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Amanda Crocker:
What was the first action you took part
in?
Mike Hudema:
My first action was
actually sprung on me by chance. It was the first
time I ever went away without my parents. My friend
and I had heard about the protests at Clayoquot
Sound (this was after the main protests were over)
so we drove out to the coast and went up to the
Clayoquot Sound office to grab some pamphlets. We
were all very new and very keen, and they passed
out a handbill with a meeting time and place. When
we got to the meeting a guy came out in a full
radiation suit, playing an accordion, and he led
everybody inside. And as soon as we got in,
somebody put chains around the doors, because this
was an illegal meeting and we were going to use
direct action tactics. My friend and I had no idea
what to do, so we just sat there and learned about
guerrilla tactics, about how to get in, how to
climb fences, how to send radio broadcasts out.
This was the first experience I had with direct
action.
AC: What
compelled you to stay and take part?
MH:
The drive out to
Clayoquot really opened my eyes to the damage being
done to the planet. There's a place where you're
driving on the road and you're in government
parkland and then you hit a corner where the park
ends. And when you hit that corner you go from
these huge redwoods that are much bigger than you
imagined, even lying down just gigantic, and you
turn that corner and it's a clear-cut. When we
turned that corner we stopped and couldn't believe
our eyes, the amount of damage and destruction. I
think just seeing that made it real for me; that
other people are taking our future, and we can
either shape the future for ourselves or we can let
somebody else do it. This was a turning point for
becoming active, thinking I want to take control
and change the world.
AC: Who or what
has most influenced your own personal
politics?
MH:
There are many
different contributing factors. For example, after
my second year in university I went away for a year
to India on a Canada World Youth exchange. I was
part of a development project in India and I saw
how community could be made up differently. I was
living in a rural village and the government there
had virtually rejected the World Bank's development
program. The local government allowed everyone in
the village to ask for what they wanted; they had a
sort of participatory budget meeting where tens of
thousands of people came out to debate the
priorities of the budget. And after seeing that,
when I came back to Canada I really thought that
Canadian society and Canadian communities could be
made up differently.
Some writers, like Noam Chomsky, have also
influenced my thinking. People like Abbie Hoffman
and Augusto Boal, writers who take a more
theatrical look at how we can change the world
while laughing and dancing at the same time. And
wonderful activists that we have here in Edmonton.
Karena Munroe, my partner, is a long-time activist
and inspires me all the time.
Karena has really opened my eyes to feminist
issues. Just sitting through meetings and realising
that our activist community, while we are fighting
for social justice and social change, recreates
patriarchal power relations in our own meetings,
seeing male voices come out much stronger than
others and dominate meetings or take leading roles,
I really wanted to break that down. So I was guided
by women around me who were already trying to do
that.
AC: How has
living in Alberta shaped your
politics?
MH:
I look at it like
we're living in the belly of beast. Alberta is a
hard place to organize because of the right-wing
culture. We have Ralph Klein as premier and we've
had a conservative government for the past 30
years. But living in that culture, I think you're
presented with more problems than others are, and
as an activist you might come up against bigger
challenges. Our premier supports the privatisation
of healthcare and the deregulation of electricity,
so activism here is a constant challenge; but for
me it generates not just problems but drive. When
people aren't addressing important issues I'm
encouraged to step up and say, "Something's got to
be done about this; we need to build a movement,
build something different." This is not the
democracy I learned about in social studies class;
it's something else and it's somebody else's
interests being represented not mine.
AC: What is
your favourite action in the book?
MH:
There are so many I
love. I think the funniest one to do is the Buddha
Walk, which actually came out of an exercise that I
did as part of a drama group. We saw the movie
Baraka and there is a scene with a man walking very
slowly and other people are flying past him; it's a
really striking image that gets at how fast-paced
our culture is. I wondered what would happen if our
group all walked slowly in a public space
somewhere. Some of the people in our group were
having trouble letting go and being crazy, which is
something you have to do in a drama group, so we
went to the mall and got in a line and we all just
moved really slowly. The scene really was amazing
because all these people came around to watch the
action and then a security guard showed up and
said, "You can't do that."
-"We can't do what?"
-"You're not allowed to do
what you're doing."
-"Well, what are we doing?"
And then he got another
guard to ask us questions. Eventually they said,
"You're walking too slowly."
Our response was, of
course, "Demonstrate how fast we need to walk in
order to be in the mall." And we pointed out other
people who were walking quite slowly and asked,
"Are they walking fast enough?"
Eventually the whole
conversation just became absurd. We were being
asked to leave this place of commerce for
interrupting what you're supposed to do there. What
you're supposed to do there is shop and buy things
and move quickly; and they were trying to say that
if you don't do that you're not welcome. But the
crowd who had gathered clapped for us and were
really baffled by the security guards' reaction. I
think they were changed a little bit by this
too.
Another favourite action was something I did in
Québec City at the Summit of the Americas
protests. Our theatre troupe was decked out in gas
masks and we went up to the front line of riot
cops, turned around, and performed a play. It felt
really good to perform in this place where people
had been tear-gassed all day, people were being
shot with rubber bullets, and there was a massive
police presence. Our group tried to bring something
else in, tried to show the police, the government,
and the media, that the movement the police were
attacking with tear gas and rubber bullets is a
creative movement, people trying to build a new
world. We wanted to show that to people and so we
just turned around and performed our play; our
lungs were hacking but we managed to sing and
dance. We sang a beautiful version of "A Brave New
World." That's probably my second favourite
action.
AC: What
actions have you taken part in that you think had
the best effect?
MH:
I think success can
be measured in several different ways. There are
many actions in the book that reached the goals we
set, but two spring to mind. After the occupation
of Anne McLellan's office, the group talked about
the occupation's effectiveness in generating
discussion in Edmonton around the anti-terrorist
legislation that was being rammed in by the
government. For four days we sat in McLellan's
office and we were able to talk about making the
action more fun and creative. So instead of coming
back and sitting in the office, we decided to evict
Anne McLellan out of her office out on to her front
lawn. We changed her sign so that it read "Minister
of Injustice" and we ran community forums every
half an hour. I think that action is one that I
would consider one of the most effective because we
had a lot of community support and we were able to
educate a lot of people about the issue.
Also, the Edible Ballot Society was something that
I was part of. That was very effective. We went
into Elections Canada, to the pre-election vote,
got our ballots, and ate them. I stir-fried mine
up. A couple of other members put theirs in a
blender with bananas, strawberries, milk, and ice
cream and blended it in to a wonderful smoothie.
And we ate our ballots. Democracy in Canada is a
really shallow form of democracy: voters are
encouraged every four years to take part in a
symbolic gesture, then go away for four years. We
didn't see citizens' views on any issue being
represented in our government. Legislation that was
being passed in our name or on our behalf really
didn't have our support, didn't have the support of
the majority of the people, and it seemed like
whoever you voted for, big business always got
in.
And nobody was asking questions about this so we
tried to do something theatrical to get those
questions raised. We got a lot of media attention
and used that attention to try to kick off a public
forum across the country about what is democracy,
what do we have here, what do we need to change.
Because of the media attention we reached a much
bigger and more diverse group. But we met many
people who were very upset and told us how upset
they were that we were eating our ballots. But by
the end of the conversation I think they realised
why we did it.
AC: Did your
ballot give you indigestion?
MH:
Mine did. I was
pretty nervous so I didn't really rip the paper up
too well for my stir-fry, and so I was eating big
chunks of paper but I just had to consume it
because the press was right there. So, yes, mine
gave me an upset stomach. When we were eventually
taken to court, we ate our subpoenas but we
prepared those in the blender and the blender was
much better; all I tasted was strawberries and
bananas. So if I do it again, that's the way to
go.
AC: Will you
vote in the upcoming federal
election?
MH:
I'm not sure. I
still haven't decided if it's more effective to do
something theatrical again, like eating my ballot,
to raise questions about democracy that I still
don't think have been addressed by our government,
or whether it's more effective to work on the
campaign of a progressive candidate and try to get
that candidate elected. I'm back and forth on this
still.
AC: Do you
think the media attention is what made these
actions effective? Do you think media coverage is
necessary?
MH:
I think it depends
on each issue whether the media is integral. I
think there are many actions that you can do just
for people who pass by, or just for your own group,
or just for other activists, to inspire them or to
get them to think in new ways. Creative action
really allows people to get out of the rut that
they're in. Creative actions can re-energise
everybody. One of the actions in the book, Fishing
in the Sewers, tries to bring attention to water
pollution. You hand out a flyer to people walking
by, and tell them about the purpose of the action,
and try to get them involved. And that doesn't rely
on media attention at all. Then there are times
when you want your message to reach groups that you
can't speak directly to so that's where the media
comes in. The media is very focused on visuals so
if you want your message to get out to a larger
audience then visuals become important for your
action.
AC: Have you
ever taken part in an action that you think was a
failure?
MH:
It depends on how
you define failure. I think if you do an action and
it doesn't achieve the goal you want it to and you
don't reflect on why that action didn't work,
that's a failed action. What I try to do, and what
I hope other activists try to do, is reflect on the
lessons they learned for next time. And so there
are definitely actions which didn't reach our
goals. For example, a group of us tried a Reclaim
the Streets action; we didn't have enough people
but the organizers decided to try it anyway. One
person was arrested and only a very few people saw
the action, very few people were a part of it. That
action could be seen as a failure, but we got
together and talked about what went wrong, what we
would organize differently in the future. This year
the group held another Reclaim the Streets but it
was more effective, there were still some
difficulties but we're working on that. I do think
that as long as you're learning from what you're
doing, and engaging in activism, and having fun,
the action is not a failure. I've done actions
where our group really wanted to get people to come
out; they didn't show up but we still had a
blast.
AC: These
actions ask people to step out of the most commonly
used protest tactic of marching. Why do you think
it is important for activists to do this?
MH:
I think that
marching can be very draining. Marching is a very
repetitive activity, which often doesn't really
help you feel like you're making a change. You
march from one point to another and then it's over
and you don't necessarily feel a part of it. If
activists go away from that experience and don't
feel reinvigorated, don't feel that they made a
difference or that the action was useful, then the
numbers for the marches start getting lower and
lower. I have a friend, as an example, who is very
committed to the freedom of Tibet but only
reluctantly participates in marches here because he
feels like it is the same thing every year; this
sort of symbolic march up and down is good for
visibility but not good for reinvigorating the
communities that participate.
So what my friends and I try to do is add a little
more life to actions. Even in a march you can try
to get people more active. There are songs in the
book and there are Radical Cheerleading cheers,
which I think are ways that you can still
participate in a march in a more active way. It's
great to have this critical mass of people in a
march but something like Radical Cheerleading can
invigorate people. People will participate in the
cheers, especially if the cheers are callbacks, and
it's a different feeling than just marching. I
think it adds something new and gives everybody a
sense of energy at the end of it, and I think
that's what we really need, to invigorate people
and give people energy, that's really what we're
about.
AC: Some of
these actions ask people to step out of their
ordinary shy or reserved selves and use theatrics
or attention-getting antics. How do you find the
courage to take part in these sorts of actions?
MH:
I'm definitely a
very drama-esque person (I got my degree in
secondary education and drama) so I've always been
the type of person who likes to do theatrical-based
things, but I do think that there is a learning
curve. During the first action I did, I was sitting
in that room with the doors chained and I was very
scared. The first time I participated in a march I
felt very awkward. But you gain courage with each
experience. So I recommend doing an action from the
book that you're comfortable with or go to a big
rally first because it's easier. Start listening to
chants and start doing the chants. It's a learning
process and the more times you stick up for your
rights, stand up for your issue, the more courage
you get. So then you can move on to the more vocal
or the more 'out-there' actions in the book. There
are also other ways if you're not comfortable being
yourself; get a costume. Sometimes when people go
out on Halloween they're much different people,
much less inhibited. If you pick the right costume
it can add to your message and it's also very
visual. But the more times you do it, the better
you get at it.
AC: Some
activists may criticize the book for being too fun
and not seriously political. How would you respond
to that critique?
MH:
I don't want people
to read the book and only do these actions. I do
think that you need to know the goals of your
action: what you want to accomplish. You need to do
that legwork. Many books explain how to do that
legwork, how to organize a campaign and do the
nitty-gritty. You do have to hold forums or
organize email petitions, and you need to take all
those steps in addition to theatrical actions or
you're not really furthering your cause.
What I felt was missing was a book on how to
communicate your message through action, practical
ideas for actions. So that if you do have your
analysis down, you do know what you want to
accomplish, but you just need a different way to
express it, to get your message out more
effectively or try to reinvigorate your group, then
this is the book that can help you do that. This
book is not an alternative to other forms of
political protest or organizing; it's a compliment
to everything else activists are doing. And I think
it needs to be done in concert with all those
different actions in order to be really
effective.
AC: How does
context change the way you plan actions? Are these
creative actions more appropriate for some
political issues than others?
MH:
Yes. I think that
you decide that on a case-by-case basis, depending
on the purpose of your action, the message that you
want to convey. Last year I worked for the student
union and part of our goal was to convey what
students were really feeling. Tuition has risen 225
per cent at my school over the past decade. My
student debt is $45,000 and when I get out I want
to work in environmental or poverty law so I'm not
looking at a huge salary. So we wanted to
communicate the sense of desperation that students
are facing. So we held a tuition funeral. We had a
full-length coffin that was built in my garage at
two o'clock in the morning by a carpenter friend.
We had a minister, who gave a reading. We sang
hymns. And the message was all very visual so it
helped us get our message out but it didn't come
off as students just trying to be funny. I do think
that there are many actions in the book that don't
come off as being just for fun or just goofy but
have a very serious message and a harsh tone.
AC: Do you have any last advice for
activists?
MH:
Don't burn yourself
out. I think being an activist is pretty tiring,
often non-rewarding, time-consuming work. That can
get people really down. It's really necessary work
but it is tough. I that most people don't realise
is how tough this work is; especially when you
don't really see immediate changes because often
we're talking about large systemic changes. The
message to activists is that trying out some of the
actions in the book and trying to be more creative
can help us get out of that cycle and realise that
even if you don't really see the change that you're
trying to affect, you are making a difference.
If you look at citizens groups around the world,
they're all getting bigger; Brazilians have elected
a strongly progressive government; the World Social
Forum gets bigger every year. So there are many of
places of hope around the world. I don't think you
really know when that explosion of change is going
to happen.
I hope this book is a resource for activists so
they can get their message out more clearly in a
way that helps rejuvenate activists and rejuvenate
the people around them.
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