The Degas protest was an urgent message
In the rush to paint the activists of Just Stop Oil as vandals complete with four photographs the May 12 editorial, This is not a protest , missed the point of the movement and the message. As the great American historian Howard Zinn said almost 50 years ago, from time to time when grievances became too deep, groups of people had to go outside the machinery of government, had to break the law, had to commit civil disobedience in order to dramatize something that was happening. Young people today feel a sense of urgency about the climate crisis that none of us who have already lived our lives can fully appreciate. And though some might laud President Bidens climate actions as better than those of his predecessors, he approved the massive Willow oil and gas extraction project in Alaska at a juncture in our civilization when this is unacceptable and counterproductive to saving our planet. These young people want a future. They are throwing soup on paintings protected by glass, then asking why you are more outraged by this than the inaction on climate. As Just Stop Oil spokesperson Alex De Koning said, channeling Zinn: Massive resistance is how women got the vote, how African Americans got the vote, how we got health and safety laws in the UK, as well as gay rights. ... All of this has come from massive resistance, and thats why its so important. Its why more than 120 lawyers in the United Kingdom, facing sanctions for doing so, have signed a declaration saying that they will not prosecute climate activists for exercising their democratic right of peaceful protest . To these lawyers, Just Stop Oil activists are not vandals. They are heroes fighting a desperate last stand for our future. Even Post art critic Philip Kennicott was more forgiving . He wrote in his Oct. 15, 2022, Critics Notebook, When climate activists attack art, they affirm its power : But the anger behind these attacks isnt irrational, and it isnt expressed blindly. The global climate situation is dire and getting worse. Though it need not be the only priority of governments, it must be the foremost one. And if you look more closely at how these attacks are executed, its clear they express more a desperate love of art than mere rage or contempt for it. Instead of patronizing these mainly young protesters like a school principal with unruly students, the editorial should have showed them some respect. And thanked them for doing what many of us would dare not. Linda Pentz Gunter , Takoma Park