Learning to Grow Movements Out of Organizations

Written by Laurence Cox and first published at ICNC

If activists are resisting an incinerator in one town and the neighboring town is resisting a megadump, how can they get beyond just fighting their own battles in isolation? How can they link up those different struggles and push for environmental justice? And how can they work together with other groups to challenge the underlying economics and incentives that produce waste in the first place?

When activists talk about issues like climate collapse or the rise of the far right, global inequalities or femicide, they don’t expect the issues to solve themselves. But the kind of agency that activists need to tackle these kinds of problems is far bigger than any individual organization or campaign.

If we share each other’s outrage or critiques of the status quo, we might feel like part of a movement, but without shared action and strategy towards systemic change, there isn’t a movement. Learning to work together across difference is a major milestone. The skills to make this happen are part of what I call the “ABC of activism” in my book Why Social Movements Matter (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018).

The ABC includes connecting up campaigns in different places and countries. It embraces intersectional work tackling inequalities of class, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, ability/disability, etc. within our organizations. It also comprises forging both immediate coalitions and strategic alliances between movements around different issues and between different communities in struggle. This means thinking more deeply, about the structural and systemic problems we are facing, and more strategically, about how to build the power we need for the change we want.

Beyond organizational patriotism

In order to go from an organization to a movement, activists have to overcome what German speakers call “organizational patriotism” (Organisationspatriotismus, a generic term that has been applied to everything from strategic planning to business theory). Organizational patriotism includes narrowly prioritizing your own organization’s interests over all others. It means siloed social media work (not signal-boosting related organizations) and training programs that fail to mention other organizations working on the same issues.

Organizational patriotism happens when organizations neglect networking and alliance-building. There are many other organizational forms and practices that keep us acting and thinking in separate boxes—as if our organization alone could do it all.

If we are serious about overcoming the problems we face, what we ultimately need—as frameworks running from intersectionality to climate justice acknowledge—is very broad alliances of movements, or far larger, more diverse and internally complex movements. Becoming able to act as “the peace movement”, “the Black community”, “the climate movement”, “labor” and so on is a huge achievement, but not a resting point.

What can we do?

Some movements have long-standing cultures of alliance-building and networking across organizations, social groups and countries. Organizations may start with experienced activists with good connections to other movements, communities and civil society actors, or stand in a tradition that values making connections. Yet many organizations don’t start from such an ideal place, and the forces of entropy and fragmentation are very powerful.

It is easy enough today to learn the technical skills of mobilizing for a campaign, building an organization, carrying out nonviolent direct action or using social media effectively. But there are fewer spaces to address the problems of organizational patriotism. And of course, organizations that aren’t having conversations about this problem are less likely to see the need to address it. So what can we do?

In earlier research about movement development, my colleagues and I asked activists how movements can build the strategic capacity to think about large-scale change over time. Two strategies that came up were:

1. Building alliances across organizations, communities and movements;
2. Creating the spaces and skills for movements to become learning agents.

A manageable way to start alliance-building is simply to hold a 90-minute meeting with a small group of people involved in your organization, your movement or your community. Name other communities, movements or organizations that are near enough—geographically, in terms of issues—that you could easily reach out to them; identify the benefits and challenges of doing so; and think about the wider basis for an alliance (geographical, thematic, in terms of which social groups are involved, etc.) And then set a realistic goal—concrete and doable—that could mark a first step towards a more strategic alliance.

Learning from and for movements

How do movements become learning agents? Three activist training networks already run pan-European projects geared to supporting activists learning to grow the movements we need for a better world. The Ulex Project’s Ecology of Social Movements course; the European Community Organizing Network’s Citizen Participation University and European Alternatives’ School of Transnational Activism already tackle this fragmentation in different ways.

Together with two researchers who helped run the National University of Ireland Maynooth’s masters in activism course (2009-2015) we are working on a year-long training program for activists and adult educators across the continent. The program includes two-week residentials framing an online course and local support networks. It is geared to supporting “transnational and transversal (across social groups and movement issues) active citizenship” and highlighting the skills and knowledge needed for this.

Like the various trainings mentioned above, the idea is to make this financially accessible on a solidarity economy basis and to ensure the workload is manageable. At the same time we expect that participants will welcome the opportunity to create some space in their work to go beyond “fire-fighting” and reflect on questions of strategic effectiveness. There is a time cost for doing this—but it is nothing compared to the costs of being permanently trapped in the endless cycle of simply reacting to crises.

Editor’s note: In addition to the above, organizations like Rhize and ICNC offer activist learning and leadership development opportunities throughout the year.

Laurence Cox is co-author of The Irish Buddhist: the Forgotten Monk who Faced Down the British Empire (Oxford University Press, 2020) and co-editor of the activist/academic journal Interface. He is Associate Professor of Sociology at the National University of Ireland Maynooth and has been involved in many different movements since the 1980s. 

It's not over for COP26 as the Coalition builds for the future

 

Written by Skye Pepier

The COP26 Coalition has continued to meet since the Glasgow Summit in November last year, and on 19th February there was a whole day of discussion about the future of the movement. The framing for the discussion was that Glasgow last year was just the start of the network’s activity, and that the work needed to build an effective climate movement on these islands should be continued and enhanced. 

There was a tremendous enthusiasm about the action and work that is being undertaken by the Coalition, despite the recognition that the COP26 summit was a failure and did not bring the action on climate change needed from our so-called world leaders. People from all corners of Britain, and the world, including the Caribbean and Africa participated in the COP26 Coalition meetings. 

Despite similar attempts of network building by Green Left, however, including its involvement of the Ecosocialist Alliance, there was a noticeable absence in the COP26 Coalition meetings, of anyone involved in Green parties, of either Scotland, or England and Wales. This doesn't necessarily mean that there weren't Green Party members present - but it was difficult to discover the presence of fellow Green Party members. 

After a brief introduction to the COP26 Coalition, there were discussions around the difference between organising and mobilising a diversity of tactics, as well as regional exercises to build up COP26 local hubs and the wider climate justice movement. 

The day then closed with an online rally for the year ahead, titled 'Movement Building & Collective Strategies', with speakers from Fridays for Future Scotland, Campaign Against Climate Change, Landworkers Alliance, as well as youth activist Aoife Mercedes Rodriguez-Uruchurtu from YouthStrike4Climate Manchester and Breathe.  

Each speaker was able to say something quite different to the others, but without disagreement of any kind, which was a sign of the diversity of the COP26 Coalition movement, and arguably, also its strength. 

So, what is next for the COP26 Coalition? As the UK holds the presidency of COP26 until the start of COP27, it is still important to keep climate change on the agenda, just as it always has, but especially if we want to see continued action while the UK is in its current global position on it. There is also the matter of building towards COP27, despite it being in Egypt, where post-Arab Spring oppression has been brutal. 

The strategy for the COP26 Coalition covers the following areas: 

1. Building local capacity by supporting the 'local hubs' to continue to organise locally and to aim to bring other climate campaigns and campaigners together through taking action and the target mapping. 

2. Continue to hold events, such as mass gatherings, to build up, and share, useful skills and to learn more from each other e.g., on tactics and other ideas. 

3. To continue to put pressure, where possible, on our leaders, for meaningful action on climate justice. 

4. To share relevant experience of organising together as the baton for the summit itself is now being passed to Egyptian climate organisers. 

While many of us in the Green Party will now be looking to the local elections in May, it might be worth also reaching out to COP26 Coalition groups in our areas, to see how it might be possible to work together for an opportunity to strengthen the climate movement. 

The politics of the participants in the meetings of the 19th February feel like a good fit to those that I have already found among Green Left activists (despite being involved for a relatively short amount of time), so there should be no real practical or ideological barriers to connecting our movements more, and I would argue that Green Left is in a fairly unique position to be able to bridge what seems to be a divide between the Green Party of England and Wales, and the broader climate movement, of which the COP26 Coalition is arguably closest to us at the present moment. 

Even if our personal capacity is an obstacle to involvement in the run-up to the local elections, let us somehow at least make a resolve now to connect these struggles once the elections are over. 

The COP26 Coalition Trade Union Caucus also meets online on the 3rd Tuesday of the month and is well worth being explored by any rank and file trade union organisers. 

To find out more about the COP26 Coalition you can visit their website at https://cop26coalition.org/

Skye Pepier is a member of Tower Hamlets Green Party and a Green Left supporter.

Ecosocialist Alliance Calls on G7 for a Just Transition

 

On this, World Environment Day (BST), an Ecosocialist Alliance has released a public statement (reproduced below), ahead of the G7 conference, calling on the leaders of those nations, for a Just Transition away from social inequality and the ecological crisis. The G7 conference is from 11 to 13 June, in Cornwall, England. Ecosocialist organisations and individuals from the UK and other countries have signed up to the statement.

This is the effective launch of a campaign begun by ecosocialist activists in the UK, which will see other actions taken in the lead up to the COP26 Climate Conference, in November later this year in Glasgow, Scotland. The statement will be released by the signatory groups on their websites and social media today (5 June).

The Ecosocialist Alliance will make the case for ecosocialist solutions to the economic recovery and ecological crisis, publicly, in the months ahead, leading up to the COP26 conference of world leaders.

Many groups will protest at G7 and COP26, and be asking for similar things, and we join with them in this. But in what is, I think, the first of a kind for a growing world ecosocialist movement, we will promote an explicitly ecosocialist agenda.

There is an email address at the end of the statement, to use if you would like to add your support, and to receive details of future actions, including a public Zoom meeting on 9 June, at 19:00 hours (BST).

Ecosocialist Alliance Statement on G7 Conference 

Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US (and the EU) have a great part of the immense wealth of the richest countries in the world in 2021. This wealth is more than sufficient to provide for the needs for food, water, health, housing and education of the global population.

We face multiple interlinked and inseparable crises. Climate, environment, mass extinctions, emergent infectious diseases and economic. Oligarchic ownership of industry and the transnational corporations are key contributors to environmental degradation and to emergent infectious diseases crises. They are inimical and a core barrier to the urgent measures needed to address the nested crises we face. 

The world and its population need system change, a just ecosocialist transition from the unsustainable chaos of neo-liberal capitalism. 

We call upon the G7 nations to agree a plan in preparation for the COP26 meeting in November this year: 

On the Covid-19 pandemic and emergent infectious disease crisis to: 

· Immediately introduce a patent waiver for Covid-19 vaccines that would allow countries to manufacture treatments locally, fully fund COVAX, and set up an aid fund to help with vaccine manufacturing, research and development. 

· Increase funding to the WHO. 

On the Climate Crisis: 

· Agree that fossil fuels must stay in the ground – (no new coal mine in west Cumbria, UK) – We need a massive global program of green public works investing in green jobs to develop renewable energy, replace harmful technology reliant on fossil fuel energy in homes, industry and agriculture, with free technology transfer for developing countries. 

· Agree and implement a significant cut in greenhouse gas emissions of 70% by 2030, from a 1990 baseline. We need honest and transparent accounting in measurement of emissions, taking account of outsourcing, exposing the dishonesty of offsetting calculations, and including military greenhouse gas emissions in calculations of the reductions needed. 

· End emissions trading schemes and make genuine reductions in harmful emissions. 

· Recognise the particular impacts of the long-term global crisis and the knock-on effects on the localised catastrophic events on women, children, elders and disabled people – catastrophe climate events and sea level rises produce the casualties of the event, but the victims are the result of systematic abuse, discrimination, and failure of governmental and corporate responsibility. 

On the environment and mass extinction crises: 

· Move away from massive factory farms and large scale monoculture agribusiness as a method of producing food and support small farmers and eco-friendly farming methods, and invest in green agricultural technology to reduce synthetic fertiliser and pesticide use in agriculture, replacing these with organic methods. 

· End deforestation in the tropical and boreal forests by reducing demand in G7 countries for food, timber and biofuel imports. 

· End food and nutrition insecurity for small farmers in the global south by promoting an agricultural system based on human rights and food sovereignty through giving local control over natural resources, seeds, land, water, forests and knowledge and technology. 

· Commit to a massive increase in protected areas for biodiversity conservation, both in the G7 countries and make funding and support available to do this in the global south. 

· To recognise that migration is already and will increasingly be driven by long term environmental change and degradation resulting from climate change, driven primarily by the historic emissions of the metropolitan countries of the global north – accommodating and supporting free movement of people must be a core policy and necessary part of planning for the future. 

On the Economic Crisis: 

· Increase wages and cut working hours for all G7 workers and involve trade unions in the economic transition without any loss of living standards, and to allow for greater worker involvement in workplace safety and resilience. 

· Adopt ‘Just Transition’ principles, creating well paid jobs in the new economy. 

· Outlaw tax havens, so wealthy corporations and individuals pay their fair share to the economic recovery. The economic costs of the pandemic should not be borne by those least able to do so. 

· Cancel all international debt of the global south. 

· Support urgent development of sustainable and affordable public transport. 

· Provide resources for popular education and involvement in implementing and enhancing a just transition. 

If groups/individuals would like to add their name to this statement please email eco-socialist-action@protonmail.com, stating your country of residence. You can also get details of our future actions including our public Zoom meeting on 9 June, 19:00 hours (BST).

Supporters

Groups

Green Left (UK)

Left Unity (UK)

RISE (Ireland)

Anti Capitalist Resistance (UK)

Ecosocialist Independent Group (UK) Lancaster City Council

Global Ecosocialist Network (International)

Anti-Fracking Nanas (UK)

Green Eco-Socialist Network (USA)

Socialist Project (Canada)

System Change Not Climate Change (USA/Canada)

Pittsburgh Green Left (USA)

Climate and Capitalism (International)

Undod (Unity or Solidarity, in English) (Wales, UK) 

Individuals

Beatrix Campbell (UK) (OBE, writer and broadcaster)

Romayne Phoenix (UK)

Victor Wallis (USA) (ecosocialist author)

Professor Krista Cowman (UK), historian

Dee Searle (UK)

Lucy Early (UK)

Patrick Bond (South Africa)

Derek Wall (UK) ecosocialist author, Lecturer in Political Economy, former Green Party of England and Wales International Co-ordinator

John Foran (USA)

Felicity Dowling (UK)

Steve Masters (UK) (Green Party of England and Wales activist & West Berkshire District Councillor)

Dr. Henry Adams (UK) (ecologist & environmental activist)

Charles Gate, (UK)

Nicole Haydock (UK)

Gordon Peters (UK)

Mark Hollinrake (UK)

Pat McCarthy (UK)

Clive Healiss (UK)

Rafael Arturo Guariguata (Germany)

Declan Walsh (UK)

Jim Hollinshead (UK)

Ken Barker (UK)

Tina Rothery (UK)

John Burr (UK)

Emma Lorraine Coulling (UK)

Andrew Francis Robinson (UK)

Richard Finnigan (UK)

Frank McEntaggart (UK)

Roger Silverman (UK)

Oliver Charleston (UK)

Louise Channon (UK)

Ian Angus (Canada)

Richard Mellor  (USA)

Peter Sainsbury (Australia)

Cathy Slaughter (UK)

Steve Ongerth (USA) Occupied Ohlone Territory - Co-founder, IWW Environmental Union Caucus (listed for ID purposes only) 

Stephen Hall (UK) President, Greater Manchester Trades Union Councils

David Schwartzman (USA) (Climate/energy scientist Member of the Global Greens COP26 Working Group-International Commitee Green Party of the United States)

Climate Crisis - Which Transitional Demands Should Ecosocialists Campaign For?

The concept of transitional demands will be familiar to traditional socialists, particularly those followers of Leon Trotsky’s theories of socialism, although, I hasten to add, Trotsky was no ecosocialist. These demands are designed to appear to sound reasonable to the average citizen, and not directly lead to the overthrow of capitalism, but instead to create a pathway to socialism. They are more than just asking for reforms to the capitalist system, although they would be reforms, but they are not ends in themselves.

Much as I would like to see the overthrow of the capitalist system, and as an ecosocialist, I believe that this is necessary if we are to solve the climate crisis and the many other bad effects, both ecological and social, that capitalism creates. But there just isn’t enough time left.

If we are brutally honest with ourselves, a revolution to replace capitalism with ecosocialism is not on the horizon, and the well-being of the earth and all those (human and non-human) who inhabit it are in such deep peril now, we really can’t afford to wait until those conditions arise, as they surely will at some stage. We need mitigating action now. 

So, which sort of demands should ecosocialists be making? Given the urgency of the situation on climate change particularly, with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its latest assessment saying that we need to cut carbon emissions by 45% by 2030, to avoid catastrophic changes to the environment, this is the main goal that we need to pursue. But not the only one. 

The IPCC is infamously conservative in its estimates though, so I would suggest that we need to be more ambitious than the 45% reductions by 2030 recommended. A more effective target would be something like a 70% reduction within the same timeframe. 

The symptoms of the ecological crisis are likely to be more: drought, floods, increasingly strong hurricanes, species loss, deforestation, rising sea levels, bleached coral reefs, ocean acidification and pollution of the air, land and sea, with plastic waste becoming an even greater problem than it is now. 

The knock on effects that all of this will have on the earth’s delicate ecosystems is incalculable, but is likely to be severe, and maybe lead to the extinction of much of life on the planet, including human beings. The stakes are high. 

A starting point for a transitional demand is the Green New Deal, which found favour first with Green Parties in the US and UK, and has now been a adopted in the UK by the Labour Party, and there are moves in the US for the Democratic Party to take the idea on board. 

The exact nature of the plan may differ in the UK and US, especially if elements of the Labour party and Democrats manage to water down proposals, but basically it calls for massive investment in a move to build renewable energy capacity and an equally massive programme of insulating homes and workplaces. The practice of carbon trading used in the European Union should be ended and replaced with real reductions, alongside the Green New Deal. 

The Green New Deal, on its own, is not enough to get to where we need to be. Nevertheless, it would lead to a cut in the burning of fossil fuels, which is needed, with the added advantage of providing well paid employment, which is likely to gain the support of the public. As ecosocialists we know that if we are to be successful we need to take the people with us, and the Green New Deal has the potential to do this. 

Our problems do not end with producing clean energy for homes and workplaces though, we need to tackle the carbon emissions from transport, specifically private cars and trucks, air transport and shipping. The solutions in this area will be most easily achieved by a kind of back to the future plan. With shipping for example, we need to return to using wind power together with solar power, and perhaps an emergency engine to be used only when strictly necessary. This could quite easily be done. 

Aviation is more problematic in that simple solutions are not readily available, but a return to propeller planes, maybe electrically powered, could be used for all short haul flights, but long haul will need to be rationed, with more use, particularly by business of video conferencing. Airport expansion should be stopped completely. This is a more difficult sell, but with the environmental crisis worsening, can probably be achieved. 

Cars and trucks can instead be electrically powered relatively easily, but it is doubtful enough power can be generated from renewable sources for the numbers of vehicles currently in use, so a massive public transit programme is needed to get people out of cars and onto public transport. Again an added advantage to this is it will provide jobs. 

We also need to campaign against imperialist wars, where the US military in particular is a huge user of fossil fuels and the resultant carbon emissions that are produced. This, of course, is a big ask. I have campaigned myself for years against these imperialist interventions without success, but it has only been in more recent times that I've made the connection to climate change. Might that be a game changer, perhaps it will with our very existence at stake? 

The problem of plastic pollution also has a solution from the past. The current vogue, if we can call it that, for recycling needs to be increased, but some plastics are unrecyclable. We need to use less, certainly of these types of plastics. In fairly recent times, such as my childhood, there wasn’t anywhere near the amount of packaging used. This needs to be reduced significantly, and deposit returnable glass bottles need to make a comeback. That plastics are made from oil or coal exacerbates this problem. 

We need a massive reforestation effort, to enlarge habitats for wildlife and to take existing carbon out of the atmosphere. Farming should be returned to organic methods, and we should stop the use of pesticides which are over used at present. We need to eat much less meat, especially beef and dairy products, and fish, and to eat more vegetables and fruit. This would need to be voluntary though, as I can't see legislation on the issue working. 

All of this has to be done on a global scale to have the required effect, and quickly, but is not that difficult to achieve, once the will is there, or forced to be there. These are eminently reasonable demands, but will it set us on a pathway to ecosocialism? I think it may well do so. 

Even though this is all feasible, there will be resistance from the capitalists, at which point it will become obvious to most people that it is the system which is obstructing progress and therefore will increasingly be seen as the villain here. If they were to comply, it would be the beginning of the end for capitalism, because it needs ever increasing amounts of energy to fuel the growth it needs to survive, so they won’t.

Once this realisation dawns on the mass of the population who do not do so well out of the system anyway, we will have arrived at our revolutionary moment. It will be fertile ground for the toppling of the regime of capital and the move to ecosocialism. The logic of the system will be exposed, and logic of replacing it unstoppable, if we want a future worth living.   

Green Party Members Go on Strike – An Interview with one of the Strikers

 

Activists from Bridgwater and West Somerset Green Party have gone on strike. Caitlin Collins the local party Co-ordinator, talks to London Green Left Blog’s editor Mike Shaughnessy about why her local party felt they had to take this unusual step.

First of all, can you tell me a bit about yourself and your Green Party activism?

Having been a Green Party supporter for many years, I became an active member about 10 years ago when I moved to Somerset and joined the Bridgwater and West Somerset branch.  I've stood as a candidate in two district council elections and supported our candidates in two general elections.  I've been the Co-ordinator of the Bridgwater and West Somerset group for nearly two years.

You and your colleagues from your local party are on ‘strike’ (your letter is reproduced below), can you tell me why you decided to take this strike action?

Like many local groups we generally focus more on local issues, but some of us had been becoming increasingly concerned about what we saw going on in the Green Party at a national level.  There was a series of events.  I had attended last year's Autumn conference, held on Zoom, and had been alarmed by the aggressive behaviour of some of the trans ideology supporters and disturbed by some of the motions proposed at that conference, including gender self Identification for trans people, which were either very poorly thought through or a blatant attack on women's rights.  It was also worrying to observe that so few voters were present that it was easy for a small single-issue group to have a disproportionately large influence.  

Then came the disgraceful incident in which a man who wishes to be identified as a woman became Co-Chair of the Women's Group.  At this year's Spring conference, again on Zoom, there were similar problems with aggression from trans rights extremists and low voter turnout, and this time the gender self ID motion was passed while a motion to protect women's rights was voted down.  

When I reported on the conference to my local colleagues there was unanimous alarm, with three people saying they would resign in protest.  So you could say we were on the brink of insurrection when we received the news of Emma Bateman's suspension!  The idea occurred to me to go on strike rather than resign, because I believe it is better to stay in the Green Party and fight for it; I am not prepared to let a small group of extremists hijack our party.  So we all agreed to strike – but then our Acting Secretary received an aggressive communication that he found so offensive that he resigned from the Party.

What does it mean practically, what kind of party activity has been halted by the strike?

Having been rather quiet over the past year, due to the Covid restrictions, we were looking forward to resuming local campaigning, and all the things that entails.  Somerset local government is undergoing change, with the creation of a new Unitary Authority to replace the existing County and District Councils, and we were all set to join other Green Party groups across Somerset in preparing for the local elections due to be held early next year.

What are your demands to call off the action?

As a minimum requirement, we want Emma Bateman's suspension withdrawn.  More than that, how the Green Party officers respond to our letter, whether or not they take our concerns seriously, will be a big factor.  We are angry, and we are determined. 

What has been the reaction from members in other local Green parties to your taking this action?

I have received dozens of emails from representatives of Somerset Green Party branches supporting our action.  Two people have said that they share our concerns but are worried in case publicity about the problems in the Green Party adversely affects our local election results.  I agree with this fear – it is a risk, and it would be a great pity if it were to happen.  At the branch level, the Green Party is wonderful; all over the UK communities are benefiting from the contributions of Green Party members who are County, District, Town and Parish councillors.  The fact that Green Party members are doing such positive work in their communities gives me hope that we can turn the Party around and get back to focusing on what matters – the planet is in crisis and environmental issues should be everyone's priority.

Reports from the recent Green party conference suggest that it was acrimonious with attempts by the party leadership to cynically manipulate what was allowed to be debated. What is your take on this?

I know this is being said, but I am not sufficiently knowledgeable about the inner workings of the party at a national level to be able to comment on this.

Given the ecological crisis at present, do you see the Green party’s focus on identity/lifestyles issues as a distraction?

Yes.  The Green Party matters.  It's the only party that challenges the prevailing dogma of economic growth.  Labour is all about business as usual, the same old model that has brought us to the brink of catastrophe: pro-growth, pro-nuclear, pro-Trident, and pro-first-past-the-post voting.  The Tories are the same but even more so – just this week we've seen them promoting GM food and nuclear weapons and of course they are championing the eco-disasters of HS2 and Hinkley Point nuclear power station.  The Greens offer a true alternative.  At the grass-roots level the party is still great, but at the top of the hierarchy and in the internal democratic systems there are problems.  I care about the Green Party.  If I didn't, I'd just walk away.  We can't let a bunch of 300 or so single-issue extremists hijack a party with 50,000 members.  We need to get our party back. 

Letter sent to Green party regional officers

To: Ewan Jones, Guy Poultney, and representatives of Green Party branches in Somerset

Subject: Bridgwater and West Somerset Green Party Strike

Date: March 18^th 2021 

Dear Ewan, Guy, and everyone

Thank you for an excellent zoom meeting of Green Party Somerset groups on Saturday March 13^th.  I came away full of enthusiasm for helping with whatever local elections we have in the new Unitary Authority Somerset next year.  I reported about this to our meeting of Bridgwater and West Somerset officers and key member activists on Tuesday March 16^th, and we were all set to take part in the campaign.

However, on Tuesday evening we received the news about Emma Bateman's suspension from the Green Party, allegedly for making the unremarkable factual observation that transwomen are not female.  As I'm sure you are all aware, Emma is / was Co-Chair of the Green Party Women's Group.  Her fellow Chair is Kathryn Bristow, who is a man who wishes to be identified as a woman.  Because the Women's Group had been forced by Green Party HQ to accept men who wish to be identified as women, Kathryn was able to join the group, whereupon he put himself forward for election as Co-Chair, was elected, and took up the position.  Kathryn has been criticised for his role in working for Gender GP, the company that was exposed by a recent Daily Telegraph investigation published in the paper version on 27th February (see below) that demonstrated it was selling puberty blocking drugs to children, with no medical supervision.  (The company is run by a doctor who was struck off in the UK and is now based in Spain, and the prescriptions are issued by a doctor in Romania; the only check the company makes on the children is to ensure they can pay.)  Kathryn has recently stated that he intends to lie on the census form, which is an offence liable to a fine of £1000.  Kathryn is enthusiastically supported by the Green Party leadership.  Emma is suspended for telling the truth; Kathryn is applauded for practising deception.

This was the last straw for me.

It follows the debacle of our Spring conference, which demonstrated the catastrophic state of internal democracy within the Green Party.  Out of a membership of over 50,000, very few vote in internal elections or at conferences.  Fewer than 1% of the members voted at the recent conference.  This lack of member involvement allows any determined single-issue splinter group to form the majority of the voters, so they can not only push through contentious motions, they can also elect their preferred officers and control the elected officers whose positions depend on their votes. 

At the recent conference, a gender self ID motion was passed: only 493 people voted, of whom 281 were in favour of it.  281 people out of 50,000 have imposed a policy supporting gender self ID on the entire party.  What would the 50,000 have said?

A motion proposing that the GP should support women's sex-based rights, in accordance with the United Nations CEDAW agreement (Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women) was voted down.  Only 491 people voted, or whom 289 people voted against women's rights, and the motion failed.  What would the 50,000 have said?

Because so few people vote, a splinter group can control elected officers, who need their votes to keep their positions.  Whatever their personal views may be, none of the Green Party leaders dare to say or do anything to displease the members of the faction.  The views of the non-voting 50,000 are disregarded because the 300 or so members of the splinter group must be appeased.

At a national level, Green Party democracy is so catastrophically compromised that it permits the leadership to be kidnapped and the party hijacked by a single-issue group.  The system is flawed: it is vulnerable to exploitation by any such group – just now it is the trans rights lobby, but it could have been a pro-Brexit group, or a pro-nuclear group; anything.  One solution to this problem might be to raise the quorum for conferences to a higher percentage of the total membership; there could be campaigns at the local branch level to encourage more members to engage in the democratic process.

Many of you will have read the resignation letter from Dom Armstrong, our only Councillor in Sunderland.  I am including it below for those who have not yet seen it because it sets things out with admirable clarity and because I share his views.

As a result of all of this, I am going on strike.  Not just me: the officers of the Bridgwater and West Somerset branch, along with those active members with whom we work closely on a day-to-day basis, are going on strike.  Our acting Secretary, Tony Seaman, has this morning taken the further step of resigning altogether from the Green Party.  We are not willing to represent the Green Party in its current dysfunctional state; nor are we willing to ask others to stand as candidates or to take part in election campaigning for the Green Party.  This strike will last until, as a minimum requirement, Emma Bateman's suspension is lifted.

With all good wishes to all of you

Caitlin Collins

Co-ordinator, Bridgwater and West Somerset Green Party

Where the Pandemic Leaves the Climate Movement

As the entire globe is in the middle of an unprecedented pandemic, with great economic, social, and environmental consequences, it is worth recalling mass mobilisations like Extinction Rebellion and Fridays For Future which took the global scene in spring 2019. A year on, it is time to examine their claims and impact on public awareness of the climate emergency as well as current political discourse and policymaking.

Paolo Cossarini spoke with three scholars from different European countries who highlight fundamental themes these movements helped bring to the fore. What emerges is a nuanced theoretical and practical debate about citizens’ mobilisation, green transition, and the prospects of climate action.

First published at Green European Journal

Paolo Cossarini: A year ago, Extinction Rebellion (XR) shut down London’s streets, as did Fridays for Future (FFF) in cities across the globe, making headlines worldwide. In 2020, streets have been shut down once more to prevent a health crisis. One year on, how have these movements shifted the debate on climate change?

Manuel Arias-Maldonado: In my view, these movements have not been as important as the increase in extreme weather events that have shaken public opinions in the last years, creating a feeling of urgency the movements themselves can profit from. It is the sense that something is palpably changing that propels public awareness. Protest movements are relevant, among young people especially, but they would be helpless in the absence of such material conditions which are, admittedly, as much objective as they are mediated by mass media.

Susan Baker: The climate movement is positive. However, the emphasis on “listen to science” is potentially problematic in that it fails to grasp that science does not reveal the truth but aspects of what is known. Climate science is narrow: it defines the issue in the language and framework of the natural sciences, ignoring the main causes of and solutions to climate change which lie in the social world in general, and in our economic model in particular. Neither of these groups have a critical grasp of the fundamental causes of climate change.

While XR and FFF have promoted public awareness, both are very moderate voices and have, consequently, shrunk the space for radical ones. On climate action, their focus on transition favours technocratic responses as opposed to radical transformation. It is therefore likely that transition management (transition to low carbon futures that allows for business as usual), as opposed to transformation, will take centre stage in climate action.

Where do you think the Covid-19 pandemic leaves the climate movement? 

Anneleen Kenis: XR and FFF are remarkably absent in the current crisis though they seem to be slowly becoming more active again. The coronavirus pandemic might give the feeling that there are more important things to focus on now, but nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, the Covid-19 crisis is instructive because it has unveiled how societies deal with emergencies, the place of science in the public debate, and human-nature relationships. Furthermore, the pandemic could nudge us in the direction of a radically different, much more sustainable society, but it could also lead us to a society characterised by authoritarian control, moralisation, and securitisation.

There is no neutral answer to the coronavirus crisis, just as there is no neutral answer to climate change. What’s more, the pandemic continues to raise crucial questions: who will foot the bill? Will large economic sectors like the airline industry be saved with taxpayers’ money? What conditions will these sectors have to meet? Will generating even more profit and growth be an indispensable mission? Will the coronavirus-induced economic crisis be used to demarcate certain sectors as crucial and others as not? Will we invest in healthcare and public schooling instead of (polluting) companies? 

Manuel Arias-Maldonado: Nobody knows. There are reasons to think that climate action may be encouraged after the pandemic – or even during the pandemic if it doesn’t end soon – as well as to fear that the return to normality will prioritise economic growth over sustainability concerns or climate mitigation. Mobilising the public all depends on how people will feel after this is over. 

In the meantime, it may be possible to seize temporary feelings to rally support for climate-friendly coronavirus response legislation as a way to ensure a cleaner exit from the crisis. The climate movement can play a role in this mobilisation process by framing the pandemic as the first true catastrophe of the Anthropocene. However, this card should not be overplayed since the link is not always clear. Alternatively, the pandemic can be portrayed as an expression of careless modernity, one that does not take into account, for example, food security. This depiction brings globalisation and the call to make it more sustainable centre stage.

Susan Baker: It is clear that government-imposed restrictions on social gatherings have impacted the activities of climate activist groups. So far, FFF has stopped their street presence and XR have ceased their highly visible forms of public protest. They nevertheless continued their activism online throughout the lockdown. These groups relied heavily on civil protest to raise public awareness, believing that this would force governments and other key stakeholders to act. It is harder to credit posting a selfie with a placard during lockdown with the same impact. Digital activism can be easily dismissed as an individualised activity while the marches that took place in the streets, often noisily, can hardly be written off. 

In the public arena, there is a danger that the voices that speak for nature and that seek climate action will once again become marginalised. There continues to be a great deal of attention paid to how to manage the pandemic, as we would expect. At the same time, there is a lack of discussion on the underlying causes – which lie in the destruction of ecosystems for trafficking of species – and how the problem will be addressed at source. 

Despite these challenges, the quietening of our streets and the cleaning of our air during lockdowns have allowed people to see and hear nature again. Here lies the hope that people can carry this experience forward to form a new political consciousness about the environmentally destructive nature of our economic activities and the possibility of an alternative future. 

Do you think an overhaul of the relationship between our economic systems and the environment is possible in the current moment? How can we make a green transition attractive to the economic and political forces desperately trying to stay afloat and return to business as usual?

Anneleen Kenis: I would start by questioning this question: do we really have to make sustainability attractive to economic forces and industry? Or should we rather put economic forces and industry under pressure to change? The environmental movement has bought too much into the idea that we can get everyone on board if we come up with an “attractive” vision. It reinforces the idea that we can save the world with technofixes, that nothing really has to change, and that air transport does not have to be fundamentally questioned after all. We need to apply pressure now that it is possible. Or refuse to rescue them: we should simply say “no” and take proper measures to ensure that future companies do not have all the tax and other advantages that the aviation sector has. 

While a certain level of “greening” the capitalist economy is possible (capitalists can make money selling solar panels just as they make money selling coal or oil), there is a fundamental clash. This clash has several aspects and dimensions, but the huge cleavage is between pursuing economic growth and reducing pressure on the ecosystems we are fundamentally a part of. 

Manuel Arias-Maldonado: Before the pandemic, I would have answered that winning the support of economic and political forces is possible by making a green transition both unnegotiable and profitable. The transition could be framed as something unavoidable but a possible source of innovation and value. 

Now, the world has stopped for some time and I think that public perception will be impacted for two reasons. Firstly, the dangers associated with the Anthropocene have been highlighted. Secondly, lockdowns have shown that life can be better: cleaner, healthier, slower.

Additionally, the economic situation may provide governments with the opportunity to foster new energy technologies, thus giving some unexpected momentum to the green transition. Emmanuel Macron has hinted that polluted air will not be tolerated anymore. Well, this is the time to start. 

There is no one way to stop climate change but several. Some are more capitalist-friendly – by way of technological innovation and productivity and efficiency gains – while others are more community-based and depend on reducing the size of the economy. 

Susan Baker: At present, there is a dynamic interplay between pressure for change and the return to old ways. Climate change has shown that it is no longer possible to see our economic activity in isolation from its ecological and social consequences. This realisation calls upon us to question equating human progress with the domination of nature. 

Economic actors need to take responsibility for their actions. It is not a question of “making it attractive to them”. Attractive, in the traditional economic sense, means that the activity can be the source of profits. This model that allows some in society to generate excessive wealth at the cost of others, including nature, needs to change. We must change what is produced, how it is produced, evaluate who benefits, and at what cost. It would be a moral hazard to make a green transition attractive when what we need is a green transformation of society.

Do you think that there’s the potential for a paradigm shift away from an economy based on growth? What about the balance between collective and individual action?

Anneleen Kenis: There are many consumer goods with huge ecological costs for which it cannot be sincerely argued that they are essential to lead a healthy and comfortable life. The global fashion industry contributes more to climate change than shipping and aviation together. This is no surprise considering that, in the UK for instance, 300 000 items of clothes are thrown away every year [read more on the impacts of fast fashion]. A first step to promoting degrowth is banning advertisement. People are told on an almost continuous basis that they need all this stuff.

Everyone who has the capacity to make personal changes should consider doing so. However, as Giorgos Kallis argues, it is much easier, much more motivating, and more impactful to do so collectively [read about Kallis’ insights on limits and autonomy]. I decided 10 years ago not to fly anymore, but what difference does it make? If we were to make a similar commitment collectively, the impact could be huge.

Manuel Arias-Maldonado: There is no consensus on degrowth as the way to go in terms of building a particular kind of society. It would be an accepted model if it was the only way to prevent planetary collapse – which it is not. There are alternative ways to promote decarbonisation and sustainability and governments should focus on those. What’s more, economic growth still matters as a way of producing welfare and wellbeing. Degrowth must, therefore, be defended as a morally valuable choice. If it were to persuade a majority, it would be the blueprint for a new way of living.

As I see it, relying on such collective sacrifice is utterly unrealistic. Nevertheless, people should be made aware of the fact that human habitation of the planet depends on the planet’s conditions, which in turn depend on how people behave. This understanding could bring our planetary impact into focus and potentially lead to better policy and technological innovation.

Susan Baker: The growth-oriented model of development pursued by Western industrial societies cannot be carried into the future, either in its present forms or at its present pace, as evidenced by climate change. We cannot have continuous growth in a system characterised by resource limits and planetary boundaries. Climate change has been caused by a growth-orientated model, achieved through ever-increasing levels of consumption. This artificially stimulated consumption brings untold wealth for the few and impoverishment for the many. Many now also reject the idea that consumption is the most important contributor to human welfare. This new value is not compatible with capitalism. Degrowth is no longer a radical alternative, but a necessity.

A healthy society and the wellbeing of its members rests on acts of services and the sense of community rather than on consumption. Adopting this model requires changing our values so that one’s social standing is not determined by what they consume and put on display, but by how they engage in society to protect the interests of others, including those of other life forms, in ways that promote justice and equity. 

While personal change is important, structural factors can make them unsustainable. To move to a new model of economy and society, everyday actions would need to be accompanied by structural changes. As we rethink, for example, the way we travel, our food and energy consumption, the structures underlying these – trade, financial, food systems and our economic system overall – must be transformed as well. 

Anneleen Kenis is a post-doctoral research fellow of the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO), affiliated with the Division of Geography and Tourism at KU Leuven and the Department of Geography at King’s College London. Her work centres around political ecology focusing in particular on processes of politicisation and depoliticisation in relation to climate change, air pollution and genetically modified organisms.

Manuel Arias-Maldonado is an associate professor in political science at the University of Malaga, Spain. He has worked extensively on environmental issues, from a sociopolitical as well as from a philosophical standpoint. His latest book is Rethinking the Environment for the Anthropocene (2019), co-edited with Zev Trachtenberg.

Susan Baker is a Professor Emerita in the School of Social Sciences and former co-director of the Sustainable Places Research Institute at Cardiff University. Her research concerns environmental governance in the European Union, ecofeminism, gender and the environment.

Make Rojava Green Again Call for Action Days on the 18th and 19th July

Call for Global Action Days on the 18th and 19th July

Together with the campaigns Rise Up 4 Rojava and Women Defend Rojava, we call for two international days of action on the 18th and 19th of July 2020, against the bombing and invasion of Basûr (Southern Kurdistan, Iraq) and the occupation of Rojava regions by the Turkish army.

Together, we call on all people who share the values of democratic confederalism – democracy, ecology and feminism – to take to the streets and to Rise Up 4 the Revolution. From our side, we would also particularly want to call for all ecological groups, movements and parties and to all people who feel and see themselves as ecologists to join the demonstrations and actions. 

War is the antithesis of ecology

We think that to be ecologist means also to be against all the wars of aggression. Because, wars are the contrary of what we, as ecologists, fight for. While we are trying to build an ecological and ethical world where all living things can co-exist in harmony, wars are only further destroying and polluting our planet. 

While we give so much effort in reforesting deserts, in building ecological energy infrastructures, in providing non-polluted and non-toxic food and water to all people, wars can destroy all of it in few days and pollute the soil, the air and the water with long-lasting effects. And this is what is happening today in Bakûr (North Kurdistan, Turkey), Rojava, North-Eastern Syria and Basûr.

Through its invasion of Syria and Iraq, the Turkish state destroys all living: burning fields and forests in Rojava, cutting down the olive trees of Afrin, bombing electrical and water infrastructures, cutting the water flow of major rivers coming from Turkey to Syria, and now for some weeks bombing more than ever the untouched nature of the mountains of Southern Kurdistan, polluting the soil, water and air for an unknown time. 

The Turkish attacks target all places which fight for democracy, ecology and feminism

For years already, the Turkish state, with the occasional approval of NATO, the US and Russia, pursue a genocidal war against the Kurds and other minorities of the Middle East (Êzîdî people, Armenians, Chaldeans, Assirians, etc.) and is now invading Syria and Iraq against all international laws. 

But what they are targeting is the political project that is behind those people: their goal is to put an end to the construction of a democratic, ecologist and feminist area in the Middle East that could spread to the world. Indeed, the Rojava revolution, together with the liberated Arab regions of North-Eastern Syria,  the Free Mountains of Kurdistan, the self-governed Maxmur refugee camp and the democratic Êzîdî region of Sengal are all examples that another way of living is possible outside the Capitalist Modernity. 

These are all places where democratic confederalism is put into practice and where ecological and feminist societies are being built up. Because Rojava, together with those other places inspire so many people in the world, they are a threat to their nationalist, capitalist and patriarchal interests. Therefore, Turkey decided to bomb and burn every inch of those lands. Their message is clear: either surrender to capitalist modernity, or face total destruction of the nature and the people. 

On the 15th of June, the Turkish army shelled Maxmur and Sengal. And some days later they started their ground offensive to invade Basûr (Southern Kurdistan, Iraq) where dozens of bombs are falling every day since then. The 23rd, they also struck Rojava with a drone, murdering 3 women of Kongra Star, the umbrella organization of the Women’s Movement, in a neighborhood of Kobane. Also on the 25th, another drone killed 8 civilians in the province of Suleymaniya. And in the mountains, the war continues. 

This is why we call for international solidarity! We ask all people who believe in the value of ecology, of feminism and of radical democracy to take to the street the 18th and 19th of July for the days of action and to join the preparatory actions worldwide. 

Against all war of aggression, against all fascism and totalitarianism, against patriarchy and capitalism, against the destruction of all nature: 

Rise up for Rojava,

Rise up for the Free Mountains of Kurdistan

Rise up for the Sengal region and Maxmur, and

Rise up for the build-up of an ecological and ethical world!

Alone, we are nothing, but together, we are unstoppable! 

Make Rojava Green Again 

PLEASE LET US KNOW ABOUT ANY PUBLIC EVENTS SO WE CAN ALSO HELP IN MAKING THEM PUBLIC ON OUR WEBSITES AND WITH FRIENDS, TOO! 

Mail to::internationalistcommune@riseup.net

#RiseUp4Rojava

The More I see of Starmer the More like Blair he Seems – Without the Charisma

Keir Starmer, the UK Labour party leader, made much of his left wing credibility in his political youth, no doubt to appeal to the largely left wing membership in his successful campaign to win the leadership. With some justification it seems, as he was on the editorial board of Socialist Alternatives magazine, a small-circulation Trotskyist-linked red/green journal that billed itself as ‘the human face of the hard left’. He also, as a lawyer, defended poll tax protesters and the ‘McLibel Two,’ in court cases.

Since Starmer became leader of the Labour party though, the signals coming out from himself and shadow Cabinet colleagues is all rather cautious, and definitely ‘centrist’ in nature. Any kind of radical politics have been nowhere to be seen.

He has kicked into the long grass an inconvenient issue, by announcing an investigation into the leaked party report of the sabotaging of Labour’s chances of winning the 2017 General Election, by party officials. It will be chaired by Martin Forde QC, who currently acts as an independent adviser to the Home Office on the government's Windrush compensation scheme, and is seen as a Starmer ally. The pro-Israel lobby inside and outside of the party has been courted too. 

Then we come to Starmer’s response to the toppling and throwing into the harbour of the statue of Victorian era British slave trader, Edward Colston, at the Black Lives Matter protest in Bristol. Interviewed on LBC radio about the incident.

He said: "It shouldn't have been done in that way. Completely wrong to pull a statue down like that.

"But that statue should have been taken down a long, long time ago.

"This was a man who was responsible for 100,000 people being moved from Africa to the Caribbean as slaves, including women and children, who were branded on their chests with the name of the company he ran.

"20,000 died on route and they were chucked in the sea.

"He should not be a statue in Bristol or anywhere else."

Most people would agree with the second part of this answer, including the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, who later blamed the long-time Labour run council for not removing the statue sooner. Her advisers were obviously listening to the Starmer interview. But what struck me most was, the Janus like attempt to cover off the criminal activity, but probably of a popular act, and to not be seen to condone it, but at the same time make an anti-racist statement of solidarity, with those who suffered and died.

It immediately brought to mind Tony Blair’s catchy soundbite, ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’, from his early years as Shadow Home Secretary and in time leader and Prime Minister. He was a better communicator than Starmer, who has a rather slow and dull style, effective though it is, against our blustering Prime Minister in Parliament. Blair, of course was a member of CND in his youth, and look where that went?

Starmer’s answer had the same kind of feel about it, trying to appeal to both sides of opinion, those appalled by what went on in Bristol, and those who broadly supported it. The old triangulation trick. All in all though, the feeling I get so far from the new regime in the Labour party, is very much a back to the future, if you get what I mean.

You could say this is clever politics, at a time when the government are trying to paint the opposition as ‘unpatriotic’ whenever the government's handling of the pandemic crisis or anything else is criticised. The Tories have been whipping up nationalistic sentiment over Brexit, and doing the same thing with all other issues it seems. Which is all very well, but where are the principles? 

Campaigners in Bristol have been trying the legal route of removing the statue for 30 years, to no avail. No one was hurt, just an odious statue removed. No one listened to the suffragettes until they started breaking windows etc.

Most Labour left members as far as I can see are staying with the party, although some have left, waiting to see if the policies change from the last manifesto, and to what extent. That remains an open question at this stage, but the ‘centrist’ signs elsewhere, do not bode well in my opinion. What will happen to policies like the ‘green industrial revolution’ promised by the Corbyn led party, for instance? Will it be watered down to something less radical so as not to scare the horses?

It does look as though this has been mirrored in the US, with Joe Biden gaining the Democratic party presidential nomination. Biden won’t have any kind of radical Green New Deal if he wins the presidency. Bernie Sanders and perhaps Elizabeth Warren were the only hope of that. Maybe, more radical thinking in the big leftish parties in the UK and US has had its albeit brief day?

For any kind of an even small move in the direction of ecosocialism, in the UK and US, it doesn’t look good. The Green party in England, offering some ecosocialist type polices may win one or two more seats in Parliament, in a hung Parliament, which is surely the best Labour can hope for, which could possibly yield some useful environmental and social concessions, but that is about all I can see.

It could be that action outside of electoral politics will be much more important than what happens in Parliament, once we get through the pandemic. The momentum of the climate strikes and Extinction Rebellion protests has been lost now with the lock-down - it will need to be ramped up again, if we are get any meaningful action on environmental and social justice.