tomato soup in the museum

The protest does not always imply outburst and violence even if it tries to break an order.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
19 October 2022 Wednesday 20:40
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tomato soup in the museum

The protest does not always imply outburst and violence even if it tries to break an order. When we studied history, we were disturbed by those images of Gandhi with marked ribs and his beatific smile, leader of those dissidents who, like Bartleby, preferred to resist peacefully. From Rosa Parks, who preferred not to get up from her seat on that bus because she was too tired to continue being mistreated as a black woman, to Simone Weil, another contemporary saint who, refugee in England, decided to eat the same as her compatriots in occupied France and died malnourished and tuberculosis, quiet protest has often been more effective than attacks and bombs. This form of self-violence carried an implicit message: it is not worth continuing to live if there is no justice.

A decade ago, two North American researchers, Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan, published Why civil resistance works?, in which they analyzed more than 200 violent and non-violent revolutions between 1900 and 2006 in Iran, Palestine, Burma and South Africa. His conclusion was that peaceful insurgencies succeed three times out of four, while violent ones succeed only once. Furthermore, civil resistance movements offer a much greater guarantee of a democratic future.

As a magazine director, I attended several actions of PETA activists at fashion shows: suddenly, a girl with bare breasts and a banner of “No Fur” walked up the catwalk, breaking her hypnotic ritual. She did not care that no model wore fur on her, it was about shocking the public. I don't know who they convinced, but I always understood those actions as narcissistic abductions rather than pedagogical ones.

Today, a movement of environmental activists is fighting climate change by throwing tomato soup on masterpieces of art. “Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting or the protection of our planet and its population?”, justified one of the young women who threw a can of Heinz soup at Van Gogh's Sunflowers. The painting had protective glass and the National Gallery rushed to inform us that the work had not been damaged, but that gesture, that of attacking one of the highest expressions of artistic creation, is vile enough to play with a lighter in a dry forest. Instead of attacking beauty, they should do it against human stupidity, starting with their own. Because we have to protect the climate, yes, also the interior.