Last week after I spoke at the UNISON Higher Education Seminar one of the delegates came up to me to have a brief chat. After very kindly saying how much she appreciated my speech she offered me a suggestion for how we can resist the reactionaries who seek to put us back to the Victorian times.
She said that she reminds people who wonder whether we can actually beat these people about the power of one single mosquito in a room. One mosquito in a room is a total nuisance she says. It has your total attention and you can spend your whole time trying to catch the pest. Imagine just what it would be like, she says, if we were all like Mosquitos together causing these reactionary politicians and their mates total hell by never giving up and just by being a total nuisance.
It just struck a chord with me that acts of resistance such as strikes and the occupations put us in the same category as mosquitos. I think that we have to just continue to use the tried and tested methods of resistance from our history alongside some of the new energy and tactics being adopted today in this country and elsewhere. Being a nuisance like a mosquito in our acts of resistance, just like the heroes of the Civil Rights Movement did, must be a good thing.
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