Dear Sir,

Your editorial “Nothing peaceful about forcibly denying access” on Saturday was excellent and to the point. The title really said it all.

There is, however, an important link to the unlawful protest last week against the proposed new airport, and to others in the past, such as the Pathways to Status.

That link is the methodology of the protests, which resemble recommendations for social upheaval made in a book entitled Rules for Radicals, authored by Saul Alinsky.

Alinsky was a community organiser in Chicago in the 1960s and the early 1970s, and many of his recommended tactics for social disruption and political activism were applied by several radical organisations whose objectives were identification and disruption of a common enemy, usually a well-known corporation or government programmes opposed by radicals. The aim was to destabilise existing institutions such as local governments — the federal government was too big a target — and to create violence, discomfort, even mayhem.

In the subsequent chaos, radical forces would control the levers of power.

There were some limited successes such as Chicago, now a modern-day equivalent of Tombstone, and San Francisco, which thumbs its nose at federal laws on illegal immigration.

Back in the 1980s in Britain, Arthur Scargill, of the National Union of Mineworkers, sought to apply many of the “rules for radicals” against the government of Margaret Thatcher, but he picked the wrong target. That lady was not for turning.

There are a number of such rules summarised on the webpage en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_for_Radicals, many of which seem to have been applied by the demonstrators outside the House of Assembly last week.

Let me mention just three rules, and I quote:

• Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty

• Keep the pressure on. Never let up. Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new

• The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is this unceasing pressure that results in the reactions from the opposition that are essential for the success of the campaign

Each of them was featured in the violent demonstration last week.

This begs the question: is the opposition to the new airport really about the airport or is it a Trojan horse to establish a radical government influenced by the poisonous philosophy of Saul Alinsky?

I wish I knew.

ROBERT STEWART