Med fare for å tre inn i den upopulære klubben Menn Som Dominerer
KK-Forum - her er en meget bra artikkel fra Vandana Shiva. Anbefales.
- Per
(http://www.the-hindu.com/stories/1325061g.htm)
THE HINDU, March 25, 2001.
Violence of globalisation
WE thought we had put slavery, holocausts and apartheid behind us - that
humanity would never again allow dehumanising and violent systems to shape
the rules by which we live and die. Yet globalisation is giving rise to
new slavery, new holocausts, new apartheid. It is a war against nature,
women, children and the poor. A war which is transforming every community
and home into a war zone. It is a war of monocultures against diversity,
of big against small, of war time technologies against nature.
Technologies of war are becoming the basis of production in peacetime.
Orange, which was sprayed on Vietnam, is now being sprayed on our farms as
herbicide along with Round up and other poisons. Plants and animals are
being genetically engineered, thus making our fields sites of biological
warfare. And perverse intelligence is being applied to terminate life's
cycles of renewal by engineering "Terminator" seeds to be sterile. As the
violence grows, the stress on societies, ecosystems and living beings is
reaching levels of breakdown. We are surrounded by processes of ecological
and social breakdown.
Witness the events of our times which are now front page news. Cows in
Europe being subject to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), millions
of animals being burnt as foot and mouth disease spreads due to increased
trade, farmers in India committing suicide in thousands, the Taliban
destroying their heritage by vandalising the Bamiyan Buddhas, a
15-year-old boy Charles Andrew Williams shooting his classmates in a
Californian high school, ethnic cleansing.
All these are wars of peacetime, occurring in our daily lives and the last
expression of violence in a system which has put profit above life,
commerce above justice, ethics and ecology as violent technologies. Cows
are herbivores, they are not meant to eat their own carcasses. But, in an
industrial system of factory farming globalised under free trade rules of
agriculture, it was "efficient" to grind up the meat of infected sheep and
cows and turn it into cattle feed. This has spread BSE among cattle - a
disease that can be transmitted to humans.
Children should be playing with their friends. Schools are not supposed to
be war zones. But a culture of guns and violence, combined with one that
has focussed so exclusively on commerce and economic growth and material
accumulation, has left future generations uprooted and unanchored, afraid
and violent. Our children are robbed of childhood. In Iraq, 12 children
die every hour because of a trade embargo. In other regions, children are
being pushed into prostitution or warfare - the only options for survival
when societies break down. Across the Third World, hunger and malnutrition
has grown as a result of structural adjustment and trade liberalisation
policies. During 1979-81 and 1992-93, calorie intake declined by three
per cent in Mexico, 4.1 per cent in Argentina, 10.9 per cent in Kenya,
10.0 per cent in Tanzania, 9.9 per cent in Ethiopia. In India, the per
capita cereal consumption declined by 12.2 per cent for rural areas and
5.4 per cent for urban areas. Denying food to the hungry and feeding the
markets is one of the genocidal aspects of globalisation. Countries cannot
ensure that the hungry are fed because this involves laws, policies and
financial commitments which are "protectionist" - the ultimate crime in
the globalisation regime.
Denying medicine to the ill so that the global pharmaceutical industry can
make profits is another aspect of genocide. Under the Trade Related
Intellectual Property agreement of the World Trade Organisation, countries
have to implement patent laws granting exclusive, monopolistic rights to
the pharmaceutical and biotech industry. This prevents countries from
producing low cost generic drugs. Patented HIV/AIDS medicine costs
$15,000, while generic drugs made by India and Brazil cost $250-300 for
one year's treatment. Patents are, therefore, literally robbing AIDS
victims of their lives.
However, in the world order of globalisation dictated by commerce, greed
and profits, it is providing cures through affordable medicine that is
illegal. India, Brazil and South Africa have been taken to the WTO Court
(the Dispute Settlement Mechanism) because they have laws that allow low
cost medicine to be produced.
At the World Court of Women, we declare that laws that force a government
to deny citizens the right to food and the right to medicine are
genocidal. Globalisation is a violent system, imposed and maintained
through use of violence. As trade is elevated above human needs, the
insatiable appetite of global markets for resources is met by unleashing
new wars over resources.
The war over diamonds in Sierra Leonne, over oil in Nigeria has killed
thousands of women and children.
The transfer of people's resources to global corporations also makes
states more militaristic as they arm themselves on behalf of commercial
interests, and start wars against their own people. Violence has been used
by the government against tribal people in areas where Bauxite is mined in
Orissa and in Koel Karo, where the building of a large dam was stopped.
But it is not just non-renewable resources like diamonds, oil and minerals
which global corporations want to own. They want to own our biodiversity
and water. They want to transform the very fabric and basis of life into
private property. Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) on seeds and plants,
animals and human genes are aimed at transforming life into the property
of corporations. While falsely claiming to have "invented" life forms and
living organisms, corporations also claim patents on knowledge pirated
from the Third World. The knowledge of our mothers and grandmothers is now
being claimed as inventions of western corporations and scientists. The
use of neem (Azarichta Indica) as pesticide and fungicide, was claimed to
be an invention by the U.S.D.A. and W.R. Grace. India challenged it and
got the patent revoked. The seeds and plants of basmati have been claimed
as inventions by a U.S. corporation called Ricetec. And these are only
some examples of biopiracy which will lead to the absurd situation where
the Third World pays for knowledge that evolved cumulatively and
collectively. From the Women's Court, we declare that patents on life and
patents based on biopiracy are immoral and illegal. They should not be
respected because they violate universal principles for reverence for life
and the integrity of a culture's knowledge systems.
We will not live by rules that are robbing millions of their lives and
medicines, their seeds, plants and knowledge, their sustenance and dignity
and their food. We will not allow greed and violence to be treated as the
only values to shape our cultures and our lives. We will take back our
lives, as we took back the right. We know that violence begets violence,
fear begets fear, peace begets peace and love begets love. We will reweave
the world as a place of sharing and caring, of peace and justice, not a
market place where sharing and caring and giving protection are crimes and
peace and justice are unthinkable. We will shape new universals through
solidarity, not hegemony.
Women's worlds are worlds based on protection - of our dignity and self
respect, the well - being of our children, of the earth, of her diverse
beings of those who are hungry and those who are ill. To protect is the
best expression of humanity. Those who have tried to transform
"protection" into a dirty word, the worst crime of the global market
place, see the protection of health, nutrition, livelihoods all call for
trade sanctions and "punishment" by the W.T.O. and the World Bank.
To those who have tried to make the protection of life a crime we say
echoing Archbishop Tutu: "You have already lost. You need to get out of
the way so that we can protect each other, our children and life on this
planet." The future does not belong to the Merchants of Death - it belongs
to the Protectors of Life.
The author is director, Research Foundation for Science, Technology and
Ecology, New Delhi.
-- ==================== *** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Feel free to distribute widely but PLEASE acknowledge the source. ***
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Mar 25 2001 - 18:29:45 MET DST