« Nous dressons nos campements de solutions durables. Nous manifestons, nous bloquons, nous adressons des listes de revendications à des ministres, nous nous enchaînons aux grilles, nous nous collons au bitume, nous manifestons à nouveau le lendemain. Nous sommes toujours parfaitement, impeccablement pacifiques. Nous sommes plus nombreux, incomparablement plus nombreux. Il y a maintenant un ton de désespoir dans nos voix ; nous parlons d’extinction et d’avenir annulé. Et pourtant, les affaires continuent tout à fait comme avant – business as usual. À quel moment nous déciderons-nous à passer au stade supérieur ? »
Confrontant l’histoire des luttes passées à l’immense défi du réchauffement climatique, Andreas Malm interroge un précepte tenace du mouvement pour le climat : la non-violence et le respect de la propriété privée. Contre lui, il rappelle que les combats des suffragettes ou pour les droits civiques n’ont pas été gagnés …
Traduit de l'anglais par Étienne Dobenesque
« Nous dressons nos campements de solutions durables. Nous manifestons, nous bloquons, nous adressons des listes de revendications à des ministres, nous nous enchaînons aux grilles, nous nous collons au bitume, nous manifestons à nouveau le lendemain. Nous sommes toujours parfaitement, impeccablement pacifiques. Nous sommes plus nombreux, incomparablement plus nombreux. Il y a maintenant un ton de désespoir dans nos voix ; nous parlons d’extinction et d’avenir annulé. Et pourtant, les affaires continuent tout à fait comme avant – business as usual. À quel moment nous déciderons-nous à passer au stade supérieur ? »
Confrontant l’histoire des luttes passées à l’immense défi du réchauffement climatique, Andreas Malm interroge un précepte tenace du mouvement pour le climat : la non-violence et le respect de la propriété privée. Contre lui, il rappelle que les combats des suffragettes ou pour les droits civiques n’ont pas été gagnés sans perte ni fracas, et ravive une longue tradition de sabotage des infrastructures fossiles. La violence comporte des périls, mais le statu quo nous condamne. Nous devons apprendre à lutter dans un monde en feu.
My number one critique of this book is that it had so many opportunities to share and relate revolutionary movements throughout history to the climate movement, and it did not. Even worse, there were parts of the book that critiqued attacks on oil pipelines in the SWANA region that were connected to local anti-imperialist movements, without drawing the connection between anti imperialism and the climate movement (embarrassing, frankly).
That said, I think the book is a fine introduction to the idea that violence in the form of property destruction is a legitimate action to take, although I wish the book made a stronger case to the idea of armed resistance in the pursuit of national democracy and socialism. I also think the last chapter of the book was the strongest, since it offered good critiques of climate doomerism.
Anyway, I shouldn't be surprised lol, but whatever, it was fine.
Made me start believing in a positive change… again
4 stars
I went into this book being a bit negative about climate change and the climate movement worldwide. I thought we “lost” and wouldn’t be able prevent enormous damage to the planet. I saw myself in a situation similar to the ending of the movie “Don’t look up” but I don’t think of that anymore.
The book gives you a decent amount of history of the different climate movements (pacifist and not so pacifist) and compales them to other social movements and the type of violence or lack there of that they used in order to achieve their goals.
a book with all the right pieces and some very weird conclusions
2 stars
for a book i should ostensibly agree with on all points i found this deeply dull and fairly insipid. it goes to great lengths to categorize property damage as violence, dedicating only a few paragraphs around page 100 to the "ridiculous" idea that inanimate property maybe can't be subject to violence in the same way that living things can. it then uses this framework of property damage as violence to argue for the necessity of violence in protest, but jumps through incredible hoops to advocate for some sort of violence scale, from damaging luxury vehicles on one side to murder on the other, and is vehement that although the climate movement needs violence to achieve results (it argues against pacifism for almost half the book, albeit it itself is more pacifist than it knows), this can only mean - to malm- damage to fossil fuel infrastructure and luxury goods. it …
for a book i should ostensibly agree with on all points i found this deeply dull and fairly insipid. it goes to great lengths to categorize property damage as violence, dedicating only a few paragraphs around page 100 to the "ridiculous" idea that inanimate property maybe can't be subject to violence in the same way that living things can. it then uses this framework of property damage as violence to argue for the necessity of violence in protest, but jumps through incredible hoops to advocate for some sort of violence scale, from damaging luxury vehicles on one side to murder on the other, and is vehement that although the climate movement needs violence to achieve results (it argues against pacifism for almost half the book, albeit it itself is more pacifist than it knows), this can only mean - to malm- damage to fossil fuel infrastructure and luxury goods. it says; storm the coal plants, destroy fences, let air out of tires. fine. good, even. but a european fantasy of a police state that will not shoot you for doing just that, where the question of what do i do when they try to kill me never rises. this book was written before the blm protests in 2020-21 and fairy creek but after ferguson and standing rock. the author should know what it is to be faced with armed police who will hurt you for destroying infrastructure, for stopping traffic, for daring to protest. painfully naive.
if this were my book, and i were to take this deeply weird view - that property damage is violence at all, but somehow useful violence, unlike all other violence - i would at least include a chapter on how to use an acetylene torch. the best it offers is how to let air out of suv tires.
This is a nice book. The author gives the rundown of climate movements of the past few years, focusing on Ende Gelände, Extinction Rebellion, and Fridays for Future. He's clearly actually been part of a lot of those actions and, as far as I can tell, he gets them pretty right. The tone is hopeful all in all and the central idea – that there should be a more militant flank focused on destruction of fossil fuel emitting devices like SUVs and pipelines – is made well, in particular the clear but charitable case against ideologues of pacifism in activism.
However, and this bugs me deeply, the author does not actually answer the question posed in the title. Nowhere in the book is there any kind of guideline of tactical advice or even finger-point to resources on how to go about this. There is no map of pipelines in Europe, …
This is a nice book. The author gives the rundown of climate movements of the past few years, focusing on Ende Gelände, Extinction Rebellion, and Fridays for Future. He's clearly actually been part of a lot of those actions and, as far as I can tell, he gets them pretty right. The tone is hopeful all in all and the central idea – that there should be a more militant flank focused on destruction of fossil fuel emitting devices like SUVs and pipelines – is made well, in particular the clear but charitable case against ideologues of pacifism in activism.
However, and this bugs me deeply, the author does not actually answer the question posed in the title. Nowhere in the book is there any kind of guideline of tactical advice or even finger-point to resources on how to go about this. There is no map of pipelines in Europe, no overview of IEDs used in attacks, no hint at ecotage manuals the author would find valuable. And even if the author wanted to address merely the best ways of building this radical flank, some advice on how to organize people for the kind of action the author wants to see, like coordinated SUV destruction or regular-enough pipeline attacks to make fossil fuel an investment risks, is sorely missing. The author does talk about the more militant first wave of eco activists around 2000, noting that the hundreds of thousands of acts of property destruction and violence committed by the likes of the ELF did not yield lasting success because they failed to be flanking a larger mass movement, but gives no hands-on advice for how to do better.
I believe this is a missed chance because I'm assuming the book is targeting activists who could become more militant. But it's exactly those activists who are open to militancy that will likely already support this point. When XR was in its infancy, people were actively trying to position it as the radical flank to Fridays for Future, recognizing that XR itself would need such a flank at some point. There is no dearth of people willing to commit property damage and sabotage in the climate movement, but what's holding them back is not the lack of justification but the lack of a plan for how to do so effectively.
