Some Thoughts On Activism

Now that the tents are (mostly) gone, what do we find? Yet another millionaire’s budget, with tax cuts for the rich paid for by the poor. Widening gender inequality. Creeping corporatisation of health, education and welfare. Crony donors and lobbyists pulling all the strings.

My activist journey began with the Walk for the Earth, travelling on foot from Manchester to London in the run-up to the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. We were campaigning for government money to be channelled into renewable energy and socially beneficial projects instead of nuclear weapons and subsidies to the arms trade. There was optimism in those far-off days. People power had brought down the Berlin Wall, and the Montreal Protocol had been agreed, limiting Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in the atmosphere. Naively, we thought that faced with the global threat of climate change, key governments might be persuaded to cooperate to tackle the planetary crisis. We were wrong.

So does the above mean that activism is a waste of time? Not a bit of it!

To begin with, speaking out is important in its own right. I wasn’t part of Occupy myself* but was delighted to see it happening. I don’t want to live in some sort of crazy neoliberal North Korea, where truth is taboo and everyone conforms to celebrity-obsessed consumer culture. By articulating non-hierarchical politics with the aims of social justice and ecological sustainability at its core, Occupy continues a noble historical tradition of dissent.

Secondly, whilst we have to give up any hope of short-term systemic change, activism can “tip the balance” on specific issues. Tax avoidance would not be on the political agenda without Occupy and UK Uncut. Swathes of Britain would now be under tarmac if it wasn’t for the anti-roads movement in the 90s. Sipson village would now be bulldozed if it wasn’t for the 2007 Heathrow Climate Camp (though the third runway is again being pushed for by lobbyists). And – for what it’s worth! – women would not have the vote without the often extremely direct actions of the Suffragettes.

Thirdly, we have a responsibility to act in solidarity with grassroots struggles in other parts of the world. Here in Britain activists may be spied upon, maligned in the media, lied to by the police, kettled, locked up, fined, given community sentences, and tear-gassed, punched or coshed. Elsewhere, however, activists face torture, and are routinely “disappeared”.

At this point, I should mention the Dongria Kondh, who are anxiously awaiting an Indian High Court ruling on bauxite mining in their tribal land. The tribe has vowed to fight on, whatever the result, and will need international support. I became involved in the campaign at the 2010 climate camp, and changed my name as part of an action highlighting the role of taxpayer-owned Royal Bank of Scotland in investing in Vedanta, the mining company involved.

Finally, activism may not change the whole world, but it changes our whole world. Once we step outside the hegemonic control of the so-called “elite”, we are faced with the everyday challenge of “living the future we want to see”. Close your newspapers and open your eyes, and you’ll see things happening all over the place: transition town initiatives, radical routes housing co-ops, community supported agriculture projects, refugee and homelessness support, permaculture plots, social centres, anti-supermarket campaigns and much, much more. Engaging in this work is just as much part of the struggle for the common good as mass actions and camps. It may be less visible, but it’s still the frontline.

Whilst working to sum up this article, I spoke to a friend who was at St Paul’s. The image she gave me was dandelions; the big bright flower (ie. Occupy at St Paul’s) dwindles to grey fluff, so insubstantial that it breaks up and floats away with a gust of wind… but a year later, tenacious radicals take root all over the place, with little yellow flowers budding…

While the Occupy camp stood outside the London Stock Exchange, Dongria Kondh was busy fundraising for an ecological restoration project at the source of the River Calder in West Yorkshire: see www.treesponsibility.com for details and to register interest for tree-planting events this Autumn.

By Dongria Kondh