GM-free Scotland

July '08 | Creative grumbling

Image from Greenpeace animal feed actionIt seems there's nothing like a gene or two in the wrong place to stimulate indignation and the imagination.

According to Gene Sharp's 'Consent Theory of Power”, governments stay in power only with society's consent. The ruling body will collapse if consent is actively withdrawn.

The vital word here is 'actively'. Complaining, alienation, critical analysis, or a single roar (no matter how blood curdling) are not enough. What is needed is sustained mass defiance.

Since GM first reared its head, 12 years ago, defiance has steadily and visibly gained momentum, while rarely stepping outside the law.

In the modern world, defiance can take an unprecedented diversity of forms, and can be expanded exponentially with technology and human creativity.

The starting point of defiance grumbling, and the starting point of grumbling is always awareness: what people don't know about, they certainly won't get indignant about.

Sound-bytes on placards waved at passers-by are traditional and are still used, but have evolved in all sorts of interesting ways:

Sound-bytes can be very targeted, for example, the addition of 'Now owned by Monsanto' added temporarily to the name plate of an agricultural institute, or, a 'GMO here' banner stuck to a supermarket ceiling by two helium balloons.

Once awareness starts rising, people need more information. The printing press kicked off an information revolution, but now we have a new age of desk-top publishing and leaflets have never been easier to put together. Leaflets can easily evolve into whole websites. The oral tradition of passing on knowledge is still with us, spread nationally by the broadcast media and globally by podcasts.

Once informed, people move to action, especially high-tech action.

A half-hour at a key-board can now yield a letter to your local authority, your MSP, your MP, all the MEPs for your region, and all the major supermarkets in your area. Petitions no longer need involve standing in the rain accosting strangers with a clip-board, you can do them on-line (also, check out http://petitions.pm.gov.uk).

Once things really gain momentum, good old-fashioned demonstrations, vigils and blockades created by vehicles, people or chains can never be easily ignored, but even these have an electronic counterpart: concerted e-mail bombardment. With a bit of efficient networking, all of these can become as big as the world.

Fortunately, non-violent direct action has been the customary anti-GM armory (although the same can't always be said for the other side, see MURDER IN BRAZIL – News, December 2007, and Counterpunch 23.06.08). Indeed, pure, unfocused, destruction is always counter-productive: the message will be swamped by public outrage and reactive policing. However, symbolic 'bombs' are great attention-grabbers.

Green paint bombs clearly say “greenwash”, and red paint bombs say “blood on your hands”. Custard pies come in many varieties:

But, if all this fails, and GM crops are sprouting in the home-fields, what happens next?

After one (out of a total of two) of Britain's GM potato field trials was trashed by unidentified 'Eco-warriors' in 2007, the biotech company which owns the seed said “Those who have concerns should make their views known in a constructive way”. When the same thing happened in 2008, the Environment Minister who had sanctioned the trials said “The people behind this should have the guts to go public and join the debate about GM foods. Their arrogance appalls me.”

These 'Eco-warriors' , which many might consider “Eco-heroes', have no doubt been making their views known and joining the 'debate' about GM foods, using all of the above tactics, since 1996. The biotech industry and our Environment Ministers have been deaf to them, for 12 years. Industry and the government haven't realised the implications of the crop-trashers' failure to identify themselves: the Ecowarriors have moved beyond making yet another public statement about GM agriculture, they are simply removing the crop so that GM plants no longer exist in the UK and can cause no harm.

COMMENT

Always be alert that you have one card up your sleeve which politicians and regulations can't remove, and which commercial interests are acutely sensitive to: the boycott. When Rosa Parks refused to leave her seat on that bus in Montgomery in 1955 to make room for a white passenger, she sparked a bus boycott which triggered the entire US civil rights movement. The final resting place of the cash in your purse is under your control.

SOURCES

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