The discussion around the Last Generation campaign, together with which I have been blocking Warsaw's Wislostrada for several weeks, is as predictable as it is frustrating. Dear columnists, commentators, uncles of good advice: you can't eat the cake and still have it.
This text has been auto-translated from Polish.
From the editors: The Blockades of the Last Generation, young climate activists, became the most prominent movement of civil resistance within a year of the Democratic Coalition parties taking power - and it divided Poland. .
We offered the activists of the Last Generation a place on our website - so that they could present their arguments in journalistic form and also reach those who don't always understand the motivations behind the roadblocks and demands they raise. Because what Last Generation and other climate alarmist organizations are doing is democratic politics..
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"Hooligan antics or legitimate civil disobedience?" - asks TVN24. Lech Walesa on Facebook writes: "I stand in solidarity and support the protest. However, I do not support the forms, methods of protest." In connection with the letter of support for the Last Generation of more than a hundred activists of the former "Solidarity" and democratic opposition, lawyers and people of science and culture, "Wyborcza" publishes a lamentable opinion by Piotr Beniuszys with the charming statement: "Between climate denialism and climate hysteria there is a whole palette of recommendable attitudes." Ostapiuk at Oko.press advises: "I fear that the Last Generation with its methods may discourage many people from fighting climate change [...]."
You ask us: don't speak so harshly, because no one will accept it. Don't be so radical, because you will alienate the public. Don't protest in a way that polarizes the public.
So let's confront this contradiction, because it's the most interesting thing to emerge from these opinions. How is it, you sympathize, but do not support? Do you agree with the demands, but not the methods? We can protest, but not so that we can be heard? We can speak frankly about the climate crisis, as long as we don't scare anyone?
Your comments remind me of one of my favorite quotes:
"I have almost come to the regrettable conclusion that the greatest obstacle to the Negro on his path to freedom is not a member of the White Citizens Council or the Ku Klux Klan, but a white centrist who is more committed to "order" than to justice; who prefers negative peace, which is the absence of tension, to positive peace, which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you about the goal you are pursuing, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action" [...]. Shallow understanding on the part of people of good will frustrates more than total misunderstanding on the part of people of bad will. Moderate acceptance causes more consternation than total rejection."
This is an excerpt from Letter from Birmingham Jail, in which Martin Luther King confronts reformist criticism of his campaign from white Christians and that part of the black community that has given up the fight and conformed to the segregationist system.
I, too, am frustrated by this "shallow understanding" - in our case: the threat posed by the climate collapse and the profound injustice that results from it. I can't get past the uncritically repeated platitudes about activists, protest or radicalism. Through the Last Generation street blockades, many people have become involved in advising protesters on how to do things properly. So I feel obliged to offer these people, opinion makers of all sorts, some advice on participating in public debate in times of gridlock.
Take our goals seriously
First, I want to point out that the role of a protest is not, or at least not necessarily, to build public support for a movement. Yet this is one of the most common arguments I encounter among critics of the Last Generation.
"Experts" who claim in the media that the Last Generation is ineffective since it conducts controversial actions base this thesis on faulty assumptions. If resentment against protesters was an indicator of the success of social movements, then suffragettes destroying paintings and breaking windows would have lost the fight for women's suffrage. Since in the 1960s as many as 85 percent of Americans said that black protests hurt their cause, the civil rights movement could not have achieved any successes. It's only natural that public protest is met with a wave of discontent from outsiders. Protest shatters order and peace - and that's what it's for.
As Wladyslaw Frasyniuk aptly summed it up in an interview with TVP Info, "We [the Solidarity people] were also a minority, and the vast majority either kept silent or resented the fact that because of us people were losing their jobs, going to prisons and facing other repressions."
Recall, then, that for a social movement, visibility and recognition, the ability to speak freely in the mass media, and the recruitment of new members are equally important, if not more important. With this the Last Generation is doing very well, and it owes this to polarization, not its avoidance. Nor have convincing studies emerged to show that radical protests discourage climate policy.
Often cited as evidence in the case, a More in Common poll conducted in Germany at no point tests public support for the demands of the climate movement. On the contrary, a number of surveys have confirmed the opposite observation: that there is no correlation between support for protests and support for the movement's demands.
So for those who sincerely care about the success of the climate movement, I suggest that you either take an interest in the Last Generation strategy and join one of our open meetings, or try to start another organization on your own that will successfully break through to the mainstream. We will only benefit from such healthy competition.
Take responsibility for the public debate
Second, let's finally face up to the judgment that radical protests discourage public opinion. As is often the case, it is not entirely wrong, but it is based on an oversimplification. After all, how do we explain the fact that roadblocks are acceptable when farmers do them, and outrageous when the Last Generation blocks? After all, it's not just the protesters and the public that participate in the public debate. The media and public figures have a much stronger influence on what is discussed and how it is discussed. They are the ones who in many ways try to create the impression that there is a gap of misunderstanding between "ordinary people" and "activists."
The first, rather simple strategy is to choose the right language. The Last Generation are Warsaw youth, rather detached from reality and not at all like Poles. In addition, they are "activists," that group of moralizers, iconoclasts and miscreants hated in Poland. It is also worth mentioning in the article that "according to some" they are "eco-terrorists" or "a criminal group," and no one will feel sorry for them anymore.
A journalist trying to discourage the public from the Last Generation essentially has two goals. One is to hide any personal characteristics of the protester with which the viewer will identify: that she is a mother, neighbor or teacher; that she is from Chorzow; that she is blocking the movement for the first time and is afraid. The second is to turn the cat on its head. Instead of asking: "why doesn't the government want to implement the demands of the Last Generation?" or "what do we need to do to avoid the worst effects of the climate crisis?" he will use the tried-and-true whataboutism: "what if an ambulance gets stuck in traffic?". "What about China's emissions?"
So let me say it plainly. Stop calling us young activists. Start talking to parents and grandparents who sit on the roadway. Ask the blockers where they came to Warsaw from to protest.
Instead of saying "I support you, but I have to be a devil's advocate," try to be advocates for a good cause for once.
Present sincere intentions
While I firmly believe that the Last Generation strategy gives us the relatively best chance of success, all this debate about the successes, benefits, failures and weaknesses of our movement is itself a distraction from the basic argument posed by the man glued to the Vistula Highway.
"I'm here for my values, I'm doing something good."
This is hard to argue with, so public figures either try to ridicule it or ignore it completely. However, there is also another way. Encountering the sincerity of the protesters' intentions can remind us all of what kind of civic community, what kind of future, and what kind of attitudes we want from each other in a moment of crisis.
Such civic courage has already been shown to us by hundreds of people in recent weeks and months. Ewa Siedlecka, Miłosz Wiatrowski, Jacek Żakowski and Joanna Szczepkowska, who were among the first to support the Last Generation publicly. Wladyslaw Frasyniuk, Danuta Kuroń, Marta Lempart, Agnieszka Holland and many other signatories of the Last Generation letter. And today also the editors of Krytyka Polityczna, who understand that also a journalist with every word and every dot chooses a side.
I ask you today to reciprocate the honesty. Instead of your advice and opinions, we will accept with understanding both your support and your hostility. History will judge who was right.
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Andrzej Jurowski - a student of sociology and anthropology at the University of Warsaw. For several years he has been combining work and social action. Co-founder and one of the leaders of the Last Generation.
