This past Friday, the 24th of September, the Fridays For Future climate movement held its first global day of action since the start of the COVID pandemic. Using the hashtag #uprootthesystem, protestors took both to the streets and to online spaces to demand intersectional climate justice. Two of our bloggers, Samuel and Kasia, attended in-person local actions in Gothenburg and New York, respectively, and we are dedicating this post to an interactive discussion about their experience, looking at Fridays for Future (FFF) and their activism within the context of digital media and development. Check out our video podcast for the full discussion: 

 

A little bit of background on Fridays For Future – the group is “a youth-led and -organised movement that began in August 2018, after 15-year-old Greta Thunberg and other young activists sat in front of the Swedish parliament every school day for three weeks, to protest against the lack of action on the climate crisis.” Many of us have seen those powerful images of Greta sitting outside parliament in the early days, as well as more recent images of her departing by sailboat across the Atlantic Ocean to address World Leaders at the UN General Assembly. Greta Thunberg is arguably the most visible climate activist of our time and she’s become a powerful leader, engaging youth in the charge against climate change and building a strong global movement.

Some of the most interesting and salient points coming out of our discussion:

  • The actions appeared to have less in-person participants than in past actions, and the atmosphere among the protestors was more of frustration at the lack of progress and tangible change since the start of the movement in 2018. 
  • At the same time, we should consider whether the success of FFF’s action should actually be measured by sheer number of participants (though it is important to note there was still some 800,000 participants worldwide) and whether lower participation levels could also be an indication of people’s reticence to join large group meetings in light of the COVID pandemic.
  • FFF has been able to maintain consistent, yet localized, messaging that builds off of their stated aim of intersectional climate justice, but also addresses immediate concerns in the specific location where the protest was held. 
  • Though it is a youth-led movement, our bloggers noted that there were a variety of ages represented – teenages, parents with young children, older adults – which speaks to FFF’s ability to mobilize support across a variety of demographics. 
  • While participants were actively documenting and sharing content on the protests via social media, and organizers employed new digital tools (for example, crowdfunding platforms to support activists), the events relied on more traditional protest communication methods – cardboard signs, songs, chanting, etc. – and many of the young protestors with whom our bloggers spoke were adamant about the importance of showing up and participating in person. 
  • FFF also arranged a digital global strike for this activation which attracted around 60 participants from various countries and gave them an opportunity to connect and to discuss issues like mental health in small groups.

While attending the protest in Gothenburg  our blogger Sam spoke to some participants, asking, “what do you think is more effective, online or onsite activism?” Below are some of the responses: 

 

Per, Anna and Louise (16) at the Gothenburg FFF protest.

“Online you can reach a lot of people, but I think you need to meet people in person to make them really care about something. When you meet in person and it’s like a big group of people it’s more powerful than online because you can really see all the people that stand for these things.”.

Phoebe (30) at the Gothenburg FFF protest

“I think online and onsite activism work together in creating movements, so you need to use both. Both have really good tactics by themselves, but with the Corona crisis we’ve had to move online and find spaces where we can talk about the crisis we face and connect to organizations to work against capitalism and create a vision of the world we want to live in. Online you can easily despair because you’re not connecting with people in real life, so it’s important to actually turn up and meet people in the flesh.”

Did you attend the global action last Friday? What was your experience and what are your thoughts on the questions we discussed? Let us know in the comments below!

3 Comments

  1. These are all very interesting discussions, looking forward to read more on your blog these next couple of weeks. Here, I post three thoughts I wrote down after reading this. Perhaps you find some of them interesting?

    The slacktivist supporters of FFF – Yeah, what about the ones liking or sharing a post on a FFF demonstration. Do you believe people to be either slacktivists or real activists, or can they be both? They are perhaps both clicking on stuff online and engaging in offline activities? And why is an act in the online world sometimes thought of as something less real than, and sometimes even disconnected from, the offline one?

    I was quite inspired by Zeynep Tüfekçi and her discussions on ”slacktivism” in Twitter and Tear Gas. Pure online political action is often mocked as “slacktivism” or “clicktivism,” actions that doesn’t require that much effort or commitment. I think that discussion is quite focused on privileged people, because sometimes clicking the like button is not easy at all. For example, in a repressive country it may be a very brave act to like or share a controversial statement.

    Also, symbolic action online is not necessarily without power. When liking, sharing or updating our profile pictures with a statement, we send a cultural signal to our social networks, and over time, ”such signals are part of what makes social change possible by changing culture”. Also, for many protesters, an online political interaction is the beginning of the process of becoming more engaged in politics.

    FFF does what successful movements have done – A lot of the FFF success is similar to that of Los Indignados, thoroughly discussed by Thomas Tufte in Communication and Social Change. I’m thinking of the transnational solidarity and glocalization, how the glocal approach of connecting the global dialogue with the local demonstrations is successful in creating togetherness and relatedness. How they connect local demonstrations with the global movement in order to amplify the reach and impact of the local initiative.

    Also, the successful dynamic synergy between the digital, online space and the physical, offline space. The online space is needed to organize the offline demonstrations, which create content for the online space, which contributes to more publicity, which leads to even more engagement in the offline demonstrations. People gather together both in digital and physical public spheres, which increases a feeling of belonging, both locally, nationally and globally. They create both unity and togetherness, creating both a public space on the squares and an imagined community.

    Critique of the FFF heavy focus on science – I have come across a twofold critique on the FFF focus on science (Don’t listen to us, listen to science), one being merely rhetorical claiming the movement has the right goals but wrong words, while the other is more a complex discussion on the role, heritage and power structures of science.

    The rhetorical one: https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/opinion/students-climate-strikes-right-goals-but-wrong-words/

    The other one: While preparing my podcast on Decolonizing Design, I am reading a lot of Arturo Escobar, and in his Designs for the Pluriverse he criticizes the naturalized belief in science as the foundation of all true valid knowledge in modern societies. The monopoly of modern science and knowledge works to make indigenous, local, and traditional ecological knowledge invisible. He discusses the link between these hegemonic scientific practices and the violence and oppression in non-Western contexts. To summarize the paradox of focusing on science in the FFF movement: Organized science is increasingly dependent on market-based vested interests, which is what put us here in the first place and is working against solving the whole mess. Modern science and technology have potential to find non-oppressive forms of culture and societies, but their eyes have been blinded by their own monopoly of knowledge and dependency on neo-liberal free markets…

    Wow, this comment became a bit longer than expected, but perhaps you found some of it useful for a further discussion?

  2. Viktor thanks for such a thoughtful and insightful comment! On your first point about the value of digital activism – I’ve just made a post on this very topic, and maybe once you’ve read it we can engage more on it over there. 🙂

    On your second point on transnational solidarity and glocalization – I too was impressed by the way that the messaging Kasia and Sam talked about at their respective protests sites was both grounded in the local context, but still in line with global messaging and demands. The movement seems to be strong in this aspect, which is critical for coherent and consistent messaging.

    On your last point, I had not heard critiques of FFF’s focus on science, but this is truly interesting. It gets at the same point we come back to so many times in our studies – who is producing the knowledge? Or in this case, who is producing the science?

    Lauren

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