'We've been to Congress, it doesn't work because politicians haven't done anything'

Protest group Futuro Vegetal made headlines this week with a succession of actions that received a wide range of responses from the public, from fervent support for their message to vitriol for their methods. 

First, the group targeted a Burger King, denouncing the exploitation of animals and the deforestation caused by the global meat industry. This was followed by tint being thrown at the Sagrada Família to condemn the lack of real response from authorities towards the climate crisis, especially highlighting the succession of historic wildfires that burned across the Iberian Peninsula this summer. Lastly, they sprayed red paint over an official store of FC Barcelona, criticizing the football club for their “complicity” in the “genocides” in Palestine and Congo. 

Unlike some other protest groups, Futuro Vegetal have taken the decision to not hide their faces and names, and Victòria Domingo met up with Catalan News after the string of high-profile actions to explain the group’s reasoning and position. 

Domingo said that the group’s central message is to mitigate against the worst effects of the climate emergency, a crisis she points out is already here, but she believes “we can mitigate the worst case scenarios,” although she says “we need to act now to mitigate.” 

Recent examples of the climate catastrophe are not difficult to come up with. “In the last two years in Spain, we had floods in Valencia with many deaths,” Domingo points out. “We had crop loss, we had drought here in Catalonia, really serious drought. This summer, we had forest fires that burned almost 400,000 hectares of forest.” 

Methodology

Much of the reaction online to Futuro Vegetal’s protest actions this week held the belief that the central message was a worthy one, but the methodology was questioned. The main reason that high-profile targets such as the Sagrada Familia and FC Barcelona were chosen was that doing things in a more orderly way has yielded no results to date. 

“Sagrada Familia is very well known, so the media will take notice,” Domingo says. “We've been to Congress, we've been to headquarters of political parties, we've been in front of the headquarters of businesses. We’ve been to [Real Madrid’s stadium,] the Bernabéu, as well. It doesn't work because politicians haven't done anything.”

Despite past efforts, they view a lack of action on behalf of politicians all over the world as a collective failure to grasp the magnitude of the climate catastrophe. “For example, [Catalan president Salvador] Illa wants to get a bigger airport in Barcelona,” the activist points out. “It hasn't worked, so we need to do anything we can to get the message through to society.”

In addition, Domingo makes it clear that their protest action at the Sagrada Familia was “very calculated” with a material chosen that wouldn’t do any real damage to the famous basilica. 

“It just made the effect, but we didn't cause any damage.”

Unifying factor

When asked about what the protest at the store of FC Barcelona, who were targeted for their alleged “complicity” in supporting Israel and abuses in DR Congo, has to do with the climate crisis, Domingo makes the point that there is a unifying link between all of her group’s actions – the economic system of capitalism. 

“Capitalism feeds off exploitation, exploitation of ecosystems, exploitation of people, of resources of other countries,” she says. “We wouldn't have our democracy without extractivism or neocolonialism. It's exploitation of the ecosystem, people, and animals, it's exactly the same.”

“Capitalism is the root of these problems and it's causing climate change. Capitalism is a system where you need unlimited growth, but we have limited resources. It's absolutely illogical and we cannot sustain that.” 

For Domingo, Israel’s war in Gaza enters the picture through the context of imperialist neocolonialism. “Israel wanted, in the past, to have a space of their own, but now it's a colonialist state. They want to take the territory of other people to exploit it,” she says. In Congo, she sees “exploitation for coal and other minerals for Samsung or Apple to sell their phones.”

Communication strategy

Futuro Vegetal make a point of not hiding their identity in their protest videos, while Domingo had no issues with her name and image being published for this interview. She says this is to legitimize the protest, something which is “easier if people can see who we are.” 

Showing their faces makes it easier to get people to “empathise with our cause or the problem that we are protesting about.” 

For the protest action at the Sagrada Familia, they received fines, and Domingo says they “may face judicial problems, but we don't know just yet because this is a very slow process, so we'll just have to wait.”

“We would be happy not to face judicial and police repression,” she says. “If we could do it another way, we would, but we have to keep in mind what is at stake.”

Response from public

Domingo says the group has received a mix of “hate” and support for their succession of actions, something she says is “normal” because of the “controversy” the group are aiming for. 

“Historically, movements had to generate controversy to make the people hear them. The suffragettes didn't get the vote just through demonstrations, and people forget that.

“We had been demonstrating for many years, many decades, asking politicians to do something. And we could just not wait any longer.”