For a few brief seconds my breath caught in my throat as I watched those two young Just Stop Oil activists hurling tins of tomato soup at Van Gogh’s Sunflowers last week. I was shocked.
My initial reaction, though, was short-lived after I learnt it was protected by glass.
What did surprise me, though, was the level of criticism from young progressives. Such people are usually sympathetic to the climate movement. Instead they felt that this particular stunt was beyond the pale. Many questioned why the protesters, who were later arrested for criminal damage, were targeting art — after all, it’s hardly Van Gogh’s fault that the planet is burning.
According to Just Stop Oil themselves they were showing that paintings about nature are more valued than nature itself in a climate emergency. And the near collective meltdown in response has only proved their point. Especially when contrasted with reactions to the Government’s decision to greenlight 100 new oil and gas projects in the North Sea, for example, or the ending of the moratorium on fracking, which were muted in comparison.
Art is sacred, and we should protect it. It is intrinsic to who we are, to the point where even the threat of its desecration viscerally offends us. But there is no art on a dead planet.
If we care so much about art, why has there been more pearl-clutching about a can of soup being thrown at a glass-protected painting than the Seine bursting its banks in 2018 and nearly wiping out the entirety of the Louvre?
The wider question about whether such measures risk alienating the public and rendering the protest counterproductive, is also wrong-headed.
Protesting is not always about being liked. Sometimes it’s about causing chaos so people are forced to pay attention, which invariably means some people will be pissed off. Extinction Rebellion could hardly be described as popular, but following their protests, polls showed that more people considered the climate crisis a priority. The Suffragettes, the US Civil Rights Movement — these groups were unpopular and disruptive in their time, but does that negate their value?
It is easy, from our comfortable distance to the climate crisis in the West, to say that we support Just Stop Oil’s cause but not their methods. It is not so easy for the 16 million Somalians facing acute food insecurity as a result of a climate change-induced drought, the worst the country has faced for 40 years. The 33 million Pakistanis affected by flooding this year do not have the privilege of dipping in and out of the climate movement when they deem it palatable either.
The reality, whether we want to admit or not, is these are teenagers risking imprisonment because they are so desperate for someone to listen to them about the existential threat of climate change. They deserve our support.
In other news...
As someone born and raised in Ealing, the sensation of being especially proud of where I’m from is not one I’m familiar with. But over the past few years, W5 has quietly been leading the way towards a key victory for women’s rights — abortion buffer zones. In 2018, Ealing council established the UK’s first buffer zone, preventing women being harassed while entering an abortion clinic. On Tuesday MPs, led by Stella Creasy, left, voted for proposals to enforce buffer zones nationwide. Under the proposed law, harassing, obstructing or interfering with any woman attending an abortion clinic — within 150 metres — will become a criminal offence.
In recent years, anti-abortion groups have tried to intimidate women accessing abortions, often by displaying graphic images of foetuses and calling women “murderers”. This law does not stop free speech on abortion, or prevent protests. Rather, it protects women’s ability to access healthcare free from harassment — a vital and hard-won right.
