Valuing Diversity in the Peace and Justice Movement
The Contributions of One Young Activist

by Ben Grosscup, WAMM

Over a year ago I attended my first educational meeting regarding the economic sanctions against the people of Iraq. This December 16, some fourteen months later, I will embark on a trip to Iraq. I have made an independent decision to travel to Iraq in order to witness firsthand the effects of economic sanctions and to publicly defy the sanctions by delivering token amounts of humanitarian supplies.

Some people ask me, "Why have you chosen to work so much on Iraq?" The main reason is simply that I know more about the sanctions than any other issue. The reality is that we face an enormous amount of social justice work in every part of the world. Therefore, we must strive to recognize the importance of issues with which we are not familiar.

It would be great if we, as an activist community, could universally challenge all acts of imperialism, injustice, war, and exploitation at once. However, in the current political climate, that strategy might greatly overextend us. One way to overcome this is to recognize the connections of commonly accepted underlying preconceptions to social problems. If we find that we partially reflect the oppressing classes' (ruling class, corporate class, government) pursuit of domination and private ownership in our own lives, we activists may be closer to liberating ourselves and better equipped to struggle against injustice holistically.

One need not look far to see profound injustice. In Minneapolis, the North Side Neighbors for Justice, in coalition with the campaign to Stop the Re-route of Highway 55, are struggling against the city, which is evicting poor people from their low-cost housing and dispersing them to housing that is not assuredly available.

On the south end of Minneapolis, despite enormous opposition, the Minnesota Department of Transportation has been trying to force a road through the middle of Minnehaha Park, which is a site held sacred by the Mdwaketon Dakota people. To crush the resistance, the Minneapolis Police and Minnesota Highway Patrol have used brutal means of subduing non-violent protesters including mace, pain compliance, and beatings. They have also torn down large areas of trees and homes and destroyed items sacred to native people.

On the international level, the corporate globalization of the world economy causes profound structural adjustments that threaten the sanctity of the Earth and dignity of humans in favor of corporate profit and expansion. In this pursuit, drug and food companies scramble to patent the genetic codes of all living things so that they may demand royalties on the usage of their products. Media corporations, with the help of the Federal Communications Commission, lay claim to the airwaves and threaten legal consequences to those who try to take back the airwaves by use of unlicensed radio stations.

The World Trade Organization and International Monetary Fund demand that governments lower their environmental and social standards when those standards obstruct the acquisition of profit. Corporations, which by their nature are centralized and unaccountable to the people affected by the decisions of the corporation, are becoming some of the most powerful organizations in the world.

In a world with so many worthwhile struggles (many of which were not mentioned here) how is an activist to focus? This is a difficult question for many. I cannot predict the future, but I believe that the people of this world can choose to make fundamental changes in our social structure. I think it is critical that as we work for this, we continuously reflect on the internal impediments of our movement for social change.

We must ask the difficult, self-critical questions: "Am I listening to this person?" "Am I talking too much?" "Could I have avoided hurting that person's feelings?" "Am I overextending myself to the point where I am unhappy and less effective as an activist?"

As we question those in power, it is indispensable that we also question ourselves and the people with whom we work, recognizing that we, too, have great power. To build the movement larger, we must reach out to each other despite our natural differences in values and viewpoints. In the face of grudgingly personal and ideological conflict, recognizing faults, reconciling, and allowing ourselves to be a little vulnerable will strengthen our movement internally.

Everyday I see examples of myself and others not living up to the standards we profess or appear to profess. However, discounting someone who acts hypocritically may be divisive and unfair considering that most, if not all of us, act in this way sometimes. A more constructive way to deal with the problem may be to engage in honest but respectful dialogue regarding the perceived inconsistency. In this way, we can help each other to maintain integrity.

Without internal reflection, the work of activists is probably the most vulnerable to corruption. We must not underestimate the importance of reexamining our actions. Encouraging this reflection process may help address the question of focusing ourselves internally during these critically important and rapidly changing times.

Ben is a peace and justice activist who describes himself as an "Unschool/Post-Secondary Senior (H.S. level)."