76 lines
3.5 KiB
Plaintext
76 lines
3.5 KiB
Plaintext
A BRIEF HISTORY OF LONDON GREENPEACE
|
|
|
|
|
|
The name Greenpeace was used in Britain at least as early
|
|
as 1971. It appeared in print as the title of a
|
|
broadsheet published as a supplement in Peace News in
|
|
1971. The broadsheet was a compilation of ideas about how
|
|
individuals could take action in their own lives to
|
|
preserve the ecosystem.
|
|
|
|
In 1972 "Greenpeace" was used as the name for a coalition
|
|
of individuals and groups in Britain campaigning against
|
|
French nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific. At the same
|
|
time there were other Greenpeace groups both in Britain
|
|
and in some other countries: the different groups were in
|
|
touch with one another as an informal network of
|
|
autonomous groups, in particular around the issue of
|
|
nuclear testing.
|
|
|
|
The London group, usually known as Greenpeace (London),
|
|
continued to be in touch with other such groups around the
|
|
world.
|
|
|
|
In 1977, the biggest of the Greenpeace organisations
|
|
outside Britain - the Vancouver Greenpeace Foundation in
|
|
Canada - formalised its links with some of the other
|
|
Greenpeace organisations around the world, seeing itself
|
|
as the "lead" group. Shortly before this, in late 1976,
|
|
members of that organisation came to London and met people
|
|
from Greenpeace (London). The Vancouver people wanted the
|
|
London group to "take its orders from" the Board of
|
|
Directors in Vancouver, but were told that the London
|
|
group had never had that kind of relationship with other
|
|
Greenpeace Groups. (The relationship with groups like the
|
|
Vancouver one had often been close, but never based on any
|
|
sort of hierarchy.) Subsequently, a letter from Vancouver
|
|
explicitly recognised the autonomy of the existing London
|
|
group.
|
|
|
|
Activists in London - including the people who had come
|
|
from Canada - who DID want to be under the control of the
|
|
Vancouver Foundation, formed a London Branch of the
|
|
Vancouver Foundation, which then formed a limited company
|
|
and became known as Greenpeace Ltd or Greenpeace UK.
|
|
|
|
Since 1977, Greenpeace (London) and Greenpeace Ltd have
|
|
been quite separate organisations, working on different
|
|
campaigns - though of course their separate campaigns have
|
|
had some issues in common, such as anti-nuclear work.
|
|
|
|
The original London Greenpeace Group has deliberately
|
|
stayed as a small group of activists, without leaders,
|
|
with decisions taken by consensus of all those involved,
|
|
and has always encouraged people in other areas to set up
|
|
their own active groups rather than "joining" London
|
|
Greenpeace. Greenpeace Ltd, on the other hand, has done
|
|
exactly the opposite, and has grown large in resources but
|
|
with absolutely no democratic - let alone libertarian -
|
|
aspect to its work. For example, although you can give
|
|
money to them, you can't join the organisation in the
|
|
sense of having any say whatsoever in what the
|
|
organisation does.
|
|
|
|
|
|
"THE LONDON GREENPEACE GROUP has existed for many years as an independent
|
|
group of activists with no involvement in any particular political party.
|
|
The people -not "members"- who come to the weekly open meetings share a
|
|
concern for the oppression in our lives and the destruction of our
|
|
environment. Many opposition movements are growing in strength -ecological,
|
|
anti-war, animal liberation, and anarchist-libertarian movements- and
|
|
continually learning from each other. We encourage people to think and act
|
|
independently, without leaders, to try to understand the causes of opression
|
|
and to aim for its abolition through social revolution. This begins in our
|
|
own lives now."
|
|
|