“Not resisting is the worse alternative!”

Hello you out there,

I'm currently sitting in my cell in the Stadelheim prison.

The sun is shining through the window and a blackbird is sitting in the tree in the yard.

It's actually quite nice here... If it weren't for the bars in front of the windows and the locked door through which I'm only allowed to leave the cell once a day, for an hour, to go to the courtyard. I have already spent 30 days here and I am now spending another 14 days here. If someone had told me this some time ago, I probably would have laughed in disbelief, unable to imagine what would ever make me do something that would land me in prison.

It has now become completely normal for me to have to deal with the police almost every day, to sit in dreary solitary cells and to have a whole folder full of penalty notices, fine notices and a hearing sheet at home.

Miriam Meyer | Photo: (c) Marlene Charlotte Limburg
Miriam Meyer
Photo: (c) Marlene Charlotte Limburg

How did I end up here?

Helplessness and a plan that could work, a lot of desperation and a little hope, an orange safety vest and a few tubes of superglue.

If I weren't here myself, I would probably follow the news reports and admire the courage of these people who, for the future of all of us, risk 30 or more days in prison.

Sometimes I don't fully understand why I, of all people, take these risks. I'm just not good at denial. Without repression, predictions such as “We put our children on a global school bus that has a 98% chance of being fatal” are difficult to bear. Realizing how bleak our prospects are right now left me feeling mostly despair and helpless. I wanted to do something, but I didn't know what. Neither joining Fridays for Future nor starting another job at any environmental organization seemed particularly promising to me; not in the face of the catastrophe that is heading towards us and which we continue to fuel.

Fortunately, there are others, people who have an understanding of civil resistance, a strategy and a plan, with whom I was able to join. I don't know if this plan will work, but we have nothing to lose.

Chancellor Scholz is currently telling the climate conference what Germany is doing for the climate and at the same time is building new fossil fuel infrastructure.

Not offering any resistance is the worse alternative!

Admittedly, I'm not very optimistic that we as a human race can do this, especially when I hear reports like: "When Pakistan is flooded and the President of Palau says we might as well bomb their islands." However, I didn't think that we would get attention for more than a week due to highway blockages and now I see us everywhere on TV in the prison.

I would like society to acknowledge what the climate crisis specifically means for our lives and that of humanity as a whole. I know this is difficult and scary, but denial and hoping others would sort it out for us have brought us to this disastrous point. When we truly become aware of the situation, we can either give up in despair or ACT. And we need people who take action!

The UN Secretary General says: “We have a choice: collective action or collective suicide!” By ACTION he certainly doesn’t mean buying bamboo toothbrushes and using the bike every now and then. We live in a democracy and when the government does not protect our livelihoods, civil resistance is a legitimate and, above all, necessary democratic tool.

At the moment we are a bunch of ragtag people who are dismissed as climate chaotic people. But what if more scientists like the people of ScientistRebellion join the resistance?

When the University of Hamburg was occupied, the university president told us that it was not the university's job to get involved in politics. I could understand that if the politicians did their job, but they are gambling away all of our futures!

Why do we allow this?! It is an acute danger for all of us.

We have nothing to lose - at least nothing that would be of use to us in a famine or flood or war.

Let us resist together with all scientists, university presidents, church leaders, judges and all important decision-makers.

Until the politicians can't help but do what they should actually do as a matter of course.

 

Greetings from cell 105

Miriam

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