Notes on (the success of) the Bentley blockade

Notes on (the success of) the Bentley blockade: How participatory democracy can stop state-corporate intransigence to ecological crises. DRAFT ONLY Patrick Jones, May 23, 2014.

It is important to note at Bentley that sheer numbers overwhelmed the state authorities of New South Wales. It was reported that up to 800 policei, including some riot squad personnel, were to be deployed to the far north-east of the state near Lismore to remove protectors at Bentley from blockading the development of a Tight Sands Gas mine. But 7000 protectors had registered for the red alert to be messaged to their mobile phones and many had proven, in earlier call outs, they would arrive at short notice and many, like our family, had made Bentley home. Police operation Stapler was to cost a near bankrupt state eight million dollars, and the number of protectors only grew as police stalled and the story became more widely reported. For the state Bentley appeared to be a numbers game, but for those of us who showed up and became protectors it wasn’t a game, it was real life.

The newly instated NSW Resources and Energy Minister, Anthony Roberts, declared that the protectors had nothing to do with the decision to revoke the mining license and send the matter to the Independent Commission Against Corruption. But this is nonsense. If the blockade was not in place earlier in the year the mining company responsible, Metgasco, would have been drilling on the site in March and would have proceeded hydraulically fracturing the subterranean sandstone to escape the gas regardless of whether an ICAC inquiry would aspire and regardless of the significant risk to the environment. Evidently, it is in the interest of the state that the Bentley victory is not attributed to the sovereignty of local people who made decisions of their own to protect the land from state-corporate intransigence of the environment, otherwise known as uncritical mainstream economics.

As a representative for the state, minister Roberts told the Murdoch press: “My message to all those people who believe they can remain outside the law with respect to protest is that now it’s time for you to return to your peaceful, rightful and lawful places of business and your homes.ii” This statement accurately surmises how the modern state attempts to control its subjects, relegating people to merely private spaces of commerce and domesticity. As we have witnessed since European colonisation, this kind of language-use has plagued Indigenous people and the environment throughout Australia.

Bentley was not just about stopping a TSG mine but practicing participatory democracy.

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An important factor of the success at Bentley was the employment of nonviolence. Protectors claimed and successfully held a social license to protect the land non-violently. The local community and the broader public would have revoked this license (and their political and biophysical support) had we practiced violent strategies to protect the land. Had this occurred it would have better justified the heavy hand of the state and possibly even the intervention of the army. But with our numbers, our actions and our language we made it near impossible for the state to act forcefully. We tied their hands and bankrupted Metgasco through peaceful mass action.

What was demonstrated at Bentley is that language is a very powerful tool. To instil repeatedly that our protectorship is peaceful and non-violent and that we had a broadly supported social license to preserve the land for future generations, grew our credibility broadly. It was the first time Artist as Family had witnessed the word protector being used instead of protestor, which has subversive ramifications for those living in Australian states where protesting has now been made illegal. However, all these things would have meant little if it weren’t for hundreds of first-timers and more seasoned blockaders turning up and camping semi-permanently with permission on a neighbouring farmer’s land. It was the diversity of people that really tied the hands of the state. The media and politicians could not write this blockade off as being the work of a handful of radical ecoferals. At Bentley people were becoming quickly informed as to how participatory democracy and community sovereignty can be implemented from the bottom up – by the people, for the people – and once educated in the art of blockade and protectorship, as Artist as Family became at Bentley, it seems likely involvement next time will be even more forthcoming.

However, what always had the possibility of undermining our collective efforts was not the state and its officers, but rather ourselves. While there was no more of it at Bentley than throughout the rest of the country, substance abuse was the one thing continuously exposing us, forever making vulnerable our ability to cope. Coffee, sugar, dope and booze were all consumed at Bentley to help assuage tiredness or were indignantly used by long-term addicts who had long ago become unaware of the impacts of their altered behaviour on others. Used traditionally for ceremony and with intention, psychoactive plants have always played a significant and positive role in human societies,

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however in ours today these plant-based substances are commonly over used in times of heightened stress or intensity, causing agitation, panic, paranoia and, in extreme cases, physical violence. All these things revealed themselves at Bentley. When Artist as Family arrived at camp we were impressed to see there was a policy of no alcohol, drugs and unconventional gas, but a small fringe often ignored the former two while we were all attempting to stop the latter. On arriving we didn’t know about this policy and I had two bottles of beer stowed in one of our food panniers on our bikes. I disposed of them quietly on our first night before abstaining for the rest of three weeks we were at Bentley.

Apart from keeping vigil, taking workshops in non-violent direct action and learning to lock-on, herbal teas (donated in vast quantities) and rigorous conversations concerning power, law and sovereignty became our main vices.

Like the policy of no drugs and alcohol, which was agreed on and adhered to by the majority but policed by nobody, a truly democratic process determined everything that took place in the camp. If substance abuse became too problematic in the camp offenders were simply asked to leave by the social license of a majority voice all working towards a common goal. Otherwise much was tolerated and diversity celebrated. At twice daily – dawn and afternoon – meetings around the fires, anyone could raise an issue that would then be discussed and debated by all in attendance. General consensus came quickly for most issues and for more complex items another day or two of consideration would be broadly recommended. If a shy person wanted to raise an issue they would bring it up in a less confronting environment and someone else would raise it on their behalf. It wasn’t perfect but Bentley modelled non-hierarchical decision-making processes that led to many successes.

My slow-text poem Bentley blockade (that follows this writing), which I wrote while living in anticipation of the riot police’s ever pending arrival, attempts to lay bare the exceptional collaborations between people and place that occurred there. The form of the poem (a slow-text mesostic), which has been discussed in detail in other writing, is significant in that the jumping letters actively seek disruption on the page. They do not line up into neat rows of houses/crops/businesses/soldiers all conforming and going along with the accepted authority, but rather give the form of emergent polycultures where order or authorship is not fixed but mutable. Chance, more than authority, plays a

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significant role in the forming of such a poem, giving greater opportunity for diverse, not always human, inputs.

As noted in this poem, food was an important part of the success at Bentley, and again it was to do with sheer numbers or quantities that made it so. Local residents, farmers and business people donated tons upon tons of food to feed we very thankful protectors. The food was lovingly prepared by a team of camp cooks, who all had prior experience in cooking for large numbers. It was the quality of the food, the raw ingredients of mostly organic sources and the way it was prepared that really nurtured us and kept the camp healthy despite the strain and tiredness. And so too, the volunteer labours of the washing-up tent and the general emphasis on hygiene regularly mentioned at the meetings, kept the camp in good health.

Our heating resources were also donated when the cold snap came in early April and stayed, more or less, until our victory later in the month. Local neighbouring farmers brought ute loads of wood to keep the fires burning throughout the night at three blockaded gates and the main camp, Camp Liberty. Bentley was a demonstration of a gift economy, an action but also an experiment in social licensing and gift relationships. By being a participant of such a community you could quickly ascertain that it is our food and energy resources and how we obtain them that determines whether the life we make is harmful or harmless. Stopping an industry that has the potential to cause so much harm was absolutely necessary because our governments do not pay heed to precautionary principles.

Our family, including a baby and a dog, rode by bicycle to Bentley travelling almost 2500 kms to get there. We did not know about Bentley, TSG or really anything of the Northern Rivers region when we left our home in central Victoria six months earlier, but we soon became part of the inclusive community there. We remain on a fourteenmonth field trip riding throughout Australia, researching a book on low-damaging travel for families for a post fossil fuel future, recognising food and energy to be the catalysts for both democratic and environmental change. Without a bottom-up reworking of our food and energy resources the country will soon be severely polluted by the deadly combination of unconventional gas and GMO agriculture, and the wealth and power derived from the land will be distributed increasingly into the hands of just a few.

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Bentley is an extremely important moment in Australian history. People there refused to be partitioned into mere private spaces of “home and business” ordered by Roman law which in turn was based on the convenient truthlessness of Terra nullius.

People from all walks of life were seeing sovereignty under a completely new light and reconciliatory relationships were being formed and strengthened between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, especially concerning protectorships, licenses and sovereignties.

Bentley is a success story, even if the success is momentary and we’re all called back to protect the site again in the not-too-distant future. Like the thousands of people who participated at Bentley Artist as Family have gained profound knowledges to take away with us and pass on to our home community. Being there helped produce our family’s Letter to elders (see Fig.1 below) that we have now sent on ahead of our journey into Queensland, where we will see for ourselves the results of the unconventional gas industry in that state.

Fig 1. Letter to elders, Artist as Family, May 2014

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Bentley blockade

a makeshiFt settlement odd assoRtment tEnt town gg pE ed Down b

b anners Laze g slO ans G and fla s g g O flappin g aSfield free g g ea leS lide g annuaL rasses sour Autumn pastoral b g heaVy dew undjalun talons tEar

g Shots in the ni ht b c radios uzz Pani g g spOtli ht unmen bb leave Ra its g dEad on ver e

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c pop-up kit henS g ift foods nurTured c c Amp ooks b b g a sor iN strain c mu h loveD g do s and druMs g g son s and strIn s c c all hildreN per ussion c round sa rEd and c not so sa red fiRe c prote torS pour in C g han e-over rota g g All day-ni ht vi ils c c b opy that aMp li erty g b c three- ateS lo kade c B al ohol swa c stems fiRst infe tion

c alendula oIntment Bb on stu ed toe b listEr splinter

c a riFf-raff dan e

g

c c g olle tin effoRt cc all O upations defend g all hours kNittin randma universiTy

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eLders c hOld ountry C g an estors in-makin g c old round ro K revealed on old disputed plainS c workShops move qui kly c Non-violen e affirmed veterans’ fAme c g pass the lo K-on knowled e b g g a of amEs no morE than talk the heAvy hand of the state the Riot squad c senT to rush b c c tHis out reak of demo ra y

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Chambers, Geoff. “Police swarm to north coast in an $8 million operation to remove anti-gas protesters”, The Daily Telegraph. May 15, 2014 http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/police-swarm-to-northcoast-in-an-8-million-operation-to-remove-antigas-protesters/story-fni0cx12-1226918021706 (cited Friday 23 May 2014) ii No stated journalist, AAP. "CSG suspension win for transparency: govt", The Australian, Business with the Wall Street Journal, May 20, 2014 http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/latest/csg-suspensionwin-for-transparency-govt/story-e6frg90f-1226923475894 (cited Friday 23 May 2014)

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