Dear NvT,
Your letter requesting a response to the 10th Anniversary of NVT/Groundswell
has unfortunately arrived at an inopportune time.  Just four months ago I
became the father of a baby daughter, and since then my spare time has been
dominated by her demands for attention and care.  Actually, for the last
couple of weeks I have been trying to think of something meaningful to say
about my feelings towards nonviolence, as per your request, but to fit this
into 100 words is almost impossible!  It had been difficult to find a long
enough period in which to sit down and coherently gather together my thoughts
in amongst all the other demands on my time at the moment.  The following
comments are therefore fairly rushed and incomplete.

As I was involved in the production of the early issues of Groundswell, now
NVT, it has always had significance for me not so much for its content but
for the reminders it gives me of a particular period of my life which is in
some ways quite different from the life I am currently leading.  At that time
I was like a political junkie, prepared to give up most other things in my
life to participate in every demo, action and meeting that was happening
around town.  Over the last ten years however, I have still been very
politically active but have been participating less and less in what's
normally defined as nonviolent action.

This is not to say that I no longer believe in nonviolence, but that the
problems and complexities of the world seem so huge and overpowering that the
scattered efforts of a  relative handful of nonviolent activists seem so
ineffectual.   What I am starting to think is that nonviolence as it is
practised and how it is portrayed through NVT focuses too much on 'actions'
and not enough on the broader, underlying and long-term social change that to
me seems to be the real driving force of political change.

I have spent a number of years now working within various parts of the public
service bureaucracy in Canberra, most lately working on environmental issues,
and have also participated in electoral campaigns and politics at the A.C.T.
local government level.  It is both an educative and distressful experience
seeing how decisions are actually made about a range of political issues.  It
is my experience that with only a few exceptions, nonviolent actions
themselves have little influence in the overall process of political decision
making.

On the other hand, a nonviolent action campaign tends to form just one part
of a much broader political process to get the desired goal. This can involve
writing to and lobbying of politicians, running information programs,
involvement in election campaigns, working within political parties, and
working with the public service.  All this work involves a large number of
people, some working in formal groups, some within support networks, and some
just by themselves, and of varying degrees of political consciousness,
motivation and expertise. Probably very few of them, certainly in Canberra,
would consider taking part in nonviolent actions beyond the 'safe' mass
demonstrations.  However, all this effort, which is usually uncoordinated and
reliant on the fickle good intents of many people, can eventually produce
results.

Nonviolent action as it is currently practised seems just too remote from
these people to have much of an influence.  I think some people within the
nonviolence movement place too much emphasis on participating in actions as a
means of making some sort of personal statement and not really working out a
strategy for the best way of achieving a particular political goal.  To put
this another way, is it more important to express one's beliefs whenever and
however the opportunity arises, or is it better to be more scheming about how
to get the best result for least effort?  I find that I am grappling with
this question all the time as I feel I have to continually compromise my
beliefs just to maintain my employment and live a moderately comfortable life
within the prevailing oppressive and destructive society.

Another aspect about nonviolence that is an issue for me is that, for some
people, nonviolence is only a tactic for me achieving a particular goal,
whereas for me nonviolence is also the goal.  It seems so incongruous to see
nonviolent action techniques being used by people to protest about a
seemingly limitless range of issues, many of which seem pretty suspect when
compared to the ideal of nonviolence.

Even where nonviolent action is being done for all the right reasons, the
organisation of political campaigns still seems to have not come to grips
with the personal situations of individuals.  Now that I am a father I have
become acutely aware that, after work time and child care time are taken out
of the day, there is very little time left over for political activism.  Even
then, most political groups and actions are not set up to incorporate
children into the activity, or at the least to provide care for children
while their parents participate.  Is it no wonder that the majority of
political activists are young, have no children, or have partners who are
willing to do the child-care?

For me, nonviolence should be a way of life - as an attitude towards all the
people and situations that I come across.  My definition of nonviolent action
is action that integrates all aspects of my life - work, family, friends,
interests - into a way of living that reflects my belief in nonviolence.  In
practical terms, this means such things as having paid work that is
meaningful and gives benefit to society and is also in balance with the needs
of my family, treating my partner as an equal and raising my child in a
loving and caring manner, doing my bit to save the environment, and trying to
build up a local community of like-minded people.

In political terms, I am no longer trying to do everything I can to save the
world, but to focus on a limited number of issues that I have an inherent
interest in and to be very selective about what sort of political campaigning
I will do, focussing on those things which I think will be effective and for
which I know I have the ability and experience to do.   This is not to say
that I am spending any less time doing political things than I did in the
past, more that the range of things that I consider to be political has
broadened to encompass a lot more of my life than just attending meetings,
demos and the like.

In terms of  the nonviolence movement as a whole, in summary I feel that it
needs to broaden its focus beyond "training", "actions", and even "politics".
Of course this is easy to say and very hard to do, given all the constraints
that we have to operate within.  I certainly congratulate the editors of NvT
for their persistence and energy in continuing with the magazine over all
these years and trying to present as best they can the breadth of
nonviolence.

Although I have tended to wish otherwise, it is clear that social and
political change does not happen quickly.  Although there are the short
momentous events now and then, these always seem to have long gestation
periods of struggle by large numbers of unrecognised and ordinary people.
Although it is so easy to get discouraged, we have to maintain our enthusiasm
for years, even decades to achieve the change we desire.  In this regard, the
team behind NvT have been an inspiration in their efforts to continue to
promote nonviolence despite all the adversities of modern life. I hope that
it will still be around in another ten years.
Best regards, Gordon McAllister