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| Ben White 1951 - 2005 |
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Ben White was the real-life person behind
the WTO turtles. His 35 years of activism, organizing, and passion about environmental and social justice along with his
imaginative, inspired vision for change, resulted in the colorful, evocative turtles that captured our hearts and our
minds during WTO Seattle. He conceived them, he built them, and he rounded up and inspired the hundreds of volunteers
who became them on the streets of WTO. Ben
White was a warrior for the kind of social and environmental changes that come from the ground up, from the people who live
in real time and devote themselves to real cause.
Rules
for WTO Turtles by Ben White One. Not only are we nonviolent, we're anti-violence.
Two. If you do anything aggressive, you will be de-turtled on the spot. Three. Comport yourself as a turtle. Turtles
are ancient repositories of wisdom. They never fight back. We're representing them. We owe it to turtles to be their voice.
~Ben White, in "The Battle in Seattle," the book.
Rules for Civil Disobedience
by Ben White
Civil Disobedience (CD) - breaking
the law of the day to argue for a greater goal - has been used as a form of activism for many years. Both Gandhi and Martin
Luther King, Jr. used it. The following is not intended as a recommendation to undertake CD; that is entirely a personal decision.
1. Challenging the infliction of suffering is the right thing to do. Feel proud. If you act like
a criminal, you will be treated as one.
2. Treat everyone - police, your opponents, the press
- as potential converts. Be persuasive, not angry.
3. Be peaceful. Completely. If verbally attacked,
smile. If physically attacked, protect yourself without responding in kind. Look the person in the eye.
4.
Remember why you are doing it - to keep from personally acquiescing to suffering. The more oppressive the treatment of you,
the more obvious the institutional protection of systemic violence.
5. There is power in numbers.
6. Come across as a normal person. Otherwise your opinion is considered by many to be worthless.
7. Know your subject. Don't answer any question from the media that you're not sure of.
8. Appeal to the inherent sense of fairness in your opponent or the police who are encountered.
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Ben White ~ A Man Of His
Word
"I really do see a new paradigm emerging, and it is populist versus corporatist. It's the beginning of a global
populist revolution. We had a far greater effect than any of us had any idea we would. It was like setting off a little bomb
on the acupressure point of the world economy." ~ Ben White in "The Battle in Seattle," the book.
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I
personally think that the power of nonviolence is so much greater that the power of violence. Violence is easily dismissed
because we're used to it, we know it. It's where we live as a society. It's powerful, tenacious nonviolence that's
truly revoluntionary. Violence is the same old shit. But look who 60 Minutes interviewed. They went to find the Eugene
anarchists, to find out who they are and what they think. Nobody came and talked to me." ~ Ben White in "Battle
in Seattle"
"We finally got our targets right and it's taken a long tme. We've all figured out that we have
the same enemy: the same thing that oppresses women, destroys families, destroys tthe land, keeps people poor, rips off the
animals. The triad of the WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank is the heart of darkness. The policies they're putting out
are what's keeping the world poor and keeping the corporations on top. But the force of the people will be unsurmountable."
~ Ben White in "The Battle in Seattle," the book.
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"It
was clear this thing was going to be big." ~ Ben White
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