It’s long been known that Greenpeace environmentalists are condescending, know-it-all activists, who believe to hold the moral high ground, to be the keepers of the truth.
That sort of mindset has led Greenpeace activists to a false belief they are above the law, that their perceived law is supreme to everyone else’s. Time and again Greenpeace activists have been arrested for illegal activity only to be let go the next day. Unfortunately that ritual of always being set free almost immediately and knowing you have the full power of Greenpeace’s formidable legal team working tirelessly on your behalf have only emboldened Greenpeace activists. Now comes Russia.
Slowly realizing that the situation this time is different, that his activists aren’t going to be walking out of their jail cells like heroes anytime soon, Greenpeace International director Kumi Naidoo is softening the tone. Compare earlier comments to those of today:
Earlier comments from Naidoo before he realized the seriousness:
– “…we believe that intensifying peaceful civil disobedience is not only ethically justifiable but morally necessary.”
– …the world needs people who are “prepared to go to prison, put their lives on the line if necessary, in the struggle for climate justice and addressing the reality of runaway catastrophic climate change“.
– “I make no apologies, by the way, the fact that we are morally and ethically having to break the law, because history teaches us,...”
– Russian authorities are making “absurd accusations“.
Now today, realizing that the situation has become very serious…
– “They, we, Greenpeace, do not believe ourselves to be above the law. We are willing to face the consequences of what we did, as long as those consequences are within a nation’s criminal code as any reasonable person understands that code to be.”
“- My own personal history as a young activist in the anti-apartheid movement has taught me that dialogue is paramount, that in the interests of finding a common understanding we must be willing to talk.”
Suddenly he has stopped viewing Greenpeace as being above the law. Now he wants to engage in dialogue. Imagine that!
I am so very pleased that we do not give them charity status in my country of Canada. If you live in a country that does, start writing letters.
Change of tactics only. He would still believe that “Greenpeace is above the law” but has now realised that Russia isn’t falling for the usual huffing and bluffing.
So he now tries to appear as the reasonable one and paint Putin as the bad guy. There is an australian expression I would normally use on his chances, but it wouldn’t mean much to other readers, but it means that his chances over outsmarting Putin are very slim.
“but it means that his chances over outsmarting Putin are very slim”
I would say slim to none, and Slim has left the building.
“I make no apologies, by the way, the fact that we are morally and ethically having to break the law”.
Kumi Naidoo shares his disregard for laws with Karl Marx:
“Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of the conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property, just as your jurisprudence is but the will of your class made into a law for all; a will, whose essential character and direction are determined by the economic conditions of existence of your class ”
http://creation.com/marxism-law-and-evolution
It is a very stupid idea to try to impress Russians with Marxism-Leninism. They have a number of experts in that area.
[…] to raise awareness of it could possibly be deemed irresponsible and disproportionate. (Though as Pierre Gosselin notes at No Tricks Zone, he appears to be developing a more emollient line now that he knows that Russia means business and […]