18/11/2019

(AU) 'There's A Passion': Encountering Extinction Rebellion

Sydney Morning Herald - Julie Perrin


After a week of disruptive action and widespread demonstrations activists have warned their work has just begun.

The week that the Extinction Rebellion protests begin to block the streets of Melbourne I am parked in a camping area at the southern end of Gariwerd - the Grampians National Park in western Victoria. The bush around the walking trails is studded with wildflowers. But when camping in wild places, your neighbours are an unknown.
One evening my friends and I find ourselves watching a couple of vehicles roll into our remote campsite at dusk. Three people spill out of two four-wheel-drives and begin setting up. One appears solo, down the steps of his car-top camper, wearing his dressing gown. Bemused, we figure that - unlike last night's group - he won’t be staying up late and yahooing into the wee hours. A bit later, the woman comes by our campfire and introduces herself.
Angela Crunden and her partner Tony Peck are from Gippsland. When this composed, silver-haired woman tells us that for the last three days they’ve been protesting with Extinction Rebellion (or XR for short) in Melbourne, our eyebrows lift. These are not the young ‘anarchist’ ratbags Peter Dutton would have us repelling.
“There were 30 of us from Gippsland,” says Crunden, adding with satisfaction, “nine from Gippsland were arrested, including a previous mayor from Bass shire.”
The next day we peel off to other parts of the park, but I arrange to speak with the couple when they’ve returned home.
I discover both have had careers in nursing. They have brought up their children while living off the grid in East Gippsland for 25 years. Retired now, they have moved to Bairnsdale but are still immersed in sustainability practice, from which there is no retirement. The couple have been part of a local environmental coalition for years.
Angela Crunden and her partner Tony Peck came from their home in Bairnsdale, East Gippsland, to take part in Extinction Rebellion protests in Melbourne. Credit: Tony Wells
Crunden tells me about earlier lonely moments in which she’s been a sometimes unwelcome presence, setting up a one-person climate change information stall outside her supermarket. When the couple speak about Extinction Rebellion’s group training, artists’ offerings, and practices of non-violence, it is easy to see the appeal of solidarity after such solitary vigils.
I ask them why they were pleased about the arrests. Crunden says: “There’s a passion attached to the sacrifice.”
Peck adds: “When people tell us to stop wasting time protesting, we ask them what alternatives they’d suggest. Invariably they say ‘Talk to local politicians, write to your local member.’ We have been doing that politely for 20 years, and we will continue to do it. But it has not brought about the needed change.”
Prior to the phone call I had researched Extinction Rebellion in Melbourne and internationally. The weight of opinion is against their actions in stopping the traffic, but something else catches my eye.
I see snatches of video and photos of people wearing whiteface and flowing red costumes. At first the red people’s appearance is reminiscent of The Handmaid’s Tale. But there are no white bonnets. Draped in red, the performers wear headdresses all of a piece with flowing red garments. Performing stylised gestures with great slowness, they offer utter attentiveness towards what is happening around them. Their movements are made in unison, they walk in slow motion and silence.
These visually striking ‘Red Brigades’ remind me of the chorus in classical Greek drama, only in this instance there’s no speaking.
Red Brigade protesters in Russell Street, Melbourne.
When Peck describes the Red Brigade in Melbourne, his voice catches. “There is a yearning in their movement. They stood nearby and leant towards the people being arrested. We all felt embraced by their presence.”
Following our call I watch a Red Brigade group from Britain in a YouTube clip called “The Rising Tide”. I am mesmerised. A group of 20 or more descend a sea cliff in Cornwall and process along the beach below - first in rows of pairs and later in a V formation. The video and soundtrack are just over two minutes long - no words are spoken, but there are subtitles and hand-painted banners. The Red Brigade members walk calmly into the sea and stand immersed to their waists, unflinching. The ritual action is complete. Fully clothed in the water they stand together: they are a flock, a massed appearance to remind us of what is disappearing.
There is something about the considered gestures and silent action that speaks to me, a leaning-in to give ear to what is happening. They are bearing witness. I want protests that look like this. Would beauty and sorrow persuade people?
A friend says to me: “You can’t make change elegantly, it doesn’t come without discomfort. Someone has to be rude.”
Remembering the outcry about traffic congestion during the Spring Extinction Rebellion, I ask Crunden and Peck their thoughts on the inconvenience and disruption caused to commuters; it does not sit easily with them.
Police intervene to protect Shaun Islip, lying on the ground, from protesters outside the Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre during the climate protests on October 29. Credit: AAP
They are horrified when I tell them about Shaun Islip, a choir leader I’ve met who was thrown to the ground by environmental protesters at the International Mining and Resources Conference (IMARC). Islip had nothing to do with the mining conference - he was going into the venue on October 29 to do a sound check for the WorkSafe conference the following day. The protesters refused to hear this.  Islip was wearing a suit - that, it seems, was his mistake.The Gippsland couple say the XR training they have received is to avoid blaming and shaming any one individual. And Crunden reminds me that in a public context it is hard to control who is representing you. At the rebellion in early October, she felt very concerned when a man in sunglasses and a balaclava tried to attach himself to their group. She spoke to him: “We don’t wear masks like this, it is not XR practice.”
The protests at IMARC were organised by an alliance of groups including Frontline Action on Coal and Socialist Alternative. Extinction Rebellion maintain that they chose not join the blockade part of the protest, as this type of confrontation is not what they seek.
Miriam Robinson, a spokesperson for XR Melbourne, says: “One of the hallmarks of Extinction Rebellion actions is a creative element, often involving music and costumes. We organised actions during IMARC such as a bicycle ride, a 'disgust-ation dinner' and a 'Dance with Death'. The Red Brigade did not attend the IMARC blockade. They decided that this event was not for them.”
She adds: “Some of our people came in the morning, they were free to come as individuals, but when they saw the police, the horses and the shouting, they put their flags away and left."
Several people from XR Gippsland had travelled up to join the actions, but they turned around and went home again.
The Gippsland contingent at the Extinction Rebellion protests in Melbourne.
The federal government’s business-as-usual attitude admits little need to respond to extinctions. In his defence of the economy and the "quiet Australians", our prime minister is beginning to shout. But there are thousands of Australians on both sides of the political divide who protest this denial. They come from the country, the suburbs and the city; they have jobs and farms and businesses and children and grandchildren. They are unlikely to accept being dismissed as anarchists or members of cults. And they are less and less likely to remain quiet.

Links
at No comments:

(AU) We Mustn’t Bring Politics Into The Disastrous Situation That Was Created By ... Wait For It ... POLITICS

The Guardian - First Dog On The Moon

Should we only talk about climate change outside the fire season?
 That’ll soon be one (single) Thursday in July (at long as it’s raining)
Links
at No comments:

(AU) If You Can’t Talk About Climate When The Country Is Burning, When Can You?

The Guardian - *

Performance is at the heart of politics. That’s why Labor needs to seize this moment of crisis to push for climate action
‘The PM is expected to be there, touring around, being seen listening to briefings by the local emergency services chief, with a bit of looking at maps and so forth, and showing emotion.’ Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP
In weeks like this one it becomes quite clear just how much of federal politics is performative. Politicians do things for no discernible reason other than to be seen to be doing something, or to put on a show that will elevate their profile or position.
Once the New South Wales and Queensland fires reached a critical level, politicians were always going to do all they could to be seen to be involved.
The problem is that during such a crisis there is very little for a prime minister to do. He actually has no role – the fire services are state based, and anything that will require federal coordination, whether it be Australian federal police or Australian Defence Force, does not really need the prime minister at all.
In reality, he just gets in the way.
But getting in the way is expected of prime ministers at such times.
When an emergency such as this occurs, the PM is expected to be there, touring around, being seen listening to briefings by the local emergency services chief, with a bit of looking at maps and so forth, and showing emotion.
Scott Morrison this week was not actually doing anything of note – and to be honest, neither was the ALP leader, Anthony Albanese, who also toured parts of NSW and received a briefing on the situation.
About the best the PM could have done this week was made sure the NSW fires services had the phone number of the ADF to contact and then to let them get on with their work.
But had he done that, the criticism of course would have been about where was he, why hadn’t he visited the scene, talked with emergency services and so on.
Back in 2011, Julia Gillard was accused by Tony Abbott and others for being too “wooden” when she visited the Queensland floods. It was all the usual sexist crud that was directed towards Gillard. She was regarded as not emotional enough compared to Anna Bligh, who was premier of Queensland at the time and had an actual role, whereas Gillard – like Morrison this week – really had nothing to do.
Gillard’s failure was not about action, it was about the performance. (And the reality that she could do no right – even when she later cried in parliament. Andrew Bolt wrote a column in which he was at pains to say that while he thought her tears were genuine, “it will seem calculated to some” because she needed to show that she was not wooden.)
Morrison, the man from marketing, sure as heck was not going to make the mistake of appearing too wooden – he is very much a politician in tune with the performative nature of the job. We saw this during the election campaign when he would “do things” that made the travelling press pack happy because it gave them something to report about.
He also knows how to make use of a crisis.
Does anyone remember the crisis of needles in strawberries? In reality the biggest concern was the risk of copycat acts due to the attention Morrison gave the contamination scare, but nevertheless he used the occasion to perform the role of the leader who was tough on crime.
He also used the occasion to rush through laws that were neither asked for nor needed, but which show that while we might dismiss the performative art of politics as a sideshow, politicians on their game will use it to push their agenda and get their way.
Our media system is driven by what Italian media academic Gianpietro Mazzoleni calls “spectacularisation” – the demand for the spectacle in our political news – and good politicians use it to their advantage.
And so Morrison brings in a lump of coal to parliament. Why? The performance – it annoys the left and it is a good spectacle.
The ALP this week has tried their best to not provide any spectacle. There was no fightback of any real note against the idiocy of Barnaby Joyce or Michael McCormack – a lot of “now is not the time”.
And that might seem the mature and sensible response, and yet with the spectacle and the performative aspect of politics comes the opportunity to sell your policy and push your agenda.
Australia is burning, and it is burning because of climate change. Scientists and fire chiefs know this – and they have been ignored by the government. That’s reason enough for the ALP to raise the issue with fervour.
This week the Swedish central bank sold off Australian government bonds because of our high emissions dependency. That won’t be the last time climate change has a major impact in international finance.
We all know it is coming, but the government chooses to ignore it and suggests we put off discussion for another time.
We should be talking about it now – no debate on climate change is going to hamper the ability of firefighters to do their job.
No firefighter is standing off to the side waiting for Albanese and Morrison to finish their debate so they can go off and put out a fire.
It might seem mature to wait for a more appropriate occasion to talk about climate change and bushfires, but politics is about capturing the moment. The conservative side of politics knows this, and uses it again and again on issues of national security and crime.
Conservatives want to wait, because they want to wait until a time when the public will be less invested, less angry and less attentive. Next month it will be Christmas holidays and the attention of voters will be gone.
Progressives too often cower and take the mature road and let opportunities go begging.
The performance and spectacle of politics might be annoying and distracting but it can’t be ignored. The ALP did not need to come out this week going over the top like Joyce and McCormack, but they need to use these occasions to capture the imagination of the public and push for action.
Because if you can’t bring yourself to talk about climate change while the country is burning, then you can’t blame voters for thinking it must not be that big of a deal, or just as bad, that the ALP doesn’t really care.

*Greg Jericho writes on economics for Guardian Australia

Links
at No comments: