💾 Archived View for gemini.spam.works › mirrors › textfiles › politics › SPUNK › sp000474.txt captured on 2022-04-29 at 02:31:02.
⬅️ Previous capture (2022-03-01)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
A BRIEF HISTORY OF LONDON GREENPEACE
The name Greenpeace was used in Britain at least as early
as 1971. It appeared in print as the title of a
broadsheet published as a supplement in Peace News in
1971. The broadsheet was a compilation of ideas about how
individuals could take action in their own lives to
preserve the ecosystem.
In 1972 "Greenpeace" was used as the name for a coalition
of individuals and groups in Britain campaigning against
French nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific. At the same
time there were other Greenpeace groups both in Britain
and in some other countries: the different groups were in
touch with one another as an informal network of
autonomous groups, in particular around the issue of
nuclear testing.
The London group, usually known as Greenpeace (London),
continued to be in touch with other such groups around the
world.
In 1977, the biggest of the Greenpeace organisations
outside Britain - the Vancouver Greenpeace Foundation in
Canada - formalised its links with some of the other
Greenpeace organisations around the world, seeing itself
as the "lead" group. Shortly before this, in late 1976,
members of that organisation came to London and met people
from Greenpeace (London). The Vancouver people wanted the
London group to "take its orders from" the Board of
Directors in Vancouver, but were told that the London
group had never had that kind of relationship with other
Greenpeace Groups. (The relationship with groups like the
Vancouver one had often been close, but never based on any
sort of hierarchy.) Subsequently, a letter from Vancouver
explicitly recognised the autonomy of the existing London
group.
Activists in London - including the people who had come
from Canada - who DID want to be under the control of the
Vancouver Foundation, formed a London Branch of the
Vancouver Foundation, which then formed a limited company
and became known as Greenpeace Ltd or Greenpeace UK.
Since 1977, Greenpeace (London) and Greenpeace Ltd have
been quite separate organisations, working on different
campaigns - though of course their separate campaigns have
had some issues in common, such as anti-nuclear work.
The original London Greenpeace Group has deliberately
stayed as a small group of activists, without leaders,
with decisions taken by consensus of all those involved,
and has always encouraged people in other areas to set up
their own active groups rather than "joining" London
Greenpeace. Greenpeace Ltd, on the other hand, has done
exactly the opposite, and has grown large in resources but
with absolutely no democratic - let alone libertarian -
aspect to its work. For example, although you can give
money to them, you can't join the organisation in the
sense of having any say whatsoever in what the
organisation does.
"THE LONDON GREENPEACE GROUP has existed for many years as an independent
group of activists with no involvement in any particular political party.
The people -not "members"- who come to the weekly open meetings share a
concern for the oppression in our lives and the destruction of our
environment. Many opposition movements are growing in strength -ecological,
anti-war, animal liberation, and anarchist-libertarian movements- and
continually learning from each other. We encourage people to think and act
independently, without leaders, to try to understand the causes of opression
and to aim for its abolition through social revolution. This begins in our
own lives now."