OPEN LETTER TO CLIMATE STRIKERS AND OTHER PROTESTERS: IT WILL BE RADICAL, OR « NOTHING » WILL HAPPEN

You can’t change a system with the way of thinking that created it

One characteristic of this extreme-center that philosopher Alain Deneault speaks of is certainly that of tolerating only those criticisms that do not call into question the system of exploitation proper to our capitalist society, and of letting pass only those that remain circumscribed within it and are inoffensive to it. From now on, all politicians would have heard the climate protesters. But they didn’t listen to them. Anything they say that questions the dogma of growth will either be silenced or equated with the extremes (right or left), the most effective way to avoid debate.

It is obviously more difficult to publicly defend a principle when it has been enunciated by political enemies, even if those enemies had quite different intentions from ours when they expressed those ideas. Thus, if liberal capitalists have castigated climate protesters as consumers who contradict their message, they have done so not to support the protest but only to denigrate the words and the subversive element they might contain. It was the classic technique of criticizing the messenger to devalue his message. This is the sole purpose of these organized individuals who do not want anyone to approach They know that the environmental issue, like most other parties (all those who swear by growth), is in competition with the economic issue, which is the most essential for them.

At the risk of being associated with those who have stigmatized the students on strike for the climate, we believe that it is our duty to highlight the obstacles to change, to recognize them and to face them. But the criticism of our political enemies towards the demonstrators deserves three remarks at first:

- it is not because these enemies evoke contradictions that one must, by a kind of imbecile reflex, refuse to accept that these contradictions really exist. In the same way that we would not deprive ourselves of eating strawberries if the latter also appreciated them, we will not avoid certain analyses under the pretext that it would be « playing the game of… »;

- from this point, to give oneself an intellectual line of conduct and to refuse all the oukases that self-righteous and primary antifas draw at the slightest criticism, consisting in depriving oneself of thinking for fear of being assimilated to the « red-browns »(1). Let them assimilate us, they will do it in any case, the extreme right having always been for them the scarecrow allowing them not to quote the truth behind the curtain of the show, convinced of the intrinsic quality of our modern societies, always for them developed rather than underdeveloped. Certainly, those who stigmatize and distribute heresies are not all ignorant of the putrefaction at the root of our systems, but making themselves the megaphones of power in spite of themselves, for fear of being assimilated to the foul beast, they do not realize to what extent they are arming the very people they claim to be fighting;

- To point out the contradictions does not mean that we no longer believe in the possibility of a revolutionary movement, nor do we put ourselves on a pedestal from which to launch our analyses and generalize them to the mass. We know that these inconsistencies are present, and that they are at the origin of the perpetuation of the same thing, and of the political and commercial recuperation that they facilitate. These are certainly widespread, but they are not characteristic of all demonstrators and do not constitute an insurmountable obstacle. Either, we do not endorse the impossible, on the contrary, we name the obstacles;

- it is precisely by naming our contradictions that we will be able to overcome them, because by putting words to things, the collective conditions of their overcoming are opened.

The others, on the contrary, who want to destroy the most relevant messages, do not initiate anything constructive, they only wish that we do not think. On the contrary, despite the overwhelming facts, we want to maintain this optimism of will and believe in a revolutionary perspective of all these scattered movements, to keep the hope that from this mass of demonstrators can emerge a significant part conscious of the level of necessary changes and of the acts that we must accomplish.

TO SAVE OUR SKIN, TO COUNTER WHAT IS KILLING US

« Our leaders are, in general, those who have best internalized the goals of the system and, therefore, are immune to arguments and evidence that might challenge it. »(2)

But let’s go then. Yes, there is something missing from these privileged class events — which most of us at Kairos are also part of. This statement is not meant to make people feel guilty, to denigrate, to break what is brewing, but to indicate that awareness must be commensurate with demands, and that if the system has been maintained for so long, it is because a majority of us allowed it. Of course, acting for the climate is already a false claim, a posture in which we still pose as saviors, beings who would surpass and master everything. We act to save our skin, the climate being already strongly affected and the measures to be taken quickly today only allowing to avoid or mitigate the worst, knowing moreover that fauna and flora would necessarily be better off if we were not there. In order for these two groups to be respected and for humans to be able to live in harmony with them, or for them to remain safe and sound in spite of our presence, it will be necessary to accept radical measures by which real change will be measured.

Coke bought in fast food restaurants will no longer be an exception, it will already be too much: fast food restaurants will have to disappear. Everything is the same: no more supermarkets, no more Ikea, no more multinationals of any kind, no more air travel, no more banks controlled by a minority, no more individual cars, even — and especially? — electric. No more commercials, no more H&M, no more Tetra Pak, no more timeshares, no more indecent inheritances; no more exploited « surface technicians » restoring household balance at the expense of class balance, no more tax havens, no more Viva for life, no more rich, therefore no more poor, no more SD(F)(3) we will no longer shit in drinking water, we will will humiliate our dead, our lands will be preserved to cultivate what we need, the modern lords will be expropriated, a maximum income imposed.

The difference tomorrow will no longer be between those who do « good » and those who do « bad », the simplicits and the consumerists, but between those who accept that it will be necessary — and that they will therefore have to — radically change and those who think that superficial adjustments will suffice. The first will be conscious of the impossibility of making the impasse of the political fight and will overcome their contradictions by the collective fight, the second will adopt the liberal doxa of the « ecogesture », supporting the coexistence of subjects « free to choose » in an unhealthy and liberticide environment. Free to choose to go to Macdo, Ikea, Apple Store, city-trip… there is no individual freedom in a society where the institutions and services offered serve only profit; where the organizers of capitalism put everything in motion to ensure overconsumption, an indispensable condition for the perpetuation of their productivist system. In this world of individual choice, when one says « no », nine say yes… you don’t make a society out of that.

We will have to decide between facing reality and accepting what it implies, or continuing to pretend that we are changing, by letting ourselves be fooled, for example, by the participative platform created by Good Planet Belgium and WWF(4)In view of the 2019 elections, to collect the ideas of young Belgians to build a greener society, ideas that will be submitted to politicians in April. Here it is: we will collect the ideas of young people on a platform sponsored by Axa, Deloitte, Delhaize, Ikea, Luminus, Tetra Pak, Umicore(5)…, in order, after simulating the democratic process, to transmit these ideas to the politicians who work for those who sponsor, and thus continue with those who plunder, pollute, kill, destroy, sack, suffocate, annihilate.

In this fable, the media will play the storyteller, they who two decades ago told us about the Seattle revolts: « the market remains the most efficient way of organizing economic life — especially because all the others have shown their limits » (Le Soir, December 2, 1999), and who today praise  » the power of the street « , of these « Citizens as the driving force of democracy » (Evening Editorialof January 30, 2019).  » Driving force  » as long as it does not touch the driving root of capitalism that is profit at any price, insanity that destroys everything. « The climate is a business that works  » (Le Soir, idem.), if it works with the market…

So, fellow protesters on strike for the climate, « tomorrow », if it happens, will be a tomorrow without Coke, without aluminum cans, without plastic, without smartphones and all that world that goes with it. We will have to succeed in imagining the end of capitalism, a less connected and more human world, in order to gradually rule out the near probability of the end of our world. We will have to accept that we were wrong, to hope to see our children grow up in peace, freedom and justice, or continue to pay the price, but then it will become much less fun…

Alexandre Penasse

Notes et références
  1. « Rouge-brun » définirait des anticapitalistes proche de l’extrême droite dans leurs idées et/ou leurs comportements.
  2. Clive Hamilton, Requiem pour l’espèce humaine, SciencesPo, 2013, p.64.
  3. Le terme SDF est propre à la novlangue, la langue du pouvoir, la femme ou l’homme (ou l’enfant) dormant dans la rue n’étant pas Sans Domicile Fixe, mais sans domicile tout court. Les SDF, ce sont ces capitalistes déracinés toujours entre deux avions, dormant une nuit à New York, une nuit à Dubaï, dans des domiciles jamais fixes.
  4. « Collecter la voix des jeune sur le climat », Le Soir, 28 janvier 2019. Voir https://www.goodplanet.be/fr/a‑propos-de-nous/partenaires/#ffs-tabbed-13
  5. Technologie des matériaux, www.umicore.be

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