Session 7: Mismanagement of Home & A World of Fighters

This week's session on Global People's Struggles feels like the hardest to reflect on so far. A big part of me wants to just skip it and go on to the next. But - similar to the yoga class I went to a few weeks back that I hated so much I decided I had to return - I want to work past my hesitation to find some sort of reflections.

Some context:

After World War II, there was a huge re organization of imperialism* - cost became to high for direct political rule (ie colonization) so the U.S. had to become creative in how they continued to extract labor, markets and natural resources and the lowest prices. This led to neoliberalism, an economic ideology that calls for free markets and a minimal role for the government in the economy. This means free trade, privatization, cuts in social spending, among other things (Source: Global Activist's Manual). This was enacted through programs like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund which gave loans to countries of the global south** which forced them in to debt forcing them to open trade, privitize public services and cut social programs. This allowed the U.S. to control resources and wealth without physical domination.

*imperialism: a global, economic, political and social system where "first world" nations control "third world" nations to gain power and profit from their labor, markets and natural resources. (Source: School of Unity and Liberation).

*global south: alternative term for countries also known as "developing" (which claims that industrialization is inherently progressive) or "third world" (which some people feel is politically outdated term after the collapse of the USSR, a center of the "second world"). Refers to countries which are economically exploited in the manner of colonies, under the project of capitalist globalization (Source: Catalyst Project)

THE CRISIS

Gopal Dayaneni from the organization Movement Generation - an urban and ecological justice organization - came to speak to us on the topic of Global People's Movements. His framing of the ecological crisis in the context of imperialism blew my mind. My attempt to summarize what he said will surely not do him justice, so check out Movement Generation's website to hear it straight from the source.

Gopal explains that "eco" is home, "ecosystem" is relationship to home, and "ecology" is knowledge of home and relationship to place. Within that eco, or home, the smallest level of society is a relationship, not an individual. He describes our current crisis as a mismanagement of home. Using these definitions, he defines ecological justice as restoration of communities in relation to the planet. What he does that I think many white environmentalist fail to do is to connect this current crisis to the legacy of imperialism. He defines imperialism as control of seed, soil, and story for land, labor and life. Crucial to imperialism is human work, as it is used to exploit resources, so we must reclaim our connection to labor in a way that does not harm the earth and restores our connection to land.

He explains that the loss of language and people as a result of imperialism has in fact put us in this ecological crisis through the collapse of cultural and biological knowledge key to a healthy ecosystem. He talks about this coming from "infinite amount of knowledge in relationship to the soil" that people have who have a connection to place. For example, when millions of Africans were taken from their land during the slave trade, we must keep in mind the loss of the infinite knowledge of that land. How has this loss of knowledge on a global scale contributed to our current climate crisis? Though it may not be measurable by current scientific indicators, it surely must be taken in to account. This framing can help us to expand our views of collective liberation - that the fight against imperialism and neoliberalism are not only for the survival of people in far away places - but for our survival as a people on this planet that is slowly killing us.

The Nowhere Collective gives us an astounding framing to help bridge diverse and unique struggles across the globe caused by imperialism and this separation of people and place:

"The fence surrounding the military base in Chiapas is the same fence that surrounds the G8 meeting in Genoa. It's the fence that divides the powerful from the powerless, those whose voices decree, from those whose voices are silenced. And it is replicated everywhere.

For the fence surrounds gated communities of rich neighborhoods from Washington to Johannesburg, islands of prosperity that float in seas of poverty. It surrounds vast empires of land in Brazil, keeping millions who live in poverty from growing food. It's patrolled by armed guards who keep the downtrodden and disaffected out of shopping malls. It's hung with signs warning you to "keep out" of places where your mother and grandmother played freely. This fence stretches across borders between rich and poor worlds. For the unlucky poor who are caught trying to cross into the rich world, the fence encloses the detention centers where refugees live behind razor wire.

Built to keep all the ordinary people of the world out of the way, out of sight, far from the decision makers and at the mercy of their policies, this fence also separates us from those things which are our birthright as human beings - land, shelter, culture, good health, nourishment, clean air, water. For in a world entranced by profit, public space is privatized, land fenced off, seeds, medicines and genes patented, water metered, and democracy turned into purchasing power. The fences are also inside us. Interior borders run through our atomized minds and hearts, telling us we should look out only for ourselves, that we are alone"

As I read about those living on the other side of these fences across the world - the 85% of the palestinian population displaced from their land, or the millions who now remain effectively trapped in a tiny strip of land under seize, or the Zapatistas of Chiapas, Mexico who live under constant attack by both air and land in what is their native land, the migrants risking everything to cross the U.S. border as they were effectively forced from their lands as a result of U.S. trade policy, the millions - majority people of color - trapped inside the prison system, the residents of the Lower 9th ward with no where to return - I see how this metaphor (which is often reality) brings together all of these struggles and allows those of us on the other side of the fence to walk through life without realizing that what stands between most people on a daily basis does not stand between us. Bringing in Gopal's framing, we see how this large scale mis-management of home is controlled by one side of the fence while felt most intensely felt by the other.


RESISTANCE

But in seeing this atrocious reality, we must not patronize and feel pitty for those on the other side of the fence. For across the world there are and have been thousands of communities to stand up in the face of violence, oppression and physical and metaphorical fences that have been set up to keep them under domination. This is not something that school teaches us to see. Instead, we are taught that the U.S. is a big and powerful force not to be recokoned with. What a loss, because the true history and reality is beautiful humbling, and inspirational and forces us outside our learned assumptions about what change making looks like.

The Nowhere Collective continues:

"But border , enclosures, fences, walls, silences are being torn down, punctured, invaded by human hands, warm bodies, strong voices which call out the most revolutionary of messages: "You are not alone!"

And Gopal explains:

There are 3 things we can be sure of:
Economies crash
Ecosystems change
Empires crumble

In Chiapas, the Zapatistas send hurdeds of paper airplanes over the fences sending a message to the army that surrounds them: "Wake up! Open your eyes so you can see! Soldiers, we know that poverty has made you sell your lives and your souls. I also am poor, as are millions. But you are worse off, for defending our exploiters!".

And The Nowhere Collective again for the grand finale:

"The Zapatistas have joined with thousands around the world who believe that fences are made to be broken, Refugees detained in the Australian desert tera down prison fences, and are secreted to safety by supporters outside. The poor, rural landless of Brazil cut the wire that keeps them out of vast uncultiavted plantations and swarm onto properties of rich, absentee landlords, claim the land, create settlements, and begin to farm. Protesters in Quebec City tear down the fence known as the "wall of shame" surrounding the summit meeting of the Free Trade Area of the Americas, and raise their voices in a joyfull yell as it buckles under the weight of those dancing on its bend back, engulfed in euphoria even while the toxic blooms of tear gas hit."

Sources:
Nowhere Collective
Emergence: An Irrestististable Global Uprising
An Essay from the Book "We Are Everywhere: The Irrestistible Rise of Global Anticapitalism