Stephen Milder (#2: The Role of Civil Society)

(LMU Munich)

One problem we face today is a sense of resignation. We struggle to figure out where to even begin when so many things we care about are under threat at once.   My research on social movements offers some ideas of how we can overcome that resignation. One poignant message that I found in the archives came in a letter written by the West German anti-nuclear activist Freia Hoffmann.

In the 1970s, Hoffmann helped organize protests against the nuclear reactor planned for the village of Wyhl in southwestern Germany. Those protests were highly successful because they brought together a broad coalition of people. 

That coalition started with local vintners who were worried about how the steam released by the reactor’s cooling towers would damage their grapes. But it grew to include physics students concerned about the dangers of radiation. It grew further to include Alsatians, who linked the Wyhl reactor with other reactor projects on the French side of the Rhine.

This broad coalition, in which people had to try and understand others’ concerns and make common cause—which could be very challenging—enabled its members to create mass protests, to engage in nonviolent civil disobedience, and even to carry out a nine-month construction site occupation that became a sort of founding myth of West Germany’s environmental movement.

Amid these protests, Freia Hoffmann wrote a letter about resignation.  A month into the occupation of the reactor construction site, she argued that what was happening at Wyhl showed that “we are not powerless when there are many of us, and when we act together.”  

And yet, she was aware that in many other places, “the example of Wyhl” had actually led to resignation.  She knew that people elsewhere were thinking, “oh yes, those people [at Wyhl] are especially brave; what they’re doing would not be possible for us.”

I found Hoffmann’s message about resignation moving because of what she wrote next: What those people feeling a sense of resignation didn’t realize, she explained, is that “even here at Wyhl, just a few people started on their own.  It took arduous efforts at persuasion to explain the dangers of nuclear power plants; detail work was carried out patiently:  flyers were distributed, signatures were gathered, etc.”

That message is important because it reminds us:

 1) how important intensely local, grassroots organizing is.  How important individual conversations, and concerted efforts to share ideas and to find common ground are;  

2)  that we need to understand how people are affected differently by the attacks we’re experiencing now and find ways of building solidarity, making common cause, and working together;

3)  that “the cavalry are not coming” as I read on a sign at the protest in NYC on Saturday; and by that I mean that our penchant to seek recognizable leaders, well organized hierarchies, and clearly articulated programs can cause us to overlook the real action that forms the basis for change – and so to discount the grassroots work that Hoffmann knew was so important;

To conclude, I wanted to turn from Hoffmann to another participant in the Wyhl protest, Solange Fernex; Fernex saw the protest as part of what she called a multi-strategy; at the same time as she was helping to occupy a construction site in Germany, Fernex was also campaigning for a seat in the French National Assembly.  Her multi-strategy meant acting inside and outside of parliament, combining direct action protests and petition drives; participating in licensing hearings and initiating legal challenges.

Fernex’s multi-strategy is yet another reminder that we need to find ways to work collectively and build community, and also need to be open to many forms of engagement and resistance.  There is a lot to be done, and we’re not going to accomplish all of it today or tomorrow, but by starting where we are, doing what we can, and working together we can overcome our sense of resignation and begin making a difference.

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