Two octogenarians armed with a chisel and a hammer entered the British Library in London one morning last May. Without raising suspicions, they went to the room where one of the only four copies of the Magna Carta is located, a document dating from the year 1215, and proceeded to chip the display case that houses the medieval document, considered a founding text of modern democracy and which states that no one, not even the king, is above the law. It was a protest action against the inaction against climate change.
One of the activists was Sue Parfitt, 82 years old and dressed in her Anglican Church priest’s collar, holding the chisel near one of the corners of the display. His partner is Judy Bruce, 85 years old and a retired biology professor, who articulated the hammer. After several blows, Parfitt unfurled a banner with the message: “The Government has violated the law,” before sticking to the display case to end the protest. Both were arrested and later released pending trial.
The statement of both women had a legal basis. The previous week, the High Court of Justice had ruled that the British Conservative Government was not doing enough to achieve its goal of reducing greenhouse emissions by 2030 and required it to modify the environmental policies that have allowed, for example, , grant new oil and gas exploitation licenses in the North Sea.
“This is of enormous importance, the Government was violating its own laws, failing to comply with the Paris Agreement and all our international obligations. Was it reported in the press? It was barely mentioned,” laments Parfitt. What did receive international media attention was the “attack” on the national historical treasure, which remained intact. A publicity success that, however, focused on the small damage caused to the glass and not on the denunciation of the government’s actions. “We live so immersed in this consumerist culture that people are more bothered by the damage caused to property than by the disruption to human lives,” reflects the nun.
We live so immersed in this consumer culture that people are more bothered by the damage caused to property than by the disruption to human lives.
Parfitt has lived for more than 20 years on the outskirts of Bristol in an 18th-century house. He occupies a modest apartment on the ground floor of the house that he shares, in addition to an electric car, with his landlord, wife and children. In the living room and over a cup of coffee with oat milk, the activist explains: “The objective of all actions is to highlight the climate catastrophe. We are counting the severity of the emergency in which we find ourselves. Otherwise, no one talks about it. How we do it is not important. We have to get the Government to stop the fossil fuel industry. It is an enormous task,” he acknowledges.
Born in another city in the southwest of England, Hereford, she has always lived between Wales and Bristol, where she studied History before training as a family therapist in Cardiff. She considers herself a “cradle Christian”, her parents were very devout, and as soon as she finished university she became a nun, although after two years she had to give up her habits to take care of her parents until their death. Later he became interested in psychotherapy, which he practiced for ten years, until he again felt the call of God and decided to study Theology.
Militancy in the DNA
You could say that this little woman has the militancy gene engraved in her DNA. A maternal ancestor was accused of sedition in the 18th century for inciting the working class to fight for their labor rights and the paternal grandfather, also an Anglican priest, confronted his bishop for wanting to bury someone who had committed suicide in the cemetery, something not allowed at the time, and ended up moving to another doctrine.
Her love for nature was instilled in her by her mother and paternal aunts, excellent gardeners, and her father, an avid birdwatcher. She has lost count of the number of protests she has participated in, but someone recently reminded her that she has been arrested 27 times since she joined the action organized by Extinction Rebellion that shut down traffic in central London for almost two weeks in 2019. He has also blocked access to Ministry of Defense facilities, boarded a tube car to paralyze service and disrupted traffic for several days on the M25 London ring road, the Europe’s busiest highway. “Surely now we have to add some more arrests,” he adds, smiling.
New legislation (the Crime, Police and Sentencing Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023), which expands police powers to make arrests at peaceful protests, prohibits activists from using the climate crisis as part of their legal defense and increases fines and prison sentences for civil disobedience, which can reach up to ten years in prison for disturbing public order. There are already at least 33 members of the Just Stop Oil organization sent to prison for non-violent protests. Extinction Rebellion co-founder Roger Hallam received the longest sentence in the United Kingdom last summer for planning the blockade of the M25 road: five years in prison.
“On the one hand you have these young people, who for throwing soup at paintings are sentenced to two years in prison and, on the other, agitators who are deliberately trying to hurt and kill immigrants by burning down the hotels in which they stay, receiving sentences pathetically short… It’s a disgrace. I think that in this country we have lost our minds,” Parfitt assesses.
On the one hand you have these young people, who for throwing soup at paintings are sentenced to two years in prison and, on the other, agitators who are deliberately trying to hurt and kill immigrants by burning down the hotels in which they stay, receiving sentences pathetically. short… It’s a disgrace. I think that in this country we have lost our minds
Sue Parfitt
— Priest of the Anglican Church in Bristol
Parfitt has several lawsuits pending. He never pleads guilty before the judge because he believes that it is the Government who is acting illegally. “I am here to tell the truth,” he states emphatically. The possibility of ending up behind bars is increasingly real, but she faces it with stoicism.
Cannot officiate ceremonies
Recently, this prolific activism has come at an unexpected personal cost. The Bishop of Bristol, Vivienne Faull, who had been supporting the actions, has decided not to renew the license to officiate ceremonies granted by the church to retired priests and deacons until their pending lawsuits are resolved.
“It saddens me to lose my license, especially this year, but the most significant thing is that, by taking it away from me, the bishop is putting the Church in a group – along with judges, the press, doctors… and the Government – that does not talk about the climate catastrophe. “This is silencing the truth,” he says in a clear and slow voice.
With total assets valued at around €12.3 billion, the Anglican Church announced in 2023 its intention to divest from companies related to oil and gas exploration and production, a decision that Parfitt considers correct. However, he is disappointed that he doesn’t go further with his actions. “If the whole Church had sat down to block the M25 motorway two years ago, we would have managed to thermally insulate all of Great Britain overnight.”
He considers that their actions are not violent but generally “extremely peaceful” and defends that they receive extensive training and plan actions with the aim of minimizing risks. Thus, when they cut roads there is always a clear path for emergency vehicles, paintings protected under glass are attacked and, in the case of the Magna Carta, she herself verified in a visit prior to the action that if the exhibitor breaks the document It would not be damaged, as it is protected by a second display case. “I would never have damaged the Magna Carta, I am a historian.”
Nor does he believe that his actions legitimize other groups to use violent methods to vindicate their ideas. “I don’t think for a moment that I have any influence over those horrible far-right people who have participated in anti-immigrant riots,” he maintains. He does especially regret the problems caused by the road closures, but justifies it as “unfortunately necessary.” “It is nothing compared to the disruptions we are going to suffer from the climate catastrophe.” He also sees no contradiction between his actions and his religious values. “It is a necessary pain to try to reduce the much more painful alterations towards which we are rapidly moving. “Scientists are alarmed because the speed at which the crisis is advancing is much faster than they had projected.”
He talks about the sixth mass extinction of species, the first caused by human activity, which he assures is underway with no turning back. “We can only delay the inevitable, he predicts. ”I want to spend my last years doing everything I can to stop harmful emissions,” he explains. ”What is the alternative, staying at home taking care of my cat? “I have not been called to do that.”
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