[Debate] (Fwd) Canadian kids do disrespect where dissing is definitely due

[Patrick Bond]

http://www.iol.co.za/mercury/canadian-youth-marched-out-of-cop17-1.1194565


  Canadian youth marched out of COP17

December 8 2011 at 07:50am
By Leanne Jansen

------------------------------------------------------------------------
IOL pic nov30 climate conference

Reuters

Environmental activists demonstrate outside the United Nations Framework 
Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties meeting (COP17) 
in Durban, South Africa.


Six Canadian youths were booted out of a plenary session of the UN 
climate talks in Durban on Wednesday after staging a silent demonstration.

Soon after Canadian Environmental Minister Peter Kent started his 
address, the youths stood up without a word and made an about-turn, with 
the message "Turn your back on Canada" scrawled on their T-shirts for 
Kent to read.

They failed to respond when asked to take their seats. UN security 
escorted them from the room and revoked their accreditation for being 
disruptive.

The six were part of the Canadian Youth Delegation to COP17, a project 
of the Canadian Youth Climate Alliance.

The youths, as well as indigenous peoples, have become increasingly 
vocal in their criticism of Kent.

This is because the Canadian government has refused to stop the 
development of its immense reserves of tar sands to produce fuel, and 
has indicated a withdrawal from the Kyoto protocol.

After Wednesday's incident, the national director of the alliance, 
Cameron Fenton, said that previous efforts to sway the government on its 
climate policies had come to naught -- "the reality is they just don't 
listen".

"Young people here and across Canada do not agree with the goverment's 
stance -- the stance they've taken on our behalf. There is a need in 
Canada to separate the oil from the state."

Karen Rooney, a 25-year-old nurse from Saskatchewan, one of the six to 
be barred from COP17, said the action was part of a continuing campaign 
to make her government aware that it was "representing the interests of 
the polluters".

"We tried the polite, respectable and so-called right way of doing 
things to get through to them before."

James Hutt, a 24-year-old student from Halifax, said that if anything, 
it was the official Canadian delegation that was guilty of disrupting 
negotiations by "sabotaging" support for and progress on Kyoto. Hutt 
said that the east coast where he lived had had hurricanes in recent 
years such as had not been seen before.

Rooney and Hutt are the eldest of the six, though the entire youth 
delegation comprises 18 members.

Patrick Bond, who directs the Centre for Civil Society at the University 
of KwaZulu-Natal, applauded the action.

"This was a not only a good example of what we should all be doing when 
facing destructive power: express dissent. Gandhi developed this 
approach, satyagraha, a century ago in Durban. But it was also one of 
the first signals that the demand for generational justice -- kids 
demanding that adults behave -- will be articulated through disrespect 
for elders who deserve disrespect.

"I hope this tactic catches on across Africa, because as we saw in 
Tunisia and Egypt this year, youths are often the brave conscience of 
the society." - The Mercury


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