Thomas Kerr takes a stand against the gesture politics of People and Planet

Anyone who is fortunate enough to live south of the University will be all too well acquainted with the cold, damp walk across the Meadows to George Square. They might also be aware of the graffiti that litters the route. One in particular confronted me every day last year. Scrawled in foot high white letters on one of the University sub-stations was the line, “AVIATION IS VANDALISM”. What was this, I used to wonder, idiocy or irony? Were we supposed to look at the ideological contradiction of using vandalism to condemn something as vandalism and suddenly realise the error of our EasyJet ways, the genius of our anonymous artist? I, for one, did not. To me it was an constant reminder that a section of our student population are determined to foist their moronic priorities on us, whatever the rest of the student body thinks.

I was reminded of this fringe grouping again last week as Student reported Topshop’s decision to remove their staff from the university campus, claiming that they could not in good conscience allow their staff to suffer intimidation from the student pressure group People and Planet. 

Neither should we. 

Now is the time to stand up to People and Planet: an unrepresentative, small but incredibly vocal fringe group of post-gap year beatniks and ideologues that have made it their mission to impose their environmental totalitarianism on the rest of us. Nor is this the first time that a minority agenda has dictated university policy. Nescafe products were banned from the Union shops years ago and the same self-appointed commissioners of ethics have attempted to have Coca Cola products banned for years, defeated only by a steady wave of apathy and the inability of this tiny fringe grouping to muster the votes required for a quorum at the University AGMs.

People and Planet will defend their unrepresentative actions as “ethical consumerism” and “environmentalism” and in doing so assume a moral monopoly – and certainly, who is going to dare defend giant corporations against these plucky hippies? 

But this isn’t a debate on Topshop, Nescafe or Coca Cola and university students should be educated enough to make their own moral judgements on these companies without the environmental mafia imposing theirs on us. It is the determination with which this unrepresentative minority attempt to enforce their views on us via intimidation and banning that should be deeply worrying to all liberal-minded students. 

However, unlike our graffiti crusader above, People and Planet are not anonymous. They rely on our much-celebrated student apathy to thrive, without which they would be revealed for what they truly are - a minuscule fragment of the student body who represent less than 1% of us. By failing to flex our political muscles at our university we allow People and Planet to wield a disproportionate share of power, and because of that we cannot buy a KitKat in our university shop. 

What a ridiculous state of affairs; what a pathetically futile gesture.

So why do we meekly allow this ethical posse to dictate terms to us? Environmentalism and ethical consumerism seem to have been decided upon as the Great Causes of our age, and support of them has become political orthodoxy.  To speak out against these causes is to be condemned as an eccentric at best, a dangerous nutcase at worst, akin to the sort of hysterical reaction that greets any perceived hint of racism or sexism. But extremists also come in the colours of political orthodoxy, and People and Planet should not be tolerated or supported just because they are perceived as being on the right side of the argument. 

They may have been transformed by their exposure to the upsetting realities of the global economy, but we must remember that the members of People and Planet are nevertheless happy to publicise events with the likes of former Zambian dictator Kenneth Kaunda on their Edinburgh website. 

What People and Planet trade in is gesture politics. Without the political muscle to actually influence anything, they rely on protests, intimidation and prohibition to spread their message. Yet by our own apathy we have somehow allowed this little gang to wield a woefully disproportionate amount of power over the past decade. Perhaps it’s time to make further use of a fine slogan which rose to popularity with another alienated majority, and stand up to People and Planet and loudly declare, “Not in my name.”

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off for a fucking KitKat chunky.