If there are activist stripes to be earned, I have earned them.
Yesterday, Saturday, I met four people outside Camberwell Library. A tall man with a beard and a Fossil Free Southwark t-shirt had a bunch of leaflets, stickers and petitions. Save one woman, we were all easily under thirty five. One guy was talking about campaigning at university. I made friends with a woman who worked for the anti-slavery league and has worked for the UN in East Timor.
But those stripes, those stripes. You don’t earn stripes by making friends. No. I got mine by speaking to strangers about how Southwark Council’s Pension fund invests 17 million of its £1 billion fund in fossil fuels. I am trusting the campaign on these figures. I didn’t check them myself. We spoke to the guy at the local gym, the others spoke to librarians. I got a receptive audience at the South London Gallery. My favourite stop was the second hand shop next to the Silk Road restaurant where the guy in there told us about how, now that he owns some businesses, his foster brother contacted him after ten years asking for funding for a club night. That little insight into some-one’s life was the highlight of my petitioning.
In total, I got eight signatures, which I think is good, given we were looking for people with Southwark postcodes to sign it. The worst moment was at a bar opposite the South London Gallery, I went in and the guy said, “I don’t understand what you are saying. I’m so hungover.” Classic hipster.
In the gym, a co-petitioner, the best one in fact, a young woman with a huge smile and cycling attire, anyhow, she got chatting to a lady who said, “Jesus is looking out for us, we don’t need to worry about climate change.” In terms of what made me more angry, it’s a toss up between the Jesus response and the guy in jogging clothes who said, with a big friendly grin, “ah sorry I work for BP,” and jogged on.
I’m not sure how great I was at getting the message across, but the flyer was explanatory and I made sure interested people got a copy and know where to go online to sign the petition. Which incidentally, is here: https://campaigns.gofossilfree.org/petitions/divest-southwark-council-s-pension-fund-from-fossil-fuel-investments.
radio activisms 