ANDIt was almost noon in Salisbury, Wiltshire, when two Just Stop Oil activists ran up to the famous prehistoric monument of Stonehenge to spray it with orange powder paint.
According to the criteria of
This action was recorded on video and it can be seen that the protesters continued painting the stone structure despite the demand of visitors. A woman even struggled with one of them.
The police arrested the two activists. They are Niamh Lynch, a 21-year-old Oxford student, and Rajan Naidu, a 73-year-old Birmingham man.
This protest action carried out this Wednesday the 19th against the use of fossil fuels takes place just before the celebration of the summer solstice, which usually brings together thousands at Stonehenge. According to the organization on its website, Lynch demanded that oil, coal and gas continue to be burned.
“Stonehenge on the solstice is about celebrating the natural world, but look at the state it’s in! “We all have the right to live a life free of suffering,” she stated. They also assured that The paint is made from corn flour and will soon disappear with the rain.
They are sensitive and completely covered in prehistoric markings which have yet to be fully studied and any superficial damage to the stones is hugely worrying.
In total there are three stones affected by the powder paint, according to a BBC report. Archaeologist Mike Pitts told the media that the incident is “potentially quite worrying,” although the 5,000-year-old monument has fences and its surface is protected.
“They are sensitive and completely covered in prehistoric markings that have yet to be fully studied and any superficial damage to the stones is hugely worrying,” he said. In addition, he pointed out that in the megaliths there is an exceptional lichen garden.
On the other hand, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called the protest “a disgraceful act of vandalism.”
Just Stop Oil: a dilemma
In the video of the last protest you can see how a woman tries to prevent the activists from throwing paint on the stone structure. But similar scenes have played out in Just Stop Oil stock of late.
Although they argue that they use nonviolent civil resistance, they are also considered radicals. And they have attacked paintings and sculptures in museums, they have interrupted musical, sporting and car racing events, and they have also protested against a good number of venues.
Your activity seems to enter into a dilemma. Are we facing committed activism or mere vandalism?
For Alex Huerta Mercado, anthropologist and professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP), it must first be understood that “art and archaeological monuments have symbolic capital in the sense that they are valued as something corresponding to the identity or memory of a place.” In light of the latest events, between the ecological discourse and that of collective memory, he points out that the second still prevails.
The mere fact that these acts draw attention, but at the same time generate indignation, tells us about a disproportion between the means and the end. For what is socially considered vandalism
“The mere fact that these acts draw attention, but at the same time generate indignation, tells us about a disproportion between the means and the end. So socially it is considered vandalism,” he tells El Comercio.
However, he also considers that it calls to mind the indifference to predation and the disappearance of the ecosystem.
But the most critical point has occurred on the roads. On social networks you can see that They block the lanes, sitting in front of the cars, and it is the drivers themselves who attack them for interrupting traffic. Other times neighbors or passersby respond.
Until before 2023, protesters who blocked a highway could receive 51 weeks in prison or a fine, but transport agencies have demanded new measures. In that sense, according to a BBC report, Parliament approved new legislation that lowers the threshold for “serious disturbances,” allows the police to respond to actions that prevent or delay daily activities, and has criminalized “blockade.”
According to the organization Just Stop Oil, there have been nearly three thousand arrests.
Two years of Just Stop Oil
This group was formed in February 2022. It mentions on its website that one of its aims is for the UK government to stop licensing all new oil, gas and coal projects. For its activities it has a source of financing through donations.
The payment method is by deposit, which can be monthly or a single payment, and ranges from 7 pounds to 500 pounds. “Your donations make radical action possible,” they say. However, the main source of funding comes from the Climate Emergency Fund, a US network created in 2019 to finance climate activism. Furthermore, according to British media, the name of Aileen Getty, granddaughter of oil magnate J. Paul Getty, appears among the financiers.
The Guardian newspaper points out that Margaret Klein Salamon, executive director of the Climate Emergency Fund, supported financing in 2023 because she believes that “nonviolent disruptive protest is the fastest way to create transformative change”. “While these activists are controversial, they are right about the science, about the effectiveness of their approach, and they are morally righteous,” he notes.
But Just Stop Oil’s activity has also had its divisions on the political and economic side. At the end of 2023, businessman Dale Vince reported that he would stop funding the activist group through Ecotricity because his new measures could “feed conservatives’ culture war narrative.”
“A vote for someone other than Labour, or no vote at all, is a vote for another Conservative government, this time with a mandate to continue its anti-green crusade,” he said in The Guardian.
On the other hand, in April this year a group protested by putting up signs saying “Stop Tory Coal” in the office of Conservative MP Mark Jenkinson, regarding an investment in coal mines. The BBC reported that two people were arrested and The parliamentarian called the protesters “spoiled middle-class climate clowns.”
🚨 BREAKING: 2 JUST STOP OIL SUPPORTERS ARRESTED AT HOME
🚔 “As it currently stands, they’ve not committed any offenses.”
⛓️ So why, @CumbriaPolice, have these wrongful arrests happened? One of the people was only filming. pic.twitter.com/SkXrbkYyCq
— Just Stop Oil (@JustStop_Oil) April 26, 2024
Have the protests had an effect?
It was almost two years ago that Just Stop Oil rose to global fame when the painting was attacked “The Sunflowers” by Vincent Van Gogh which is in the National Gallery in London. They were protesting against new oil and gas extraction projects in the country.
However, investments in oil projects have not stopped. Late last year, authorities approved new oil and gas drilling in the North Sea.
This is the development plan for the Rosebank countryside, northwest of the Shetland Islands. They say it will create jobs and strengthen British energy security, the AP agency reported at the time. The area is home to one of the largest untapped deposits in British waters, with an estimated 350 million barrels of oil.
Even so, Environmental protests against oil extraction in this area continue in Norway, the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark, where Just Stop Oil also has a presence.
Daniel Bedoya Ramos
EL COMERCIO (PERU) / GDA
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