Article by Estelle Derraj

Photo by Koshu Kunii on Unsplash

Protest is a conversation between individuals and institutions. For climate justice, protest creates an increasingly necessary dialogue between environmental activists, communities, corporations, governments, and the media. However, with the instigation of UK anti-protest legislation and the ‘psychopathic personality’ of the corporation (Bakan, 2004), our right to protest is under threat. This begs the question: does protest still hold the same radical power that it has in the past? Who has true power to protest? How is protest evolving? And, importantly, who is still listening?

The right to protest is a human right under Article 11 of the Human Rights Act. Groups like Extinction Rebellion (XR) and Just Stop Oil (JSO) are leading the fight for climate justice through non-violent anti-corporation demonstrations, waving the warning flag with a clear message: the social contract has been broken. They recognise that, although corporations claim to ‘care about more than profit and loss’, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is simply a façade (Bakan, 2004). The 2022 Police, Crime and Sentencing Act is threatening our right to protest, having increased the grounds for stop-and-search and given police more power to disband ‘disruptive’ protests like roadblocks. Under this act, we saw the record sentencing of five JSO protesters for up to 5 years for ‘conspiracy to cause public nuisance’, following a roadblock of the M25 motorway. Meanwhile, the relentless scapegoating by British media represents climate activists as ‘fanatics’  who enjoy causing public nuisance. Arguably the climate crisis warrants this disruptive mode of protest, and clamping down upon and scapegoating activists is detrimental not just to human rights, but to breaking the façade. The state of UK climate protest is dichotomous, becoming increasingly necessary but less functional- we are suffering a ‘’direct theft of our freedom’’.

However, we should recognise the privilege of the Western Protester. It is often those who witness the ‘psychopathic personality’ (Bakan, 2004) of corporations firsthand, who face the most brutal punishments in protecting their communities. Ken Saro-Wiwa was a Nigerian activist and founder of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP), an organisation peacefully opposing Shell’s exploitation of the Niger-Delta. Before Shell discovered oil there, Ogoni land was one of the most fertile in Africa which supported 1500 people per square mile. It has now turned to crude oil – nothing will grow there for 1000 years. Enduring gas flares burning 24 hours a day and around 4 oil spills per week, the Ogoni people have received nearly nothing in reparations, only spoiled land and a spiral into poverty, even after MOSOP’s demands for reparations and shares in oil revenue. Tragically, Saro-Wiwa was detained and executed in 1995 under claims that he had incited youths to murder. Shell has been criticised for fabricating evidence to support the charges and Amnesty International claim this was a politically-motivated arrest  to suppress MOSOP. However, we hear in a recording, Saro-Wiwa’s line ‘’I do not want any blood spilt’’. Even after Ogoni activism, Shell continues to be Nigeria’s dominant oil company, their ‘social license to operate’ seemingly not expanding to the Global South, of whom corporations deem easy to exploit. Protesting for climate justice becomes tenfold harder when we venture outside the West.

As dark clouds hover over the state of protest worldwide, dampened by governments and corporations of whom it does not serve, a new form of environmentalism is dispersing them. ‘Digital activism’ is defined as activism that uses digital platforms for mass mobilization and political action, encompassing the use of social media to raise awareness, organise campaigns, and even ‘hacktivism’- a portmanteau of ‘hacking’ and ‘activism’. These cyber-Robin-Hoods publish corporations’ online data, emails, and profit information through the ‘Distributed Denial of Secrets’, exposing their unsympathetic nature towards environmental destruction. Hacktivist group ‘Guacamaya’ claims to have successfully hacked mining and oil corporations and government agencies, like the New Granada Energy Corporation and the Guatemalan Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, to sabotage them from exploiting the natural resources of Central and South America. Although digital activism can be deemed performative, the creativity and adaptability of protest to the digital world undoubtedly shows that its power cannot be squashed, only displaced.

So, does protesting for climate justice still work? Governments worldwide have dampened the political effectiveness of protesting, but they have not changed the minds of environmentalists, who continue to adapt how they protest. It is the shared ideology of perseverance which keeps protest alive; in the words of Saro-Wiwa, ‘’the struggle itself is about hope’’. Until we lose this hope, the flame of protest will keep on burning; even if corporations do not listen, we will continue to shake their very foundations until they must.

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