Hail to the Rebel: The Arrest and Statement of Andreas Engholm
“It’s good to see pagans and animists participating in the struggle, but we need this struggle to become much bigger. Much more uncontrollable. We need a movement that doesn’t petition the powerful but takes away the power they have forfeited through their refusal to take our survival seriously.”
Image by Francis McKee, CC BY 2.0
Imagine you’re in the back seat of a car speeding toward a brick wall at 85 miles an hour. The driver wants to kill everyone in the car, himself included. In the passenger seat, someone is yelling at him to slow down to the posted speed limit. Of course, that’s still 65 miles an hour, so you’re almost certainly going to die anyway. The person in the passenger seat isn’t trying to save you; he’s only concerned with following the rules as you speed toward death.
That’s the COP26 climate change summit in Glasgow. Some of our world leaders, both politicians and businesspeople, are flooring the gas pedal as the wall approaches. Others are trying to slow down the speeding car, but they aren’t turning away from the approaching collision. Our only hope is to change direction, but our leaders aren’t going to do it for us. We have to somehow get control over this speeding car.
Extinction Rebellion Activist Arrested in Denmark
Recently, a man named Andreas Engholm was arrested in Denmark, after participating in an event called “Bloody September”. This event was a protest in favor of Climate Justice, and against the practice of corporate greenwashing. In his mug shot taken at Copenhagen's Bellahøj Police Station, Engstrom wore a banner with a heathen design on it.
One man’s arrest is not especially important, but Engholm’s statement about the arrest should be of interest to pagans, heathens, and animists everywhere:
“I am happy to be able to wear a banner that to me expresses the totality of the relations that I love and aim to protect. No, not the state, not concepts or ideology, not an idea of civilizational superiority. Yes, the land, the people of the land, including all the non-human, and my connection to the web of Life that exists on planet Earth. Here in these relations, that are real, my loyalty remains. Something as entirely artificial as a state will never have my loyalty or willing obedience - I am a free person, not a servant, not cattle. This is our land, we are entangled with it. We must restore and grow our relations with everything real, land, people, ancestors and those who come after, or perish by our own stupidity and ignorance. It is as simple as that. Hail to the Rebel.”
Ungovernable
In the face of suicidal inaction by our so-called leaders, what can we do to stop the collision from occurring? Being arrested at an environmental protest isn’t going to be enough. Andreas Engholm is only one of many people, land protectors and water protectors from all over the world, many of them from indigenous cultures. It’s good to see pagans and animists participating in the struggle, but we need this struggle to become much bigger. Much more uncontrollable. We need a movement that doesn’t petition the powerful but takes away the power they have forfeited through their refusal to take our survival seriously.
What we need to do is to reach forward from the back seat and swerve the car away from the wall before it hits, even if that makes it spin out of control.
We need to become ungovernable.
Christopher Scott Thompson
Photo by Tam Hutchison.
is an anarchist, martial arts instructor, and devotee of Brighid and Macha.