Donderdag 10 januari – George Montbiot kwam al vaker langs op deze blog (interview Volkskrant en Extinction Rebellion). Monbiot is een ‘thought leader’, die geweldloze actie voert en predikt. Hierboven boeken van zijn hand. Hieronder een fragment uit een column in de Guardian, waarin hij Extinction Rebellion introduceert.
On 31 October (2018 red.), I will speak at the launch of Extinction Rebellion in Parliament Square. This is a movement devoted to disruptive, nonviolent disobedience in protest against ecological collapse. The three heroes jailed for trying to stop fracking last month, whose outrageous sentences have just been overturned, are likely to be the first of hundreds. The intention is to turn this national rising into an international one.
This preparedness for sacrifice, a long history of political and religious revolt suggests, is essential to motivate and mobilise people to join an existential struggle. It is among such people that you find the public and civic sense now lacking in government. That we have to take such drastic action to defend the common realm shows how badly we have been abandoned.