R.A.F. UnFair-ford
The activities of the Oxford Students' Stop the War movement aren't exactly uncontroversial. Seldom a week goes by without a spate of arrests at R.A.F. Fairford, but the Owen English case cannot be passed off as a light-hearted antic; its ramifications cast a dark shadow over the role of the police in managing the indefatigable student activists.
The facts speak for themselves. English is the only student arrested for supposedly pulling down an eight-foot fence, a crime for which he faces a daunting sentence of up to ten years. Whether the fence was damaged at this or any other time is not in dispute. But he was certainly not the sole person responsible for the crime. Self-evidently the police are wary of anti-war protesters and the disruption they wreak. However, to scape-goat one student to set an example to the others of the fate that may befall them should they continue fighting for a cause they believe in is simply unfair. The damage has been done; but the charges are frankly implausible.
Yet as we await the merits of the case to be battled out in court, and wish the St Catz student every success in refuting unsubstantiated charges, his story sheds light on a greater problem inherent in the stop the war movement: the lack of consensus on direct action.
Direct action is thorny territory. OSSTW ostensibly support 'non-violent' direct action; methods are discussed at their general meetings and workshops about non-violent direct action, co-ordinated by members of People and Planet, are offered to would-be protesters.
OSSTW, as a loose and non-hierarchical organisation, lacks a clear and unambiguous stance on the question of direct action. Meetings are emphatically run by consensus, but individuals are essentially prone to act in a manner they see fit, and claim their actions to have been in the name of the general stop the war movement, which extends its solidarity to all anti-war protesters. While a radical wing of OSSTW would consider the idea of smashing a fence to be perfectly justifiable, many others within the group as well as outside do not whole-heartedly countenance such activities.
In order be an effective anti-war lobby, the disparate elements --town and gown, Liberals and Communists--have to overcome often legion political divides, and antagonistic views on methods of protest.
If the Students' Stop the War group continues without a coherent line on 'direct action', its members will continue to act ostensibly in the name of the movement, yet with means of action that undermine its credibility, and do not represent the views of many of its members. Lobbying against government policy will always be a divisive course, especially on such an emotive issue as war, but unless the idea of a line on direct action is openly debated by anti-war groups, Owen's case may not remain an isolated instance of wrongful discrimination.
8th May 2003