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A Way of Life

By Di McDonald

The Greenham Women's Peace Camp was set up in 1981 on Greenham Common near Newbury in the south of Britain, to protest right outside a military base used by the United States as one of five European sites for its ground-launched nuclear cruise missiles. Some women lived at the peace camp, and at the height of the protest in 1983, 30,000 women added their support, joining hands around the base's perimeter fence. The women's protest was one of the factors which led to the ratification in 1988 of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty between the then-USSR and the U.S. By March 1991, the last of the missiles had left Greenham Common.

Common to all Greenham women is that we were and remain unconventional. As in any culture, this brought us into conflict with a conservative society, which felt threatened by anyone "different." We were spat upon, and many shops refused to serve us . . . but it was at the hands of the police that we experienced the most physical violence. Women were regularly dragged painfully by police, shoved, manhandled, rugby-tackled and arm-locked. 

A blockade of the "Blue Gate" at Greenham Common in 1983   [Photo by marc marnie]

"Nonviolence" is used to mean very different things--ignoring conflict, seeking a quiet life, collaborating with evil in order to avoid confronting it. Usually it is defined along a spectrum from not being the first to start a fight to not responding to provocation with force to refraining from meeting force with force to not lashing out in self-defense, to not retaliating. Nonviolence also means no verbal abuse when under physical or verbal attack. Nonviolence may require seeing past the hateful action or word to the person behind it--who is not hateful, but often full of hate. To be really nonviolent means not humiliating or hurting anyone at all.

Not Just a Tactic

Nonviolence is often seen as a tactic that is to be rejected when it fails to stem violence. Yet properly understood, nonviolence becomes the most powerful force for change. If we abandon it and fight, we perpetuate the cycle of violence and have to start again at moving away from a battleground toward the common ground we wish to build. 

But violence is a spontaneous reaction to threat. It takes time, talk and reflection to develop alternatives and nonviolent responses.

Behind violence we find power and hate, and behind hatred, fear. Before we can embrace nonviolence with confidence, therefore, we have to address our own fear. We also have to be sure we are not looking for power "over" anyone.

Our first principles were a commitment to nonviolence and women only. We did not claim to speak for any other woman, only for ourselves. There were no representatives or "spokeswomen," no leaders. We struggled to find new ways of respecting and valuing each other, to interconnect and enjoy the solidarity of women everywhere; to gain a real understanding of what nonviolence is, and to use it.

Hundreds of women learned the principles and practice of nonviolence at Greenham. It changed from a tactic to a way of life, a sustainable system of recognition of the other not based on religion or rules. Women had the opportunity to try out their new thinking, to make mistakes and watch others make mistakes, knowing we were aiming in the same direction. Some women found it incredibly painful to see their feelings of hate break through toward the military and police as well as toward the weapons. But we could rely on other women to rescue us with calming words while moving us away from the situation. 

Everyone at Greenham was expected always to be conscious of how she was affecting others. Thus martyrdom, self-negation and self-sacrifice were not encouraged. They breed resentment and anger, and are auto-violence.

We did not accept other people's "oughts" and "musts." The basis for nonviolent action must be voluntary. The other side of this coin is that all are expected to be responsible for their own actions.

Lessons Learnt

Three things became clear at Greenham. First, nonviolence is a full-time commitment, not a coat you can put on when it feels comfortable. It informs every aspect of life. Second, we could learn nonviolence, and we could put it into practice toward the military. Third, combining the natural strengths of different women often leads to the most successful actions. Women to whom nonviolence came easily would spread their calm, while action strategists would press home a tactical advantage (like getting into missile convoy vehicles if we reached them and found the doors unlocked). Add to this mixture wit, a sense of fun and a liberal dose of disrespect for authority, and you have the perfect recipe for undermining the secrecy and hatred essential to planning for nuclear war.

Actions were practical and symbolic at the same time. For example, from 1983 onwards the Greenham fence was repeatedly cut down by women, sometimes in bits, sometimes in huge chunks. Hundreds of women were arrested, charged and fined for criminal damage. Many refused to pay and went to prison instead. Elaborate sensors, lights, civil and military police, British and U.S. soldiers, surveillance and infiltrators all failed to solve this one simple problem.

Another extraordinary thing we learned was to become our own lawyers. The most important case proved by women was that the base was illegally built on common land. That was the beginning of the end of the military occupation of the Common.

Greenham women are involved in many different campaigns now. We still organize in small groups, linked by a loose network, consciously rejecting the large structure that a big organization would bring. History is usually written by the victors, but there is no victory greater than knowing we have tried.

Di McDonald visited Greenham Women's Peace Camp regularly with her children from 1982, and lived there during 1984. This article is excerpted from a paper first published in Women, Violence and Nonviolent Change published by the World Council of Churches, which represents her personal perspective. 

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