Yossi Mekelberg
Yes, environmental activists can be irritating when they make a nuisance of themselves and overplay their self-righteousness. There is a trend among them – that is growing in both numbers and influence – that has reached the conclusion, whether strategically or out of despair, probably both, that only shock tactics and disruptive antics will shake up a complacent society when it comes to the looming climate change catastrophe.
In response to such actions, it has been the Conservative administration in the UK that has led the pack of governments enacting antidemocratic legislation to deter people from joining the ranks of these environmental protesters. These activists are now more likely to be stopped and harassed by police and, on occasion, even muzzled by the courts, regardless of whether their protests are peaceful or not. As a result, there is a real danger of conflating the irritating with the illegal.
There are several legitimate questions that can be raised regarding how protests are generally conducted and how they are perceived by the wider public. Their legality is an important consideration and cannot just be dismissed by protesters in the name of saving the planet. On the other hand, trivializing the climate change discourse could lead people, especially the younger generation, to conclude that their concerns on an issue that determines their future are being ignored and, hence, they gradually blur the lines between what is legal and what is not.
For a minority of them, the legitimacy of their cause, combined with a sense of urgency, leads them to believe that it justifies breaking the law, or at least stretching it. But this risks backfiring and driving away the very people they would like to attract to their ranks. For those activists who are highly invested in the issue and believe that the end of planet Earth is just around the corner, the somewhat relaxed attitude of the wider public is terrifying and the need to change this has become a burning desire. The fact that many of them are young, sometimes very young – take, for instance, Greta Thunberg and her environmental warriors – means that there is plenty of unarticulated energy waiting to explode. The names of some of these organizations are also telling regarding their cataclysmic implications, such as Extinction Rebellion and Last Generation. Their vision of where the current situation is leading does not greatly differ from what most scientists predict.
Admittedly, many of us feel quite uncomfortable when we see protesters throwing soup at the “Mona Lisa” at the Louvre in Paris, even if we sympathize with their call for “healthy and sustainable food” and are aware that, for many years, this much-targeted classic painting has been protected by bulletproof glass and a sophisticated alarm system. Others are irritated when road traffic is halted by activists, flights are delayed by protesters gluing their hands to the runway or the entrance to the headquarters of an energy industry giant is occupied by a chanting crowd. Yet, a democracy should be able to tolerate these protests, within reason, and cherish the fact that people care about the future well-being of their societies without imposing draconian legislation or police practices that compromise the very basic rights of freedom of speech and peaceful assembly.
Sometimes, police in the UK and their political masters have been too eager to act. This month, Thunberg and four other environmental activists, who were charged with public order offenses over a protest in London, were cleared after a judge ruled that they had no case to answer. It was an obvious case of police officers using neither judgment nor common sense when applying Section 14 of the 1986 Public Order Act. This is a very dangerous piece of legislation that can curtail protests almost entirely on the whim of any police officer. It was not surprising, then, that Michel Forst, the UN special rapporteur on environmental defenders, last month warned that, despite our planet’s triple crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution, we are seeing “severe crackdowns on environmental defenders in the United Kingdom, including in relation to the exercise of the right to peaceful protest.” It is inconceivable and very worrying that peaceful protesters in the UK could be jailed for up to 10 years for the criminal offense of being a “public nuisance.”
In December, a climate protester who participated in a slow march along a public road for about half an hour was sentenced to six months in prison under the Public Order Act 2023. Again, this protester was probably a nuisance, but half a year’s incarceration for being a nuisance raises the possibility of a huge spate of imprisonments – and not only of climate change protesters. What also prompted Forst’s scathing criticism was a judge who prevented peaceful environmental protesters from explaining the context of their actions and outlining their motivations to the jury in their case, including mentioning the climate crisis, fuel poverty or even the history of civil disobedience as a valid democratic tool against arbitrary decisions by government.
As with all issues that have a significant impact on the nature and future of our societies – let alone, in this case, our very existence – there is a need for an inclusive global dialogue among all those affected by environmental pollution, climate change and biodiversity. This is especially the case as there is a massive difference between how these issues affect people’s health, livelihoods, shelter and life expectancy in different parts of the world, along with their resources and ability to respond to these challenges. The UK, as other countries, has a long tradition of nonviolent political activity and protest that has led to positive change, such as universal suffrage, improvements in workers’ rights and legislation for race and gender equality. In recent decades, however, there have been general complaints about political apathy, especially among the youth. Perhaps young people once thought that there was no cause worth fighting for, but climate change has changed this.
The test of a democracy is for us to be able to hear things that make us uncomfortable, to see things that upset us and sometimes to have our lives disrupted without these activities being criminalized. Fighting climate change can sometimes divide our societies, but it is also an opportunity to galvanize citizens around a common cause, which in the process could also make our democratic system more robust.
Arab News
