ManilaLitMag

by Alexandra Herzog-Diomidis 

Last summer, like every other summer, I was looking forward to visiting my home country: Greece. From turquoise waters and long sandy beaches of the Ionian and Aegan seas to mountain landscapes and lush forests: it is undeniably one of the most naturally beautiful countries in the world (although I may be biased to say that). I associate Greece with many of my most cherished childhood memories. Late night drives back from the beach, watching the sun set, jumping into the crystal-clear ocean, celebrating traditional Orthodox Easters and many birthdays amongst family and friends. 

These memories of my favorite place are often what I depend on to get me through the cold and dreary winter days back here in Belgium. But the more summers, Easters and birthdays pass and the older I have gotten, the more I have started to understand how much Greece is truly struggling, year after year with the extreme weather conditions caused by climate change. Every Summer I see more wildfires from the airplane window, must stop at the side of the road to pick up more dangerous trash and hear of yet more family and friends affected by fires or floods. The rescue services are stretched to their limits every year and often locals resort to taking their own measures to protect their homes and their crops. Even though I try my best to engage in these efforts by joining the night watch, I still cannot help but feel like maybe some more drastic measures are necessary to prevent these horrible conditions. It is clear to me that there is a desperate need for change. In a way I started to understand why activists would feel the need to take more drastic measures… 

These frustrations got me thinking: How far is it justifiable to go in pursuit of a good cause, like – for example – promoting action against climate change? 

Historically seen, there have been many instances of revolutions going to extremes. Take the Reign of Terror in late 18th century France for example. It started in the pursuit of equality and a more democratic government that would serve the people.  Unfortunately, the measures used to obtain this were extremely violent. Looking at the official executions alone, almost 17,000 people were killed and that figure is estimated to be much higher when considering all the unrecorded deaths. Thousands were imprisoned or executed without proper trial and many more died in the bloody massacres that were spreading across France. The estimated total death toll rests anywhere between 30-50 000 people, although the Reign of Terror only lasted approximately 10 months.  

You might be wondering how any of this could ever be justifiable. However, if you were to ask Maximilian Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety, they believed this extreme form of violence was a necessary measure to weed out counterrevolutionaries and protect the revolution from internal and external threats. In Robespierre’s own words: “terror without virtue is fatal, virtue without terror is impotent”. He believed that a true Republic could not be established without the use of terror as its foundation. This notion led to a Revolution that saw enemies everywhere and led to exactly what was meant to be changed: oppression. So, although the drastic measures seemed to be justified to Robespierre, they didn´t have the desired effect. By the end of the Terror, French citizens were still impoverished, starving and oppressed, even though they had been told this was the fault of counter-revolutionary conspirators. The intense violence and purges deeply divided French society and led to political instability. Public support of the Committee of Public Safety therefore decreased and eventually Robespierre’s execution marked the end of the Reign of Terror.  

So, we can conclude that the Reign of Terror is one of the cases that was unnecessarily brutal and went way too far in pursuit of what was originally intended to be a good cause.  

Then again, there have been many other cases, where strong and often illegal measures had to be taken to bring about necessary change. One of my favorite examples of this are the suffragettes, who fought for the UK women´s right to vote between 1903 and 1914.   

Although the majority of their actions were peaceful, they gained a lot of publicity and attention for their more violent acts. The Suffragettes were known for having smashed windows, burned public buildings, disrupted political meetings and handcuffing themselves to railings. A few of museums and galleries were even forced to shut down temporarily because some women would slash paintings in protest. There were even a few incidents of suffragette violence against individuals. But it was this willingness to break the rules that ensured that the issue of women´s suffrage remained very high up on the agenda. As Emmeline Pankhurst claimed in one of her trials, “We are here, not because we are lawbreakers; we are here because we are lawmakers”.  Taking these more extreme measures was arguably not only necessary to grab the media’s attention, but also to defend themselves. There were increasingly more instances of men physically attacking female protesters. A key example of this was a day that later became known as “Black Friday” when policemen and bystanders of an organized march in 1910 met women with a lot of violence. Hundreds were badly hurt, and it even resulted in some deaths. However, despite the risks they were taking, these protests were a key element in bringing attention to women’s rights and it was probably justifiable to break a few windows in the process of doing that. 

Now, tying this back to the present day: there are also some modern groups taking radical measures in hopes of inspiring change. You might have heard of the climate gluers, part of the “Last Generation” movement. The group’s tactics involve gluing themselves to roads to disrupt traffic, halting airport operations in some major German cities and dumping fake oil in public spaces. These protests have led to significant disruption and drew negative reactions from politicians and the media. Activists often faced large penalties and received a lot of criticism for potentially being counterproductive and alienating future supporters. But these responses have shown that protests like this are gaining a lot of attention, and the group now has much more of a platform to call upon people for action. Despite the controversy, some may even argue that radical actions like these are necessary to apply the needed pressure on governments to meet climate goals, especially when considering the severity of the crisis.  

The question of using “direct action” to achieve progressive change has always been a debate.  History has shown that change sometimes requires bending the rules, but at what cost to society’s values and stability? What might once have been considered a radical or extreme idea, often ends up becoming something we consider necessary and true. Revolutionary ideas often start as a minority view and if people in the past had not spread them, even by using force, we might not have been able to see them as something natural now.  

At the end of the day, the line between justified activism under necessary circumstances and reckless extremism is thin and often blurry. Ethically speaking, what one is willing to sacrifice for the greater good is a matter everyone must settle for themselves. The challenge with this is to ensure our pursuit of justice does not undermine the very principles we are fighting to protect. 

Alexandra Herzog-Diomidis is a sixteen year old high school student with an interest in history, economics and philosophy. She is fluent in German, English, and Greek and enjoys fencing, theatre, volunteering, and creative writing.