Finding Ways to Make Things Go Better
During the last two weeks, I made two trips to join Extinction Rebellion (XR) in London (England). [Extinction Rebellion is a movement that uses nonviolent resistance to protest climate breakdown, biodiversity loss, and the risk of human extinction and ecological collapse.]
LISTENING TO PASSERSBY
On “Rebellion Day” I went to Oxford Circus, where there was a pink boat that had the words “Tell the Truth” on it and a mast with the XR flag flying. Many people didn’t know what to do. A few hundred people were just standing around, occasionally shouting “Climate Justice Now,” admiring the boat, and chatting to each other.
I got bored, so I picked up an XR flag, went to the pavement where people were passing by, and called out, “If you want to know what’s happening, ask me.” Hardly anybody stopped. I tried a couple of other phrases, and then I found what worked: “Hello sir/madam (or just ‘hello’), what do you think of the protest?”
The protest hadn’t yet been in the media, and not all the slogans and banners about the climate could easily be seen. Quite a few people thought it was about Brexit [the potential withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union]! A lot of people said, “I am not English,” so I asked them where they were from. When we had a language in common, we talked about the effects of climate change in their countries. Two women from sub-Saharan Africa passed by, along with Israeli, French, and German families, and so on. One man’s father had been in the anti-fascist battle in Cable Street (London) in the 1930s, and he talked about that. I enjoyed myself very much. Only one woman was hostile, and I had a real struggle not to shout back.
BLOCKING A ROAD, AND OFFERING BISCUITS
After an hour and a half of my solo listening project, I’d had enough. I took a two-hour break in a café and shop. Then I went to the demonstration against the Ontario [Canada] Teachers’ Pension Fund, which owns Bristol Airport and plans to expand it massively. My group back in Bristol (England) had already written several letters about it, and XR had held a “die-in” [a protest in which people pretended to die].
We unfurled an enormously long banner outside the pension fund’s offices and blocked the road for seven minutes at a time. We told taxi drivers and other irritated motorists that the blocking would only last seven minutes and offered them chocolate biscuits! We also took turns speaking on the pavement about why we were doing this. I reported that our letter to the teachers’ union in Canada had been forwarded to Bristol Airport, which had replied to us that we should not worry because it (meaning the buildings, runways, car parks, and so on) would soon be carbon neutral and the expansion would have no effect on climate goals.
EXPLAINING WHAT'S HAPPENING
A week later, I went back to London for two days and went to a “die-in” under the skeleton of the blue whale which hangs from the ceiling of the Natural History Museum. It was a twenty-minute action in memory of lost species.
Before it started, I realised that a lot of the hundred or so people waiting to begin the protest were not sure what was happening. I found out, and then went around to all the groups to explain. I also gave out leaflets and spoke to the police, who were very sympathetic.
My conclusion is that it is good to be active and think of what will make things go better—and it isn’t difficult, and it need not take long!
“Arresting” an airport manager
Back in Bristol, we heard that the head of Government and Stakeholders at the airport was speaking at a business breakfast in the next town. We (my local Green Party climate emergency group and XR) quickly organised a protest outside the hotel.
Two others and I dressed up smartly (as best we could). I put on lipstick. We applied online and got into the breakfast as local businesspeople.
We had to listen to some interesting and upsetting talks about marketing. As a middle-class person I found it painful to hear the intelligent young adults who were employed by the media company which hosted the breakfast talking as though business is neutral, whatever it makes or does, and the only value is profit.
Then the airport manager spoke. He talked about how wonderful the airport expansion would be, doubling the number of passengers and leading to new jobs, and ignored the projected fifty-nine percent increase in carbon emissions. He showed slides about climate change which assured us that the government’s (totally inadequate) target for 2050 could still be met, because the airport itself would be carbon neutral. As for the emissions from aviation, he said that was not his business but that of the aviation industry, which he said had good plans for carbon offsetting.
The organisers of the breakfast knew there were several people with posters and banners outside each entrance. When the man finished speaking, the chair said that there was no time for questions, that we should catch the speaker outside for informal discussions. But I stood up and walked in front of him and said, “Mr. Gore, I want to arrest you for conspiracy to commit ecocide.” (I held up a piece of material with “Make Ecocide Law” printed on it.) “We believe that all the sophisticated things you said are not true and that the expansion of Bristol airport will result in the deaths of more humans and other species. You are safe from me, because ecocide is a crime in only ten countries, of which the United Kingdom is not one. But you will have to answer to it in the court of future generations.”
He was a public relations man, so he remained quite calm. And I spoke very calmly. Then I was told to leave, and he came out to argue with my friends and me. He said that he wanted his children to have the same advantages he had had, to travel all over the world and see other cultures. I said I understood but that they could not. After some more fairly useless discussion, my friends and I left and joined the protesters outside. The video of what we did has spread around on Facebook, but I don’t know if any of the press releases led to publication.
Once I’d decided to do the stunt, I was not really scared. And if I had been, it would only have been restimulation, because as an old white middle-class woman I am pretty [quite] safe in public places. People praised me for being brave, but it only took a quick decision and a bit of thought.
NOTICING THE EFFECT OF RC
One of the founders of XR used to teach RC, and several current Co-Counselling leaders are also XR leaders. You can see the influence of RC. There are many, many good things. For example, the emphasis on nonviolence and the insistence on treating the police well are excellent. Members talk about feelings of grief at realising the terrible losses global warming has caused and will cause. (So far I haven’t heard people talk much about terror.) They have short mini-sessions in meetings. But because of the emphasis on feelings, speakers sometimes dramatise in strange ways which are hard to listen to. I must find a way of actually teaching them RC. I expect other Co-Counsellors are already doing this, and I would love to hear about it.
Redcliffe, Bristol, England
Reprinted from the e-mail discussion
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