Update 15/06/14: 200 anti-oil Vikings join longship protest
“BP is only sponsoring our history to help it get away with destroying our future.”
Fancy being a Norseman for the day? Anti BP activists plan to stage a long-ship raid on the British Museum on June 15th and are looking for a crew. The stunt or “flash-horde” is the latest in a series of Viking themed protests against British Petroleum’s sponsorship of the British Museum’s centrepiece Vikings exhibition.
Thor Thpot
Taking exception to the oil giant’s cosy relationship with the museum, organisers the Reclaim Shakespeare Company said “BP has a long-running financial relationship with the British Museum. The oil giant even has a lecture theatre named after it. Now it is sponsoring an exhibition about the Vikings, some of history’s most famous plunderers of wealth and resources (so nothing ironic there then).
BP recently launched several highly polluting tar sands extraction projects in Canada, trampling over the rights of local Indigenous people. US Gulf Coast communities have been left devastated by BP’s Deepwater Horizon spill, and the company is now eyeing up highly risky drilling options in the Arctic. At the same time, BP is lobbying against
environmental laws and blocking clean energy alternatives all over the world. It’s not surprising that the company likes to throw a bit of money at arts and culture to help distract us from its real activities.”
To sign up for the crew all you need to do is email info@bp-or-not-bp.org, or “join” this Facebook event. They’ll send you a short message with some simple instructions for your part in the performance. Learn these instructions and then be in the Museum at the appointed time to join the horde. You don’t need to dress as a Viking, but by Odin’s teeth, it is definitely encouraged.
For more http://bp-or-not-bp.org/news/join-our-viking-flash-horde-at-the-british-museum-3pm-june-15th/