Sage advice from an original rainbow warrior

Crusading Journalists

But Rex is first and foremost a journalist, and has always been a journalist even when he was an activist and as he continues to be an activist, so he continues to be a journalist, writing stories that he believes are important. But, it is getting harder to be both today, he says. Back in the 70’s, during the early years of Greenpeace, reporters such as Rex, Bob Hunter and Ben and Dorothy Metcalf were able to take sides with the support of their papers, which printed their stories and published their pictures of whales and seals being slaughter at sea. Though Rex still thinks there is a role for advocacy journalism, it’s not as easy now, he says, because of the concentrated ownership of the print and broadcast media.  "The competition for stories and analysis doesn’t exist. When there is no competition, there is no creativity." He believes that "if it weren’t for the Internet, we would be in serious trouble because the media has closed so many doors for journalistic inquiry and oversight."

He prefers to write books, which allow him to be more independent. Currently, he is writing about how the authentic message of Jesus has been mangled and lost over the centuries. Self-proclaimed children of Marshall McLuhan who declared the medium to be the message, Rex and his fellow crusading journalists were great believers in mind bombs: those fundamental truths that gobsmacked people and profoundly changed their way of thinking. They called themselves mind punks who messed with people’s heads and challenged the accepted Judo Christian view that humans were the master race dominating all other species and deserving of all natural resources. At the centre of this subversive thought was the concept of ecology and Hunter declared Nature to be God.

The Mystics and the Mechanics

In his book, Greenpeace: The Inside Story, Rex divides the early Greenpeace activists into two camps: the mechanics and the mystics. In the face of what he describes as the "iron grip the mechanical paradigm" has on our culture, he defends the role of the mystic. That is "to continually remind us that we are living beings in a living system, which is not a machine."

"We think in mechanical metaphors. We think of ‘fixing’ the economy and we treat cultural and social problems as diseases." This way of thinking, says Rex, led to the chemical disaster in Bhopal and the oil spill by the Exxon Valdez. "We forget that we are living inside a miracle."

The early Greenpeace crew of peaceniks and hippies was guided by supernatural signs and symbols. The birds and dolphins would show them the way and they would follow the rainbow in pursuit of the Russian whaling fleet. They read the ancient Chinese texts, the I Ching before making decisions and sang their incantations from the crow’s nest. And their supplications were heard.

Living in a Miracle

"You don’t have to pray for a miracle. You only have to look outside your window. You are alive. Life is a miracle. This is why the mystical element is so important especially in social movements.  The sense of wonder gets lost if we only think about tactics and strategy for a campaign. The most successful social movements have a spiritual or mystical quality," says Rex citing Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Dorothy Day.

The spiritual aspect was especially important in the early years of Greenpeace, he says, because they knew they were not in control of the world.  "If we were going to bring about a truly ecological culture, we had to stop thinking we could fix everything and engineer our way out of the problem. There is nothing wrong with engineering but it is not the whole story. In a truly ecological culture you have to be willing to not be in control of everything.

"In an environmental system everything is dependent on everything else. Humanity has to find its place in the process of life on Earth. That is the challenge, not counting carbon emissions or calculating how much food is needed to feed 12 billion people."

Rex believes in giving oneself up to allow things to happen that are not in the campaign plan. Citing 1930s social activist Saul Alinsky, he says the most decisive moment of power in a campaign arrives when the other side reacts. This can be induced by not controlled. Campaigners can raise awareness, identify perpetrators and present alternatives, but they can’t control a social movement. In fact, says Rex, the bigger the plan the more danger of being blinded by your plan, missing opportune moments.

The Wisdom of the Warriors

The early eco warriors had a plan, but did not presume to control events. When they were faced with changing circumstances, they would toss the coins of the I Ching, the Book of Changes, which some might consider a simple-minded superstition. Not Rex, who "of course" still considers the I Ching a useful tool.

"People misunderstand. It is not about giving up rational thought and turning to happenstance. Records of wisdom such as the I Ching are spiritual tools that help open you to other possibilities. The I Ching is full of wisdom. You make yourself a better agent of change by becoming wiser. We can learn many age-old truths from the I Ching or Buddha or Jesus. Wisdom is eternal. Taoism, for example, teaches that all effort creates opposition. If you understand this, you are no longer surprised when you make a well intentioned effort and discover there is opposition to it. This is not hippy dippy stuff."

Not that Rex thinks the hippies were dippy. In fact, he thinks they were right on. He has friends who went back to the land, and who are now living sustainable lives, growing their own food, making their entertainment, and producing their own energy. As for the rest of us…"There is not a single resource on the planet that we will have more of in the future, except maybe heat. We are not even remotely sustainable." But Rex optimistically believes humans are smarter than fruit flies, which will land on a tomato and procreate until the population is so large it eats the whole tomato, and then dies off.

"I remain optimistic, but first we must be realistic, otherwise our optimism is just delusion. We could completely trash this planet until it is uninhabitable. Consumer society is totally out of control."

Learning Nature’s Way

Part of the problem, he thinks, is the way we practice democracy and an electoral system of political campaigns that stifle long-term planning. "Politicians want to promise immediate benefits that people will vote for. No politician wants to face the authentic, long-term problems. What politician, for example, is going to say, ‘We have to consume less, and have fewer babies?"

Moreover, the political party system turns everyone adversaries. "If the Conservatives get a good idea, there is no way the Liberals or the NDP can agree that it’s good. They have to hate it."

Rex believes we must learn to ask: "How does nature deal with this problem?" After all, he notes, "Nature does not work like a two-party democracy. Nature is simultaneously competitive and cooperative, stable and creative. We have to learn the patterns of nature and the solutions of nature. We cannot tack nature onto our economic system like an afterthought."

Today, says Rex, our environmental problems are more formidable, believe it or not, than when the early warriors of the rainbow faced off with the American military to prevent a nuclear holocaust. Bad as that was, (and still is) the threats posed by resource depletion, global warming, and human population today are greater. Rex believes, however, that like the threat of nuclear war, which galvanized a generation and gave birth to Greenpeace, the catastrophe of climate change could be the clarion call that moves people to radically change.  

Some Sage Advice

He hopes and encourages the young Greenpeace activists who are fighting for their futures.  Only the young can make the revolution he believes is necessary. So he offers some sage advice:

"Think for yourself and be creative. Don’t rely on the old tactics because tactics don’t necessarily work twice.  You have to reinvent yourself, or as Ben Metcalfe used to say, ‘Go back to the costume shop.’ Do something nobody expects you to do. Don’t be afraid to be absolutely outrageous. If people say you are crazy, then you probably have a good idea.

"And trust your instinct to do something. History is not on auto-pilot. History is the result of people’s choices. The counter-history of every age is written by those who are not intimidated by the consequences of acting on their conscience."