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Father's Rights Movement to Get English
Invasion
"The British Are Coming! The British Are Coming!"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fathers_4_Justice
Fathers 4 Justice (F4J) -- a pressure group that
originated in Britain to crusade for father's
rights, especially child custody and access rights
in divorce -- has just landed on American shores
with www.fathers-4-justice.us/
the creation of F4J-US. What happens next may tell
us as much about society's post-9/11 attitude
toward social reform as it does about father's
rights.
What do F4J and its international chapters
demand? F4J essentially seeks the removal of any
anti-male bias from the family court system. The
specifics include a wide range of measures,
including the court enforcement of visitation
orders and the linking of child support payments to
visitation rights.
Why would the repetition of well-aired demands
tell us anything new about society's post-9/11
attitudes? Because the strategy F4J favors hasn't
been really tested here since then.
Father's rights advocates and their opponents
have waged a public strategy war, to be sure. But
their weapons of choice have generally been a flood
of contradictory studies, re-interpreted data,
personal tales of injustice, accusations, and
blasts of fury.
F4J advocates "peaceful non-violent direct
action based on the Greenpeace model with a dash of
humour thrown in for good measure." In Britain, the
group is famous for high-profile stunts that taunt
and disrupt authority. For example, last September
a F4Jer dressed as Batman scaled www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,132247,00.html
Buckingham Palace. Standing for over 5-hours on a
ledge next to the Palace's main balcony, he
unfurled a huge banner reading "Super Dads of
Fathers 4 Justice" [www.liberaassociazioneilpopolo.it/NEWS-PHOTOS-FOTOS-FOTO-IMAGES-PICS/2004/09/jason-hatch-fathers-rights-buckingham.html
photograph]. Batman was arrested "for suspicion
of causing criminal damage."
Plans for similar but unspecified "guerrilla"
acts in the United States have been announced. It
is not clear how aggressive the Stateside actions
will be.
Jamil Jabr, head of F4J-US, has been quoted in
the Telegraph as www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/05/08/ndad08.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/05/08/ixnewstop.html
saying, "We will try to maintain the audacity of
the stunts…but if anyone tried that [the
batman stunt] at the White House, they would be
shot."
But the same article quotes Matt O'Connor, F4J's
founder, as declaring, "We are planning a massive
stunt in New York which will catch everyone by
surprise…It will be more spectacular than
anything we've done in the UK so far and if all
goes well we will hopefully be catapulted into
infamy."
Given past action in the UK, that's quite a
statement.
Last May, for example, two F4Jers threw
www.answers.com/main/ntquery;jsessionid=27fnqtpy1ia21?method=4&dsid=2222&dekey=Fathers+4+Justice+House+of+Commons+protest&gwp=8&curtab=2222_1&sbid=lc02a
condoms full of unidentified powder at Tony Blair,
hitting the Prime Minister as he addressed the
House of Commons. The substance was later
identified as flour that had been dyed purple; the
men were news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3749579.stm
charged with the relatively mild offence of "using
threatening, abusive or insulting words or
behaviour". They were fined but served no time in
prison. In the U.S., the two might have been shot
on the spot.
Not just the American authorities but the
American public is likely to respond more harshly
as well. It is not likely that New Yorkers would
tolerate a re-run of en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fathers_4_Justice_Tower_Bridge_protest
the London publicity stunt by which 'Spiderman'
occupied a crane that 'caused' police to stop
traffic flowing across the heavily-traveled
www.answers.com/main/ntquery;jsessionid=27fnqtpy1ia21?method=4&dsid=2222&dekey=Fathers+4+Justice+Tower+Bridge+protest&gwp=8&curtab=2222_1&sbid=lc02a
Tower Bridge from early October 31st to November
4th. A British court later cleared Spiderman of
charges because the closing had resulted from
police decisions and not his actions. In the U.S.,
outraged New Yorkers might not let a Spiderman who
closed the Brooklyn Bridge reach the court system
at all.
It is not that civil disobedience or non-violent
resistance have deeper roots in Britain than in
North America. The United States was born through
acts of both. Throughout American history,
reformers and radicals have addressed social
problems through civil disobedience and non-violent
resistance.
Anti-slavery activists flouted the law by
harboring run-aways; the most famous of them
(William Lloyd Garrison) called the Constitution's
sanction of slavery "an agreement with hell, a
covenant with death" and urged non-violent
resistance. 19th century labor advocates staged
strikes that paralyzed entire regions and
industries; they burned factory owners in effigy.
Black civil rights activists sat at "whites only"
lunch counters. During Vietnam, the anti-war
movement barraged the 'system' with flamboyant
tactics. Perhaps the most famous one occurred when
the Yippies threw dollar bills from the balcony of
the New York Stock Exchange and effectively closed
down trading as brokers scrambled for the
money.
It is an open question: will civil disobedience
and non-violent resistance be allowed to shape
American society as it has in the past? Or will
such strategies be forced to operate within
narrower and less effective limits?
F4J-US may provide the answer.
Or, rather, reaction by authorities may be the
answer.
That reaction can be gauged, in part, by an
incident in January. Two members of the British
group visited NYC to help organize F4J-US and to
scout the city for possible actions. They were
followed everywhere. Jabr truffula.net/~e/rhizosophy/archives/2005_01.html
described one member of the surveillance team, "We
learned later that he was the head of New York's
terrorism intelligence branch. He had FBI
connections and orders to make sure that there
would be no Buckingham Palace-type incidents."
On the other hand, the father's rights radicals
apparently went out for a beer with the men
assigned to watch them.
I wish F4J-US well; I believe its cause is just.
I also wish it prudence because I believe post-9/11
America is likely to stomp on anything that vaguely
hints of violence against an official or the
disruption of infrastructure.
©2007, Wendy
McElroy
* * *
Wendy
McElroy is the editor of ifeminists.com
and a research fellow for The Independent Institute
in Oakland, Calif. She is the author and editor of
many books and articles, including her latest book,
Liberty for Women: Freedom and Feminism in the
21st Century. She lives with her husband in
Canada. E-Mail.
Also, see her daily blog at www.zetetics.com/mac
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