Protests are inherently disruptive. After all, it’s impossible to protest without disrupting the usual way of life.
However, one has to ask where the line needs to be drawn. What would a protester have to do for you to go from sympathizing with them to hating them?
For many sympathetic to Just Stop Oil’s modes of protest, that line in the sand came when they vandalized a classic painting worth $90 million.
Hanan, 22, and Harrison, 20, two protesters affiliated with Just Stop Oil, vandalized Diego Velázquez’s The Rokeby Venus (1647-1651) painting. They used emergency rescue hammers to shatter the protective glass layer. The activists wanted to echo the seven strikes made by suffragette Mary Richardson in 1914 with a meat cleaver.
Why Did Just Stop Oil Activists Destroy A Classic Painting?
The British extremist environmentalist group, Just Stop Oil, has been testing everyone’s patience for a long time with their antics. They have stuck their hands on pavements as a form of protest, refused to get up from infront of cars, and defaced famous paintings.
Who can forget when they threw tomato soup at Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” painting in the National Gallery in London? Thankfully, no long-lasting damage was done then, and after a quick cleaning, authorities put the picture on display again.
But this time, the Just Stop Oil protesters went one step further. Hanan, 22, and Harrison, 20, two protesters affiliated with the environmental organization, vandalized “The Rokeby Venus,” made between 1647 and 1651 by Diego Velázquez.
They used emergency rescue hammers to shatter the thick protective glass covering the precious painting. As a result, the room in which the artwork was housed was evacuated.
Met Police have arrested them both on criminal charges. The artwork has been removed from display to be examined by conservators. Daily Mail reported that Hanan, a London-based student, explained her motivation by stating to the gallery:
“Over 100 years ago, the suffragette Mary Richardson attacked the Rokeby Venus portrait for the unjust imprisonment of Emmeline Pankhurst. Today, I have used similar methods to fight climate justice. Women did not get the vote by voting; it is time for deeds, not words. It is time to Just Stop Oil.”
She continued saying:
“As a kid I saw myself growing up to be an astronaut or a singer. I saw a future, however ridiculous it was. Now, those day-dreams have ended. The future we are heading for doesn’t allow space for them anymore.”
Harrison, her partner-in-crime, echoed similar sentiments and said:
“Politics is failing us. It failed women in 1914, and it is failing us now. Emmeline Pankhurst said, you have to make more noise than anybody else; you have to make yourself more obtrusive than anybody else… I do not want to be here, but I cannot continue to see this government fail all of us.”
In 1914, a British suffragette, Mary Richardson, used a meat cleaver to attack the same Rokeby Venus at the National Portrait Gallery in London. She slashed the painting seven times in response to the re-arrest of fellow suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst.
The painting was restored and was put under a thick sheet of protective glass, which was shattered by the Just Stop Oil protestors after more than a hundred years. The painting is estimated at $90 million.
It now remains to be seen if the painting has been damaged in any way and if Just Stop Oil will have to pay any form of compensation.
What do you think of this action of damaging a precious 17th-century painting worth $90 million for protest? Do you think Just Stop Oil is turning public sentiment against them with these actions?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: Daily Mail
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