Just reading Vandana Shiva's Terra Viva and reminded again of the Chipko movement in India. That is what would be required here..... Ya sure! And I don't really understand what has totally mesmerized people into sitting by and letting themselves become slaves rather than actors, losing our land and all that makes life worthwhile...
Chipko movement in the foothills of the Himalayas was initiated first by Jyoti Kumari, a local village woman. The movement managed to gather more than 1 million people at its height, made of activists, political leaders, ecofeminists and farmers.
I resonate with much of what was shared here, the only difference in my approach is that I no longer hold onto the term and concept of "democracy" as something worth protecting, re-forming or re-defining. To me, democracy (as a system of government for nation-states) is inherently immoral.
The only large scale regional (multiple community scale) democracy I can think of that I have any resect for and feel we should emulate in some ways (and apply in community scale Voluntaryism based organizational structures) is the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (which is the longest lasting participatory democracy in the world). However, one of the things that differentiates the Haudenosaunee Confederacy from modern day "democratic" nationstates is that the Haudenosaunee Confederacy did not not use violent coercion in order to extract taxes from it's members. Also, unlike modern day "democratic" nation states, in their culture they had no notion that anyone could be born higher or lower in status than anyone else or that anyone could have authority to use violent coercion over anyone else.
Even when a Chief asserted that an action should be taken by community members, there were no police or jails to enforce them to do so with violence, and they would only choose to listen to said democratic regional community leader if they presented a convincing argument as to why people should do what they are suggesting.
For some additional context, let us take a look at what the inhabitants of New France made of the Europeans who began to arrive on their shores in the sixteenth century.
At that time, the region that came to be known as New France was inhabited largely by speakers of Montagnais-Naskapi, Algonkian and Iroquoian (Potawatomi) languages. Those closer to the coast were often fishers, food foresters and hunters, and many also practiced horticulture (and regenerative agro-forestry); the Wendat (Huron), concentrated in major river valleys further inland, growing maize, squash and beans around fortified towns and food forests composed of Hickory/Oak orchards with diverse fruit and medicinal herb species underneath.
..While French assessments of the character of (what they described as) ‘savages’ tended to be decidedly mixed, the indigenous assessment of French character was distinctly less so.
Father Pierre Biard, for example, was a former theology professor assigned in 1608 to evangelize the Algonkian-speaking Mi’kmaq in Nova Scotia, who had lived for some time next to a French fort.
Biard did not think much of the Mi’kmagq, but reported that the feeling was mutual:
“They consider themselves better than the French: “For,” they say, “you are always fighting and quarrelling among yourselves; we live peaceably. You are envious and are all the time slandering each other; you are thieves and deceivers; you are covetous, and are neither generous nor kind; as for us, if we have a morsel of bread we share it with our neighbor.” They are saying these and like things continually.’“
What seemed to irritate Biard the most was that the Mi’kmaq would constantly assert that they were, as a result, ‘richer’ than the French. The French had more material possessions, the Mi’kmaq conceded; but they had other, greater assets: ease, comfort and time.
Twenty years later Brother Gabriel Sagard, a Recollect Friar,” wrote similar things of the Wendat nation. Sagard was at first highly critical of Wendat life, which he described as inherently sinful (he was obsessed with the idea that Wendat women were all intent on seducing him), but by the end of his sojourn he had come to the conclusion their social arrangements were in many ways superior to those at home in France.
In the following passages he was clearly echoing Wendat opinion:
“They have no lawsuits and take little pains to acquire the goods of this life, for which we Christians torment ourselves so much, and for our excessive and insatiable greed in acquiring them we are justly and with reason reproved by their quiet life and tranquil dispositions.”
Much like Biard’s Mi’kmaq, the Wendat were particularly offended by the French lack of generosity to one another:
‘They reciprocate hospitality and give such assistance to one another that the necessities of all are provided for without there being any indigent beggar in their towns and villages; and they considered it a very bad thing when they heard it said that there were in France a great many of these needy beggars, and thought that this was for lack of charity in us, and blamed us for it severely.’
Sagard’s account of his stay among the Wendat became an influential bestseller in France and across Europe: both Locke and Voltaire cited Le grand voyage du pays des Hurons as a principal source for their descriptions of Turtle Island (indigenous) societies. The multi-authored and much more extensive Jesuit Relations, which appeared between 1633 and 1673, were also widely read and debated in Europe, and include many a similar remonstrance aimed at the French by Wendat observers..
I feel it is worth highlighting here that, the indigenous Turtle Islander’s attitudes are likely to be far closer to many of our attitudes (as modern day people) than seventeenth-century European ones.
These differing views on individual liberty are especially striking. Nowadays, it’s almost impossible for anyone living in a so called ‘liberal democracy’ to say they are against freedom — at least in the abstract (in practice, of course, our ideas are usually much more nuanced). This is one of the lasting legacies of the Enlightenment and of the American and French Revolutions. Personal freedom, we tend to believe, is inherently good (even if some of us also feel that a society based on total individual liberty — one which took it so far as to eliminate police, prisons or any sort of apparatus of coercion — would instantly collapse into violent chaos). Seventeenth-century Jesuits most certainly did not share this assumption. They tended to view individual liberty as animalistic. In 1642, the Jesuit missionary Le Jeune wrote of the Montagnais-Naskapi:
“They imagine that they ought by right of birth, to enjoy the liberty of wild ass colts, rendering no homage to any one whomsoever, except when they like. They have reproached me a hundred times because we fear our Captains, while they laugh at and make sport of theirs. All the authority of their chief is in his tongue’s end; for he is powerful in so far as he is eloquent; and, even if he kills himself talking and haranguing, he will not be obeyed unless he pleases the Savages.
..From the beginning of the world to the coming of the French, the Savages have never known what it was so solemnly to forbid anything to their people, under any penalty, however slight. They are free people, each of whom considers himself of as much consequence as the others; and they submit to their chiefs only in so far as it pleases them.”
In the considered opinion of the Montagnais-Naskapi, however, the French were little better than slaves, living in constant terror of their superiors. Such criticism appears regularly in Jesuit accounts; what’s more, it comes not just from those who lived in nomadic bands, but equally from townsfolk and regenerative forest gardeners like the Wendat. The missionaries, moreover, were willing to concede that this wasn’t all just rhetoric on the Americans’ part. Even Wendat statesmen couldn’t compel anyone to do anything they didn’t wish to do. As Father Lallemant, whose correspondence provided an initial model for The Jesuit Relations, noted of the Wendat in 1644:
I do not believe that there is any people on earth freer than they, and less able to allow the subjection of their wills to any power whatever — so much so that Fathers here have no control over their children, or Captains over their subjects, or the Laws of the country over any of them, except in so far as each is pleased to submit to them. There is no punishment which is inflicted on the guilty, and no criminal who is not sure that his life and property are in no danger…”
I think a lot of what Alex describes here could also be described as Voluntaryism in action.
Democratic system of governance that utilize violent coercion (through giving humans deadly weapons and a monopoly on violence, aka "police", and commanding them to kidnap, aka "incarcerate", peaceful dissenters and steal their property using violence if they disagree, aka "taxation") are immoral and should be abandoned and boycotted (as Alex suggests). Only difference is I suggest abandoning the word democracy all together.
For more on how Voluntaryism differs from Democratic statism and why that distinction is important, read:
Yes. Direct action is EVERYTHING. Look at what is happening with Maersk, Elbit… all results of direct action. How do people with little to no time already do this however? I am a parent of young children and I work 2 part time jobs. I truly want to understand how we make direct action more feasible.
That's a really good question, Emily. It's definitely challenging, but to me the key is that for every person on the front lines, there are lots of support roles needed. Direct actions don't just consist of arrestable or risky roles.
Just reading Vandana Shiva's Terra Viva and reminded again of the Chipko movement in India. That is what would be required here..... Ya sure! And I don't really understand what has totally mesmerized people into sitting by and letting themselves become slaves rather than actors, losing our land and all that makes life worthwhile...
Chipko movement in the foothills of the Himalayas was initiated first by Jyoti Kumari, a local village woman. The movement managed to gather more than 1 million people at its height, made of activists, political leaders, ecofeminists and farmers.
I thought the Chipko movement was started by Mr. Sunderlal Bahuguna ...?
Indeed, he is one of the figures who made it a national movement.
I resonate with much of what was shared here, the only difference in my approach is that I no longer hold onto the term and concept of "democracy" as something worth protecting, re-forming or re-defining. To me, democracy (as a system of government for nation-states) is inherently immoral.
The only large scale regional (multiple community scale) democracy I can think of that I have any resect for and feel we should emulate in some ways (and apply in community scale Voluntaryism based organizational structures) is the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (which is the longest lasting participatory democracy in the world). However, one of the things that differentiates the Haudenosaunee Confederacy from modern day "democratic" nationstates is that the Haudenosaunee Confederacy did not not use violent coercion in order to extract taxes from it's members. Also, unlike modern day "democratic" nation states, in their culture they had no notion that anyone could be born higher or lower in status than anyone else or that anyone could have authority to use violent coercion over anyone else.
Even when a Chief asserted that an action should be taken by community members, there were no police or jails to enforce them to do so with violence, and they would only choose to listen to said democratic regional community leader if they presented a convincing argument as to why people should do what they are suggesting.
For some additional context, let us take a look at what the inhabitants of New France made of the Europeans who began to arrive on their shores in the sixteenth century.
At that time, the region that came to be known as New France was inhabited largely by speakers of Montagnais-Naskapi, Algonkian and Iroquoian (Potawatomi) languages. Those closer to the coast were often fishers, food foresters and hunters, and many also practiced horticulture (and regenerative agro-forestry); the Wendat (Huron), concentrated in major river valleys further inland, growing maize, squash and beans around fortified towns and food forests composed of Hickory/Oak orchards with diverse fruit and medicinal herb species underneath.
..While French assessments of the character of (what they described as) ‘savages’ tended to be decidedly mixed, the indigenous assessment of French character was distinctly less so.
Father Pierre Biard, for example, was a former theology professor assigned in 1608 to evangelize the Algonkian-speaking Mi’kmaq in Nova Scotia, who had lived for some time next to a French fort.
Biard did not think much of the Mi’kmagq, but reported that the feeling was mutual:
“They consider themselves better than the French: “For,” they say, “you are always fighting and quarrelling among yourselves; we live peaceably. You are envious and are all the time slandering each other; you are thieves and deceivers; you are covetous, and are neither generous nor kind; as for us, if we have a morsel of bread we share it with our neighbor.” They are saying these and like things continually.’“
What seemed to irritate Biard the most was that the Mi’kmaq would constantly assert that they were, as a result, ‘richer’ than the French. The French had more material possessions, the Mi’kmaq conceded; but they had other, greater assets: ease, comfort and time.
Twenty years later Brother Gabriel Sagard, a Recollect Friar,” wrote similar things of the Wendat nation. Sagard was at first highly critical of Wendat life, which he described as inherently sinful (he was obsessed with the idea that Wendat women were all intent on seducing him), but by the end of his sojourn he had come to the conclusion their social arrangements were in many ways superior to those at home in France.
In the following passages he was clearly echoing Wendat opinion:
“They have no lawsuits and take little pains to acquire the goods of this life, for which we Christians torment ourselves so much, and for our excessive and insatiable greed in acquiring them we are justly and with reason reproved by their quiet life and tranquil dispositions.”
Much like Biard’s Mi’kmaq, the Wendat were particularly offended by the French lack of generosity to one another:
‘They reciprocate hospitality and give such assistance to one another that the necessities of all are provided for without there being any indigent beggar in their towns and villages; and they considered it a very bad thing when they heard it said that there were in France a great many of these needy beggars, and thought that this was for lack of charity in us, and blamed us for it severely.’
Sagard’s account of his stay among the Wendat became an influential bestseller in France and across Europe: both Locke and Voltaire cited Le grand voyage du pays des Hurons as a principal source for their descriptions of Turtle Island (indigenous) societies. The multi-authored and much more extensive Jesuit Relations, which appeared between 1633 and 1673, were also widely read and debated in Europe, and include many a similar remonstrance aimed at the French by Wendat observers..
I feel it is worth highlighting here that, the indigenous Turtle Islander’s attitudes are likely to be far closer to many of our attitudes (as modern day people) than seventeenth-century European ones.
These differing views on individual liberty are especially striking. Nowadays, it’s almost impossible for anyone living in a so called ‘liberal democracy’ to say they are against freedom — at least in the abstract (in practice, of course, our ideas are usually much more nuanced). This is one of the lasting legacies of the Enlightenment and of the American and French Revolutions. Personal freedom, we tend to believe, is inherently good (even if some of us also feel that a society based on total individual liberty — one which took it so far as to eliminate police, prisons or any sort of apparatus of coercion — would instantly collapse into violent chaos). Seventeenth-century Jesuits most certainly did not share this assumption. They tended to view individual liberty as animalistic. In 1642, the Jesuit missionary Le Jeune wrote of the Montagnais-Naskapi:
“They imagine that they ought by right of birth, to enjoy the liberty of wild ass colts, rendering no homage to any one whomsoever, except when they like. They have reproached me a hundred times because we fear our Captains, while they laugh at and make sport of theirs. All the authority of their chief is in his tongue’s end; for he is powerful in so far as he is eloquent; and, even if he kills himself talking and haranguing, he will not be obeyed unless he pleases the Savages.
..From the beginning of the world to the coming of the French, the Savages have never known what it was so solemnly to forbid anything to their people, under any penalty, however slight. They are free people, each of whom considers himself of as much consequence as the others; and they submit to their chiefs only in so far as it pleases them.”
In the considered opinion of the Montagnais-Naskapi, however, the French were little better than slaves, living in constant terror of their superiors. Such criticism appears regularly in Jesuit accounts; what’s more, it comes not just from those who lived in nomadic bands, but equally from townsfolk and regenerative forest gardeners like the Wendat. The missionaries, moreover, were willing to concede that this wasn’t all just rhetoric on the Americans’ part. Even Wendat statesmen couldn’t compel anyone to do anything they didn’t wish to do. As Father Lallemant, whose correspondence provided an initial model for The Jesuit Relations, noted of the Wendat in 1644:
I do not believe that there is any people on earth freer than they, and less able to allow the subjection of their wills to any power whatever — so much so that Fathers here have no control over their children, or Captains over their subjects, or the Laws of the country over any of them, except in so far as each is pleased to submit to them. There is no punishment which is inflicted on the guilty, and no criminal who is not sure that his life and property are in no danger…”
I think a lot of what Alex describes here could also be described as Voluntaryism in action.
Democratic system of governance that utilize violent coercion (through giving humans deadly weapons and a monopoly on violence, aka "police", and commanding them to kidnap, aka "incarcerate", peaceful dissenters and steal their property using violence if they disagree, aka "taxation") are immoral and should be abandoned and boycotted (as Alex suggests). Only difference is I suggest abandoning the word democracy all together.
For more on how Voluntaryism differs from Democratic statism and why that distinction is important, read:
https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/why-involuntary-governance-structures
Yes. Direct action is EVERYTHING. Look at what is happening with Maersk, Elbit… all results of direct action. How do people with little to no time already do this however? I am a parent of young children and I work 2 part time jobs. I truly want to understand how we make direct action more feasible.
That's a really good question, Emily. It's definitely challenging, but to me the key is that for every person on the front lines, there are lots of support roles needed. Direct actions don't just consist of arrestable or risky roles.
Yep, it's clear what we have to do