Trend Asia: “Existence is Resistance”

The increase in global temperature has an impact on a multidimensional crisis that cannot be tolerated. Not only for humans, including living things that depend on the pendulum of climate balance. The energy sector that relies on the use of fossil fuels is the largest contributor to emissions. Addiction to this energy source is what is now boiling the earth’s temperature and has made life increasingly vulnerable. Loud alarm warnings from various community groups around the world have pushed for urgent changes in energy policy and governance in the global order. A clean and fair energy transition is the key and agenda that we must push together to present opportunities for a sustainable future with complete sovereignty in the hands of the community.

However, currently, the energy transition is still used as a commodity project by the state and the conglomerates that surround it. It is seen as a momentum to get money compared to an opportunity for a fair, comprehensive transformation. Environmental, social and economic damage is long-lived because extractive energy projects are included in the clean energy transition scheme. Deforestation of the Mentawai and Kalimantan forests for burning wood in power plants is labeled as ‘green’ until the extraction of minerals for “free” emission electric vehicles is carried out recklessly without human rights principles. The awareness to reject this conditioning of life has been demonstrated through the struggle that continues to be carried out every day. The struggle comes from various directions and forms, such as demands on those in power to change policies that damage the welfare of society to the way a community survives and fights oppression. All of that is a collective struggle to change a system that harms the right to life of society. The courage is rooted and flows in all directions because survival is a form of resistance.

The Existence is Resistance exhibition shows the form of struggle from various levels of civil society. It spreads to street corners, courtrooms, remote villages and small islands to maintain work to maintain communities, cultures, and environments that are linked to everyday life. Community resilience is the sharpest weapon. Existence is Resistance is also a call echoed by marginalized groups in various parts of the world to fight oppression. The same is true of marginalized communities in Indonesia who continue to struggle amidst the din of political, economic, environmental, and social struggles surrounding the energy transition process. Their lives, livelihoods, and ways of surviving are radical acts of resistance.