By special guest Activist Angler Nikola Pisarev

If someone asks me, or any European fisherman, to choose only 3 lures to put in a backpack together with a small rod and be dropped from a plane in an unknown place anywhere on the planet I’m sure that 90% of us will choose a Mepps spinner, Rapala minnow, and DAM Effzett spoon. What is interesting about these lures, is that all of them were invented to work locally on the nearby waters of their inventors for certain fish species. This is true for the history of most artificial baits for predatory fish: their invention is connected with knowledge of local context, conditions, and behavior of the fish.  

Almost 100 years ago, in the early and mid-1930s, Lauri Rapala from Finland, Andre Meulnart from France, and Fritz Ziegenspeck from Germany were developing lures to satisfy their needs. All of them were excellent fishermen with engineering knowledge. Lauri Rapala was monitoring and studying minnows and predators in crystal clear waters of Finland lakes near his home in Sysma when he noticed that in a group of minnows, an injured minnow swimming with an odd wobble made it the target of a larger fish looking for a meal. Based on that observation, he created the first Rapala lure in 1936 carved from cork with a shoemaker’s knife, covered with chocolate candy bar wrappers and melted photography film negatives for a protective outer coating. This became the model of the 9cm long Rapala original in white-silver color with a black back. Just 2 years later, in 1938, in fast waters running down from the alps, French engineer Andre Meulnart observed how trout attack their prey in seconds in places where the main river current is cut by stones or similar obstacles in the water. Based on that observance and the need to have bait that will be able to stay in a fast current without changing depth or action,  he created the first Mepps spinner. Just a little earlier, around 1930, the  Germanconstructor and fisherman Fritz Ziegenspeck was watching pike, perch, and zanders in the channels and how they attack small tenchs, redeyes, perches and similar minnows just after their belly flashes when hit by a sunbeam from a certain angle. Based on this knowledge, he created a wobbling spoon with one silver and one gold side that was produced in 1933 by D.A.M. (Deutsche Angelgeräte Manufaktur, which translates in English as “German fishing equipment manufacturers” ) as the Effzett spoon. These lures, developed locally, spread around the world. There are funny stories about their spread, like the first Mepps lures being brought to the USA from soldiers from after World War II, and later on in 1950s, they were objects of exchange between two shops, with the American shop sending women’s nylon stockings to France and the French shop sending Mepps spinners to the USA.  Regardless of how they spread, we can say that all three lures work successfully on each part of the planet – from tropical shallows and mangroves, through warm seas to cold depths of northern seas and lakes. From strong currents of muddy tropic rivers to ice-cold mountain rivers and streams in the northern hemisphere. 

 

As an activist, I start asking myself why this is. How is world-wide success possible when the local context in which the lures were developed is so different, with the habits of the fish as well as conditions of the water different from place to place?  Then a few weeks ago, when Greece finally opened borders for vaccinated people from North Macedonia and other states, I was trolling for blue fish and arrow fish in Greek coastal seas with a Rapala on one side of the boat and an Effzett on the other and I found the solution. Fish behavior is led by a simple problem: hunger.  And the fish are trying to solve the problem in the simplest way: getting a meal without using and spending so much energy. Lures like the spinner, spoon and minnow, with their wobbling and imitation of wounded fish, offer fish exactly that.  

A few years ago, I started working on a joint project using artistic activism to raise awareness and fight against corruption in my region of Western Balkans and in the region of West Africa. At the very beginning, we were all confused about how we will cooperate and work together considering all differences in local contexts, behavior, habits, and everything we can imagine. People in West Africa dance and perform as part of everyday culture, we in South Europe dance and perform mainly when we drink or at weddings. They gather together to solve problems, we gather together to create problems and start endless discussions. It seemed like the difference in local cultures was insurmountable. But never say never. After working together for 4-5 months or so, it was impossible not to conclude that there is much that is similar in that behavior of the different local audiences to the global issue of corruption.  People in Western Balkans and People in West Africa are both aware that corruption is eating their society and preventing progress and social welfare. (Actually, it is the same everywhere on the planet.) Like the fish, this problem pushes people to search for a solution and start organizing for change. Activism is the universal tool to address that problem and help achieve that change. Like the Mepps, Rapala, and DAM Effzett, creative, artistic activism works because it becomes a way to mobilize people and to fight the problems our communities are faced with. It is a solution to a problem.

By special guest Activist Angler Nikola Pisarev

People in some parts of the Balkans used to say: “Look at the clear water and you will clear your mind.” Someone clever probably once said that the best ideas are born when one’s mind is totally free and relaxed. That’s the only time we can speak, argue, and discuss with ourselves; it’s a time when we are very objective and self-critical.  It is also scientifically proven that sitting by and looking out upon open water (whether a lake, river, or sea) is one of the best ways to relax the mind. If to this we add looking and concentrating on one point (a fishing float, top of the rod, fish indicator, or fishing line) we get the best method of concentration. Even stronger than all mighty yoga techniques! It is funny,  but when I fish I can think most clearly about activism and activist strategies. Many times my fishing equipment is stored in the car, waiting for me to finish an action or event or whatever and escape immediately to the nearest waters. 

There are many fishing techniques, both in freshwater and on the sea, that we use in the Balkans, but only one sort of fishing demands an analytical approach, creative tactics, and excellence in knowing local conditions, and this is catching European catfish. European, or Wels, catfish are the largest and strongest freshwater fish on the planet and can grow longer than 3 meters and weigh over 200kg. Luckily for me, in North Macedonia and Greece (my usual fishing area) we have several rivers and lakes with really good cats. The catfish live in the deeper part of slow-flowing rivers and lakes. Their main diet is worms, smaller fish, crabs, and frogs, but bigger cats feed on larger fish and even water birds like ducks and pigeons. Fortunately, cats don’t eat mammals, because considering their size they could be a real threat even for humans. 

Fishing catfish demands serious knowledge, dedication, and knowing the habits of cats on the particular waters you are fishing. In the Balkans, there are specific ways of using baitfish, and clonking and spinning (mainly on rivers) with large lures can also be very successful. But even knowing perfectly all of these techniques, the results can be zero if you don’t know how cats are feeding and acting in local water. More than any other sort of fishing,  knowing and understanding the local habits of cats — the local context — is critical to have a successful result in catfishing.  And it’s often the worst possible conditions: thunderstorms, lightning flashes, strong rains, winds, and even earthquakes, that make for the best context for catfishing. Overall, fishing for cats is very complicated and demanding, but at the same time exciting and the sort of fishing that provides for unforgettable experiences.

Importance of Local Context

As an activist who has spent many years in community work and development,  I always consider local context as something highly important to approaching people, getting their trust, creating friendly connections, and opening discussion about their problems. Honestly, fishing (as well as hunting) helps me a lot in my community work —  not only in terms of being patient and learning to wait but also through long talks with other fisherman or hunters about our passions, I discover a lot about the local context. 

Here’s an example. It was almost 10 years ago, and I was making my first steps in creative and artistic activism, when our colleagues from Kratovo (a city of 10,000 people in east Macedonia) called us to help them with a serious local problem. A landslide had made a pothole in a road almost 2 meters deep and over 20 meters long, several serious traffic accidents had happened, and people from houses below the road were under threat to be destroyed by the landslide. Kratovo is a small idyllic city where nothing ever happened, and since the late 1970s the whole city had been controlled by only one man.  The same man was the employer of over 80% of the population, owner of one of the 3 biggest tv stations in Macedonia, and was well established in the Macedonian government in the period (2009-2017) when it that was not very democratic.

Responding to the call of our colleagues, we went to Kratovo to speak with the local people. My colleagues were trying to convince them to organize a petition, create a small protest, blockade the road. etc.… and the results were zero. Everybody is afraid to do anything where they would show up or put down their name: anything that might directly confront the local establishment. Totally disappointed, we go back home to think about what to do. After a few days we, decide to come back to Kratovo but instead of speaking with local activists and opposition people, I go to the road where the pothole is and speak with the people who live nearby. With a friendly conversation that starts about mushroom collecting, then growing domestic pigeons, preparing fermented cabbage, and the world conspiracy against orthodox Macedonia, the locals start speaking about the problem. During this pretty chaotic but friendly conversation, someone mentions that the problem has been existing for almost one year, yet no one had done anything except put few signs up for a damaged road and a reduced speed limit.

Like a flash, I get a crazy idea to throw a birthday party for the pothole and landslide. As we continue to speak about the problem, I tell the people my idea and explain to them that their only part is to come, eat cake, have a drink, and act like neighbors who just came out to see what is happening. Even though they are suspicious that something as crazy as a birthday party can change something, some of them agree to come to the party on road. A few days later we organize everything: cake, balloons, candles, birthday flags, and we create the event. In the beginning, only a few people come, but in less than an hour, attracted by the whole scene of the cake, music, and birthday party, the whole neighborhood arrives. The media is also there to cover the story, and the locals speak freely about the problem. We leave and during the drive back home to the capital city of Skopje we are not aware that we are the main topic in media. The action was so crazy that it became the top news of the day!  By evening, the whole state is speaking about a crazy group of activists and local residents of Kratovo that organized the birthday party for a pothole in the middle of a road. Even Serbian and Bulgarian media report about this crazy action. By the end of that day, the Minister of Transportation states that they will immediately start solving the problem and in less than 5 weeks both the road and the landslide were fixed.

Cats of Pcinja River

Pcinja is not a very big river and its upper flow passes close to Kratovo. But even though it’s not a very big river,  10-15-20 kg cats are swimming in the Pcinja. Years ago we went there for fishing, set our rods, put different baits that should be a delicacy for catfish, like gigantic worms, bloodsuckers, small fish — we even found several mole crickets (Gryllotalpa brachyptera)  which are known as one of best baits for the late spring-early summer period. Then we wait … one night, and then a second night with rain and thunder and everything by the book. Next weekend we do it again, but the results are only baby catfish smaller than 1 kg.  I start asking around why the cats are not active. Considering that fisherman from surrounding villages usually do not fish for catfish, their answers are not so useful. Finally, I find one older man (why are they always an older man…?) that has a farm near the river and I start a conversation with him.  We speak about everything except fishing because he is not a fisherman. At the end of our discussion, I tell him that we are trying to catch catfish. He answers. “I’m not a fisherman, but I remember my brother has a friend who is a fisherman and he was always going to the nearby swamp to catch frogs before fishing and he was bringing good catfish home.” This information was enough for me, so I  immediately get in my Lada Niva and go to the swamp and catch a few big frogs.  We then try fishing with frogs on the surface, on the bottom,  and in all sorts of different modes and techniques. Finally, we find out that the frog should swim lightly 1 meter from the bottom. After that, we land several nice catfish. This year, during the pandemic lockdown, I visit Pcinja River many times and I always first pass by the swamp for frogs.

Immediate Reactions

Catfishing and activism have another important joint characteristic: quick reactions and risk management.  Many times as activists we are forced to decide whether will we do something or not, and to do it urgently.  Today or tomorrow,  in a day or two, we have to organize everything because if we don’t do it we will lose public momentum and our audiences will decline significantly. Additionally, to react quickly we have to calculate risks.

It was the 5th of May 2015 and the leader of the opposition in Macedonia (now North Macedonia) is announcing illegally taped audio recordings about crimes of the government at a press conference. He releases audio files with conversation proving how the police tried to hide from the public the murder of the young activist Martin Neshkovski on 6 June 2011 by members of special police forces of Macedonia. It now was on us activists to decide whether we will do something or not. Will we call a protest? And will we be able to prevent violence and police brutality if the protest escalates?   In one hour we decide we will do it. We put 2 speakers out in front of the government building and just play the audio file the opposition leader announced a few hours before. People start coming, with candles, with flowers, and the number is constantly increasing and increasing. We estimated to have a maximum of 1000 people come, and by around 21:00 there is 10 times this amount. Later the situation escalates:  tear gas is in the air, police start arresting people, garbage bins are set on fire, and the whole city is on standby. But as the night goes on the protests ended and the police release the activists they had arrested. In the morning, the minister of police resigns together with the chief of secret police and few other top police officials. The risk and immediate preparations were worth it.

It is July, during the pandemic of 2020, and with face masks on we were trying to drink Rakija (a spirit made from grape widely used in south Europe) on the cost of Dojran Lake just a few hundred meters from the Greek border. We are preparing for an evening fishing for catfish from a boat. Dojran Lake is known as one of the best southern European destinations for cats, fishes from 100+ kg are not rare. The day is cloudy and we are hoping that some raindrops will increase our chances to land some good catfish. Enter the lake around 19:00, we put out an anchor around 300-350 meters from the shore in water about 7 meters deep. Slowly we set out the rods, 3 of mine and 3 of my friends, using different baits like chicken livers and live baitfish. We wait for the first hours of dark (“tiny dark” as locals in Dojran call this period when cats are active). Suddenly a southern wind starts and we can feel the salt and smell from the Aegean Sea.  It was an incredible feeling in this pandemic year when we can’t just go across the Greek border to the sea even though it is only 50km from the lake. After this initial happiness from the smell of the sea, the wind becomes stronger (from 2, it increases to 4-5 Beaufort) and clouds become darker. Lightning flashes are cutting the sky and thunderclaps are louder and louder. It is ideal weather for catfishing… but also ideal weather to be hit by lighting in the middle of the lake in a boat with 6 seven-foot graphite rods sticking up in the air (all marked with the warning:  Do Not Use During Lightning Storms).

It is our call what to do: Will we wait and maybe catch the fish of our life? Or save our lives and head for the safety of the shore? On the one hand, the chances that lighting will hit the boat are not extremely high, but on the other hand, graphite rods significantly increase those chances. Suddenly all our rods that we paid hundreds of euros for are completely useless. While thinking what to do we land one 4-5kg catfish and jump 3-4 times on the bottom of the boat while thunder and lightning strikes near us. We have to make a decision immediately, should we stay or should we go? How much risk are we are prepared to take? We make a decision: we pack quickly, leave the lake, and put all the rods in the car. And then we immediately get back in the boat and come back to the middle of the lake to fish like people did centuries ago — with only a hand-line. The thunder and lightning continue, the rain falls, but we feel much safer in the boat, and we survive the storm. The fish of our lives didn’t arrive, but we land a few more good catfish. Overall, the night passes great, even if we were totally wet and frozen, and we made a good balance between the risk of getting hit by lightning and our wish to fish. Most importantly, we survived and caught fish : )

When you have been fishing for a while you start to look at the world as a person who fishes. When I go to the beach with my wife to relax in our beach chairs, read books, and be lulled by the waves, I can’t help myself from looking out past the waves for baitfish jumping. In the late afternoons on blisteringly hot days when my sons and I go to one of the kettle ponds to cool off by floating out to the middle of the pond on our inner tubes, I scan the shoreline from my new vantage point looking for promising spots to follow up on in future fishing trips. Back in the city, on my morning runs to the Hudson River, I always make sure to peer into the buckets of the old men fishing on the pier, making mental note of what they are catching and what they are using for bait.  There’s an old adage: to a person with a hammer, the world is a nail. Well, to an angler, the world is a potential fish.  Like many anglers I know, I’ve come to keep a rod in the back of the car even when I am not fishing …. just in case.

Down at the bottom of my road, where the road gives way to an estuary, there is a path that traces the boundaries of the salt marsh, twisting and turning, all the way to the bay beach about a half-mile or so away.  A neighbor tells me that she has walked that path with her dog nearly every day for 50 years and that the path has existed for as long as anyone can remember. This summer, however, a tenants association for a cluster of houses at the end of the road put up a big sign saying “Private Property” and tried to restrict access to the path. If I wasn’t an activist I’d probably get angry, mutter private threats, or, as my 80-year-old neighbor has done, simply ignore the sign and continue on walking her dog along the path as she has always done. Instead, I spend the day researching Massachusetts shoreline access rights (which it turns out, are some of the worst in the country). That evening I invite a few activist friends over to our deck where we strategize a “name and shame” campaign we might wage with the help of a friendly reporter, and discuss the possibility of more direct action. Looking at the world through an activist’s eyes means that where others can rant or ignore, you always know something could be done, and you could be the one doing it. To an activist, the world is a place to act, and the decision to act or not act is yours; what the existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre called the anguish of responsibility.  A few nights ago, mysteriously, the sign disappeared.   

Fishing with live bait entails a lot of watching, sensing, and waiting for a nibble. How long to wait is always a question. I’ve stared out across the water at my bobber, watching it do nothing, only to come to the conclusion after a fruitless hour that there are absolutely no fish where I’ve cast and I’ve just been wasting my time. On the other hand, I’ve also had days where I get impatient: casting out bait only to let it sit for 5 minutes before hauling it in again, never giving a curious fish a chance to find it. Deciding whether to do nothing or do something, and when is the right time for each, extends throughout fishing. Once you see your bobber dunk under, or feel a pull on your line, you need to set the hook in order to catch the fish. This sounds more straightforward than it is. If you yank back on your pole too hard, too soon, you’ll end up with half-eaten bait and no fish on the line. But if you wait too long, there’s a good chance that the wily fish will carefully strip your hook and swim away. Perhaps Aristotle was thinking of fishing when he came up with his concept of the Golden Mean, finding a happy place between excess and deficiency.

Sometimes waiting is essential with activism. The arch pranksters, the Yes Men, play the long game. They create websites that look like their targets and then, when sloppy journalists ask for quotes or unsuspecting event planners ask them to come to speak at conferences, they are ready to launch their satirical performances that reveal and exaggerate the worst practices of their foes. Everyday activism entails biding time too: waiting for an event that thrusts your issue into the limelight, the moment when your opponent slips up, or when public opinion swings your way. But sometimes waiting around is the wrong move, and you need to force the action. When we first formed our community activist group in the Lower East Side I remember a more experienced member lobbying for an action. I argued that we were not ready and that no one in the community was even thinking about the issue at hand:  government complicity in gentrification. “Yes,” she replied, “but if we don’t do an action now, people will continue to not think about the issue, and worse: we will  be one of those groups who talk about doing actions but don’t do them.” We did the action: a banner drop in front of the local Housing and Urban Development office calling out the practice of warehousing empty apartments. It was terrible. We weren’t ready, no one from the community came, and the press didn’t show up. Yet, that action changed us from a kvetching group to an activist group and set the stage for much more successful, well attended, and well covered, events in future months. Maybe Aristotle was wrong: it’s not so much finding a place between doing nothing and doing too much, it’s knowing that each has its own value, at its own time.

When fishing for bass in my local pond I have to make a decision: do I cast for accuracy? Or do I cast for coverage? Casting for accuracy means being able to drop my lure exactly where I want it. Like right at the edge of a fallen tree sticking out into the water that seems like a likely place for bass to hang out. Accuracy matters because if I overshoot just a foot too long my lure will wrap around a branch, get all tangled up, and I’ll have to cut the line. Too short, and the bass lurking under the log won’t notice my alluring rubber worm as it falls through the water. Casting for coverage means being able to propel my worm far out into the lake, let it sink its way to the bottom, and then slowly retrieve it — twitching, lifting and falling — across a maximum distance. Depending on which way I decide I want to go, I take along a different rod and reel. For accuracy, I use a baitcaster setup: an old Abu Garcia 5000 reel and a Kunan Competitor 5 foot rod. With its short throw, and by keeping my thumb on the spool as the line spools out,  I can drop my lure on a dime (well, sometimes). If I want to go the distance, I use a spinning outfit: my trusty Garcia Mitchell 300 reel and 7 foot Fenwick Feralite rod. The longer pole and spinning reel lets me cast far out into the lake.  Most of the time, however, I just grab whatever rod is handy and go to the pond and try my luck.

When thinking about audiences for their actions, activists frequently — albeit unconsciously — default to two options: themselves or everyone. Either their intervention is crafted to appeal only to the narrow band of people who share the same ideological concerns, common languages, and aesthetic and cultural sensibilities as themselves, or they veer in the opposite direction: creating actions with the most general and generic of appeals in order to offend no one and include as wide a demographic as possible. The former has a specificity that makes it more likely to resonate with its target audience, but that audience, let’s face it, is minuscule. The latter approach has the potential to break out of “preaching to the choir” and reach the mass audience that’s necessary for any sort of social change, but such a mass audience is too broad, too diverse, too massive to reach and touch with any singular approach or appeal. What works is to locate your audience between 1 and 100 million, identifying groups of people who are large enough to make a difference, yet share enough commonalities to create an intervention that they can feel speaks directly to them and their concerns.

To be a good angler you need patience. In fact, in order to not quit fishing the first day out when you realize just how boring fishing can be, you need patience. Fishing is often frustratingly unproductive. The name itself says it all, most of the time, when fishing, you are not actually catching fish you are just fishing. And fishing is repetitive. You cast out and you reel in, hoping that there’s a fish nearby and it likes what you have to offer. Cast out and reel in. Cast out and reel in. Cast out and reel in. To enjoy fishing you need to learn to love the process, not be in it for just the product. That’s not to say that the product, catching a fish, doesn’t matter, it does, it’s just that arriving at the moment when a fish is on your line and you are reeling it in, may take a long, long time. But with enough patience, the moment will come: the fish will be biting, one will grab hold of your lure, your rod will double and you will experience the heart-pounding thrill of catching a fish, and perhaps even the pleasure of eating one too. But without practicing patience, this will never happen. 

I remember once asking Dread Scott, a committed activist artist who, like me, was then approaching middle age, how he kept the faith that his work was going to have an impact. In response, he said: “I like cycling. If you’re a great bike rider and you’re riding in the Tour de France, and you happened to be riding in the seven years that Lance Armstrong is riding, you’re probably not going to win. Even if you’re a great cyclist. It’s just the balance of things didn’t work in your favor.”  For most of my activist life, the balance of things has not been in my favor. For nearly forty years I have been going to meetings and planning actions. I work with amazing people on righteous causes, but those with more money and power continually seem to win. Yet I, and countless other activists, keep doing the seemingly unproductive and repetitive labor of activism. Why? Because, as Dread went on to say, it’s about waiting for what happens in that eighth year when Armstrong is not in the Tour de France (or as it turns out, gets banned from cycling for cheating). There are moments when the balance of things is in our favor, when historical alignments are in the right position, and we do win.  Then the world changes, even if only a little. Waiting for those moments takes patience and when they come you need to have kept up your training. 

One of my favorite fishing experiences took place after the fishing was done. My younger son, Sebastien, had invited his friend, Tejas,  to stay with us for a long weekend and they wanted to go surf fishing in the morning. The romantic mist that had surrounded the house as we left at dawn turned into a blowing drizzle when we got to the beach. The surf was up, with large breakers slamming down on the beach and drenching from below any part of our bodies that were not getting wet from above. My son’s friend had never fished before, but Sebastien taught him the basics of spin fishing and in no time Tejas was casting his lure out past where the waves were breaking and into the calm where the striped bass were lurking. Or should be lurking. Or perhaps were lurking but definitely not biting. We stayed on the beach, casting out and reeling in, without a bite, getting wet and getting cold for about an hour and a half then packed it in. On the way home, we stopped for breakfast at a local diner and each of us ordered the “Breaker,” a local take on the classic egg and bacon sandwich with linguica sausage, scrambled eggs, and American cheese on a grilled Portuguese sweet roll. We sat there for another hour and a half drying out, drinking coffee and tea and eating our heart-attack-on-a-bun, recounting our recent fishing experience, our bad luck, and the strike that turned out to be a clump of seaweed. We talked about summer plans and worries about the new schools they would be attending in the fall. We laughed a lot. By the end of our breakfast, despite the cold and the wet and the absolute lack of fish, Tejas was talking about the next time he might go fishing.

One of the most important parts of activism is what happens after the action. The planning is over, the action has occurred, and now it’s time to make sense of it all. Many of my action debriefs have happened in dark bars, as we let go of our pent-up anxieties into glasses of beer, but the one I recall most vividly (perhaps because of the lack of alcohol) took place in the brilliant sunshine in the courtyard of a community center in the Jamestown neighborhood of Accra, Ghana. We had just finished an action drawing attention to governmental corruption, and the group of young artistic activists from across West Africa gathered themselves in a big circle. First, we recounted some of the highlights: the kids who spontaneously got involved, the grumpy market woman who ended up staying to watch, the necessity of ad-libbing when we realized that one component of the performance just wasn’t going to work. But soon the group settled down to the business of the debrief. Everyone went around and gave a short statement of what they observed. Then they went around and talked about what they felt. After these insights, the activists began their analysis: What worked? What didn’t? What surprised us? Finally, they were ready to address the all-important question: Knowing what we know now, what could we do better? It’s fun to get together after the action and relive the glory moments, but the debrief is also a serious business. It’s through critical reflection that we become better activists, next time.

Lately, I’ve been waking up at two o’clock in the morning wracked with anxiety. There’s a lot to be anxious about: we are nine months into a pandemic, a madman is in the Whitehouse doing his best to drag this country into an alternate reality, my two sons are “learning” online from home which, in practice, means not really learning much at all, and my own students are despondent about their education and their future and nothing I do to try to arouse their passion seems to be working. It’s 2 am and I need to get more sleep because I am teaching again in the morning, but every time I close my eyes I just recycle the same worries over and over again. To stop this cycling I taught myself a trick: I try and dream of fish. Or fishing to be exact. I imagine myself at water’s edge casting out and reeling in, over and over, repetitively, until I re-channel my thoughts and calm myself down enough to go back to sleep. It’s my version of counting sheep.

For many of the people I work with, activism has very high stakes. If free access to medicines is not won, children will die of diarrhea and malaria. If laws are not changed to legalize sex work, more and more people will become victims of violent abuse at the hands of clients, criminals, and corrupt cops. If climate change is not addressed soon, it’s likely that human life itself will become extinct. These high stakes call for bold moves. Paradoxically, the very intensity of what is at stake often leads to a sort of conservatism: an unwillingness to take chances because we simply don’t have the luxury of taking a risk with a new strategy or tactic. This is natural: even when we know there’s a lot to win, we tend to concentrate on what we might lose. So when working with these activists we create games and exercises to divert them: we lead them to imagine the Utopia they want instead of dwelling upon the problems in front of them, we ask them to come up with multiple impossible tactics in an impossibly short amount of time, and, together, we plan a “practice” campaign and “rehearse” an action. We lower the stakes. With the stakes lowered, something marvelous happens: people loosen up, take risks, and try out things that are creative and new. We become wilder in our thoughts and bolder in our actions and therefore have a better chance of winning those high stakes contests.

I don’t like fishing with live worms. First off, it’s disgusting. Just the worms themselves: they are the color of chicken liver and about the consistency as well. Except that they always are moving: frontward, backward (and it can be hard to tell which is which) squirming, and coiling. Then you hook them and they squirm some more, exuding dirt crap out of what you now discover is their backsides. Wriggling on your hook, you cast the worm out into the water and wait, doing nothing except staring at your bobber, until a fish attracted by the theatre of cruelty you’ve staged below the surface decides to bite. Or nibble, slowly and steadily stripping the hook of the work so you have to go through the whole disgusting process of re-worming again. I would swear off fishing with worms except for one thing: worms work. Really, really well. When nothing else is catching fish, threading a writhing worm onto the hook and tossing it out into the water is almost guaranteed to get you a fish. It’s wonderful to have a perfect cast, a skillful retrieve, and an artful lure. But in the end the goal is catching a fish.  

The “creative activism” I specialize in gets a lot of attention these days. For good reason, too. Remember the first rule of guerrilla warfare: to know your terrain and use it to your advantage? Well, our current political landscape is made up of signs and symbols, stories and spectacles, and activists have begun to realize that to work successfully on this terrain means becoming more artistic activists. Besides, artistic activism is also new and flashy and fun. Yet, at times I have my doubts. I’ve been doing and teaching this sort of activism for over two decades, and I will likely continue for another two decades, but this little voice in my head keeps asking the question: Does it work? That’s a hard question to answer, for all sorts of reasons, but an important question to ask, for in the end what matters is attaining objectives and winning campaigns, and if artistic activism is not working there are other tactics that might. Phone banking, canvassing door-to-door, lobbying politicians and meeting with their aides, attending and speaking up at community meetings are old, dull, and not much fun. But they sometimes work better than what’s flashy, fun, and new. A good activist needs to be open to a whole range of tactics, both fashionable and old-fashioned,  and always ask themselves, do I just want to look cool, or do I want to win?

There’s always time for one last cast. One last cast for the day as the sun dips down. One last cast before you need to go home and assume your responsibilities. One last cast for the season before you pack up your gear. My last casts usually come in the form of deals I make with myself: five more casts in a fan pattern in this particular spot and then, convinced there are no fish out there just waiting for me to drag my lure through their quadrant, I will go home. I often cheat. I swear I’m going to make one last cast and then I make another, then another, and only when I am disgusted by my weakness, or seriously worried about time, do I make my final cast and go home. Sometimes, however, these last casts are the ones that bring in the fish. It makes little logical sense, I know, but I am convinced that the fraction of casts that qualify as last casts, relative to all my other casts of the day, disproportionately yield more fish. Who knows, maybe I take more chances on those last casts: casting into areas I usually overlook or trying out a lure that I haven’t used before. But no matter how many last casts you take, there is always one, definitive, last cast and then you need to go home.

Part of being an effective activist is knowing when to quit, and when not to quit. Back when I was a community organizer in the Lower East Side of Manhattan we worked on a  campaign to save local community gardens. These were gardens that residents had reclaimed from rubble-strewn lots back in the days when NYC’s infrastructure was crumbling, realtors were disinvesting from the neighborhood,  and the property was worth nothing.  Now that gentrification had made the Lower East Side a desirable place to live for the more well-to-do, these abandoned lots turned community gardens were being sold off by the city to developers. Working with the people who had built the gardens we set out to save them. We held protests outside the gardens, we had sleep-ins inside the gardens, we even unleashed 10,000 crickets at a city land auction to halt the sales. And garden after garden was sold off and the gardeners were thrown out. People were getting dispirited and we seriously contemplated ending the campaign, but we staged one last action: we took over a major avenue in the middle of the day, blocked traffic, brought out planter boxes, planted flowers, fired up a sound system, and held a raucous garden party that made all the local news channels. This action, planned in conjunction with other city-wide protests, was enough to convince a celebrity to donate a small fortune to buy the gardens for public use and push the city into selling them to her. After this victory, the campaign became a matter of permits and legal wrangling, better left to lawyers and non-profits, and we knew it was time for us to pack up and go home.