Dozens of activists worked together to stage a large-scale visual protest at Glastonbury’s iconic Tor yesterday, calling on Somerset organisations such as churches, museums, schools and local councils to boycott insurers who help fund arms companies, fossil fuels and migrant detention centres.
The demand is for institutions to research and switch to insurers offering ethical policies – a move becoming more and more simple and financially astute, with premiums falling at least to the same and sometimes lower than those offered by companies such as Allianz (which continues to underwrite Israel’s largest weapons supplier Elbit Systems).
Last week, Boycott Bloody Insurance hung banners from the frame of Glastonbury’s pyramid stage, announcing a campaign for the festival to cut its ties with Allianz.
Making connections between the world’s climate crisis and Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people and land, the Red Rebels took part in yesterday’s protest alongside Palestinian flags. UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese has mentioned Allianz’s role in financing Israel’s attack on Palestine, saying “No one is free until everyone is free”. The same western drivers of climate collapse, the US and UK with their outpost Israel, see Palestine as the obstacle to major new resource exploitation and trade routes. Targeting and ostracising the insurers who continue to fund the violence and dispossession of endless greedy extractivism is a powerful way for ordinary people to force change through everyday institutions, and visual protests like this one help get that message across.
More info at www.boycottbloodyinsurance.org
