True resistance is a culture.

It is a collective retort to oppression.

Understanding the real nature of resistance, however, is not easy. No newsbyte could be thorough enough to explain why people, as a people, resist. Even if such an arduous task was possible, the news might not want to convey it, as it would directly clash with mainstream interpretations of violence and non-violent resistance. The Afghanistan story must remain committed to the same language: al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Lebanon must be represented in terms of a menacing Iran-backed Hizbullah. Palestine’s Hamas must be forever shown as a militant group sworn to the destruction of the Jewish state. Any attempt at offering an alternative reading is tantamount to sympathizing with terrorists and justifying violence.

The deliberate conflation and misuse of terminology has made it almost impossible to understand, and thus to actually resolve bloody conflicts.

Even those who purport to sympathize with resisting nations often contribute to the confusion. Activists from Western countries tend to follow an academic comprehension of what is happening in Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon, and Afghanistan. Thus certain ideas are perpetuated: suicide bombings bad, non-violent resistance good; Hamas rockets bad, slingshots good; armed resistance bad, vigils in front of Red Cross offices good. Many activists will quote Martin Luther King Jr., but not Malcolm X. They will infuse a selective understanding of Gandhi, but never of Guevara. This supposedly ‘strategic’ discourse has robbed many of what could be a precious understanding of resistance – as both concept and culture.

Between the reductionst mainstream understanding of resistance as violent and terrorist and the ‘alternative’ defacing of an inspiring and compelling cultural experience, resistance as a culture is lost. The two overriding definitions offer no more than narrow depictions. Both render those attempting to relay the viewpoint of the resisting culture as almost always on the defensive. Thus we repeatedly hear the same statements: no, we are not terrorists; no, we are not violent, we actually have a rich culture of non-violent resistance; no, Hamas is not affiliated with al-Qaeda; no, Hizbullah is not an Iranian agent. Ironically, Israeli writers, intellectuals and academicians own up to much less than their Palestinian counterparts, although the former tend to defend aggression and the latter defend, or at least try to explain their resistance to aggression. Also ironic is the fact that instead of seeking to understand why people resist, many wish to debate about how to suppress their resistance.

By resistance as a culture, I am referencing Edward Said’s elucidation of “culture (as) a way of fighting against extinction and obliteration.” When cultures resist, they don’t scheme and play politics. Nor do they sadistically brutalize. Their decisions as to whether to engage in armed struggle or to employ non-violent methods, whether to target civilians or not, whether to conspire with foreign elements or not are all purely strategic. They are hardly of direct relevance to the concept or resistance itself. Mixing between the two suggests is manipulative or plain ignorant.

If resistance is “the action of opposing something that you disapprove or disagree with”, then a culture of resistance is what occurs when an entire culture reaches this collective decision to oppose that disagreeable element – often a foreign occupation. The decision is not a calculated one. It is engendered through a long process in which self-awareness, self-assertion, tradition, collective experiences, symbols and many more factors interact in specific ways. This might be new to the wealth of that culture’s past experiences, but it is very much an internal process.

It’s almost like a chemical reaction, but even more complex since it isn’t always easy to separate its elements. Thus it is also not easy to fully comprehend, and, in the case of an invading army, it is not easily suppressed. This is how I tried to explain the first Palestinian uprising of 1987, which I lived in its entirely in Gaza:

“It’s not easy to isolate specific dates and events that spark popular revolutions. Genuine collective rebellion cannot be rationalized though a coherent line of logic that elapses time and space; its rather a culmination of experiences that unite the individual to the collective, their conscious and subconscious, their relationships with their immediate surroundings and with that which is not so immediate, all colliding and exploding into a fury that cannot be suppressed.” (My Father Was A Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story)

Foreign occupiers tend to fight popular resistance through several means. One includes a varied amount of violence aiming to disorient, destroy and rebuild a nation to any desired image (read Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine). Another strategy is to weaken the very components that give a culture its unique identity and inner strengths – and thus defuse the culture’s ability to resist. The former requires firepower, while the latter can be achieved through soft means of control. Many ‘third world’ nations that boast of their sovereignty and independence might in fact be very much occupied, but due to their fragmented and overpowered cultures – through globalization, for example – they are unable to comprehend the extent of their tragedy and dependency. Others, who might effectively be occupied, often possess a culture of resistance that makes it impossible for their occupiers to achieve any of their desired objectives.

In Gaza, Palestine, while the media speaks endlessly of rockets and Israeli security, and debates who is really responsible for holding Palestinians in the strip hostage, no heed is paid to the little children living in tents by the ruins of homes they lost in the latest Israeli onslaught. These kids participate in the same culture of resistance that Gaza has witnessed over the course of six decades. In their notebooks they draw fighters with guns, kids with slingshots, women with flags, as well as menacing Israeli tanks and warplanes, graves dotted with the word ‘martyr’, and destroyed homes. Throughout, the word ‘victory’ is persistently used.

When I was in Iraq, I witnessed a local version of these kids’ drawings. And while I have yet to see Afghani children’s scrapbooks, I can easily imagine their content too.

Ramzy Baroud is editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers and journals worldwide. His latest book is The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s Struggle (Pluto Press, London). His newbook is, “My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story” (Pluto Press, London).

On the 16th and 17th of June, the Telecomix Crypto Munitions Bureau will hold a free conference and workshops in computer security, crypto anarchy and how to avoid surveillance and blocking on the internet.

Teheran, Gaza, China and Burma are recent examples of places where the internet has been under strict surveillance by governments, as it was used as integral parts of resistance practices.

From the Telecomix News Bureau Interfax:

As you may have become aware, computer networks, and the internet in particular, are under surveillance by both states and corporations. From east to west and north to south, the internets is a harsh environment. This is especially true for bloggers, dissidents and pirates.

With the aid of cryptography and security in mind however, this can be avoided. Varying between the very simple to the extraordinarily complex measures to conceal communications, users can render their internet footprints almost invisible.

The conference is free for everyone, and during the second day, the workshops will give instructions and training on how to use the encryption softwares. Bring your laptops! The event is held at IT-university at the Hisingen Island in Gothenburg. See the schedule here.

See you there!

The drama of the Freedom Flotilla vs. Israeli Occupation Forces will continue. Follow the drama on the websites that gives updates by the hour.

http://shiptogazase.blogspot.com/

http://www.shiptogaza.se/

http://www.shiptogaza.gr/Other-Languages/English

http://witnessgaza.com/

http://eddamanga.blogg.se/index.html

http://savegaza.eu/eng/

http://shiptogazasweden.wordpress.com/

http://www.gazaboatconvoy.co.uk/index.html

http://www.ihh.org.tr/13572/en/

http://www.ihh.org.tr/filistin/en/

http://shiptogazamalmo.wordpress.com/

Det är väldigt lätt att romantisera motståndsrörelser. Vi ser framför oss människor med fanor och knutna nävar som tillsammans kämpar för rättvisa, jämställdhet, en annan värld! Vi vill så gärna tro att all förändring måste vara en bra förändring. Men vad händer om den här ”nya världen” innebär förtryck, inskränkthet och att stänga ute människor? Om målet med rörelsen är att ” bekämpa mångkulturen och att ” alla icke-assimilerbara flyktingar ska skickas hem”[1]. Därför ville jag ta reda på mer om den grupp som kallar sig den Svenska motståndsrörelsen.

Historia

Svenska Motståndsrörelsen (SMR) bildades i mitten av 1990-talet av Klas Lund, tidigare en av grundarna till VAM, Vitt Ariskt Motstånd. Lund är flerfaldigt dömd för flera grova brott, bland annat rån och dråp.[2] Magnus Söderman och Per Öberg är andra högt framstående i Motståndsrörelsens ledning.[3]

SMR bekänner sig själva till den nationalsocialistiska världsåskådningen. De beskriver sin rörelse med de här orden:

”Motståndsrörelsen kämpar för att skapa ett fritt och enat Norden. Vi kämpar för att skapa en nordisk nationalsocialistisk republik bestående av de nordiska länderna Sverige, Finland, Norge, Danmark, Island och eventuellt även de baltiska länderna.”[4]

2003 slog sig den Svenska motståndsrörelsen sig ihop med den norska motsvarigheten Den Norske motstandsbevegelsen. Rörelsen blev nu ännu mer militant i sin framtoning. [5]

År 2006 lades Svenska motståndsrörelsens ungdomsgren Nationell Ungdom ner, detta till mestadels på grund av för lite folk i rörelsen.[6]

Mål

SMR är tveklöst nazistiska i de mål de har i sin rörelse. Mångkulturen ska bekämpas, svenska folket ska skyddas ”från övergrepp av främmande ligor” och SMR ska hindra exploatering av folk och land. I SMR:s webbshop kan man köpa böcker som Ras – den avgörande frågan och Sionismen – det dolda fötrycket.[7]

Deras arbete ska också i framtiden leda till att en nationell regering etableras[8], de tror alltså på ett partipolitiskt styre men sätter inte så mycket till övers för dagens demokrati därför väntar de med att ställa upp i val. [9]

Aktioner

SMR arbetar mycket med propagandaspridning, att genom flygblad och demonstrationer få ut rörelsens syn på politik, orättvisor och samhället i stort[10]. I augusti 2009 hade SMR en uppmärksammad kampanj där de hängde ut pedofiler med fullständiga personuppgifter för att ”informera för föräldrar i närområdet”.[11]

Medlemmar

Vilka människor söker sig då till den här rörelsen? Och vilka människor söker rörelsen?

”Alla människor av ariskt europeiskt ursprung, dvs. de som kan bedömas vara medlemmar av den vita rasen, är välkomna som medlemmar, så länge de inte verkar för främmande (utomnordiska) intressen eller ideal.”

Det finns två olika grupper av medlemmar i SMR, aktivister och stödmedlemmar. För att få vara med som aktivist måste du betala en avgift på 10 % av din inkomst till rörelsen, men många gånger betalar medlemmarna mer än så. För att vara stödmedlem betalar du 300 kronor eller 500 kronor om året beroende på om du är studerande eller arbetslös alternativt har ett jobb. [12]

Avslutning

Visst är Svenska motståndsrörelsen just en motståndsrörelse. De sätter sig nästan emot allt som finns i det samhälle de lever i. Hela samhället bygger på ett system de är emot och överallt finns fienden. De har också en väldigt klar bild över hur de vill att deras samhälle ska vara och de vet att deras kamp dit måste bli kompromisslös och radikal.

Som att lägga lappar med nazistiskt budskap i folks brevlådor till exempel…

[2]Mölndals-Posten 2010-02-03 page: 8

[3] http://www.tv8play.se/play/21816

[4] http://www.patriot.nu/artikel.asp?artikelID=1401 (2010-03-15)

[5] http://www.expo.se/research_smr.html & http://207.226.250.242/index.asp (2010-03-16)

[6] http://www.expo.se/research_smr.html (2010-03-15)

[7] http://www.kampboden.se/index.html (2010-03-17)

[8] http://www.patriot.nu/punkter.asp (2010-03-22)

[9] http://www.patriot.nu/visa_ett_fragsvar.asp?fragID=6 (2010-03-22

[10] www.patriot.nu (2010-03-22)

[11] http://www.svd.se/nyheter/inrikes/mikael-skillt-svenska-motstandsrorelsen-fler-pedofiler-ska-hangas-ut_3549355.svd

[12] http://www.patriot.nu/motstandsrorelsen.asp (2010-04-05)

We are glad to present articles that demonstrate the multifaceted area of resistance studies. Mike Mowbray discusses the online presentation and discussion of 2008 Greek riots as virtual spaces of opposition to mainstream account. James M. Statman looks at the psycho-political meaning of the sacrificial burning of a car in a South African township with regard to rebellion and reconciliation. E. Colin Ruggero provides a critique of widely read Leftist discourse followed by a Gramscian perspective of social change. Jeffrey Schantz provides new perspectives on social movements, highlighting affinity-based organizing, self-valorization, as discussed in autonomist Marxism and do-it-yourself politics. In this issue we are glad to share a book review of Douglas R. Egerton’s Death or Liberty: African Americans and Revolutionary America submitted by Ed Kinane.

Read it and share it with everyone!

/The editorial team

John Zerzan, lecture and discussion on the theme
Globalization and resistance – an anarcho-primitivist perspective.

John Zerzan (born 1943) is an American  anarchist  and primitivist philosopher and author. His works criticize agricultural civilization as inherently oppressive, and advocate drawing upon the ways of life of prehistoric humans as an inspiration for what a free society should look like. Some of his criticism has extended as far as challenging domestication, language, symbolic thought (such as mathematics  and art) and the concept of time. His five major books are Elements of Refusal  (1988), Future Primitive and Other Essays (1994), Running on Emptiness (2002), Against Civilization: Readings and Reflections (2005) and Twilight of the Machines (2008). A collection of his most fundamental texts on the roots of civilization, “Origins” (2010), is currently being published by Black and Green Press and FC Press.

Zerzan’s theories draw on Theodor Adorno’s concept of negative dialectics to construct a theory of civilization as the cumulative construction of alienation. According to Zerzan, original human societies in paleolithic  times, and similar societies today such as the !Kung, Bushmen and Mbuti, live a non-alienated and non-oppressive form of life based on primitive abundance and closeness to nature. Constructing such societies as a kind of political ideal, or at least an instructive comparison against which to denounce contemporary (especially industrial) societies, Zerzan uses anthropological  studies from such societies as the basis for a wide-ranging critique of aspects of modern life. He portrays contemporary society as a world of misery built on the psychological production of a sense of scarcity and lack.  The history of civilisation is the history of renunciation; what stands against this is not progress but rather the Utopia which arises from its negation.

The real IRA uses bombs and arms to attack economic and strategic human targets in Britain and northern Ireland in order to disrupt the peace process. The RIRA view the PSNI (Police Service of Northern Ireland) as an integral section of the British Crown Forces and its war machine in Ireland.

On august 15 1998 a bomb detonated in the city center of the Northern Irish town of Omaha. 29 people were killed and 100-300 people were injured (reports vary). The devastating attack was probably a mistake, the target for the bombs was probably supposed to be the courthouse of Omaha targeted as a symbolic target. The courthouse is an economic, administrative, legal, and military center and an attack against it could be identified as an attack on the British presence and rule as a whole.
(http://pdfserve.informaworld.com.ezproxy.ub.gu.se/273597_731377804_713854549.pdf p.9)

The Attack in Omaha resulted in a big loss of popular support for the RIRA. The bomb was widely condemned and caused hostility from Sinn Fein leaders Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams.

RIRA has also been behind several other attacks including the car bombing of BBC Television Center in west London in June 2001 and the shooting of two soldiers at
Massereene army base in 2009. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/7934742.stm )

In 2003 Damien Okado-Gough, a reporter for the Derry-based Channel 9 TV news wrote 16 questions for the RIRA. The written reply was received in January 2003 and contains some answers about the RIRA, their goals and the methods of their struggle. Their ultimate objective is the re-establishment of the Republic and they are not interested in discussing the future and their military strategy because it would be self defeating for any guerilla to do so.

”We remain convinced that no just and final political settlement can be arrived at between the Irish people and the people of Britain and between the Nationalist and the Unionist communities until the British military and political presence is totally removed from the equation. It is also important to point out that the political package enshrined in the Belfast agreement had to be acceptable to and ratified by an external political power i.e. the British Government before it was even presented to the Irish people. We regard this as a blatant usurpation of the right of the Irish people to self-determination.”
(http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/othelem/organ/ira/rira280103.htm)

The RIRA belives that it is every Irish persons right to use arms against foreign invaders to claim their independence. The Provisional IRA has claimed that the RIRA have ‘little or no support bas” Their Answer to this question was ”No guerilla can exist without a support base – ours is considerable, certainly sufficient, principled and politically aware. The disillusionment felt in relation to the present political path of the Provisional leadership is clearly evident in the sharp decline in those registering to vote in certain constituencies” They also say that they belive the provisionals ”have gone from revolutionary Republicanism to constitutionalism Nationalism and will eventually take their seats in Westminster.”
(http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/othelem/organ/ira/rira280103.htm)

Henry David Thoreau defies “civil disobedience” as “a group’s refusal to obey a law because they believe the law is immoral (as in protest against discrimination)”. It’s actually a part of his famous essay “Civil Disobedience (Resistance to Civil Government)” first published in 1849. This definition is one of the earliest and it is used by the Princeton University Wordnet dictionary. (http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=civil%20disobedience)

On Wikipedia.org states: “Civil disobedience is the active refusal to obey certain laws, demands and commands of a government, or of an occupying power, without resorting to physical violence. It is one of the primary tactics of nonviolent resistance.” It fails to state the reference. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_disobedience)

On the net you come across several definitions, for example: United Fork Workers Union, the farm worker movement in USA, states that civil disobedience is “The decision to break specific laws because they are unjust.” It’s also said on the page that “this tactic of nonviolence was used by the civil rights and farmworker movements to bring about social change.” (http://www.farmworkermovement.org/essays/glossary.shtml)

Bioscience-Bioethics Friendship Co-operative belonging to the Maquarie University in Sydney use the UNESCO/IUBS/EUBIOS Bioethics Dictionary definition that refers to civil disobedience as “An individual or community action which, although is in violation of the law, acts as an expression of personal or ideological values and a democratic plea for legal change. Examples include ‘Reclaim the Streets’ for pedestrians and the ‘Mardi Grass’ for advocates of pot decriminalization. (See Critical mass, Reclaim mass, Reclaim the streets, Mardi Grass, Activism, Nonviolent direct action) (MP)” (http://www.bioscience-bioethics.org/c.htm)

Fasttrackteaching.com writes: “the deliberate breaking of a law in order to draw public attention and debate to a cause or issue. Civil rights activists working with Rev. Martin Luther King often used this approach to challenge segregation. King defended such actions as justified, provided that those challenging the law do so “lovingly” and with a willingness to accept the penalty. Critics, however, said that using the tactic tended to weaken the basic principle that citizens have a duty to obey laws until they can be changed through legal processes.” (http://www.fasttrackteaching.com/termsmodern.html)

To summon it up we can say that civil disobedience is distinguished by a non-violent resistance to unfair laws, a sort of rebellion or protest to an unjust governmental rule. One do not have to physically fight governmental rule as many may suppose but can simply refuse or fail to support it. An unsupported government lacking the very thing that keeps it alive, legitimacy, will soon fall apart. Spokesmen of civil disobedience can be exemplified by persons like Mahatma Gandhi in British India, Nelson Mandela in South Africa, Martin Luther King in the USA and Lech Wa??sa in Poland.

References:

Literature:

Eriksson, Leif; Hettne, Björn (red.) 2001 ”Makt och internationella relationer” Lund, Studentlitteratur

Karlsson, Svante 4:e uppl. 2008 “Freds- och konflikthantering” Holmbergs Malmö AB, Studentlitteratur

Internet:

Princeton University, Wordnet Dictionary http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=civil%20disobedience

Wikipedia.org http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_disobedience

United Farm Worker Union http://www.farmworkermovement.org/essays/glossary.shtml

Maquarie University, UNESCO/IUBS/EUBIOS Bioethics Dictionary http://www.bioscience-bioethics.org/c.htm

Fasttrackteaching.com http://www.fasttrackteaching.com/termsmodern.html

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army, shortening FARC or FARC-EP, is a guerilla organization formed 1964 as an opposition to imperialist rule in Colombia (including US influence), that pursue Marxist-Leninist ideology and the rule of the marginalized. As it formed in 1964 in the aftermath of struggles known as La Violencia it was a military wing of the Colombian Communist Party. The organization is highly involved in the ongoing Colombian armed conflict being one of the largest, counting from an estimated 11 000 members to 18 000 members depending on the source, and one of the oldest insurgency groups in the Americas. The struggle between FARC-EP and the Colombian government has now been going on for 46-years and although the leaders of both the government and the guerilla organization has changed over the years, the conflict between them stays put, as do their ideological differences. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FARC)

The FARC-EP was founded by late Jacobo Arenas and his fellow companion Manuel Marulanda (aka Tirofijo) and is governed by a secretariat that was supposedly led by Manuel Marulanda himself to his death in march 2008, today overtaken by ‘Alfonso Cano’ and six others including senior military commander Jorge Briceno (aka Mono Jojoy). (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/farc.htm) The FARC-EP is organized according to military standards having several urban fronts around the country and is known to have sent fighters for military training to Vietnam and the Soviet Union in the 1980’s and had IRA members come to train their fighters between 1998 and 2001. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FARC)

After the murder of populist president Jorge Eliécer Gaitán in 1948 the struggle between supporters of the Colombian Liberal Party and the Colombian Conservative Party escalated into civil war known as La Violencia, lasting a decade. The power in Colombia was seized by a military government 1953 led by General Gustavo Rojas. In an attempt to demobilize former fighters the new government offered former insurgency groups amnesty in exchange, a strategy that didn’t appeal to some radical liberal and communist guerilla groups, resulting in refusal. These groups retreated instead to more isolated areas of the country where they organized their own communities and continued to operate. Suffering attacks the Colombian Communist Party choose to send Jacobo Arenas as a political activist to help organize existing self-defense amongst the guerillas and assist the organization of guerilla units into a rural enclave. Civilian rule in Colombia was restored in 1958 as the former government and moderate Conservatives and Liberals joined in a coalition called the National Front. By 1970 a new president, Misael Pastrana, was elected. At this time armed self-defense groups and communist had organized their own local governments in remote parts of the country. With growing influence they were considered a threat to the rule of the government and the Colombian National Army was ordered to take full control of the concerned areas. The communist answered by reorganizing as “the Southern Bloc”, rename itself “Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia” (FARC) in 1964 and selecting Jacobo Arenas and Manuel Marulanda as their top leaders. By 1982 and the increased income from the “coca boom”, the guerilla expanded into a irregular army and went from moving close to rural areas to middle-sized cities and added the initials “EP”, for “Ejército del Pueblo” or “People’s Army”, to the organization’s name. In May 1984 the organization presented its aims to take over the rule in Colombia by the 1990’s. Same year a cease-fire was signed with the government of Belisario Betancourt (“Cease-Fire, Truce, and Peace Agreements”, also known as the “La Uribe Agreements”). Peace negotiations however failed due to battles between right- and left-wing extremist. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Armed_Forces_of_Colombia)

In 1984 the FARC-EP decided to organize in a political wing, called the Patriotic Union. Disagreements though between civilian’s movement members in the Patriotic Union and the FARC-EP members resulted in an inability to act and the disappearance of 2000 to 4000 of its members. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Armed_Forces_of_Colombia)

Peace negotiations held between 1990 and 1998 led to the demobilization of some of the guerilla groups in Colombia, although not the FARC-EP. The organization suffered an army led attack in the end of the 1990’s despite ongoing peace negotiations with the government, claimed to be motivated by the organizations lack of engagement in the peace process. War continued and the peace talks were to be abandoned in 1993 due to lack of agreement. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Armed_Forces_of_Colombia)

A new attempt on peace settlement was brought 1999 by the election of Andrés Pastrana, son of 1970’s former president Misael Pastrana. The president granted a safe haven to the guerilla as this was one of the FARC-EPs demands for continued peace talks. But yet again the peace talks were to end, this time due to suspicion of criminal activities committed under the security of the safe haven. FARC-EP was said to be responsible for terrorist actions including hijacking a plane, making bombs and kidnapping political figures. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Armed_Forces_of_Colombia)

Since 2004 when Álvaro Uribe took office and launched a vicious counterstrike against the guerilla, FARC-EP suffered massive loss of members not only due to the fighting but also through capture and desertion of members. Uribe has a personal attachment to the conflict caused by his father being killed by the guerilla in 1983 during an attempted kidnapping. The FARC-EP has also launched a large scale mortar attack on the Presidential Palace 2002 while Uribe was being initiated. All peace talks have now been abandoned. (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/farc.htm)

The FARC-EP funds itself mostly through kidnapping of political as civilian persons and taxation of illegal drug trade. It’s estimated to hold 40 percent of the Colombian territory. The organization is a violent non-state actor classified by many countries as a terrorist group, among them the Colombian government, the United States Department of State, the Canadian government as the European Union. Countries less hostile towards the FARC-EP include the Venezuelan government, as the Bolivian and the Ecuadorian governments. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FARC) The Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has for example acted as an intermediary in a “humanitarian exchange” of FARC-held hostages for FARC prisoners in Colombian jails in 2007. (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/farc.htm)

FARC-EP has as for now no homepage after their last one, active to august 2009, become disabled by the German – Swiss host. (http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/5524-farc-website-taken-off-air.html) Being identified as a terror group by the European Union and other western and pro- western countries makes an official websites hard to realize. It’s therefore more than obvious that contact information is a laughter-provoking impossibility.

Due to the ideological nature of the conflict one have to bear in mind that all the references presented above are highly questionable as to who did what to whom and if so, why. All acts are interpreted differently depending on the interpreter; this of course excludes the existence of facts.

Greenpeace was founded in 1971 in Canada under the name “Don’t Start a Wave Committee”. They started by protesting against an underwater nuclear testing outside Alaska but soon expanded their goals. They changed the name to “Greenpeace” since it represented their new goals in a better way.Greenpeace is an open organization that welcomes anyone and encourages in different ways how we all can participate. They believe that if we all participate in a small way it will result in a great change. This is an organization that uses demonstrations to start debates and raise awareness in the society. Greenpeace are depending on volunteers for their actions.

In June 2008 a Swedish fishing vessel vere prevented departure by Greenpeace activists. They claimed that this vessel was fishing illegally in West Sahara. Greenpeace had activists in rib-boats and blocked the pier. This action led to an investigation under Swedish law[1]. Another action led by Greenpeace took place in March when activists lit up one of the Swedish nuclear power stations (Ringhals) with the text “Unnecessary, Expensive and Unsafe”[2]. The aim with this action was that Sweden should shut down our nuclear power stations for once. This is a goal that Greenpeace are fighting for and this is a good example of their non-violent actions. Another good example of what Greenpeace stands for is their action in The Cattegat where they placed tons of stones that would make it impossible for fishermen to fish[3]. There are since 2002 forbidden by law to fish in this area and Greenpeace showed that they were doing this to make it impossible for illegal fishing to occur.  All of these actions have been observed by media which is a good opportunity for Greenpeace to start a debate.

On their website they have made their own games which are a funny and clever way of making an interaction with the visitor. One of the games is based on whaling where the player is the activist who prevents the whaler to shoot by going in front of the whaling boat. This is a good way of showing perhaps future activists what Greenpeace stands for.

Anna Gustafsson

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/fungames

[2] http://hallandsposten.se/nyheter/halland/1.761408-greenpeace-lyste-upp-ringhals

[3] http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article5627114.ab