> We are the electorate.
No, you're not, and that's the problem. If you, the marchers, were
coextensive with - or even substantially representative of - the
electorate, then you wouldn't need to march.
I didn't notice the March against Militarism (in about, ooh, 1992)
having any noticeable effect on Militarism, which has been waxing
mightily ever since. I suspect it was just another outing for the SWP
and anyone they hadn't utterly fallen out with yet. Show-politics.
I don't see how not joining in with something that could not have been
expected to have any effect at all on the thing it was meant to oppose
can be equated with condoning that thing. "Your refusal to join us in
throwing custard pies at the Israeli embassy amounts to your condoning
the actions of Jewish settlers in the occupied territories..."
I do regret not participating in the one long-running campaign to
close down the Campsfield refugee detention centre, as it seemed like
the sort of thing where persistent pressure and highlighting of the
wrongs done there might have had an effect. At least I didn't jeer at
the people who were trying to organise it. But I certainly could have
done more.
I am very much more convinced by what I take to be Mark's argument
that the real purpose of all this street-politics is to build
coalitions, that its value lies not in its ability to effect immediate
change but in its ability to bring people together into a cohesive
political movement. Perhaps the truth is that you are not *yet* the
electorate.
Dominic
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