HOW hard can it be to climb onto the roof of a plane as it prepares for take-off? James Brown, the gold-winning British Paralympian, found out in October 2019. When offered assistance in finding his seat – he is visually impaired – he told the air steward he was going to get onto the roof instead. Scrambling aloft, he superglued his hand to the fuselage, and jammed open the aircraft door with his mobile phone. As a member of Extinction Rebellion, this was his way of raising awareness of the climate emergency.
Brown lay spreadeagled for an hour before being removed and arrested. Thanks to him, hundreds of BA passengers at London City Airport were delayed, at a cost of roughly £40,000. Last week, he was sentenced to 12 months in prison, although he is likely to serve only six months of that time.
Only six months? For most of us, whether we have a disability or not, the idea of enduring 24 hours behind bars would bring us out in a cold sweat. Anyone who has read A Bit of a Stretch, the documentary-maker Chris Atkins’ account of doing five years in Wandsworth, would do almost anything to avoid it. Understandably, Brown has said he does not intend ever again to take part in XR activity. But what he has done already is, in my book, heroic.
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So too are all the Insulate Britain motorway blockaders, who glue themselves to the tarmac to make it harder for the police to remove them. Some are arrested, and will, eventually, find themselves in court. Others are merely cautioned, and return immediately to the fray. They remind me of the Faslane protesters – schoolteachers, church ministers, shop assistants and the like, who refused to be intimidated and were determined to make a stand.
Without a second’s soul-searching, I know I don’t have the guts to join the ranks of XR or Insulate. It’s not just the thought of lorries hurtling towards me that would make me pause. The moment a squad of officers approached, with grim expressions and tasers, my knees would start quaking. I applaud the conviction and the bravery of those climate activists who are prepared to face not just the forces in blue, but the equally intimidating public.
“We would have supported you if you hadn’t messed up our day” is the usual response from those caught up in traffic jams, whose fury is molten. Fortunately, the blockaders are prepared to soak up the aggro directed towards them, because of the urgency of their cause. As one dauntless man’s placard read: “Arrested 4 times because I am in mourning for life on earth”. He is doing this on behalf of us all.
Witnessing such crusading spirit makes you ask just how far you would be prepared to go for something you were passionate about. Obviously, it would be heart-warming to think we’d all have joined the Resistance had we lived in occupied France. Countless others clearly felt the same, since the number who claimed to be members was almost double the population of France. But for someone like me, the words “piano wire” or “we’ll come for your children” would have been deterrent enough, however much I’d like to delude myself that I’d have risen to the task.
If the chainsaws ever came for the trees on our village green, I can imagine chaining myself to a tree trunk, though only until lunchtime. In terms of courage, many of us would dash out to save a child from the path of an oncoming car. In that situation, instinct or altruism might overcome self-preservation. But the strength of mind required to embark on a well-planned, strategic series of actions, that will probably result in criminal charges, not to mention the chance of physical harm, is something else.
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Some of the last century’s most powerful images come from those who were prepared to risk everything for their beliefs. The man who stood in front of a convoy of advancing tanks in Tiananmen Square in 1989 was an indelible emblem of the power of the individual against a menacing state. Carrying a shopping bag in each hand, he repeatedly got in their way. Known only as the Unknown Protester, his name has never been revealed. Nor has his fate.
It’s not Matt Damon or Mark Wahlberg who are the true action heroes of our times, but folk like the Greenpeacers scaling the sides of gigantic tankers in stormy seas, or abseiling off oil rigs. What they, and others enraged at the destruction of the planet have recognised, is that when the stakes are high, somebody must be prepared to break the law and face the consequences.
The theory is one thing, putting it into practice quite another. I don’t like getting a parking ticket, let alone the prospect of being detained or arrested. Yet where would we be without people who have the nerve to flout the rules, at considerable – occasionally fatal – personal cost? In polarised and unsettled times such as these, the right to peaceful protest is being insidiously undermined, the hand of government increasingly heavy. It’s no wonder some activists are taking seriously disruptive measures. You can call them fanatics or extremists, or whatever term you choose. But for the most part these are thoughtful, far-sighted people who know what they are doing, and the risks they run, and continue to do it anyway.
I often think of the Suffragettes, and the agonies they suffered when imprisoned and force fed. The British state responded with draconian harshness to the direct challenge they posed. What some prisoners went through was unspeakable, ruining their physical and mental health. Yet their inspirational legacy reverberates still, wherever women’s rights are undermined or ignored. An echo of their hauteur, resilience and doggedness can be found in today’s climate activists.
In the end, it’s not just the issue on which activists take a stand that matters but the culture their actions create. It has to be possible vigorously to challenge the status quo, and the authorities, without violence or harm to others. For society to be rendered voiceless and cowed is, to my mind, almost as frightening as being sent to jail.
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