Detail of a painted wall carving depicts goddess Isis embraces pharaoh Ramesses III (left). Tomb of Prince Amun-her-khepeshef (QV55), Valley of the Queens, West Thebes.
Mural depicts three musicians playing instruments in modern times named flute, harp and lute, detail of a wall painting from the Tomb of Nakht (TT52). New Kingdom, 18th dynasty, ca. 1550-1292 BC. Sheikh Abd el-Qurna, West Thebes.
“We have been raised to fear our deepest cravings. And the fear of our deepest cravings keeps them suspect, keeps us docile and loyal and obedient, and leads us to settle for many facets of our own oppression.”
— Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider (via philosophybits)
As police were moving in, XR Hamburg pulled all of their activists out of a street blockade because someone in the blockade shouted “fuck cops”. They thinned the blockade and then stood back as the cops attacked.
Their comment on twitter after it happened: “We are not a left wing movement. We are a climate movement. We can not always support you.”
When extinction rebellion got started, experienced activists were saying “Look, we’ve seen this before, this intense dedication to a highly flawed theory of non-violence. It doesn’t achieve results. It does get people hurt. Maybe don’t.”
A bit later in they went “look, we admire the mobilisation speed… but this group isn’t just flawed, it’s very cozy with the cops, it doesn’t take care of activists well, it’s organization is not actually all that decentralized or democratic.. a lot isn’t right here.”
And now we’re getting more and more shit like this, as expected. I hope this is the moment where the wider movement is gonna wake up and take a big step away from extinction rebellion before we reach the “Oh fuck” stage.
I find it very troubling that they identify themselves as “not a left wing movement”. They are leaving themselves wide open to be overtaken by Neonazis - they love environmentalism, especially if they’re the more radical, völkisch (what even is that in english) sort. Movements like this not taking a hard stance against bigotry that never ends well.
Yes! Ecofascism is an important thing to look out for.
For those who don’t know: ecofascism connects ‘the people’ to ‘the land’ and claims that only those that have lived on a piece of land for generations can properly care for it and anything ‘foreign’, be it a plant or a person, upsets the harmony of nature/society. A very prominent defender of this idea is Marine Le Pen from the french far-right Front National.
And that’s the just the ecofascists that run for elections. On the more extreme violent side of this same ideology lies the belief that the earth’s population should be intensely reduced to restore the balance between humans and nature and that only the best genes should be allowed to survive the great dying. Which simply means genocide. To them, the fact that climate change is mostly killing people of color is exactly what should be happening and if it doesn’t all happen naturally, it should be carried out by mass murder. The Christchurch and El Paso schooters were both ecofascists who believed this.
Many ecofascists romanticize a world without technology, where manly men chop wood in the forest while obedient women have white babies etc. You get the idea.
Here’s some stuff to look out for to recognize eco-fascism within a movement:
The idea that those born in a place are more motivated to care for it than those that moved there
An obsession with people as being ‘rooted’ in a place where they have lived for generations
Anti-import and export as a way to cut carbon emission (but really they just don’t want anything to cross borders)
If you mention meat eating, they’ll probably change the topic to muslim traditions of halal meat. (although some ecofascists are vegans)
Localism
Paganism, but like… a very conservative all-white interpretation of it.
Primitivism + gender norms.
A love of things ‘nordic’ or 'boreal’
The term völkisch
The term 'blood and soil’
The idea of white people being replaced by immigration
I’m also going to leave a couple links here too for anybody who’s involved in XR currently who’s worried about ecofascism and the democracy and autonomy of the climate movement:
GAF is a name, a banner, a call to action. It’s not an organisation
or a network and has no central authority. We want GAF to act as a way
of bringing people together, to take action, to spread a radical,
anti-capitalist position on climate change and other environmental
issues. If you agree with our manifesto, we encourage you to organise,
to take action yourself, you can be part of the Front!
There is no specific model to follow, different situations call for
different forms and actions, but there are a few important principles
that we ask those organising as GAF to stick to:
– We don’t work with companies or the private sector – We don’t work with the police or the state –
We are against all forms of exploitation and oppression including but
not limited to those based on class, race, sex, sexuality, gender or
ability, and we support trans and sex-worker inclusive feminism – We organise in a supportive, inclusive way, free from bullying or abusive behaviour
GAF has some working groups to organise the website, events, social
media, inclusivity and various other things, let us know if you’d like
to get involved and we’ll put you in touch. Also feel free to get in
touch if you have an idea for a GAF project, event or action that you’d
like some support and we’ll do what we can to help out.
Anyone carrying out an action under the GAF name must agree to and act in line with the following Points of Unity
1. An existential threat – Human induced climate
change and environmental destruction more broadly are a threat to global
ecosystems. Action must be taken now to guarantee we not only survive,
but flourish in the future.
2. Capitalism is the crisis – Capitalism is part of
the problem. A global economic system built on competing capitalists
cannot be trusted to combat climate change when doing so threatens their
profits. We must make the link between capitalism and environmental
degradation explicit in our politics and critique the role of the state
in facilitating this.
3. International class solidarity – We must be
internationalist in our scope and ensure victories for workers in MEDCs
does not mean just pushing environmental problems onto workers in LEDCs
who have done the least to contribute to climate change. We must push
our trade unions to adopt an environmental as well as anti-capitalist
stance which argues for a just but rapid transition for workers in
extractive industries. We must take a hard stance against nationalism
and aim instead for global unity.
4. Building collective power – We should ensure the
actions we take, and the struggles we link up for, leave us and others
who take part stronger not weaker. We must avoid any so-called victory
that relies on the ‘good will’ of a politician or the ‘expertise’ of an
NGO. Win or lose, each action and campaign should leave us more aware of
the world around us, more confident of our collective power, and more
experienced in our ability to self-organise.
5. Diversity of tactics – We must develop a
diversity of tactics that is not dependent on the actions of politicians
or corporations developing a conscience to achieve its goals. We plan
to work alongside Extinction Rebellion while maintaining certain
critiques of them.
6. Horizontal, bottom-up structures – We cannot
recreate the structures we know do not work within our own movement. Our
movement must be horizontal and autonomous so that it truly represents
the interests of those our current rulers treat as expendable. We must
also take an intersectional approach to our solidarity and care for each
other at all times.
7. We need a new system – Ultimately, while the
imminent threat of climate change may limit us to putting pressure on
state and capital in the short term, in the longer term we need to
replace these institutions to solve the systematic problems that have
created this crisis.
In the wake of recent events, many anarchists and social ecologists have
found their early concerns about Extinction Rebellion and Earth Strike
confirmed: the movements appear destined for failure.
Activists under the green, black, and red are agreed that now, perhaps
more than ever, an organised autonomous movement is needed to build
towards insurrection and general strikes, as well as provide a clearly
outlined ecological alternative to the capitalist industrial order based
on one of communal ownership and democracy. What follows is the
proposal for a rough set of guidelines towards the formation of a
decentralised network of activists, united by a shared belief in this
set of core principles:
Climate collapse is class war
Capitalism and centralisation have devastated our planet
Direct Action and Autonomy - not looking to elected representatives for reform
Climate issues are social issues
Consensus is key - All Power to the People!
Anti-Fascism
Rejection of the state and police
The climate struggle is an internationalist struggle
The climate struggle is an anti-racist, anti-ableist, anti-imperialist struggle
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