Nonviolent resistance

Speech given at Extinction Rebellion in Trafalgar Square, with XR Writers Rebel, 11 October 2019

Adapted by Natasha Walter from Nicolas Walter’s pamphlet Nonviolent resistance: Men Against War, published 1962

Let us never forget the power of disobedience. The myths of Prometheus and Adam and Eve, the revolt of the small against the great, are some of the oldest and finest myths of all. And mythological disobedience is not mere nihilism. Prometheus brought fire to the earth. Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge and did not die, as their creator told them they would, but their eyes were opened.

‘Disobedience,’ said Oscar Wilde, ‘is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.’

Failure always haunts rebels, but we aren’t dead yet, and while there is life there is hope. Each step we take holds hope.

Gandhi said, ‘A nonviolent revolution is not a programme of seizure of power, it is a programme of transformation of relationships… A tiny grain of true non-violence acts in a silent, subtle, unseen way. And leavens the whole society.’

Our task now is to sow these grains, and this is what our movement is trying to do. Whatever doubts we may have about the effects of our resistance, our rulers seem to have none. They drag us about, and throw us into puddles and fountains, and fine us, and imprison us, and fear us.

And while failure may haunt me, any person’s rebellion strengthens me. We shall go on making our point until it is taken. We are a few, but a happy few. We are in debt, but not in despair. We make mistakes, but people who don’t make mistakes don’t make anything. We are not yet grown up, but we will never stop growing. We are one eyed, but we are living in the country of the blind. We are neurotics who defy our political parents, but they are psychotics, building worlds of fantasy which will collapse around themselves, and us. We are amateur incendiaries, but they are professional pyromaniacs.

We are living in a world where faith is always misplaced and hope is always betrayed, and somehow we manage to keep faith and hope alive. There is something here, created yesterday and creating tomorrow — but today, the struggle. The struggle is: ‘People against obedience. People against death.’ The story isn’t over yet.