(EDIT: January 2020. Since writing this I realised I got the phrase "things are so urgent, so let us slow down" from philosopher Bayo Akomolafe. I must have heard the words, thought about them, then decided to write my own thoughts on this, forgetting what started the process. But I'm happy to acknowledge my indebtedness to Bayo Akomalafe, and I encourage you to go and look up his stuff, because it's very good)
We are in an age of urgency. Many people, myself included, have talked about how urgent the climate crisis is. We have twelve years, or eleven years, or two years on some estimations, to avoid a climate crisis that will kill millions. Unless government policy changes right now we will be heading to a disaster.
Given that, it's completely understandable that climate activists are operating out of a sense of urgency. We need the government to act now and we will keep acting now until they do. This has made Extinction Rebellion, in my experience, into a very busy organisation. It has also led to attitudes in some quarters of "we don't have time for niceties, we don't have time to deal with racism or other issues like this, we've just got to get on with it." It means Extinction Rebellion is full of activity, full of actions here and there, not just the big London ones, but lots of local ones, full of meetings, full of online discussions that are impossible to keep up with unless you dedicate two hours a day to deal with it. It is very busy.
In the face of that it seems counter-productive to say - slow down. But I keep coming back to that thought, that voice of God even (through the words of Bayo Akomalafe), saying slow down.
Why should urgency mean we have to slow down? Partly again I'm thinking about this article. And particularly the insight that the American civil rights movement "was built-up over decades through direct, painstaking street-to-street organising, training, educating, network-building, and so on, within affected communities themselves. That is how the movement developed the capacity to eventually mobilise millions of people in repeated protest actions."
On a purely tactical basis it may not be possible to create a mass movement unless we do the "direct, painstaking street-to-street organising." It may not be possible to move the government on the climate crisis unless we bring about something like a revolution, and the basis for that revolution will need to be rooted in sustaining spirituality, and grassroots community organising that works in every street, in every town, in every village.
We might get 10,000 people at an Extinction Rebellion protest, we might get 20,000 or 100,000 or 200,000. It still won't be enough. It will take millions. And we will only get millions if we do something other than protesting and direct actions.
Of course we want to go as fast as we can. Lives are at stake. But there's no point going fast in the wrong direction. There's no point going fast if it's going to be an ineffective strategy. It is the old saying of "more haste, less speed."
The work might necessarily be slow. That might be the only way this is going to be possible. It might necessarily require slow, deep, grassroots work. It might involve a much stronger link between community and activism.
In the face of the General Election last week and the electing of a far right government in the UK, I think this is even more true. We will not get a progressive government in the UK without a progressive movement that is present not just during election campaigns but all the time. A movement that can stop the climate crisis, that can gain political power, will need to be a movement that is present in forgotten and abandoned communities. It might mean being a movement that runs more food banks, breakfast clubs, neighbourhood meetings, and makes explicit the links between politics, economics, and the state of our streets and neighbourhoods. It means seeing the work as being in solidarity with the poor and oppressed and seeing the work as their liberation. All of this work takes time. It takes effort, and it takes working on our own streets and with our own neighbours rather than just putting our energy into the organising of big events.
And ultimately it requires that we work on ourselves. This work is hard. It will require our spiritual health, and that requires an activism that makes time for spiritual practice and for the practice of sabbath, the practice of rest, the practice of slowing down.
Things are urgent, they are. But what this might mean is that, more than ever before, we need to slow down.
We are in an age of urgency. Many people, myself included, have talked about how urgent the climate crisis is. We have twelve years, or eleven years, or two years on some estimations, to avoid a climate crisis that will kill millions. Unless government policy changes right now we will be heading to a disaster.
Given that, it's completely understandable that climate activists are operating out of a sense of urgency. We need the government to act now and we will keep acting now until they do. This has made Extinction Rebellion, in my experience, into a very busy organisation. It has also led to attitudes in some quarters of "we don't have time for niceties, we don't have time to deal with racism or other issues like this, we've just got to get on with it." It means Extinction Rebellion is full of activity, full of actions here and there, not just the big London ones, but lots of local ones, full of meetings, full of online discussions that are impossible to keep up with unless you dedicate two hours a day to deal with it. It is very busy.
In the face of that it seems counter-productive to say - slow down. But I keep coming back to that thought, that voice of God even (through the words of Bayo Akomalafe), saying slow down.
Why should urgency mean we have to slow down? Partly again I'm thinking about this article. And particularly the insight that the American civil rights movement "was built-up over decades through direct, painstaking street-to-street organising, training, educating, network-building, and so on, within affected communities themselves. That is how the movement developed the capacity to eventually mobilise millions of people in repeated protest actions."
On a purely tactical basis it may not be possible to create a mass movement unless we do the "direct, painstaking street-to-street organising." It may not be possible to move the government on the climate crisis unless we bring about something like a revolution, and the basis for that revolution will need to be rooted in sustaining spirituality, and grassroots community organising that works in every street, in every town, in every village.
We might get 10,000 people at an Extinction Rebellion protest, we might get 20,000 or 100,000 or 200,000. It still won't be enough. It will take millions. And we will only get millions if we do something other than protesting and direct actions.
Of course we want to go as fast as we can. Lives are at stake. But there's no point going fast in the wrong direction. There's no point going fast if it's going to be an ineffective strategy. It is the old saying of "more haste, less speed."
The work might necessarily be slow. That might be the only way this is going to be possible. It might necessarily require slow, deep, grassroots work. It might involve a much stronger link between community and activism.
In the face of the General Election last week and the electing of a far right government in the UK, I think this is even more true. We will not get a progressive government in the UK without a progressive movement that is present not just during election campaigns but all the time. A movement that can stop the climate crisis, that can gain political power, will need to be a movement that is present in forgotten and abandoned communities. It might mean being a movement that runs more food banks, breakfast clubs, neighbourhood meetings, and makes explicit the links between politics, economics, and the state of our streets and neighbourhoods. It means seeing the work as being in solidarity with the poor and oppressed and seeing the work as their liberation. All of this work takes time. It takes effort, and it takes working on our own streets and with our own neighbours rather than just putting our energy into the organising of big events.
And ultimately it requires that we work on ourselves. This work is hard. It will require our spiritual health, and that requires an activism that makes time for spiritual practice and for the practice of sabbath, the practice of rest, the practice of slowing down.
Things are urgent, they are. But what this might mean is that, more than ever before, we need to slow down.
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