How to Blow Up a Pipeline

by Andreas Malm

Ende Gelände,

There are two types of disruption: violent and nonviolent. Violence is a traditional method. It is brilliant at getting attention and creating chaos and disruption, but it is often disastrous when it comes to creating progressive change.

The suffragettes are instructive. Their tactic of choice was property destruction.

‘To be militant in some form, or other, is a moral obligation’,

This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed, Charles E. Cobb Jr.,

Umkhonto we Sizwe, the Spear of the Nation, or MK. It was Nelson Mandela who pushed for the reorientation: ‘Our policy to achieve a non-racial state by non-violence has achieved nothing’, and so ‘we will have to reconsider our tactics. In my mind we are closing a chapter on this question of a non-violent policy.’ Having won over his colleagues to the new line, Mandela was appointed first commander of the MK.