For Manuel Cerréra-Marzal, specialist in social movements, distortion between the background, is the thermal renovation of buildings, and the form that the actions of this collective follows the blows of radiance, complicates membership in movement .
words collected by Magali Cartigny
Manuel Cerrera-Marzal is a researcher in political sociology, specialist in social movements. Author of new disobedients: citizens or outlaws? (The edge of water, 2016), it explains how last renovation is part of a long tradition, while innovating in certain aspects.
last renovation presents itself as a civil disobedience organization. Where does this concept come from, and is it new in the environmental movement?
The expression “civil disobedience” was invented by Henry David Thoreau, American philosopher and naturalist in the 19th century, who, for several years, refused to pay his taxes to the State slavery of the Massachusetts. He advanced the idea that what is legal is not necessarily fair, therefore legitimate. From Gandhi and Martin Luther King, non-violence was put forward, with the refusal to take up arms and harm the physical and moral integrity of the opponent. Civil disobedience then became a collective act, in order to reverse the balance of power.
In the 1950s, in France, the communities of the ark, which were inspired by ashrams in India, formed counter-skills which led non-violent anti-militarist actions. Civil disobedience was then used by other environmental movements, notably by Greenpeace, in the fight against GMOs and nuclear. However, these associations of yesterday institutionalized and normalized. Last renovation only resumes what its elders did, with this ambition of disturbance and congestion of justice. To be arrested by the police, to pass in trial, is an integral part of this strategy praised by the British Roger Hallam, co -founder of extinction rebellion, social movement and international ecologist, with the idea that the more arrests, more The support of the population and therefore the pressure on the State are strong.
How do you analyze criticism against them, on the counterproductive aspect of their actions?
Take it to the symbols of opulence like private jets, it can generate membership on the part of public opinion, but target the poor motorist on the device or a canvas of Monet, which is Died a hundred and fifty years ago, it’s hard to understand for most people. Hannah Arendt spoke of “indirect disobedience”: when you bother traffic or attack works of art, there is no obvious link between the background (thermal renovation in this case) and the form. This can disturb the message.
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