The XR activists in Berlin’s Invalidenpark rehearsing for a protest action with oil cans during the “Autumn Rebellion”.
Image: Agata Szymanska-Medina
Do climate protests still have a chance in times of multiple crises? Especially now, say the activists of Extinction Rebellion. What does it look like up close when they engage in civil disobedience?
An one autumn day, Inti, 40 years old, a health scientist and a permanent employee, decides to break the law. She can’t do anything else and doesn’t have to do anything about it. Just stand still. Wait for the police to come. And ask yourself: Does that bring anything?
A few hours earlier, seven men are sitting on beer benches in Berlin-Mitte, in Invalidenpark, and are nervous. Because the autumn rebellion is about to start, and because they need an adjective first. All around, concrete glows in the sun, and a few meters away, freshly washed cars drive past. All seven have the same phone number on their arm: emergency number for the GeSa, the prisoner assembly point, in case they are taken into custody. What nobody hopes for.