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Have you heard the slimy, green news?
Last Friday, a glob of green custard-y goo was hurled at Britain’s business minister Peter Mandelson.
But this wasn’t part of some innocent and wacky game show a la Nickelodeon’s “You Can’t Do That on Television.” This was an angry protester waging war against the new runway being built at London’s Heathrow airport. And her easiest target? The man in charge of it all, Peter Mandelson.
This wasn’t the first controversial protesting stunt pulled by Leila Deen. The pudding-lovin’ protester is from a group called Plane Stupid who has been actively staging a series of protests against Heathrow’s new runway. Their mission is to keep carbon-spewing planes out of the atmosphere.
Surprisingly, the viscous victim, Mandelson, remained cool after the attack remarking to reporters that,
It could have been nastier. Whilst I'm prepared to take my fair share of the green revolution on to my shoulders, I'm less keen on having it on my face.
Though I applaud any activist’s passion and dedication to creating change, I definitely believe Plane Stupid’s in-your-face sort of method isn’t the best. In fact, it’s exactly this vicious behavior that can give the green movement (or “revolution” as Mendelson called it in his public statement) a bad rap. And can we really afford it? For all we know Mandelson came off cool and collected for the purpose of being in the public eye, but we can’t be certain how this may have changed his environmental outlook. For all we know, he might hate everything having to do with mitigating climate change now. And where does that get us in the end?
I’d prefer to see Leila Deen and the Plane Stupid team taking protesting cues from Planet Green and using subtler yet still effective measures. We can do the same in our activism by:
1. Not becoming pretentious green asses
3. And engaging in respectful, relational activism
Doing these will also keep us out of court. Since last Friday’s incident, the custard-hurdlin’ protester Leila Deen was arrested.
Via: Yahoo! Green
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