photo: Benoît Aquin

One goal of the New Tactics Project is to help us adapt action methods in innovative ways. As we look to various tactics, the main focus remains on "transferability", the capacity to bring and apply a given tactical framework to a different issue or situation.

It's hard.

Most activists do not even think twice about "transferability' when they choose to organize a march or a boycott. But when it comes to more complex tactics, most people can't bring themselves to envision it in a different context. Yet, every tactic is transferable. 

Because I have had some experience with the nonviolent raid as intervention tactic, some fairly recent, I thought it might be useful to show a few examples of how this tactic can be, and was, transferred across different campaigns on a number of issues. The goal of the exercise is to spark our imagination.

While the nonviolent raid was created some 75 years ago to seize salt-making facilities during the Home Rule struggle in India, the tactic is still in its infancy today, although it has been adapted and used across cultures, on a range of different issues.

Some creative uses of the nonviolent raid

The nonviolent raid involves trying to enter a forbiden location to achieve a desirable outcome. The stated public goal may vary wildly. 

Stop construction. In the 1970's, a number of sites where nuclear reactors were being built were the target of nonviolent invasions, sometimes followed by occupations, such as those by the Clamshell Alliance at the Seabrook power plant in 1977.

Various organizations have used the tactic in interesting ways. Most nonviolent raids I have been involved with used it as a kind of enforcement tactic by citizens, for citizens, as a  "mock" police force when the official authorities failed to act.

Citizens Arrest. The nonviolent raid has been used in attempts to arrest government leaders for crimes against humanity. One case involved walking peacefully into a line of police officers guarding the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal in 1996. The group attempted to arrest Henry Kissinger for war crimes, after Canadian authorities failed to enforce our own national criminal code barring entry into the country of any suspected war criminal. 

Another case involved going over barricades with "Citizens Arrest Warrants" for leaders of the G7 Summit held in Toronto in 1987. The warrants had been issued by a committee of respected community leaders and international law experts, after hearing compelling evidence from over 160 testimonies, ranging from torture victims, to nuked war veterans, to brutalized indigenous populations. The proceedings of this People's Tribunal on Crimes of the G7 Leaders were modeled after the famous Russell Tribunal on US foreign policy.

Search and Seizure. Well of course, the nonviolent raid has been used in a dilemma demonstration to search for a secret free trade agreement. But the tactic as a tool for citizens’ enforcement, or  "parallel" police force was replayed at least twice in the last few years. 

In one case, it was used by a labour union to try and force a public corporation to become transparent and release its five-year strategic plan, which was to include massive job loss. In another recent case, it was used by CasiNO-Free Philadelphia in an adapted "Operation Transparency" to force disclosure of documents from public gaming authorities seeking to build new gambling facilities.

Safety Inspection. In 2001, the tactic was used by a team investigating a highly polluting plant in Asbestos, Québec.  As the inspection team proceeded towards the gates, the police and security agents retreated behind the facility’s fences. Dramatically, the "citizen inspectors" had to climb over fences in their attempt to inspect the plant. Quite visual for the media.

Building Renovation. In 1999, the Canadian group Homes Not Bombs used the nonviolent raid in its campaign to transform the "War Department" (National Defence Headquarters) in Ottawa into affordable housing to ease the homelessness crisis in the country. On that occasion, the rationale for the nonviolent raid was that renovation teams — complete with overalls and (empty) paint buckets — had to enter the building to convert it into affordable apartments for the homeless. 

Other potential uses

From such real-life examples, we could image the tactic being used in other creative contexts.

Document search redux. Corporate offices could be raided to search for documents being withheld, evidence of prior knowledge of unacceptable environmental risks, etc. 

Inspection & Investigation. Military facilities could be targeted by citizens in search of weapons of mass destruction (some group planned to do just that... on US bases during the WMD frenzy of 2003-2004). University facilities could be searched for illegal weapons research or unethical animal experiments. Workplaces could be inspected for evidence of violation of labour standards, enslavement, or child labour. Citizens could rally in front of a police facility and stage an "inspection raid" looking for evidence of torture. One could even envision "Freedom teams" staging a nonviolent Liberation Raid on a prison, to "release" some well-known human rights defender unjustly being held prisoner. 

Land reclamation. The landless peasants in Brasil have reclaimed many acres of land from absentee landlords in raids that were sometimes very public.

Takeover of institutions. A union could stage a nonviolent raid to announce they will take over the office of an incompetent business administration. Citizen could (and did) raid legislative assemblies or national parliaments to replace corrupt, undemocratic or unelected officials 

So the list goes on. Is your imagination flowing? That's transferability at work.

— Philippe Duhamel, interTactica.org

Know of other examples, want to share other ideas? Your comments are welcome.