Sure, they block SUV drivers on the way to Kudamm shopping or prevent unnecessary car trips to the bakery with their blockades. But “The Last Generation” with its anti-everything protest at the same time prevents the way to the doctor and blocks the mother with three children on the way to daycare.
Every day, the activists ensure hours of blockades in major German cities. Many get a piece of the fear of doom – but the fight against individual drivers does not change the structures. And the anger of the many grows. Who does this help?
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Berlin’s head of government, Franziska Giffey, and her interior senator, Iris Spranger (both SPD), are demanding tougher penalties because of their anger – the Berlin judiciary rejects the political interference. Good this way. The rule of law also applies to all those who challenge it to the limit.
It should slowly dawn on those in government that people who are very afraid of climate conditions that are hostile to life should not be fined. A look at the burning forests and the Berlin drought statistics is enough to see that the alarm scenarios of the climate activists are probably more credible than the eternal appeasements. But even the right goal needs many allies.
Even organizations that vehemently advocate climate protection are now criticizing the blockers. The actions would lead to the “division”. But that doesn’t go far enough: Of course, civil disobedience is allowed to divide. The well-behaved climate protests by Fridays for Future ultimately had too little impact. But for the goal of drastic climate protection, it makes little sense to antagonize all those who are needed for the fight.
A look at history reveals the difference to successful industrial action: workers often blocked the gates of large factories or destroyed production machines.
If the workers had followed the same logic as The Last Generation, they would have glued themselves to their colleagues’ front doors to keep them from going to work. It would have been a labor dispute in the spirit of the big business – against the individual, not against those responsible.
For lack of alternatives, many still need the car. Therefore, there is no point in fighting individual drivers.
It would make more sense to protest against Audi, VW and Co., the manufacturers of ever larger cars, or to go to the Ministry of Transport, where the FDP is preventing a real turnaround in traffic. But in addition to the climate policy slowdowns, some climate protection fighters from the field of logic have apparently also said goodbye. That doesn’t help the climate.
