Brisbane Rainforest Action Group

On Wednesday August 29th at 7.00 a.m., the Brisbane Rainforest Action Group
(RAG) blockaded the Sletta, a ship carrying rainforest timber from Malaysia
for the third time.  With fifty-six people present, fifteen in the water,
minimal police repression and national television coverage, this action was
our most successful to date.  The action was a part of our ongoing struggle to
achieve a sensible and sustainable level of timber usage in this country.  Our
goals are to end the uncontrollable exploitation of Australia's native
forests.  Australia has the potential to create a truly sustainable and
equitable plantation timber industry.  With the current government and
industry attitudes deeply steeped in the "mine it now and mine the rest later
on" mentality, this vision will take much hard work.

Brisbane RAG is a part of a network of other Rainforest Action Groups, other
groups and other individuals working loosely towards the same ends.  We spend
much energy trying to define our role in the whole process of change in order
to be effective.  We also spend much energy discussing the tactics we employ
in order that they be consistent with our long term goals.

Australia is currently importing around 400,000 cubic metres of tropical
timber annually.  This makes us directly responsible for the unrestrained
annihilation of South East Asia's rainforest and the cultural genocide of the
tribal people dependent on them.  Our opponents, as the big business
profiteers behind a multi-billion dollar industry stand much to lose.  They
have almost unlimited resources which they have no hesitation in deploying in
order to protect their interests.  It is a complex issue with no  easy
solutions.  It will take the creation of a strong alliance between activists,
unions and the community in order to achieve our goals.

As an organisation primarily concerned with grass-roots initiated change, RAG
has attracted membership from a broad section of the community representing a
spectrum of philosophical theories of change.  Consistent with our nonviolent
practices, RAG has had a policy of openness and honesty with all parties
involved when planning and executing our actions.  Recently however, there has
been disagreement about this tactic within the group and with activists
outside RAG.  I write this in order to share with readers some of the
rationale behind our tactics of openness and honesty with the police.

In my experience, openness and honesty in the RAG campaigns I have been
involved with in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne is paying off for a number of
reasons.  Firstly, truthfulness as opposed to secrecy discourages the presence
of fear at our actions, both on the part of police and activists.  Fear is the
basis of much violence that occurs at direct action situations.  Violent
confrontation with the police can come in many forms - psychological or
physical.  Either way it does nothing to save the world's rainforests.  It
clouds the issue as one of law and order.  Good nonviolent politics in my
opinion is about delivering to the media and the opponent the exact message
you want them to receive.  It leaves no room for mistake.

Fear of confrontation is a major reason why many people do not participate in
direct actions, especially in Queensland.  With open dialogue we reduce the
risk of violent confrontation and increase the potential for mass involvement.
This is a people's revolution and leading activists have to pave the way for
the people's involvement.

If the police intervene with our actions, and arrest us we display the
conviction for our cause and our message is conveyed.  If the police choose
not to intervene, as they have done in so many cases, we are left in a
position to execute our actions and our message is conveyed.  Through
discipline and creativity, we can further our cause regardless of police
responses.  Timber ship actions are only one part of our campaign to effect
total social non-cooperation with tropical timber importation.  We accept it
is a long hard slog and will take more than a few timber ship blockades to
achieve our goals.  Openness allows us to advertise weeks in advance both our
cause and our actions.  The media is a crucial element of our strategy.  The
media is interested in deforestation but are much more interested in what
people are doing about it.  We see open defiance of unjust laws as both
honourable and necessary.  We are proud of what we are doing.  There is power
in the truth.  Openness holds the benefit therefore of enhancing our media
strategy.

RAG has protested the arrival of timber ships for nearly two years.  The
police know we intend to blockade them.  It is routine for them to station
police at the docks and in the water every time a ship comes in.  The first
blockade we did was like a full scale naval operation.  They have the
resources to intervene with our intervention every time if they choose.  Our
strategy is to get hundreds of people in front of them in order to stop them. 
Think of the power of that!  Our actions are designed to involve and empower
people, and to maintain the high moral ground in order that we achieve this
goal.

While blockades are crucial to our strategy, they are not the be all and end
all.  I once participated in an action in Sydney that managed to stop the ship
docking for half a day.  The action, organised by the Sydney Rainforest Action
Group, employed tactics of openness and was enormously successful, costing the
company thousands of dollars.  The forests in Sarawak, however, are still
falling and Australia is still importing the timber.  Blockades are one means
to the end, not to the end itself.  Word has it that timber ships will be
coming into Townsville soon because of the RAGs' campaigns and union
involvement in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.  This is not surprising, timber
is a billion dollar industry and while there is a market, they'll think of
ways to bring it in.  Our opponents are the importers and shipping agents.  We
intend to remove their power through the strength of our actions and
subsequent boycotts and union involvement.  We are forging alliances between
activists, unions and the community.  It will occur only with hard work - not
showy one-off feats that alienate "us" from "them".

Nearly every action we have done we have liaised with the police, telling of
our convictions and spreading awareness throughout the rank and file.  We have
been encouraging the idea that there are forces in operation that are
destroying the planet and ordinary people including themselves are not
benefiting.  We are educating them about the issue and telling them that as
long as they interfere with our actions they are supporting the destruction of
the world's rainforests.

All police I have spoken to have agreed with our cause.  Police are being
ripped off as much as we are and many of them know it.  The world as we know
it is dying.  Is it unreasonable to think that people can change and begin to
challenge their roles?  They may arrest us but if we do it right they may
refuse to buy rainforest timber ever again.  Let's encourage this personal
growth rather than writing them off, reinforcing their roles and therefore the
power of the state.  By dealing with the person and not the uniform we
challenge police to look at the issue, not the "protester".

For far too long too many people have been stereotyped.  This is not conducive
to encouraging them to realize the deep rooted connections they have with this
ailing planet.  History records in Czechoslovakia in 1968, and in China
recently, that activists have successfully undermined the power of the State
by deroling soldiers to the point that they have refused to obey orders.  The
example of Nigel Powell, once police prosecutor, now remembered as the one who
"blew the whistle" on corruption in Queensland, is promising.

Contrary to a current misconception, we do not liaise with the police solely
because of a belief that we can persuade them to see the "light" and not
enforce laws supporting the State.  The State is on the side of our opponents
as it creates laws allowing the importation of rainforest timber.  The police,
as an extension of the state, must be viewed in that context.  RAG has
identified our opponents and our strategy is to arouse as many doubts and
conflicts within their ranks as possible.  We have on-going negotiations with
workers and police, educating them as to the issue, slowly building
psychological support which is starting to turn into physical support as
indicated by a significantly slackened police response to our last actions and
increasing union support.

Although RAG has been primarily concerned with the tropical timber issue and
the Fraser Island logging dispute, our concerns as individuals are as far
reaching as Wimmin and Murri issues to waste management.  RAG is a social
movement aimed at allowing ordinary people the opportunity to learn skills and
become involved in the struggle to save planet Earth.  Our policy of openness
enhances this dynamic by discouraging the formation of "informed elites".

I believe there needs to be a groundswell of consciousness if this planet is
to be saved.  Our tactics of openness are in accordance with this long term
goal.

Many activist groups are currently using tactics of secrecy.  It is not my
place to judge whether this is right or wrong.  I will say however, that if
this planet is to be saved, it will be through cooperation between activist
organisations, not competition.  Rainforest Action Groups all over the country
need your help to save what little remains of the Earth's dwindling forests.

Len Constantini