On Anger, “Love Voices”, and “Divisiveness” In Their Environmental Movement

greencircleas

October 27, 2013

by Kat Stevens

Notes:

I do not equate being an indigenous person of this continent with being a person of color who is present in “America” for other reasons, even those whose ancestors have been forcibly brought here. Being a person of color or even an indigenous person from another continent does not negate the fact that we (now I speak as a POC settler myself) are living, breathing, and struggling on stolen and occupied native lands. I don’t know the best language to use. When I say “POC/indigenous,” I mean racialized peoples, including people of multiple ethnic and racial identities which may include white. I explicitly encourage us to begin to create our own understandings and language around these concepts.    →

Reflections On Power Shift 2013: An Impromptu Interview

Groundwork for Praxis

October 27, 2013

See Also: “Are Mainstream Environmental Groups Keeping Racism Alive?” By Kat Stevens.

*Notes Via Kat Stevens: “This piece originally appeared as part of a series called, “Millenials Take On Climate Change” on the website, Policy Mic. The title I had wanted to go with for this piece was, “How  Big Green NGOs Are Harming the Environmental Movement”. Only 800 words were allowed. Policy Mic asked me to become a regular contributor after this piece but I declined once they repeatedly told me that a piece featuring an interview with a frontline indigenous organizer fighting tar sands pipelines wasn’t relevant for their readers.”

Emasculation of the African with Awards, Grants and Prizes

From where I sit

October 25, 2013

by Sophia Tesfamariam

Image above: “This past weekend, Hillary Clinton hailed Banda for taking charge in introducing economic reform. Banda passed an austerity budget permitting, Kwacha (Malawi’s currency), to devalue by about 49 percent in order for the IMF to loan it $156.2 million to help the country meet its payments. Clinton also promised to spend over $46 million in the coming three years in the agricultural sector.” “Malawi’s Activists Turned Politicians”, August 7, 2012

“… when Europeans came to Africa toward the turn of the fifteenth century, they found a prosperous civilization and enormous wealth. Agriculture and cattle rearing, iron-work, pottery, fishery, salt-mining, gold refining and ornament making, weaving, hunting, and long-distance trading were well advanced at a time and Europe was still relatively backward…From the fifteenth century on, however, the fate of the two continents reversed….Africa stagnated for over three centuries as a direct result of slavery and colonial conquests. This part of global history, for the sake of maintaining a correct historical perspective on Africa and Europe, must always be kept in mind when looking at the contemporary African situation…The bulk of the African people fought heroically against the imposition of slavery and colonialism, though there were some Africans who collaborated with the white slave-hunters and colonialists as well…”

History of post-colonial Africa is replete with shameful stories of African collaborators who worked to undermine the progress and development of their own peoples. The west’s “divide and rule” tactics resulted in intractable conflicts, destruction and devastation of Africa, leaving its people at the mercy of the neo-cons and their political and economic systems that have sustained poverty through poverty perpetuating programs. The Structural Adjustment Programs of the World Bank (WB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) are an example. →

Friends of Syria or Friends of Imperialism?

what’s left

October 23, 2013

By Stephen Gowans

The coalition says that the current president, Bashar al-Assad, must have “no role in Syria.” How odd that an ostensibly democracy-promoting coalition should dictate to Syrians who it is who can’t be president of their country, rather than democratically leaving the question up to Syrians themselves. →

Reformism, Indigenous Activism, the Global Crisis, and System Change

Onkwehón:we Rising

August 19, 2013

by Wendy Lynn Lerat

Dec 21, 2012 in Ottawa -Thousands of IdleNoMore protesters marched on Parliament Hill to demand a meeting with kanadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

[Onkwehón:we Rising: The following first appeared on the persynal Facebook page of grassroots Native activist Wendy Lynn Lerat. It has since also been made available by the comrades over at the Anishinabek Confederacy to Invoke Our Nationhood. As usual posting here should not be taken as a sign of total endorsement or affiliation.]

Since December 2012, the social media phenomena Idle No More (INM) has been front and centre and in the spotlight as THE authoritative voice for the grassroots movement of the original peoples of Turtle Island. Over the past nine months, INM has spread its influence across Turtle Island and beyond; moving into areas of established local activists advocating unity under its brand of Pan-Indianism and reformism. In many cases, its messaging advocating for one voice for all has resulted in division not only within its own ranks but among Indigenous activists. →

Decolonizing Together | Moving Beyond a Politics of Solidarity Toward a Practice of Decolonization

briarpatch magazine

January 1, 2012

by Harsha Walia

Illustrations by Afuwa

The (Illusory) Green Economy – A Critical Analysis by Dr.Joanna Boehnert

The work of environmental scientists supporting the UN’s GEP will give scientific authority the project, but the important decisions will have already been made. The project is a deepening commitment to neoliberal free markets. On a macroeconomic level “the subordination of social and environmental considerations to macroeconomic policy imperatives” is the fundamental basis of neoliberalism (Nadal, 2012, p.15). Once “macroeconomic objectives are determined, every other policy target is chiseled in accordance” (Ibid., p. 15). The lessons of the recent economic crisis in regards to the fallibility of the financial sector are entirely ignored.

 

The architects of the project have failed to acknowledge the most expansive systemic dynamics of capitalism and ignored the political and historic context. Despite claims by the UNEP, the UN’s GEP is not policy neutral (Ibid., p. 23).

 

The UN’s GEP is supported by the financial and corporate sectors because they recognize the programme as a continuation of the neoliberal model, an expansion of the scope of market and also an exceptional opportunity to create entirely new financial instruments. Similarly to the financial deregulation that set up conditions for the dramatic plunder of public wealth during the current economic crisis, the UN’s GEP establishes new markets that will lead to new avenues for financial speculation. The speculative bubble during the 2008-2009 period has been estimated to cost governments globally at least $12 trillion (Conway quoting IMF, 2009) leaving several bankrupt national governments and severe economic austerity in its wake. This is the context in which the UN’s GEP is operating. The designers of the project have closely aligned themselves to the same financial institutions that played leading roles in the economic crisis.

 

Meanwhile, scientific institutions, environmental NGOs and government agencies are working to build institutional infrastructure to give scientific authority to the UN’s GEP. …The historical critique of capitalism presented by John Bellamy Foster (2002) and others describes that the appropriation of the commons is an integral aspect of capitalism. Capitalism is always looking for new means of producing profit from activities that were otherwise not managed through commodity relationships.

 

The Indigenous People’s Kari-Oca 2 Declaration describes the UN’s GEP as ‘a continuation of colonialism… a perverse attempt by corporations, extractive industries and governments to cash in on Creation by privatizing, commodifying and selling off the Sacred and all forms of life and the sky’ (2012, p.1-2). The programme of re-visioning of the commons as sets of commodities ripe for exploitation is diametrically contrary to the environmental rhetoric used to sell the project. →

WSF: Another Lie is Possible

“You can fool some people sometimes, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.” – Bob Marley

Nationalising Dignity: Morales’ Adios to USAID

The Broker | Connecting Worlds of Knowledge

May 7, 2013

by Antonio Carmona Báez

This recent “exercise of sovereignty”, as expressed by Morales, is consistent with the political trajectory of decolonising development since the indigenous leader came to power in 2006. The nationalisation of industries, the push for regional integration and repudiating Western intervention have been met with diplomatic aversion expressed by representatives of US foreign policy.  Foreign aid channelled through USAID programmes, whether rendered directly to local governments or to non-governmental organisations, has been linked to destabilisation and insurgency efforts launched from such sectors of civil society as politicised trade unions, environmental groups and health networks. →

Interactive | NGOs: Global Change Agents or Trojan Horses for Western Hegemony?

 by Glen Wright

First published Dec 8, 2012

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