I want to make clear that I do not advocate anyone putting themselves in harm's way when confronting bulldozers and other vegetation-clearing equipment.
If I make a personal choice to do so, in any given situation, at any given time, then I do it alone and expect no others to follow my example (in words or deed).
For me, that's a carefully thought out position when all other means have failed. I do not advocate any form of violent resistance.
I do believe I have the right to place myself between natural habitat which is under assault, and the machines being used to facilitate the assault.
I think the most effective approach is to 'talk' or 'sing' to the machines, so to speak — that is, to voice as one the opposition (poetry is effective) so that it is heard by all, confronting the machines, their drivers, and those who wield the power behind them (those so often faceless cowards who send the 'troops' in to do the dirty work).
Below is a poem, written in the context of the Beeliar Wetlands situation, which I believe could be effective 'sung' or spoken 'to' the bulldozers and those behind them, and also to all the 'undecided' or indifferent people who so often unwittingly contribute to the scenario of destruction.
So, please DO NOT ever put yourself at physical risk, but always stand united against this assault against the rights of the environment and, indeed, assault against human rights in so many different ways. We can act in peace and also respect ourselves in doing so.
The Bulldozer Poem
Bulldozers rend flesh. Bulldozers make
devils
of good people. Bulldozers are compelled to
do
as they are told. Bulldozers grimace when
they
tear the earth’s skin — from earth they
came.
Bulldozers are made by people who also want new
mobile phones to play games on, and to feed families.
Bulldozers are observers of phenomena —
decisions
are taken out of their hands. They are full
of perceptions.
They will hear our pleas and struggle
against their masters.
Bulldozers slice & dice, bulldozers
tenderise, bulldozers
reshape the sandpit, make grrrriiing noises, kids’ motorskills.
Bulldozers slice the snake in half so it
chases its own tail,
writing in front of its face. Bulldozers
are vigorous
percussionists, sounding the snap and boom
of hollows
caving in, feathers of the cockatoos a
whisper in the roar.
Bulldozers deny the existence of Aether,
though they know
deep down in their pistons, deep in their
levers, that all
is spheres and heavens and voices of
ancestors worry
at their peace. Bulldozers recognise final
causes, and embrace
outcomes that put them out of work. There’s
always more
scrub to delete, surely... surely? O continuous tracked tractor,
O S
and U blades, each to his orders, his
skillset. Communal
as D9 Dozers (whose buckets uplift to
asteroids waiting
to be quarried). O bulldozer! your history!
O those Holt tractors
working the paddocks, O the first slow
tanks crushing
the battlefield. The interconnectedness of
Being. Philosopher!
O your Makers — Cummings and Caterpillar —
O great Cat
we grew up in their thrall whether we knew
it or not — playing
sports where the woodlands grew, where you
rode in after
the great trees had been removed. You
innovate and flatten.
We must know your worldliness — working
with companies
to make a world of endless horizons. It’s a
team effort, excoriating
an eco-system. Not even you can tackle an
old-growth tall tree alone.
But we know your power, your pedigree, your
sheer bloody
mindedness. Sorry, forgive us, we should
keep this civil, O dozer!
In you is a cosmology — we have yelled the
names of bandicoots
and possums, of kangaroos and echidnas, of
honeyeaters
and the day-sleeping tawny frogmouth you
kill in its silence.
And now we stand before you, supplicant and
yet resistant,
asking you to hear us over your war-cry,
over your work
ethic being played for all it’s worth. Hear
us, hear me —
don’t laugh at our bathos, take us
seriously, forgive
our inarticulateness, our scrabbling for
words as you crush
us, the world as we know it, the hands that
fed you, that made you.
Listen not to those officials who have
taken advantage
of their position, who have turned their
offices to hate
the world and smile, kissing the tiny hands
of babies
that you can barely hear as your engines
roar with power.
But you don’t see the exquisite colour of
the world, bulldozer —
green is your irritant. We understand,
bulldozer, we do —
it is fear that compels you, rippling
through eternity,
embracing
the inorganics of modernity.
John Kinsella
