We spent four days outside Parliament with citizens from all walks of life: trade unionists, civil servants, NHS workers, church leaders and environmental activists from all walks of life.
As the public, we are there to demand an end to the fossil fuel age and change dictated by us, not for us: an emergency citizen rally to lead government action on society’s most pressing issues today. Do you believe that politicians decide the biggest challenges in your life?
Why would you do it when we can completely renew politics in a people-centered way. The Citizens’ Assembly — and the Citizens’ House — can create mandates to which the government must be held accountable.
Here we will find the will needed to repair our relationship with the natural world.
strength
Guided by science, we can choose to reshape our modern society. We can choose to accelerate the transition to renewable energy and keep carbon in the ground.
We can rekindle our connection to nature, we can redefine the way we distribute economic value, we can cancel debt and restore global justice. We can make up our colonial and industrial past.
We can lead those in power to take meaningful action. People are always ahead of politicians.
But how do we get there? For us, it’s as clear as day. You build a coalition that cannot be ignored, then you go to the center of power and refuse to leave. in that order.
Even if you don’t succeed, you win.recent research Published by Oxford University Examines the impact of the 2019 XR rebellion on public sentiment.
Study finds that sustained mass protests had a more profound positive effect on people’s willingness to take political action in response to crises than any other analysis – including extreme weather events, scientific reports, economics, news coverage, political announcements, global summits, nature documentaries and NGO Event!
promise
As we discovered last April, when we bring people together for collective action, the benefits are self-evident. The press barely notices, but we’re not optimizing for the press, We are committed to enriching the ecosystem of environmental groupsin a way we all sorely need.
We hold space for many causes other than climate and nature because we recognize that all our struggles stem from this broken political system, We can change.
so that’s sports strategy: Returning to our homes across the country in an effort to bring people together in the face of this crisis.
Form our new alliances and take root in our community.
Hold people’s rallies to link local issues to this emergency and bring people together in protest, whether it’s showing solidarity with striking workers or cooperating across the movement’s ecology. This is work.
In the meantime, we will be paving the way at some point in the near future when we are ready to return to Westminster stronger, wider and more determined than ever before to change the way everything works. Together, we will be impossible to ignore.
the author
Yaz Ashmawi is a member of the XR Strategy team. This article has been published through the Ecologist Writers Foundation. We ask for donations from readers to cover some authors’ work of £200.please donate now. You can learn more about the fund and make an application, on our website.
