A message to environmental activists: When you are forced to take a particularly unusual action in an attempt to advance your cause, it usually means that you have already lost the battle. If you have to hang a giant sign from the top of a bridge to convince someone to go out with you, chances are she’s hoping you slip on the way there. The same principle applies to the recently spreading Just Stop Oil protest.
The new and ridiculous environmental terrorism focuses on European museum treasures. Young activists, who have learned to imitate Greta Thunberg’s anguished facial expressions, throw food at some of the West’s most prized works of art while spouting meaningless slogans at passers-by. If you are confused by the whole story, you are not alone.
One could be tempted to see this as a kind of youth response on the part of some independent demonstrators. After all, the right to be an idiot is reserved for every teenage boy. However, these assumptions fly out the window when, for example, you open the Guardian newspaper and read a column by Eileen Getty under the title: “I am the founder of climate activism – and I cheer for the Van Gogh protest.”
The truth is that there is nothing spontaneous about this protest. It is enough to go to the website of the Climate Emergency Fund to learn that the same organization, whose main donor is the same Getty, is in the midst of a “continuous and disruptive” protest campaign in no less than 11 countries and in cooperation with local organizations in the USA, France, Great Britain, Canada and Italy Most of those groups, even though they define themselves as peace seekers, have already carried out protests in the past that included some kind of physical confrontation.
And as for Getty whose grandfather Jean-Paul Getty was an American oil tycoon, history is full of descendants of billionaires who became rebels and dedicated their lives to extreme leftist causes; Only the rich can afford communism. The only happy thing to be found in her resume is the fact that Elizabeth Taylor is her mother-in-law. Beyond that, this is a pretty crazy story from a man I wouldn’t ask for advice in any field, and certainly not advice about the lives of all the inhabitants of the planet.
These methods are just the latest expression of a long and ongoing campaign of activism. Since 2000, police agencies around the world have documented cases of sabotage and other attacks carried out by extremists from among animal rights activists and environmental activists.
The latest terror reports of the European Police Office (Europol) indicate the danger posed by the radicalization processes of certain climate activists. But for the most part these actions were not considered a form of terrorism: a classified document published in 2013 states that Europol will not use the term “eco-terrorism” to describe attacks by environmental activists, and instead these will be defined as “thematic terrorism”. “Eco-terrorism” will be reserved for attacks against environmental activists only.
This is a rare case where you started that before the word “terror” refers to the victim of terrorism and not the identity of the terrorist or his motive. It’s like calling the atrocities committed by ISIS terrorists with the term “ordinary people’s terror”.
Europol itself, of course, is involved in environmental policy like all EU institutions, and it does not seem to be particularly interested in anything that could tarnish the name of environmental activists. In the Europol report from 2017, it is claimed that environmental activism is conducted exclusively in peaceful ways, and if indeed there have been violent incidents in this area, it is only because it has been infiltrated by anarchists and others associated with extreme left groups. In this year’s report, the only mention of environmental terrorism appears in the section describing groups Far right and under the vague label of “eco-fascism”. The authors of the report do not indicate any specific action by those groups, and define the threat as future.
If you look at the rise of most prominent non-jihadist terrorist organizations in recent decades, you can see the progression from activism to violence over time, as ideological belief becomes religious dogma.
In the same column she wrote, Eileen Getty explains how she justifies the recent antics in the museum halls. She claims that those activists have no choice but to perform these shows, because what is at stake are our lives and the lives of future generations. This logic, in her opinion, gives environmental activists a free pass to do whatever they want, wherever and whenever they want. What prevents them from replacing the mashed potatoes with something more deadly? Maybe just heavier penalties.
The truth is that environmental activism has become a religious dogma. Take for example the way the story was presented on one of the radio programs in Spain last week. “Climate change is killing us,” the announcer began and added: “If there are those who refuse to see this and deny the evidence, they should be excluded from the public discourse.” Try replacing “climate change” with “vaccines” or “homework”, and you will understand why this reasoning needs improvement.
Movements like Just Stop Oil exist because the leftist elites are interested in their existence and finance them. But beware: even if the museum’s antics seem marginal today, there are many who have done away with any kind of climate discussion and instead adhere only to blind faith and obedience. All this may soon push the current environmental discourse to the brink of real violence.
For now, the main victims of those organized attacks are not artists like Van Gogh, nor the oil companies nor the politicians. These are mainly the cleaning crews.
The column was first published on the ‘National Review’ website.
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