Civil Resistance and the Diversity of Tactics in the Anti-Globalization Movement: Problems of Violence, Silence, and Solidarity in Activist Politics

Abstract

This article examines the (re)emergence of large-scale civil disobedience and the accompanying debates about violence and non-violence in the contemporary anti-globalization movement. Rooted in the Canadian movement but in conversation with wider debates, the article tracks movement practices and debates from the Battle of Seattle through to the Quebec Summit. The debate took a new turn in Genoa, with massive police brutality and the killing of a protester, and again following the events of September 11, 2001. The central argument of the article is that the new forms of civil resistance embody a critique of prevailing forms of organization, participation, representation, and action in Canadian social movements. Respect for diversity of tactics emerged as a non-negotiable basis of unity in this context. The author goes on to argue that, by June 2002, this stance had hardened into an ideology that functioned to restrict genuine diversity and threatened democracy and pluralism in the movement. The article ends with reflections on how the threat of war and the emergence of a global anti-war movement has again transformed the landscape of the anti-globalization movement