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Title: Extinction Rebellion: a review
Author: Anonymous
Date: 02/09/2019
Language: en
Topics: Extinction Rebellion, anti-civ, green, nihilist, police, critique, review
Source: https://orkanen.noblogs.org/

Anonymous

Extinction Rebellion: a review

Finally the Western civilization has woken up to the climate crisis. To

those of us anarchists who have not been following scientific research

on the crisis for the past decade in detail, who live in the West and

who haven’t been involved in green nihilist circles, the current mass of

information can feel like an avalanche.

We might be used to confronting the heartbreaking realities of this

world, but how do we face the on-going, ecosystem threatening loss of

biodiversity, melting permafrost, methane gas explosions and ravaging

fires in Arctic regions, the probable breakdown of the Gulf stream, the

loss of 75% of Arctic sea ice, European heatwaves drying up rivers used

to cool down nuclear power plants and freak storms destroying 80% - 100%

of crops of local farmers in ‘the Orchard of France”, so close to home?

Midst this we find little other than the Capitalist dogma of growth and

technological advancement as our savior, a hypocrisy and hubris of

civilization and mass delusion reaching deep even into radical

environmentalist circles.

One movement is claiming to have found the way to take on the world and

its leaders: Extinction Rebellion. With their impressive mass actions

and subsequent arrests, seemingly well-researched Non-Violent Civil

Disobedience theory (based on their perspective of a history of social

movements) and mass-appealing demands, they have captured a lot of

attention both from greater society and anarchist circles. Since there

is many calls out there asking people to join the movement, this

critique goes against joining them, as someone who had been part of the

movement and gotten a more in-depth understanding.

It is hard to focus on one single issue with Extinction Rebellion

without touching upon other interconnected side issues at the same time,

and it quickly snowballs into an elaborate essay. There is a certain

attitude of disdain towards other environmental movements and political

efforts, a feeling that Extinction Rebellion is the purest and sole

voice of this time, that it has found the single most effective peaceful

(and self-sacrificial) way of changing the system, the one movement that

we’ve all been waiting for that can finally bring climate on the agenda

(obviously it had to be born in Western privilege, no questions asked),

the one movement to win over the Police force. It is a culture

extinctively-- excuse me, instinctively ingrained in the movement and

already, despite its young age, internal reform efforts have been

undertaken and abandoned by radicals to transform the organization. This

culture is incredibly disheartening and ultimately, inherently racist.

To disregard the suffering and pain of especially indigenous and black

struggles, who have been fighting for hundreds of years, by welcoming

the police force as equals ‘just doing their job’ and even questioning

other movements for not establishing good enough communication as the

reason for violent police encounters, that is inherently racist.

It is furthermore unfortunate, that the momentum they have gained and

the work that has been put in to manage these mass actions will most

likely reinforce state power. Their demands are not a threat to the

power structure of this society nor to the techno-frenzy of Capitalists

afraid of their money burning faster than they can spend it on

subterranean fallout bunkers in New Zealand. (I can’t believe this image

isn’t even a joke anymore.) Their demands are widely based on state-led

actions with a vague idea of some kind of diverse randomized citizens

assembly surveying merely climate issues. A citizens assembly being more

just and liberating than the state apparatus is as much an illusion as

the idea that a worker-led ‘proletariat’ revolution of e.g. a pork

factory would be vegan and end up shutting down the factory for the good

of the environment and animal liberation.

A demand for the nation states to halt carbon emissions by 2025 falsely

puts emission ratings into the dead center of the conflict rather than

target the systems of production and culture of progress that allow for

such cold evaluation of the natural world.

Extinction Rebellion misunderstands the nature of the crisis, the role

of the state and the role of capital, especially obvious when they

demand to “Tell the Truth”. Unclear notions like this remind more of a

dystopian future. The truth has for ever been interpreted by the ones in

power, so suggesting that the state and corporations will wake up to the

‘lies’ they’ve been pulling off for decades is naive, as their ‘truth’

and intention has always been to do whatever necessary to maintain the

status quo and exploit the planet and inhabitants.

Their tactics have and will lead to more and more dedicated activists

being registered and categorized, perhaps even incarcerated by the state

authority, as one of their ‘success criteria’ is a misunderstood

perception of ‘standing up for your beliefs’. Activists should turn

themselves in to the Police or demand to be arrested for illegal action,

as anonymity and ‘getting away with it’ are not accepted forms of direct

action under Extinction Rebellion action consensus. Such extensive and

open struggles with the Police and legal apparatus, as e.g. Green and

Black Cross in the UK have already stated while ending their cooperation

with Extinction Rebellion, will lead to a burn-out of resources and is

not a suitable way of leading a so-called ‘sustained rebellion’.

Much of this belief and culture is based on a cult-of-personality

surrounding co-founder Roger Hallam, who is well-known for his

appearances on TV signing up new activists to potentially go to prison

for the rebellion, telling police officers that arrests aren’t happening

‘quickly enough’ and holding YouTube talks with his research on the one

way to succeed as a social movement.

This game of self-sacrifice to the authorities can only be played to its

climax at all times – it means revolution or death, and with the

impending ecological collapse that can seem like an acceptable

perspective, however, there are many other forms of sustained action and

rebellion that should be undertaken without risking to rot away in a

cell while the world is burning or being sorted out as a political enemy

of a future eco-fascist state in the false hope of a (Western-led)

global revolution. I’d suggest that whatever you do, get away with it.

It looks like Extinction Rebellion will at best achieve nothing

tangible, and at worst have a destructive impact on the struggle for a

just, liberated and biodiverse world.

“The hope of a Big Happy Ending, hurts people; sets the stage for the

pain felt when they become disillusioned. Because, truly, who amongst us

now really believes? How many have been burnt up by the effort needed to

reconcile a fundamentally religious faith in the positive transformation

of the world with the reality of life all around us? Yet to be

disillusioned — with global revolution/with our capacity to stop climate

change — should not alter our anarchist nature, or the love of nature we

feel as anarchists. There are many possibilities for liberty and

wildness still.

What are some of these possibilities and how can we live them? What

could it mean to be an anarchist, an environmentalist, when global

revolution and world-wide social/eco sustainability are not the aim?

What objectives, what plans, what lives, what adventures are there when

the illusions are set aside and we walk into the world not disabled by

disillusionment but unburdened by it?”

- Desert, 2011