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Activism & 4 Tiers of Learning
Getting arrested
The 4 tiers of learning
- engagement or acknowledgement
- progression
- completion
- repetition
The initial stage involves encountering the object — then learning through application — then being able to complete a task and finally mastering through successful repetition.
This can be seen through child development beginning with study and mimicry, then active play, application and mastering through trial and error. There is an evolution from egocentricity through engagement and then self recognition. The same applies to activism where a person first needs to be aware of the injustice and learn the language of liberation. Too often activism progresses through the first 2 stages and possibly into competency but then recycles the 3 phases, not prepared to test their activism model in tier 4.
My own experience (for what it’s worth)
The photo above shows me eating crisps (potato chips) and expressing dissent in full view of the authorities. This was one of many dips into the world of direct action but only my second venture into this particular lion’s den. For all the anticipation the act is deadly dull. The authorities are over-active in their crushing of dissent while our passive attempt to expose their hypocrisy and inhumanity pretty much bores the hell out of us.
A sense of adventure certainly accompanied my first foray into this theatre much like that of mercenaries who had joined the foreign legion for the first time. Humans have always sought excitement in novelty and elements of danger. It doesn’t negate any sense of gravity or purpose — if anything it offsets the gravity that might otherwise be demotivating. Nor does there need to be any element of surprise — surprise can be overrated. In the second foray the mundane simply became more so with even the more dynamic elements feeling repetitive. Doing the same thing over and over again and getting the same result isn’t necessarily a negative when it come to justice because the repetition, when it’s well thought out, is iterative.
Reality hits
Finding myself back in a police cell gave me a short time to reflect. Though my jail time was short (much shorter than my previous detention) I had enough time to calibrate where I was in the great scheme of activism. In my previous essay I described my experience as crossing a rubicon. I am still of that opinion but I now see it as somewhere between the first and second tier. I’m still a novice but can now navigate the coastal waters of this vast sea.
A week or so ago I dreamt of being approached by two dogs, the kind that are trained by the IDF to rape and tear at Palestinians in Israeli torture camps. My instinct was to rationalise it as a dream, possibly morph them into something less sinister and certainly deny the idea that I could ever be faced with this situation in reality. Instead I froze the frame and woke up. This was a dream but it wasn’t a fiction.
I was in another cell this time but it wasn’t simply a re-run of my previous experience. This was no Tom and Jerry jape, it was a live cat and mouse chase where the mouse lives or becomes supper. This probably overstates my predicament but in truth we’re dealing with a state that is prepared to put a journalist on solitary confinement in a high security prison for telling the truth and will send him to his death without a second thought.
The police officers carrying out the arrests are probably looking at the protesters as foolish but well meaning citizens putting themselves in jeopardy for a lost cause. I also have no doubt that some see virtue in the protesters, maybe even admiration. The bottom line is that they see themselves doing a job with very little skin in the game. Those higher up don’t see it this way and it’s they who we need to heed, not the officers who follow orders.
As a Christian I would look to the cross. The notion is that we carry our cross. This wouldn’t be a burden such as an illness or misfortune. Rather it’s what Jesus likened to a yoke which we can share with him in a life of sacrifice and service. It’s one of those biblical themes that translate badly into Western culture but are instantly understood in the Levant.
In our case the hours spent in a police station cell hardly count as a cross. Rather it’s the threat of a loss of liberty that is the yoke. The charge held over us almost certainly would result in a fine and at worst a short sentence. Our hope is that the case against us evaporates and we might even be given the possibility of suing the police for false arrest.
The point here isn’t that I’ve made any great sacrifice but that the repetition (which I alluded to earlier) is where our activism is tested, not in repeated protest but in repeated risks. Subsequent risk taking is less enjoyable and less satisfying but more affirming. I suspect that repeat offenders (the veterans amongst us) do so not out of perverse satisfaction but out of compulsion because to stop would be to capitulate to the oppressors.
I’m writing this as a way of getting it out of my head and putting down in letters what I’ve already opined in conversation. I’m writing of an experience rather than writing from experience. This isn’t false modesty — hopefully it’s honesty. There is a level of trauma as you are arrested and processed. Being incarcerated isn’t a spectrum, it’s a simple fact and a real experience rather than a feeling.
Being questioned with the threat that anything you say is more likely to go against you than for you is daunting and being fingerprinted when you’ve not even been charged is a kind of abuse. Facing this truth is important. Committing to such a protest is serious even if the consequences are, in most cases, minimal.
To get back to the principle of learning: we’re not talking of anything like the sacrifice made by those who we are protesting for; but of inhabiting the same space if on the periphery. Holding a sign on the UK mainland isn’t in the same league as sailing into Gaza with baby formula but maybe we’re in the footnotes.
I’m also not downplaying other forms of protest because they are necessary especially when it comes to numbers. If you are in a march of 250,000 you are there and it would be a tragedy if 250,000 of you didn’t turn up.
I don’t know how much Sunday was playing on my mind 24 hours before, but I woke up on Saturday morning with darkness enveloping my consciousness as Al Shifa Hospital was being besieged by demons and MSF was withdrawing. So I wrote a poem which I read out following our small local demo that day. I called it The Sliver:
I filled my plate with choice meats and rich flavours
To satisfy my appetite and quieten my stomach
I spent a good hour picking at it, savouring each mouthful
My body took a day to digest the feast
This morning I took a tiny tablet
Took me seconds and a sip of water to process
And it tasted of nothing
Mostly paste with active ingredients only laboratory scales could weigh
The feast gave me heartburn
The pill might save my life
I spent 6 hours travelling to London
Talking eating, anticipating the march
Discussing current events and how Palestine should be free
I arrived invigorated and ready to go
The camaraderie was wonderful
The chants were our release
Hundreds of thousands were there in solidarity with Palestine
I ate nothing
The 6 hours back were exhausting
Thinking of when we would be home
The few hours there were all hope
I spent the night tossing and turning
A third of my day spent mostly unaware
Sleeping and dreaming
Not noticing the darkness except in wakeful moments
I woke to daylight
With thoughts cascading through my consciousness
The possibilities jostling for priority in my most lucid hour
The dark hours were long and thoughtful
Then catalogued and assigned at dawn
This genocide is dark and heavy
The cruelty is relentless and we feel weak and complicit
Numbers in a human race
It feels endless and hopeless
But the dawn will come
Not the cavalry
Not the Third Battalion
It’s the sliver of light that splits the bleak land from the heavy sky
Purest silver, thin as a needle reflecting an absent sun
In all the darkness this is the indomitable human spirit
The milligram of sumud that will save us
The quiet chant that reverberates throughout the world
The resolution of our nightmares
