Viewed against the backdrop of a campaign which has been largely stagnant since the Howard years, it is worth taking some heart from recent actions outside the Villawood and Broadmeadows detention centres. Not because these actions represent any radical shift in the tactics employed by the refugee movement, or because activists were able to do any more than delay the forced relocations. It’s not even because enough attention was drawn to the plight of those being removed to Christmas Island that it forced any sort of political reckoning on the subject of Fortress Australia. Single actions are rarely definitive in the context of broader social movements, but we should nevertheless greet the energy of these responses with a measure of cautious optimism. I say cautious because these actions have also highlighted long-term problems within “The Refugee Campaign™” that demand our urgent attention.

It is not in any way controversial to observe that what the refugee campaign has been doing for the better part of a decade no longer – or has never – worked. Some point out that no one in the broader movement can actually claim to have a working strategy at this point in time, which whilst superficially true, strikes me as a less than compelling argument for ignoring questions of strategy. As a response to questions about why orthodox tactics aren’t even capable of leveraging reforms, organisations like the Refugee Action Collective argue in favour of a passivity that borders on apathy, that almost compels us to throw up our hands in despair. The situation grows ever more desperate, we’re told, not because our methods of campaigning are ineffective, but because the campaign is not sufficiently developed, it has not been ‘built’ enough.

What this means, in practical terms, is depressingly familiar to those of us who have participated in refugee solidarity campaigns: the dilution of political content and analysis to accommodate the ‘moderate’ views of allies in the clergy or Labor For Refugees; a demonstrated hostility to direct action or any diversity in tactics; ever more poorly attended ‘set piece’ rallies in city centres; endless leafleting of ‘safe’ neighbourhoods like Brunswick or Newtown and perpetual demands to sign and share this very important petition to call on the Australian government to have compassion these ‘good refugees’ (as opposed to those dastardly ‘economic migrants’).

Rather than developing a politics that dismantles popularised notions of borders and “illegals”, the rhetoric of the ‘official’ refugee movement has retreated from any semblance of structural analysis into total supplication before the state. There is precious little value in targeting individual politicians (however despicable) for their excesses without clearly identifying and critiquing the power structures that empower these politicians, but even groups with radical pedigree like RAC insist on characterising the depravity of the Australian border regime as essentially a management question.

If we were engaging with these perspectives only in the abstract, it would still be a troubling state of affairs, but these attitudes also fundamentally inform the way that actions are planned and executed. With only a few hours notice, the fact that activists were able to pull enough people out to keep pickets on both entrances of the Broadmeadows detention centre for the whole night and much of the next day is in itself worthy of note. It signals, amongst other things, that no matter how insipid the political response has been for so long, there are still people with the resolve to fight. Admittedly, with little time to organise and even less time to develop strategy and tactics, the prospects of a few dozen people maintaining an effective blockade against the resources of the state are not particularly good. Acknowledgment of grim conditions, of course, is no argument at all about why we shouldn’t try.

The purpose of pickets and blockades is a lot more than symbolic. It is about bringing pressure to bear in the most effective manner possible, to sabotage the ability for business as usual to continue. The fact that the infrastructure of the Australian border (even the onshore detention centres) lays ever increasingly outside the effective reach of activists demands that, where there exists a possibility to somehow disrupt “Operation Sovereign Borders”, it must be seized. Simply put, such actions should be treated much more seriously than presenting another opportunity for participants to chant for the TV cameras to expose the public to brand RAC. Despite all of the good indicators, the energy and the enthusiasm, the swiftness of the response, this is essentially what happened at MITA.

While discussions earlier in the morning revolved around debates about whether to obstruct all vehicles entering or exiting the facility, the mood changed quite decisively with the arrival of senior members of the Refugee Action Collective. Immediately from the megaphone came the instruction that there was basically nothing we could do, so let’s put on a good show for the media, bear some witness, we can all go home. Although one would be tempted to dwell on the cynicism of this notion, what is particularly instructive is implicit. Despite the scope of the problem, political theatre rather than political action is the favoured response. The effect of the speech was poisonous, and whatever potential for civil disobedience existed in the crowd was quickly harnessed and dissipated in favour of the methods of respectability politics.

The first two blockades at Villawood detention centre in April this year, where the initiative and energy came from Students Thinking Outside Borders, provide a quite striking contrast to this experience. Initially, despite being in receipt of the same information about the scheduled ‘relocations’, the hierarchy of RAC largely dismissed the possibility, indeed the desirability, of any kind of direct or confrontational response. Happily, activists organised by STOB mobilised anyway, and with only a small group, were able to disproportionately disrupt the transfers before they were finally arrested. (For whatever it is worth, they also broke into the news cycle, which is seen by RAC as being a fundamental end in of itself.)

The much larger blockade that occurred over the following Friday night and Saturday, which involved hundreds of people at its peak (requiring dozens of riot police, the dog squad, a police helicopter and a mobile command centre to overcome) and significantly disrupted the transferals for hours on end is a great example of what can realistically be accomplished, even at very short notice. That we managed to pull so many people out on a Friday night, who were enthusiastic and angry and focused, is in no small part due to the confidence inspired in people by the actions of those who blockaded on the first day. Acts of well organised civil disobedience resonate with people.

Arriving on Miowera Road on that Friday night, to find already dozens of people engaged in a functionally democratic discussion about what needed to be done and how it could be achieved, was an invigorating experience. A lot of people began to realise the potential of their collective agency that morning. Whilst I can’t speak on the behalf of others, it seemed to me that this was largely because for once, we had the audacity to talk about actually resisting. Rather than working with the cops, we elected police liaisons and legal observers (who were to prove invaluable the following morning.) We elected media contacts. We had an actual discussion about tactics that didn’t merely default to ‘Rally, 1pm, Sydney Town Hall.’ When RAC finally arrived the next day, the management of discontent as per usual began, but could not overcome the resolve and solidarity built during the night.

I’m not collecting these thoughts because I believe we should refuse to work with RAC. Plainly, we haven’t the luxury of doing that. Rather, we should organise with them when we can and out-organise them when we can’t. Energy and space exists. With organisation and initiative, with developed politics, with some resolve we can stop fighting on the back foot.