Under the quixotic realization that the motor-car
constitutes a ghastly death-threat to our dear world I accompanied my
eighty-four year-old mother to the symbolic temple of this auto-destruction and
there we did exercise our right to protest. Little did we know the swinish
hornet’s nest that would soon swirl about us and bespatter the tarmac with
words of hatred, threats of violence and death and acts of menace and
intimidation directed at us by ye Public of this - England, our England.
The film starts with footage from a street-demo in Penzance organized
by a youth-group protesting at the path being taken straight towards
environmental melt-down. This was a good natured affair, sunny and
trouble-free. Characters visible include my mother, the former Member of
Parliament Andrew George and a cadre of XR coming to check on my spontaneous
discussion with our camera-lady, Diane; nervously hoping that I would ‘toe the
party line’. Perhaps he found my goose-grass wig unsettling.
A little short of three minutes in, we suddenly jump a
couple of weeks forward in time to 13th April, 2019, a day of
freezing wind and zero support as we walked out to the garage for a curious
hybrid version of no pasaran at the
Not-OK-Corral. The action had been announced within our local Extinction
Rebellion group for some weeks, together with a request for legal-observers. In
the end, the only help we got was from a friend with a camera, so at least we’d
have a form of witness, a piece of evidence to support our case. Our intention
was pure and simple – to get arrested. This would lead to a court-room
appearance at which there would be an opportunity to make a grand speech and
grab some strong publicity for our humble cause of trying to save the ol’
planet from immanent destruction at the hands of the poisonous mechanism that
chokes, envenoms and slowly kills off this joyous and miraculous globe – this
radiant oasis of life in the depths of cold space. They gotta let you have your
say in court, whoever you are, and I was hoping to ram the environmental crisis
into the face of Babylon for all I was worth.
When dreaming up our plan of action I imagined that
somewhere between five and ten minutes of brazenly obstructing incoming traffic
at the local garage would suffice to see us bundled into the wagon and hauled
off to Camborne. The preliminary action on the forecourt was merely bait to
draw the cops. These folks had other ideas though and had no intention of
promoting our little revolution, knowing that the so-called International
Rebellion was going off in London in two days’ time.
The little clip of existing film of the action, lasting around two and a
quarter minutes, captures something of the atmosphere out there on that windy
day, but the actual event took an entire hour to unfold. What happened after
the film ends was a third ultra-hostile motorist of the scarlet-necked variety,
giving out the threats and insults; getting surrounded by a mob of garage and
café workers all yapping at me at once and even one or two gestures of support
from motorists.
I wrote about these events shortly after they happened, but
as two years have passed – and as I have also found the lost footage – I
thought it was worth taking another look at the ‘garage-incident’. I can laugh
about it now – at the time it took two or three days to get rid of the slightly
polluted and razzled sensations arising from the adventure. Also, the whole
thing took on a slightly dark shadow due to the reaction of the XR ‘leadership’
which ranged from horror to condemnation – there was no recognition from them
of any value in our action, yet there were not, and to my knowledge never have been any direct actions
undertaken locally by the group whatsoever – despite dozens of members claiming
to be fully prepared for such engagement in the ecological struggle for
survival.
Of all the protests I have ever experienced, this one was by
far the most intense, the most menacing, the most sinister. I agonized as to
whether or not I should ‘let’ my mother be a part of such a thing – ultimately
coming to see that it was her political right to participate, if she so
insisted, and that I did not have the right to refuse her cooperation. Without
at least one companion in the field I might not have continued with the action.
Also, until the last minute, we were expecting some participation from our
brothers and sisters in the movement.
The way it played out, the two of us decided that we would
act, whether or not anyone would join us. Once having made that decision, the whole
psychic drive was forward. There
wasn’t any idea of abandoning what we considered to be the right and necessary
thing to do. Later we got a lot of criticism from the group over the action,
people seemed incredulous that we went through with it. The thing is that when
you psyche yourself up for an intense experience you have to be serious in your
intention. If doubt takes hold, vacillation will wreck the operation. There was
a powerful sense of ‘no-going-back’. We wanted to get arrested, not spend an
hour in the freezing wind, risking getting mowed down, cursed and reviled,
thinking ‘when are those cops going to get here?’ Kind of ironic really. We
literally couldn’t get arrested. There’s humour in the chaos – and as the CCTV
footage from the garage cameras and also the ones on the cops jackets would
show – there was chaos aplenty.
The point about it all though is the intention, the
motivation. We were trying to bring awareness of the worst crisis this world
has ever faced – of the sickness of our planet due to man’s blindness and greed
– our willingness to cling to a shallow culture of consumption and
‘convenience’ even as it drives the living world towards an ugly and
inexcusable doom.
REMIDIATION SOUGHT:
If you are a driver, please plant and raise one tree for
every year you have driven your car. This will go some way towards reabsorbing
your emissions. Think of the future.
* * * * * * *
"By going against the established behaviour-pattern of these other primates I was violating an unwritten code of the somnambulists – never challenge the basic reality – never try to wake the dreamers – they will turn and rend ye –" This quote comes from my original article written the day after the event. You can read the whole thing here.
Why I Joined Extinction Rebellion.
