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The Rise of the ‘Stunt Protest’

by James Alexander
12 May 2024 11:06 AM

The ultimate form of political protest is murder. I only need to instance Julius Caesar and the Archduke Franz Ferdinand for the point to be made. England was a murderous place before the Conquest. But in England since the Conquest (apart from Becket, a few Kings and a few Statesmen) there have not been many grand political assassinations. Riot was much more common, especially when murder went out of fashion after the Civil War. In the early eighteenth century, defenders of the old order burnt chapels, and in the late eighteenth century, they burnt Joseph Priestley’s house. In the 1810s, the Luddites broke machines, as did the Captain Swing rioters in the 1830s. Note: until this point all riots tended to be about the restoration of original rights, or a defence of traditional England. But afterwards rioting became the province of the progressives. In 1866, Reformers broke the railings of Hyde Park. In 1886, Socialists smashed the windows of the Carlton Club. This protest was violent but occasional. But then the Suffragettes introduced a more persistent and shocking form of protest, horsewhipping Winston Churchill, throwing bombs, inventing letter bombs, setting fire to postboxes, burning houses and, in the case of Emily Davison, throwing herself in front of a horse at the Derby in 1913. 

Peaceful protest, by contrast, was not common in our history until it was theorised by Tolstoy, enacted by Gandhi in India and brought into the West in the form of the ‘sit-in’, invented by Civil Rights protestors in the United States in the middle decades of the twentieth century. The ‘occupation’ of buildings was common in 1960s protests in Paris, London and New York. Then there was Greenham Common. Then there was Tiananmen Square in 1989. Then there was the Arab spring, and the Occupy movement. 

But it is in the last five or six years that we have seen the emergence of a wholly new tactic of protest. We should probably call this ‘stunt protest’. On some of his albums Frank Zappa credited the young Steve Vai as playing not ‘guitar’ but ‘stunt guitar’. Instead of a relatively predictable run of blues notes, Vai offered the musical equivalent of orange powder or soup thrown over a Zappa song. Anyone who knows Vai will know what I mean: widdle-waddle-woo-[whammy bar down]-weurgghnn-growl-wah-wah-wah-[faster]-widdle-dee-widdle-dee-widdle-dee-waaeaghaaeagh! 

Stunt protest does not involve bullets, bombs or burning, or the smashing of windows. It involves on its aggressive side: spades, rope and hammer and chisel (only statues are murdered); on its passive side: glue, high-vis jackets, masks and tents; and on its wah-wah-pedal baby-squeal side: paint, soup, powder and hectoring speeches recorded on shaky cameras. It probably owes something to Pussy Riot and Pride.

Everyone will remember all the following events but I list them so we can see the rise of stunt protest in sequence. It is all fairly recent. The chief exponents of stunt protest, Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, have only existed since 2018 and 2022 respectively. 

In October 2019, Extinction Rebellion protestors climbed on Tube trains. ‘When they were up they were up, but when they were down they were down…’

In February 2020, Extinction Rebellion protestors dug a lot of holes in the lawn outside Trinity College, Cambridge, near the tree associated with Newton’s apple, perhaps to offer an adjustment to his gravitational theory. 

Colston’s statue was thrown in the sea in June 2020.

But the real novelties came more recently, with the use of glue. 

In the summer of 2022, five members of Just Stop Oil glued themselves to a copy of The Last Supper in the Royal Academy, London; and two others glued their hands to the frame of the Hay Wain in the National Gallery, London. Glue was used by protestors when blocking roads, but it seemed more of a statement when used on works of art, especially when it was combined with the sort of thing one might throw at Nigel Farage.

Perhaps inspired by a protestor who threw cake on the Mona Lisa in the Louvre in May 2022, two Just Stop Oil protestors in October of the same year threw a can of tomato soup over Van Gogh’s Sunflowers in the National Gallery, before gluing themselves to the frame: one of them delivered a scripted speech, and the other held up the soup can as if it was a work of art: Van Gogh’s Heinz rather than Warhol’s Campbell’s. 

A week or so later two, German Letzte Generation protestors threw mashed potato over Manet’s Les Meules in Potsdam. 

In October 2022, the Bank of England, the Home Office and the MI5 building were sprayed orange. 

In the same month, a man glued his head to Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring in the Hague, while his friend threw soup over him and then glued his own hand to the wall, before making yet another speech. 

In April 2023, a Just Stop Oil protestor climbed onto a snooker table during the World Championship held at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, and exploded a packet of orange powder over the table and balls, damaging the baize – he was convicted only a few days ago. 

Also in April, a German, wearing a mask, glued himself to a road in Berlin using a mixture of glue and sand forming a mixture so potent that part of the road had to be removed along with his hand. 

In July 2023, Scottish protestors from This is Rigged (an offshoot of Just Stop Oil – shades of the People’s Front of Judea here) used concrete as well as glue to fix themselves to the road. 

There were many other incidents involving the disruption of sporting events or even George Osborne’s marriage, using orange paint, orange jigsaw pieces and orange confetti. 

In September 2023, Extinction Rebellion protestors poured black paint (or ‘fake oil’) over the steps of the Labour headquarters in London, and let off smoke grenades. 

In December 2023, Extinction Rebellion protestors dyed the water green in the Grand Canal near the Rialto bridge. 

In March 2024, a pro-Palestinian protestor wearing a mask sprayed and slashed a painting of Lord Balfour in Trinity College. 

Finally, and most pathetically, on May 10th, 2024, two extremely respectable and dignified old ladies went into the British Library and chipped at the glass box in which the Magna Carta is stored with a hammer and chisel, before gluing themselves to the display. One lady was a retired teacher, the other an Anglican priest. 

Lenin called imperialism the highest stage of capitalism. Well, perhaps, stunt is, if not the highest, then certainly the latest form of protest. The tricky and tedious old sociologist Pierre Bourdieu used the phrase ‘symbolic violence’ a lot: and I can think of no better example of what he meant than this sort of late Duchamp or Warhol type of act where the protestor deliberately, like the Sacristan in the Ingoldsby Legends, “says no word to indicate a doubt, / But puts his thumb unto his nose and spreads his fingers out”. Though, oddly, these protestors often then go on to indulge in Thunberg-esque sermonising that would have embarrassed the Sacristan.

The only amusing thing about all this is the April Fool’s Joke this year, when Just Stop Oil announced a corporate partnership with Gorilla Glue. That one has to be savoured: they do have a sense of humour. But it is odd, this revel or frivol, when combined with incoherent and extremely censorious moral hectoration. Let’s hear the opening lines of the pink-haired, dead-eyed speech, as the soup ran down the painting:

What is worth more, art or life? Is it worth more than food? Worth more than justice? Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting, or the protection of our planet and people? The cost of living crisis is part of the cost of oil crisis. Fuel is unaffordable to millions of cold, hungry families. They can’t even afford to heat a tin of soup.

It is very odd, this stunt protest: odd because of the caverning, yawning gap between the tik-tokish and token-ish silliness of the stunts, and the eye-watering sublimity and unjuxtaposability of the moral mountain ranges these moral mice squeak about, as the glue begins to harden on their sensitive skin.

Stunt protest is in fact very much like contemporary art: incomprehensible, until one reads the explanation on the label. If only the protestors would take their hammer, chisels and glue to the exhibits in Tate Modern.

Dr. James Alexander is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Bilkent University in Turkey.

Tags: ActivismEco LoonsExtinction RebellionJust Stop OilProtestersStudents

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16 Comments
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JXB
JXB
1 year ago

The Common Law Rights to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly are the basis for ‘freedom’ to protest. However there is no Right of assembly or speech on somebody else’s property and that includes public property – which is de facto somebody else’s property.

Also under Common Law, a Right may not be enjoyed at the expense of the Rights of another.

It is time our useless police force and even worse political class started to enforce the Law and stop elevating the Rights of favoured groups above the Rights of the rest of us.

85
0
varmint
varmint
1 year ago

The problem with climate protests, apart from being sometimes illegal and disruptive is that they are based on the assumption that worst case scenario’s from speculative climate models full of assumptions and guesses are some kind of ultimate truth. Or as Greta Thunberg says “There are no grey areas when it comes to survival. Either we go on as a civilisation or we don’t”. ——-So you see, to the radical climate change activist this is a black and white issue. We either stop emitting CO2 or we die. But when you live in such an evidence free fantasy world like the two silly people in the photograph above you are liable to do all kinds of stupid things. These stupid things for the moment might only be cans of soup over a painting, but as their doomsday comes closer in the rear view mirror of their vivid imagination, they are liable to get more desperate, and people might start to get hurt or worse. When you truly believe the world is coming to a crunching halt you are capable of anything. The stunt of super glue or pots of paint over a bank might no longer be considered enough by these people and they may choose to leap from the Forth Bridge, or worse than that chuck other people off it. ——–We are not nipping these protests in the bud before it gets to that point and governments with an agenda (Net Zero , and Sustainable Development) seem to be content to use the protesters as their useful idiots doing their dirty work for them so we are all convinced the end is nigh and we accept all the heat pumps, electric cars and smart meters. ——–This is a diabolical disgrace.

63
0
RW
RW
1 year ago
Reply to  varmint

I don’t think these people are really convinced of what they’re saying. Net Zero is a strategy for scamming lots of people out of their money and the Net Zero shock troops certainly belong to those who expect to profit from it.

21
0
varmint
varmint
1 year ago
Reply to  RW

What people? The silly activists or the politicians enforcing Net Zero on us? ——–But Net Zero is way more than a money making scam. It is much bigger than just that. Sure plenty make money out of it by farming the hundreds of billions in government subsidies, but that is not the whole purpose.

21
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Richard Austin
Richard Austin
1 year ago
Reply to  varmint

I’m 100% behind them throwing themselves off bridges; Lemmings do what Lemmings do.

12
0
RW
RW
1 year ago

What is worth more, art or life?

You are one of 8 billion people on this earth and reproducing people is really easy. This painting is unique and reproducing it is impossible. Do the math.

36
-2
varmint
varmint
1 year ago
Reply to  RW

It is a false argument ofcourse. The climate activists sit in their little castles on top of the moral high ground thinking they know what is true and the rest of us don’t. ——We cannot be taking advice from easily manipulated brainwashed dreamers, especially silly little teenagers who know nothing about energy or climate.

30
0
Jon Garvey
Jon Garvey
1 year ago
Reply to  RW

Would I sacrifice a Van Gogh to save a human life? You bet. But that’s because there is huge dignity in human lives, which can produce timeless treasures like a Van Gogh painting. But that isn’t the situation here.

Would I sacrifice a Van Gogh to make a point about energy policy? No, because the latter is mundane human activity, and the former is sublime human activity. And when the speech the vandals make talks about the high cost of energy, which is entirely due to their efforts to bring in Net Zero, then it’s sheer hypocrisy… and such wanton subhuman folly might be considered a reason to suspend, temporarily, one’s views on the sanctity of human life.

35
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago
Reply to  Jon Garvey

Very well argued. I particularly enjoyed the final sentence.

9
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago
Reply to  RW

It’s “maths.”

8
-1
Richard Austin
Richard Austin
1 year ago
Reply to  RW

Down vote for a Chalk / Cheese argument that is barely worth the comparison. I get the sentiment but you miss the point: they are largely posh and rich, not for them painting the door of the local takeaway.
You say to the average kid “What do think of Da Vinci?” they’d reply “I don’t watch football” or “Who does he play for?”.

Last edited 1 year ago by Richard Austin
12
0
RW
RW
1 year ago
Reply to  Richard Austin

I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean in the context of my posting (or what a chalk/ cheese argument is, FWIW). The life of this guy isn’t worth anything to anyone but himself and if he would get hit by a combine harvester suddenly falling from the sky tomorrow, barely anyone would notice and those few who did would soon turn their attention to something else. The one thing which sets us apart from other animals is that we have history and a heritage and care deeply about both. That he apparently believes his (mock-)paranoia about the weather in 50 years is more important than that marks him as pretty much nothing more than particularly obnoxious kind of monkey. And a sanctimonious monkey on top of that, as none of these families who can’t even affort to heat a tin of soup will be any better off because of his activities.

Last edited 1 year ago by RW
10
0
Dinger64
Dinger64
1 year ago

“If only the protestors would take their hammers, chisels and glue to the exhibits at the Tate Modern”

in which case you be able to tell if some of those exhibits had been vandalised!

13
0
Richard Austin
Richard Austin
1 year ago
Reply to  Dinger64

I went there once, when it had the wobbly bridge (sadly it didn’t wobble that day), and the only exhibit I liked was a light switch projected onto a wall. I have to admit though, the floor was nice and the walls were a nice shade.

Last edited 1 year ago by Richard Austin
7
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago

A partial cure would be to leave those favouring the glue protest exactly where they are. A couple of days without food or water and soiled clothing should serve as a reasonable warning to future volunteers.

51
0
thebookishtoad
thebookishtoad
1 year ago

If someone glues themselves to an object in a publicly accessible place, eg to a picture frame in an art gallery, then we should just leave them there. They can become part of the evolution of that piece of art. I can hear their proud middle class parents exclaiming “how wonderful darling”. Take away their backpack that’s sitting on the ground next to them, put a dog bowl of water on the floor with a few straws, then sit back and enjoy the theatre. Oh, and make sure that everyone who visits the gallery has a good laugh at these infantile slacktivists. Because this is performative BS. These clowns can’t last more than five minutes without their vegan snacks, Camelbak water bottle etc. They’ll soon get bored, tired of being laughed at, sitting in their own excrement, and beg to be released from their self-imposed prison.

18
0

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