Glimpses from the flashmob by Hanna Leghammar, divestment flashmob organiser in Stockholm
Glimpses from the award ceremony by Andreas Jonsson, divestment campaigner in Uppsala

THE UMBRELLA FLASHMOB

1
A cold Saturday evening, the Saturday before Advent, environmentalists gathered at Sergels Torg in Stockholm, Sweden. The quiet manifestation attracted passing to pause their pre-Christmas hysteria and curiously come closer to the small crowd enjoying a show of Lappish jojk, dance and lights. The dancers3 carried white umbrellas – whilst dancing they fluttered round & round, up & down, back & forward like a clear waterfall in the dark. In a gentle pose, the dancers at last stopped and together joined in a body of white light. From all sides the crowd closed in upon the dancers with black umbrellas, closed in around them like a dark sea. Until there was no white light left to be seen… Until the white umbrellas dove out from below and aimed their spotlights toward our demand: DIVESTERA!
2And so the speeches begun: Juhán Niila Stålka, Olivia Linander and Bill McKnibben. Speaking of environmental awareness, global warming, climate change and fossil industry. The call-out was for the City of Stockholm to divest.
Stockholm City is an asset manager, and, today there is no policy to forces the City to to avoid fossil industry in their fund placements. Through this manifestation we raised our voices: City of Stockholm, divest!

 – Hanna

 

 

THE AWARD CEREMONY

1_Edward_Snowden_videolink_credit_Wolfgang_Schmidt

With “…for mobilising growing popular support in the USA and around the world for strong action to counter the threat of global climate change” as the motivation, Bill McKibben and 350.org received the Right Livelihood Award on the 2 of December 2014.

I was lucky enough to be invited as one of Bill McKibben’s guests to the ceremony, along with Johline Lindholm from PUSH Sweden as well as Olivia Linander and Tim Ratcliffe from 350.org. For me, being at this award ceremony was so inspiring and hearing these people speak, who have done so much for people around the world, gave me the chills.

The award ceremony was opened with a speech by the chairman of SÄRLA, Eva-Lena Jansson and the first female archbishop of Sweden, Antje Jackelén. During the first half of the ceremony the five recipients were introduced along with the jury’s motivation under standing ovations. All of the recipients can be found on the webpage http://www.rightlivelihood.org/laureates.html?&no_cache=1. This was followed by a refreshment break were the guests and the laureates had the chance to mingle with each other over some mull wine (glögg).

2_Laureates_group_credit_Wolfgang_SchmidtThe second half was dedicated to the acceptance speeches by the laureates. They were once again presented by members of different political parties in Sweden that also are members of the Association for the Right Livelihood Award in the Swedish Parliament. The speeches were really inspiring and Bill McKibben’s speech was interrupted after almost each paragraph by applause and chanting. The award ceremony ended with a very nice buffet dinner where all the guests once again had the chance to mingle with the laureates.

On the Right Livelihood Award website you can find the whole ceremony if you want to watch it and also be inspired by the speeches.

– Andreas

FacebookTwitter