Facing World-Eating Machines: A Dialogue with Dr. Andrea Brock on the Hambach Coal Mine, Academia & Political Struggle
Figure 1:The Bagger 288 at the Hambach mine, surrounded by wind turbines. Source: herbert2512, pixabay.com
Editorial Note: This dialogue between Alexander Dunlap and Andrea Brock took place in August 2022. The interview was initially much longer and thanks to editorial efforts by Gustavo García-López and Rupture Press the interview has been edited for length. The conversation delves into the full-spectrum resistance against coalmining in the Rhineland, state/corporate repression against land defenders as well as how typically presents anti-extractivist struggles. This interview’s focus on militant struggle to extractivism and its intersection with the academy makes this a particularly welcome interview. We hope this discussion will cause critical reflection self-reflection from academics, but also within political struggles at large.
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Alexander Dunlap (AD): Dr. Brock, how long have you been working on the Hambach coal mine?
Andrea Brock (AB): I got to know the Hambach mine when I was a kid, because I lived quite close to the mine—in driving distance, not walking distance. In an area that was mined years ago, in fact, my parents’ house was built by a coal mining company. It is interesting, because when you go to where I grew up, you cannot immediately see it. You only start seeing it when you realize everything is recultivated, so the lakes – they are called ‘digger lakes’ – all used to be opencast mines. All the forests are planted; the woods are monocultures or ‘colonies’, as you call them.
The mine operator invested a lot in recultivation work, it became a local tourist attraction. My parents would sometimes take me into areas that were recultivated. Similarly, the mines became tourist destinations, what we called "extractive attractions," because my parents were also interested in those areas.
AD: When you say the mine, you mean the Hambach mine?
AB: All three mines, they are close to each other, part of the Rhinish mining area. And the Sophienhöhe, the big offset [nature conservation] area for the Hambach forest, was one of the major places we visited.
Figure 2. Sophienhöhe 2007. Source. RWE
Over time, I became a bit more politicized and interested in the politics around it. As a teenager, I started to realize what all of this was doing, the ecological and social damage. I became involved in anti-mining resistance. Then eventually, I went studying and many years later I became interested in the mine from a work/academic perspective and I started connecting the dots a bit more between my interest in the mine, my interest in resisting mining more generally.... not just those mines, but the supply chains of other mines.
AD: Yes, weren't you initially doing more things with nature commodification when you started your PhD. I remember, but I could be wrong, I remember in the beginning of your PhD you did not necessarily know you were going to research the Hambach Forest mine?
AB: Yes, not at all. It was throughout my PhD I realized the importance of mining companies for the development of environmental offsets, nature commodification and the use of nature conservation as a way to green wash and co-opt and repress resistance. So I had no intention of connecting my academic work and what I considered, at the time, my personal interests or passions and then it all came together in some ways.
AD: Ahhh, so this is a story of the personal is political, which is academic. Ohhh, [playfully] your feminist politics is deep!
AB: It all ended up coming together in unexpected ways and I ended up back at and inside the mine, literally, physically at the mine and with you, obviously... part of the time. It has been a full circle.
AD: And yes, I think your work has been commented on positively for riding your bike around the mine. The article said around the mine, but they did not know you also rode your bike, with some other nerd, from Köln to go around the mine to apparently gain greater ‘ethnographic depth’.
AB: Yes... that was important. Because you can see the mine, that is one thing. You can read about the mine, you can look at pictures, or even see footage or aerial footage of the mine, which is really interesting, impressive and horrifying. But it is a very different bodily experience to cycle around the mine, especially given the way that RWE, the mine operator, has shaped not just the mine, but the surrounding area and the places that had mined before and then been ‘recultivated’. Cycling through the recultivated areas is a really weird feeling, but also the abandoned villages. Cycling through the villages that are still there, struggling, leads to a very bodily and impacting experience that you do not get from just reading or interviewing, you know? You can really feel it. Obviously, the same with the trees that are cut down. Seeing the ecosystems that are being destroyed; seeing that hole, the world’s largest human-made hole in front of you... it’s all a bit of an emotional and bodily experience, not just an academic experience, you know?
AD: Yeah, I think for me—since I was there with you on some of that—is that riding your bike actually places you there. Kind of what you are saying, but in terms of like: "Okay, what if I lived in this village and I had to survive. I have to make fun here,” and I do not necessarily want to have a car. It really places you in this kind of (German) suburban dead zone and really helps you to understanding how trapped you are, how ugly it is or how dangerous it is to be biking on the road and if you did have to commute between villages. For me, it shows this banality of living in a space that is created that way, living in these little modernist kind of enclaves or hamlets that are created by the mining company. I mean, they are very common. We can blame it on the mining company [but it was an original feature of community development], but you can feel how shitty it is.
AB: You can feel it, and the second dimension of that is you feel and experience the nonstop surveillance and repression yourself. In some areas, it is impossible to cycle past the mine without having people in security vans... well depending where you are, at least look at you and sometimes follow you. Sometimes they will stop you depending on the time of the day, year and how close you get to the mine and all of that. That is the second part to that bodily experience and, then again, depending on where you are this obviously goes beyond surveillance too... physical repression and violence, beatings or whatever, depending on where you are.
AD: That is a super good point. These concept of model villages come from community development programs that are linked to counterinsurgency in terms of how to integrate people into capitalist models, how to organize space and spread modernist living that, as you said, is deeply tied into making things spatially legible and keeping track of people. And you feel this on the bike, yeah?
AB: Yes. You see and feel that when you bike between the old villages and the new villages. So Manheim Old and Manheim New, for instance. Old is an ancient village that has grown over time, with a more cohesive community and so on. And the new ones are just these artificial villages, you know? They don't have that character and you can see so much is lost between the old and the new villages. It has all kinds of political effects, including the concentration of land in fewer hands, owned by a smaller number of big farmers. Lots of small farmers are giving up their land and their livelihoods when they are forced to move. People are forced to sell their houses for less money than it will cost them to buy new ones. Some are forced to rent from RWE, rather than own their own houses because of housing price values and devaluations and all of that. But, yes, it feels very different.
AD: Could you describe the phases the mine has gone through, but also the struggles that have happened against it historically? I mean, I have written some things on this with you, so this goes back to the 1970s?
AB: Yes, the mine was approved really quickly in the rush of the 1973 oil crisis.... There was resistance from the very beginning, so there were local groups, that weren't necessarily really connected... It's a whole mining area, right? It has the Inden mine, Hambach mine and Garzweiler mine [hyper link: https://www.mining-technology.com/projects/rhineland/], and there were local groups against all of them. There was a quite a bit of resistance from some church groups as well, citizens groups trying to draw attention to this mining issue, like cycling around the mine and doing public awareness kind of things. There was little success, however, because coal was unquestioned and ecological concerns were not in the medial. Coal mining was so unquestionable... so there was not a larger resistance, direct action and more combative resistance that we have seen in the last 10-15 years.
But from the beginning there were local groups resisting for a decade or two, there were lawsuits against the operational existence of the mine. There were several different legal issues going on at the time, including the fact that the Hambacher forest, most of which as been destroyed for the sake of the mine, should have been designated a protected area under EU Natura 2000 legislation because of certain protected species that were in it but it never was. So there were different legal challenges going on, mostly pioneered by German Friends of the Earth group, BUND. There were, I want to say, in the mid-1990s there was some NGO mobilization around it as well. There was a big action by Green Peace against it and so on, but it was... a bit fluffier legal public attnetion kind of stuff. From the beginning, that resistance was very much repressed through various means. So information was being withheld, reports that were warning of the ecologically disasterous consequences were suppressed, their [WHO?] publication was stopped by RWE and politicians, who were basically inseparable from RWE. You cannot really separate RWE and political interests in that sense. .... From the beginning people who were speaking out, or speaking out too loudly, were being threatened and silenced. Some people were co-opted, there were outspoken critiques of RWEs projects who were coopted and began working with RWE on projects. There is a famous case in the 2000s of someone who worked for Greenpeace, who ended up developing a project with RWE. Then there is the more, we could say, combative resistance probably started in the early 2000s. There were groups doing actions around the mine, but also in cities trying to draw attention to insane socio-ecological destruction happening there. There were annual camps that started to get setup, which later became Ende Gelände camps.
AD: This is the stuff that started happing after the COP 2009, right?
AB: Yes. Then in 2012, ten years ago now, the forest was occupied for the first time to stop the coal mine from expanding and it has been occupied ever since. And it was to resist its destruction and to defend it, so it was self-defense really.
AD: So it was occupied in 2012, then there was a wave of evictions.
AB: Yeah, it has been evicted half-a-dozen times, which are known to be some of the most expensive evictions in the history of the German police. But it got re-occupied every single time, so it has been a continuous occupation in that sense. As soon as it was evicted, people always reoccupied it.
AD: Why were these the most expensive police operations in Germany?
AB: There are two parts to the occupation. The forest occupation and the meadow occupation. People built tree houses in the forest occupation, so in the last eviction I there where 5-6 dozen tree houses, 60-70, I am not sure, and they are very hard to evict. You have to have climbing cops that go up into the trees.
AD: So specialized police with little cranes.
AB: Exactly. And it is not just tree houses, there are all kinds of infrastructures in the trees with ropes, wood, tree bridges and special bit of infrastructure. There were also tunnels. During the first eviction someone stayed in a tunnel for four days, keeping lots of cops busy. It was a collective resistance obviously, but it was one person in a tunnel that kept them busy for days. Then there is a meadow occupation, which historically has been a safer space, although it was declared illegal and has been raided many times.
Figure 3. Some tree houses in the Hambach. Source: Leonhard Lenz/Wikicommons
AD: When was it declared illegal?
AB: I want to say 2016. Because basically RWE has been trying to get that piece of land for ages as it was an obstacle for the continued expansion of the mine. Well, firstly, it was a place from where allegedly criminal activity was planned and executed--that is the police language--and, secondly, it was obstacle for the actual continuation of the mine. Then the person, the land owner, spent years fighting legal battles against the state to keep this tiny peace of meadow with some structures on it, a kitchen, caravans and more. The reason why it was so expensive for the police is because of all the amazing infrastructures in the trees, under the ground and people being really determined, clever, passionate, engaged and risking their lives every single day on ropes and barricades. Oh yeah, the barricades was another reason why it was difficult for the police to get in and out. There are two sides to the forest, the self-defense and the more... antagonistic or attack side that is actually trying to stop the operation of the mine and the supporting infrastructures around the mine, which included everything from sabotage, putting things on fire and physically stopping the mechanics of ecocide, whether it is blocking security, RWE personnel or state employees; occupying diggers; creatively engaging with mining infrastructure in any possible way... yeah.
AD: Engaging you mean sabotaging and stopping it?
AB:Yes
AD: Alright, and just to be clear for myself, if I remember correctly people occupied the forest in 2012, right? Then the meadow was bought afterwards, right? The person bought the land...
AB: Yes, but it was not from the begging.
AD: ... as a way to support forest occupation after the first eviction? Does that sound right?
AB: Yes, that sounds about right. It was not there, as far as I remember, when the first occupation started.
AD: So there was the environmental and climate justice movement, but then the fact that people showed that they were serious by occupying the forest that it indicated it indicated to other locals who felt a bit more isolated that they were not alone? Maybe?
AB: Yeah, it has always been a complex relationship between the forest occupation and other forms of resistance, right? There is a lot of solidarity and support for the Hambach struggle, but the state has also managed to create certain divisions and play people against each other.
AD: Ouuuhh, tell me more? What divisions did the state create and how did they create them?
AB: So for instance the state, like everywhere, puts a lot of effort into dividing protesters into "good" and "bad," "violent" and "non-violent," "extremist" and "reasonable." Just like RWE is always framed as "rational" and "reasonable" and ready to have dialogue with the more moderate elements of the resistance as a way to divide and conquer the movement.
AD: Just like "bad" and "green" mining.
AB: Exactly. So they have always recognized and engaged, at least in theory because on the ground it looks very different, with the moderate or, what they call, the "reasonable" elements of the resistance. So, for example, citizen groups that are explicitly pacifist, or whatever, and people within those citizen groups are told: "We want to be in dialouge with you..., we want to meet with you..., we want to talk with you, but distance yoruself from the The Forest." So "The Forest" became a synonymous with forest defenders, which the company--and their employees--tried to stigmatize with labels such as "eco-terrorists," "eco-extremists" or the "criminal elements." This also extend to be labeled of "foreigners," "dirty" and all kinds of negative label making...
AD: Outside agitators.
Yes, the classic "outside agitators." So, for instance, the Communications Officer (CO) of RWE in the past has talked about the "foreign elements," like: "People coming from England or Eastern Europe to cause trouble." This is done to exploit existing xenophobic and racist discourses of foreign criminals coming into Germany, etcetera. So, RWE, is very much asking moderate parts of the resistance to distance themselves from The Forest and some of the actions coming out of the forest quiet publically, but also kind of less publically. RWE regularly would have press conferences where they would present alleged weapons, which was usually just rubbish by presenting things that found years ago or usually has nothing to do with weapons. #00:25:50-8#
AD: But they hold press conference to try and slander militant resistance [because it is effective].
AB: Yes, they hold press conferences, absolutely. They also have a neighborhood magazine, which my parents use to get a long time ago. Where they had illustrations of the resistance being violent and always presenting that narrative that they [RWE] is really happy to talk to reasonable pacifist types or citizen groups to coopt them. But these actions are "GOING TOO FAR... they are ENDANGERING THE LIVES of the employees," which are obviously a part of the local community.
Figure 4 ‘Opinion yes, vandalism no,’ RWE Power, 2013b
AD: Yeah, I remember an illustration in one of our articles. It is when people tie two cinder blocks to a metal wire and they go over to a bridge and throw the metal wire over the railway cables to short-circuit them. The train can then potentially smash into the cinder blocks and smash into the train. Obvioulsy it is a possiblity, but also unlikely it would actually smash the main windowshield and hit the train conductor.. Nevermind that people are trying to stop these trains from transporting coal.
AB: Yeah, yeah.
AD: But it was a militant struggle to stop the coal mine. There were strong direct actions. And this is the thing, there have been an enormous amount of committed direct actions against the mine for over a decade, but what were some of your favorites? Or, maybe some of the most intense actions that we do not often hear about? Maybe this goes into the next question, but we do not often hear about the heavy actions taken to stop the Hambach coal mine and maybe we will talk about this more later.
AB: Yeah, it is pretty astonishing how on the one hand, RWE and the state do a lot to display protestors as "violent" and "eco-extremists." Then, on the other hand, a lot of the stuff that is actually happening is never recognized publicly and, as we talked about this yesterday, this might be out of fear that people might realize there is actually a way to stop them or cost them a lot of money. And, of course, over the last decade the resistance has cost both the state--and think of all of those millions and millions of euros just for the evictions along--but also RWE so much money. And, of course, RWE itself is heavily subsidized and financially supported by the state in certain ways, and coal mining generally. So the resistance has been so incredibly expensive and a lot of that was through sabotage actions that were not talk about much publicly.
So my favorite actions? Hmmm... Its a good question. [Thinking...]
AD: There are a lot of actions...
AB: I think I like both the less accountable actions of people just destroying the infrastructures around the mine that make the actual operation of the mine difficult or impossible, but I have also been impressed with people going into the mine. Obviously, there are these big mass actions going into the mine that get a lot of media attention, like Ende Gelände actions, when 1,000s of people go into the mine. But you do not need 1000s of people to go into the mine to stop a digger or stop the whole mine, some times it is one or a few people. And I do think that is pretty amazing too, because those machines--thinking of the biggest mobile machines in the world--that are big, really scary and just insane and I think to stop those machines in mass is also really powerful, empowering and amazing. Yeah, so an ecosysem of actions, ideas, tactics and I think one of the nice things is that, despite all the conflict and tensions, they have always played together nicely around the Hambach forest. Not that the struggle is over at all.
AD: But there is not any particular action sabotage action, like a sabotage action that you were like: "Damn...."
AB: No, there is not just one that I am most excited about.
AD: Yeah, for me, one of the things that just blown my mind is the enormous amount of arson and sabotage that have happened to stop that mine. If you look at the right websites, just seeking key huge electrical cables for these huge machines or other infrastructures just burned to shreds. You can find thins information on ContraInfo or Act For Freedom Now, or just the amount of Police or Security Vehicles that were in the area that have been set on fire... I remember seeing an article where between 3 or 10 of them were burned in one night. Systematically burning electrical boxes, there has been so many stuff burned, so many sabotages going after coal transportation lines, picking a part the coal transportation rails... Hundreds, hundreds of these actions and you only know about these things if you look at certain anarchist magazines, websites or the Facebook pages of "German Workers Against Eco-Extremism" or whatever, and they will show you pictures of failed arson attempts to burn big parts of the machinery. And yeah, so getting more to the point of the question, I feel many academics, NGOs and Degrowthers, as I commented on once, downplay the level and duration of committed actions against the mine, why do you think that is? Because this is an important part of this ecosystem of actions that you mention, but why do people want to ignore the material damage, reducing the capacity of the mine and delaying it for unknown amounts of time through these night sabotage actions?
AB: Ummm. Firstly, I do not think it is a malicious type of ignoring. Unless you look at the websites you mentioned or more anarchist news sources or really talk to people on the ground, which is already a big political issue—apparently, academics do not do this well enough, fail to gain their trust and talk to them to have some idea of what is really going on. People might genuinely not be aware of all of all of that stuff, because it is not made public the same way as an Ende Gelände action, you know?
AD: That has the whole public relations apparatus designed to... #00:33:19-4#
AB: Yes, exactly. The press spokes people also, right? And that is the kind of stuff the media likes. They like to have a leader or someone who can speak for an action, right? Even if Ende Gelände claims not to have leaders, but you know, a spokesperson or media contact person or team, nice video footage, images and blah, blah, blah. So I think there is a component of genuinely not being aware of all fo this other stuff that is happing, all the arson, sabotage and everyday levels of destruction that is actually really costing RWE, the state and slowing down this ecological and social destruction. So there is an element of that and there is an element of not wanting to be associated with those more risky elements, you know? There is the fear of repression. If you speak out publically, you will get repression from the state. You might get in trouble with your job, your university, your ethical review processes and stuff. But, you know, there is also this kind of liberal idea that the pacifist environmental defenders are the "good ones," right? So there is that idea that environmental defense is good as long as it is nonviolent. As soon as it turns violent, it is only good if it is the past or in the Global South, so there is a really big racial or racist dimension of nonviolence.
AD: Yes, but a lot of the actions in the Hambach are nonviolent, with the exception of assaults against security guards, but then again people are defending the forest and security guards have tried to kill people with their cars. So many of these actions are truly nonviolent in terms of not harming human and animal life.
AB: Well, there are still too many academics who still look at property destruction as violence, right? That is something we all need to push back against anyways. Yes, but still, it does not fit into that image or mythology of peaceful environmental protesters. #00:36:04-3#
AD: Yes, but where does this come from? Is this just the liberal mythology that is designed to prevent social change and struggle from actually growing and making real wins and differences within these struggles? Because for me, you mention ethical review boards, but it seems completely unethical to whitewash these land struggles.
AB: I agree totally.... But I do not think research is designed to question these things. Our idea of research, and associated mythologies of objectivity and staying outside politically, are not helpful for critical engagement.
AD: Yes, they are. You do not need to be involved or anything like this, to F#%King acknowledge the level of surveillance, drones, policing, money, repression and abuse subjected against people in the Hambach or elsewhere is linked to their effectiveness at stopping the coal trains, burning the machinery, creating electrical shortages and things like this. These are facts. We are supposed actually provide, based on the liberal ethos of education, a clear understanding of what is happening on the ground. This type of knowledge could be a double-edged sword. It might not necessarily help people in land struggles, yet, at the same time, if we are going to have an honest conversation about social change I do not see academics, NGOS or whatever trying to whitewash or, pretty much, try to do a per-emptive counterinsurgency work or, in the case of academics, auto-counterinsurgency work from themselves. I do not see whitewashing struggles for middle-class sensibilities being constructive in terms of real academic research or towards understanding social change. #00:39:19-3#
AB: I absolutely agree, but I am just pointing out how it is discouraged in some ways, no? I am just think along the lines of why? And how? Because that is what you asked. I agree, it is f#%ked up but how do we explain it? I don't know. ... I am mean how do we explain it? #00:39:42-8#
AD: Oh, well the interviewee becomes the interviewer…. For me, I just don't think people are really thinking or I do not think they really care. I don't know why, but maybe because of their general backgrounds, class composition or because of their own personal life experiences or lack thereof. People within universities seem to not really be looking to see how this system is working to change, let alone stop its propensity for killing, torture and instituting drudgery. Because people attracted to, willing to endure or survive academia do not really intend to support others or actually stop these processes in their own life. Maybe their idealism and fight was disciplined out of them—academia is tiring. Maybe they swallowed the myth that these entities are too big to fall; there is no alternative whether consciously or subconsciously, or maybe academics themselves never really thought: " I will do everything in my life and power to stop this." This perplexes me if you are working in environmental conflicts. And if you are working for degrowth, it is crazy how certain land struggles have been omitted and/or are only focusing on the more social or left electoral politics side or the mainstream social movement approach. Even this is criticized from Latin America, specifically this term "social movement" as being a western construct, which is ultimately promoting a certain model of social change, protest conduct and pushes things towards big politics, electoral representation and political divisions of labor. For me, it seems there is a lack of commitment, a lack of care and, ultimately, curiosity in terms of what is going on in these struggles and, because academics tend to not understand what are labelled ‘insurgents’, disassociate from intense levels of life commitment. There is a lack of... and let us be honest, as we both know as researchers, this research is uncomfortable. Andrea, we have be trailed by weird people around the Hambach mine, we had to avoid a police check point before, border and visa statuses, drones and helicopters hovering over us, which is to say this research is not comfortable in anyway. #00:41:38-4#
AB: Yeah, I agree. I guess I am partly trying to find more structural explanations rather than—and you are not doing that—then just looking at a lack of commitment by individual researchers. Because I do think many researchers do care and are committed to these struggles, even if not nearly enough. Obviously, social scientists do not question status, capitalism and ecocide in that way. I do not know, but I think there has to be something more structural than a lack of commitment by individuals. #00:42:19-4#
AD: Or curiosity or interest, or interest in these aspects of struggle. #00:42:24-4#
AB: And possibly access as well. And that is understandable. The inherent distrust by combative struggles of academia and researchers is well warranted. Especially because most researchers just study the resistance rather than what they are resisting against. So I think that skepticism of social scientists and rejection of becoming research subjects is really healthy. In my view, there is little to gain from working with researchers outside specific circumstances.
AD: Definitely, I am all for people rejecting academics being around. Yet academic do not need to be there. I do not know, but I see this around the Hambach, but other places as well. I think it was Peter Gelderloos in his recent book, and the chapter of his we recently edited, where he is openly talking about how NGOs and academics are openly playing this role and ultimately supporting counterinsurgency strategies to minimize these struggles by making good/bad protester dichotomies and ignoring the level of commitment and illegality people are exhibiting. #00:43:49-3#
AB: Exactly. I think NGOs play a role in policing resistance movements. Peter talks about it through the counterinsurgency lens and that is really crucial, acknowledging how bigger movements distance themselves from more combative actions or even individuals. The way they have these action agreements or consensus--or whatever they are called--the kind of rules and regulations that are imposed on what is legitimate protest, often with an eye to pleasing the media, right? What is it that is going to give us popular support? What is it that is going to lead to favorable media coverage rather than what is effective in actually stopping the operations of this mine. And Ende Gelände is definately guilty of that as well. #00:44:38-8#
AD: Yes, I raised this issue with Philipee Le Billon at a POLLEN [2020] conference: Is raising awareness actually counterproductive to stopping these projects? Is raising awareness actually a misplaced effort to actually stop these extractive projects? Is this raising awareness actually a crazy kind of sleight of hand, I guess it comes from liberal ideology, that believes more information or more knowledge means creating results or social change. But in reality, it seems the more information and more knowledge equals the same or less results in terms of stopping extractive projects. Or if we think about the rise of climate youth and the popular recognition of climate change, but we see the continued acceleration of planetary destruction—no thanks to the green economy and the so-called solutions being promoted.
AB: It is an interesting point. I think one of the reasons with this battle around the Hambacher Forest and the continued destruction of the surrounding areas as we speak, like literally right now, they are starting to evict and destroy another village, trees and the habitats around it. I wonder, hypothetically and as a thought experiment, given how hard they are pushing through mining so fiercely and to give the image that environmental defense does not work. Because it has gotten so much media attention, there is so much attached to land struggles with the victories or partial victories around the Hambacher forest in 2018, which empowers people to see that direct action works. So it is not just about the coal that is actually being dug out, it is about the monopoly of violence or the absolute power of the state, RWE or mining companies in general who do whatever they want and not show weakness. So, if it had not been for all of that media attention, it probably would have been much easier for the state and RWE to take the forest or to extend the mine and that kind of stuff. I do not know.
AD: Yes, but at the same time there was at least five or six years... I do not know, what do you think? In terms of sustained militant engagement with attacking RWE and holding off police invasion or reoccupying after eviction.
AB: Absolutely. ...I mean do not get me wrong, the forest would be destroyed right now if it was not for that combative resistance. I am not saying the media attention saved the forest at all. I am just saying the media attention; it would be dangerous if the message got out that said: "All you need to do is resist and we will stop." You know? Does that make sense?
AD: Yeah, I mean, I guess it just goes back to what you said, stressing the importance of the diversity of actions within struggles from legal help and even NGOs to a degree. Somehow it always tilts in this direction in the end that stifles and ignores committed resistance. And that is the problem, this lack of respect. Being contracted by NGOs myself, I learned one of the mechanisms within them is the communications department, which are constantly censoring and holding a certain political line. Communications departments, among others, allows what messages go in or out of the NGO. Yet, somehow there is always this tendency, I do not know how to describe it—I am just raising it as an issue—there is always this tendency to wash away combative actions from institutional settings. Which in a sense, as you already said, makes perfect sense: these institutions have dark histories and purposes. At the same time, I can't make sense of it, because there are so many people that care and want to be activists and revolutionaries! People want to be all this stuff or engaged researchers, but somehow… somehow, here is where we are with all the rhetoric or revolution, degrowth and social change.
AB: I mean, what is the point of these NGOs if they cannot claim these victories, no? I mean the funding and PR departments, within the NGOs, are probably the most important parts, right? If they do not do that PR, they don't get that funding and if they don't get that funding they don't exist.