Translated material
The muscles of solidarity
During this epidemic, we all urgently need the medicine of solidarity, a vitamin of solidarity. Take every day. Even if someone is unusual, even if you seem to have not yet got sick. But the air is already poisoned, and you need to fight for a healthy environment - in every sense. This is the prevention of a terrible sensation, on which, honestly, I caught myself - when these repressions and arrests go such a series that they turn into a familiar background, when the pain threshold is overcome and the pain from what is happening dulls. We cannot give up. We can not lose and give our comrades. You never know whether the action of solidarity will remain with a symbolic action or it really will help. It is important to understand, on the one hand, that this is only an element, in any ecological campaign, system work, many painstaking, not visible to the eye of actions: information work, investigations, requests, courts and much more. But shares of solidarity are a very important element. This is what helps to see the top where you, risking health or even life, try to climb.
One of the last stories where we can now and where it is extremely important to show solidarity is the sentence to the ecologist Evgeny Vitishko , who was recently sentenced to 3 years of colony. Amnesty International recognized Vitishko as a prisoner of conscience, devoid of freedom in connection with his civil activism. From February 28 to March 7, shares of solidarity will be held with a demand to release Evgeny Vitishko and stop the persecution of Russian environmental activists. Today, about 20 cities of Russia and the world have joined, please join in your cities. It is necessary to tell what Evgeny Vitishko, an activist of the "ecological shift in the North Caucasus", was persecuted and convicted, what an important struggle for the preservation of nature of the Krasnodar Territory and Sochi he led. How she unfolded, worsened during the Olympics and the active campaign of persecution of other Ekovakhta members continues. Everyone heard about the verdict to Evgeny Vitishko and Suren Gazaryan by 3 years conditionally for damage to the fence, which, according to ecologists, was established illegally and behind which the deforestation underwent under the protection of the forest. Those who are familiar with the details of this story consider a change in the deadline from the conditional to the real politically motivated, connecting it with the publication of the "ecovakhta" report on the consequences of the Olympics for the nature of Sochi . You can find out the details and join the action on the activatics portal launched by Evgenia Chirikova and her associates.
In the struggle for Hoper, we had several large shares of solidarity. People who we do not know and who do not know us took to the streets, and stated that Black Earth and Hoper are very important for them that they are against the methods of those operating by the UMMC, that they support the desire of local residents to alternative, environmentally sustainable development of their region. These shares of solidarity were very important for everyone - for us, for them, for business. People around the world supported the struggle in the defense of Hopra - first 30 cities on September 22, 2012 , then 30 cities on April 21, 2013 . On March 4, 2013 there was a special action of solidarity - when with posters "UMMC, hands off the Hopra!" People came out of those cities that are also fighting against the actions of this company. We went beyond the hoper - against the backdrop of dumps of the UMMC Electrozink enterprise - activists from Vladikavkaz, who have been fighting for many years against pollution with heavy metals and other dangerous compounds. The inhabitants of Alagira in North Ossetia came out against the UMMC plans for the construction of a cement plant in the resort zone and who, like in Khopra, were refused a referendum. People who were fighting with pollution with emissions and unauthorized burials of the downstairs from the Suma (part of the UGMK) went to Revda in the Urals. We went out in Pervouralsk, in the area of which there was a gathering from the rails of fourteen tanks with sulfuric acid, some of which flowed.
Having learned about dozens of battles against the interests of a big business in order to maintain nature, we felt connected with each other. Regularly, this connection is materialized when, for example, activists of Chelyabinsk arrange a rally in order to tell about the indignation of local residents by an ill -conceived plan for the construction of the Tominsky GOK, and come to the Cossack eco -camp on the Khopra. Khoper and the Urals are far away, but we know that the lion's share of copper, like Nickel, is exported abroad, and the profit of enterprises to Cyprus offshores. And we hear the same false accusations of paying, unpatriotism and amateurism, no matter how authoritative scientists support the popular struggle with their arguments. This connection is materialized when activists of Hopra, North Ossetia and Ufa, where there is a struggle against the construction of Kronoshpan, are friends and go to visit each other. Together we learn to act in this "wild field", where there are no rules where you can have a criminal case, because you defended nature, discuss tactics, victories and defeat lessons.
We are fake about some unknown "spiritual scrapers." And we, thanks to these stories about the protection of nature, feel how much we are all really connected.
Solidarity is a cure for the principle of "divide and rule", which is constantly tested for us. And if you do not do prevention in time, this ancient principle works clearly and cynically. Find the lines of the split and hit them, and we suddenly begin to look for what shares us, and not what unites.
The Khoper history showed that people who have become activists involuntarily and still not fully representing the inventive cynicism of the system that they are trying to fight, in the event of the arrest of activists (especially if there are different circumstances “circumstances painted” with helpful media), subconsciously suddenly want to separate from those who turned out to be persecuted or under arrest, suddenly recall some errors of this person. This is an unconscious self -defense, the naive hope that if you "disorder", then you will not be touched. Dangerous error. Of course, each case is special and you need to critically understand, but it is important to be honest with yourself and not inventing out why it is better to keep silent or why this does not concern you.
Solidarity is similar to the spiritual muscle, which all the time must be trained and developed so that at the right time it does not fail. Eco -activists remind me of climbers who climb to the tops, sometimes prominent only by them. It seems like it is normal on Earth, but they need - up, in the fog, into a storm, in avalanches. Where we are all in the same bunch, and you do not know when and why you can break down, and whether you are insured. We can not lose, you can not give our comrades. When we lose them, we lose ourselves.
Tatyana Kargina - Director for the development of the movement of ECA , participant in the movement "in defense of Hopra"