Why a Call to "Unfuck the World" Won't Bring Down Bush
The tireless work of Globalise Resistance, the UK-based campaign group which has organised many scores of meetings, forums and demonstrations up and down the country over the past few years, has been an inspirational, well-organised thorn in the side of a stagnant parliamentary politics. It is a great pity, therefore, that the campaign group - which is controlled by a “steering group” composed of twenty individuals, eight of whom are Socialist Worker Party members, and twelve of whom profess independence - has chosen as its preferred means of communication with the masses the medium of the ultra-puerile, the asinine and the downright moronic.
For while the rhetoric of this organisation communicates an uncompromising and righteous opposition to the populism of the current political climate, and to the insidious influence of corporate America, it is reasonably clear from their promotional material that the group themselves do not consider themselves above employing the intellectually vacuous condescension so effectively employed by populist politicians and advertising gurus. Witness the “Fuck Bush” stencils so proudly on sale on www.resist.org.uk - there is a faction in the global justice campaign, perhaps composed of frustrated musicians or third-rate propagandists, which is hell-bent on personalising an entire global movement, focussing hatred quite inappropriately on one man. This exercise, with all its schoolboy spitefulness and attendant smugness, recalls the worst excesses of Murdoch-style tabloid journalism, and is in any case utterly counterproductive, undermining the credibility of the campaign as a whole, to the delight of censors and reactionaries across the world.
The website shop offers readers the chance to purchase a similarly-themed T-shirt, before they cringe in horror and embarrassment as they scroll down the page to discover that, for a mere £15.00, they can acquire a T-shirt with the words “Unfuck the world” (sic. Seriously.) emblazoned in large lettering across the chest (this item, we are asked to consider, is “New!!!”). The peculiar choice of words suggests a derivation from the lexicon of American slacker movies, and the slogan would appear to be designed to appeal to a generic “young person” whose political idealism is equalled only by his/her commitment to MTV feature films about amusing road trips and teenage indiscretions. The effort, completely misjudged, has resulted in a truly appalling piece of merchandising, which is reflective of a greater tendency, among the aforementioned sections of the left, to trivialise everything in the name of getting a point across.
Just recently, as demonstrators gathered to greet Bush in India, the camera focussed on a group of activists at the forefront, a handful of whom wore comedy masks representing Bush, Musharraf and other hate figures, alongside a banner which proclaimed them to be “Bush’s harem”, in an attempt at dry humour which, with its necessarily orientalist overtones, displays a staggering sense of historical self-deprecation from activists supposedly campaigning for the right to self-determination. To some, this appropriation of the defining characteristics of “soundbite” culture represents a sort of progression, by a young, media-savvy generation who understand that the only way to communicate with people effectively is to do so in terms that they will easily understand, with snappy, hard-hitting slogans and memorable visuals. They would do well to consider how well this sort of approach has served, say, Michael Moore and his colleagues on the U.S. democratic left.
Others may argue that, though regrettable, this development is not especially offensive and does not significantly impair the progress of the left. In fact, though, it is for primarily pragmatic reasons that this approach ought to be rejected outright, for reasons that range beyond consideration of the vast chasm between the resources available to corporate America and those available to, say, Globalise Resistance, in the struggle to win the sympathy of well-managed, sceptical populations. For the struggle is ultimately a cultural one, and it has to be treated as such - corporate America, and the imperialism to which it is inexorably wedded, will never be defeated on their own terms, but can and must be defeated by higher ideals, and an appeal to human intelligence would be a step in this direction.
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GR merch
Nathniel, You have omitted to mention other t shirts we offer, ones with the terrible slogan of "Our World is Not for Sale" on them. You also fail to mention that the £15 price tag is thus because these shirts are organic and fairtraded shirts which are bound to cost more than the sweatshop versions, that we do, unfortunately also sell because we are unable to afford the 'ethical' option all the time. The Hemp Trading Company www.thtc.co.uk that supplies our shirts sells their shirts for far more than £15 - ours are cheap for the quality and ethics you get!
Why do we design and print such slogans on our shirts? because they sell! Unlike NGOs and many groups in the activists movement we do not have rich benefactors, trust and grant giving bodies behind us. Our organisation is entirely funded by membership dues, merchandising and the occasional donation. We therefore are not answerable to any 'board' for our decisions and actions. But, given the fact that trustafarians usually lean to the more anarchist tendencies, we have to do the merchandising job as a dependable fundraiser. These t shirts sell, no matter what your view on them. We also like the way they provoke a response and discussion.
Fuck Bush?
these stencils were produced in the run up to Bush's visit to London in 2003. Given the number of times they have been linked to, copied and used across the world meeant to us that we'd hit a nerve.
Look at the top ten from our webstats last month (Feb 2005):
Top 10 of 702 Total Search Strings
# Hits Search String
1 247 13.05% fuck bush
2 177 9.35% resistance
3 83 4.38% mcd
4 74 3.91% peace not war
5 34 1.80% blood stains
6 34 1.80% globalise resistance
7 31 1.64% global resistance
8 25 1.32% resist
9 24 1.27% police violence
10 20 1.06% bush stencil
that's the top search wanting "Fuck Bush" and the tenth wanting our stencils. We do not choose the environment we campaign in - otherwise there'd be no war and we'd be tackling sweatshop and other neo-liberal economic policies. We do not dictate the consciousness of the people we are trying to relate to. But we can tell where they are at by looking at a few facts.
If using the word 'fuck' gets people of whatever age looking at our ideas and actions, then it is a price worth paying. I think what seperates us from other groups in the anti-capitalist / global justice movement is a constant reappraisal of how we are relating to mainstream people and getting our message across. Sure we realise we are not influential enough to turn the tide of public opinion, but we can relate to a significant minoirty. Note how many of the organisations we are involved in does NOT use such tactics - it is a case of horses for courses. NO2ID, Campaign against Climate Change, Stop the War etc. are all much larger, broader and family friendly than GR, and rightly so.
Finally, your comment on our steering committee. Please don't be so fucking offensive to the independents on the committee. All members of the commttee got elected on merit. the SWP members are SWP members and the rest 'profess' to be independent? Really is quite a judgemental and loaded way of putting things. The independents have a wealth of campaigning experience behind them, and are not a bunch of saps as you seem to imply.
I note that a day before posting this article you emailed a request for an interview with someone from the committee to the office. Sorry for not replying earlier, the office is ussually closed over the weekend. However, if you do still want a chat about stuff, I'll be happy to do so.
Hope that's cleared up any misunderstandings, we do like your blog - honest!
Guy,
I will try to keep this brief.
1. You were e-mailed with a view to arranging an interview to discuss various political issues. I note that you have kindly accepted this offer and hopefully we can arrange something soon. For you to infer that the above article was inspired by the lack of a super-prompt reply to said e-mail, however, would suggest that you are very self-important indeed. I can only hope that this remark was made in jest.
2. The article does not at any point question the independence of GR panel members, nor does it question the propriety of charging £15 for a t-shirt. These were not at issue here.
3. Re: "Fuck Bush" T-shirts: Your response, that the T-shirts are justifiable "because they sell" is a wholly unsatisfactory explanation coming from an organisation which has as its central ethos its opposition to the subjugation of princples in favour of the expediencies of markets and populism.
4. What is being objected to is not the use of the word "fuck" per se, but rather the puerile, misleading and ultimately destructive personalisation of the issue as previously discussed. This, like intelligent sloganeering, can be done with or without expletives.
I would advise that you read the article again, and perhaps attempt in future to take criticism a little more graciously.
Regards,
Nathaniel
In Reply...
...to your points as they come...
1. More than happy to arrange a time to meet and talk. I was drawn to the website (again) by the emailed request for an interview, naturally I clicked the link and saw the article posted, wasn't a huge leap of logic to associate the request and the article. Don't really think we are guilty of 'self-importance'. I assumed that you wanted to talk about the issues discussed here, but apologies for grabbing the wrong end of the stick.
2. I do feel there is an implied questioning of the independence of GR steering committee members, I have re-read the article and stand by what I say.
Also you did say "for a mere £15.00" in reference to the t shirts. Given that most political t shirts cost less than that, it is not unreasonable to get a bit defensive over that part.
3. While we campaign for a fair and compassionate society, we unfortunately do not yet live in one. It would be excellent to be able to express our 'pet' subjects or personal ideals in the things we produce (and we actually do to a limited extent) but we still have to keep our minds on maintaining our organisation - paying the office rent, our costs and being able to put on transport and promote the causes that we exist to campaign on. To survive in a capitalist world means finance has to be taken seriously. Our t shirts have to sell, otherwise we lose more money and don't even break even, a death sentence for any hand-to-mouth group such as GR.
Our t shirts provoke numerous responses, from distaste to real appreciation. But they do provoke a response. We come from the school of thought which says you can't make an omlette without breaking eggs. But for many people they sum up feelings they have held for a while. This world is pretty fucked (did you listen to the latest David King views on climate change this morning? and he's the government scientist!), and there are things we can do to unfuck it - you know what i mean even though you wouldn't express it in these words.
4. A t shirt slogan is neccessarily 'sound bite politics'. I have one t shirt given to me by an american friend which has almost an essay on it, people give up reading it when I want to move on, and it has very little impact, and my friend realises the sales of that shirt were disasterous.
We are open to suggestions and have produced t shirts in the past that do not have expletives on them (and I pointed out above) we are selling one that doesn't as we discuss. You can see the designs of previous shirts at: http://www.resist.org.uk/downloads/tshirt.php The McDonalds design is a classic example of sticking too many words on a shirt, it loses impact and we learned from that mistake.
I feel I should apologise for my tone in my original response, I am used to on-line debate being a bit more ferocious than is usual (I frequent the Lenin's Tomb blog, where the comments boxes take no prisoners). Hope we can fix a time to meet, and look forward to it.
If you have any ideas for alternative slogans and/or designs for t shirts or whatever, we'd be happy to consider them.
Sorry to have to tell you, but there's a big call for an "Unfuck the World" badge, so that will be hitting the streets soon!
very best,
Guy
You two get a room already!
You two get a room already!