April 2011 - Centre for Civil Society - University of KwaZulu-Natal

ethnic/racial identities, and generations.
The 1990s statewide anti-mining movement transcended these divides,
bringing together environmentalists with unionists, urban students with
rural residents, and Native American nations with their former enemies in
white sportfishing groups. They were all united in their concern for clean
water, and their powerful alliance defeated Exxon and the world’s largest
mining companies. The chairman of a county Republican Party once set up
a table at his county fair, took off the brochures for the pro-mining
Republican governor, and substituted them with leaflets against Exxon.
It seemed unusual when Wisconsin police officers refused to arrest Capitol
protesters and instead joined them. In Washington state, everyone
assumed that the cops would attack protesters, as they often do here. In
that kind of atmosphere, it is easy to quickly dehumanize your enemy, and
polarize a conflict. It is rarely understood that people’s brains have
multiple impulses, often resulting in contradictory beliefs and actions. In
Wisconsin’s political history, even some Republicans have this split
consciousness, and are open to a heartfelt anti-corporate appeal that
assumes our common humanity.
Wisconsin social movements have also had some major weaknesses that
prevented statewide allians. Madison white activists would often elevate
the city’s radical history and status as a state capital and central
university campus, and ignore the rest of the state as a cultural-political
wasteland. But it is remarkable how quickly this urban-rural divide has
been overcome in 2011, in a Rebellion that encompasses diverse regions
and ethnic/racial identities. State employees and supporters have come to
the Capitol from Milwaukee, the industrial Fox Valley, rural farm towns,
and the small cities such as Eau Claire, LaCrosse, and Janesville. They
have also held their own large rallies in these small cities that that have
become the real battlegrounds for the heart and soul of America.
Midwestern Sense of Community
Social movement alliances have flourished in Wisconsin because of a sense
of community that emerges from Midwestern history. Like elsewhere in
America, Big Box stores have destroyed small businesses, and people have
become more individualistic and isolated. However, deep social networks
still exist and can make a difference when they become active. People
with different opinions can pull together at key times when they use
respectful communication and join on issues where they agree. These
relationships are not touchy-feely, but simply make people feel that
belong in a community, that everyone has something to contribute, and
that we can look to ourselves rather than to a political elite for the
answers.
Wisconsin historian Jack Holzhueter observes that many Madisonians are
only one generation removed from the dairy farm, where everyone had to
work together, and no one wanted to stick out. The same is true of labor
households that value the idea of solidarity, even if their union
bureaucracies no longer uphold class consciousness. Notice that the
Wisconsin Uprising is not identified with any particular leader (or even
group of leaders), because everyone is pitching in with the chores.
Living now on the West Coast, I have been struck by the culture of
individualism here. Parks have benches for couples, but not many picnic
tables for larger gatherings. Meetings sometimes start without round-robin
introductions, rather than getting to know each other’s names and stories.
In moving West, many European Americans also moved from an extended
family to a nuclear family, from richly ethnic communities to a