Titania McGrath Joins Extinction Rebellion

Allow me to wish those who are celebrating Easter a Happy Easter. And to wish those who are celebrating Passover a Happy Passover. Those who are celebrating neither are probably not very happy today.

To brighten up our day, the Daily Mail brings us an on-the-scene report on the latest London demonstration mounted by Extinction Rebellion. By the way, before proceeding the meat of the report, have you noticed that the group’s handle, Extinction Rebellion is syntactical gibberish.

What would we do without the Daily Mail?

The author: one Titania McGrath, aka Andrew Doyle.

The opening:

I have always been super worried about the environment. Climate change causes erratic weather conditions, which is really bad for the hedge maze on my estate. And I’m very aware of my carbon footprint. For instance, I always make sure that at least one of my cars is energy efficient. Besides, as a social justice activist, I can do an awful lot of good by sending angry tweets from a ski slope in Val-d’Isère.

But my involvement in the Extinction Rebellion movement has taken my environmental work to a whole other level. I’ve spent the last couple of nights camped out in Oxford Circus in London. I can’t sleep in an actual tent because I’m allergic to nylon, but the hotel I’m staying in only has a three-star rating, so I feel like I’ve made a genuine sacrifice.

Many people recognized McGrath and greeted her appropriately:

One young woman remarked that my arrival reminded her of Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey. I told her that if I must be compared to a male historical figure, it should be Mahatma Gandhi, not some Zionist settler who’d learnt a few conjuring tricks.

Gandhi has provided the inspiration for the entire modus operandi of Extinction Rebellion, based as it is on the principle of ‘non-violent resistance’.

Gandhi’s followers used to call this ‘satyagraha’, because they lacked the necessary discipline to learn English properly.

In many ways I have surpassed Gandhi. He might have brought the British empire to its knees, but did he ever glue himself to the Docklands Light Railway, stripped to the waist and smeared in woad? No, he was too busy mincing around in flip-flops and collecting salt.

What are the tactics of Extinction Rebellion? McGrath explains them:

Our tactics in Extinction Rebellion are varied but for the most part we like to chain ourselves to things and strip naked.

Over the past week, we have attached ourselves to famous landmarks, buses, and even the occasional homeless person. Sometimes we chain ourselves to things as a sign of affection, such as the fence in front of Jeremy Corbyn’s house.

He seemed a bit annoyed when he saw a group of hipsters sitting cross-legged on his begonias but I think deep down he understands that we are saving the world.

It’s been particularly heartening to see so many children joining our group. It’s never too early to start being politically active and, as we saw with the Youth Strike 4 Climate back in February, some young people are so committed to direct action they’re even prepared to miss school for it. After all, it’s their future that’s at stake.

As might be expected, many of McGrath’s fellow wokesters are sorely put out that the crowd is so overwhelmingly white. She has the perfect response:

Some have criticised the protesters for being overwhelmingly white and middle class, but this is simply not true. I saw at least one family who had brought along their Filipino au pair. Besides, this wasn’t like that pro-Brexit rally where Channel 4’s Jon Snow said that he’d ‘never seen so many white people in one place’. The members of Extinction Rebellion are not white in any sense other than their skin colour. They are the good whites. Jon Snow was clearly referring to working-class whites, who tend to have the wrong opinions.

All told, McGrath had a great time. Isn’t that what it’s all about?

As for me and my compatriots in Extinction Rebellion, we had a wonderful time. There was cavorting in the streets, amateur hemp-weaving competitions, angry teenagers reciting haiku about why we need more badgers and even an acoustic lesbian quintet performing the songs from Hair.

I myself mounted the pink boat to recite my shocking and evocative poem Mother Earth Is Not Your Slut, which I performed naked except for a pashmina fashioned from interlaced earthworms. A number of people were so moved that they actually had to leave.

There is still so much work to be done. Actor Jason Momoa, star of the film Aquaman, has just shaved off his beard to raise awareness about the need to eliminate plastic waste. He’s doing his bit to save the planet. Why aren’t you?