Peaceful protest met with fierce agression
in Ferguson, USA and we are seeing it now,
closer to home.
This chilling image taken from the Ferguson
riots in 2014, shows a protester being
arrested at gunpoint. The following image,
taken during the Paris COP21 peaceful
protest tells an all too similar story:
Here in the UK and Europe you may look
across the Atlantic and feel relieved that
our police are more placid and easy going
than the army that the US call a police force.
These pictures suggest that there is a war on
peace here too.
The climate change debate boiled over in
2015 as the leaders of 200 countries met to
discuss the future of our planet at the Paris
COP21 conference. Despite extensive debate
from leaders around the world, The Paris
Agreement left many feeling desperate and
outraged due to its complete lack of decisive
action. The main agreement was to cap
clobal warming at 2 degrees Celcius in order
to prevent more catastrophic devastation in
the form of droughts and floods in years to
come.
Despite paying lip-service to change, many
felt that the agreement did very little and
took to the streets of Paris to peacefully
protest and make themselves heard. Police
responded to the protest with riot gear,
smoke grenades and tear gas, used to
disperse protesters. If this is how police are
being ordered to respond to protesters with
the interests of the planet and its people at
heart, it poses a very serious question to us
as citizens.
Through police brutality the state has
declared war on the civilian and their rights.
One thing we've learned from reading Naomi
Klein's This Changes Everything is that
Blockadia and direct action have worked
in many cases such as the Keystone XL
pipeline in Oklahoma and against Shell's
drilling exploration in the Arctic Sea, both of
which were massive projects that have been
hindered by everyday people doing a little
more to protect their planet.
8
ISSUE 84 / 2016
GUESTLIST
LET'S TALK CHANGE: PEACEFUL PROTEST IS
NOT WORKING
Climate change is creating more issues globally every year. 2016 will be the hottest year ever. It's a good idea for people
to take a stand but peaceful protests are being met worldwide with increasingly militarised and aggressive responses. It
may be time to rethink the resistance strategy
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