A reappraisal of soup-throwing
In 1906 the suffragette Mary Richardson infamously slashed Velázquez’s Rokeby Venus, in protest against the British government’s treatment of Emmeline Pankhurst. Richardson, who would become known as ‘Slasher Mary’, had this to say to the Times newspaper:
‘I have tried to destroy the picture of the most beautiful woman in mythological history as a protest against the Government for destroying Mrs Pankhurst, who is the most beautiful character in modern history. Justice is an element of beauty as much as colour and outline on canvas.’
Richardson went on to criticise the hypocrisy of those outraged at the defacement. How, she asks, can you decry the damage of a painting when real women are being tortured, suppressed and killed?
If you live in an egalitarian country where women are not only entitled to their vote, but to practically all of the same rights as men, then you will hopefully see where the young Miss Richardson was coming from. An injustice society needed to be exposed for its hypocrisy and cruelty and a painting is a small price to pay.
In the 2020s, climate activists in Britain are pilfering pages from the Suffragette playbook. Just Stop Oil, an organisation formed in 2022, is now widely known across and beyond Britain for its high-publicity stunts and demonstrations. These include superficially defacing public monuments and beloved artworks, and interrupting sports and TV events.
They are an offshoot of Extinction Rebellion (ER), a charity known for its large-scale public disruptions and targeting organisations with connection to the fossil fuel industry. The founders of Just Stop Oil, including the ER founder Roger Hallam, began to feel that a more radical approach was needed to attract the attention of the UK government.
To their credit, they have certainly achieved that. Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland are the latest activists to be handed prison sentences: 2 years and 20 months respectively. The Just Stop Oil members attracted feverish media attention in 2022 when they threw tomato soup over the Van Gogh painting Sunflowers in London’s National Gallery and glued themselves to the wall.
For anybody confused about what this is meant to achieve in terms of stopping fossil fuels, it’s worth reframing Mary Richardson’s question. What’s more appalling, the impermanent defacement of a flower painting protected by a glass screen? Or the biodiversity which is being irreversibly damaged by human actions?
Unsurprisingly, few are interested in engaging with this question. Even moderate opponents of the fossil fuel industry may find it hard to get behind these tactics which, rather than directly attacking the government or fossil fuel profiteers, use cultural treasures as their collateral. Even if you don’t care much for paintings, you are bound to be a bit irked by the spraying of Stonehenge with orange paint — never mind if it’s water-soluble! Or the severe public disruption that resulted from the four-day blockade of the M25. What exactly is Just Stop Oil’s game?
To which you could say that they aren’t angling for public support — it is the visibility of the message that matters. In an interview with Social Change Lab, one member explained how demonstrations that involved targeting infrastructure — petrol stations and oil rigs — received very little media attention:
‘We hate having to rely on the media, but right now we need our messages in the heads of as many people as possible and that doesn’t happen without the media being used as an amplifier.’
They bring up the ‘radical flank effect’, a term was coined in the mid 70s to describe how extreme feminist groups could make more moderate parts of the movement seem reasonable by comparison. It applies to radical Black rights organisations in the 1960s, and possibly also to support for climate charities — while JSO blockading the M25 did not earn them much praise, it was reported that the less-militant Friends of the Earth benefited from increased support.
Just Stop Oil is never going to bring the UK government to its knees. That’s not the point. They are one fragile vessel carrying an urgent message. They are forcing their way into the public discourse because dialogue about our dependency on fossil fuels is being suppressed and downplayed. They are cutting through the noise to sound the alarm for emergency. Without it, we are left with complacency.
They are also highlighting an even more pressing problem with our democracy: that our right to protest in Britain is being eroded. The Policing, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act of 2022, the Public Order Act of 2023 and the Serious Disruption Regulations introduced by the previous Conservative government are worrying obstructions of what should be a universal right. Those who are celebrating the imprisonment of protestors they think are annoying may want to ask themselves if they would take the same stance towards those who have spoken up against Putin’s violent regime in Russia? Or the Hong Kong citizens jailed for speaking up against China’s extradition bill?
Punishment is to be expected for some of Just Stop Oil’s stunts — it is the strategy of the organisation to break the law in order to attract attention, and to be prepared to go to jail for it. Yet the UK government has inched closer to authoritarianism with their restriction of protests that are ‘more than a minor disturbance’. Unfortunately, it seems these laws are meant to quash protest that is deemed too leftwing. Whether they are repealed by the current Labour government will say a lot about how far they’ve shifted from the values that their party is built on.
Meanwhile, activist groups will continue to look for the words to describe an unprecedented global injustice, and to describe their own frustration with failing to move their government or the public into action. Drawing parallels to previous activist movements, such as the suffragettes, can both be reaffirming. However, there is a sense that they are fighting on unfamiliar territory. Raising the alarm is only one half of the equation — how will they encourage policy change when the defense of fossil fuel industries is so embebbed into the workings of so many governments?
Tomato soup is probably not the longterm answer. As things heat up, activists will need new methods to get their message across.
