Reparations Rebellion

I have just got on the tube at Brixton to head back to Old Street in North London.

What happened today in Brixton was quite extraordinary and it will take us many weeks and months to process and to see the effects.

I think my favourite moment was ChantalIe (?) couldn’t quite hear her name because of the music (in the yellow dress in the picture, middle right) not only giving a very moving and proper vote of thanks to XR for the support we have given today and then segueing, with only a brief dramatic pause for breath, into berating her own community for not getting out of bed on time.

“These people were here at 7 o’clock and were ready to block nine roads for you”,

she said,

“and you didn’t turn up until the afternoon”.

“Next year” she said,

“you will all be here at seven.”

The scenes we saw today were unthinkable even a year ago. Everybody was behaving better. And they were behaving better because Extinction Rebellion has modelled a different way.

The white owning class rebels, the black working class rebels, the police, the public, everybody. Everybody behaved better than was even imaginable a year ago. It was a joy to be a part of and it’s consequences will be far reaching. It was one of those days after which nothing is ever quite the same again.

It will, as I’ve said take weeks and months, and years to fully comprehend what happened today. And I hope that XR will take some of that time to ask ourselves whether, in the light of today, it really is necessary to risk losing everything (as they have in the States) by adopting a divisive and now possibly, before we have even adopted it, an outdated “Fourth Demand”.

At the very least nothing definitive or irreversible must be done before September

Today was a seismic shift and it would be a great disservice and betrayal of the people out on Brixton Hill today to ignore their contribution to our debate and press on with our business as usual regardless.

Let us pause the discussions. Focus our energy on September and then, as of course we must, take stock and see post Rebellion that if the XR that exists in late September, really is the XR of six months ago that so badly needed what the fourth demand is designed to deliver.

On the evidence of today I would happily place a small wager that says it is not.