We are Nature Defending Itself

Industrial society, spread across the world through globalisation, has reached a phase of profound disconnection from nature. 

Disconnection from nature means disconnection from who we really are.

Resulting from this disconnection, many people lack emotional intelligence and undergo mental health struggles.

Resulting from this disconnection, humanity is destroying life on Earth.

In the face of climate and ecological catastrophe, some people have undergone deep, personal transformations.

Such personal transformation is interwoven with the development of the climate movements, particularly Extinction Rebellion.

Extinction Rebellion represents personal as much as societal development, where the individual and the collective are linked.

In the face of climate and ecological catastrophe, some people are finding wisdom and courage buried deep at the core of their being, and are mobilising.

Extinction Rebellion are facing up to the toxic, corporate powers engendering climate breakdown, ecological collapse and mass species extinction.

Extinction Rebellion have declared our social contract null and void, for allowing corporate hegemony to destroy life on Earth.

We are in the midst of a human-wrought mass extinction event.

This is not a drill.

In failing to protect us from the most significant of dangers our governments are delegitimised.

"Dwindling population sizes and range shrinkages amount to a massive anthropogenic erosion of biodiversity and of the ecosystem services essential to civilization"

When we face the destruction of life on Earth.

When our social contract has been declared null and void.

When we have been through the dark night of the soul.

There is only one option left.

Rebellion.

"We are the ones we have been waiting for" (Hopi Elders)

My Response to Criticisms of Extinction Rebellion

Here is a list of criticisms of XR I have come across on various news channels. Following each criticism are my comments.

The movement is mainly comprised of white middle-class people

Firstly, during the London rebellion I came across many working class people.

Secondly, our movement is not remotely exclusive, it is the opposite. All groups are welcome and we are very aware of representation. Our cause concerns Mother Nature and thus welcomes every single group and individual, literally, on Earth.

Thirdly, if we do fall into a certain category, “white middle-class”, why should this stop us from doing what we think is right? And what even conservative scientists think is right? A number of the Suffragettes were also wealthy and white, should this have deterred them from doing what they thought was right?

This observation is yet another used to divert attention from the actual issue. The main reason for such diversion, I feel, is a deep fear of genuine societal change.

The movement doesn't have a mandate and is thus undemocratic and shouldn't be negotiating with the government

It is highly debatable whether we live in a fair democracy to begin with. Our “democratic” elections are funded by the super-rich and our media outlets are owned by the super-rich. The super-rich, by the way, have deeply vested interests.

All other means have been tried by many people to address the catastrophic issue of climate breakdown; bringing out studies, writing to MPs, signing petitions. These have not worked. 

The chief strategist for XR, Roger Hallam, has studied the history of protest and civil disobedience for many years. He has taken his methods directly from Ghandi, the Suffragettes and other movements, were these movements also invalid?

I'm not sure many people are aware of the severity of climate breakdown and ecological collapse, the actual issues at hand. Our democratic system is not adequately responding to these issues.

We were “having a jolly” during the international rebellion

Yes, we had fun doing what we were doing. This fun was intentional and based on love and togetherness. By no means did we have fun frivolously, obnoxiously or meaninglessly, I can testify to this. I witnessed first-hand each protest site with a very open-mind and observed nothing but creativity, beauty, togetherness and hope.

During the rebellion we discouraged public transport, disrupted people's livelihoods and thus alienated people

The concept of civil disobedience isn’t grasped by the minds of many commentators. 10 days of disruption compared with climate breakdown and ecological collapse, which by the way we are in the midst of, is what we are talking about.

We were in no way discouraging people from using public transport, buses happened to be affected by our temporary protests.

We aren’t protesting to get people to like us, we are sounding an alarm and raising an issue. Genuine change isn't easy and always entails some kind of confrontation.

We are sorry to have affected people’s day to day lives but, again, our protests are temporary and are motivated by the desire to protect nature for everyone.

A few streets away from Oxford Circus, a local independent business operator noticed my XR badge and asked if I was part of the protest. I said yes. He said although our disruption was affecting his business, he fully supported our movement. He said we were responding to the climate crisis appropriately.

On another day, a man approached us at Oxford Circus, looking over his shoulder. He told us he was on off-duty police officer and said, very passionately, that he wholeheartedly supported our movement. After dealing with so many police officers throughout the week, this moment in particular moved me.

On top of this, many members of the public declared their appreciation for what we were doing frequently on a daily basis.

Seeing as though I was at each protest site everyday, in other words I was connected to the reality of what was actually happening, I think this notion of "public alienation" is yet another manufactured opinion that has little basis in truth. Thanks mainstream media :)

During the rebellion we diverted police from other matters

Sports games.

Why don’t we protest in China?

We are British protestors.

Carbon emissions began in this country with the industrial revolution.

Carbon output and ecological collapse is inextricably bound to neoliberalism (unfettered capitalism), which, again, began in this country, as well as the United States. Thanks Thatcher and Reagan :)

Air-travel, shipping and embodied emissions in Britain have increased since 1990.

Britain is not nearly acting in accordance with even the most conservative scientific consensus on climate breakdown.

Why can’t we lead by example?

This argument against XR is another way of diverting from the actual issue and disparaging a movement that advocates genuine societal change, even if that movement is perhaps the most positive in human history. XR is literally concerned with the survival of life on Earth.

We are the Boat: Rebellion Day 5

It was April 19th, Good Friday. Like almost every night that week, I had slept on a cardboard mat on the floor of Oxford Circus, at one of our road blocks. I was feeling positive as I awoke. I was incredibly inspired by the events of the week and the public response we were getting.

Throughout the week, many members of the public declared their appreciation for what we were doing and were asking how they can help. People were bringing fruit, pastries, cups of coffee and tea. So supportive and eager to help, I felt such people were an intrinsic aspect of our protest. Many people were also signing up to join XR. I was told by a fellow protestor that across all protest sites around three thousand were joining everyday.

Witnessing first-hand the public support, passion and admiration for what we were doing highlighted the toxicity of the mainstream media and their unfounded portrayals of events like these. It reminded me of how mainstream media constructs, time and again, deeply ignorant narratives that have little to no basis in reality.

Around 11.15am, Emma Thompson began giving a speech in support of XR, standing on the symbolic pink boat which stood at the centre of Oxford Circus. The boat symbolised different things. For one, it was named after Berta Cáceres, an environmental land-defender from Honduras. With the support of her indigenous community, Berta organised resistance to the production of a dam on their sacred river, which would have displaced the community from their homes. After effectively resisting the production of the dam, Berta, in March 2016, was brutally killed in her home by hired gunmen. Also, on the boat was written “Tell the Truth”, one of XR’s prominent slogans and one of their 3 fundamental demands. This slogan was particularly fitting, as the boat was located a few streets away from the BBC HQ. The boat also represented our potential need for such crafts with rising sea levels.

Some of the organisers of XR informed us that Good Friday was to be a calmer day of reflection, with less disruption. About 10 minutes after Emma started speaking, however, a fellow rebel warned me about many police vans entering the surrounding area. I put a word out on Signal, which is a more encrypted version of WhatsApp. With Emma Thompson there and a very strong public presence, I didn’t feel the police would do much.

Hundreds of police gradually filled the area and encircled us. They let the public out but cornered us protestors in the information tent. They “kettled” us. Kettling is blocking the area and not allowing protestors to leave or enter. As I moved around the area filming the police, I soon found myself on the outside of the encirclement, and I was unable to get back in.

The sun beat down hard on us, as tension and energy increased. It was hard to say who were protestors and who were members of the public, but over 500 people filled the Oxford Circus area in support of us. The energy that filled the area was electric and powerful. A clear blue sky sat above and the sun remained strong throughout the day.

The police took many hours removing protestors, "the barnacles", from the boat, who were attached to it with glue and lockons. As the police were doing this and preparing a route to take the boat away, hundreds of other protestors set up at least three road blocks along Regent Street toward the BBC building. I ran excitedly from blockade to blockade, to see where I was needed and to observe what was going on. At this point my phone had died so I couldn’t film or photograph, though in a way this was good, as I was so involved in what was going on.

Along a particular blockade, I saw police officers dragging two protestors aggressively across the street. Thankfully this act of force didn’t escalate to anything else, for the protestors didn’t retaliate. This situation emphasised our completely non-violent approach.

I was at a road block that faced squarely down Regent Street toward Oxford Circus. To see this huge street completely drained of the public and filled with hundreds of police officers, and to hear the protestors in the distance at Oxford Circus, their chants resounding through the streets, was incredibly dramatic and powerful. The way the events of the day unfolded was very film-like.

Suddenly, a number of protesters and police started sprinting away from us toward the BBC building. I missed what street the boat had been taken through, but it had avoided the road blocks. We all sprinted to follow the boat and create another blockade. I feel at this point, after the long day of electric energy and strong sunshine, everyone was driven by ferocity and passion. Things were getting pretty heated, though I saw no violence from the protestors. Around the back of the BBC building, about 100 protesters, including me, created a road-block on Great Portland Street, as police approached with the boat.

Gail Bradbrook, one of the co-founders of XR, suddenly appeared in front of us, explaining her position on how we should proceed with the stalemate. Again, the way events progressed made me strongly feel as though I was in a film. I had never felt so energised, alive and connected to the people around me. Gail said XR’s Rapid Response Team had discussed the matter of the boat-removal the night before. They decided that wisdom should take precedence over ferocity and that the boat should be released from us with dignity. Many of the protestors at first disagreed with this decision. Gail had to explain her position twice until most of us agreed it was the best thing to do. Gail explained that at a certain point some things have to be let go and energies need to be focused on other matters. Roger Hallam, another co-founder, was also present.

As day transformed into night, we spent a long time deciding the best way of saying goodbye to the symbolic boat. Many beautiful things were said by many people. Everyone seemed energised by the day and all were very articulate and emotional. We were asked by one person, for example, to remember who the boat was named after, Berta Cáceres, and the plight of many other environmental land-defenders in the Global South.

I wanted to say what was on my mind, but couldn’t muster the courage. I wanted to say that in the past 5 days I had never before observed and felt such a high degree of creativity, beauty, organisation, passion and courage. The small communities existing at each protest site represented what humans could achieve in days to come. I wanted to thank everyone and tell them I loved them. With the intense events of the day still emblazoned on my mind, these words stirred within me, but weren’t shared with the crowd.

It is difficult to convey the feelings that circulated within me on this day. The unforgettable experiences and drama of the previous days had reached a climax. I think because of this, and because of the shared, meaningful experiences of everyone present, the boat took on a highly charged and emotional presence. The boat represented the essential cause of our movement, of our rebellion.

After much deliberation, we decided on a way to bid farewell to Berta. We all decided to march toward the Energy Institute a few streets away, where I believe Shell have an office, and here we would say goodbye. A Scottish lady in the crowd taught us a Shetland mourning song, which we would chant as we marched.

Around 9pm, we marched under glowing street lamps. Our mourning song filled the streets of the country’s capital and silhouetted families waved at us from their windows. Tears rose to my eyes. I think most of the public understand that our cause is theirs as well. Our cause is in support of Mother Nature and all future life.

Lovingly chanting, marching and talking, with the ineffable emotions of the day swirling within me, I vividly felt we were at the epicentre of history. In years to come, when climate breakdown and ecological collapse become even more apparent, these days will be looked back on and honoured. I thought of the many hundreds of people arrested earlier in the day and how I wanted them to be here, to witness the farewell of Berta Cáceres.

When I returned to Oxford Circus, after saying goodbye to Berta, the energy was much calmer. People had created signs that said “We are the Boat” on them. This filled me with deep emotion. There weren’t many people left, but the road blocks were still in place. I didn’t feel like staying. I wanted to be alone for some reason.

I managed to find my sleeping bag at Marble Arch and made a bed in Hyde Park. As I looked up at the polluted night sky of London, I felt free. I felt the whole city was ours, reclaimed by Conscientious Protectors. Lying there alone, deeply content, I'd discovered a part of myself I'd lost for a long time.

Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959)

The end of Hiroshima clearly indicates that the french female protagonist is an embodiment of Veners, her hometown in France, and that the Japanese male protagonist is an embodiment of Hiroshima. In each place a tragedy had occurred at a similar time. In Veners the female had lost her lover 10 years before, holding him in her arms as he bled to death from a bullet wound, leaving her with a deep emotional scar.

The film is mostly set 10 years after the atom bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, news of which reached the female protagonist after her grieving period. The painful effects of the bombing are evident in the male protagonist, but the film also illustrates it's collective social effects, by showing anti-nuclear strikes in Hiroshima and in the significant opening scene, where we are shown the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and found footage is displayed of the aftermath of the bombing. The female's individual plight and suffering is thus paralleled with the collective plight and suffering of the bombing of Hiroshima. Subtle connections between the individual and the collective are here addressed and the film may, on a very important level, be seen as an exploration of such connections.

I admire the way in which, wanting to address the atrocity that occurred in Hiroshima, Alain Resnais did not direct a film about the actual bombing, but directed a film set 10 years after the bombing, detailing the event's emotional effects on individuals. It is also sensitive and intelligent, I think, that the film is primarily from the perspective of the french. Both protagonists speak french and the film is mostly from the perspective of the french female protagonist; it is she who provides the main narrative impulse. The plot is largely about her, with the help of the male protagonist, trying to come to terms with a personal trauma. Resnais is a french director giving his culturally and geographically relative account of the situation in Hiroshima, showing how it is connected to similar situations in other places.

Resnais was certainly occupied with the horrific atrocities of his time. Previous to Hiroshima, he made Night and Fog (1956) and Guernica (1950). Night and Fog is about the Holocaust and Guernica about the 1937 bombing of Spain. Resnais aimed to address and remember such events; he did not want them to be forgotten, repressed, misunderstood or repeated.

In Hiroshima both the female and male protagonists state that they are happy with their partners and yet still have a romantic affair together. This is because they, being embodiments of different places where tragedies have occurred, feel an illimitable magnetism, regardless of whether they are happy in love or not, and this magnetism assumed the form of a romantic affair. They are two countries, two groups of people, two tragedies, two individuals involved in a complex form of deep copulation and connection. Again, this point is demonstrated in the opening scene, where a male and female are shown embracing in extreme close-up shots with only their limbs showing. Such close-up shots also indicate the film's opposition to the style of classical narrative cinema, where long shots are commonly used, reminding one of it's influential position in the history and development of art cinema.

The fact that the protagonists embody larger social groups and geographical areas is significant for it expresses the idea that we have all grown from and invariably express our environments. The film also shows that such environments, and thus our individual selves, are linked to other environments and individuals too. It expresses the idea that we are all, ultimately, neighbours and relatives, and that we should thus stop warring with each other. There is a deep experience of poignancy and profundity with Hiroshima that is derived from such insights. As individuals and societies it's lessons are still desperately relevant today.

Wings of Desire (1987)

Wings of Desire is nothing short of life-affirming. There is something raw and deeply emotional in the way it recognises and values the most basic aspects of everyday life. The film overcomes many of the distractions and concerns of superficial adult life and returns to the initial, essential questions of a child coming to terms with the world.

“When the child was a child it was the time of these questions: Why am I me and why not you? Why am I here and why not there? When did time begin and where does space end? Isn’t life under the sun just a dream?”

As with many great stories, the film dramatises different realms or levels of existence. The film is about angels, specifically Damiel (Bruno Ganz) and Cassiel (Otto Sander), who are watching over Berlin, often in a caring capacity. The angels occupy another realm, which is communicated to us by slowly gliding camerawork (courtesy of cinematographer Henri Alekan), aerial shots of Berlin, an orchestral soundtrack (by Jürgen Knieper) and black and white imagery.

Damiel faces a dilemma. He is an angel but wishes, as we find out early in the film, to “enter the history of the world”, to live and be finite, to sense and love and feel pain. We learn that as angels they live eternally. They can observe every facet of the world and are all-knowing, but are disconnected from the limited, sensual and profane world of manifested life.

In an early scene, the angels Damiel and Cassiel are in a stationary car, calmly recounting their observations of Berlin, as though they had done this many times before.

Cassiel:

“Today, on the Lilienthaler Chaussee, a man walks slowly, and looks over his shoulder into space. At post office 44, someone who wants to put an end it to it today has stuck collectors stamps on his farewell letters, a different one on each, then he spoke English with an American soldier, for the first time since his school days, fluently. In the hills, an old man was reading The Odyssey to a child, and the young listener stopped blinking his eyes.

And what do you have to tell?

Damiel:

“A passer-by, in the rain, folded her umbrella, and was drenched. A school boy described to his teacher how a fern grows out of the earth, and astounded the teacher. A blind woman who groped for her watch, feeling my presence”

During the next lines of this scene we learn of Damiel’s dilemma, as he states:

“Sometimes I’m fed up with my spiritual existence. Instead of hovering above, I’d like to feel a weight grow in me, to end the infinity and tie me to earth. I’d like, at each step, each gust of wind, to be able to say “now”, and no longer “forever” and “eternity”.

No, I don’t have to beget a child or plant a tree. But it would be rather nice, coming home after a long day, to feed the cat, to have a fever, to be excited not only by the mind, but, at last, by a meal, by the line of a neck, by an ear. To lie, through one’s teeth! As you’re walking, to feel your bones moving along. To guess, instead of always knowing. Or at last to feel how it is to take your shoes off under a table, to wriggle your toes barefoot”

The realm of manifested life is characterised, prominently, by desire. Desire arguably shapes most of what humans do and think. The desire to love and to be loved. The desire for carnal pleasures. In most Buddhist thought, desire creates suffering and life is defined as suffering. Thus desire is viewed negatively and something to avoid. But desire, for me, is not something to avoid, but something to be apprehended accurately. Desire is multi-faceted and beautiful; pain, love, happiness, longing, connection, suffering. I think this point is expressed in the film too.

Essential to Wings of Desire is romantic love. Part of Damiel’s wish to enter history is his longing for a woman, a trapeze artist named Marion. This longing is expressed in the film, structurally, by the transition from black and white to colour. Black and white represents the eternal angelic realm. When we find Damiel observing Marion, there are moments where the film shifts to colour. The full shift to colour occurs when Damiel emerges into the world of life.

Marion, like Damiel, is also longing. When she finds Damiel in a dream she knows that she belongs with him. Her need for him and his need for her helps the film define human life, which is based on desire (or need) and connection. Marion says to Damiel “You need me. You will need me”.

Marion’s words to Damiel near the end of the film are very telling:

“At last it’s becoming serious. We are now the times. Not only the whole town, but the whole world is taking part in our decision. We are now more than us two. We incarnate something. We’re representing the people now. And the whole place is full of those people dreaming the same dream. I am ready”

After longing and thinking, Marion is ready to take her decision, to be serious, to embrace life. In doing so, she incarnates the world and its capacity to create. Her's and Damiel’s union encapsulates all unions; they are embodying and expressing every act of love, “We are now more than us two”.

A lot more could be said about Wings of Desire, in terms of its historical references, use of music and its connections with other films and styles. Maybe another time!

“Why am I me and why not you? Why am I here and why not there? When did time begin and where does space end? Isn’t life under the sun just a dream?”

David Bowie's Quicksand

Recorded in 1971, Bowie’s song Quicksand represents a desperate striving for knowledge and from it derives a resonant, sophisticated and accurate conception of our place in the world. The song demonstrates Bowie’s eclectic learning at the time. He references Nazi history, Mysticism, Buddhism and Friedrich Nietzsche.

Quicksand brilliantly expresses how humans can drown in their thoughts and lose sight of reality. To me, this is the most significant and common human phenomenon, that can grip people in delusion throughout life, until "death's release". This is what makes the song so emotive and affecting. Using quicksand as a metaphor for this is perfect, because the more you struggle in thought, the deeper you sink. Thus the song also addresses the necessary resignation that one must achieve in light of this, “And I ain’t got the power anymore”. To achieve clarity, the desperate striving must at a certain point cease.

Bowie realises that he is limited by his animal mind “I’m tethered to the logic of homo sapien”, an insight particularly prominent in Nietzsche’s thought. There is a limit to which we can consciously grasp the world, which is why Bowie feels true, full knowledge will come with death, the ultimate transformation, "knowledge comes with death's release". Aldous Huxley explains such human limitation very clearly in The Doors of Perception. As biological entities surviving in the world, we must filter our experience of the universe, we must set limits.

I can see why one would interpret the lines “don’t believe in yourself, don’t deceive with belief, knowledge comes with death’s release” as nihilistic. But, I think, this would be a superficial and simplistic interpretation. These lines are saying that only when we abandon naïve belief will we start to live genuinely, fully and in accordance with reality. They are saying we must humble ourselves to the mystery of the world and realise our own limitations, and only by doing this can we live truthfully. 

The fact that Bowie could perfectly express these deep and mystical insights at the age of 24, with such a beautiful song, is impressive. I knew there was a reason I intuitively loved this song from an early age.

One day I wrote her name upon the strand

"One day I wrote her name upon the strand,

But came the waves and washed it away:

Again I wrote it with a second hand,

But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.

"Vain man," said she, "that dost in vain assay,

A mortal thing so to immortalise;

For I myself shall like to this decay,

And eke my name be wiped out likewise."

"Not so," (quod I) "let baser things devise

To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:

My verse your virtues rare shall eternise,

And in the heavens write your glorious name:

Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,

Our love shall live, and later life renew."" (Edmund Spenser)

Spenser's sonnet is a meditation on the ephemerality of existence and, at the same time, on the eternal endurance of love. He writes "her" name on the strand, hoping to make last his love, but his attempt is washed away. He makes another attempt, the word "again" emphasising the repetitious act, but is thwarted, again. 

One feels that Spenser is trying to come to terms with the passage of time and the eventual erasure of his most cherished feelings and moments. In a resonant way, his attempts at eternalising his love seem vain and represent the struggles we all, most likely, go through during periods in our lives. There is a certain desperation and pain in his repetitious attempts, with the illimitable sea of time his seeming enemy.

But from the sonnet emerges the realisation that, though death can subdue the world, and on one level everything fades, love will fundamentally continue, and will be the force that eternally renews life and it's transformations. In the sonnet there is thus a profound marriage between the transformational nature of existence and the eternal force, that we all embody and experience, that renews such transformation.

"Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew"

I also admire the way that love isn't clearly defined in this sonnet. It points strongly to romantic love, but also indicates a deeper kind of love, as a universal force, thus suggesting an inclusive conception of the word.