At the start of the show “Europa” by the company Artistas Unidos at the Teatro São Luiz, two Climáximo supporters took to the stage and spoke about the significance of the play itself in the current state of the world in the face of the climate crisis.
The play “Europa”, conceived by David Greig in 1994 with reference to the Yugoslav civil war, tells of the anxiety and fear of a border village.
There are several ways of thinking about war in Europe: something that happens “over there”, in an abstract place; something that happened “before” and now no longer happens “here”; something that European countries have nothing to do with; something that sometimes impacts European countries but for which they have no responsibility.
All these ways are wrong in the context of the climate crisis: by continuing their economic model based on fossil capital, European countries are responsible for weapons of mass destruction. The floods in Libya, the fires in Argentina, the typhoons in China and the drought in the Algarve are bombs thrown that destroy homes, lives and ecosystems. Maintaining the current economic system is a deliberate act of violence against the societies of today and the future.
The activists took to the stage to give this perspective before the play, because the current war that governments and companies have declared against societies and the planet cannot be understood with an emotional and personal detachment from the subject.
“This play is about us, about our normality, about our complicity, about our collective responsibility.
They are destroying everything we love. Right now. Deliberately. In a coordinated way.
It is ordinary people who must take responsibility, stop giving consent to genocide and ecocide, and resist the destruction of civilization.”
The activists’ intervention was met with applause from the audience and calls to let them speak, for the sake of freedom of expression.