[IMC-UK-Features] “Big Wedding vs. Big Oil” - feasture

[ben]

I'd like to propose a feature from todays 'wedding' blockade. There
will be photos, reports and video going up over the weekend. Press
release and flyer online now.

Press Release: 19th September 2008; 12 noon


"Big Wedding vs. Big Oil"


Ludlow, Shropshire:  At noon today, on the forecourt of a Shropshire
Shell petrol station, a Leeds couple will tie the knot, supported by
around 100 friends and family forming a blockade of the petrol
station. Max Gastone and Cath Muller's ceremony in Ludlow is a protest
against the ecological and social damage caused by Shell (and the
continued use of fossil fuels) and also a  commitment to creating a
different world and a celebration of the power of community and
resistance.


Shell has a horrific record of causing environmental damage and human
devastation worldwide2, most famously in Nigeria3.  But today the
wedding party is specifically taking action in solidarity with the
people of Rossport, Ireland, where Shell is trying to lay a
dangerously high pressure gas pipeline, despite massive local and
international opposition4. Local people have had their land
compulsorily purchased and many have been beaten and imprisoned for
resisting the destruction of national forest, peatland and
ecologically precious mudflats - which could be avoided by building
the refinery at sea.


Banners reading 'Give us a wedding present – use your bike' and
'Celebrating a future without exploitation' will be hung from the
station.  The wedding will include music, readings, a teach-in about
the situation in Ireland and a ceremonial action against the petrol
company.  Cars are most definitely not invited!


ENDS


Notes for Editor
1.Cath Muller: 07882 794815 or maxandcath at hotmail.com
2.http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2005/apr/03/oilandpetrol.russia
3.http://www.essentialaction.org/shell/report/

  and Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People: www.mosop.net
4.Shell to Sea campaign - www.corribsos.com
5.Text of the flier being given out at the wedding (below)


What's wrong with Shell?


You can be sure of Shell to have only one interest – MONEY- making
profits from whomever and whatever they can.  Over the hundred years
of its existence, Shell has been at the forefront of human, animal and
ecological abuse.


Shell in Mayo, Ireland


Since 2000 the people of Erris (on Ireland's remote northwest coast)
have been resisting Shell's plans for an on-land refinery, served by a
terrifyingly dangerous high pressure gas pipeline.  Their land has
been compulsorily purchased by the Irish government and they have been
beaten and imprisoned.  The government is letting Shell extract the
gas for free, destroying national forest, peatland and ecologically
precious mudflats to do it.  The Irish people will not see a penny
from the sale of their natural resources.  A local headteacher is
currently on hunger-strike and her husband will take over if she dies.
 And all because it would cost Shell two weeks' worth of profit to
build the refinery at sea.



Shell in the Niger Delta


In 1993, having had villages destroyed by the laying of pipelines,
farmland and rivers polluted by oil spills and air polluted by
gas-flaring, the Ogoni people of Nigeria forced Shell virtually to
abandon their land through peaceful protest.  Shell provides nearly
half of Nigeria's foreign income and of its military revenue.  In
1994, after meeting with Shell, the Nigerian government announced
"ruthless military operations."  Shell supplied the guns.  Dozens of
villages were destroyed, hundreds of people were massacred.  Shell
offered to secure the release of nine key campaigners (including Nobel
prize-winner Ken Saro Wiwa), if they called off the global protests
which had erupted.  They did not, and were hung in November 1995.  The
peoples of the Niger Delta continue to resist.


      But it's not just Shell...
BP, Total, ExxonMobil, Elf and Esso all have Nigerian interests.


Total & Texaco's operations in Burma support the military
dictatorship, which uses slave labour to clear rainforest for oil
extraction in return.


ExxonMobil & Chevron support the dictatorship in Chad and opened a
pipeline from there through Cameroon's pristine rainforest in 2003.
This has opened up the forest and its communities to illegal logging
and poaching and the influx of a largely male workforce has introduced
diseases, including widespread HIV infections.  Human rights abuses
have increased in both countries with the flow of oil money.


BP invaded Australian aboriginal land and has also supported the
Columbian security forces to get rid of opposition to its destruction
of the Amazon.


Texaco is also not averse to mass Amazonian devastation and forcing
out indigenous peoples, embargoing Ecuador in the '70s until the
government gave in to all its demands.


Now that the ice is receding due to global warming, all the companies
are turning their gaze on the Arctic Wildlife refuge in Alaska and
other opportunities that will arise in the Arctic.


All these companies profit from our defence of their oil-fields in
Iraq and from the the scramble for control of the gas supply line
through Georgia and Azerbaijan – many more wars will be fought over
resources and there will always be an excuse of sovereignty or
democracy to back up the aggressors.


Why do we let this happen?


We are paying these companies to fuel our addiction to fossil fuels.
But we are hurting ourselves too:


9 people are killed on the roads every day.

1 in 10 British children now has asthma.

Our sedentary lives have contributed to a massive rise in obesity.

Motor vehicles burn half the world's fossil fuels and climate chaos
due to carbon emissions is beginning in the UK. As flooding and storms
take their toll, we are feeling the effect directly.
Our collective psyche must be damaged if we can accept murder,
torture, pollution and the destruction of the planet on which we
depend – just to carry on our comfortable lifestyle.
We have allowed ourselves to become utterly dependent on fossil fuels
for everything – our heating, food, textiles, power, movement,
entertainment, healthcare.  We are completely at the mercy of global
money markets, corporations and rapidly decreasing natural resources.



There are positive, creative alternatives


Today we are celebrating the future and the power of community, love
and resistance.  Two of us are getting married on the forecourt of
this Shell petrol station to symbolise our commitment to creating a
different world, based on equality and co-operation:


where people give according to ability and receive according to their need

where work is fulfilling and creativity encouraged

where there are no hierarchies or authoritarian politics

where other beings and the earth are valued and respected in their own
right rather than abused,
hunted, polluted and exploited for fun or greed

Where there is no discrimination and everyone has an equal say in the
decisions which affect them

Social Alternatives


This is anarchism and we believe it is the best way out of the
problems currently facing society and the planet.  Non-hierarchical
societies have always existed, although the remaining few are under
threat from the ever-hungry capitalist system.  Anti-authoritarian and
community resistance is as old as time and the concept of 'anarchism'
(no hierarchy) has been around for 150 years.  An ever-growing
community is learning from all this history and putting ideas into
practice – we invite you to explore this further.


This wedding is an expression of the power of community. It is
bringing together a diverse set of people in a celebration of the
future we are building.



Practical Alternatives


Anarchist & non-anarchist groups all over the country (and the world)
are showing how communities can take control of their land, their food
and their lives and protect the earth for our future.
Community-supported agriculture projects, food co-ops, shared
vehicles, bike training, Local Exchange Training Schemes, climate cafe
discussion/action groups, alternative energy co-ops, permaculture,
Holistic Management, housing & worker co-ops, Transition Towns – the
projects and the ideas are growing and multiplying.


We do not believe that reform will ever succeed in changing a system
fundamentally committed to the abuse of humans, animals and the planet
- if not in Ludlow, then elsewhere in the world, hidden but still in
our name. All of us must change the way we think, live and love.