disobedience is civil disobedience even if a few doubters participate. Just like the believers, they can start a dialogue during a trial about what is right and wrong.

Another difference between our definitions is that Rawls differentiates between conscientious objection and civil disobedience. Conscientious objection is when one defies a decision or command for reasons of conscience. It is then, argues Rawls, more of a private moral action than a political action. But open conscientious objection at a place of work has political consequences. According to my definition, conscientious objection can also be civil disobedience, if the other criteria have been filled.

In a public action, the participants do not try to avoid the consequences of the action. Therefore, painting an anonymous political message on a wall under cover of darkness is not civil disobedience - though, in itself, painting messages on walls can be a good thing even if it isn't civil disobedience!

Disobedience can be illegal according to one law and legal according to another. Martin Luther King's and the North American civil rights movement's resistance to racist state laws is one example. In several cases their actions were supported by federal laws. The Plowshares movement's disarmament of weapons is also an example of this. During the trials afterwards, we state that the weapons we disarm are illegal according to international law-the Nuremberg Principles, for instance-and we are, in accordance with that law, bound to protest.

Civil disobedience is always a political act. It exceeds the personal interests of the participants. Some people therefore do not define private deeds as civil disobedience. Personal interest can, however, in many cases be the primary interest. A friend of mine was awakened one morning when her bedroom was engulfed by a cloud of dust. The company that owned the apartment building had begun to renovate the apartment next door. My friend refused to pay the rent and demanded restitution. The landlord agreed to her demands. She was paid restitution and did not have to pay the rent for that month. Even if the struggle she had was private, it still was about her rights as a tenant. That is why it exceeded her personal interests and can be defined as civil disobedience. Civil resistance was for a long time a synonym of civil disobedience. Today, however, it is used mainly to indicate civil disobedience in time of war against invasion or coup. Holy or divine obedience is used in about the same way as civil disobedience.

At first, Gandhi used the expression "passive resistance" with about the same meaning as nonviolent resistance. This expression is not as popular today, since the word "passive" gives the wrong associations.

As I mentioned earlier, resistance means disobedience or refusal. It is a wide concept and could be used for everything from military defense to my baby brother's refusal to eat his dinner. Resistance is not necessarily always a good thing. It can be destructive. Even nonviolent resistance is not always positive, and neither is civil disobedience. Those that believe that civil disobedience is always right place the method above the consideration of people's wants and needs. Just like any other act, one must judge disobedience according to the intent and the way in which it is done. Neither the political results nor the use of the right method can justify an action's negative consequences for people.

The Differences Between Civil Disobedience and Direct Action

Power and obedience must be understood as the same. It’s only in the fairy tales people can have mystical power. In the real world power is a gift from citizens, workers or members. And it has to be given continuously. If subordinates would stop giving it, it would vanish.

Civil disobedience as a method is not intended primarily to influence public opinion but is, above all, a way of challenging others to be disobedient. The action alone cannot achieve this. Only in combination with punishment does the action become a strong challenge of our obedience and fear of punishment. Of course, it is not possible to maintain that Thoreau's special method is always the best one. Civil disobedience is quite simply a method that can be useful in certain historical contexts to resist obedience which make unwanted power possible.

A group like the environmental organization Greenpeace, for instance, maintains that they do not use civil disobedience, in spite of the fact that many of their actions are illegal. When Greenpeace activists hang onto the railing of a ship that intends to dump waste in the sea, the action's political effect is important. The action should, with the help of the mass media, influence the decision makers. Greenpeace's method could be called "direct action."

Direct action means that the end becomes the means. This can be done symbolically, as when the peace movement in Sweden began to seriously work against arms exports in 1983. We were a loosely connected group of peace workers that stopped an arms ship. By preventing the export of arms for an hour, we wanted to point symbolically to our goal of stopping all arms exports. Direct action can also mean the realization of a goal. Homeless people that occupy a house have realized one of their goals. Starting a store that sells products that are bought directly from cooperatives in the Third World is an example of a lawful direct action. Such a store creates a new economic order on a small scale.

Most direct actions also work indirectly and symbolically because they influence decision makers and others. For Greenpeace a strong indirect effect is the point of a direct action. They achieve this indirect effect by showing what needs to be done. When activists hang onto the railing, they physically stop the ship from dumping wastes on them and into the sea. Symbolic actions do not exclude the use of symbols of force. Christian activists in England have for some strange reason gone head over heels for chains. They chain themselves to the gates of military bases, for example. This is not done to achieve a goal by the strength of the chains, but to get their message out to the public.

In the U.S., a conflict arose at the end of the sixties between those that advocated direct physical action and those that advocated civil disobedience. A similar debate is going on in Europe today. Some groups in the women's movement, for example, maintain that attempts at physically effective resistance led to a "terror balance" based on physical strength, which excluded large groups from the struggle. Nonviolence here becomes an elitist phenomenon. My own criticism of physical resistance is that it is useful only in a certain historical situation, namely when so many people participate in a protest that the authorities are not willing to use sufficient resources to stop it. They choose instead to negotiate. However, we have not come that far yet. To stop the manufacturing of weapons with effective actions, several thousand people would probably have to participate.

Until we have come that far, disobedience will mostly be useful to mobilize resistance and to start dialogue. Even during a growing mass resistance, discussions with the opponent will still be important. Democracy is based on the assumption that all parties involved come to an agreement. Resistance should be based on the conditions for democracy.

Another risk with physically effective resistance is that this way of thinking creates a certain frustration if it fails. The result can be an unnecessary misdirected struggle that is mostly with the police, which leads to actions whose symbolism damages the struggle. The actions become simply a support for the opponent's behavior and an obstacle stopping others from becoming active. Instead of a useful direct action where the end becomes the means, a struggle to show who is physically strongest risks becoming its negation-the means become the end. This is the breeding ground for violence.

Civil disobedience depends on direct contact with those that support the system. In order to carry on a dialogue, actions and trials are necessary. By some taking the consequences of their actions, others are encouraged to do likewise.

THE METHOD OF THE ETHICS

Civil disobedience can best be seen as a dialogue. It is a dialogue with the opponent through actions and trials, and a dialogue with other citizens based on the challenge that the punishment signifies. This discussion is about two subjects: what is possible and impossible, and what is right and wrong. During an unsuccessful attempt at party politics when I was a teenager, I saw how the questions of what is right and what is possible were separated. Nonviolence does quite the opposite, according to its tradition. Here ethics and the given conditions are closely connected. This is not a harmonious, conflict-free relationship, but it is a relationship nevertheless. Resistance is based on both conditions.

To a certain extent we allow others to control our behavior due to our interpretation of what is generally perceived as being possible. Through our actions we either confirm or change this general perception. For example, it is considered self-evident that only governments in disarmament negotiations can decide which weapons should be destroyed. When workers at a weapons factory or other people suddenly start disarming weapons on their own, our view of what is possible and of who can act changes.

Our behavior is also governed by our interpretation of what is generally viewed as being right. Through our actions, we confirm or change this outlook. To obey the law and to not destroy property are two moral principles embedded in our culture. When environmental activists disassemble machines that destroy the environment, and the law protects the destruction of nature, these two principles are confronted with each other in complex ways and we have the possibility of increasing our understanding of what is right and wrong.

In order to keep the dialogue going so that one side did not become quiet or blocked, Gandhi used a method when practicing resistance that can be compared to climbing a staircase. This meant that a campaign should begin with negotiations and escalate, first with protest, then boycott, non-cooperation, and civil disobedience, and if all of this did not help, parallel rule and alternative institutions should be established. During the well-known salt march when Indians broke the English colonial laws and started extracting salt from seawater, a journalist asked Gandhi what he would do if the authorities did not react. "Then I have to escalate the campaign," was the answer.

The opponent's reactions are a necessary part of resistance, whether they make concessions or put people in jail. Yet this is not because the opponent shows its true nature through its reactions, as some guerrilla groups claim. With actions, the opponent shows only its standpoint, which is something changeable. By forcing a reaction, the whole society, with its officials and citizens, is drawn into a dialogue.

The dialogue should not be allowed to cease because the struggle stops at a certain level and is ignored. However, the discussion can be silenced because of the opposite mistake. It is only the strong and clever that can go up a staircase with big steps. For fearless activists to hurry on ahead can destroy the possibility of a dialogue, though when people feel blocked, it is seldom because the struggle has escalated too fast. Many bad actions are more an expression of the participants' frustration than a sincere attempt to establish contact with an opponent.

Sometimes it can be less controversial to do civil disobedience that leads to a long punishment than actions that only lead to low fines. There are two reasons for this. At an action where the risks are small for the participants, the interest is too concentrated on the action itself. At stronger actions with correspondingly harder punishments, many more people question the authorities' reactions and standpoint assuming of course that the action is perceived as being consistent and morally correct. At actions that do not have any significant legal consequences, furthermore, the participants tend to try to make the action stronger by behaving provocatively to accentuate the difference between the activists' and the authorities' standpoints. But there are better ways to start a dialogue than just acting provocatively.

The Ethics of the Method

Civil disobedience is not putting oneself above the law. Even when a law is broken, it is not ignored. The participants in an action do not sneak away from the consequences of the action. Civil disobedience is a political act that confronts the law and claims a higher perception and performance of justice. To claim a higher value than the law does not mean that one knows what the truth is. It is just a starting point for a dialogue. Hopefully, an agreement can be reached. This claiming of higher value has often been successful, for example in the development of the right to strike and freedom of religion.

Sometimes it is necessary to put oneself above the law. Then you are not choosing civil disobedience, but another method that is more suitable. When a refugee risks persecution if he or she is deported, for example, then civil disobedience is not always usable. Hiding the refugee becomes largely a humane act, which has political consequences only when those hiding refugees can publicly expose their activities. Only when a group discusses it openly can its activity be called civil disobedience.

What gives us the right to break the law?

To claim the individual's right to obey his or her conscience can be problematic, depending on how the concept is defined. If conscience is seen as an individual's private conviction then it can become a justification for any action. Thoreau begins his discussion of conscience and how we know what is right by asserting that a person has a fundamental responsibility toward his or her fellow beings. We should not subject anyone to injustice. In his book Walden, he indicates the rights of nature and animals as well. Thoreau lays the foundation for the possibility to do civil disobedience within our understanding of what is truly right. He even claims that it is our obligation to do what we perceive is right. Disobedience would be a duty. Conscience is for him something that is outside of the individual's private convictions. This can be interpreted as a common knowledge of what is right and wrong.

Gandhi thought that the truth was absolute. But he claimed that our perception of truth changes. Nobody can have absolute knowledge of what is right. Conscience is decided by the historical situation and the individual's own experiences. Civil disobedience becomes a radical interpretation of the morals of the current society. Through dialogue during the trial, these morals are tested in relationship to the opponent's view. As long as resistance is done openly, other people are also challenged to take part in this dialogue. This dialogue prevents the resistance group from developing in a sectarian way and creating their own peculiar morality due to isolation.

Civil disobedience is effective only if it functions as a moral challenge. That is why civil disobedience is ineffective for immoral purposes, or more exactly purposes that are generally perceived as being wrong. Of course, there are examples of bad civil disobedience. When resistance groups block the possibility of a dialogue they strengthen and confirm the opponent's power. This can be perceived as a negative dialogue: the possibilities for citizens to understand and give their opinion are reduced with each action, and support for the opponent is increased. However, if the opponent for purely tactical reasons breaks off a` dialogue; then this can increase the possibility for the resistance group to create a dialogue directly with other citizens. This development is, as a matter of fact, the most common. When the opponent sees that silence reduces its influence and power, then the chances for a fruitful dialogue increase again. Silence on the part of the opponent can therefore be viewed as an important element in the dialogue. This should, however, not be confused with a negative dialogue that arises when the resistance group blocks the possibility for dialogue.

We see here how the circle closes. Civil disobedience weaves together ethics and method; you cannot entirely separate one from the other.

Nonviolence

It is not just ends and means or ethics and methods that are connected to each other. Disobedience also has a direct relationship with obedience. It does not ignore or avoid that which it is struggling against; rather, disobedience presupposes obedience. It would be impossible to understand people's obedience if no one disobey. In the same way, nonviolence always has a direct relationship to violence. Nonviolence is a confrontation, a negation. It isn't appropriate to call distribution of flyers or demonstrations nonviolence-at least not in democratic countries-because they do not presuppose violence. Similarly, we cannot understand violence if there are not others that practice nonviolence. The concept of nonviolence is used above all in three different kinds of situations: in civil disobedience where the activists expect to be arrested; to describe a peaceful way to defend oneself against violence; and in attempts to reduce violence within one's own organization.

Gandhi used satyagraha as a complement to nonviolence. Satya, which means "truth," comes from sat, which in turn means being. Agraha means "holding on to." Gandhi used agraha as a synonym for "force." Satyagraha is then truth force.' According to Gandhi, since no one can entirely know what the truth is, one cannot use violence to force the truth on others. Satyagraha is instead patience and sympathy. Patience means self-suffering.⁸ Civil disobedience is therefore a necessary part of satyagraha.

Today nonviolence is usually used with two meanings: without violence, or a struggle against violence. To state beforehand that an action is going to happen without violence can be important to give the police and participants a sense of security. Violence is here defined as any kind of action that can cause psychological or physical damage, including actions that create a panic situation. Police can, for example, become provoked if people run or yell slogans.

We human beings are imperfect and it is impossible to be completely free from violence. In connection with civil disobedience, for instance, we need to use cars or trains for transportation. By doing so, we support companies that participate in the arms trade, thereby contributing to the oppression of the Third World. Because of this it is more meaningful to use nonviolence in the sense of struggle against violence. Resistance is then always on two fronts. It is a political struggle against injustice in the society as well as a struggle with the violence inside ourselves. This acknowledgment of the latter aspect is due to feminist criticism of the nonviolence tradition during the 1970s. The women's movement viewed resistance as a mutual, collective struggle that was also within every resistance group. This is more fruitful than to advocate self-purification before every action, as Martin Luther King did. The purification enthusiasts create a spiritual hierarchy that excludes those of us that do not feel especially purified in our souls. Resistance demands instead that one is involved in situations that will make us feel desperate and afraid, or irritated and generally in a bad mood. It is probably more justified to say that resistance is preceded by a stomachache than purity.

Why Nonviolence?

There are two main arguments for nonviolence. One is practical and the other is ethical. The North American resistance expert Gene Sharp states simply that nonviolence is more effective than violence.⁹ Violence leads to more violence while nonviolence counteracts it. Of course the resistance movement will suffer losses, even human lives, but the losses would be much greater if violence were used. A variation on this point of view is to claim that nonviolence is the only effective form of struggle today in our society. Those that claim this may accept violence on the part of guerrillas in other places, or military violence later on when a "foreign invader" attacks us.

Others advocate nonviolence from an ethical point of view. If one assumes that each person has an infinite value, then it follows that one person has as great a value as two or a thousand people. Many maintain the opposite: that two people have a greater value than one, and that one person could perhaps be sacrificed to save two. Their assumption must be that a human being's value is limited and not infinite, though it is always assumed to be extremely high. However, by restricting the value of a human being, they can justify sacrificing someone for the sake of the society.

No matter if one argues practically or ethically, nonviolence is a condition of civil disobedience. Since the actions and the consequences of the actions should be a moral challenge, a certain trust must be built up. This trust is impossible if the resistance group sometimes threatens to use violence; fear would create a mental block in people and make them unreceptive to the challenge. Civil disobedience becomes then a new breeding ground for fear. Disobedience in combination with violence strengthens the opponent's power. When social defense experts claim that it is possible to combine civil resistance with violent resistance, they have totally misunderstood the point of a resistance campaign. It is simply impossible to offer a police officer a cup of coffee at an action, if the cookies were poisoned at the last one.

CHAPTER II
COMMUNITY OF RESISTANCE: ABOUT PREPARATIONS

CONFLICT AND COOPERATION

Preparation for civil disobedience consists above all in establishing an affinity group, preparing the action itself, and doing research. On the one hand, to establish an affinity group means breaking political isolation. However, it also means bringing conflicts out into the open and confronting the group with them. Community and conflict are both conditions of resistance.

Power and violence are historical phenomena. Specific examples of power and violence, like governments, the military, and prisons, have existed only during specific historical periods. We often view these things as self-evident; however, epochs have existed without wars or human cages. Other kinds of oppression can of course arise instead.

There has probably never been a time of such change as the epoch of capitalism. The increasing concentration of power and the extreme development of military violence make earlier empires pale by comparison. Due in part to the new world market, pretty much the whole world is now involved in all the wars. This can be hard to accept for all of us good willed reformists that live in a relatively peaceful part of the world; however, the situation also provides us with certain possibilities.

In spite of the rapid changes that have taken place during the last two hundred years, many people seem to think that things will remain the way they are now. This ahistorical perspective is, however, nothing new. For example, the emperor thought his empire would last forever, the slave owner considered slavery natural, and today's stock owner believes that people have always tried to make profits.

If we have a historical perspective, we try to understand each epoch and each culture according to its own special conditions. Whereas when we see the world from an ahistorical perspective, we explain, for example, the development of resistance all over the world according to the same conditions. These two perspectives can stimulate each other.

An ahistorical comparison between different cultures allows the discovery of similarities that are not completely culturally determined. Perhaps these similarities indicate that we have basic needs of cooperation and affinity that cause certain ethical principles to arise in historical situations that are totally different from each other. Yet research about nonviolence is often ahistorical in a negative sense. North American resistance expert Gene Sharp, for example, has counted 198 different types of nonviolent actions.¹⁰ Now he is supposed to have an even longer list. This classification is certainly interesting as an inspiring list of ideas. However, a form of resistance can mean one thing in one society and something completely different in another. It is not so easy to compare, for example, the independence movement in India with our own struggle for solidarity with the Third World. Gandhi's experiences in India must partly be seen as a national struggle for independence from a colonial power, while the struggle in many parts of Latin America is rather a struggle for freedom from economic and political conditions.

How can we in Western democracies understand our own resistance? When I taught a course in civil disobedience in Chile during the spring of 1988, I had the opportunity, together with the participants, of clarifying some of the significant differences between civil disobedience in a democracy and civil disobedience under a dictatorship. After a while we nevertheless started to find basic similarities. Economically speaking, both the participants and I lived in liberal societies. This meant that we theoretically had a large number of possibilities as far as choosing education, a home, and our place of work. Since there is a limited number of choices and a lack of institutions for mediation that can facilitate common solutions, we have to compete with others that want the same thing. This competition creates a society where citizens perceive themselves more as individuals than as a part of a group.

The social Darwinists and the early liberals maintained that competition steered the development of society. Karl Marx maintained instead that it is the struggle of the classes with each other that creates history. The Russian anarchist and prince Peter Kropotkin tried instead to define mutual aid as the driving force of history, using examples from nature to prove his theory." These classic theories provide an important insight: changes arise through either cooperation or conflict.

Both cooperation and conflict can happen on different levels: within groups, between individuals or between an individual and a group. Conflicts even arise within the individual. It is from this perspective that Phil Berrigan, one of the founders of the Plowshares movement, asserts that resistance arises from community.¹² This mutual, creative process is not a pure, harmonious state; it means both cooperation and conflict. This idea helps us understand the very need for resistance. When conflicts arise in this mutually creative process, negotiations are needed that will lead to agreement and a new creative process. When these negotiations are stalled and one party's opinions are ignored, resistance is necessary to get the dialogue going again.

Cooperation between different groups in society is a prerequisite in the struggle against powerful opponents. Gandhi furthered this point in an interesting way: the struggle additionally demanded supporting the opponents when they had problems. This support could then lead to cooperation with the opponent, even while the resistance is in progress. Consequently, we support representatives of the opposing party that support the resistance movement. Daniel Ellsberg, who worked as a U.S. presidential adviser during the 1960s, published the top secret "Pentagon Papers" during the Vietnam War. These papers revealed the brutal tactics used in Vietnam by the U.S. When he was indicted, the peace movement gave him strong support. Twenty years later, he is helping the Plowshares movement, acting as a witness at trials. The Plowshares movement has also been helped by an ex-attorney general, Ramsey Clark. This cooperation has led to several judges' direct participation in civil disobedience.

However, community is not just cooperation, but also conflict. A sense of community can be experienced as threatening. If we don't allow each other to be different, then a sense of community can become a prison, resulting in isolation. This does not necessarily mean isolation in an emotional or private sense, but isolation in a political sense. We do not turn to each other to solve common problems. The different collective movements' struggle for my interests is perceived neither as my struggle nor as our struggle, but as their struggle. Overcoming this political isolation is the first goal of resistance.

Inside the peace and solidarity movements people have sometimes become so enthusiastic about openings in communication that they have chosen to suppress existing conflicts. This is dangerous. Those who adapt their statements to the opponent's opinions create a false consensus where everybody seems to agree. But people see through such things and their sense of commitment is reduced. To achieve cooperation we must be aware of conflicts. If we want to establish an agreement, we must look at the disagreements. Otherwise, we end up in the strange situation that has arisen many times before: protesting groups are so moderate in their recommendations that they are quickly surpassed by the politicians that they have been criticizing.

Obedience and Fear

What is needed to stop a company that destroys the environment or exports arms?

When I ask this of participants in my civil disobedience trainings, they usually stare at me, confused. But within a few minutes they have a plan ready. Not many disobedient telephone workers, postal workers, transport workers, or bank workers are needed to stop a certain activity. The more complex our society becomes, the greater the dependence on cooperation at all possible levels. This dependence is increasing more and more for both governments and companies as the economy becomes more and more international. This therefore is an ideal development for those of us that use civil disobedience. However, it is not that simple. The problem is that in reality we obey. Obedience is rooted somewhere deep within us.

The sociologist Max Weber points out that we often submit voluntarily to authority. Those in power are perceived as legitimate authorities. Our support of them can be based on the leaders' charisma and our own devotion. Obedience can also arise from our belief in the inviolability of tradition. We think: "That is the way it is and therefore it must be right." Of course, obedience can also be based on a sensible way of reasoning: "Things are OK the way they are and I don't want to risk a change for the worse...."

There are, however, large groups that think that many of the decisions made by the authorities or companies are not legitimate. It is surprising that whether we call ourselves pacifists, revolutionaries, reformists, socialists, syndicalists, anarchists, Marxists, liberals, environmentalists, feminists, or nonviolent activists - obedience still seems to be self-evident. Choose any one of these groups. This group in itself would be enough to stop most environmental destruction or arms exports if its members used civil disobedience. Often, a few people who regularly carry out actions to create strong moral pressure are enough to get negotiations going with the opponent. Examples include all the occupations to save houses and cultural landmarks that were common during the 1970s and 1980s in Europe. Phil Berrigan was imprisoned several times during the Vietnam War. According to him, at most a few hundred people were in prison for civil disobedience at this time. The actions of this relatively small group together with lawful demonstrations created heavy pressure on the government of the United States.

There is a special reason why the radical, socially aware people obey: we want to be able to calculate the personal consequences of our actions. We are simply afraid of the personal implications of disobedience. I mentioned earlier that overcoming political isolation was the first goal of the struggle. The second goal is overcoming fear of the consequences. That is what all nonviolence is about. Our enemy is not the government or the company bosses. Fear is the enemy. We can use civil disobedience to challenge each other to dismantle the walls of fear and thus to overcome obedience.

Affinity Groups

Gandhi said that nonviolent resistance was impossible without fearlessness. To be able to carry out resistance we must free ourselves from fear of risking our possessions, honor, family, and relatives, and from fear of the government, bodily injuries, and death. According to Gandhi, physical strength is not needed in order to do this. One person or a million people can offer resistance. Women and men alike can participate. The only thing needed is psychological self-control. This fearlessness, says Gandhi, can arise from a constant attempt to understand what truth and nonviolence are.¹³

Martin Luther King suggested, as I mentioned earlier, that civil disobedience should be preceded by self-purification. Both men's solutions for overcoming fear emphasize individual, spiritual preparation.

This tradition has developed in different directions. In religious groups, the concept of "civil disobedience of the spiritually strong" was used. Especially among young men, "professional resistance" developed. The idea here was that those who had been arrested several times knew what was going to happen and could carry out actions without very much preparation.

These approaches were criticized by feminists and members of the Plowshares movement, who argued that it was too elitist and individualistic an approach to preparations for an action. This form of resistance became a struggle for the brave. The Plowshares movement is, to a certain extent, a reaction against this. It consists of people that seldom see themselves as especially brave or convinced. Mutual support has come widely to be seen as an alternative to individual spiritual strength. By creating trust in small groups, the fear of personal consequences can be overcome. Community becomes the foundation of resistance.

During a large action at the Seabrook nuclear power plant in New Hampshire in 1976, the idea of affinity groups was used for the first time since the Spanish Civil War. During the thirties, the anarchist movement in Spain had based their resistance activities partly on grupos de affinidad. The result of the renaissance of this idea surpassed all expectations, and it spread quickly all over the U.S. Through the growing international peace movement at the beginning of the eighties, the idea spread to the rest of the Western world. I make a sharp distinction between civil disobedience before and after Seabrook. Affinity groups have revolutionized nonviolent resistance! Before, one had to rely on strong, charismatic leaders or just hope that the action went all right. With affinity groups, all the members participate in planning, decisionmaking, and carrying out the decisions. Democracy in the nonviolent movement has taken a big step forward.

An affinity group is an action group that participates in civil disobedience. It usually is made up of three to fifteen people. It is often an advantage not to be too many. In my first affinity group, formed in 1982, we were three people. Affinity groups are formed before actions and can be dissolved when any resulting jail sentences have been served. There are also continuous affinity groups that participate in a longer action campaign and do civil disobedience regularly.

Affinity groups have several advantages over individual actions or the former type of mass action. The most important is that the level of democracy is increased. Affinity groups are self-governing and are responsible for the whole action. This makes participation something entirely different from when a group of leaders is involved. The first time I participated in an action with over one thousand people, all in affinity groups, I had not really understood the great difference in comparison with an action where just a few people controlled the course of events. Every participant had planned the blockade! Some people offered coffee to the police and military. Buddhist nuns and monks from Japan held drummed prayer meetings succeeded by Catholic masses. A women's affinity group blocked the military's landing strip. Others planted trees. This kind of creativity, due to the presence of affinity groups, obviously makes the quality of an action much higher.

Another advantage is that decision making often goes faster in an affinity group. The members can quickly be collected when new, unexpected situations arise. Furthermore, the continuity of resistance is increased with affinity groups, since many choose to continue to work together and do new actions. After our big blockade, many affinity groups wanted to continue. Organized into affinity groups, one thousand people also have more energy to escalate the resistance than a small group of leaders who bum out quickly. We organized a ten-day campaign with actions every day. One or two affinity groups were responsible for each day. My affinity group organized a Greek folk dance on the airport's landing strip.

Affinity groups also guarantee that the experience of planning actions is shared. Otherwise the risk increases that a movement can be weakened if its leaders are weakened. A clear example of this was when several civil rights groups more or less disappeared after Martin Luther King was shot. Another advantage of affinity groups is that they reduce the possibilities for provocateurs to infiltrate, at least if every participant in an action is required to belong to an affinity group. Members of an affinity group know each other very well, and it is not unusual that someone who does not accept the guidelines of nonviolence is asked to leave the group. If someone should in spite of everything lose control at an action, his or her affinity group is immediately at hand to give support. Posting a requirement that all participants should belong to an affinity group increases the sense of security for both the participants and police. Every affinity group reports in advance what they plan to do. The risk of provocation is thereby minimized.

One disadvantage with affinity groups can be that it becomes more difficult to participate in occasional civil disobedience. Affinity groups create a sense of commitment that also demands a lot of time.

Responsibilities in an Affinity Group

In an affinity group, responsibility is divided up between the participants. Half of the group usually expects to get arrested, and the rest are support people. Surprisingly, the support people are the most active during the action. Before doing civil disobedience myself, I had expected just the opposite.

The support people can be divided into peacekeepers, contact people, and those "personal supporters" that help the activists with practical things. None of these duties usually leads to arrest. Peacekeepers are responsible for maintaining the peace during an action. Special training in peacekeeping is held that includes such things as how to handle provocative people and how to calm down upset spectators. The peacekeepers in the Livermore Action Group in California had armbands on during actions. They informed the police which people were peacekeepers and the police avoided arresting them. The idea of armbands is debatable, however. Some people think that special symbols for peacekeepers are too much like uniforms. At big actions, peacekeepers from different affinity groups divide up the responsibilities among them. Some have the job of keeping the police calm and others calm the spectators or workers. Some are responsible for seeing that the activists themselves do not act in a provocative manner.

Usually peacekeepers try to create some kind of personal contact with each member of the police before he or she arrests an activist. Even the workers involved are usually contacted, though it is best to do this before the action begins. The purpose of this kind of personal contact is, of course, to help the opponent understand the action. In addition, it becomes more difficult for opponents to use brutal violence against people with whom they previously have had a calm, normal contact. The fact that peacekeepers and activists, in this case, don't happen to be the same people doesn't seem to be of any importance.

In the spring of 1988, I was a spectator in Chile at an action against torture. Suddenly a police bus started to drive over the sitting activists. The activists had trouble establishing contact with the driver until one of the support people spontaneously took on the role of peacekeeper. He started talking with the driver through the side window. This direct address caused the driver to relax and back the bus away.

A peacekeeper must be prepared for completely unexpected situations. In 1983, I was a peacekeeper at an action at the arms factory Bofors Aerotronics on an island near Stockholm. A Lutheran minister, Eva Brune, was holding a memorial service for people who had been killed by Swedish weapons. After a while some teenagers started shouting. I responded by asking to interview them. Without saying what I thought myself, I got them to reflect on themselves and the action by asking numerous questions. After the interview we received support from them instead.

The contact people function as another important support. They coordinate among different affinity groups, call up the families and friends of the activists who have been arrested, make contact with lawyers, prosecuting attorneys and judges, mediate with the police, function as spokespersons by giving interviews for the media, and contact other organizations for support statements. Most contact people are on the scene of the action while others remain somewhere near a telephone or fax machine.

Personal supporters have central tasks in an affinity group. They give direct support to those that risk being arrested. Their responsibilities include making sure extra clothing, medicine, and food is available, and collecting what has been left behind after the arrests have been made. They also follow the police cars and wait outside the police station to be on hand to receive arrested activists if they are released. Remember that arrested people are not always taken to the nearest police station, nor to the one the police used last time.

Some of my friends were arrested at a big action in Germany. Together with several hundred other activists, they were driven to the next city over and released. In this way, the police wanted to prevent the activists from returning to the action. But the support people showed foresight and followed the convoy of prisoners. They were able to convey the activists back to the action as soon as they were released.

PREPARATIONS FOR AN ACTION

At my first Plowshares meeting, we met in an old, rundown church in a Black ghetto in New York City. Earlier, I had met several Plowshares activists at a party after the disarmament of a B-52 bomber. None of those for whom we were celebrating were actually there: they were behind bars at a police station nearby. But many of the people active in the Plowshares movement were there. The party was a lot of fun. It was packed with people and I had to squeeze my way into a place on the floor. I found myself in the middle of a discussion about all the mistakes and weaknesses of the Plowshares movement. I knew almost nothing about the movement, but I managed to pick up a little during the discussion.

After the party I lay awake all night. Finally I made up my mind. I contacted the activist that had been most critical during the discussion. She had helped with coordination of the research and other preparations before the disarmament of the airplane. I asked her if they would have any use of a Swede in the next group. A couple of months later I was invited to New York City.

When I first came in contact with them, I associated the Plowshares movement with the disarmament of weapons and the many years of imprisonment that was sometimes the result of their actions. I now think, however, that their most important contribution is the way in which the groups prepare themselves for an action. Because of this, I will use different Plowshares groups' preparations as examples of how to prepare an action. I think their experiences are of interest for solidarity and environmental actions as well.

A Plowshares action is not just the disarmament of weapons:

· We try to disarm our own fears as well.

· We also disarm other kinds of protection that we have built up to avoid taking personal risks.

· We even try to disarm the violence and oppression that exists within the group.

· Finally, through the action, we start disarming the society from violence, fear, and suspicion.

This disarmament is not about personal development, nor is it a way to gain peace of mind. The result is in fact instead sometimes chaotic. We try to overcome fear not in order to get rid of it, but to give us the courage to do civil disobedience. The fear is still there. We don't do resistance against oppression within the group so that conflicts will disappear. But these conflicts do have to be dealt with so that the internal democracy can function.

This method's roots can be traced to Catholic monasteries. In the middle of the 1960s, nuns, Jesuits, and Trappist monks took the radical step from protest to resistance against the Vietnam War. They continued to prepare themselves as they had always done before going out to work in the world. This tradition developed over time. During the 1970s the Atlantic Life Community was created as a network of resistance groups. The Plowshares movement was born from this network in 1980. The movement is the grandchild of the meeting between Catholic piety and radical groups in the 1960s.

Since the Plowshares movement was inspired by some aspects of the Christian tradition, many people think that it is also specifically Christian. This is incorrect. In my first group-Pershing Plowshares-there was a practicing Jew and a Buddhist. In other groups in which I have been a support person, atheists, agnostics, and pagans have participated. The movement has a broad political base as well, with both liberals and leftists participating in Plowshares actions.

Every Plowshares group is independent and develops its own experiences and ideas. There is, however, a tradition that has been created within the Atlantic Life Community, which many Plowshares groups continue to develop. This experience can be of help to new groups. But a tradition should not be perceived as a demand; every Plowshares group breaks some part of the tradition.

The goal of a Plowshares group is usually to create a resistance community. The method used to achieve this is reflection and discussion of texts. These texts consist of novels and poetry as well as more theoretical works. For example, if we discuss a certain law, the person who has prepared this point on the agenda reads a text that deals with an aspect of what the law means. Usually we reflect for a moment in silence about the text. Then each person shares his or her thoughts with the others. After everyone has spoken, the discussion begins. The preeminent question is: what relevance does the text have for us and for society? We call this interpreting or reinterpreting the text. However, it is just as important to criticize the text and to confront different experiences and texts with each other.

The groups I have participated in usually met for three days at a time. During such a retreat we often have time to discuss up to six or seven subjects. Before the group feels ready to do an action, it can be necessary to have between five and ten retreats. In Sweden, we have had a few really long preparations for actions. In the United States and Germany, the groups have prepared themselves somewhat faster. In the Netherlands, I don't think the first group prepared itself at all. They did four disarmament actions in a row and taunted us Germans and Swedes, saying that we talked too much.

Instead of spending a lot of time on detail-planning and meetings, most Plowshares groups choose to have retreats. A retreat provides the opportunity to take a break from doing, and instead reflect over what has to be done. For a resistance group, this means using a holistic approach based on personal needs, the group's needs, and the society's needs. We combine a form of individualism with strong collectivism. These preparations usually have three functions:

· To create a resistance community and to challenge this community.

· To develop the nonviolent tradition.

· To plan a Plowshares action.

These three things are developed simultaneously during the preparation retreats and are, of course, impossible to completely separate from each other.

Creating a resistance community consists partly of getting to know each other and developing a functional cooperation. We do this by continuously evaluating and questioning our cooperation. Before an action, we also question each individual's ability to carry it out. Each activist is given the opportunity to consider the hesitations that the others might have about his or her participation. In most groups, at least a few of the participants realize that they should probably wait a while before doing an action.

Conflicts always occur in intensive groups like these. Using different methods, these conflicts can be identified and attempts can be made to solve them. Through conflicts a feeling of community can be developed. However, in order for the group to function there must be support and a sense of security within the group. A feeling of mutual trust is necessary in order to give and receive criticism in a constructive way. In fact, without this mutual support it is difficult to get a critical discussion going at all. Critical discussions are crucial in stimulating the development of a strong resistance based on experience and reflection.

Our discussions and analyses can be about law, the current political situation, militarism, the media, the resistance movement, the alternative movement in general, political parties, feminism, racism, democracy, violence, nonviolence, civil disobedience, destruction of property, oppression, dominance, oppression within the group, and more. We also try to approach philosophical problems, such as: How are ethics established? What right do we have to break the law? What kind of moral consequences does our profession of nonviolence have? Each question can take one to several hours to discuss. Each discussion is both a reflection on a text and the beneficiary of earlier discussions.

These preparations are therefore an ongoing distillation of the experiences of the group into new thoughts. Every Plowshares group also does research that is of importance for the resistance movement as a whole. This is in accordance with Gandhi's goals for the actions that he participated in. 14 All this taken together means that the Plowshares process probably provides one of the most profound educations in civil disobedience available at the moment.

During the whole) process, we alternate these political and philosophical discussions with conversations about fear and risks, security, support and loneliness, arrest and detention, trial and punishment, ours and others' safety, family and friends, and more. Even if we don't spend much time planning all the details of an action, we do discuss the action's message, motive, symbols, and priorities. We talk about something called the action's focus. This means concentration on what is most important, and deciding means that are strong enough, instead of using our limited resources for all kinds of issues and actions. Focus also means clarity. Is the action understandable? Is the message really a challenge? To whom is the action directed and how can this target group be reached?

We also discuss possible ways of achieving change. Which media can we use to create a dialogue with the opponent and the rest of society? What actually communicates the message? Some communication forms include trials, personal contact with workers and decision makers, letters, courses, and seminars. Perhaps the most important vehicle for disarmament is starting new Plowshares groups. A, critical concern of the movement is to place the responsibility for disarmament of weapons on the citizens of a society, not the official decision makers.

Alongside retreats we do research, which usually means making countless telephone calls and going through innumerable documents. We also visit factories and military bases and investigate the group's possibilities of carrying out an action. A few days before the action, we role-play different situations, like interrogation or the guards' discovery of the action. By trying to imagine what might happen, we can avoid situations and behavior that are provocative, dangerous or disrespectful.

Of course, retreats are not always as serious as my description might make them sound. Parties, games, ceremonies, dances, and songs are just as important as the discussions. But nobody needs a handbook on how to have parties, so I leave that up to the reader's own creativity.