The Post Bag: Letters To Squall

Lessons Of Violence Vs Non-Violence

Squall 13, Summer 1996, pg. 65.

Dear Squall,

Issue 12 is generally excellent, as usual. But I am distressed to find your leader (Violence Is A Symptom - Squall 12) perpetuating the violence myth about how the Poll Tax was beaten. It was in fact beaten by the largest wave of civil disobedience this country has every known.

The Great British people were given the chance to defy the authorities in a righteous cause by doing nothing - and they took the chance in millions. They filled in registration forms slowly or not at-all, answered no doors to Poll Tax inspectors, and paid no Poll Tax when their bills arrived. Non-violent Direct Inaction won the day - because it involved millions of people, millions of hours of bureaucrat time, and hundreds of millions of pounds Sterling.

Minor rioting in places like Tunbridge Wells certainly alarmed the authorities - not just in this country, as I have been informed by Mr Social Control (aka David Holloway). Governments in Australia and Japan had been considering introducing a Poll Tax in their countries, but were frightened off.

Some people believe that the Trafalgar Square riot tipped the balance in this country. But if the Poll Tax had been defeated because that great peaceful assembly ended in bloodshed and mayhem, it would have been a victory for the police tactics of entrapment and intimidation which so blatantly came into play as we came up Whitehall that day. In fact, the resultant violence just gave a good cause a bad name, and the tabloids a chance for a particularly gruesome witchhunt. Front-line casualties are of no account to the powers that be, there is an infinite supply so long as control over the flow of money which maintains that power is safe.

As with the anti-roads campaigns, so with the Poll Tax: hits to the exchequer are what really hurt.

Respect and solidarity,

Dinah Murray

London