What does this kind of 'symbolic action' really achieve?
The Pacific Warriors had no illusions that the blockade would bring about a shift in the politics of coal in Australia, or a transformation in the attitudes of Australians by itself.
So, what does this kind of symbolic action really achieve?
This website argues that
(1) the pathways between an initial vision of securing a safe climate and eventually achieving this goal go through a process of
- changing the ‘political climate’, including the ‘climate of opinion’—the way we ‘see’ coal and climate change and creating shifts in the ‘public imagination’
- building a powerful social movement
(2) cultural power is important for making both of these happen.
Cultural power dramatises, pictures and narrates the issues, redefining what is at stake, firing the movement and de-legitimising the fossil fuel industry. If this work is not done powerfully, what are the consequences for climate politics?
The Pacific Warriors’ blockade was a vivid example of cultural power in action. In a number of ways, it belongs to the same tradition as Gandhi’s Salt March and the US civil rights movement.
The blockade’s most direct impact was on:
• building the climate movement
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- enthusing and ‘capturing the imagination’ of climate campaigners
- building the climate movement in the Pacific and in Australia, as well as in settings worldwide.
As Aaron Packard of 350.org argued, as a result of the blockade there was ‘a fight on for the Islands’, that had not previously existed.
As well, the blockade contributes to the ‘pathways’ to achieving change referred to above by:
• doing the kinds of cultural work that is often essential for creating conditions where other shifts can occur:
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- dramatising the problem and its causes
- making the issues visible
- providing a basis for redefining climate change
- eroding the reputation of coal, building a culture where fossil fuels are seen as illegitimate and dangerous – where their social license is lost.
This cultural work is politically important because unless it is done, the conditions to effectively exercise other forms of power may not eventuate – for example there may be insufficient political will, political momentum, depth of public concern or a public sense that ‘this is a crisis that we need to address’.
The Pacific Warriors blockade was one of many events which have contributed to this process, though it stands out as a vivid example. To expand on the points above:
Movement building
(1) Movement-building impact in the Pacific
See Building and energising a movement in the Pacific.
(2) Movement-building impact in Australia
The blockade propelled a series of campaign events in Australia immediately afterwards, involving a major divestment initiative, public forums and a series of protests at locations including: the Brisbane River, Whitehaven coal, the Minerals Council of Australia, ANZ Headquarters, and Buru Energy.
The work that was launched by the Newcastle blockade has continued in Australia since then:
- The Pacific Warriors have been active in Australian school strike events.
- 2016 saw the Breakfree protest, which the Newcastle Herald reported as the biggest anti-coal protest in Newcastle’s history, and Counteract rated as ‘the largest single act of civil disobedience in the history of Australia’s climate movement’.
- 350 Pacific has built links with Pacific diaspora in Australia.
- Ahead of Australia’s 2019 federal election, the ‘Breaking Ground’ tour travelled through key electorates in Queensland. The Pacific Warriors hold forums in Brisbane and Rockhampton, attracting hundreds of participants, and tour through key electorates.
- The Pacific Warriors have actively supported the Stop Adani campaign.
Shifts in the political climate
Some indications of shifts in the political climate include:
- a May 2016 editorial in the Newcastle Herald which argued that gradual policies that delay decarbonisation are unlikely to be sufficient, and concluded: ‘Whatever coal industry leaders think of the protests, they must realise that their industry is losing its social license’.
- In 2015, Newcastle City Council announced it would abandon fossil fuel investments, and called on its major banks to divest from fossil fuels.
Clearly, the Pacific Warriors’ blockade was one of many initiatives in Newcastle over the years by a range of groups that have campaigned to end the coal economy. Some of these initiatives derive their power from strength of numbers. Others use stories and images to change perceptions. The combined effect is important for achieving the goals of the climate movement.
The kinds of ways in which the blockade provided a basis for redefining climate change are preconditions for creating a political climate where other political changes can become possible.
Importantly, at a time when the Australian anti-coal movement was beginning, and when the Stop Adani campaign was yet to be launched, the Pacific Warriors focused attention on coal as central to the problem of climate change, and prompted concerned Australians and Pacific Islanders to respond. For a campaign against coal like the Stop Adani movement to develop, ‘stopping coal’ first had to be ‘imagined’ as a climate movement goal.
The cultural power of the Pacific Warriors blockade, like the cultural power of other movements such as the Leard Blockade and Lock the Gate, established a sense of the need to stand against fossil fuels, why it mattered and what was at stake.
The same question of “what does cultural power really achieve?” could be asked of events like Gandhi’s early work in South Africa, the role of imagery in the antislavery movement in the US, or the 1947 Journey of Reconciliation in the US, a precursor to the 1961 Freedom Rides. Each example set a movement in motion, creating a cascade of subsequent events and defining moments and images which shaped the future direction of social movements and the societies they influenced.
The steps towards the goals that these movements achieved later were politically important for creating the conditions where it became possible to achieve the final goal.