Rainforest Pickets
 
As part of its campaign to halt the import of rainforest timbers into
Australia, the Melbourne Rainforest Action Group (RAG) is planning a series of
pickets at the dock entrance following the unloading of rainforest timber
ships chartered by the Kansai Steamship Company of Japan.  In order to gain
insights and experience, RAG will picket the next shipment for three days;
subsequent pickets will be for longer periods.
 
RAG will use moral suasion and education in order to convince unionists not to
cross the picket line.  However, as a result of negotiations with the
Transport Workers' Union (truck drivers) and their decision to officially
recognise the picket, the imported rainforest timbers should remain on the
dock for the duration of any picket.
 
In order to staff the picket, RAG is calling on the people of Melbourne to
stand on the picket line.  While risking arrest and other sanctions, the
people of Melbourne will have a unique opportunity to actively participate in
the crucially important struggle to save the world's rainforests.
 
At a recent meeting with police and port security personnel, the police
indicated that there should be no arrests during the first picket.  Subsequent
pickets, for longer periods, will undoubtedly result in arrests however.
 
The pickets represent the most important strategic manoeuvre by RAG since the
decision to blockade the timber ships in 1988; and reflect the distinctive
nature of the RAG campaign.
 
Strategy
Unlike previous campaigns in Australia which have utilised a
'tactical-pragmatic' approach to nonviolent action, RAG is attempting to use
nonviolent struggle in the 'ideological-strategic' sense.  Its campaign is
thus fundamentally different to these earlier campaigns for three main
reasons.
 
Firstly, its commitment to nonviolent action is ideological which accounts for
the nature of its approach to allies, opponents and third parties.

Secondly, its commitment to nonviolent action is strategic in the sense that
its immediate campaign goal is to halt Australia's imports of rainforest
timber through grassroots action (rather than elite reform) as part of a
long-term strategy for social transformation; for that reason, effectively
none of its campaign energy is directed at lobbying the government (although
the group supports individuals who wish to do so).
 
Thirdly, and related to its strategic commitment, the group's structural
analysis helps it to understand some of the many underlying and interrelated
causes of rainforest destruction and to see the need to systematically address
these issues as an integral and ongoing part of its long-term strategy for
social change.  For that reason, the group is active at the personal, process
and political levels.

At the personal level, individuals in RAG are encouraged to recognise the
structural violence inherent, for instance, in exclusive language and
behaviour - and to use language and behaviour which is non-sexist, non-racist,
non-classist, non-ageist, non-ablist and non-speciesist.
 
At the process level, the group emphasises empowering group processes: there
is no group hierarchy, decisions are made by consensus, systematic efforts are
made to deal with gender imbalances and there is a genuine commitment to
skill-sharing.
 
At the political level, the group emphasises the need to address structural
causes and to identify the links between issues.  Hence, on the one hand, the
campaign is designed to undermine the institutions of capitalism - and
specifically the international tropical timber trade - by directly
delegitimizing, disrupting and eventually halting the tropical timber trade in
this country.  On the other hand, the group recognises the connection between
the rights of indigenous tribal peoples who live in tropical rainforests and
the rights of Kooris; for that reason, at each weekly meeting RAG members pay
the rent for their use of Aboriginal land.
 
Like all groups with an evolving revolutionary agenda, RAG members and RAG
itself are making usually sporadic and occasionally rapid progress in each of
these directions simultaneously; however, there is considerable room for
improvement.  For instance, RAG has a pressing need to transform its meeting
structure (which is now happening), to improve the way in which it introduces
new members to the subtleties of the group process (particularly those in
relation to gender balance) and to enhance the degree of sophistication of
political analysis applied by group members.  The latter shortcoming is most
evident in the consideration of strategy.
 
RAG's campaign has always included a call for a community boycott of
rainforest timbers; and, more recently, the imperative to use no old-growth
timber of any sort.  While this is important as a nonviolent tactic (and draws
attention to the need for personal responsibility), it is clearly inadequate
as a strategy in itself because it fails to take account of the power of
vested interests which profit from rainforest destruction and the timber
trade.  This is so because it is based on the naive assumption that the
capitalist market will respond to consumer demand and seek ways of supplying
rainforest timber produced in an environmentally sustainable way.
 
This premise is in clear conflict with the essence of capitalist economics
which is based on profit maximisation.  Capitalism uses whatever mechanisms
are necessary (including pricing and advertising) in order to manipulate
consumer demand to suit profit-maximising production.  It is for this reason
that RAG has also consistently sought to interfere with the trade in
rainforest timber (for instance, by blockading rainforest timber ships, by
negotiating union bans and now by picketing) in support of the Sarawak natives
who disrupt the production of rainforest timber (by blockading logging trucks
invading their tribal lands).
 
Whatever its strengths in these respects however, RAG as a whole lacks a clear
strategic perspective and has relied too heavily on the initiative of a few
members to keep the campaign strategically focused.  Some members of the group
with an interest in the strategy of nonviolent struggle are now thinking more
deeply about this vitally important aspect of the campaign.
 
Solidarity
It is clear from virtually all previous experience in peace and environmental
campaigns that the first victims of activist intervention are workers on the
job and the more vulnerable sections of the community.  The intervention
usually means job losses for the first group and such things as higher prices
for the second.  For this reason, it is imperative that activist groups retain
a deep commitment to social justice (articulating clear alternative policies)
in order to forge the alliance between activists, rank and file unionists and
others which is necessary for successful intervention in the production
process.
 
For this reason, since the early stages of its campaign, RAG has consistently
liaised with union executives in order to gain union support for the campaign
to halt the import of rainforest timbers.  As the campaign has evolved, much
more effort has been dedicated to maintaining contact with rank and file
unionists in order to actively engage them in the struggle and to gain a
better understanding of their concerns.  For its part, RAG has demonstrated
its support for workers by such activities as marching in the May Day rally.
 
Imported rainforest timber constitutes only a small proportion of Australia's
timber use and intervention in this part of the trade may be successful with
only limited worker support (and despite some worker opposition).  However it
is clear that any major restructuring of the timber industry as a whole - in
order to permanently eliminate the Australian threat to old-growth forests
posed by industrial logging - will depend on high levels of cooperation
between activists and unionists; something clearly missing from forest
campaigns in Australia to date.  It is clear to RAG that much more work needs
to be done if activist/worker intervention in the Australian timber industry
is to occur in a meaningful way.
 
In addition, it depends on a way of dealing with timber industry opponents
which transcends the polarisation generated as a direct result of other
campaigns in the past.  Thus, while clearly opposed to the motives and
interests which underpin the timber industry, RAG maintains a high level of
contact with industry representatives and company executives as part of its
longer term goal to transform the industry.  For this reason, RAG is
encouraging the articulation of alternative policies which include more use of
recycled timber; an end to woodchipping of old-growth forests for export; a
return to small scale, labour-intensive sawmilling; and a shift to plantation
grown indigenous timbers.
 
Apart from unionists and the timber industry, RAG maintains an ongoing
dialogue with various groups and particularly those sections of the community
directly affected by the campaign; notably Kooris.  It is for this reason that
RAG members have undertaken solidarity work with Kooris and pay the rent for
their use of Aboriginal land.
 
By utilising the principles of nonviolent struggle in this way, RAG endeavours
to focus attention on the reality that rainforest destruction is a problem
shared by all.
 
In the past, forest campaigns have left most (if not all) of the work of
negotiating with unions, the timber industry and other affected groups to the
government.  From a nonviolent perspective this demonstrates an incomplete
understanding of the ideology, strategy and structural analysis of nonviolent
struggle; more simply, it reflects the decision to use nonviolent action as a
tactical component of a campaign focussed essentially on lobbying the
government for short-term changes at the expense of the timber industry and,
inevitably, its workers.
 
Inherent in an approach to nonviolent struggle which utilises the ideological,
strategic and structural approaches is the distinctive way in which RAG
activists relate to opponents and state functionaries which they treat with
courtesy and respect.  While this has attracted considerable criticism from
some quarters, this criticism has so far failed to take adequate account of
the totality of the dynamics which RAG is using.
 
As an understanding of the different approaches to nonviolent struggle spreads
through the activist community, there will be more opportunities for
increasingly sophisticated debate regarding the merits of particular campaigns
and the principles which underpin them.

Robert J. Burrowes