Focus on the goal. Don’t get caught up in the politics.
This is a message that activists in environmental and social movements should keep in mind as they deal with the reality of pursuing their cause.
Movements, by their very nature, involve large groups of people with common and different views.
One cannot talk of the environmental movement as a single unified cause. And even within a specific group, there will be differences of opinion.
This could be viewed as both a weakness and a strength. The weakness might be the inability to agree on a common course of action. The strength might be that the authorities find it harder to crack down on a diverse group of people. The strength and weakness of the Occupy movement has been that it is made up of diverse views and is hard to pigeon-hole.
The authorities like nothing better than seeing activists attack fellow activists.
For example, there have been those in the environmental movement who have questioned the tactics of say Greenpeace or 350.org, claiming they do not put much effort into direct action – the type of action seen for example in the attempts in Texas, U.S., to block the building of the Keystone XL pipeline. Yet these organizations claim their campaigns are bringing change.
Then there is the question of leadership. The Occupy movement has suffered to some extent by the lack of unified leadership, with a host of people with different dreams speaking on different platforms. The leadership of the rapidly-growing Idle No More movement in Canada has had to clarify that this is a grassroots movement and should not be hijacked or misinterpreted as a movement led by First Nations chiefs. The involvement of the chiefs is welcome, say the founders, but it is the people fighting for rights and their environment whose voice should count.
Clearly, there will always be differences of opinion and perception in any movement.
“Successful movements have understood that it’s absolutely essential not to fall into the trap set out by the authorities and spend one’s time condemning and attempting to police other activists,” says author and political activist, David Graeber. “One makes one’s own principles clear. One expresses what solidarity one can with others who share the same struggle, and if one cannot, one keeps the focus on the actual source of violence, without doing or saying anything that might seem to justify that violence because of tactical disagreements you have with fellow activists.”
The message is – focus on your cause or goal and don’t get distracted.
