WORLD WORLDWIDE CZECH News Journal Update - (en) Czech, AFED: For non-growth and the right to laziness - Speech at this year's anarchist May Day (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 Today, on Labour Day, it is appropriate to remember that it is labour under

capitalism that is disrupting our world. Just as the labour movement had to fight
for the eight-hour day, we are in a phase of class struggle where we have to
fight for de-growth and the right to be lazy, not just because of the moral side
of things, but for nothing less than the survival of humanity. ---- The public
debate on climate has shifted over the past few decades: whereas since the 1960s
oil companies have been hiding and denying the climate change caused by fossil
fuels, today we read on Shell's website how it is investing in renewable energy
(what we don't learn is that it has also invested millions of dollars in
additional oil and gas production over the past year). Green capitalism not only
fails to address social problems, but more importantly we see that the concept of
endless growth and true sustainability cannot go hand in hand. It is like
well-meaning and generous "altruistic billionaires" giving large and even sincere
handouts to the poor, while their businesses are causing poverty and misery
themselves. Capitalism, even with human and wannabe green face, kills, and we do
not forget.

Environmental disruption is not a thing of the future, it is happening now, and
it is primarily the countries of the global South that are feeling it most at
this very moment. The idea of continuous economic growth does not kill directly:
apart from totalitarian states like Russia and China, there is not a single
capitalist leader who orders who is locked up in a gulag. The rich don't sit
around a table and think about who to execute today. That is the greatest danger
of liberalism, which gives us the illusion of individual responsibility. The
illusion that we have to start with ourselves first, even though it is the
richest 1% who cause more emissions by their lifestyle alone than the poorest
50%. Unlike this 1%, many of us have no choice. Many workers have no choice but
to contribute, consciously or unconsciously, to the destruction of the world
because precarious work is a matter of their own survival or feeding their families.

It is drilled into our heads that work itself is a worthy and respectable cause.
This is why entrepreneurs are so celebrated: after all, they have "worked hard"
and we too can be entrepreneurs and do "something useful." Those who do not work
are branded as parasites to society, in short, bad and despicable people who can
be left to lie in the gutter with a calm heart. Maybe the society will have some
mercy and give them a pittance if they promise to integrate into society, in
other words, to return to the rat race. Ironically, however, it could be the
people, who choose to work less, who are delaying environmental disaster and
saving our world. Working less and lazing around more means sand in the gears of
capitalism, unsustainable growth and profit for the richest who plunder the
planet for their own gain. Without capitalist slavery, there is no economic
growth and therefore no environmental catastrophe!

Limity jsme my have long advocated energy democratization. But collective energy
governance is not meant to be just "some cooperative" but presupposes a whole
diversity of community life and non-hierarchical organization. Thus, it is not
enough to subsidize people's solar panels, nor is it enough to expropriate energy
companies, however right first step that would be. As long as people are
economically unfree - having to sell their time in this world, their energy and
their bodies - in exchange for survival, without the right to do nothing, they
will never have the capacity to create communities that can resist this
oppression. Likewise, as long as people do not have the space and time to share
and learn from each other, and are instead educated in the current school system
that primarily socializes everyone into a submissive, subservient position, no
one will know how to actually create such communities. If we don't break out of
this vicious cycle, there will never be a truly just green transformation because
we will all just work ourselves to death.

Anyway, this is not meant to be a lecture, and even in Limity jsme my we are
still discussing these things, and that's fine. Revolutionary struggle needs to
be full of experimentation, trying new things and being playful. Even revolution
is supposed to be fun and idle! There are countless ways to show resistance, just
don't be afraid of imagination and give free rein to creative thinking. Occupying
the EPH headquarters and singing to that billionaire dick Kretínský to pay his
taxes... organizing a climate camp full of lectures, happenings and friendship...
resting on a blocked excavator or on the roof of the coking Plant... finally,
even taking a nap in a pre-trial detention cell... All this is just the tip of
the iceberg of resistance, a resistance in which any of us can participate. Let's
break down oppression and have fun while we do it!

Environmental activism is necessary for the survival of humanity, but why not
have fun and take a nap? Let's create resistance, solidarity and fun, not capital
for the richest! Let's organize, let's unite, and let's remember that what we
don't fight for, no one will give us!

https://www.afed.cz/text/7929/za-nerust-a-pravo-na-lenost
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