Hey so I’m sort of getting involved in my local XR (Extinction Rebelion) group but I have to say after a couple of meetings I’m feeling like it’s not really my type.
I appreciate the enthusiasm and I like the ideas of how the organization runs in a decentralized way but I feel it’s very demonstration oriented. Nothing wrong with demonstrations but I starting to think that the time for that has passed.
I had a sort of idea of the group also having initiatives to promote empathy with the cause, teach about what people can do both on a personal and large scale. From personal decisions to give them the knowledge to use their local political power to make changes. I know that’s a bit utopian. Also I don’t have many alternatives where I live…
I don’t know. Is XR just a PR thing? All about making people either hate them or love them? Do you think groups like this make a difference?
I don’t know anything about the XR movement, but most movements need different types of activism.
Protests/demonstrations are important, not the least for visibility and statement, but they rarely lead to change on their own. Most movements need outreach, community, organisation, communication and planned action as well, which can take many forms.
As each of these parts require their own skill and effort, it might be that any local chapter might have to specialise in one or a few, and you might be better off doing your thing beside theirs’. With some good will and communication, you could probably get support morally and possibly more, and you’ll boost each other in knowing that you’re all fighting for the same cause, although on different battlefields.
For recruitment, it’s fantastic. A passersby at a protest can much more easily be invited to a book club or bike repair day or vegetarian cooking class, or whatever form you feel might serve the cause. Those events can in turn both be educational in something useful, and further both the movement and individual action.
Other types of activism also have their places in a cause, find a way to contribute, and consider that you can do more with more people and allies. Getting people to lobby government is cool, putting people in government could also be useful, and the more pervasive collective action, the more change you can enact.
Thank you, you made some pretty goods point which I’ll consider. Specially the building connections part!
While I’m not part of XR myself and I’m not a super fan, I still invite you to stay in the group, especially if you lack alternatives. You have a lot to learn, especially because you disagree with what you perceive is the general strategy.
XR is a movement that locally employs a diversity of tactics and it’s not a homogeneous, centrally-directed organization. So when you say that “XR is demonstration oriented”, you should understand it as an emergent property of the current situation in which XR is in, or at least your local chapter. It’s not like that everywhere, but especially it doesn’t have to be. While movements have their own DNA that is hard to alter, XR is relatively open to a diversity of tactics. Being part of a movement means also to have the ability to shape and direct its actions.
Let’s be more concrete: once you forge relationships in your local chapter and you gain trust, you can start proposing different kinds of actions and bring change in the org. Learning to do that is a lot of work and it’s far from trivial, but better doing it in XR than in a stale ML org full of old tankies. If XR identity is too far away from your proposals, you can gather interest for a side-project done with a different public identity: just because you meet people in XR and do stuff with them doesn’t mean you have to go public as XR. You can for example create a lobbying group on your local politicians that is easier to talk to than XR, and then bring XR positions into a city council, for example.
If you feel your local chapter has become a machine to pump out demos without a broader strategy, point that out. Ask what’s the long-term strategy, what’s the theory of change, how do they expect to make things happen. Ask them to point you to document in which they analyze that: if they have them, your questions will remind them that they should stick to the strategy, if they don’t have them push the chapter to set up sessions in which they develop their local strategy.
Diversity of tactics, if XR isn’t your thing, no big deal. Maybe there are some like minded people at the XR events to start something different with?
I’m actually in the the part of XR in my region most likely to do stuff like that but since XR in my country has very few people doesn’t look like I’m going to divert many to do different things but I see what you mean. I’m having an in person event soon so I may try to network in that direction.
Sounds like what you want is something like the transition town to me. There is a network of them around as well and you can find chapters projects. There are other groups in a similar vain as well, mainly ecovillages, which also have a network.. The difference being the former tries to transform existing communites, whereas the later wants to built new ones. Other then that green politics might also be an option.
As for XR they are really trying to get attention to keep the climate crisis in public discurs. That is certainly needed as we are not going to fix this crisis overnight. However obviously protest is more about destroying things, then building things, so there are limits.
You are right it’s kind of exactly what I was looking for, I will look further into that, thank you! As for XR I’ll push forward trying to build connections and meeting like minded individuals who might even be interested in adjacent stuff like what you mentioned.
I’m just afraid that it’s all destruction and PR stunts. I believe in demonstrations, up to a certain point. I just feel like they accomplish too little when they are generic. I read somewhere that XR UK was very poorly seen by general population which is a shame because a few years ago they weren’t (at least so much).
I’m afraid that the regular person is going over the hill of being concerned with the planet and just gets annoyed by road blocks and demonstrations fronted by young people to pretend throw paint at art and just give up. Because those people that are affected feel like there is little they can do about the big parts of it. I know the argument of union strikes civil rights protests but I feel like the public opinion is not going in the right direction.
In the end I feel that if there is going to be any hope of moving the needle of the big issues regular people need feel included and like it’s their cause too.
