2023-08-13 07:45:00
In recent months, many actions of non-violent civil disobedience have been carried out by environmental activists, in Belgium and abroad, causing a stir in the media and on social networks. Some examples ? The blocking of the refineries of Total Energies in October, the actions of throwing soup on works of art or even, very recently, the blocking of the men’s road race of the world cycling championship. What motivates these activists to break the law to further their cause? Aren’t they afraid of serving it rather than advancing it? La Libre met several of these activists to try to understand.
“Asking for changes is not enough”
Having grown up in a family that she describes as “committed”, Athéna (assumed first name) did all her schooling in schools with active pedagogy. “I don’t think that this education led me to activism, but it gave me the necessary tools, particularly in terms of questioning authority,” explains this 20-year-old from Brussels.
A few years ago, when she went to a climate march, a member of Extinction Rebellion (XR) gave her a small flyer for training, ahead of a national action. She decides to go there out of interest in environmental activism. What she learns about civil disobedience immediately captivates her. In the months that followed, she talked about ecology to those around her and went with a few people to a municipal assembly to demand that the climate emergency be declared. “After the meeting, we found ourselves with a small group of people and we said to ourselves that we had to get moving and create something. Someone talked about XR and, somewhat by chance, we created the Extinction Rebellion branch of our commune.
Athena explains the evolution of her commitment. “I participated in a lot of climate marches when I was in secondary school, she confides, and, at the time, I really believed that it was strong enough to change things.” Although she considers that these events have had the merit of improving the place of climate issues in the debates, she nevertheless says that she was “disgusted” by the lack of political results obtained. “I realized that asking for changes was not enough, that until we disturb big business and the political world, things would not change.”
Another goal, she explains, is to break certain laws to expose their injustice. Athena explains that, in some cases, she goes to actions knowing that there is a risk of being arrested more effective because there is more chance that the press will talk about it”. She does not hide it: some actions are simply intended to be media-driven, to attract attention and get people talking about the problem.
How is an action of civil disobedience prepared? Behind the scenes of Code Rouge
A multigenerational movement
Isabelle (assumed name) in her fifties, she is a teacher in the Brussels region and defines herself as “rebellious”. A lifelong environmentalist, she had many discussions with her students during the time of the climate marches. She says she was shaken by their speech and started thinking about the need to break ranks to get more progress. A few months later, on her way to a festival in the UK, she met members of the UK branch of Extinction Rebellion (XR UK) who presented their movement there. In the words used by the interested party, “it was exactly what I wanted to hear, because I couldn’t take any more of the inaction”. Isabelle considers that petitions, marches and negotiations with politicians are no longer enough and decides to “enter the rebellion and do civil disobedience” by joining XR.
The teacher explains that the movement includes 16-year-olds as well as 84-year-old retirees. “But to get involved, you have to dare and be accompanied by people who tell you that you can do it. Me, I was really not educated in disobedience. On the contrary, I had to obey without argument. You have to manage to overcome the fear of the police, as a group, realizing that it is completely legitimate and that you are not hurting anyone: the actions are illegal but non-violent.”
Isabelle sees civil disobedience as a way to get people to ask questions. “The blocking of Total Energies in October did not financially ruin the company but it tarnished its image. They had just carried out several green washing campaigns and we showed that they were not green at all, contrary to what they wanted people to believe.”
“People prefer to denounce the fact that we are illegal instead of asking why we are doing it”
Laurie Pazienza, for her part, is 28 years old, she is from Liège and is an engineer in renewable energies. She is one of the coordinators of the collective “TOTALement Down” which denounces the Total pipeline project in East Africa. While spending a year in London for her studies in 2017, Laurie meets people there with very different ways of thinking from hers and begins to question herself. She explains that she became a vegetarian during this period and learned about many subjects related to the environment, until she became the “perfect little individual ecologist”, in her own words. But, a few years later, she realizes that acting individually is not effective enough and launches into activism.
Laurie attributes multiple benefits to civil disobedience. The first of these would be to allow citizens to feel less powerless. Another advantage would be to disrupt polluting infrastructures, “like Total but also many others”. Finally, according to her, civil disobedience makes it possible to attract the attention of the press and therefore to make people talk about climate-related issues, which ordinary demonstrations are no longer enough to do. But Laurie says she is unhappy with the media’s treatment of civil disobedience actions: “Unfortunately, people, the media and politicians often prefer to denounce the fact that we are illegal instead of asking why we act this way. It’s intellectual mediocrity, voluntary in some cases, to avoid having to question yourself”.
“If it worked in the story, there’s no reason it can’t work anymore”
Louis Droussin is a political science student at UCL and, at only 21, he was the spokesperson for the civil disobedience coalition “Code Rouge” during the blocking action on the Total Energies site. in October. Like many young Belgian activists, his commitment began during the climate marches which marked the beginning of his awareness of the climate emergency. When the marches for the climate became rare, he went to a climate camp in Germany to observe actions of civil disobedience and where he feels he has finally found an effective mode of action.
For Louis, there is a discrepancy between what is fair and what is legal. “It is legal for corporations to continue to compromise the conditions of life on Earth, and yet is it legitimate? No. What should guide public action is justice, not just legality. And when our rulers seem to forget it, it’s up to citizens to stand up and disobey the law,” he argues. The young man says he is ready to take the risk of being arrested for a violation of the law. But on two conditions: firstly, it must be a mass action, in which case it is unlikely that the arrest will have too serious consequences, and, secondly, the action must be followed by a legal team that can be called in the event of a problem.
Louis explains the motivation of the activists by the rise of a triple feeling: anxiety about the consequences of climate change, anger at the inaction of politicians, and hope because solutions exist and are detailed in the various IPCC reports.
He encourages himself by telling himself that, in history, great social and societal changes have taken place after massive actions of civil disobedience. “I am thinking, for example, of civil rights in the United States, the rights of suffragettes in England or the rights of aborigines in Australia. If it has already worked in history, there is no reason that it should not work today.
Louis believes that moderate movements and so-called “radical” movements are complementary. He takes the example of the American civil rights movement. “There was a moderate camp, represented in particular by Martin Luther King, and a more radical camp, with Malcom X. The 1964 law which abolished segregation in the United States was obtained because the president of the time preferred accede to the demands of the moderates, to prevent those of the most radical from gaining popularity. One of the uses of the radical camp and of civil disobedience is to allow the demands of the moderate camp to be perceived as more acceptable by the population and by the political world.
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