Purpose of Autumn Rebellion
In the last national Actions Working Group meeting on March 10th, I asked actions organisers from Extinction Rebellion Western Australia and XR Meanjin (Brisbane) what they were hoping to achieve with their actions of the week of March 22.
They were grappling with the challenge that they did not feel they had the organising capacity to shut down their cities for a full week. XR WA were planning 3 solid days of disruptive action, and XR Meanjin / Brisbane were planning an action a day for the 5 week-days.
Goals
These are a composite of goals stated by the group:
- Bond and solidify new local groups
- Build momentum towards future actions
- Build the numbers of active participants in XR groups
- Upskill organisers and groups and learn through practice
- Try out new ways of doing actions
- (XR WA) Build a working relationship with SS4C WA for cooperation on future actions.
How did they do? I had a chat with Rob from XR Meanjin on tuesday, and Gerard from XR WA this evening, to get their opinions.
XR Meanjin
Rob said that despite natural disasters washing out the majority of the week’s actions, he felt positive about the process that had gone into organising them.
A collection of Brisbane-based local groups had coalesced as a cooperative force in the preparation for the week of actions, and had become truly action-ready. On top of that, the focus on preparing a week of action together had enabled the local groups to develop cooperation between groups on the collective project.
The actions that were washed out can be re-scheduled to a future date, with mature actions plans ready to go. The group was also intending to carry out one of the scheduled actions, which happened this morning (pictured above). (I’ll be looking forward to the debrief).
The Brisbane local groups will be meeting with a rebel from XR Sydney’s money rebellion to discuss actions targeting banks in the near future.
XR Western Australia
Gerard felt that XR WA had had a good three days of actions. People were needing some rest but were feeling overall very positive about the three days.
The mass-disruption action on monday included a welcome-to-country in the middle of a busy intersection, followed by a die-in and roadblock. 28 people were arrested in this action, sitting in the road. Gerard felt that this action went a long way to bonding and building the many local groups who took part, while also engaging a lot of new rebels.
The group had a home base in the Supreme Court Gardens (though not camping overnight), and used this to launch a series of smaller affinity-group based actions on the tuesday and wednesday (and had a party).
The smaller affinity group actions had a bit of a struggle with harsh police treatment. It seemed the police did not want to make arrests on the tuesday and wednesday actions, so instead were ripping glued-on people off the tarmac and pushing rebels off the roads. Since the actions were relatively small they were somewhat overwhelmed by police force and unable to disrupt for long. On top of this, one of the tuesday actions was assaulted by a white supremacist, although the police took him away. Gerard thought the police and white supremacist violence might have been a bit frightening for new people. The actions groups will be having a bit of a review of tactics to use for small affinity group disruptions.
However, the base in the gardens worked well for making connections between people, the food crew worked really well and the communal meals really helped make a sense of community.
The mainstream media also gave them a huge amount of prime-time coverage which is useful for building momentum and numbers.
There’s a debrief locked in for XR WA on the weekend, and rebels will be having a bit of regen time. Gerard is happy that they didn’t try to push for disruptive action throughout the week, as he was feeling a bit stretched by the end of wednesday.
Overall Gerard thought XR WA had achieved their goals for the days of action.
Wrapping Up - What goals are being achieved?
Over the next few days I hope to check in with rebels in Adelaide, Hobart and Sydney, as well as Melbourne when their week finishes to touch base and find out what their actions organisers have been thinking about the week.
I’m hoping we can do a good quality evaluation of the week, for some organisational learning to improve our strategy and structure into the future.
I’m curious what goals people have had for the week? What benefits do you think have been achieved? What challenges have been run into? What learnings can we take away as a movement?
Please let me know in the replies below.
