Rebels with a lasting cause

London’s Extinction Rebellion has learned the lessons of Occupy Wall Street and the gilets jaunes. But what comes next will be the real test, writes Therese Raphael.

Measured by attention received, or noise made, London’s climate change protests have been a rousing success over the past week. As ever, there are doubts about whether the campaign of civil disobedience will make any real difference; but it does pose questions about the limits of democratic politics in the age of legislative gridlock.

With their banners, their graffiti, their drums, their street performers and their celebrity supporters, climate protesters marched, danced with police, delivered speeches and street performances, poured fake blood in front of Downing Street, got arrested, showed environmental catastrophe films, glued themselves to trains, disrupted traffic and generally made as much of a din as possible.

Extinction Rebellion, the group behind the protests, has moved with the agility and single-mindedness of a hot tech startup. Its leaders spent years studying how to use mass movements to bring about radical change. They know their Gandhi, Martin Luther King and the Greenpeace playbook.

Their unique twist is blending the organisational nous and gravitas of the mass protest march with the hip vibe of the music festival. This is a shrewd strategy when you look at the increased politicisation of Britain’s 20 and 30-somethings, evidenced by their hatred of Brexit and support for the Labour Party’s Left-wing leader Jeremy Corbyn.

From their London base, Extinction Rebellion volunteers are given training in what constitutes civil disobedience, as well as the legal consequences of property damage, and various defences. They learn the correct body position in which to be arrested, and practise their responses to abusive onlookers.

Any comparison with other recent protest campaigns would show more differences than similarities. Extinction Rebellion rejects violence, unlike France’s gilets jaunes. Its acts are carefully planned and calibrated. The group even apologises for damage to property and inconvenience to the public.

Unlike the Occupy Wall Street protests that followed the financial crisis, the London movement knows exactly what it wants and has effective messaging and leadership. It understands that anger gets old after a while, so the activism cleverly fuses outrage and disruption with more lighthearted stunts that grab attention, such as a giant pink boat fixed to the ground in London’s busy Oxford Circus.

Sometimes the nonviolence pledge gets a bit blurry. A group smashed revolving glass doors at oil company Royal Dutch Shell. Extinction Rebellion justifies the occasional breakages by arguing that the Earth is like a burning house; you don’t hesitate to knock down a few doors to save the inhabitants. ‘‘We do look like a bunch of trouble-makers, and troublemakers change the world,’’ Roger Hallam, a long-time activist and one of the group’s founders, told the BBC.

The organisation claims it is already winning hearts and minds; and judging from the press attention and reaction from many political quarters, it is not wrong.

A highlight came on Easter Sunday when 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg addressed crowds, uniting the children’s protest movement of recent months with the adult one. The media loved it. Politicians clamoured to acknowledge it – which is precisely the idea.

Detractors grumble that the group is merely blocking roads, impeding (low-emission) public transport and hurting commerce – that it is middle-class virtue signalling rather than a credible programme. But perhaps it’s a sign of the growing fear of climate cataclysm that such complaints haven’t carried their usual weight.

It’s now up to Extinction Rebellion to prove it can do more than just protest. The get-toknow-us stage has been bold and attention-grabbing. What comes

next is more difficult.

The ultimate aim is to get off the streets and use the political process to transform the environmental plan. The group

has three broad demands: that Britain commit to zero carbon emissions by 2025, mandate a citizens’ assembly to advise on delivering climate targets, and

AP Extinction Rebellion protesters block Parliament Square in central London on Tuesday. Organisers have now called off the protest, having largely achieved their immediate aims. The question remains as to whether the movement will make any progress in terms of policy decisions.