00:00This is Apropos.
00:04Jeff Bezos and his fiancée Lauren Sanchez have touched down in Venice
00:08ahead of their star-studded wedding bash.
00:11The nuptials of the billionaire Amazon founder have drawn the ire, though,
00:15of protesters who are claiming victory after the couple moved their main celebration
00:20from the city centre to another location.
00:24And Tony Kerrigan has the story.
00:25The lovebirds have landed in Venice.
00:32Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos and his betrothed Lauren Sanchez
00:35have invited around 250 A-listers for three days of lavish wedding celebrations,
00:40which will see whole swathes of the floating city closed to the public,
00:44to the ire of locals.
00:51It's not a good thing.
00:53As usual, only those who have money can do this kind of thing.
00:56Venice is now the property of tourists.
00:58We who were born here either go to the mainland
01:00or have to ask them for permission to board a ferry.
01:06Residents have come together in protest,
01:09galvanising support from international NGOs
01:11who colourfully argued on a 400-square-metre banner
01:14if you can rent Venice for your wedding, you can pay more tax.
01:18And the activists claimed a small victory on Tuesday.
01:21The main reception was set to take place in the 16th century
01:25Scuola Grande de la Misericordia.
01:27But the Bezos millions were no match for activists threatening to flood the nearby canals
01:32with inflatable crocodiles to prevent their guests arriving.
01:35So they've scaled back their ambitions to the medieval arsenale.
01:39The switch came the same day that a life-size mannequin of Bezos holding an Amazon box
01:44was thrown into the Grand Canal.
01:46And grievances are not limited to residents of the city affected by its housing crisis.
01:50For many, the event represents wider social and economic injustices.
01:56We think that one big billionaire can't rent a city for his pleasure.
02:01So we are here because we want to stop this injustice society, injustice climate,
02:08and we want to change the mind of people, we want to change the society.
02:14Around 90 private jets are set to land in local airports
02:17for a wedding valued at around $55 million.
02:23Well, for more, we're joined now by a member of the British activist group Everyone Hates Elon.
02:28Thanks for being with us this evening.
02:30You do wish to remain anonymous on the programme,
02:33but you're part of the group that unfurled that anti-Bezos banner in St Mark's Square this week.
02:39Tell us more about the protest and why this was a cause that your group felt necessary to take on.
02:45Yeah, thanks.
02:47Thanks for inviting me on.
02:49We started as a group a few months ago.
02:53Obviously, we called Everyone Hates Elon,
02:54and we started in response to Elon Musk's getting involved in politics.
03:02But Elon Musk isn't the only problem.
03:06There's lots of other billionaires that are influencing our lives,
03:10and Jeff Bezos is obviously the second richest man in the world.
03:15A couple of months ago, when he sent Katy Perry to space as part of the Blue Origin space flight,
03:24we put a message out.
03:26We did a bus stop ad that said,
03:28if you can send Katy Perry to space, you can pay more tax.
03:31And that went really viral,
03:33and it was something that resonated with a lot of people.
03:35And so when we saw that the story that he was renting,
03:39basically shutting down half of Venice to get married,
03:43it just felt like it was something that we really wanted to make a point that it's just obscene,
03:50that any one person can do that at a time when most of us are struggling to pay the bills,
03:54and when politicians talk about having to make really difficult decisions to fund public services.
04:00So that's why we wanted to kind of put a message out there,
04:04and we did it on a, you know, 20 by 20 meter banner.
04:07And it looks like the couple, sorry for cutting across you,
04:10it looks like the couple have been forced to essentially move the location for the wedding,
04:16or part of the celebrations in any case.
04:19Groups there, protesters describing that as an enormous victory.
04:22What was your response?
04:23I think, like, as a group, we were started as three friends without a penny,
04:30taking on the world's richest men.
04:32And, you know, these people like Jeff Bezos have all of the wealth,
04:38all of the resources in the world, and they have lots of power.
04:42But I think victories like this show that when ordinary people come together,
04:47when we use our creativity, when we use our sense of humor,
04:51we can take on people who have lots of power,
04:54and we can show, you know, it's not going to solve the problem of wealth inequality
05:00that Jeff Bezos has moved his wedding a few miles down the road.
05:04But it does, it is a symbolic victory for people power and to show that, you know,
05:10we do have a say in, like, how these billionaires impact our lives,
05:15and we can take them on if we come together.
05:18But apart from the symbolic victory that you refer to there,
05:21do campaigns like this actually make a difference?
05:25Well, I think it's really easy to think that there's nothing we can do.
05:29I mean, when we started, we started on a Zoom call, you know,
05:33looking at Elon Musk tweeting amplifying far-right figures in the UK and across Europe,
05:40feeling like there's nothing we can do.
05:44But we made a decision to start campaigning on that.
05:47And actually, you know, we've seen him step back from politics directly
05:52as a result of campaigning from groups like ours.
05:56You know, we had a big impact on that and other groups like Tesla take down.
05:59So we really have seen that ordinary people, like, coming together, you know,
06:06without the resources of these billionaires can actually impact things.
06:10I mean, we've got, we wanted to start a conversation about wealth inequality
06:14and our message, which is that if you can shut down, you know,
06:18if you can rent Venice to get married, you can pay more tax.
06:21It's a very simple message.
06:22That has been on the headlines around the world in the last 48 hours.
06:27And that is a victory in and of itself.
06:29To me, that's a more important victory than where Jeff Bezos gets married.
06:34I want a conversation started about Jeff Bezos and people like Jeff Bezos
06:38and companies like Amazon paying their fair share of tax.
06:42Yeah, Greenpeace has also joined the protest.
06:45It's been saying it wants to draw attention to the low taxes that billionaires like Bezos are paying
06:51while allegedly exacerbating the climate crisis with their more or less environmentally unsustainable lifestyles.
06:59Is that something that you would sign up to as well?
07:03Well, absolutely.
07:04We did the action on Monday in collaboration with Greenpeace.
07:07And, you know, the reason that we're calling for figures like Jeff Bezos and companies like Amazon to pay more tax is like,
07:15you know, they are, you know, it's the second richest man in the world.
07:19Amazon is one of the biggest companies in the world.
07:22We're facing, you know, a cost of living crisis.
07:25People are struggling to pay their energy bills.
07:28Like rent is getting higher every year.
07:30We're facing a climate crisis.
07:32It's like these are all things that require strong public services and governments being able to invest
07:38so that we can build a better future together.
07:41And ultimately, that means, you know, when billionaires,
07:45we've got more billionaires than we've ever had before and taxing them so that we can use that,
07:51so that some of that wealth can go toward solving some of the biggest challenges we face
07:57is really what this message is all about.
08:00Yeah, it's a complicated issue when we start talking about taxation.
08:05But is there evidence that campaigns such as yours, that they actually reduce,
08:10that they actually result in laws being changed in these billionaires actually paying more taxes?
08:16Obviously, it depends on which countries we're referring to specifically.
08:20Well, of course.
08:21I mean, you know, throughout history, I think, you know, people used to pay much higher taxes.
08:28You know, we're an organization that's based in the UK and at some of the, you know, 70 years ago,
08:36people paid 95% income tax.
08:40And that's not necessarily something we're calling for.
08:42Like we're not a policy organization.
08:44But, you know, due to campaigning and people power, people, income taxes were much higher.
08:53Wealth taxes have been, you know, implemented in countries around the world as a result of campaigning.
08:58And so it's something that we've seen before, you know, happened before.
09:02And it's something that can happen again.
09:05And it's only going to happen again if people see that it's not up to people like Jeff Bezos to shape our lives,
09:12that we are all active citizens and we can come together and have a say about how our societies work.
09:20And as you say, you're an anonymous collective, you're speaking to us without giving us your name.
09:27We're not putting your location up as well.
09:30Does all of this, does it raise concerns that speaking up, that protesting for these issues that you believe are so fundamental
09:39that that actually places you in a vulnerable position given the current geopolitical climate?
09:44Well, I think, like, yeah, here in the UK, we have a situation where there is a direct action protest group
09:53that's, you know, about to be prescribed as a terrorist organization.
09:56They're called Palestine Action.
09:59And, you know, as a result of them putting some red paint to make symbolic points about the UK's complicity in the genocide in Palestine,
10:08they're being prescribed as a terrorist organization.
10:10And we're in a situation where protesters are being increasingly criminalized, certainly here in the UK and around the world.
10:19And, you know, we, some of the actions we've done, we don't ask permission.
10:22We didn't ask permission for the, you know, authorities in Venice for us to put down a massive banner in the Plaza San Marco.
10:30And so it's more about the nature of the actions we do.
10:34It's safer for us to be anonymous.
10:38And, you know, that's also we're taking on some of the richest men in the world
10:42and we don't want to make it any easier for them to sort of, you know, come after us, essentially.
10:48And just finally, what would you say to critics, including, for example, the mayor of Venice,
10:52who kind of described these protests as ridiculous, saying that lots of different events take place in Venice every year
10:59and they actually bring benefits to cities like Venice?
11:03What's your response to that kind of criticism?
11:06Well, I think, you know, you only have to look at the fact that there has been an incredible uprising of locals in Venice
11:16as part of this No Space for Bezos movement to see that the mayor is very much out of touch with what people are feeling in Venice.
11:27That was a very much the sense that I got, you know, going there.
11:30When we put the banner down, we had people coming up to us saying, thank you.
11:34Thank you for doing this.
11:35You know, that they're so frustrated that half of their city is being shut down for one man's wedding.
11:41So, you know, of course, the mayor might think that it's helpful when a billionaire comes and spends, what, you know,
11:47over $48 million on a, you know, to rent out city.
11:51Maybe that's helpful for him.
11:52But for most people in the city, the message I got was very loudly.
11:56And clearly that they didn't want that and that that's not something that they are happy with.
12:01OK, we'll have to leave it there for now.
12:03But thanks so much for joining us on the programme.
12:05That was a member of the British activist group Everyone Hates Elon speaking with us anonymously there from the UK.
Comments