photo top: Hilary Klein background photo: David Hanks
photo top: Hilary Klein background photo: David Hanks
photo top: Hilary Klein background photo: David Hanks
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
POST-ISSUE ACTIVISM<br />
Jason Justice<br />
— HOW TO CHANGE THINGS —<br />
A more important distinction is which direction is the concession moving<br />
toward? Is it a concession that releases pressure on the system and<br />
thereby legitimizes illegitimate authority? Or is it a concession that<br />
teaches people a lesson about their collective power to make change and<br />
therefore brings us closer to systemic change?<br />
NGOism creates ripe conditions for going beyond mere ineffectiveness and<br />
into outright complicity with the system. Time and time again we’ve seen<br />
social-change NGOs grow to become a part of the establishment and then<br />
be used as a tool to marginalize popular dissent by lending legitimacy to<br />
the system. Whether it’s the World Wildlife Fund giving a green seal of<br />
approval to oil companies or the American Cancer Society’s downplaying<br />
of environmental pollution’s role in cancer, 27 it’s clear that NGOs can<br />
become an obstacle to transformative change.<br />
The professionalization of social change requires extensive resources, and<br />
it’s obvious that NGO agendas can be shaped by their funding needs.<br />
Whether reliant on a membership base or institutional funders, NGOs are<br />
often forced to build a power base through self-promotion rather than selfanalysis.<br />
Not only does this dilute their agendas to fit within the political<br />
comfort zone of those with resources, it disrupts the essential process of<br />
acknowledging mistakes and learning from them. This evolutionary<br />
process of collective learning is central to fundamental social change, and<br />
198<br />
Protests against police brutality and the war on Iraq following an April 7, 2003 police attack on demonstrators, longshore workers, and<br />
members of the media with rubber, wooden, and plastic bullets, concussion grenades, and motorcycles. The police attacked in response<br />
to a community picket to shut down SSA and APL corporations at the Oakland Docks, one of the major arteries for global capital’s<br />
shipment of goods for the western United States. April 2003.<br />
People from community, labor, and antiwar groups reclaim their right to picket and protest one month after the April 7 police attacks.<br />
The docks were again shut down, and this time the police backed down and did not interfere. May 12, 2003.<br />
Eric Wagner<br />
Eric Wagner