☯️ The Spirit of Revolution
I'm starting a new, weekly podcast series on resilience. Yes - it's from prison again.
How are we going to do this?
It's what everyone is thinking at the back of our minds. How is humanity going to handle the next few decades? The challenges are beyond enormous. The essential paradox of our time is that the more we are attached to ourselves and this world—to our self-pity and this world we have to "save"—the more likely we will fail.
Human history is full of impossible, head-fuck situations where everything seems lost, and then somehow, people pull through. More than that, in doing so, they create a new way of seeing and being—a new civilisation. It depends on one word: "spirit." Something all the elites and their allies, the defeatists in our ranks, cannot see or will not see. It is our secret weapon, the source of endless power. With it, we can take down empires while realising it's just another day.
What is this spirit? How does it work? This podcast aims to take you and our movements in the right direction—to the revolution. The spirit of revolution.
Listen on Spotify, Apple, Soundcloud or wherever you get your podcasts. We've worked to improve the prison phone sound quality and each episode will come with a newsletter transcript and video version on Youtube for reading along.
We've released the first two episodes as a double-bill. Dive on in.
Upcoming Events
- Sept 11 - Chris Hedges Fundraiser in London
- Sept 13 - Politicising the Public & Taking Power: How Assemblies Are Bringing About a Mass Movement for Social Change in the UK (Zoom Talk)
- Sept 15 - Free as a Bird Prison Talk
- Sept 22 - Revolution in 21st Century Welcome Call
- Sept 25 - Chris Hedges Fundraiser Global
Transcript of Episode 1 - The Intro
I wasn't expecting it, but I found myself facing four years in prison two days before writing this. I didn't know whether I was to be found guilty or not guilty. I was taken upstairs from the court cells with my co-defendants. We were all charged with conspiracy to cause a public nuisance without reasonable excuse in a London trial. We had all held a Zoom call in 2022 to invite people to join actions to climb onto bridges over the main motorway circling the city, the M25. The aim was to stop traffic day after day to force the government to stop issuing new oil and gas licences. Continuing to issue these licences would contribute to the world going over two degrees centigrade, a billion refugees, and the worst episode of suffering in human history. The UN has said we have two years to, quote, "save the world."
We had been systematically stopped from talking about the objective physical evidence of this crime by the judge, what he called, quote, "climate change." We had refused to be stopped from telling the truth, and so the judge had us dragged out to the core by the police and put in prison. And so now, the five of us were sitting behind the glass, waiting for the jury to come in. I was watching myself. I was not sure how I would react. Sometimes I react well in such circumstances, the big moments of life, but sometimes not, particularly when I was younger.
We were told to stand up. The jury foreperson was asked to give the verdict. I was the first person on the list. For a moment, I felt like I might faint. Then I forced myself to look at the symbol of the state behind the judge. I made myself think: this is the state I am protecting, the state from destruction. I can do no other. Something like that. I had the sensation of comfort, being part of something bigger than myself.
"Guilty," the jury person said. The word—a short word, but it means so much. Four years, or five years as it turned out to be, put in prison. I felt numb. I sat down, looking ahead. I was focused but not forcing myself. Somewhere inside me, there was a ripple of panic, but most of my being was calm. There were no words going through my mind, or if there were words, it would have been something like, "What will be, will be." I felt a certain peace.
The other defendants were also found guilty. We were all told to sit down. The judge then started talking. It was a lot of nonsense, as he had been saying throughout the trial. One of my co-defendants stood up to say it was outrageous. He shouted at her to sit down. I didn't really listen. There were other things going through my mind, or maybe there was, in a sense, nothing going through my mind. I was just watching myself.
As we left court and were taken down to the cells, some of the other defendants were in tears. We all hugged each other. I still felt calm. Again, I wasn't forcing myself, but neither did it just occur. It was a sort of strange fusion of grace and will. I was taken back to my cell. I had no expectations this mood would last, but it did. I am proud of what I did. I was doing what you need to do when circumstances turn out the way they have, when everything is in balance, when humanity faces its final emergency.
Two days later, and I'm still okay, though early this morning, I started feeling self-pity and bitter. "What the fuck?" But it didn't last. No doubt I could feel like that again. Maybe I will collapse into a nervous breakdown. Nothing is for certain. There is only the certainty of the present moment. So what was going on here? Who was the real Roger Hallam? The one in panic or the one feeling in peace? Was the real Roger Hallam the one feeling stuff, or was Roger Hallam watching me feel stuff? Did I have the agency or the will to change myself, or was it that Roger Hallam was forcing himself upon me? Was it, in some sense, a combination of all these things?
And what about the world around me at this time—the court, the cells, the lightly sentenced? With these set things, they are what they are, but if so, how come they can feel so different? Peace or bitterness—a set thing can actually be a lot of things once you actually look, properly look. The self and the world are ambiguous. You can't actually seem to get to the bottom of them.
What this podcast is not about is resolving these questions but rather finding meaning through not being afraid, having the courage to ask the questions. What I would call a pluralism of ways of seeing. And as I hope to show, the revolution we need to save ourselves in the coming years requires us to see the world as filled with spirit, a sense which is intangible but no less real for being so. This podcast investigates this spirit—the spirit of revolution.
As always, you can sign up for nonviolent civil resistance with Just Stop Oil in the UK or via the A22 Network internationally.
