Extinction Rebellion leaders have dismissed the idea that protests for climate action have anything to do with “socialist ideology.” But refusing to take political positions — and to relate green politics to the interests of the social majority — will reduce environmentalism to an ineffective moral protest.
by Mark Montegriffo
Part 3 - For Clarity
But this also leaves XR open to other, dangerous influences. I was myself one of the admins behind Extinction Rebellion’s social media presence, and saw instances where activists, or individuals posing as activists, have disseminated eco-fascist propaganda. On occasion, we would receive messages asking whether this was official Extinction Rebellion material. Having to clarify that your group is not in favor of population control laws is probably an indication that the politics of the movement is not as clear as it could be.
The process of ideological and political clarity can develop over time for a movement, through internal and external forces. Internally, by methods of discussion and self-critique. Externally, through contact with other forces and groups in society.
This journey to clarity can be better understood if we imagine movements as having life cycles. Extinction Rebellion is young in age, not just in terms of many of its activists but also insofar as being a movement yet to reach maturity. It has a relatively global reach and identifies part of the existential destruction, which makes it relevant to its supporters.
It would be unfair to expect a movement with broad and populist ambitions to be born into a set of ideologically potent and coherent dogma. To reuse the comparison with Podemos and Five Star, some ideological openness is essential at the start in terms of bringing people on board. Having an activist milieu mobilized on “moral” grounds is not itself a bad thing — but it is certainly not enough in the long term.
While that initial ideological openness is arguably necessary, clarity must be an eventual goal. The analytic framework for arriving at that clarity must accept the existence of classes and social groups, where politically meaningful alliances can and must be made between them, and where interests are diametrically opposed to each other. From there, discussions about dealing with those class and social conflicts at a strategic level can fit in, such as the principle of nonviolence and the tactic of mass arrests.
For example, Hallam stressed in the Politics Theory Other interview that the treatment of protestors by the police is far worse in other countries than the UK. Even if this were true, this hardly makes the police potential allies. XR’s call for a nonviolent, “compassionate” attitude toward the police shows that there is a shortcoming in the understanding of the police, not only as the physical arm of the bourgeois state that has so far prevented climate justice, but also as institutionally racist. It should not even be needed, but these times are as good as any to revisit its ideological framework in the light of the Black Lives Matter movement and Extinction Rebellion’s relationship with working people of color.
For ecological politics isn’t just about “raising awareness” and thus exerting moral pressure. The giants of corporate capitalism have known of the extent of the climate crisis for years. We can already see that making the ruling class more aware of this crisis — and even the human suffering it has and will cause — has a decidedly limited effect.
The core assumption that the dominant can be “reasoned with” or “convinced,” be it by protests like the ones this week or awareness campaigns, has no grounding in experience. Similarly, trusting a randomly selected group of individuals to take action through a citizens’ assembly, should the CEE bill pass, seems distinctly insufficient.
Just as the “socialism or barbarism” phrase could be updated to “socialism or extinction,” so, too, should a nascent movement move from childhood to maturity. This begins with having a clear sense of political conflict — recognizing the need to find allies for a common struggle.
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