Dear
potential readers,
the last few
days the kids and me, are preparing a small magazine about ecology. For this
reason, I suggested we watch a
documentary talking about the first environmental movement in USA, the Earth
Liberation Front. The movie is called “If a tree falls: a story of the earth
liberation front”, directed by Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman. For this reason,
and since this week is dedicated to environmental issues, I would like to talk
a little bit more about the movement of Earth Liberation Front, since there are
few contradictions in its actions that made me think about it twice.
Most of us, including myself, are having USA in our minds connected with mass pop culture,
with the industrialization and the commercialization of almost everything, with
capitalism, with the deification of
ownership and profit and at last with geostrategic power plans under the
surveillance of NATO and its armament supernumerary. Though, we forget that USA
has been the land of the first organized movements in the latest history,
concerning animals, women, workers, race, sexuality, gender identity and the
environment and many of the rights that we enjoy nowadays are derived directly
from those courageous movements.
The Earth
Liberation Front is one of them and it is a radical environmental movement that
developed from the ideological factionalization of the British “Earth First!”
movement of the 1990s. The first ELF was founded in Brighton in the United Kingdom in 1992 and spread to the rest of Europe and USA by 1994.
Its ideological underpinnings are based in deep ecology, anti-authoritarian
anarchism highlighting a critique of capitalism, a commitment to non-violence,
a collective defense of the Earth, and a warranted feeling of persecution by
State forces. “Deep Ecology” teaches that all living entities, human and
non-human, have equal worth and value and an inherent right to live and
prosper. Its’ roots to anarchy can be found in the way they chose to organize themselves.
There was no formal leadership, hierarchy, membership or official spokesperson
and it entirely decentralized. Instead it was consisting of individuals who
worked in affinity groups, known as cells, and were usually self-funded.
ELF was for the ones who participated, an eco-defence group
dedicated to taking the profit motive out of environmental destruction by
causing economic sabotage and guerilla warfare to businesses which are
exploiting and degrading the environment. Such businesses were the ones who are
involved in logging, genetic engineering, GMO crops, deforestation, sport utility vehicles, urban sprawl, energy production
and distribution. The ELF was classified as the top "domestic terror"
threat in the United States by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in March 2001 and its members were
categorized as "eco-terrorists".
Their first attack
occurred in October 14, in Oregon, during the Columbus Day, when the United
States citizens are reminded of their colonial roots. In one night, individuals
carried out three simultaneous attacks targeting a Chevron Station, a public
relations office and a McDonald’s restaurant. All three targets had their locks
glued and their property painted with political messages including a three
letter calling card, E.L.F. From that time on many other sabotages followed such
as the one in Oregon, where the Oregon Ranger Station was burned down and the
Ski Resort in Vail, Colorado, that cost 12$ million. Their eco-sabotages
continued from 1996 to 2009 with the total of 300 attacks. Though, the target
has always been the property and this is the reason why not even a single human
was injured or died throughout their operations.
It is easy to
see a contradiction in the theory and practice of this movement, but it is also
easy to see contradictions in the way businesses act under the protection of US
governments. Is it possible to support
non violence, when you burn down numerous properties of businesses? And on the
other hand, is it possible for an industry to make profit out of the
exploitation of our environment and animals, without taking the right
precautions in order to restore the damages? Why is it terrorism to burn down
an industry that harms our environment and degrades our living standard, while
it is not a terrorist action when the industry is causing environmental
downgrading? But this article is not an objective angle over the situation,
since there is no objective angle in journalism in general, even if many people
tend to believe so. Every writer is a subject and according to his or her
ideological beliefs offers a quite subjective angle over specific topics and
situations.
Violence-both
in order to defend oneself or to attack- has been a very important weapon in
peoples’ hands. It is not only used in order to bring injustice, through dictatorships
and wars, but it is also used in order for the people to fight injustice or
even in order to restore justice through collective and violent protests and actions
against their oppressors. We should have always in mind that if it wasn’t for
the storming of Bastille the French Revolution wouldn’t have set off, or if it
wasn’t for the deliberation revolutions, our countries wouldn’t have their
independence nowadays, or if it wasn’t for the persistent anti-bias of Gezi
Park protests, the dream of a non authoritarian Turkey wouldn’t still be alive
and if it wasn’t for the violent protests of the workers in Chicago in 1886,
today workers wouldn’t have gained the right to strike.
In almost
every country of the world, the state power--the government--is the greatest
source of organized violence. States have armies, whose main purpose is to use
violence against other state armies. States also have police forces, whose
purpose is to use violence to control the domestic population, under the
justification of protecting our National Security. Moreover, there is that bias
of the political choices, that lead people today to unemployment, that legalize
social exclusion and injustice, that lead people to forced migration while on
the same time there are strict migrating legislations, and that political
choices that create a large gap between the rich and the poor ones.
The state is
producing a violence that is pointing us and we are experiencing its results in
our everyday lives. Instead of accepting our position as victims we have the
right to defend ourselves and fight back- sometimes by using peaceful ways and
sometimes when our patience is over even with violence. We are not the
terrorists, we are just the products of a world based on terror.
The question
stays- are they heroes or terrorists?
You are the
ones who hold the answer.
sources: "The Earth Liberation Front: A Social Movement Analysis" by MICHAEL LOADENTHAL
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