The Power of Civil Resistance
Is there any point in trying to change anything ? Over the years I have been inspired by people and movements who have stood up against the state when it has been serving narrow interests and promoting injustice. I remember being inspired reading about Gandhi, the small, skinny man in a dhoti, and his challenge to the British Empire. On a Christians Aware pilgrimage to Robben Island in 2001 I sat in the cell that Nelson Mandela had lived in for years, remembered his courage and prayed that I too might be an instrument of God’s peace. Our power, our influence over history, is a good theme to consider at this point in history when it becomes ever clearer that we are on a runaway train taking us ever faster towards disaster. We are told that we have a very short time to cut emissions if we are to avert extreme temperatures that would make much of the earth unlivable, yet the UK government is issuing more oil and gas licences. Many of us are anxious and feel despairing. Can anything change ? We feel powerless.
I was arrested twice in October and spent some time in police cells. In September this year I spent a week in prison, on remand at His Majesty's Prison Birmingham. It was not unexpected. Along with another 50 other supporters of Just Stop Oil I had broken an injunction granted by the High Court. I had sat on the road at the main-gate to the oil distribution terminal. I had told the court that I considered it complicit with the fossil fuel industry which was responsible for mass death and destruction and that I planned to break the injunction again and that I would not willingly come back to the court. I was prepared to go to prison. We hoped that our action would put pressure on the government to stop the development of new oil and gas projects.
Like Mario Savio, a civil rights activist from Berkeley, USA in 1964, I felt compelled to act
“There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part; you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!
By its very nature prison takes away your freedom. I could not contact those I wanted to contact, I could not eat what I wanted, I could not buy things when I desired. Most of all I could not leave my cell when I wanted. There was only one hour of ‘socialisation’ each day, when I was let out and able to walk with other prisoners in the exercise yard.
True, I was not free, but I was not powerless. I had chosen to act in defence of life, I was in resistance to the forces of destruction. I had chosen to disrupt the fossil fuel industry out of love, inspired by my faith. I was challenging the gears and wheels that were killing so many of my fellow humans. It was for me fundamentally about following Jesus, in his emptying of himself, in his belief that love cannot be extinguished. As a bonus it was a retreat from the busyness of daily life; no mobile phone, no emails and only one book to read. Much time was spent thinking and praying I shared a cell with another in civil resistance with Just Stop Oil, who, fortunately, did not want to have the TV on all the time ! When we did talk we had some good conversations
We found ourselves alongside those who were marginalised by society. We had come into prison aware that God’s good creation was horribly despoiled, in economic terms treated as an ‘externality’. We were not good stewards but rather treating the sacred earth as a resource from which wealth was to be ruthlessly extracted. In prison, alongside those with much longer sentences than ourselves, I became more aware how society treated people as disposable, from whom wealth was to be extracted. There were many victims of inequality, abuse, violence there. Many should not have been in prison; they needed care and rehabilitation, rather than punishment. Many were black. Undoubtedly, racism and other systemic injustices were a factor in their incarceration.
In the Just Stop Oil recruitment talks I had delivered, many to churches, we would tell the story of the 'Freedom Riders', that band of civil rights protesters in the USA who in 1961 travelled, black and white together, into the southern states, where segregation was still well and truly established. They met with extreme violence but continued to break the segregation laws. In the end over 400 went to prison. They chose to act, to sacrifice their privilege and power, to open themselves to the violence of others. They freely gave up their relative privilege and safety to unlock a process of social change.
I hope we're seeing a similar process of change today. A growing number of activists are being imprisoned. As I write there are several in the UK who have been in prison without trial for more than 6 months.
At this time when things are so bad and we have so little time in which to stop the train hurtling to the end of the line, we should remember the power we have to act. It is immense, it is the power of love. Nothing can separate us from that love, not even the might of the state or wealthy corporation. Experiencing that power, especially the collective power of stepping into action with 50 other people, has been a joy. I commend it to all !
November 2022.
For more information visit https://juststopoil.org/