Eco-activists in Europe swap soup and puree for ink – 06/13/2023 – World

Environmentalists in Europe have thrown soup at a Van Gogh, mashed potatoes at a Monet and flour at an Andy Warhol. Now, they seem to have switched their instruments of combat — and their targets.

In recent weeks, demonstrators have thrown colored paint at various architectural landmarks on the continent, whether public, such as the Trevi Fountain, in Rome, and the La Scala theater, in Milan, or private, such as the Louis Vuitton Foundation, one of the museums busiest in Paris.

Like the previous strategy, this one is also made to impact networks, through instagrammable performative actions. The explanation lies in the profile of the activists behind these acts, described by French journalist and researcher Marc Lomazzi as a generation born around the 2000s that does not believe in the will of rulers to implement policies to combat the climate crisis.

“They have a radical discourse and reject the idea of ​​an ecological transition. They want a green revolution”, he tells the Sheet the author of “Ultra Ecologicus: Les Nouveaux Croisés de l’Écologie” —or ultraecologicos, the new crusaders of ecology, no edition in Brazil—, by email. For Lomazzi, these protesters are willing to go beyond the non-violent civil disobedience that has marked most of their demonstrations.

But the acts alone were enough to attract the ire of governments. Britain and Italy have announced tougher bills to crack down on environmentalists, whom they refer to as “eco-fanatics” and “eco-vandals”.

At the end of May, Germany mobilized agents from all over the country for an operation that investigates Letzte Generation members for forming a gang and supporting a criminal organization. Earlier, France’s interior minister even called protesters in Sainte-Soline, in the west of the country, “eco-terrorists”.

The association of environmentalists with terrorism is not unprecedented. Elane Westfaul, a doctoral student in political science at the University of California at Irvine, says that the term “ecoterrorism” began to be used in 2002, after being used by James F. Jarboe, then head of the FBI’s counterterrorism department, the American federal police, in a speech to the US Congress.

For the researcher, that was the way that the American government found to use the atmosphere of the War on Terror, in the wake of 9/11, to repress the actions of groups such as the ALF (Animal Liberation Front), ELF (Environmental Liberation Front Environment) and Peta (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), even though most of them pledged not to harm people or animals.

“What they used to do was release animals from slaughterhouses and laboratories, but their goals were not generally violent,” she says — one exception is the ALF, which in the 1990s sent bombs to more than 30 farmers and transport companies who worked with animal trade.

Westfaul says that the main strategy of these organizations was to cause damage to property, in order to cause social unrest and financial losses for companies that harmed the environment. The researcher claims that this is something they have in common with the groups that attract attention in Europe today —although the latter tend to be even more cautious with other people’s property, for example using washable paint to attack monuments and seeking not to damage works of art. arts on which they intervene.

Despite the rhetoric of ecoterrorism, what seems to bother States are the economic costs of these acts. In the 2002 speech, the head of the FBI’s counterterrorism department pointed out that, in previous years, the approximately 600 crimes committed by organizations linked to the defense of the environment resulted in damages of at least US$ 43 million (about R$ 106 million at the rate at the time).

Values ​​were also listed by European governments when defending tougher punishments today. Italian Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano said the administration spent €40,000 (R$214,000 in current values) to clean paint thrown by a protester on the facade of the Senate in Rome.

Suella Braverman, UK Home Secretary, said just two police operations to deal with Extinction Rebellion protests had cost Britain’s coffers £37m (£16m), twice as much as the corporation would spend each year to fight crime. violent. In parallel, she pointed out that demonstrations of the type have already caused the loss of 146 million pounds (R $ 900 million) in a UK infrastructure project – she did not detail the amounts.

Nor are the methods of eco-activists unanimous among the populations of these countries. The string of attacks on artworks has drawn criticism from art lovers and those questioning the waste of food at a time of economic crisis. What seems to bother Europeans the most are, however, the acts in which demonstrators stick to roads and highways and impede traffic during rush hour.

The negative repercussion of acts like this led Extinction Rebellion, perhaps the pioneer of performance demonstrations, to announce at the beginning of the year a pause in mobilizations in public spaces to attract more people to the fight against the climate crisis. But other groups already occupy the void left, like the aforementioned Ultima Generazione, from Italy, and their homonyms Letzte Generation, from Germany, for example.

For sociologist Arilson Favareto, professor at the Federal University of ABC and researcher at Cebrap (Brazilian Center for Analysis and Planning), acts of this type already happen in Brazil. He cites the episode of young people who climbed Christ the Redeemer, in 2006, and threw a flag from the environmentalist NGO Greenpeace over one of their arms, which read “the future of the planet is in your hands”.

He claims, however, that the overlapping of the environmental agenda in the country with the demands of other social groups, such as indigenous movements or those in defense of agrarian reform, means that the forms of protest are more diverse than in Europe. And that these more traditional actions, such as the invasion of land by the Movimento dos Sem Terra, will probably not be replaced by performative manifestations.

Favareto also recalls that, in Brazil, the main responsibility for the repression of environmentalists is not the State, but actors from the private sector, such as land grabbers and landowners, who sometimes act outside the law. This means that, depending on the situation, protesters are actually at risk of their lives.