 |
|
Dialogues@RU is published
annually
by the
Writing Program at
Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey
Volume Two
Spring 2003
Food Not Bombs: Community Breakdown
and Reconstruction - Page 2
by Nicole Wines
One chapter in which this occurred was the Hoboken chapter. It started out strong and enthusiastic, but after a few months membership began to decline. The novelty seemed to be wearing off. People who had once been there every weekend found they had other things to attend to in their lives. Some people reasoned that in meetings there was too much emphasis on, and too many arguments over, trite details that did not seem to make much sense in the overall scheme of things and, despite the fact that Food Not Bombs had always been political in nature, stated that it was too political for them. This could have caused some of the membership decline and a reason for lack of interest in becoming involved, as is shown in Putnam's observation about decreased engagement in politics (61). Others felt it was too much like a soup kitchen and not active or political enough. They felt that instead of Food Not Bombs trying to make a problem more visible so the community could address it, they were just pushing it into the background. Some people may have felt the lack of community which had originally drawn them to the group in the first place; others may not have been able to find what they had been seeking. For the remaining few members, the work of the group became a chore. More than once, there was only one person collecting food, cooking it, and sharing it with the homeless. After six months, the three remaining members decided to end Food Not Bombs Hoboken. This is not uncommon among Food Not Bombs chapters; it is easy to find other chapters which have had similar if not almost identical experiences. These chapters do not recognize their problems while they are experiencing them, and if they do, it is difficult to trace their origins. All problems the groups face lead back to lack of community, either within the group itself, within the areas where the group is meeting and sharing, between the group and the community, or any combination of these, resulting in a number of reasons why the group may have failed.
One problem occurs when the community in which the group is sharing food is not aware of the group. The public in Hoboken did not even know what Food Not Bombs was or that it existed. "It has a tremendous effect to be regularly out in the public eye, exercising your right to free speech" (Butler and McHenry). "Visibility is a human right" was proclaimed on one of San Francisco Food Not Bombs' banners (Sabot 23). Visibility, sometimes accomplished by civil disobedience, has always been an important goal for Food Not Bombs chapters-in order to get their message out to as many people as possible-but this was one aspect where Food Not Bombs Hoboken failed. After a few months of sharing food in a highly trafficked area, the risk of getting in trouble led the group to stop setting up tables, putting up banners, or handing out flyers. Some members were willing to take those risks, but the consensus of the group restrained them. This could have led to those people's frustrations with the group and their eventual departure. Food Not Bombs had always taken risks, more often than not risks with an artistic or creative edge, to spread their message and increase awareness:
From the very beginning, we saw all of our street activity as theater. This included not only our food tables, but also our literature tables, our presence at other peoples' events, etc. We recognized that the personal is political and the political becomes personal. We wanted to dramatize the reality of the militarization of our society by highlighting the social costs and the human suffering. We created opportunities to expose these injustices through soup lines, by depicting military types holding a bake sale to buy a B-1 bomber, offering the "tofu challenge" instead of the "Pepsi Challenge", and even a silent theater piece in which a person dressed as a paper mache missile chased a person in a paper mache world, threatening to destroy it. (Butler and McHenry)
The Hoboken chapter lost all of its creative aspects and became more of a soup kitchen, bringing food to the park to give to a handful of homeless people and then leaving. There was zero visibility to the group. The effect of being in the public eye was not an option because the group was no longer vocal. "It is not enough to gather food and serve people . . . . The public should be exposed to the poverty in their community and join the fight (Khan 26). If the public is not aware that the group exists, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to generate public support for it or to create any ties to the community.
The idea of art as a way of creating and maintaining community was inherent in the first chapter of Food Not Bombs, and was important to the Hoboken chapter at the time of its creation. But after a few months, there was a decline in artistic and creative approaches to getting the word out. Art has often been important within communities and in spreading social messages. "Communities and organizations are enhancing their efforts to address social issues by using the arts. Publicly and privately, the arts are being recognized as assets that promote healthy communities" (Lowe 358). The lack of artistic and creative approaches could have caused members who had joined because of its intended unique approach to the issues of hunger, homelessness, and militarization to leave the group, not just because of the issues. Lowe also points out that art creates solidarity and promotes interaction while communicating important messages; sticking with a more artistic approach could have been a strong building block for Food Not Bombs Hoboken.
Page One Page Two Page Three Page Four Page Five