History of the Civil Resistance Movement - Paul (Pasha) Bell, a GSI Seminar

Join the GSI for our first event of the academic year next week with Paul (Pasha) Bell, a University of Exeter PhD student and prominent climate activist who has been supporting groups engaging in nonviolent civil resistance since 2021. In this talk Pasha will explore the nature of civil resistance in the United Kingdom and share their experience participating in such action.
The world is in crisis. Gaza, climate breakdown, the rise of an ultra-rich class with an outsized influence on our democracy; it’s a bleak outlook and it is increasingly clear that rapid system change is our only pathway to a safe and just world. In that context some ordinary people have chosen a radical response, nonviolent civil resistance. Civil resistance, the use of nonviolent disruptive actions to challenge power, is a fundamental part of the United Kingdom’s past and present. Today, groups like Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil mark a new chapter in that history. This seminar uses examples from current and historical groups to explore why people in the UK today are risking their liberty to challenge business as usual and how, in a modern world, could they succeed.
Paul (Pasha) Bell (they/them) is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Exeter, researching the statistics of extreme rainfall trends in a heating climate and has been supporting groups engaging in nonviolent civil resistance since 2021. They have been arrested 9 times for nonviolent civil resistance with Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil. For their action climbing a motorway gantry over the M25 in support of Just Stop Oil they received a 22-month prison sentence of which they spent 80 days in prison. They have co-coordinated the group Rebels In Prison Support which provides training and support for people sent to prison for nonviolent resistance. More recently they have supported the group Youth Demand who have joint demands on Palestine and climate, and the Exeter Encampment for the Liberation of Palestine. They are currently a PhD candidate at the University of Exeter, researching the statistics of extreme rainfall trends in a heating climate.
Please email [infoGSI@exeter.ac.uk](mailto:infoGSI@exeter.ac.uk "mailto:infoGSI@exeter.ac.uk") to confirm your place in person with refreshments provided.

You can also join online at 14:30BST using the following link: [https://Universityofexeter.zoom.us/j/99950488210?pwd=DYt33mYCKHFvXKiL8IAcv1jnEfGC4v.1](https://universityofexeter.zoom.us/j/99950488210?pwd=DYt33mYCKHFvXKiL8IAcv1jnEfGC4v.1)