I’ll try put something longer in the near future.
But on this one at the organising meeting preceding the march. We’d agreed that we would not have MPs speaking, but in the relatively limited time available we’d focus on giving students speaking time instead and demand that MPs go out and develop their education policies and present that to the public. Which is what was said on the day.
The key difference as far as I see it is in the power balance. MPs have access to resources and support that in this case, students, don’t have.

You’re raised some very good points here, and i’ll accept that these historical examples demonstrate how acting outside the law can at times prove to be beneficial. Nevertheless, i’ll add a few caveats to that – one of scale, one of non-violence, one of viable alternatives, and one of present context.

Firstly, scale. The anti-conscription protests are a great example of citizens being punished for practicing freedom of speech; similarly, the anti-Springbok activities (along with the more recent deliberate contravening of the Electoral Finance Act) are examples of constructive lawbreaking. I described such a caveat in my response to WPAdmin above, where I said:

“I support any measures that do not hurt others, that do not deny others the right to voice their own opinions, and that do not contravene the law. The last one is a bit tricky as obviously there are cases where a law may be enacted that contravenes the first two – such as the EFA.”

However, compare the context of these activities with the fee rise protest – institutionalised racism and oppression versus a $250 increase in student fees. Breaking the law to oppose racism isn’t the same thing as hurling fruit at a panel seeking to increase fees by a paltry amount – especially when students have democratic representation on said panel. The former CANNOT be used to justify the latter.

Secondly, non-violence. Egg and fruit throwing may seem harmless enough, but it could have actually hurt someone (for example Jamine Freemantle who was hit in the back of the head with a grapefruit). The examples you’ve listed above did not involve the use of physical force or intimidation by the protestors. As i’ve stated above, i’m not saying that violence should ALWAYS be discounted (Nelson Mandela and the ANC quite rightly argued this case against the apartheid government). I simply believe that tehre are ample other opportunities for protest methods in Western countries, as I stated above:

“Note that this does not mean that non-violence is always an option – Harry Turtledove wrote a counterfactual on just how powerless non-resistance would have been had the Nazis invaded India – rather, I merely wish to point out how non-violence is far more successful in progressive Western countries like New Zealand. Throwing fruit when multiple other avenues are open to you only makes you look bad.”

Although I suppose we should be grateful that it was fruit rather than stinkbombs as planned…

Thirdly, viable alternatives. This may simply be an exercise in counterfactualism, but could the anti-tour protests in 1981 have been waged without resorting to lawbreaking? Mass gatherings and protests such as the various ‘colour’ revolutions that brought down Eastern European communist governments in the late 80s / early 90s managed to do so without breaking the law.

And finally, current context. Some of the events you have listed (such as the government cracking down on anti-conscription protestors during World War One) would not happen today. The massive (and largely unopposed) anti-Iraq war protests in the early months of 2003 testify to this.

Also, Joel, you said the following:
“Just making a quick point, there’s that footage floating around of Richard Prebble getting egged in the late 80’s during Rogernomics. That is replayed again and again on a wide variety of shows often for amusement. I see very little critique of THAT act.”

Had I known about it I would have critiqued it as well. Now let me post this question to you: how do you reconcile your extollations of the virtues of freedom of speech with shouting down members of the university panel and throwing fruit at them (including student representatives taking the same side as you). In the same vein, how do you reconcile it with your refusal to let representatives of government speak on the topic of student debt during the march on parliament last April (http://www.salient.org.nz/features/protests-galore)?

Cheers, Matt.

Nearly all the well known protest movements in New Zealand history have used tactics that were considered illegal at the time. For example Te Whiti’s civil disobedience campaign at Parihaka was illegal and got him thrown in prison. During WWI a number of anti-war activists, including future Prime Minister Peter Fraser, were thrown in prison for opposing conscription.

I’m sure Bastion Point, on Auckland’s waterfront, would now be rich people’s mansions, rather than a Marae and park if Ngati Whatua and their allies had not illegally occupied it in the late 1970s. White South Africans watching their first ever live rugby broadcast in 1981 probably would not have realised the depth of opposition overseas to Apartheid if activists had not occupied the field in Hamilton. South African TV censors could hardly stop images of hundreds of people storming the field.

Also who could forget the images of Marx Jones’ plane flour bombing Eden Park. As the subtitles say at the end of the film ‘Patu’, many New Zealanders did prison time because of their stand against Apartheid in 1981.

Anyway I think you catch my drift. Political change, even in a seemingly democratic country like New Zealand, rarely comes from solely ‘legal’ avenues such as writing letters to politicians and meetings with MPs.

To get back to the original point, yes, it would have been better if all the students opposed to fee rises had united and made a reasoned constructive legal protest, and the university authorities had said to themselves well, goodness me, most of our students are unhappy with out decision,so democracy demands that we alter it. And so they did and everyone lived happily ever after. Why doesn’t life operate like that when large amounts of money are at stake?

You didn’t address my question: “Ask a bus driver or a cleaner or cheese factory worker or a linesman what happens when you try to legally organise for a better deal.” It is not a caricature of capitalism but an observation of it to note that the mass of producers are exploited and subject to increasing poverty and insecurity, and this situation is ultimately enforced by the armed forces of the state. Ask yourself why union officials don’t ever call the police when a job is unsafe or workers are locked out, or when a workplace is arbitarily shut down.

You may be the least bloodthirsty individual in New Zealand but that has little bearing on the system you support. John Key will still follow in Labour’s footsteps and dispatch more New Zealand soldiers to kill people in Afghanistan and the cops will still taser and shoot people and break low paid workers picketlines here at home. The flashy looking bits of capitalism come at a high price to the majority of the worlds people.

All Martin established is that economic growth has occurred in those years. His unwillingness to look at disparities within nations, which in many cases increased, means his approach will fundamentally never gel with any leftist analysis concerned with class structure.

Workers in NZ under capitalism right now will not get results by reading Foucault and writing letters to their local MPs. All the gains we’ve won have been fought for, and a lot of them have since been stripped back by the ruling class – the unrestricted right to strike, for example. The only really practical point you’ve offered is the need to organise mass-protests against fee-setting; unfortunately this was a last minute thing arranged by the Campaigns Officer at VUWSA, and we did what we could to make an impact. In future, more advance organising is a good idea.

I think i’ve provided a pretty well thought out interpretation of both dialectical materialism and economic determinism. I find it interesting that you accuse me of holding “simplistic schoolboy type views” about Marxism when your vitriolic caricatures of capitalism bear little or no scholarly depth. I’m a supporter of capitalism, yet I am neither bloodthirsty or dirt-ridden. Where does that fit into your image?

Anyway, this discussion is getting a little off topic, and i’ll admit that’s my fault. My original reason for posting here was simply to comment on the protest methods employed by Joel et al. at the fee rise meeting, and I stand by those comments.

Cheers, Matt.

Capitalism doesn’t ‘think’ – like any ideology it is simply an idea. It’s also not a homogenous entity – you would well know the vast array of different positions along the ideological spectrum to the right of socialism. Hence, to say that ‘Capitalism thinks its “equitable and just” for thousands of us to do some of its most essential work for $12.50 an hour’ is incorrect; rather, a portion of capitalist thinkers believe that $12.50 per hour is an appropriate minimum wage. Many others (myself among them) do not and advocate for an increase in the minimum wage to meet a basic living standard. Hence why I support Unite’s $15 minimum wage campaign.

Don:
“Marxism does not equal economic or any other kind of determinism, although that charge has often been laid by people hostile to revolutionary ideas. Marxism is dialectical materialism in the service of proletarian revolution.”

Dialectical materialism roughly equates to economic determinism, in outlook at least. The basic premise of dialectics in conjunction with materialism is the idea of inherent contradiction as the driver of social change. The thesis and the antithesis conflict and combine to result in a new synthesis. In materialist terms this equates to the control over the means of production – those who possess this control (the nobility and landed elite under feudalism, the bourgeois under capitalism) breed the conditions of their demise at the hands of those who do not possess this control. To Marx, the end goal of this process could only be socialism and communism, wherein the means of production are collectively owned. Hence, economic determinism – the end goal of history is predetermined, albeit via theory rather than a crystal ball. Hence also my opposition to Marx’s theory – whilst useful as a heuristic device, I simply cannot believe such a simplistic view of history as a whole.

Don:
“British rule was removed from India by violent struggle and the oppressed threw much harder stuff than eggs and oranges.”

Whilst there was indeed violent revolutionary activity against the British in India during the first half of the twentieth century (Tehrek e Reshmi Rumal, the Chittagong armory raid, the Kakori train robbery), the overwhelming majority of resitance DID take the form of peaceful non-compliance. One only needs to look at the numbers to see this fact; TENS of MILLIONS participated in Salt Satyagraha, for instance, whilst Jugantar had only a few dozen members. In fact, many violent revolutionaries (including the Jugantar party) actually went on to join Gandhi’s movent.

Note that this does not mean that non-violence is always an option – Harry Turtledove wrote a counterfactual on just how powerless non-resistance would have been had the Nazis invaded India – rather, I merely wish to point out how non-violence is far more successful in progressive Western countries like New Zealand. Throwing fruit when multiple other avenues are open to you only makes you look bad.

Cheers, Matt.