From ECOS, 20 (2) ps.19-25

Resist to Exist? Radical Environmentalism at the end of the Millenium

This article explores the rise of the radical environmental movement in the UK and examines the current context of protest in the light of recent global days of action.

GRAEME CHESTERS

On Friday June 18th 1999, 10,000 people converged on the ‘square mile’, the heart of the City of London and the most important financial district in Europe, prime movers in this ‘Carnival Against Capitalism’ were Reclaim The Streets, Earth First! and Critical Mass, all of whom are key players in what might be termed the Radical Environmental Movement (REM). By the end of the day smoke hung over the area as bank documents were burned in the streets, riot police on horses made repeated charges into the crowd and the largest futures and options exchange in the world[1] had abandoned trading after coming under sustained physical and cyber attack. The cost to the city was over £2 million, a pittance in their terms, but the symbolic cost was much higher. Their aura of invincibility aided by the mythology of a ‘ring of steel’ around city institutions had disappeared, it had collapsed under the weight of the collective imagination of radical environmentalists.

For the media this was a long way from dreadlocks and tree houses, bypasses and runways, their fascination with ‘Swampy’ had led them into Tolkienesque tunnels, but they were no closer to understanding the processes at work. They had been caught off guard, and in their haste to catch up began composing stories about the ‘eco-warriors’ who ‘have redefined anarchy’[2] the ‘riot from cyber space’[3], or latterly ‘the violent world of the global protesters’[4]. Something new had apparently happened, this rag tag army of drop outs and pushed outs had run rings around the ring of steel - serious things were afoot!

This article attempts to make sense of the events of June 18th, as the culmination of nearly a decade of purposive, direct action oriented around ecological issues. It briefly defines the REM, outlines its history and enquires into the patterns of mobilisation, strategic choices and political opportunities which have shaped the collective identity of a movement which I argue, is increasingly displaying an ‘antagonistic’[5] or ‘intemperate’[6] orientation towards the normative system of production, distribution, exchange and consumption. Based upon these observations, and my own experience as a participant in some of these events and processes, I make some tentative guesses as to how the REM might develop and change at the start of the next century.

Making sense of radical environmentalism

Over the last seven years there has been an explosion in ecologically oriented non-violent direct action (NVDA) in the U.K. NVDA has been integral to campaigns aimed at stopping or delaying road building, prominent amongst which, have been the campaign against the A3 at Twyford Down (1992), the No-M11 Link Road (1994), and the campaign against the Newbury Bypass (1996)[7]. NVDA has also been effectively utilised in recent campaigns opposing the release of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO’s) into the environment. Correspondingly, as one might expect, there has been a growth in academic interest in these phenomena, some of which has chosen to situate such NVDA within a distinct cultural milieu, referred to as ‘DiY Culture’[8], and described as ‘a kind of 1990s counterculture’[9], whilst others deal with NVDA in the more traditional context of political science approaches[10].

I would argue, however, that the most appropriate way to analyse these events is through recourse to social movement theory, Mario Diani in a seminal contribution to this field of study defined a social movement as

‘a network of informal interactions between a plurality of individuals and/or organisations, engaged in a political or cultural conflict on the basis of a shared collective identity’[11]

Social movement theory of the type offered by Mario Diani[12] and the Italian social theorist Alberto Melucci[13], provides us with more than a descriptive category (DiY Culture), or an analysis of the effects upon the political system (political science approaches), rather, it stresses a need to analytically distinguish between the differing levels at which such protest actions are meaningful - personally, culturally and politically - and to articulate the processes which are often hidden from view, but which energise and facilitate protest events, such as the construction of a collective identity through everyday interactions, dialogue and shared activities. It is in these ‘subterranean networks’[14] that we might discover aims and purposes which are neglected in the mainstream coverage of the REM.

Drawing upon these insights, I would define the REM as those parts of DiY Culture which utilise an ecological critique to foster an antagonistic orientation towards the prevailing model of production, distribution and exchange of social and material resources, and which also utilise non-violent direct action as a means of manifesting and theorising resistance and pre-figuring alternatives to the status quo. By ‘antagonistic’ I mean to suggest that participants within this movement are willing to contest and resist the very logic of the prevailing system, particularly the concept of economic growth and capitalist accumulation, but also such pillars of environmental discourse as ‘sustainable development’, and whilst non-violence remains a pertinent and contentious issue within movement gatherings, and movement produced media, its use in this context is descriptive not prescriptive. My observations do not rule out the possibility of a tactical recourse to violence within the REM, however I am seeking to reflect such collective action as I have empirically observed, whether the rationale behind the non-violence is for tactical or principled reasons.

The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act - Dancing to the Sounds of Protest

The history of radical environmentalism in the UK goes back a long way and is outside the remit of this article, and the history of specific contemporary groups within this current of thought and action, such as Earth First! has been well attended to recently[15]. However, I would like to briefly transport us back to 1994 and the advent of the Criminal Justice Bill (CJB), for it’s in the dusty pages of this legislation that we can discern the beginnings of the networks of groups and organisations, alternative media and cultural influences which have sustained the REM and which are still working themselves out in protest events such as June 18th.

The CJB was the catalyst for interaction between groups which may have otherwise taken far longer to have identified a common interest, if indeed they ever would have done. The CJB set out to criminalise whole swathes of people and activities, many of whom were considered to be a rump of resisters, an inappropriate blot on the copybook of 15 years of Tory government. Travellers, hunt saboteurs, squatters, environmental protesters and ravers were all targeted, and were in turn united in common opposition to this draconian piece of legislation. With typical cheek, Justice? - the Brighton Campaign against the CJB, wrote a letter of thanks to the then Home Secretary, Michael Howard, which was later published in SchNEWS a weekly direct action newsletter. In it they thanked him for ‘your inspiration’ which has ‘made us work closer together: Networking is happening across the nation - Road Protesters and Ravers, Gay Rights Activists and Hunt Saboteurs, Travellers and Squatters and many more, as we realise the strength of our numbers.... Thanks to you we are witnessing the largest grass roots movement of direct action in years.’[16] Elsewhere other activists[17], academics[18], cultural commentators[19], and even the Metropolitan Police Federation remarked on the unifying effects of the Bill, 'It appears to be legislation against a certain section of the population and that is a recipe for disaster. The whole aim of policing is to alienate the criminal - not to make criminals of people' [20].

The CJB, later to become the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act (CJ&POA) was a ‘political hand grenade’ and in Claremont Road on the route of the M11, one of the most significant anti-roads protests, activists were already theorising the possible outcomes. As Phil McLeish, later an activist with Reclaim The Streets argued, ‘Claremont Road was a recent meeting point of the two most active social movements in Britain today, the movement against roads and the movement against the Criminal Justice Act’[21]. In a further prophetic insight he predicted that ‘If the CJA campaign can be persuaded that ‘free space’ necessarily means ‘car free space’ the alliance struck at Claremont may have a future. Cars beware! Claremont is rising!’. The subsequent resurgence of Reclaim The Streets as an organisation and event is this promise fulfilled, now an international phenomena, street parties block major roads whilst people dance to the ‘repetitive beats’ made unlawful in such a context by the CJ&POA. This is where road protest meets rave organisation in an encounter made possible by political repression.

Resist, Refuse, Reclaim!

So who are these street reclaimers? The urban guerrillas of the information age, avant guarde art-ivists, revolutionary environmentalists, frustrated ravers, the mad, bad and sad, no doubt. Activists from Reclaim The Streets (RTS) have successfully negotiated these stereotypes whilst remaining at the forefront of the REM and fostering a eco-anarchist vision which has resonated with other environmental and social justice activists world-wide. RTS draws ideas and inspiration from the social ecology of Murray Bookchin, the radical art practices of Dada and the surrealists, and the revolutionary tradition of the Situationist International. Their model is of collective action which inverts the traditional methods of environmental NGO’s, for RTS the point is not to influence the political process, to lobby or inform, but to subvert, disturb and reclaim. As John Jordan, an activist with RTS puts it, ‘Once again we were introducing play into politics, challenging official culture’s claims to authority, stability, sobriety, immutability and immortality by cheekily taking over a main traffic artery.’[22] Such actions are meaningful for those participating because those participating create the meaning of the action, this is not as tautological as it sounds. Reclaiming streets is not instrumental, goal oriented action aimed at convincing or cajoling public opinion to influence those in power, such as is the model for many other types of highly symbolic action, Greenpeace and the Brent Spar for example. Rather, it is a celebration of the possibility of participation in the public sphere, unmediated by institutions, it is as much about returning pleasure to politics and politics to the streets, as is it about car free space. Quite simply, the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act was an act of enclosure, an attempt to close off spaces of protest or unlicensed pleasure. Reclaim The Streets, and the REM more broadly, is engaged in resisting such enclosures.

To these ends, the REM is gradually moving away from the battlegrounds of old, the bypasses and runways, the tunnels and treetops, these protests were like cultural laboratories reawakening the possibility of a politics and lifestyle imbued with passion, commitment and meaning. The criminalisation of such protest reaffirmed the impossibility of ever dropping back in, even if one wanted, there is nothing to return to, few employers want someone convicted of public dissent, no matter how organised, intelligent and able. This is compounded by the sense of urgency, maybe even desperation felt by many activists who envisage imminent ecological collapse. The result is the dynamic, proactive and diverse synergy of groups, organisations and individuals which manifested itself on June 18th.

The Future? Radical Environmentalism as Social Netwar

As I write this on November 30th 1999, tens of thousands of environmental activists, NGO’s and social justice campaigners, trade unions, charities, church groups and others are transforming the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) meeting in Seattle into a jamboree of protest and dissent. Live video streaming coming from independent media sources shows paramilitary police confronting environmental direct activists who have ‘reclaimed’ major intersections, paralysing the opening meeting. The ‘Battle in Seattle’ is being fought, tooth and nail on the ground and over the internet, with ‘cyber-tage’, ‘hacktivism’, ‘virtual sit-ins’ and ‘e-mail bombs’, all the jargon of a new age of electronic protest (e-protest) and resistance.

At the heart of these events are the protagonists of a persistent conflict, that of the haves and have nots, rich and poor, peoples and states, a conflict as old or as new as the forms it takes. Whilst the environmental NGO’s bemoan the collapse of the Biosafety Protocol on the trade in GMO’s, and the threat from the WTO to the Kyoto climate change convention, the Radical Environmental Movement is reminding us of what it believes is a more fundamental struggle, ‘We have to remember to go for the heart of the beast, which is capitalism itself[23]. This is not merely empty rhetoric, the REM’s critique of the nature of advanced informationalised capitalism is sufficiently sophisticated for it to understand where best to direct its focus, be it the LIFFE building in the City of London or the WTO. As sociologists have noted[24] the networking logic which underpins the REM also animates new business practices and global markets, and the vulnerability of key nodal points within such networks (financial exchanges, central banks, multi-national corporations) is such that autonomous actions against them organised globally through the internet, and carried out locally, can have a pronounced effect. The co-ordination of these ‘swarming techniques’, comprised of real time blockades, direct actions, street theatre, reclamation of public spaces and cyber actions is easily facilitated by electronic communication networks. Consequently, the REM’s ability to understand and intervene against important strategic nodes in such networks, affords it a strength beyond its numerical capacity, and may well signal the advent of what the RAND corporation have called ‘social netwar’[25], the opening up of many fronts of resistance, where non state actors, operating in the ‘cracks and grey areas of society’ challenge the logic of the prevailing system.

The Radical Environmental Movement in the UK has come a long way from defending the environment with tunnels, treehouses, lock-ons and walkways. Now criminalised, experienced in the techniques of street protest, and technologically astute, activists are on the offensive, and whether it’s June 18th, November 30th or May 1st, 2000 - the next day of global action, global corporations are on notice - expect more to come!

Notes and references

---

[1]LIFFE - London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange.

[2]Observer, 20/06/99

[3]Guardian, 24/06/99

[4]Observer, 31/10/99

[5]For a precise definition of this term see Melucci, A. (1996) Challenging Codes, CUP, Cambridge, pp. 38-39.

[6]See Virno, P. (1996) ‘Virtuosity and Revolution: The Political Theory of Exodus’, in Virno, P. & Hardt, M. (eds.) Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.

[7]See Merrick, (1996) Battle for the Trees Godhaven Inc, Leeds

[8]See McKay, G. (1996) Senseless Acts of Beauty, London, Verso.

McKay, G. (ed.) (1998) DIY Culture: Parties and Protest in Nineties Britain, London, Verso. Also Brass, E. & Poklewski-Koziell, S. (1997) Gathering Force, Big Issue, London.

[9]McKay, 1998:2.

[10]See Byrne, P. (1997) Social Movements in Britain, Routledge, London

[11]Diani, M. (1992) "The Concept of Social Movement", Sociological Review, 40,1:1-25 (February).

[12]See also della Porta, D. & Diani, M. (1999) Social Movements: An Introduction, Blackwell, London. Also Diani, M. & Eyerman, R. (1992) Studying Collective Action, Sage Publications, London.

[13]See Melucci, A. in Keane, J. & Mier, P. [eds] (1989) Nomads of the Present, Hutchinson, London. Also Melucci, A. (1996b). Challenging Codes: Collective action in the information age, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

[14]See Melucci, 1989:41

[15]Wall, D. (1999) Earth First and Anti-Roads Movement, Routledge, London.

[16] SchNEWSreader, 1995:1 available from Justice?, Prior House, 6 Tilbury Place, Brighton, BN2 2GY

[17]Merrick, 1996:9

[18]McKay, 1996:177

[19]Stone, C.J. (1996) Fierce Dancing: Adventures in the Underground, Faber & Faber, London.

[20]Mike Bennet of the Metropolitan Police Federation, Independent 04/11/94

[21]Welsh, I. & McLeish, P. (1996) ‘The European Road to Nowhere: Anarchism and Direct Action against the UK Roads Programme’, Anarchist Studies, 4:37

[22]Jordan, J. The art of necessity: the subversive imagination of anti-road protest and Reclaim the Streets, in McKay, (ed.) (1998).

[23]RTS activist cited in The Guardian, 06/10/99.

[24]See Castells, M. (1996) ‘The Rise of the Network Society’, Volume 1 of The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, Blackwell, Oxford.

[25]Arquilla, J. & Ronfeldt, D. (International Policy Department RAND) (1993) 'Cyber War is Coming' in Journal of Comparative Strategy, Volume 12, 2: 141-165.

Graeme Chesters is Research Fellow in the Centre for Local Policy Studies at Edge Hill University College. He is also active in a number of social justice and environmental campaigns.