Without yacht, without protests: protest for tourism and the pandemic

Last year, celebrities and activists flew around the world for the annual protest tourism. Some went to the UK and then the United States to protest climate change. This year first class train trip and stays in luxury hotels are no longer possible during the global COVID 19 pandemic. This has cast a shadow over the usual problems of protest tourism. Groups that sponsor circuits combining activism and tourism, whether for Cuba or Iran or other authoritarian regimes are canceled this year.

This pandemic revealed how much of these stunts were more focused on "tourism" than "protest". For example, famous Swedish activist Greta Thunberg has now been invited to appear in a Panel of experts on CNN coronaviruses, an apparent transformation from a climate change activist to a coronavirus activist. All this is done remotely, without the "carbon neutral" yacht who took her to the United States last year.

This begs the question as to why a climate change protest required a yacht and a transatlantic trip in the first place. Climate change can be protested via Zoom calls or locally. In fact, the "stay at home" orders in which much of the world has lived since March seem to be ideal for discussing the human impact on the climate.

During the pandemic, despite the fact that people stopped driving polluting cars and stopped flying everywhere, there was surprisingly little protest or activism for climate change. This seems to reveal how the protests against climate change were aimed more at first class travel and stunts on yachts than the protests against climate change.

Why do discussions on climate change require lavish conferences? Couldn't they have been done remotely via video conference over the years and not include good food and celebrities from around the world? For example, COP26, the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2020 to be held in Glasgow has been postponed. Why was it postponed? Why not have the same event with the world? leaders and experts discuss remotely? Last year's COP25 had to move from Chile to Madrid because economic protesters

in Chile, it hampered.

Basically, because the local people protested the local problems and the gala moved. These conferences cost more $ 50 million. This year's pandemic has shown how wasteful this unnecessary spending is, and it also shows that when travel is not possible, the urge to host climate change events evaporates suddenly.

The lack of protest tourism raises questions about how a certain amount of Western protest culture and activism is underpinned by first-class travel, pleasant hotels and enjoyable experiences that cut down on activism in a kind of self-tour of "changing the world. Israel has been one of the destinations of several" flight "protests where people have signed up for militant trips that have seen them dragging in West Bank or Jerusalem and go home.

Waterfalls, such as displaying a banner near a holy place, would lead to social media posts. In 2012 dozens of "Flytilla" waterfalls Activists traveled to Israel to protest on behalf of the Palestinians knowing that they would be detained and returned immediately.

In other parts of the world, poverty tourism has also dried up. Favela tours in Brazil, including ethics has been when questioned, they stopped. "Slum Tourism ” In some African countries, the pandemic has also ended. People in Nairobi, Kenya who were victims of slum tourism said past made them

feel like "wildlife". In addition, the various “capacity building” trips to the countries of the South, which inevitably involve convoys of SUVs and pleasant hotel stays, have ended. WHO was criticized in 2019 after learning that it had wasted $ 192 million on travel, including business class air fares that would have been purchased despite the regulations.

Locals still need the "capacity" that was supposed to be built when international travel allowed business class flights. So why not send the funds to build schools or build solar panels without the western SUV convoy? Most of the skills taught are not provided by videoconferencing and places empowered by skills transfer, rather than budgets invested in foreign NGOs so that funding ends mainly in wealthy countries, instead of in the hands of people? who are they supposed to get help for? The pandemic has revealed how decades of foreign aid have too often been diverted to foreign rather than local experts.

The evaporation of all this poverty tourism leads one to wonder what he has accomplished and if all of this has really led to a change in the causes he claimed to support. Who benefited from protest tourism, activists or people or allegedly promoted causes? Is there evidence that the many climate change galas have led to greater awareness of climate change than any local effort to educate people, when world leaders could have discussed the same issues through distant videoconferencing ?

Is there any evidence that the many stunts involving aerial protests against the Palestinian Territories have really led to change for the people of Hebron, Gaza or Ramallah? Wouldn't it have been more efficient to invest the same resources at home to provide government support to the Palestinians or educate people about the actions of Israel, instead of flying away to Jerusalem to take pictures?

Certainly, protest tourism has been profitable for some of those involved, whether through talks, books, films or media events and the ecosystem of government and NGO funds surrounding these issues. He helped build a few careers and gave celebrities something to do. However, much of this could have been done closer to home and never required an associated trip, a trip that sometimes seems to run counter to the very nature of the protest.

The temporary suspension of first class hotels, business class trips and yacht trips, which quickly resulted in the end of protest tourism and apparent interest in various causes, should raise serious questions as to why some activisms have become more about conferences and less about the real cause.

Since almost all of the energy needed to fight climate change can be done locally, without a yacht, the urgency to protest against climate change should be as strong today as it is today. last year. Instead, it seems that climate change activists find it boring to protest at home and via Zoom or social media, or have reinvented themselves as experts at Covid-19.