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| Suffragette being arrested in 1914. (Image taken from The Independent. PA Wire/PA Images) |
The title of this post are Ghandi’s words, quoted by Rebecca Solnit in her book “Hope in the dark”. Each era has its own, specific causes, while, at the same time we can observe and feel the development of others, coming from further back. Solnit reminds us that the stages identified by Ghandi unfold slowly and also that “Effects are not proportionate to causes – not only because huge causes sometimes seem to have little effect, but because tiny ones occasionally have huge consequences.” (p.61).
I have been thinking about the way activists of different causes are seen and treated nowadays. When I wrote a chapter for the book “The activist museum” (edited by Robert Janes and Richard Sandell), I remember opting for the definition of activism as it appeared on Wikipedia, since the dictionaries I consulted at the time often gave it an aggressive, violent tinge, which left me unsatisfied. Aggression or violence are not absent, of course, but they are not the only way of being an activist. Remembering an interview by John Berger, listening is an act (and in my mind, this is where activist actually starts, at being able to listen).
Today’s activists have
been on my mind, especially after I read George Monbiot’s shocking article “In
a world built by plutocrats, the powerful are protected while vengeful laws
silence their critics” last February:
“Why are peaceful protesters treated like terrorists,
while actual terrorists (especially on the far right, and especially in the US)
often remain unmolested by the law? Why, in the UK, can you now potentially
receive a longer sentence for “public nuisance” – non-violent civil
disobedience – than for rape or manslaughter? Why are ordinary criminals being
released early to make space in overcrowded prisons, only for the space to be
refilled with political prisoners: people trying peacefully to defend the habitable
planet?”
To these questions, someone
living in Portugal might also add “Why was Portuguese society not shocked at
finding out that female climate activists were ordered by the police to take
their clothes off?”. There was, apparently an investigation into police actions
in 2021 and one of the officers was reprimanded in early 2023, only for these
actions to be repeated in December 2023 (read here).
How come we have found this to be “normal”? How many of us know what has happened
since? Do we care to know?
Back to Monbiot’s
article, what is being experienced by peaceful activists in different European
and democratic countries is appalling. The UN’s special rapporteur on
environmental defenders, Michel Forst, noted that in the UK “draconian
anti-protest laws, massive sentences and court rulings forbidding protesters
from explaining their motives to juries are crushing ‘fundamental freedoms’.” He
also mentioned that peaceful environmental campaigners are being held on bail
for up to two years, subjected to electronic tags, GPS tracking and curfews,
and deprived of their social lives and political rights. In Germany, the
authorities launched an organised crime investigation into the environmental
protest movement Letzte Generation. Italy is using anti-mafia laws against an
allied group of environmental defenders, Ultima Generazione. In France and the
US, peaceful green protesters are labelled and treated as terrorists.
It is shocking. But it
it new?
In her book “Hope in the
Dark”, first published in 2005, Rebecca Solnit refers that
“One of the great shocks of recent years came to me in
a police station in Scotland, where in the course of reporting a lost wallet I
found myself contemplating a poster of wanted criminals: not rapists and
murderers but kids with peculiar hairstyles and piercings who had been active
in demonstrations such as the Carnival Against Capital and other frolics in
which business as usual was disrupted but no one had been harmed. So, these
were the criminals who most threatened the state? Then the state was fragile
and we were powerful.” (p.30).
It is this power, often
lying in very small and dark corners before the time comes to take centre stage,
that Solnit focuses in her book. This is where we can look for hope. “The change
that counts in revolution takes place first in the imagination” (p.26), among
people who are ignored, might seem passive, just bystanders. And then, a moment
comes when “the impossible becomes possible”. (p.27).
The role of
imagination, the belief that change is possible, that other worlds and other
realities are possible, has been discussed more than once in this blog (see
references in the end), as we believe it should be central to the work
undertaken by the cultural sector in every country. At the same time, cultural
professionals and cultural organisations should care for and feed their own imagination
too. They should be constantly looking for ways to support society, to feed people’s
imagination, to create spaces where some can dream the impossible. It is not
about supporting any cause (in an opportunistic way, just to “look good”), but about
doing what makes sense - for their existence, for their relevance, for their mission.
Otherwise, why is it that we do what we do?
As the word “activist”
is used by many in a derogatory manner (do you actually know why
the suffragists became “suffragettes” by the press?), as activists in
different parts of the world are being treated as criminals, as many people
advise them to be “moderate” (“You are right, but this is not the right way”), Rebecca
Solnit makes another reminder: “In 1900, the idea that women should have the
vote was revolutionary; now, the idea that we should not have it would seem
cracked. But no one went to apologize to the suffragists who chained themselves
to the gates of power, smashed all the windows on Bond Street, spent long months
in jail, suffered forced feedings and demonization in the press.” (p.31)
“First they ignore you.
Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.” Some people are not
here anymore to see the victory, though. As cultural professionals and
organisations, we should have the clear vision and purpose so that we can be
there for them now.
More on this blog
Are
we with the bees or with the wolves?
Freedom
for what? Culture for what?
Also, have a look at
the series of debates “The
Activist Museum: going deeper”, organised since 2021 by Acesso Cultura |
Access Culture.
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