[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [SRRTAC-L:8869] Fighting for Dignity - W$$D

[Alfred Kagan]

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>Subject: [SRRTAC-L:8869] Fighting for Dignity - W$$D
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>Date: Tue, 03 Sep 2002 19:22:57 -0700
>From: melissa roberts <nowarusa at hotmail.com>
>Reply-To: bioregional at csf.colorado.edu
>(Long but definity a worthy read.)
>Date: Tue, 3 Sep 2002
>>From: earth shimmer
>>Subject: Fighting for Dignity
>>
>>This is the second in a series of articles by independent media writer
>>Rodney Vlais, concerning non-corporatised perspectives on events stemming
>>from the World Summit for Sustainable Development.  The third article, to
>>come out over the next two days, will briefly summarise the outcomes of
>>the summit, and then outline alternative visions towards a better world
>>made by the diversity of people and communities who have gathered in
>>Johannesburg to breathe life into the sustainability debate.  Rodney can
>>be contacted at windscape at planet-save.com
>>
>>
>>FIGHTING FOR DIGNITY DESPITE THE WORLD SUMMIT FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
>>
>>Rodney Vlais, 3rd September, 2002
>>
>>It was a massive, pulsing sea of red.  Red headbands highlighted by
>>ìPhanzsi NEPAD, phanzsi!î (ìdown to the New Partnerships for Africaís
>>Developmentî ñ a neoliberal plan to entrench Africa more deeply in the
>>corporate-led global economy).  Red t-shirts by the Anti-Privatisation
>>Forum (APF), symbolised with a fist for justice emerging from the
>>continent of Africa.  Red t-shirts by the Landless Peoples Movement (LPM)
>>calling for land, food and jobs for the roughly one-half of South Africaís
>>population who are landless.
>>
>>The march, by far the larger and more radical of the two on August 31,
>>opposed the World Summit for Sustainable Development rather than trying to
>>influence it.  It lasted four hours in a winding route from the
>>impoverished township of Alexandra to Sandton where the summit is taking
>>place.
>>
>>The contrast between the two areas makes it seem as though they belong to
>>separate universes, rather than being part of the same quadrant of
>>Johannesburg.  One dominated by tiny tin shacks separated by laneways only
>>a metre or two wide Ö the other with plush shopping malls, towering hotels
>>and luxury cars.  Despite its simplicity, this contrast made it difficult
>>not to join in on the shout ìstop the war on the poor, make the rich pay!î
>>
>>A collective of grass-roots movements organised the rally under the
>>umbrella of the Social Movements Indaba (SMI).  Including the APF, LPM,
>>Jubilee South Africa, the Rural Development Services Network and the
>>Environmental Justice Networking Forum, the collective split off from more
>>mainstream non-government organisations earlier this year in the process
>>of organizing the civil society presence at the WSSD (named the Global
>>Forum).  The SMI believed that the Global Forum was being co-opted by the
>>South African government, deciding to take a stance against the WSSD
>>rather than legitimizing what was seen as a means to only further
>>impoverish the poor to corporate rule.  As in Durban last year in
>>KwaZulu-Natal Province, when 20,000 protestors marched to delegitimise the
>>farce of the World Conference Against Racism, the rally demonstrated the
>>rising anger in South Africa that the end of apartheid has not seen better
>>conditions for the poor.
>>
>>The rally was joined by hundreds of overseas activists representing a
>>diverse range of issues, from the protection of the rights of small-scale
>>fisherfolk to the survival of indigenous cultures.  Numerous banners
>>expressed disgust with corporate-led globalisation and with Washingtonís
>>arrogance and imperialist outreach throughout the world.
>>
>>While this international solidarity threaded through the long march that
>  >stretched for at least a kilometre from front to end, it was largely a
>>rally for basic justice in South Africa.  Thousands of South Africans came
>>from numerous impoverished townships, complete with large banners against
>>water privatization, forced evictions, electricity cut-offs and
>>capitalism.  Young socialists danced and sung alongside grandmothers and
>>old men.  Cries of ìAmandla!î (ìpowerî) were belched over the
>>speakerphones from the two leading trucks, from which participants roared
>>in reply ìNgawethu!î (ìto the people!î).
>>
>>Despite being flanked by dozens of tanks, armoured personnel carriers and
>>thousands of rifle-carrying police, and buzzed by helicopters overhead,
>>the march saw no repeat of the police violence of the week before Ö where
>>candle-holding, singing demonstrators were met with concussion grenades
>>that injured three people.  Fortunately, the government reversed its
>>decision to refuse permission for the march, under pressure that such
>>refusal would resemble the apartheid era crackdowns on any signs of
>>dissent.
>>
>>For the thousands of poor who took to the streets, little has indeed
>>changed since the 1994 elections that swept the ANC into power.  For part
>>of the long march I had the privilege to stride along aside Joyce, one of
>>many elderly women who participated.  Joyce ran out of food three days
>>ago, and survives on assistance from a non-government organization.  Her
>>son died of AIDS at the age of eight, when she was unable to afford the
>>anti-retroviral medication that could have prolonged his life.
>>
>>ìIím here fighting for freedom.  We have no freedom now.  Things have
>>gotten worse since 1994, at least back then we had clinics and my stomach
>>wasnít as empty as it is now.  I canít afford bread for my family.î
>>
>>Joyceís determination, and laughter from some of the other women marching
>>with her, helped her through the four-hour trek to the plush Sandton
>>towers.  The lines on her face expressed the layers of a life filled with
>>suffering, then hope with the end of the apartheid regime, and finally
>>betrayal with the neoliberal policies of the ANC government.  Like so many
>>women and men on this ancient land, she is fighting again for basic
>>justice denied by the sweeping effects of global capitalism Ö my heart
>>breaks at the thought that she may endure yet another year based on a life
>>of struggle.
>>
>>Another woman slightly younger than Joyce expressed ìI am here to fight
>>for housing and jobs for my community.  With the end of apartheid I did
>>not demand these things.  But we were promised them and nothing has
>>happened.  This is why I am here today.î
>>
>>These feelings express the sentiments of many impoverished South Africans.
>>Despite the massive injustices and oppression under the apartheid regime,
>>black South Africans did not experience electricity and water cut-offs at
>>that time as they are now under privatisation.  The former regime was
>>hesitant to evict or disconnect people who could not afford their bills,
>>for fear of stimulating riots.
>>
>>Not all or even most of the 20,000 or so who marched were there on an
>>explicit anti-capitalist paradigm.  The most basic needs of a dignified
>>life were their main focus, though the younger participants were more
>>likely to link this with the neoliberal political economy.  While a focus
>>on the WSSD was not widespread, many knew that the wealthy were gathering
>>at Sandton Ö men in suits who had never been to their townships and who
>>were seemingly doing nothing to address their concerns.  They were
>>marching to make their voices heard.
>>
>>Women, men and youths from numerous townships rallied with their local
>>concerns of how the government that they had pinned their hopes on had
>>betrayed their basic rights.  Several were protesting against forced
>>evictions from their homes that they claim were timed to get them out of
>>the way before the delegates arrived for the WSSD.
>>
>>The story of forced evictions from Mandela Village exemplifies how those
>>without access to capital have been forgotten by the neoliberal
>>government.  On January 7th this year, the township was forcibly and
>  >violently relocated to a discarded mining compound.  Their homes at
>>Mandela Village were trashed and residents were not able to defend
>>themselves to stave off the evictions Ö as they have successfully done at
>>Thembelhile, where a blockade held against the dreaded ìred antsî (private
>>security police who are hired to carry out evictions).
>>
>>Residents were moved to the most awful conditions possible.  In an
>>isolated setting that can be reached by only one road, children have just
>>one school located far away over a small mountain ridge.  With no
>>sanitation systems in place, sewerage washes out into the open grounds
>>from the few communal toilets.  Electricity supply has been cut off to the
>>compound and there is neither medical clinic nor shops.
>>
>>Residents live in one of two types of ëhousesí.  Whole families of five or
>>more people live in single rooms within the dilapidated mine compound
>>buildings, only slightly larger than the average sized living room of a
>>middle class suburban home.  The rooms are filled with gas from the
>>paraffin stoves, the one window insufficient to restore a clean flow of
>>oxygen.  Teenage pregnancies ñ as young as 12 years of age ñ are common as
>>children observe the sexual behaviour of their parents from sleeping in
>>the same room.
>>
>>The other type of residence is commonly referred to as ìshacksî, but they
>>are little more than chicken pens.  Hardly larger than the mine compound
>>rooms, these consist of discarded pieces of rusted iron joined together at
>>somewhat square angles, with a sheet held on top by rocks.  Many do not
>>have a single window, and suffer extreme temperatures as the winter cold
>>comes in through the numerous gaps, and as the iron and tin smelts during
>>summer.  While these shacks are common throughout the townships, in some
>>locations there are at least some homes that offer more dignity.  At the
>>ërelocatedí Mandela Village, there are none.
>>
>>An elderly women who showed us her passport to signify her age of 70
>>expressed that things are worse now since the forced evictions.
>>Unfortunately her story is not unique, as millions are suffering from the
>>insane distribution of basic resources based on who has the capital to
>>obtain property rights over the fundamentals of life.
>>
>>In the face of these and other massive injustices, South Africans are
>>fighting back, re-igniting their apartheid-era spirit and defiance.
>>Previous hesitancy to criticise the ANC that helped bring an end to
>>apartheid ñ borne out of hope that at last justice would be restored to
>>their lives ñ is giving way to deep grass-roots resistance.  In this
>>context new and rapidly growing networks such as the APF and the LPM are
>>providing spaces for dissent to emerge.
>>
>>This dissent does not solely come out of protest, however.  The singing,
>>pulsing cores of the August 31st march came from communities mobilising in
>>their townships to use their autonomy and creativity to provide the basic
>>essentials of life.  Despite a socialist thread running through some
>>sections of the march, particularly among the young men, the mass
>>mobilisation was focused less on ideology and more on a culture of
>>community-based doing.  This doing ran on the assumption that if
>>governments wonít provide basic services, and if corporations will but
>>only at an unaffordable price, then communities can show that they need
>>neither.
>>
>>One of the most powerful examples of communities re-connecting their
>>members to basic dignity is the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee
>>(SECC).  Under privatisation electricity costs have increased by up to
>>four times for some Sowetan residents.  The parastatal (semi-privatised)
>>power corporation Eskom has cut off approximately 20,000 Sowetan homes per
>>month from electricity.  Indeed, the majority in the township of 1.5
>>million have had their electricity disconnected at least for some period
>>of time.
>>
>>While the World Bank, the ANC government and private power corporations
>>stress the ìuser pays principleî, the subsidies going to wealthy
>>electricity users are obscene.  Sowetans pay over a quarter more for their
>  >electricity per kilowatt hour than residents in the wealthy suburbs of
>>northern Johannesburg, and ten times more than large industrial users.
>>
>>In response to this, the SECC has mobilised teams to illegally reconnect
>>residences to the electricity supply.  They receive hundreds of calls each
>>week from Sowetans desperate for reconnection.
>>
>>The provision of this service by the community is resulting in a major
>>community-building platform from which challenges to privatisation are
>>emerging.  It is contributing to two mutually reinforcing processes that
>>form the backbone of resistance and renewal Ö the courage to protest and
>>the taking of direct autonomous responsibility to provide for oneís own
>>community.  As will be written in a later article, the fusion of these two
>>processes is where protest passion meets the reweaving of community rights
>>concerning the commons Ö where another world is not only possible, but is
>>happening now.
>>
>>Indeed, it is the opinion of this author that the nodes and leaders in the
>>growing movement for global justice should not be the large NGOs that
>>mobilise people to advocate for change Ö but should rather come from the
>>more grounded groups that ARE changing, by providing basic services and
>>dignity for themselves without reliance on either the state or the
>>corporate world.  Groups such as the SECC, Ontario Coalition Against
>>Poverty, the Coordination for the Defense of Water and Life (a Bolivian
>>network) and the eco-autonomous collectives in Western Australia have the
>>deepest integrity in living alternatives from which to come together to
>>discuss how, in Colin Hinesí terms, we can protect the local, globally.
>>
>>THE STRUGGLE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
>>
>>ìI think the economic logic behind dumping toxic waste in low wage
>>countries is impeccable Ö Africa is underpolluted.î (1992 World Bank chief
>>economist Lawrence Summers in a leaked memo)
>>
>>Although some of the largest South African NGOs, and the Council of South
>>African Trade Unions, participated only in the considerably smaller and
>>ëmore officialí march, some South African NGOs operated on an amazingly
>>grass-roots level.  The Environmental Justice Networking Forum (EJNF), for
>>example, brought together young and not-so-young environmentalists from
>>the nine provinces of South Africa to share information and strategies on
>>their various concerns.
>>
>>EJNF was a model example of how environment groups can connect
>>environmental and social justice issues, in a way that links local
>>struggles with global trends.  Delegates outlined how, in their respective
>>provinces, environmental destruction affected the lives of the
>>impoverished by far the most, exemplified by how toxic waste dumps and
>>polluting industries are predominantly located in close proximity to the
>>poor.
>>
>>Issues of environmental racism were explored through solidarity with
>>environmental justice networks in the U.S., where it is not so much class
>>that determines how likely one lives in the vicinity of a toxic waste dump
>>or polluting plant Ö but rather oneís colour.  Predominantly black
>>communities are three to five times more likely to be living near sites of
>>hazardous wastes.  Furthermore, ten times as much money is spent on
>>cleaning environmental hazards if they are near predominantly white
>>communities.
>>
>>It was also impressive how EJNF was able to link these environmental
>>justice concerns to tube big picture issues of NEPAD, transnational
>>institutions such as the World Trade Organisation and multinational
>>corporations, and to capitalism.  The challenge is for the more
>>conservative environment (and development) organisations originating from
>>overdeveloped nations to take a leaf from EJNFís practice, in weaving
>>together the local and global, and issues concerning the environment,
>>social justice and anti-racism in a practical consideration of basic
>>rights and political economy.
>>
>>A range of other NGOs also used various alternative forums to the WSSD to
>>highlight environment issues in ways that have direct impact on peopleís
>>lives.  Earthlife Africa, for example, focused attention on plans for a
>  >Pebble Bed Nuclear Reactor in South Africa, that uses graphite pebbles
>>rather than fuel rods, and which would have neither a concrete protective
>>casing nor a back-up water cooling system.  The enormous electricity
>>parastatal Eskom is quashing any debate on the potential hazards of this
>>nuclear technology and refuses to provide grid access for companies
>>wishing to provide renewable sources of energy.
>>
>>Meanwhile SAFeAGE is sustaining the gaze on South Africaís rapid
>>dependence on genetically engineered (GE) food.  South Africa is the
>>location for the first mass commercialisation of a GE staple ñ white
>>maize, the basic grain that is made into the local food called pap.
>>While GE yellow maize has been mass produced for animal feed (with U.S. GE
>>yellow maize affecting the previously GE-free croplands in several parts
>>of Mexico, threatening the home of diversity of maize crops), white maize
>>comprises over 50% of the basic diet of millions of South Africans.
>>
>>Again, the environmental injustice is stunning.  Whereas white consumers
>>in wealthy nations may eat foods with only a small percentage of GE
>>material (many contain 1% or less), black South Africans reliant on pap
>>are being used as guinea pigs in terms of eating the first wholesale GE
>>diet.  What is even more incredible is that despite GE white maize
>>entering the shelves in late September this year, the vast majority will
>>not be aware that they are eating GE produce.
>>
>>The grass roots, alternative forums to the WSSD have demonstrated a true
>>solidarity between the basic rights of the environment, and the injustices
>>and racism faced by impoverished people of colour.  While the official
>>summit shuns any concerted attempts to address the environmental crisis in
>>anywhere near its full magnitude ñ preferring to promote corporatised
>>solutions to sustainably indebt the worldís poor to capitalism ñ people on
>>the ground are showing how ecological sustainability, poverty alleviation
>>and anti-racism are intimately connected in our common future.
>>
>>LIVING DEMOCRACIES
>>
>>The Indian physicist Vandana Shiva has noted that states and corporations
>>cannot deny the existence of rights inherent to life in the form of
>>peopleís access to water, land and cultural and biological diversity.  As
>>Australiaís High Court Mabo decision ruled almost ten years ago, they can
>>only fail to recognise them.  Indeed, the capitalist system is based on
>>denying recognition of the intrinsic, lifeful value of the sacred
>>elements, and how they weave together to create diversity both
>>biologically and culturally. Rather, it ascribes value only once the
>>ëresourceí is extracted from the ground, the biological material is mass
>>produced for commercial markets, and the localised cultural knowledge
>>regarding these elements ñ refined over centuries ñ is appropriated for
>>making profit.
>>
>>There is a growing call for the recognition of earth rights, earth justice
>>and earth democracy.  Summed up by Thomas Berry, this movement stresses
>>that the Earthís component sub-systems and species (including humans) have
>>intrinsic rights to exist, to have a sustainable habitat, and to inter-be
>>through fulfilling their niche in the process of continual renewal and
>>evolution Öand that human property rights expressed through the capitalist
>>system have no rights to supersede these.
>>
>>Vandana Shiva was one of several activists in alternative forums to the
>>WSSD who passionately spoke of the principles of an Earth democracy,
>>including:
>>
>>** that all species, human cultures and localized knowledge systems cannot
>>be owned by other humans through patents and intellectual property rights
>>
>>** that all members of the Earth community have basic rights to clean air
>>and water, safe habitats and nurturing food Ö and that these are best
>>sustained as commons nurtured by systems of community rights rather than
>>by commodified ownership
>>
>>** that resilient localized economies are best placed to create
>>sustainable livelihoods based on cooperation, compassion and creativity,
>>with national and global economies performing relatively smaller roles
>  >
>>Civilisations the world over have fallen by falling asleep to these basic
>>earth rights.  Africa has not been immune to this trend, exemplified by
>>the ancient civilization of Meroe of the upper Nile region, which
>>collapsed after massive deforestation caused by the relentless demand for
>>charcoal to fuel its iron smelters.
>>
>>In many situations, however, the diverse array of African societies over
>>the past fifteen millennia have fallen due to changes in climate that have
>>dramatically affected local ecologies, or to the unsettling affects of
>>European slave trading and colonisation.  More recently with the mostly
>>European invention of the tribe as a means of colonial domination, warfare
>>has taken its toll.
>>
>>Outside of these circumstances, Africans have maintained some of the most
>>stable lifeways found in human societies.  The harsh necessities of
>>unforgiving landscapes and destructive pests and diseases have meant that
>>consistent relationships with land and water have been a lifeline for
>>dozens of generations.
>>
>>The corporate media images of Africa in ëtribal warfareí would have us
>>believe that Africans are the task masters in disrespecting life.
>>Admittedly, life has become cheap in some parts Ö violence that in
>>evolutionary terms has arrived much later in Africa than in most other
>>parts of the world.  Rather, Africaís history presents some of the
>>earliest and most numerous examples of stable cities without centralised
>>political hierarchies, and societies based on small inter-related
>>autonomous bands, than perhaps on any continent.  Numerous civilisations
>>throughout the continentís history have merged ecological sustainability
>>with peopleís needs for dignity, in ways that have stood the test of time
>>outside of major climatic changes and the havoc wreaked by colonialism and
>>neocolonialism.
>>
>>For if one defines civilisation as the extent to which life isnít taken
>>for granted, Africa has a crucial role in helping to civilise the
>>non-indigenous cultures of the overdeveloped nations.  We in the
>>overdeveloped world commodify the basic essentials of life and let the
>>market distribute them (making excuses when this distribution works
>>unevenly) so that we can get on with the ëunmarketablesí of love and
>>meaning - closing our eyes to how commodified even these ëhigherí goals
>>have become.  Africans struggling for the basic dignities of life, and our
>>indigenous sisters and brothers throughout the world, are less likely to
>>forget what we canít keep forgetting if we wish for our ëhigherí goals to
>>be fundamental to love, life and a meaningful role as part of the Earth
>>community,
>>
>>This is not to say that we should work in solidarity with African
>>communities because we need their cultures to survive in order to teach us
>>about Earth democracy and dignity.  This would be to place yet one more
>>burden on those who we have, at various times, pitied, romanticised and
>>forgotten.  Such an abusive stance ñ to treat their cultures as objects
>>for our needs ñ would also deflect attention from the basic requirements
>>of the impoverished Ö a vastly different distribution of economic and
>>political power, expressed in land, housing, food and right livelihood,
>>that challenges the status quo enjoyed by the owners of capital (including
>>you and me).
>>
>>Nor, in my opinion, should we talk in the totalizing language that we are
>>all fighting the same fight.  I have never been forcibly removed from my
>>place of living, have generally found work when Iíve needed to and have
>>never lacked food.  Although my predicaments share common roots with those
>>suffering for the right to exist, in one sense it is insulting to the
>>suffering of others to make direct comparisons.  I can choose to be an
>>activist, and the issues that I wish to focus upon Ö many here donít have
>>that luxury of choice.
>>
>>Yet we do have much to learn from those who we can act in solidarity with.
>>The conditions of racism will only cease once, as a set of white, middle
>>class cultures, we can self-reflect on the beauty and poverties of our
>>lifeways, emotional landscapes and worldviews, and look to others for
>  >guidance in what we are blind to and have forgotten.
>>
>>The shades of solidarity can run very deep Ö we have an opportunity to
>>find the character and courage, in supportive communities, to let go of
>>the multiple layers of our consent in prioritizing property rights over
>>earth democracy and basic dignity.  By doing so we can both reclaim and
>>create a diversity of civilized lifeways that will help humanity to
>>survive and thrive at its current crossroads.
>>
>>Joyce, your suffering will not be forgotten, it cannot Ö we will listen
>>and act with dignity in the face of the psychotic denial of earth
>>democracy.  May the future of civilizations rest in co-creating the
>>conditions for you to feed your family, and so that you never again have
>>to watch one of your children die.
>>
>>May we not only devote our love to the vision that another world is
>>possible, but let us also act together towards making another life
>>possible for both you and me.
>>
>>
>>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>... let the beauty we love be what we do {Rumi} ... and let our sacred
>>spaces and mental environments be free from intrusive advertising that
>>diverts us from earthened enLivedness
>>
>>
>
>
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-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu