Any tightening of state repression against us will be a school where we learn together how to practice our theory of change," writes Julia Keane, co-founder of Last Generation.
This text has been auto-translated from Polish.
From the editors: The Last Generation Blocs, young climate activists, have become the most prominent movement of civil resistance within a year of the Democratic Coalition parties taking power - and they have divided Poland. The Blocs.
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..
Also read texts by Andrzej Jurowski and Tytus Kiszka..
**.
Since the beginning of the Last Generation campaign, we have been saying that the continuation of policies that lead to an increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is genocide. It is clear to us that willfully ignoring the consequences of continued burning of fossil fuels by people in power is a crime to which radical and organized opposition is the appropriate response.
History shows that defending fundamental values requiring revolutionary change has led many to resort to violence. However, research by American political scientist Erika Chenoweth, published in the book Why Civil Resistance Works co-written with Maria J. Stephan, showed that only a quarter of violent uprisings succeeded, while more than half of peaceful uprisings contributed to the fulfillment of protesters' demands.
This not-so-obvious statistic comes from the fact that social movements choosing to take up arms against an authority that has a monopoly on state violence enter into a situation of extremely unequal struggle and often paid for with far greater human losses than in the case of the bloodiest suppressed peaceful revolutions.
Using an opponent's violent methods to combat the opponent himself rarely achieves the intended goal. It leads to excessive polarization, which prevents the effective mobilization of society, and leads to retaliatory violence, aimlessly fueling already existing hostility. In addition, the use of pre-emptive violence also excludes a significant portion of the least-adjusted groups in society - women, children or the elderly are rarely involved in such struggles. As a result, resisting becomes reserved mainly for young and strong men.
The Last Generation categorically disagrees with the political reality, and at the same time rejects to screw up the spiral of violence. We choose to follow the best culture of action we know - non-violent civil resistance.
To undermine the foundations of the current political system, we need protests that are impossible to ignore. Dabbing paint on monuments or blocking traffic creates the necessary tension, without which we would not reach the public with our warning and demands. But in addition to getting the attention of the majority of Polish women and men, we need to encourage thousands of them to join the protests or at least support our vision of change if we are to exert effective pressure on the authorities. This is what we need depolarizing nonviolence for.
For peaceful revolutionary movements, nonviolence is a strategic asset. They create a fundamental dilemma for the authorities, who do not want to allow the protest to escalate, but know that harshly punishing protesters can be counterproductive, prompting public opinion to sympathize with people experiencing injustice, and even cause the services and courts to abandon repression of dissidents at a critical revolutionary moment.
However, we are not non-violent only for pragmatic reasons. The absence of verbal or physical aggression against drivers, police or journalists is not enough to weave the necessary thread of understanding between the conflicting parties. Ultimately, we are all victims of the situation the government puts us in, and we need at least a basic mutual understanding that we are on the same side. That's why it's crucial for us to be open to others, to turn an inevitable confrontation, such as even a street blockade, into a sincere human-to-human encounter.
I will say more: non-violence is a life attitude that embodies what kind of society we are fighting for. The consequences of this attitude are momentous. They make us look at everyone caught up in the structures of violence - state, economic, colonial, etc. - and see in them people who are worthy of meeting. And further, following the words of the Declaration of the A22 Network, of which The Last Generation is a part: to believe that everyone can abandon the old life and change. Not to focus on tallying up offenses to take together to build a better future. Finally, to call genocidaires genocidaires and not to demand their heads.
As Martin Luther King Jr. said: "we must rebel in such a way that when the revolution is over, we can live with all people as brothers and sisters". In the activities of the Last Generation, we are guided by King's teachings. Therefore, in addition to disrupting public life, we want to create conditions for building relationships with the people who are the direct recipients - drivers, police officers, TV viewers.
At the blockades we approach drivers and passers-by, have leaflets prepared for them and invite them to talk. Drivers get out of their cars to pull the protesters they are angry with off the road, and they meet people who listen to them, say they are concerned about their situation, show understanding, even if they are jostled or insulted by them.
On the occasion of police activities, we also talk to officers. The long hours in cordons spent together in boredom and discomfort are an opportunity to crush the artificial dividing line drawn by the government between police officers and people sitting on the street. I had a conversation with a 20-year-old police officer, a peer of mine, about starting a family in times at risk of losing everything we love. I heard from him after we were done that it was good that despite our differences and the different roles we play, we were able to talk like man to man. I found a thread of understanding with an officer who didn't want to talk to me about why we were protesting, exchanging smiles and commenting on the onerousness of paperwork when he was unfairly scolded by his commander.
Following Gandhi, we believe that by doing good to the enemy, we induce him to change his mind. For this reason, we wrote a letter to the police explaining the motivations for our protests. Because of this, we are not requesting the prosecution of Marianna Schreiber or the man who sprayed us with a fire extinguisher on Czerniakowska Street. That's why, after Tusk's December tweet in which he called our 20-minute street blockades a "threat to the state," we invited him to negotiations near the Chancellery and even brought him salty sticks and tea. While condemning the actions of such people, at the same time we open ourselves to dialogue.
We are aware that maintaining the discipline of nonviolence is one of the greatest challenges we face. Any tightening of state repression against us will be a school where we learn together how to practice our theory of change. And for now, the next time you see a hand stuck to the asphalt in front of you, remember that we are extending the other to you.
**
Julia Keane - student of sociology and anthropology at the University of Warsaw. Former English teacher. Co-founder and one of the leaders of the Last Generation.
