This four-session workshop will provide tools for recognizing, understanding, dealing with, and combating suppression of dissent, and it will serve as a support group for victims of suppression. 

Drawing on New SPACE organizers’ extensive experiences during the last several years, we will often focus on suppression of dissent within the Left.  Yet suppression of dissent on the Left generally takes the same forms and has the same dynamics and motivations as suppression of dissent elsewhere.  Thus, everyone who has been a victim of suppression and/or who wants to fight suppression anywhere in society is encouraged to participate in the workshop.  It will be of value to you as well, and your own experiences and thoughts will be most relevant and welcome.  (Proponents of suppressive practices are also invited to come and argue with us!)

The basic premise of the workshop is that “diversity” is not enough.  New, liberatory ideas and ways of life develop through the engagement of opposing ideas and perspectives, and cannot develop without this.  It is necessary to encourage, protect, and engage with dissident voices within our own groups and communities, and to fight suppression of dissent.  It is also vital that, in order to help show that “another world is possible,” we begin to prefigure this other world by fighting suppression of dissent within the forums, publications, e-mail lists, and other institutions of the Left itself. 

Recognition that suppression of dissent is quite prevalent on the Left  is a crucial  component of  the workshop.   Leftists tend to view themselves as victims, but not also perpetrators, of suppression.  As we will discuss, however, the Left frequently internalizes and reproduces within its institutions the suppressive practices, and the authoritarian attitudes that foster these practices, that prevail elsewhere in this society.  The main classes of suppression identified by Brian Martin, an important anti-suppression activist and anarchist thinker – “direct suppression” (attempts to stop or penalize dissidents), “indirect suppression” (ignoring dissidents, denying them access to resources and opportunities, etc.), and “self-censorship” (in order to avoid ostracism, harassment, rumormongering, etc.) – are all very common within Left groups and institutions.

Of course, these groups and institutions currently lack the power to deprive their internal dissidents of freedom of expression and movement elsewhere in society – i.e., if they go away.  Thus, as we shall discuss, a key objective of the suppressive practices employed within the Left is precisely to force or “encourage” dissidents to go away.  Internal democracy, protection of internal dissent, and internal means to challenge those who wield power, which are needed in order to ensure engagement of opposing ideas and perspectives, are frequently absent.

Countering attempts to justify this exclusionary behavior is another crucial feature of the workshop.  For instance, we will examine the argument that people should be able to associate with whom they want.  We will argue that exclusionary behavior toward dissidents is in fact a new form of enclosure, a monopolization of scarce social resources. Denying or limiting dissidents’ access to these resources is  very different from associating only with those you want.  We will also argue against monopolization of scarce social resources on the ground of the “right” to private property, and we will show how the “freedom of association” gambit has historically been used to justify racial discrimination in housing, employment, and education.

Recognizing and dealing with the “blaming the dissident” tactic is a third crucial component of the workshop.  On the Left, and in general, suppression is almost never admitted to.  Instead, the suppressors and their apologists try to justify their actions against dissidents by blaming the dissidents’ performance, personality characteristics, methods (“you’re going about this the wrong way”), motives, etc.  We will discuss Brian Martin’s “double standard test” and how to apply it in order to expose the hypocrisy and illegitimacy of the “blaming the dissident” tactic.  We will also discuss its authoritarian character, noting that, when dissidents are blamed and actions are taken against them, they are frequently deprived of the right to confront their accusers, to refute charges against them, to an impartial hearing, and other democratic rights.

Most of the readings for the workshop will be taken from Brian Martin’s invaluable “Suppression of Dissent” website, www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/dissent, available free of charge.  For the first session, participants should have read and be prepared to discuss “Suppression of dissent: what it is and what to do about it” (www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/dissent/intro/DNAleaflet.html).

Tuition: $45 – $60, sliding scale.

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