vrijdag vibes
After the Storm -- Making Sense of the Weather Underground
October 2, 2003
By Naomi Jaffe
The recent Weather Underground documentary has been an occasion for the corporate media to try to rewrite the history of the 60’s and 70’s, to trivialize, ridicule and demonize not only those movements back then, but even more, the movements of today. The energy they put into doing that is evidence that people’s resistance is a real threat to an unjust system.
We didn’t set out to make a movie; we set out to make a revolution. Some of us are still trying to make a revolution. The horrors that impelled us to go underground - brutal war against other countries and ruthless repression at home - are even worse today than they were then.
An old bumper sticker says if you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention. Today, if you’re not grief-stricken, you’re not paying attention. If you’re not terrified, you’re not paying attention. But I also think if we’re not hopeful, we’re not paying close enough attention.
To me, the interesting question in relation to the Weather Underground is, what is useful to building an anti-racist peace and justice movement today, from the experience of the radical movements of the 1960’s and 70’s?
There are some lessons, positive and negative, from the experience of the Weather Underground that I think may be relevant. The first is the optimism that comes from seeing the strength and the potential for victory of people’s resistance movements. We were really lucky to live through a tremendous upsurge of people’s power. It was clear that people’s resistance has not stopped for the past 500 years, and certainly isn’t going to stop now. Someday it is going to win.
Even now, in this grim moment, there continue to be important victories. This year, the people of Puerto Rico threw the Navy out of Vieques! And tens of millions of people all over the world poured out into the streets against the Iraq war last February.
A second relevant lesson is that the foundation of the strength of people’s movements is opposition to every kind of oppression. Racism and white supremacy are central. The 60’s and 70’s were a time when a lot of people saw white supremacy as the way oppression and exploitation are organized globally, and saw people of color leading the struggle against injustice. Our Weather Underground statements took a strong and clear stand on white supremacy and the leadership of people of color. Our practice was something else altogether. We had an all-white organization with vanguard aspirations and no accountability to people of color. I think this was one of our most serious mistakes.
Some of the questions asked us by young activists in the wake of the movie: How can white activists be accountable to people of color? Is Marxism-Leninism still relevant to building a global justice movement? What do we learn about violence and nonviolence from the 60’s and 70’s? How can we build a movement that can successfully challenge the global power of capitalism, imperialism and racism?
The answer to the last question is, when I find out, I’ll let you know, and you do the same for me. If we knew how to overthrow the system, we’d all be in a very different place today. But some lessons, positive and negative, might be helpful.
The simplest answer to the question of accountability is, if you are a white person, talk with people of color and hear what they say. There is no substitute for actual human contact. Desegregate one’s life; don’t tokenize; put oneself in situations of mutual respect; don’t intervene; find places to be in the minority. Support the separate organizing of people of color where it exists; this is not in contradiction to working in multi-racial contexts where white people are not dominant.
Marxism-Leninism was useful in some ways and an obstacle in other ways. The most important way that it was an obstacle was that our interpretation of a Leninist Democratic Centralist party structure ended up in practice as all centralism and no democracy. In this respect, today’s movements are way ahead. I think it was useful in three ways: it led us to serious study; it helped us be disciplined and focused revolutionaries; and it strengthened our understanding of the leading role of the oppressed nations and people of the world.
This may sound like a contradiction because Marx and Lenin were both European men. But Lenin wrote powerfully about imperialism; and my generation was profoundly influenced by Marxist-Leninist writers of color - Mao, C.L.R. James, W.E.B. DuBois, Ho Chi Minh, Che and others. Yes, women are missing from the list - this was a critical failing of Marxist-Leninist theory and practice, of the Weather Underground, and of other revolutionary organizations of that period. Feminists, including lesbians and women of color, did a lot in the 70’s and 80’s to challenge that failing.
As for the question of violence and non-violence, let’s look at it from two perspectives, moral and tactical. On a moral level, the violence of the U.S. government, military and economy - in particular its targeting of people of color in the U.S. and globally - are the defining and overwhelming violence in the world. Activists of color often point out that the luxury to decide between violence and nonviolence is not present in their communities - only the choice between resisting genocidal violence and being buried by it. In the face of that, no way am I sorry for the damage the Weather Underground did to a few imperialist buildings, while being careful not to injure people. Risking people’s lives is another matter, which I would approach with much greater caution and humility than I personally did in the past.
I still feel challenged, as a white person in a world in which white people are inflicting daily death and violence on people of color, to consider a full range of responses in trying to stem the genocide. But I would want to weigh every act on the scale of the deep compassion and humanity that will be necessary to rebuild our world in a better way.
From a practical and tactical point of view, I feel strongly obligated to say to today’s younger activists that the conditions under which movements operate today are very different than they were in the 60’s and ‘70’s. Many of the militant tactics used in that period are impossible today. It would be suicidal in 2003 to try to bomb the imperialist symbols we targeted in the 70’s. New, imaginative and creative tactics are called for, and are in fact being devised all the time, including courageous nonviolent ones.
It’s not helpful to pretend that the level of repression and surveillance isn’t limiting. But we must not forget that resistance movements have survived and been effective under the most ghastly repression, including slavery, extermination camps, prisons and military conquest. We still have a lot of room to move, and we are called upon to use it, to take some risks and to sacrifice some privilege.
Given the potential power of people’s struggles, and how badly racism and other oppressions can undermine them, the only way to figure it out and get it right is the day to day practice of organizing, movement building, protesting and resisting. I am deeply sorry that my generation didn’t leave more of a path for the next one. We all now have to make the path as we go, and so inevitably we will make mistakes. The enemy is ruthless; we will pay a high price for our mistakes, as some already have.
Those who don’t want change will tell you it’s a ridiculous joke to think you can overthrow the most powerful forces in the world. But some of the people who have made the greatest sacrifices say that the chance to play a part in building a better world is worth it. When you hear political prisoners say this, including two in the movie, Laura Whitehorn who did fifteen years and David Gilbert, who is doing a life bid at Attica, you get a sense of how much courage, strength, and inspiration can come from being part of a people’s movement for justice. Another world is still possible; we were lucky enough to glimpse it, and I still believe that there’s nothing more worthwhile than living your life for it.
October 2, 2003
By Naomi Jaffe
The recent Weather Underground documentary has been an occasion for the corporate media to try to rewrite the history of the 60’s and 70’s, to trivialize, ridicule and demonize not only those movements back then, but even more, the movements of today. The energy they put into doing that is evidence that people’s resistance is a real threat to an unjust system.
We didn’t set out to make a movie; we set out to make a revolution. Some of us are still trying to make a revolution. The horrors that impelled us to go underground - brutal war against other countries and ruthless repression at home - are even worse today than they were then.
An old bumper sticker says if you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention. Today, if you’re not grief-stricken, you’re not paying attention. If you’re not terrified, you’re not paying attention. But I also think if we’re not hopeful, we’re not paying close enough attention.
To me, the interesting question in relation to the Weather Underground is, what is useful to building an anti-racist peace and justice movement today, from the experience of the radical movements of the 1960’s and 70’s?
There are some lessons, positive and negative, from the experience of the Weather Underground that I think may be relevant. The first is the optimism that comes from seeing the strength and the potential for victory of people’s resistance movements. We were really lucky to live through a tremendous upsurge of people’s power. It was clear that people’s resistance has not stopped for the past 500 years, and certainly isn’t going to stop now. Someday it is going to win.
Even now, in this grim moment, there continue to be important victories. This year, the people of Puerto Rico threw the Navy out of Vieques! And tens of millions of people all over the world poured out into the streets against the Iraq war last February.
A second relevant lesson is that the foundation of the strength of people’s movements is opposition to every kind of oppression. Racism and white supremacy are central. The 60’s and 70’s were a time when a lot of people saw white supremacy as the way oppression and exploitation are organized globally, and saw people of color leading the struggle against injustice. Our Weather Underground statements took a strong and clear stand on white supremacy and the leadership of people of color. Our practice was something else altogether. We had an all-white organization with vanguard aspirations and no accountability to people of color. I think this was one of our most serious mistakes.
Some of the questions asked us by young activists in the wake of the movie: How can white activists be accountable to people of color? Is Marxism-Leninism still relevant to building a global justice movement? What do we learn about violence and nonviolence from the 60’s and 70’s? How can we build a movement that can successfully challenge the global power of capitalism, imperialism and racism?
The answer to the last question is, when I find out, I’ll let you know, and you do the same for me. If we knew how to overthrow the system, we’d all be in a very different place today. But some lessons, positive and negative, might be helpful.
The simplest answer to the question of accountability is, if you are a white person, talk with people of color and hear what they say. There is no substitute for actual human contact. Desegregate one’s life; don’t tokenize; put oneself in situations of mutual respect; don’t intervene; find places to be in the minority. Support the separate organizing of people of color where it exists; this is not in contradiction to working in multi-racial contexts where white people are not dominant.
Marxism-Leninism was useful in some ways and an obstacle in other ways. The most important way that it was an obstacle was that our interpretation of a Leninist Democratic Centralist party structure ended up in practice as all centralism and no democracy. In this respect, today’s movements are way ahead. I think it was useful in three ways: it led us to serious study; it helped us be disciplined and focused revolutionaries; and it strengthened our understanding of the leading role of the oppressed nations and people of the world.
This may sound like a contradiction because Marx and Lenin were both European men. But Lenin wrote powerfully about imperialism; and my generation was profoundly influenced by Marxist-Leninist writers of color - Mao, C.L.R. James, W.E.B. DuBois, Ho Chi Minh, Che and others. Yes, women are missing from the list - this was a critical failing of Marxist-Leninist theory and practice, of the Weather Underground, and of other revolutionary organizations of that period. Feminists, including lesbians and women of color, did a lot in the 70’s and 80’s to challenge that failing.
As for the question of violence and non-violence, let’s look at it from two perspectives, moral and tactical. On a moral level, the violence of the U.S. government, military and economy - in particular its targeting of people of color in the U.S. and globally - are the defining and overwhelming violence in the world. Activists of color often point out that the luxury to decide between violence and nonviolence is not present in their communities - only the choice between resisting genocidal violence and being buried by it. In the face of that, no way am I sorry for the damage the Weather Underground did to a few imperialist buildings, while being careful not to injure people. Risking people’s lives is another matter, which I would approach with much greater caution and humility than I personally did in the past.
I still feel challenged, as a white person in a world in which white people are inflicting daily death and violence on people of color, to consider a full range of responses in trying to stem the genocide. But I would want to weigh every act on the scale of the deep compassion and humanity that will be necessary to rebuild our world in a better way.
From a practical and tactical point of view, I feel strongly obligated to say to today’s younger activists that the conditions under which movements operate today are very different than they were in the 60’s and ‘70’s. Many of the militant tactics used in that period are impossible today. It would be suicidal in 2003 to try to bomb the imperialist symbols we targeted in the 70’s. New, imaginative and creative tactics are called for, and are in fact being devised all the time, including courageous nonviolent ones.
It’s not helpful to pretend that the level of repression and surveillance isn’t limiting. But we must not forget that resistance movements have survived and been effective under the most ghastly repression, including slavery, extermination camps, prisons and military conquest. We still have a lot of room to move, and we are called upon to use it, to take some risks and to sacrifice some privilege.
Given the potential power of people’s struggles, and how badly racism and other oppressions can undermine them, the only way to figure it out and get it right is the day to day practice of organizing, movement building, protesting and resisting. I am deeply sorry that my generation didn’t leave more of a path for the next one. We all now have to make the path as we go, and so inevitably we will make mistakes. The enemy is ruthless; we will pay a high price for our mistakes, as some already have.
Those who don’t want change will tell you it’s a ridiculous joke to think you can overthrow the most powerful forces in the world. But some of the people who have made the greatest sacrifices say that the chance to play a part in building a better world is worth it. When you hear political prisoners say this, including two in the movie, Laura Whitehorn who did fifteen years and David Gilbert, who is doing a life bid at Attica, you get a sense of how much courage, strength, and inspiration can come from being part of a people’s movement for justice. Another world is still possible; we were lucky enough to glimpse it, and I still believe that there’s nothing more worthwhile than living your life for it.