💾 Archived View for library.inu.red › file › anarchist-communist-group-extinction-rebellion-notes.gm… captured on 2023-01-29 at 06:37:05. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
➡️ Next capture (2024-07-09)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Title: Extinction Rebellion notes… Author: Anarchist Communist Group Date: 25th April 2019 Language: en Topics: Extinction Rebellion, ecology, environment Source: Retrieved on 2020-08-13 from https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2019/04/25/extinction-rebellion-notes/
Extinction Rebellion has managed to organise an impressive number of
people into a civil disobedience movement. They have managed to shut
down and occupy significant parts of London including numerous major
road junctions over the past week. They have many admirable principles
such as “breaking down hierarchies of power for more equitable
participation” and “creating a world that is fit for generations to
come”. However, is civil disobedience really the best method for getting
action to be taken on climate change?
The aim of Extinction Rebellion’s civil disobedience campaign is to
attempt to cause enough disruption so that the State meets their demands
to bring back order – as appearing to have order and control is
important for the State. It is quite possible that the State will
partially concede to a couple of the demands of extinction rebellion –
however what isn’t going to happen is a significant system change. This
is an issue because the root cause of climate change is capitalism with
its requirement for constant growth. The people in the corridors of
power are simply too vested in capitalism to allow something better to
replace it.
Because climate change is a product of capitalism, our aim must not be
to get concessions from the system but to replace it. The police have
still arrested over 1000 people at the XR protests. Despite such vast
numbers of arrests, which was actually the intention of XR, the State
rarely capitulates in the face of civil disobedience on the part of tiny
mobilised minorities, even highly committed ones like XR. Generalised
mass mobilisations, however, based upon civil disobedience, such as the
anti- Poll Tax campaign with widespread non-payment, community
mobilisation and anti-Poll tax riot in London in 1990, were relatively
successful.
The idea that the police are potentially our friends, which is spread
around by XR, is just wrong. Many people were abused by the police
(especially people who are part of a minority) with people being dragged
into cells and stripped searched by force or threatened with broken
bones. The nice police officers you might come across when you’re
protesting “nicely” pretend to be friendly to get information and to get
into peoples’ heads, but they will turn into brutes the moment they are
ordered to. This idea that the police are possible allies is harmful to
everyone who has been abused or has suffered systematic abuse from the
police as it marginalises their experiences.
And despite the best efforts of thousands of people for over a week, how
many police officers have thrown their badges on the floor and refused
to serve a regime which throws people in cells for protesting what is
going to kill billions of people? It is obvious that the police are not
going to change sides and help shut down all the different things which
are poisoning the planet. Rather, as was shown as the week drew on, they
will continue to protect them. Furthermore, it is only a matter of time
before the police start using more heavy-handed methods (the bully
cannot let people stand up to him and get away with it!). Therefore, our
attempts cannot be restricted to just civil disobedience as it is not
capable of dismantling the capitalist system. Instead of imploring the
State to stop doing evil things, we must stop these evils ourselves
using a wide range of tactics which allow us to attack what is
destroying the planet.
But we must remember, because any meaningful response to climate change
requires system change, the manner in which we change the system is
incredibly important too. If we just have a few thousand people leading
the charge we risk making a society which doesn’t represent the needs of
everyone – and risks replacing our current form of oppression with a new
one. We need to have a mass, global movement from the entire populace to
ensure the new system is a good system.
So, what’s the alternative? Imagine if the thousands of protestors in
London, instead of peacefully occupying public spaces started organising
with the public to achieve mass action against things like fossil fuel
plants (as in industries?) and the like. Instead of us asking those
powerful people who are benefiting from the destruction of the
environment to stop destroying the planet – we could fight to just stop
them whether or not they agree to do this! Ultimately though, this will
mean a revolution to get rid of capitalism and replace it with a society
based on need not profit and exists in harmony with nature.