Life is there ahead of you and either one tests oneself in its challenges or huddles in the valleys of a dreamless day-to-day existence whose only purpose is the preservation of illusory security and safety. The latter is what the vast majority of people choose to do, fearing the adventure into the unknown.
— Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals
When I received my invitation to 'lead' the Palm Sunday Walk for Refugees my first response was to ignore it. This was partly ego and partly disillusionment. I don't think marches help any more.
It's true that in Melbourne at least 6000 people walked or struggled or strode along Spencer Street, some behind banners (Labor for Refugees, The Greens, Socialist Left), some from religious groups (from Quakers to Jesuits), and some with other agendas, such as the beefy unionists who haven't done well in the public eye of late.
Also a fair few ordinary mums, dads and grandmothers for refugees, and dismayed Liberals offended by the cruelties inflicted in our name.
These were the sort of protestors who picketed Lady Cilento hospital in Brisbane to stop Immigration contractors from forcing a burned baby and her mum back to Nauru against medical advice. So the minister moved her to community detention whence she may be removed at any time without notice.
I no longer believe that broad marches for huge national issues have any effect on local powerbrokers. I believe as Saul Alinsky said that the most powerful force for change is local activism on local issues and generational organisation from the grass roots up.
Alinsky wrote the 'bible' for protest-led change. He was a Chicago organiser whose tactics Obama used as a young civil rights lawyer to build 'change you can believe in for local Chicago families'. He wrote a lot between the 1940s and the 1970s, when he wrote and I read his Rules for Radicals [PDF].
Some of his 24 rules are gospel today. Thirteen are rules of 'power tactics', including:
1. Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.
2. Never go outside the experience of your people.
5. Ridicule is man's most potent weapon.
6. A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.
7. A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.
8. Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions, and utilise all events of the period for your purpose.
12. The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.
13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalise it, and polarise it.
I have been involved in protests, but few. When Kennett demolished the public sector in 1992 I stayed behind and answered the phones in the Equal Opportunity Commission when 100,000 folk marched on parliament. Nothing changed.
I'd taken part in a moratorium march way way back in time, but only because I was personally affected — a malevolent colleague of my father had 'dobbed in' my brother as a draft-dodger, which forced me to look at the evils of conscription in a dirty little Asian war.
I went to a Palm Sunday march in which we sang 'We Shall Overcome' and linked hands to encircle the city centre of Perth (1972), St George's Anglican Cathedral, with love.
And in 1976 I took part in a well-attended lawyers' protest against the local law society inviting Sir John Kerr to lecture their annual dinner about constitutional law, wearing a 'Gough Whitlam' mask out the front of the Parmelia Hotel while he scuttled in the back entrance.
Nothing changed. But then, I believed. I believed in 'movements'.
I now believe that there are rules for effecting change by protest and they are meant to be adapted for efficacy — and that organisation and self-interest, friendship, and building on local centres of power such as churches are what make change possible.
"I have been involved in protests, but few. When Kennett demolished the public sector in 1992 for example I stayed behind and answered the phones in the Equal Opportunity Commission when 100,000 folk marched on parliament. Nothing changed."
Alinsky did too. He said that mums and dads around kitchen tables and local group meetings on local issues are the core of organisation, which is a generational thing and cannot be quickly raised or maintained. He said that the future of effective change is based on friendships, and small projects and small wins, which build confidence.
The most important principle is to understand the fundamental purpose of our lives, and work together to improve our own world. When the roots of democracy run deep, change is possible.
That is the principle behind the success of Melbourne citizens responding so immediately at Spencer Street when the new Border Patrol sought to co-opt the Victorian police and public transport inspectors to stop and demand passers-by to prove their citizenship and residency status. Had they not acted at once and with originality Australia could have become a police state overnight.
That is not what the Walk for Refugees can ever deliver.
We should be building on church groups as centres for community activity about the quality of our own lives and our own streets and homes.
It is in our interests to protect the fundamental human rights of anyone who comes here in search of help. We should see the need to improve the quality of our lives by meeting them where they are, and where we may be one day, offering practical help in a spirit of love.
Moira Rayner is a barrister and writer.
Photo by Wilbert Mireh SJ