Solidarity Versus Unity

Antifa's St. Paul's Principles Fail Where The Unity of MAGA Excels

In 2008, several groups of social justice warriors and activist groups came together to disrupt the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota. In order to get many different groups to work together cohesively, a code of conduct was drafter and formally adopted by all involved. Of course, the action to disrupt the 2008 RNC failed spectacularly. Over the years, the implementation of setting these rules into practice became refined. The set of rules became known as the St. Paul Principles. They are used in every Antifa and counter protest you have seen in the US.

The St. Paul's Principles are as follows:

1. Our solidarity will be based on respect for a diversity of tactics and the plans of other groups.

2. The actions and tactics used will be organized to maintain a separation of time or space.

3. Any debates or criticisms will stay internal to the movement, avoiding any public or media denunciations of fellow activists and events.

4. We oppose any state repression of dissent, including surveillance, infiltration, disruption and violence. We agree not to assist law enforcement actions against activists and others.

Essentially what followed was that the city of St. Paul was divided up into sections. Sections were adopted by a group which were then called to be organizers for that sector.

We would like to take this moment to clarify and reiterate the responsibilities that come with adopting a sector. Adopting a sector revolves around being willing and able to coordinate organizations that are planning actions within the adopted sector and doing the work necessary to help them be successful. This means being willing to take on certain tasks. First and foremost you must be willing to talk to other people and groups, even those you didn’t previously know. Adopting organizations will have to have an open coordinating element. In such a role secrecy and paranoia must take a back seat to meaningful communication.

We are certainly NOT encouraging every affinity group to publicize its plans. Successful coordination requires striking a balance between security culture and accessibility. We feel that one of the strongest aspects of the strategy is that it provides avenues for public participation in complement to small privately coordinated affinity group actions.

Additionally, organizations doing the coordinating must do all that they can to know their geography and timeline. The WC and allied organizations and individuals have worked to make information available concerning the layout and lowdown of the sectors. Read your sector packets, read the available intelligence. If you need more information about the street layout, the event timetable, delegate transport or any of the currently available intelligence, contact us and we will help you out. Knowledge is power.

Internet Archive: RNC Welcoming Committee: Call Two for Sector Activity, July 28, 2008

What is interesting is that they actively set up zones based on the level of violence they expect participants to be involved in. If you were a forward thinking left-leaning journalist, you could use this information to only show the more "peaceful" aspects of the demonstration while bypassing black bloc participants.

Zones that were supposed to stay entirely conflict free and were considered "safe spaces" were labeled "green spaces."

Over the course of two pReNCs and many conversations surrounding plans to crash the RNC, members of the Welcoming Committee have heard a lot of interest in the possibility of creating “green space.” It is clear that there will be people arriving to protest the convention who, for a variety of reasons, need to minimize their risk of arrest as much as possible. The WC is committed to a world-altering process that allows everyone to have a voice in envisioning that which we are collectively trying to create. It is important that individuals who cannot risk imprisonment have the opportunity to participate in a meaningful way in anti-convention activities.

We recognize that on the one hand it is impossible to create a space completely outside of police threat: the very nature of the police state and the lack of respect by State authorities for ‘safe spaces’ means that no space will be completely safe. ... So no space is completely ‘green.’ However, we also recognize that it is possible to create spaces that minimize the threat of arrest and that such spaces are essential in maximizing opportunities to participate in crashing the convention.

Internet Archive: RNC Welcoming Committee: Call for Radical ‘Green’ Space Organizing, July 28, 2008

RNC Welcoming Committee’s Map of Protest Zones for St. Paul

The tactics used within these sectors are fairly easy to understand and are called within these groups "3S Actions." SWARM. SEIZE. STAY. This directive was later shortened to one word: OCCUPY.

The idea behind the St. Paul's Principles were also fairly easy to understand. Solidarity. Keep conflict from generating within the movement to achieve a single goal.

It’s hard to argue against this elegant expression of solidarity. With the St. Paul's Principles, the protest organizers aimed at preempting COINTELPRO style disruption from generating conflict within the movement. The implicit condemnation of violence was of state sponsored violence, not authentic barricade defense. And no snitching. The St. Paul's Principles addressed the problems which were already scuttling Denver’s 2008 DNC protests. In Denver, “Recreate ’68” planners let the press infer they meant to revive the Chicago riots of 1968, prompting almost every traditional social justice group to circulate a contract which everyone was expected to sign. It was a vow of nonviolence. Organizations who refused to sign were ostracized and could expect the violent police clobbering they invited.

Essentially the St. Paul's Principles aimed to unite the nonviolent and non-nonviolent activists, to ensure neither denounced the other, and that physically neither wound up caught in each other’s fights or sit-ins. Probably the chief concession was being asked of the nonviolent crowd: Please, as long as we promise not to shroud your family atmosphere and your baby strollers in tear gas, please let the Black Blocs do their thing without your repudiation. Please. We share the same goals.

Not My Tribe: The Frequently Cited St Paul Principles Had Their Time And Place: ST PAUL, May 3, 2015

Why did these protests fail?

They addresses the solidarity issue in order to achieve an objective. What they didn't address was the issue of unity. What do I mean? It became in part a numbers game. There is strength in numbers. A single voice crying out into the wind will remain a single voice until others join it. A single person acting out in protest doesn't do much in the way of creating a blockade to the Republican National Convention.

While it seems safer to segregate the Black Bloc from the civil disobedients from the family picnic crowd, you’re not going to reach critical mass with each on its own. With public dischord still in its infancy and while we have nowhere near the numbers to defend against or deter violent repression, perhaps it is only reasonable to program our street protests according to color zones, as if marches were amusement rides for protest tourism.

Not My Tribe: The Frequently Cited St Paul Principles Had Their Time And Place: ST PAUL, May 3, 2015

But this doesn't encompass the entire idea of unity.

Solidarity is defined as:

1. Unity of purpose, interest, or sympathy.

2. An entire union or consolidation of interests and responsibilities; fellowship; community.

3. A bond of unity between individuals, united around a common goal or against a common enemy, such as the unifying principle that defines the labor movement.

Unity is defined as:

1. The state or quality of being one or united into a whole.

2. The state or quality of being in accord; harmony.

3. The state or quality of being unified in an aesthetic whole, as in a work of literature.

When I say that it becomes a number game, I am talking about several smaller groups coming together for an idea that is not their own. By themselves, they are insignificant. Together, they can make a little bit of an impact. But they are still many different working parts with different goals, structures, and principles trying to come together to work as one cohesive unit.

That isn't unity. That is a marriage of convenience. A business partnership. Not a shared desire to succeed.

This is where the movement behind President Trump excels where they fail. Save our country. Make America Great Again. Drain the swamp. Save the children.

These expressions are not wholly separate ideas or independent of each other. They are but different pieces of the same tapestry of a shared dream. A goal we all strive to achieve for once again. A free nation. A prosperous country. The American dream. A strong America where we can all live in peace.

God bless our once great nation.