Big Wedding vs. Big Oil — Shell Petrol Station Blockaded in Activist ‘Wedding’

A won­der­ful day, with fine weath­er, good com­pa­ny, a wed­ding and a d‑lock.

(Images from video frame grabs, expect bet­ter qual­i­ty pho­tos and video lat­er)

Around a hun­dred peo­ple showed up in Lud­low to cel­e­brate this very spe­cial ‘wed­ding’ and take a lit­tle direct action at the same time. The ‘bride’ and ‘groom’ along with the assem­bled friends and fam­i­ly wore black, green and pur­ple to sym­bol­ise our resis­tance. The fore­court was blocked off with ban­ners and the pumps were switched off and locked up. Hymns were sungs (Danc­ing on the Ruins of Multi­na­tion­al Cor­po­ra­tions and the Dig­gers Song). Veg­gies served cake and tea. A hand full of cops turned up to enjoy the cer­e­mo­ny and take some pho­tos.

Best wish­es and all the best for the future to the hap­py cou­ple.…

—————

Press Release: 19th Sep­tem­ber 2008; 12 noon

Lud­low, Shrop­shire: At noon today, on the fore­court of a Shrop­shire Shell petrol sta­tion, a Leeds cou­ple will tie the knot, sup­port­ed by around 100 friends and fam­i­ly form­ing a block­ade of the petrol sta­tion. Max Gas­tone and Cath Muller’s cer­e­mo­ny in Lud­low is a protest against the eco­log­i­cal and social dam­age caused by Shell (and the con­tin­ued use of fos­sil fuels) and also a com­mit­ment to cre­at­ing a dif­fer­ent world and a cel­e­bra­tion of the pow­er of com­mu­ni­ty and resis­tance.

Shell has a hor­rif­ic record of caus­ing envi­ron­men­tal dam­age and human dev­as­ta­tion worldwide2, most famous­ly in Nigeria3. But today the wed­ding par­ty is specif­i­cal­ly tak­ing action in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of Ross­port, Ire­land, where Shell is try­ing to lay a dan­ger­ous­ly high pres­sure gas pipeline, despite mas­sive local and inter­na­tion­al opposition4. Local peo­ple have had their land com­pul­so­ri­ly pur­chased and many have been beat­en and impris­oned for resist­ing the destruc­tion of nation­al for­est, peat­land and eco­log­i­cal­ly pre­cious mud­flats — which could be avoid­ed by build­ing the refin­ery at sea.

Ban­ners read­ing ‘Give us a wed­ding present – use your bike’ and ‘Cel­e­brat­ing a future with­out exploita­tion’ will be hung from the sta­tion. The wed­ding will include music, read­ings, a teach-in about the sit­u­a­tion in Ire­land and a cer­e­mo­ni­al action against the petrol com­pa­ny. Cars are most def­i­nite­ly not invit­ed!

ENDS

Notes for Edi­tor
1.maxandcath@hotmail.com
2. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2005/apr/03/oilandpetrol.russia
3. http://www.essentialaction.org/shell/report/
and Move­ment for the Sur­vival of the Ogo­ni Peo­ple: www.mosop.net
4.Shell to Sea cam­paign — www.corribsos.com
5.Text of the fli­er being giv­en out at the wed­ding (below)

What’s Wrong With Shell Leaflet Text

You can be sure of Shell to have only one inter­est – MONEY- mak­ing prof­its from whomev­er and what­ev­er they can. Over the hun­dred years of its exis­tence, Shell has been at the fore­front of human, ani­mal and eco­log­i­cal abuse.

Shell in Mayo, Ire­land

Since 2000 the peo­ple of Erris (on Ire­land’s remote north­west coast) have been resist­ing Shel­l’s plans for an on-land refin­ery, served by a ter­ri­fy­ing­ly dan­ger­ous high pres­sure gas pipeline. Their land has been com­pul­so­ri­ly pur­chased by the Irish gov­ern­ment and they have been beat­en and impris­oned. The gov­ern­ment is let­ting Shell extract the gas for free, destroy­ing nation­al for­est, peat­land and eco­log­i­cal­ly pre­cious mud­flats to do it. The Irish peo­ple will not see a pen­ny from the sale of their nat­ur­al resources. A local head­teacher is cur­rent­ly on hunger-strike and her hus­band will take over if she dies. And all because it would cost Shell two weeks’ worth of prof­it to build the refin­ery at sea.

Shell in the Niger Delta

In 1993, hav­ing had vil­lages destroyed by the lay­ing of pipelines, farm­land and rivers pol­lut­ed by oil spills and air pol­lut­ed by gas-flar­ing, the Ogo­ni peo­ple of Nige­ria forced Shell vir­tu­al­ly to aban­don their land through peace­ful protest. Shell pro­vides near­ly half of Nige­ri­a’s for­eign income and of its mil­i­tary rev­enue. In 1994, after meet­ing with Shell, the Niger­ian gov­ern­ment announced “ruth­less mil­i­tary oper­a­tions.” Shell sup­plied the guns. Dozens of vil­lages were destroyed, hun­dreds of peo­ple were mas­sa­cred. Shell offered to secure the release of nine key cam­paign­ers (includ­ing Nobel prize-win­ner Ken Saro Wiwa), if they called off the glob­al protests which had erupt­ed. They did not, and were hung in Novem­ber 1995. The peo­ples of the Niger Delta con­tin­ue to resist.

But it’s not just Shell…
BP, Total, Exxon­Mo­bil, Elf and Esso all have Niger­ian inter­ests.

Total & Tex­a­co’s oper­a­tions in Bur­ma sup­port the mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship, which uses slave labour to clear rain­for­est for oil extrac­tion in return.

Exxon­Mo­bil & Chevron sup­port the dic­ta­tor­ship in Chad and opened a pipeline from there through Cameroon’s pris­tine rain­for­est in 2003. This has opened up the for­est and its com­mu­ni­ties to ille­gal log­ging and poach­ing and the influx of a large­ly male work­force has intro­duced dis­eases, includ­ing wide­spread HIV infec­tions. Human rights abus­es have increased in both coun­tries with the flow of oil mon­ey.

BP invad­ed Aus­tralian abo­rig­i­nal land and has also sup­port­ed the Columbian secu­ri­ty forces to get rid of oppo­si­tion to its destruc­tion of the Ama­zon.

Tex­a­co is also not averse to mass Ama­zon­ian dev­as­ta­tion and forc­ing out indige­nous peo­ples, embar­go­ing Ecuador in the ’70s until the gov­ern­ment gave in to all its demands.

Now that the ice is reced­ing due to glob­al warm­ing, all the com­pa­nies are turn­ing their gaze on the Arc­tic Wildlife refuge in Alas­ka and oth­er oppor­tu­ni­ties that will arise in the Arc­tic.

All these com­pa­nies prof­it from our defence of their oil-fields in Iraq and from the the scram­ble for con­trol of the gas sup­ply line through Geor­gia and Azer­bai­jan – many more wars will be fought over resources and there will always be an excuse of sov­er­eign­ty or democ­ra­cy to back up the aggres­sors.

Why do we let this hap­pen?

We are pay­ing these com­pa­nies to fuel our addic­tion to fos­sil fuels. But we are hurt­ing our­selves too:

9 peo­ple are killed on the roads every day.

1 in 10 British chil­dren now has asth­ma.

Our seden­tary lives have con­tributed to a mas­sive rise in obe­si­ty.

Motor vehi­cles burn half the world’s fos­sil fuels and cli­mate chaos due to car­bon emis­sions is begin­ning in the UK. As flood­ing and storms take their toll, we are feel­ing the effect direct­ly.
Our col­lec­tive psy­che must be dam­aged if we can accept mur­der, tor­ture, pol­lu­tion and the destruc­tion of the plan­et on which we depend – just to car­ry on our com­fort­able lifestyle.
We have allowed our­selves to become utter­ly depen­dent on fos­sil fuels for every­thing – our heat­ing, food, tex­tiles, pow­er, move­ment, enter­tain­ment, health­care. We are com­plete­ly at the mer­cy of glob­al mon­ey mar­kets, cor­po­ra­tions and rapid­ly decreas­ing nat­ur­al resources.

There are pos­i­tive, cre­ative alter­na­tives

Today we are cel­e­brat­ing the future and the pow­er of com­mu­ni­ty, love and resis­tance. Two of us are get­ting mar­ried on the fore­court of this Shell petrol sta­tion to sym­bol­ise our com­mit­ment to cre­at­ing a dif­fer­ent world, based on equal­i­ty and co-oper­a­tion:

where peo­ple give accord­ing to abil­i­ty and receive accord­ing to their need

where work is ful­fill­ing and cre­ativ­i­ty encour­aged

where there are no hier­ar­chies or author­i­tar­i­an pol­i­tics

where oth­er beings and the earth are val­ued and respect­ed in their own right rather than abused,
hunt­ed, pol­lut­ed and exploit­ed for fun or greed

Where there is no dis­crim­i­na­tion and every­one has an equal say in the deci­sions which affect them

Social Alter­na­tives

This is anar­chism and we believe it is the best way out of the prob­lems cur­rent­ly fac­ing soci­ety and the plan­et. Non-hier­ar­chi­cal soci­eties have always exist­ed, although the remain­ing few are under threat from the ever-hun­gry cap­i­tal­ist sys­tem. Anti-author­i­tar­i­an and com­mu­ni­ty resis­tance is as old as time and the con­cept of ‘anar­chism’ (no hier­ar­chy) has been around for 150 years. An ever-grow­ing com­mu­ni­ty is learn­ing from all this his­to­ry and putting ideas into prac­tice – we invite you to explore this fur­ther.

This wed­ding is an expres­sion of the pow­er of com­mu­ni­ty. It is bring­ing togeth­er a diverse set of peo­ple in a cel­e­bra­tion of the future we are build­ing.

Prac­ti­cal Alter­na­tives

Anar­chist & non-anar­chist groups all over the coun­try (and the world) are show­ing how com­mu­ni­ties can take con­trol of their land, their food and their lives and pro­tect the earth for our future. Com­mu­ni­ty-sup­port­ed agri­cul­ture projects, food co-ops, shared vehi­cles, bike train­ing, Local Exchange Train­ing Schemes, cli­mate cafe discussion/action groups, alter­na­tive ener­gy co-ops, per­ma­cul­ture, Holis­tic Man­age­ment, hous­ing & work­er co-ops, Tran­si­tion Towns – the projects and the ideas are grow­ing and mul­ti­ply­ing.

We do not believe that reform will ever suc­ceed in chang­ing a sys­tem fun­da­men­tal­ly com­mit­ted to the abuse of humans, ani­mals and the plan­et — if not in Lud­low, then else­where in the world, hid­den but still in our name. All of us must change the way we think, live and love.