Today I am writing a few critical reflections on the not so obvious links between war and climate change, including the war on women, people of colour, indigenous cultures and Mother Earth (ME). My first thought is the following one. Climate change is the negative feedback loop provoked by the denial of the global systemic failure of neocapitalism. Neocapitalism is a patriarchal system rooted in oligarchic dictatorship, corruption, discrimination, neocolonialism, neoslavery (Hedges), climate apartheid (Shiva), death and destruction. This techno-industrial system is unsustainable from a bio-physical perspective (Rees). When the 66 richest people in the world own more wealth than the bottom half poorest (Oxfam report), it is clearly an unsustainable system from a social and ethical dimension.
"The very rules of globalization, whether imposed by the World Bank and the international Monetary Fund (IMF) or by the WTO, have been written undemocratically, without the participation of the most affected countries and communities. Corporate globalization undermine and subverts national democratic processes by taking economic decisions outside the reach of parliaments and citizens. No matter which government is elected, it is locked into a series of neoliberal reform policies.
When economic dictatorship is grafted onto representative, electoral democracy, a toxic growth of religious fundamentalism and right-wing extremist is the result. Thus, corporate globalization leads not just to the death of democracy, but to the democracy of death, in which exclusion, hate, and fear become the political means to mobilize votes and power." Vandana Shiva, Earth Democracy
When economic dictatorship is grafted onto representative, electoral democracy, a toxic growth of religious fundamentalism and right-wing extremist is the result. Thus, corporate globalization leads not just to the death of democracy, but to the democracy of death, in which exclusion, hate, and fear become the political means to mobilize votes and power." Vandana Shiva, Earth Democracy
The power of the neoliberal postmodern slave owners emerges from corporate dictatorship. The extraordinary economic mega-profits of war and unrestrained natural resource extractions are the ultimate control tool of the oligarchic capitalist machinery. Unrestrained resource extractions feeds the lavishing lifestyle of a minority elites, while polluting inconsequently the water, air, soil and food of people around the world. For example, Canadian mining extractive industries are a lethal industry around the world which has destroyed indigenous water source (Chomsky). The new Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Agreement would allow corporations to sue governments in international courts for profit lost to regulations, even those protecting the health of the country’s citizens, or the environment. This agreement is undemocratic and irrational in the context of climate change, and the human rights to safe food and a healthy environment. This lavish comfort of a few elites comes at the expense of planetary survival. The legally or illegally manoeuvred destruction of ancestral land, forests, air and water through international trade agreements favour the mega-profits of the very few while provoking climate apartheid for the most vulnerable communities on the planet.
In China, the environment is now the number one cause of sickness and death. China remains the 2nd poverty-stricken country in the world after India. This severe pollution is the result of western world consumption patterns. This intense air and water pollution produced within the Chinese border is not contained within China. Pollution emerging from China is the number one polluter of the Pacific Ocean and air particulates is contaminating the west coast of North America. On some days 25% of air pollution in LA can be directly traced back to China. The patterns of destruction of war are dissimilar to the violence of ecological destruction only on the very surface. The actual consequences of destruction and death are comparatively identical. Ultimately, the communities affected by climate apartheid or the terrors of war have similar faiths, massive destruction of social resources and/or natural resources, misery, sickness, and death. Climate apartheid, as well as the terrorism of war, inflicts misery on civil society and communities worldwide.
The ongoing war on women takes many forms, from the control over their bodies and their sexuality, to their very ability to survive. The insidious war on the female body, as a politicized object to be controlled and manipulated, is reflected in the patriarchal dictatorship of what women should look like to please the male gaze. In western societies, this has resulted in the maladaptive behavioural patterns of self-hatred, also known as bulimia and anorexia. The Divine Women comes in many shapes, colours, and forms. This multiplicity is a creation and a reflection of Divine Truth. This diversity of life is also expressed in sexual orientation, spirituality, as well as culture as well as biodiversity.
Indigenous culture worldwide are disseminated by capitalist economic plundering at the expense of ancestral lands and sacred water resources. In 18th century Europe, during the period of Enlightenment, from the modern refinement of scientific knowledge emerged a sense of superiority of the white male. The war on indigenous cultures emerges from a patriarchal sense of superiority. This is the rational foundation for colonialism and the western European Roman Catholics crusades. Indigenous communities were studied scientifically, and categorized as "primitive". This is what allowed europeans to invade with impunity what is now called Canada, while engaging in the cultural genocide of the local indigenous people. Aboriginal children were taken away from their parents and placed in residential schools where they were banned from talking their native language. Aboriginals and their children were forced to a catholic conversion. In these residential schools, colonial places of terror, children died of starvation and raped repeatedly. This ugly dissemination of the Native aboriginals of North America and indigenous cultures all over the world is ongoing. Racism is the rational for neoslavery. Neoslavery is the infectious blood of neoliberalism, but black lives do matter. The neoliberal economic pillage infiltrates even the very bodies of the most vulnerable populations.
‘How come I’ve never seen you before?’ the English broker (one of the very few Anglo-speaking white people to appear in the film) asks Okwe before gingerly accepting the strangely animate and ‘priceless’ parcel handed over to him. Barely concealing his rage, Okwe replies between clenched teeth in his finely accented Nigerian English: ‘Because we are the people you never see. We are the invisible people, the ones who clean your homes, who drive your taxis, who suck your cocks’. And, now it goes without saying, who provide you with their ‘spare’ body parts.” In Parts Unknown Undercover ethnography of organs-trafficking underworld, Nancy Scheper-Hughes of the University of California
Neo-canibalism is the scholarly term employed to refer to the illegal trade of living organs. The devastating racism involved in this vile process is the psychic foundations on which this globalized system is constructed. Nothing is sacred. This illegal trading market allows for the richest to survive, while sucking away the life of the most vulnerable.
“But with all due respect for the changing face of late modern capitalism, the human organs markets still conform to an earlier model of mercantile global capitalism, one that bears some resemblance to the Atlantic slave trade. Like the slave routes of old, the traffic in human organs requires ‘donor’, ‘recipient’ and ‘transfer’ nations. The ‘global cities’ (cf. Sassen, 1991) that provide the ‘raw materials’ – human kidneys, livers, corneas, skin, tendons, heart valves and other body parts – are Bucharest, Chennai, Chisenau, Johannesburg, Lvov, Lima, Manila and Moscow, while the ‘global cities’ that are the recipients of these body parts are Berlin, London, New York City, Philadelphia, Tel Aviv, Tokyo and Vancouver.”
This ‘bioavailability’ is interesting in correspondence to ‘biopiracy’. It is now recognized that indigenous societies traditional knowledge holds an incredible wealth of accurate information vital to planetary survival. Many indigenous societies have been victim of corporate biopiracy, and screwed patent laws. While traditional knowledge of indigenous people has been categorized and publicized as being of lower value than modern scientific research, this wealth of knowledge will be invaluable to the survival of the human species, which is interrelated to the protection of biodiversity and environmental sustainability. The indigenous paradigm is a holistic paradigm which recognizes the limits of the Earth. The delusional capitalistic model of never ending economic growth is a wheel of self-annihilation and death.
‘How come I’ve never seen you before?’ the English broker (one of the very few Anglo-speaking white people to appear in the film) asks Okwe before gingerly accepting the strangely animate and ‘priceless’ parcel handed over to him. Barely concealing his rage, Okwe replies between clenched teeth in his finely accented Nigerian English: ‘Because we are the people you never see. We are the invisible people, the ones who clean your homes, who drive your taxis, who suck your cocks’. And, now it goes without saying, who provide you with their ‘spare’ body parts.” In Parts Unknown Undercover ethnography of organs-trafficking underworld, Nancy Scheper-Hughes of the University of California
Neo-canibalism is the scholarly term employed to refer to the illegal trade of living organs. The devastating racism involved in this vile process is the psychic foundations on which this globalized system is constructed. Nothing is sacred. This illegal trading market allows for the richest to survive, while sucking away the life of the most vulnerable.
“But with all due respect for the changing face of late modern capitalism, the human organs markets still conform to an earlier model of mercantile global capitalism, one that bears some resemblance to the Atlantic slave trade. Like the slave routes of old, the traffic in human organs requires ‘donor’, ‘recipient’ and ‘transfer’ nations. The ‘global cities’ (cf. Sassen, 1991) that provide the ‘raw materials’ – human kidneys, livers, corneas, skin, tendons, heart valves and other body parts – are Bucharest, Chennai, Chisenau, Johannesburg, Lvov, Lima, Manila and Moscow, while the ‘global cities’ that are the recipients of these body parts are Berlin, London, New York City, Philadelphia, Tel Aviv, Tokyo and Vancouver.”
This ‘bioavailability’ is interesting in correspondence to ‘biopiracy’. It is now recognized that indigenous societies traditional knowledge holds an incredible wealth of accurate information vital to planetary survival. Many indigenous societies have been victim of corporate biopiracy, and screwed patent laws. While traditional knowledge of indigenous people has been categorized and publicized as being of lower value than modern scientific research, this wealth of knowledge will be invaluable to the survival of the human species, which is interrelated to the protection of biodiversity and environmental sustainability. The indigenous paradigm is a holistic paradigm which recognizes the limits of the Earth. The delusional capitalistic model of never ending economic growth is a wheel of self-annihilation and death.
The ongoing war over Mother Earth (ME), and the over-exploitation of Earth's natural resources, is interconnected to the dissemination of indigenous people. I will call the dismissive accounts of their ancient wisdom and traditional knowledge as unscientific, the death of the shamanic. It is time for a shamanic revival. The process of death of neoliberalism, and rebirth of ancient ways of knowing, we will call neo-shamanism. The rights of Mother Earth (ME), of her exquisite biodiversity, plants, animals and her children of all ages and races, the human right of women, the human rights of people of colour, can and will no longer be ignored in service of, and for the profits of a selected few navel gazing elites. Neoliberalism is threatened by Earth spirituality because it is not a consumable profit making project.
Have we completely forgotten that we are the mysterious star children of the universe, that we are born from and of the Earth, that we have a right to be free, to live peacefully and in balance with the forces of the natural world. A sustainable way of life is not only possible, it is an exciting new opportunity for immense creativity. The solutions will require a radical restructuring of the global economic system. These concepts are discussed by author an filmmaker Noami Klein, and many other scholars. The march for climate justice on November 29th was the largest in history, with 2,300 events in 175 countries, and 785,000 people manifesting. In light of COP 21, the people of the world are demanding 100% clean energy. This opportunity of the restructuring of energy access has the potential to transform the world in incredibly exciting and positive ways.
Civil society's engagement has never been so important. This is our time, young and old, of all faiths, all races, and all over the world, united as one humanity to participate in the transformation of this global political process. Political participation can be expressed in many ways, by means of planting food, organizing and joining manifestations, educating ourselves on relevant issues, participating in conferences, making films to communicate important information, writing blogs, while continuously talking to each other about the process in a positive way, encouraging and supporting those around us who are doing important activism and engaged work.
The wealth concentration in oil, which is meshed with the terror of war, will have less capital of destruction once it is deprived from its fossil fuel addiction. This is a real opportunity for wealth disparity to be radically reduced. We really do need to get ride of idiotic laws which jail innocents while allowing real criminals to continue with their destruction. We urgently need civil society action, reaction, and governmental accountability. I do not know how else to put it. The only people that can really make the governments accountable is civil society, you and me, with the help of our neighbours. Not acting is being complicit. We have to take responsibility for what is happening on a global scale.
Civil society's engagement has never been so important. This is our time, young and old, of all faiths, all races, and all over the world, united as one humanity to participate in the transformation of this global political process. Political participation can be expressed in many ways, by means of planting food, organizing and joining manifestations, educating ourselves on relevant issues, participating in conferences, making films to communicate important information, writing blogs, while continuously talking to each other about the process in a positive way, encouraging and supporting those around us who are doing important activism and engaged work.
The wealth concentration in oil, which is meshed with the terror of war, will have less capital of destruction once it is deprived from its fossil fuel addiction. This is a real opportunity for wealth disparity to be radically reduced. We really do need to get ride of idiotic laws which jail innocents while allowing real criminals to continue with their destruction. We urgently need civil society action, reaction, and governmental accountability. I do not know how else to put it. The only people that can really make the governments accountable is civil society, you and me, with the help of our neighbours. Not acting is being complicit. We have to take responsibility for what is happening on a global scale.
The terrorist attacks in Paris are a terrible event that will continue to haunt the hearts and minds of the people in Paris for a long time. The reaction of the French government, Russia and the U.S. to bomb Syria in response to the horrifying murders in Paris, is nevertheless part of the neoliberal paradigm of superiority and racism that has proven again and again to create a more troubled world. The illegal invasion of Irak, for which all U.S. officials should be trialled as war criminals (Chomsky), has created the rise of extremists groups like Isis. But who is selling them guns? We cannot solve the solution of terrorism with more terrorism, or hate with more hate. This western patriarchal superiority complex only continues to aggravate the situation, making the world less safe. It is only when we will begin to respect Mother Earth and her secrets, humanity’s right to life on Earth, respect the limits of the natural world, spiritual, cultural and biological diversity, when we build schools instead of throwing bombs, then and only then, will the world become safer.
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