Climate Camp and a Red/Green way forward
I was in London on Saturday, though not for the Climate change protest. Even had I known about said protest, I might have avoided it. A lot about the whole thing jangles my nerves; people wandering around with face paint; the embarrassingly well-coiffed old timers with twinset and pearls turning out with the NGOs (minor exaggeration); kids playing at being activists for the day before retiring with their fancy designer trainers to pubs in Kensington for drinks. That last isn’t off-the-cuff social snobbery; I actually witnessed it.
My own cynical, mean-spirited stereotyping to one side, I was pleased the Wave march got such a good turnout, and I think the following Camp for Climate Action is a good idea too, if it can be built on. For anyone not keeping up with events, this group set up their camp in Trafalgar Square and intend to stay there until Monday morning. For what purpose? The website of the group itself doesn’t really say, so presumably it’s just about grabbing some headlines. Yet it could be so much more, next time – and no matter what comes out of Copenhagen, there more than likely will be a next time.
What’s the big deal? Think about the anti-war movement. Its greatest problem was that two million people showed up to a march in London, probably the largest ever demonstration in British history, with subsidiary marches all around the country. Everyone shouted no to war, then went home and the war against Iraq happened anyway. Well, what if those two million people had possessed tactics that would have forced the government to stop the war, for fear of bringing London to a halt indefinitely?
Something like this was tried in the United States, during the Republican National Convention of 2004. From a Thursday until a Tuesday in downtown NYC, protesters convened, pulled off stunts, stopped traffic and basically made their point that the Republican Party is full of liars and idiots. Over 1800 people were arrested. Obviously this attracted nationwide attention, but the actions were completely contained and ultimately, with the end of the RNC, the protesters went home, having achieved nothing except publicity.
Estimates suggest fifty thousand people turned up to the demonstration on Saturday. The mood was vibrant and ‘reminiscent of the early days of the Stop the War demonstrations’ (thus Liam MacUaid). The leaders of capitalism simply have nothing to offer in amelioration of the climate crisis; the British government can’t even offer decent flood defences never mind solutions to general climate “chaos”. So marches like Saturday’s “Wave” are only going to increase in number and volume. But still no one has asked what the next step is.
As Jacob points out over at Third Estate, the majority of the people on the “Wave” march were reformist, conservative in their demands etc and thus are unlikely to be wondering what happens when protests fail to move the government. There’s just a general dissatisfaction or anger that nothing, or too little, is being done on things like carbon emissions. It’s up to those of us who are reflecting on these things to put the case that something needs to be next, whenever marches have had their effect of awakening people to what’s going on, and while the government still refuses to do what must be done.
Climate Camp as it currently exists will achieve nothing. A hundred or even a few hundred activists camped out somewhere can easily be moved. It might get headlines, but so long as the government of the day can survive a few days of adverse publicity, nothing long term will be achieved. Climate Camp activists are bound to see this. Kingsnorth, Drax, Heathrow and the City climate camp last year haven’t stopped the building of the new power station (not that it should) or advanced an alternative to the carbon trading of the Kyoto treaty.
Enter a mass Climate Camp. A huge march occupies London streets. For my preference, this would be in the middle of the Square Mile, as the absolute halting of traffic there is most likely to wreak havoc with precisely the self-declared masters of the universe who have a vested interest in continuing along our current trajectory. That is, they get to invest and sell without thought for the ‘externalities’ of the environment, and they use their political clout, exercised through both Labour and Tories, to prevent any serious challenge.
The mass Climate Camp can take its stand with several concrete demands, which can be directly and indirectly tied to climate change. For a start, the renationalisation of the railways and power stations, so that revenue from these can be used for the purposes of a rational transport strategy to take the focus off cars and renewable energy and carbon capture, rather than profits. Whether or not these will be immediately implemented is a gamble, and will be the result of careful planning and the winning over of key sections of the working class.
Here is a key link between Marxism and environmentalism, a juncture at which Marxist theory must become almost self-evident to environmentalist activists. Those specific renationalisations, and the associated environmentalist polices, can’t be enacted without the support of workers against their bosses – in whose interest it is to continue to make a profit on selling energy, with little incentive to investment in cleaner energy. Environmentalists may not call for class struggle, but when their demands are opposed to capitalism, they must utilise it.
Today’s challenge for socialists lies in promoting the move towards a mass strategy, and preparing the movement for civil disobedience. If we can make that case, then the orientation towards the other mass organisations of the working class will be accomplished much more easily, because it should be apparent that their support is necessary. It is necessary tactically in terms of bringing over key workers and strategically in terms of gathering more support for the mass Climate Camp itself and supplying it with food, water etc.
If the Camp can’t be overwhelmed by the police as the New York RNC demonstrators were, if it is self-sustaining and doesn’t simply dwindle over time, and if it can make a connection to London workers, then it has a chance at forcing the government to accede to its demands. In those conditions, to borrow from Paul’s appreciation for Jurgen Habermas, such a Camp would create a radical ‘public sphere’, unencumbered by the usual bias towards organised Capital (and, in the case of global warming, the bad science and conspiracy theories its prostitute media promotes), where the working class, including the socialist part, can talk to itself and debate what comes next even beyond the confines of the camp itself.
“kids playing at being activists for the day before retiring with their fancy designer trainers to pubs in Kensington for drinks.” Your right – thats not off the cuff snobbery – its just snobbery.
I’m sorry – do rich people not have the right to protest? What do you want them to do? Not protest? Protest and then retire to a pub in Brixton? Protest and then whip themselves for being wealthy? Burn their ‘fancy designer trainers’ (actually they tend to be brogues etc)? Two of my very good friends went to this march – both frequently wear “fancy trainers” and neither of them go on other marches. Climate change is the issue they care about and both of them spend a lot of time working on it one in her job now, the other in a previous job and soon to be moving into the green energy industry.
Just because they don’t conform to your profoundly inverse snobbish view of the world where being wealthy and Oxbridge (ironic given your own time there – although, as an aside, I suppose that does allow you to make various other snide remarks about Oxford students with some limited degree of authority) are in themselves bad, and where everything working class is good, does not mean they don’t have every much right as you do to protest about climate change.
I didn’t say they don’t have that right, did I? I didn’t imply it either. I just said they bother me. Which they do. For the rest, see the first line of my second paragraph which begins, “My own cynical, mean-spirited stereotyping to one side…”
Oh for fuck’s sake – I was using right broadly. As “shouldn’t” – which “they bother me” is suspiciously similar.
“My own cyncial, mean-spirited stereotyping” doesn’t give you wiggle room. All that meant was – I’m not labelling all people who were there as the kind of people who wear “fancy designer trainers” (sorry, I just find that an amusing turn of phrase) and drink in pubs in Kensington. I don’t care about that limitation. I was referring to those not excluded.
If on the other hand you are admitting that your view of these people is cyncial and mean spirited, then I’m very happy to agree with you. It is. And quite frankly, its highly ignorant as well.
I wasn’t using “right” any less broadly than you. The ‘rich’ (however we’re defining that) should protest – but the reality is that many of those designated by my ‘amusing turn of phrase’ are there as part of a lifestyle choice rather than with any particular understanding of the political issues. So why shouldn’t I be inversely snobbish?
If my ‘snobbery’ as you put it is aimed at their wealth, well it’s that very wealth which isolates them from what the rest of us have to deal with. Climate change is such an attractive issue for the wealthy, because it can be framed in such a way as to have no wider political relevance which may offer
unattractive conclusions about the nature of our society and their position in it. And if I offer up one of the symbols of wealth as an article upon which to focus such snobbery, is it unjust to point to the symptoms of the isolation I’m talking about?
For all your comment on the irony that I went to Oxford, I’ve never owned a ‘named brand’ pair of shoes in my life; I simply can’t afford them.
You can declare what I’ve said to be ignorant all you like, but almost anyone involved with protest movements over a period of years will know precisely the sort of crowd I use this type of rhetoric to delineate.
Because your categorisation of lifestyle choice vs particular understanding of the political issues is deeply flawed.
Without any explication of ‘particular understanding’ your analysis is meaningless. If you intend to denote a minimal level of familiarity with the issues then you will probably find that most of the wealthy have an understanding of commensurate if not superior understanding to the not-rich. They have more leisure time and, on average (but obviously, only on average) a better education, which in turn, on average, correlates with better understanding (our education system isn’t so inequitable as to mess that correltion up entirely).
If on the other hand you want to define particular understanding in a restrictive way with a high level of understanding needed to meet that, then almost no one can protest (without criticism). Certainly most people striking about their jobs can’t – they don’t necessarily understand the politics, what they understand is that their job will be lost. I take it you don’t look down on them.
The reason rich people aren’t politcal in the way you see that word is “why the bloody hell should they be?” The political system in essence does them no great disservice, and as most of them don’t have any interest in Marxian ideas of property, they don’t see it as particularly inequitable. They are more concerned with problems like Climate Change and Third World poverty because they see this as the true inequity – the place where the capitalist system truly does screw people. This isn’t a lack of interest in politics – its a lack of interest in your particular conception of what is of fundamental political importance.
You are right, my wording was poorly chosen. What I mean to say, when describing the opposition between lifestyle choice and understanding the issue is that these people are unlikely to persist with the issue beyond a passing protest or two. When I say understanding, what I mean is that they understand and care about the issue enough to continue to attach themselves to the movement for the years it shall inevitably continue to exist, in absence of its demands being met.
From accounts I have read of the early CND marches, or the May 68ers, the same phenomenon is observable in those cases too.
As for your final paragraph, well of course that’s the reason rich people aren’t political in the way I see that word. Hardly a great revelation when I said so myself in the last comment. Different conceptions of the world, and the material basis for this, is what all of this boils down to. I’m curious as to why you think this mean I should be less prejudiced against or dismissive of the lifestyler element to the protest movement?
Of the lifestyler element perhaps you have the right to be dismissive – but without them, your protests wouldn’t be very big. And I really fail to see that the rich are any more lifestyle than anyone else on climate change.
As for why you should be less prejudiced and dismissive…that really should be self-evident.
[The following is somewhat hyperbolic] – I think it is interesting that you choose to say that rich people aren’t political in the way you see the word. I realise that I am dancing in a semantic pinhead, but I think it shows something. I think you see things entirely in terms of the class struggle mechanism – that is reality for you. I think that part of the basis of liberalism is the realisation that one has really very little understanding of the world, even on a basic level, let alone on a moral and political level. A second foundation (I will not attempt to give an exhaustive list) is the belief that people should be free to follow their own good. I realise that you will deny that capitalism allows this, but that is by-the-by for the time being. The fact that you deny the status of politics to anything but class based analysis is, in a way, a denial of those people’s right to pursue the good. Of course you wouldn’t ban it, but you see it has having no real legitimacy – you deny the importance of their politics. That is what I find objectionable (not that I expect you to care what I find objectionable – in fact I am confident you don’t).
With regard to your point, I’m obviously prepared to argue forcefully for the way I see the world, which is moderated by an attempt to grasp theoretically and experientially the processes at work. This necessarily relegates all other points of view, which, when stripped of their dissemblance, is how all people with political ideals act. Only in such a way can politics traverse the distance between idle chat and actually doing something about what one believes.
For the rest, I trust that the development of the socialist movement and the overthrow of capitalism will ultimately prove me right (beyond what my own powers of reasoning can do).
“kids playing at being activists for the day before retiring with their fancy designer trainers to pubs in Kensington for drinks.”
Baaw! No to new people protesting!
Dave I agree – far be it for me to dissemble. But I don’t think other people’s views are stupid, hopelessly misguided, or illegitimate. One by necessity relegates, but what I think misguided and objectionable is the dismissivness of the relegation, the belief that there view is barely even valid.
Sorry that wasn’t actually meant to be directed at you Barney, it was just a general commentary.
You said that of the ‘lifestyler’ elements, perhaps I have the right to be dismissive. Well that’s the only element I am dismissing. And I did so using one paragraph of a thousand-word foray into this topic. I don’t really see much to be objectionable about that. We evidently have differing conceptions of where in society that element is drawn from, and that’s fine – neither of us can fully disprove the experience of the other one, and I have no wider sociological data to draw on.
So we are at our perennial destination of agreeing to disagree?