Strange bedfellows for Druids
Sometimes, to get things done you have to work with people who are not perhaps your natural allies. My go-to example of this is that it was otter hunters who first raised the alarm over falling otter numbers in the UK in the 20th century. Hunters and nature lovers worked together to try and get things changed for the benefit of otters, and otters have made a superb comeback.
If we wait for the perfect allies, we might never get things done. However, if we team up with people that also has implications. Who and what are we supporting and validating? Is that a good risk? I feel strongly that as Druids we have a responsibility to consider who we empower and where that might lead, no matter how urgent the cause. People with terrible motives will show up for causes they think will win them support and make them seem acceptable. I recollect how locally, UKIP folk very visibly joined the popular campaign against the local incinerator, while UKIP councilors went ahead and voted for it.
Enter stage left, my strawman for today, the fictional organisation Nazis for Nature. If they appear to share our aims around a pressing issue – like saving a local wood, should we shun them, or embrace them? Perhaps we embrace them, for the good of the cause, and a few weeks later photos of our smiling faces as we work alongside them come up alongside material about eugenics. The thing about Nazis is that we know what their intentions are, and where they are going and to what ends they might find us useful. Increasingly, people who support politics that seek to harm other people, are being vocal about it, guessing is not so much of a problem now as it might once have been.
We might not agree with what the otter hunters do. We might be going to actively work against them in the future, but we also know what they want. For otter hunting to survive as a sport, there have to be plenty of otters, which means there have to be lots of habitats for otters and the rivers need to be clean. At no point are they likely to change tack on that score. Everyone in this scenario is working to avoid otter extinction, and other differences can be dealt with when the otters are safe. It’s worth noting that otter hunting is now illegal in the UK.
When you can see what a person stands for and how that might play out in the longer term, an uneasy truce around a key issue can be a good choice. Solve the biggest problems first and deal with the other issues later.
Sometimes, doing the right thing will call for some challenging compromises. The key is to look at the overall trajectory. Ask whether these people genuinely care about the same issue, or whether they might be piggybacking in the hopes of benefiting themselves. Ask if what you have is a valid difference of opinion from the people you might make an uneasy alliance with. People who hate Star Trek and people who love it might realistically work together to save a science fiction convention. The differences of opinion aren’t really that important compared to what’s at stake.
People’s right to exist is not something that we should consider open to debate. These are not opinions we can agree to differ over. Anyone whose policies are murderous or ecocidal is not a good ally even if their short term aims seem to align with ours in some way.
