Books Reviewed by Author, M-Z

“…Take a stone from our house
So that our descendents
Will remember their way home.” Mahmoud Darwish, from the poemYour Eyes

Review by Theresa Wolfwood

Described as a concise guide to history and issues, this booklet packs an amazing amount of information into 40 pages. It is firstly a Palestinian history, going back 3000 years and forward to modern times, culminating in the NAKBA, the violent expulsion of 800,000 Palestinians from their homeland in 1948 — while the world stood by, helping the Israelis or completely ignoring this ethnic cleansing. 531 villages were destroyed. In 1967, Israel expelled another 300,000 Palestinians.

Coming right up to the present the authors explain that resistance to this expulsion takes the form of working for “the right of return´ for all exiles and their descendents. They write: The return of Palestinian refugees to Israel is not an issue of immigration, but rather of undoing an historical injustice. In the refugee camps today in Lebanon, these exiles hold on the ´stone´, a symbol for active memory and nourishing the Palestinian culture. Every child knows her village; many adults treasure the key their family home.

For those who were not exiled, life is increasingly difficult under military occupation. The authors have written concise and fact—filled sections on the Wall, the theft of water resources, the continuing destruction of homes and farms and the constant control on movement and life generally.

This booklet is designed for activist education; it is well—written, clear and brief.
It concludes with an International Solidarity/Activist Guide outlining many excellent actions and strategies. There is a special price for bulk purchase which makes this essential guide an affordable tool for Palestinian solidarity building. Highly recommended.

Review by Theresa Wolfwood

“My tongue tastes pleasure,
The future of change.
My heart aches in the slowness of history.”

This excerpt from “I Speak Again” expresses the many life long passions of Elizabeth Mayne, a Victoria resident and a visual artist who turned to expressing herself in poetry ten years ago.

Her continuity of sensual passion and pleasure is for some, including the publisher, a major focus of this book, both in the poems and the drawings of fragments of men´s bodies as well as poignant renditions of women´s bodies. She loves beauty but does not ignore hard reality. Her physical response to love, lust and lost are graphically and elegantly expressed.

There is much more. She is a transplanted exile from South Africa and worked for years in anti–apartheid campaigns. Now she can go back to her homeland to visit and she turns her poetic sensibilities to the heritage of injustice and cruelty that still dominate South African life.

Speaking again in her mother tongue, she is overwhelmed by the power of Afrikaans to evoke both joy and fear. Joy for her ease, and fear for a poor old man she jostles and apologizes to for her act; he is bewildered by an apology in the language of oppression.

In “The Sign” she is gripped by black energy; she feels an ambiguous dark power...
“I long to have the instant ability/ to act together. with many/for the common good”.

Elizabeth Mayne writes with clear specific detail and multi-layered nuances of sensuous personal passion, but there is also a rich and lasting passion for humanity, justice and the earth in this collection.

Review by Theresa Wolfwood

He may be a respectable academic at York University, but what impressed me most was that this book was born in fumes of tear gas at the FTAA meeting in Quebec in April, 2002. It was there that the author, with his partner and children, in the heat of resistance, saw a beginning of a new left that would build a new global movement. McNally says, “It is written in the conviction that another world of freedom, justice and human cooperation is possible.”

It is also good to read what some may consider yet another book on this subject by a Canadian with a Canadian perspective. Much that he wrote 5 years ago is still valid; worth knowing and reflecting on. He has a real ability to make connections, some of which may be uncomfortable to Canadians with a lily white attitude.

In the beginning of the book he shows that globalization is far more than trade agreements; it is a construct of power and domination. In Chapter 4 on The Colours of Money: Race, Gender and the Many Oppressions of Global Capital, he quotes Malcolm X: “You can‘t have capitalism without racism. And in today‘s global capitalism you can‘t have it without oppressed women either.”

This is a valuable survey of the 500 years of capitalism in Canada and the USA since the European invasion and occupation of this hemisphere. As I write there is an action in Ontario where 1st nations are trying to stop a development on their stolen land. Little has changed and judging by the non-native citizens quoted on the CBC we still have a long way to go to eradicate racism in Canada. McNally says: “What is unique to the world of modern capitalism is the idea that there are physically distinct races of humans with radically different characteristics and attributes.”

Because of this capitalism uses the rhetoric of freedom and equality to mask “extra-economic bases of social domination.” White workers are compensated for their lowly status by their whiteness – divide and conquer nearly always succeeds. I found that McNally can present and connect complex ideas in a simple and straightforward way – there is no way to miss the significance of his ideas.

When he writes about the global dispossession of people from their land, making them dependent on external economic power, women suffer more than men. Although they retain their lower status, they become wage earners in sweatshops, migrant domestic and sex trade workers and are exposed to more dangers and health hazards than if they stayed on the land – all the while supporting families with no other earning power. Related to this are the inhumane and restrictive immigration and refugee laws that Canada and other countries enact to control the economically and militarily dispossessed while all the while making sure that enough people are available to do our grubby work and jobs that nobody else wants – knowing that many migrants without documentation will be exploited and abused.

After his thorough, honest and clear review and analysis of our dirty history, McNally examines and illustrates the many changes in contemporary society that make him hopeful that another world is possible – indeed it is being created now. From the continuing endurance of the Zapatistas to new fair trade developments to the power of citizen groups in regularly blockading trade agreements and, most recently, to the related rise of new governments in Latin America. (Remember the FTAA? It was supposed to be signed, sealed and delivered last year; instead it ended up in dead letter department.)

Chapter 7: Freedom Song goes from these and many examples of the search for alternatives based on the necessity to de-commodify human life. This commodification of people is the linking common factor in social justice struggles around the globe. For that McNally gives 10 guiding principles for anti-Capitalist Politics – self-determination for oppressed peoples (return Diego Garcia to the Chagossian people, for starters) to social ecology to the building of democratic mass movements. We must guard against elitism in our movements, recognize the need to change ourselves as we change the world and create a politics of self-activity. This last chapter is too full and varied to summarize – but it is here that McNally surpasses many other books on globalization and social change. He takes social activism seriously, covers many aspects of needed work and encourages us to participate in the struggle wherever we are so that we create while we realize: Another World is Possible. TW

Review by Theresa Wolfwood  

“... we are a player of some significance on the global stage, due to our reputation – partly deserved and partly undeserved – as a fair arbiter and promoter of just causes, as a decent sort of country. By lining ourselves up so uncritically with Washington, even as the Bush administration has become a renegade in the world and highly unpopular on its own home turf, the Canadian government has played a role in enabling a regime that is considered by many around the world to be the major obstacle to peace and security.” from the introduction

McQuaig is a good investigative journalist with a knack for pinning the tail right on the donkey every time she writes a book. In her latest, she zooms right in on Canada´s new role in the world wrought by our governments who uncritically, even fawningly, endorse the line of USA imperialism.

It is not a new role for Canada, in spite of our illusions of being a peaceable, tolerant and caring society; but our present government has swollen our complicity to new levels and hidden depths. From our diminishing social structures to our war on Afghanistan and an all time high military budget, our national character is drastically changing.

The rapid change has been wrought by a minority government Prime Minister who plans to increase our military spending to more than 50% above 2005 levels to $21.5 billion annually by 2010 with barely a public murmur or a boo from other parties. It is obvious there is little effective political choice left for Canadian voters. We are standing by as Canada becomes “one of the gang´ but always as a lesser member, fit to hold the bully´s coat – soon probably we´ll be waving his flag: ironically as the USA wallows in debt, fights no-win wars, becomes reviled around the world, Canada, seemingly oblivious to current history, is getter cozier and more complicit with the global bully. McQuaig says that corporate-Canada, its elitist “comprador class,” the Department of National Defense (DND), and the Canadian media which has always glamourized USA are the drivers behind our integration into the USA. Few are willing to say publicly that we are scrambling to climb on the Titanic.

McQuaig believes that Harper´s cooperation with Washington´s “war on terrorism” ´lies at the very heart of (his) agenda.´ Maintaining that close relationship with the USA matters more to Harper, the front for big capital in Canada, than citizens´ rights and our livelihoods.  In late August, 2007, leaders of Canada, USA & Mexico meet in Quebec to promote the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP). From what´s already known, SPP unmasked isn´t pretty. It´s a corporate–led coup d´etat against the sovereignty of three nations SPP in Quebec and to further consolidate USA´s global rule and corporate freedoms – a plan to allow USA based capital to control resources like water, minerals, energy and access through the continent and further diminish democratic and public control of our assets combined with a militaristic obsession about ´security´ which will further destroy our human rights and our sense of humanity.

In “Holding the Bully´s Coat,” McQuaig also shows how recent governments have forced globalization for corporate capital while whittling away at our tradition base of social equity and the universality and public ownership of health, education and utilities. Our laws about refugees and possible “terrorists” are copycats of USA laws while more and more decisions about our sovereignty and future are made outside parliament and behind a curtain of propaganda and deceit.

Canada has forgotten about international commitments to development and equality in order to enjoy basking in the reflected light of immoral and incompetent leaders, whose failings seem to be obvious to everyone except Canadian politicians. From Haiti to Afghanistan to our lack of environmental action we are mired in the toxic mud of the USA. In our apathy we may become truly one of the ´United States of America´, as someone once said sixty years ago, “The name is a program.” And calling the USA, just US, means we recognize that program as legitimate. We need McQuaig´s tough and punchy writing to wake up Canadians to the smell the gunpowder and profit – before it is too late. Read this book – get mad & get busy.

Review by Roger Annis of the Canadian Haiti Action Network

I recently read a comprehensive history of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and I was drawn to read a history of the Rwandan genocide by the experience of the current UN—sponsored occupation of Haiti. There are important lessons and parallels between the two experiences.

In 1994, the United Nations Security Council stood by while more than one million Rwandans were killed in a planned genocide by a regime that received important backing from the U.S., France, Belgium and Egypt. The regime acted in the name of a fictional "Hutu" nationality against a minority people called "Tutsi". Killings on a massive scale began in April of that year and only ended with the military and political defeat of the "Hutu Power" regime by the Rwanda Patriotic Front. The human misery continued because the new government inherited a shattered country, and some one million people were driven out of Rwanda into a barren region of Zaire by the genocide regime in order that it could preserve a population base.

I knew the rough outlines of the genocide. What the book reveals is that not only did the UN Security Council and its member countries stand by before and during the genocide, they gave active military and diplomatic support to the genocide regime. France and Egypt provided arms. France and the Security Council maintained their diplomatic recognition of the regime until its dying days. With Security Council backing, France intervened in late June with a 2,500-member military force in order to salvage the remnants of the regime and impose a "coalition" regime on the Rwandan people, that is, a government of the RPF and the architects of the genocide. (The RPF flatly refused).

Canadian General Romeo Dallaire was the head of the UN´s "peacekeeping" contingent in Rwanda. It arrived in the summer of 1993 and numbered 2,500 troops. It did not have a mandate nor the resources to intervene and stop the genocide when it began in earnest in April 1994. In fact, as the killings mounted, Belgium, the former colonial power, pulled out the remainder of its armed forces. (France had withdrawn in late 1993). Dallaire is treated as a folk hero in Canada and internationally for his apparent efforts to stop the genocide. I think the adulation is undeserved, for several reasons.

One, if UN forces were truly interested in stopping the genocide, they would have aided the patriotic forces in the RPF who were attempting to do just that. But Dallaire always couched his appeal for stronger UN intervention as a measure to "separate two warring sides." In other words, he sought to preserve elements of the genocide regime in the form of an imposed coalition government, the same goal that France attempted in June. The RPF never received support nor cooperation from UN forces.

Two, Dallaire travels and speaks widely on the Rwanda genocide. And what is his message? That the UN, the very agency that "betrayed" the Rwandan people, as the title of the book under review states, should be strengthened and reinforced. He is an enthusiastic proponent of the "Responsibility to Protect" doctrine authored by the ideologues of his government (Dallaire is a member of the unelected Canadian Senate).

Dallaire has unique insight and information of the events that transpired in Rwanda. He knows first—hand of the cruel betrayal of the Rwandan people by the U.S. and France in particular, not to speak of the UN Security Council. Does he condemn this betrayal? Only in the vaguest of language. Meanwhile, he preaches forgiveness and renewal of confidence in the governments and international institutions that betrayed.

If Dallaire were sincerely interested in averting future Rwandas, he would denounce the "betrayals" of other peoples by the Security Council, including in Haiti. There, in early 2004, the Security Council sanctioned the violent overthrow of Haiti´s elected president and other governing institutions, and then recognized an appointed and illegal regime that perpetrated widespread killings and human rights violations against supporters of Haiti´s democracy.

I recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand the role of the UN in today´s world. "Peacekeeping?" "Responsibility to Protect?" This book is a reminder of how poisonous are these doctrines. Beware of their proponents.

This is a memoir about life of women in Morocco living under the social and physical constraints of the harem. There are many happy moments as women live with joy and companionship within this framework. Mernissi is a wonderful writer – her descriptions of her relatives and family life are colourful and affectionate.

Her carefree life ends with end of childhood; she learns of her powerlessness in this male dominated society. She is told by her female elders, “Childhood is when the difference does not matter. From now on, you won’t be able to escape it. You’ll be ruled by the difference. The world is going to turn ruthless.” But the door is open, just a crack for this modern educated girl who was told, “If you can’t get out, you are on the powerless side.”

Change came from within and without; Mernissi grew up to be an educated person with the freedom to teach at a university, to choose her life and to write books like this. She walked out the door with perception and the support of women who did not get her chance.

Many of her books are feminist and scholarly interpretations of Islam, very accessible to non-Islamic readers. The next book is a more recent one that I also enjoyed.

Mernissi bases this book on a modern interpretation and evaluation of the famous fables spun by a woman to ensure her survival; stories considered so subversive because of her success in not only surviving, but empowering her to change the mind of her absolute ruler.

Thus the author believes that, ”dialogue-nurturing is considered magic, because it fuels power with beauty.” A heady combination that has delighted listeners and readers in many cultures for years, so her comparison of the harem of spatial confinement, a place she returns to in much of her writing, with the harem imposed on western women is both metaphorical and literal.

In this personal and vivid account she weaves together with humour and inight the constraints that modern women in her culture and ours are bound by. She sees our harem as one not of space, but time and appearance. We in the west are trapped in a male-dominated society that demands we be thin to the point of child like, beautiful and forever youthful. If that seems extreme I recommend the August 12, 2005 issue of The Globe and Mail (Toronto, Canada) about the obsession with cosmetic plastic surgery in the USA – a story from Los Angeles about designer vaginas.

Throughout the book, Mernissi writes about western male artists and writers to conclude that, ”Being frozen into the passive position of an object whose very existence depends on the eye of the beholder turns the educated modern western woman into a harem slave.”

TW

This book is a devastating report on the deaths and disappearances of women, mainly of indigenous Mexican origin, who die and disappear from towns on the Mexican-USA border. These towns are full of designated tax-free zones where global factories, called maquiladoras, are a rich source of profit for the owners, mainly USA companies. The workers, most of whom are women from poor families, are over worked and under paid, have few legal or health benefits. The factories pour toxic waste into the community polluting land, water and air.

400 women have been murdered in Cuidad Juarez and Chihuahua City since 1993. Little official action has been taken to solve these killings. In an area where where neoliberal trade agreements and politics are intertwined with drug trafficking and corrupt police, there is little interest and often deliberate cover up of these crimes. . The women murdered are young, poor and of aboriginal background. They are taken from the street – en route to and from distant factories- and are usually raped and beaten before they are murdered.

The book explains the rural crisis of small farmers driven from their land, unable to compete with subsidized maize from enormous corporations from the USA. Often it is only the young women who can get work in the factories and they are expected to support their destitute families on their pittance of less that $5/day. For many men the main source of income is the production and transport of illegal drugs with the help of local police.

On page 86 the authors say, "The decade-long series of femicides occurs in the context of a neoliberal experiment that is out of control. Cuidad Juarez and Chihuahua City are the leading edge of 21st century frontier capitalism, part of the race to the bottom that is enveloping ever-larger parts of the world. Young women are little more than replaceable cogs in a profit—driven machine that values neither life nor dignity...
You need not look far in your own community to find the beginnings of the same race to the bottom — decreasing education budgets, increased unemployment, declining standards of living, less access to health care, and, most importantly, less democracy. The race to the bottom tears apart the cultural fabric, tears apart community, resulting in a situation where femicide takes its place among a number of pressing social problems. And given the historic position of women in male-dominated societies, femicide does not make it anywhere near the top of the list."

That excerpt sums it up and makes it easy to understand that the main group working for justice for the victims are mothers, sisters, aunts and cousins. This is the group we are called to support in solidarity. The book ends with lists of concrete action we can take and contacts for action groups. A film, Senorita Extravida, and more information are available from msn@MexicoSolidarity.org See also: www.amigosdemujeres.org www.casa-amiga.org, www.mexicosolidarity.org TW

“The third phase of global restructuring began with the recession around 1990. It is characterized by an unprecedented penetration of all regions of the globe and all areas of life by the logic and practice of capital accumulation.” p.35

“The rise of the global market has exacerbated the plight of women.” p. 225

Maria Mies has had a profound affect on research and activism in many countries in our globalized world. The distinguished author, teacher and activist with her colleague, Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen, has produced a clear, concise, often humorous, detailed account of a radical alternative to globalization. When this book was published, there appeared to be no alternative: TINA, as Margaret Thatcher insisted. Since that time, no doubt helped by Mies’ work, cracks have occurred in the face of globalization; it is not working everywhere, and as these authors explain capitalist growth is based on the unpaid labour of women and peasants and the exploitation of nature.

We have realized in the last few years the finite limits of nature. Women and peasants are in the lead in the ant-globalization movement which spread from the majority world to the minority world as comfortable citizens in Europe and north America saw their livelihoods and security eroded by the latest stages of the global market; the privatization of the commons.

Many of the examples of the subsistence alternative are inspiring and provocative in their challenge to contemporary popular notions of wealth. Particularity amusing and enlightening is the story of the title in German: A Cow for Hilary; the story of how peasant women pity the wife of the US president because she lacks the security of a large family, ducks and a cow. This is a new perspective: the subsistence perspective from women who feel more empowered than a wealthy famous US woman!

The authors believe and present convincing reasons why an alternative to globalization based on self-reliance, access to food security, community, respect for nature and others is te best way to resist the greedy disempowering forces of globalization and capital.

Their important contribution to our limited definition of “feminism” is a state of “ecofeminism” where women accept the concept of ´subsistence´ by respecting their own (mainly unpaid) labour, the strength of community and the power to seek and implement ideas and solutions created in that community. Mies says, "It is my thesis that this general production of life, or subsistence production – mainly performed through the non–wage labour of women and other non–wage labourers as slaves, contract workers and peasants in the colonies – constitutes the perennial basis upon which ´capitalist productive labour´ can be built up and exploited".

This book makes it clear that freedom from this oppression from above is the basis for a sustainable life and happy fulfilled life. Reading it is a great antidote to the gloom and despair mongering that mainstream thought uses to discourage and disempower us all.

Mies’ books, especially those on “Ecofeminism” and “Patriarchy and the Accumulation of Capital” are excellent reading also.

Review by TW

This is a wonderful collection of poetry that will never date from many lands and many centuries. I usually find anthologies disappointing, but I found this volume of 300 poems chosen by the Nobel Prize winner, Czeslaw Milosz, to be the best gathering of poetry in one volume that I have read. His choices are based on his criteria of, ‘…realist, that is loyal toward reality and attempting to describe it as concisely as possible.’ He selects poems that are universal in their timeless themes of love, transience, death. He quotes the philosopher, Schopenhauer who believed that artists are committed to, ‘the predominance of knowing over willing…purely objective perception to the most insignificant objects…a lasting monument of…spiritual peace…’

But what is seemingly insignificant is often very important – we see the results of insignificance every day – wars and massive change are often precipitated by small events. An anonymous Inuit poet says in Magic Words:

There was a time when words were like magic.
The human mind had mysterious powers.
A word spoken by chance
might have strange consequences.

But as Milosz says, Šthe secret of all art, also of poetry is…distance.’ Our memories are often purer and more distilled after an event, when we are away from the powerful emotions evoked at the time. Then also we may be able to judge their importance. These poems may be defined as realist, but they also may be memorable for their truths, their beauty and clarity of expression which make them timeless in their ability to move, inspire and inform us.

Some of my favourites are the words of African bush people who express their sense of transience in:

the day we die
the wind comes down
to take away
our footprints

Tu Fu expresses he loneliness of exiles in the 8th century:

I watch the spring go by and wonder
if I shall ever return home.

There are fine poems from the contemporary poets like Denise Levertov, always an inspiration for me, she writes in Eye Mask:

I need
more of the night before I open
eyes and heart
to illumination…

I am sorry the author did not find poems by the great Canadians like Dorothy Livesay & Margaret Atwood, and contemporary Arabic poets, like Mourid Barghouti; many of their poems would fit perfectly in this collection but I was happy to find the Spanish Antonio Machado & Polish Nobel winner, Wislawa Symborska and, he had to stop somewhere. There are always more anthologies to be written that will record the distilled wisdom, passion and truth of many more poets around the world. This selection is a treasure to keep for constant reference and pleasure. TW

The blurb on the back cover says that Mitchell is “restoring a radical, subversive voice to the public face of British poetry.” For that he is most welcome! Mitchell is a skilled and imaginative poet, creating humorous works about sacred cows and searing indictments of war, greed and violence.

It was the mainstream media’s mania for royal hagiography that gave the magazine, Red Pepper, the idea to anoint a shadow poet laureate who could speak to and for the people. I’ll always remember Hilary Wainwright, editor of Red Pepper saying at the World Social Forum that action creates ideas. The act of creating a shadow poet laureate has poured Mitchell’s ideas, imagination and insight onto these pages.

Much of Mitchell’s poetry sears in its heated exposure of the horrors of war and violence, as in "To the pre-emptive Air Forces ":

...You are Jack the Ripper on a surgical strike.

And the deceptively sing-song Back to the Happidrome about armaments and war:

“..Tear the face off the human race–
with British Aerospace
it gives employment...”

One poem that stays with me is a classic haiku, a form usually associated with cherry blossoms, but this one, National Pride Haiku, says:

if smacking children
were an Olympic event
England would take the gold

Not all his poems are about violence and stupidity; many are full of love and joy, celebrations of friendship and natural beauty. Even activists who don´t normally read poetry can enjoy the insight, satire and beauty of Mitchell’s work.

One of Britain ’s best journalists uses his own country for an in-depth case study of how industrial capitalism has invaded and mostly conquered every aspect of British life. It could be applied to Canada and many other countries.

Monbiot, the brilliant and prolific writer for the UK Guardian, blazes out his excellent ideas for saving our environment from global warming. In the special preface to this Canadian edition, he tells us that Canada is one of the highest producers of greenhouse gases.

“You think of yourselves as a liberal and enlightened people….But you could scarcely do more to destroy the biosphere if you tried…The sustainable limit for carbon dioxide emissions is…one—sixteenth of what you currently produce.”

Much of what he writes many of us already know — the scenario for global disaster has been well—articulated by many writers. But Monbiot is not just giving us excellent information — he has an action plan that will enable countries like Australia, USA, UK and Canada to reduce emissions drastically without forcing us to live a Pleistocene lifestyle. He says we can cut our emissions by 80% without going back to pre—history.

He takes on all the corporate liars, the conniving governments as well as wild predictions from some environmentalists — many of whom make action so unattractive that most people choose to ignore the evidence of global catastrophe and continue to live a Faustian contract with fossil fuels.

Feasible, conceivable, practical and thoughtful action ideas are what are needed and Monbiot’s well documented strategies are what make this book so valuable —from confronting governments and corporations in denial to changing our transport, building and heating practices we can still live a comfortable life and not commit our descendents to peril. It is not just do—it—yourself saving that will help; it is political action and change that is needed.

He writes, “This book has an overtly political purpose. It aims to encourage people to not only change the way they live but to force their governments to make such changes easier…My purpose is to equip you with the political tools you need — the arguments, technologies and ideas for implementing them — to turn one of the most polluting nations on Earth into a place which commands the rest of the world’s respect.”

If I had to recommend only one book of the many on climate change & global warming — this would be it. Read it and be prepared to act no matter how difficult it may be.

He ends with this warning about the campaign against climate change. “…it is a campaign not for abundance, but for austerity. It is a campaign not for more freedom, but less. Strangest of all, it is a campaign not just against other people, but also against ourselves.”

“There is no way; we make the road by walking it”.
Antonio Machado

The seriousness of social movements in recent decades can be judged by the fact that many academics who seldom leave the ivory tower deem them worthy and timely to study and joyfully criticize and deconstruct. Their studies are rarely available or of value to working activists.

This book is different; Moyer and the other authors have been deeply committed social activists for many years. Their book is a very practical guide and a clear analysis of movements that activists will find very helpful. Although published in Canada the examples and interpretations are primarily based on the USA where the authors did their work. Allowing for certain cultural differences, the book is still helpful in other places.

They have a theory and explanations of the roles and stages of the beginning, development and end of movements; the end is often because they have succeeded. The issue has become mainstream, political groups and society have absorbed them and often the issues have been resolved. The authors focus on many successful movements – gay and lesbian rights, civil rights in the USA and others. They are essentially very hopeful, seeing success in the increase of movements in numbers and their diversity as well as results. The book helps activists to be realistic and set goals, and to recognize that even when the movement folds, it may be a sign of success. I remember the Anti-MAI movement which started with a copy of a secret trade agreement being leaked here in Victoria; the contents quickly spawned a international movement that folded when the MAI was rejected.

In the conclusion we are urged to create an analysis, vision, and action strategy for transformation of society. We need to integrate social action into our personal and public lives, to eliminate the negative features we bring from our flawed societies – greed, anger, selfishness and competitiveness and create healthy, positive and caring ways to interact within social movements. It is time to recognize activists as important in themselves, not because they are actors or physicists. We need to see that we can be important and effective in bringing ideas and causes from the margins of society into the mainstream as we place our goals of transforming a consumerist and militarist society to one of ecology, justice and sustainability. This book can help us along our way. TW/2005

This is a handsome and big book, qualifying for ”coffee table“ status, but it also a wonderful collection of stunning photos and wise words of women who work with a passion for social change. Nebenzahl and Ackerman travelled the world finding the answers from each woman to their question: Why do they care enough to dedicate their lives to helping other? The answers are diverse but they found a common thread: “That activist women often come to their work out of sadness and despair, because of personal loss, but sometimes simply out of deep conviction that something has to be done...caring gives them hope...that they can change the world.”

Some of the women are famous and familiar to social activists, including the Egyptian writer, Nawal el Saadawi, who recently ran for the presidency of Egypt. She writes and talks about “the taboos of her society – women, sex and religion”. A medical doctor she writes constantly and has never stopped questioning and rebelling. She says, “...even innocent love stories are political. When you have two people in a bedroom, that is political – who is above, who is below. There is no such thing as neutrality.”

Other women are less known and it is a pleasure to read and learn about them. Vancouver breast cancer activists Jane Frost and Brenda Hochachka became messengers of hope to other breast cancer survivors with the now famous dragon boat festivals. Olayinka Koso Thomas campaigns again the horrors, pain, infection, later diseases, and sterilization and death resulting from genital mutilation. She works in exile from Sierra Leone in London, UK; the practice of genital mutilation is in decline, but still millions are mutilated every year. Olayinka believes that education in the key. Educated people won’t let their children be mutilated.

And then there is Agnes Daroczi, an activist for Roma women, surely the most persecuted group in Europe. She has spent her life bringing “into the light a culture that had been trampled and hidden away” in her native Hungary and throughout the world. She has organized an independent Roma political movement to promote the rights and history of this rich culture.

There are 45 women in the book. As I took courage from the stories and admired the expressive photos, I thought, how wonderful; I am sure every reader, just as I can, will also think of 45 more to honour. It’s an inspiration! TW

Review by Theresa Wolfwood

I have a poem in this book, otherwise I would not know of it. So I am glad my poem was printed here so I could read and appreciate the writers of a vast collection of poetry on subjects including war, cultural identity, political art and privilege – a book that the editor said she produced because it was the kind of poetry she wanted to read. I think it is a book many women – and men – would want to read. I read it cover to cover when it arrived and was amazed by the scope and breadth of the poems included. Let´s hope it gets well advertised, reviewed and read because it fills a need and an open space.

The poets are old and young and from many parts of the world – Nigeria, South Africa, Malaysia, Europe and India, Australia & a few more in between with many from the USA & a few Canadians. The range is great, reflecting creative experience and powerful experiences. The illustrations by Brenda Cleary connect the diverse themes and enhance the written word with clear and bold images. I mention only a few of the poems that moved me.

In “Pink” by Jane Eaton Hamilton a pink sweet pea becomes an unforgettable symbol of torture in a few short lines. “Do you believe flowers ask for it?”

Jackie Joice describes the rarely reported murders of Mexican women in “Not Too Far From Here (for the women of Juarez) in brief vivid words where, ”Not too far from here an uneasy/silence/covers unmentionable deaths/ Brujas blancas are working overtime calling on/the Virgen for assistance Not too far from here we/can hear whispers of restless souls/crying for peace crying for/ justice.

And I loved “Dialogue of Breasts” by Liza Ezzard who would have women claim their own bodies with joy and independence. She writes, “My breasts have defied bondage/they rarely need support. They are doubly independent mirror images of a self–made women.”/

This is a book to savour, poems of pain and horror, yes; but also words of joy, humour and empowerment.

Review by Theresa Wolfwood

“In my view language was the most important vehicle through which that power fascinated and held the soul prisoner. The bullet was the means of the physical subjugation. Language was the means of the spiritual subjugation.”

This slim volume was and is important enough to go through many printings. Everything the author, a respected Kenyan scholar & writer, says is still relevant today. He pens with a vivid description of the role of a writer who must have a passion for truth and a rigorous analysis of reality – like a surgeon.

“Writers are the surgeons of the heart and souls of a community.”

Ngugi places himself right in the heart of the community and says, “…literary work, is not the result of an individual genius, but the result of a collective effort…the very words we use are a product of a collective history.”

He also places the language of African literature in the context of social forces – colonialism and “…imperialism continues to control the economy, politics and culture of Africa.” Sounds like Canada.

In this context Ngugi’s central thesis is that no one can write fully and honestly in the language of the oppressor. His education, like that of most English speaking Africans was totally based on the culture & literature of Britain. Many African writers defined themselves by their colonial language, English and also French and Portuguese. Few educated Africans looked to a renaissance of African cultures in any languages except those. Modern African writers accepted this as ‘fait accompli’. He challenges this as a too fatalistic conclusion and a betrayal of the richness of the many African languages and cultures.

He remembers the power and creativity of the stories of his childhood in Gikuyu, which had magic and beauty, based in the environment of the society. It presented a unique world view that was shattered by the enforced use of English as the language of formal education. Language, as his teachers well knew, is both a means of communication and a carrier of culture. As were First Nations’ children in Canada, Kenyan children were beaten for using their own language and not only that, but they were trained to inform on other children who also spoke the forbidden tongue. They “… were being taught the lucrative value of being a traitor to one’s immediate community.”

As Ngugi became a scholar and teacher he continued to accept English as the essential language of his creation and went to African conferences where participants enjoyed and lauded their fine English scholarship. He now says, “It is the final triumph of a system of domination when the dominated start singing its virtues.” Ultimately this educated class becomes the enabling cultural bourgeoisie of the new neocolonialism.

After recognizing this imperialism, he realizes that African languages and culture are still thriving and maintained by the peasantry from which the elites have become disconnected. Singers, storytellers and writers still flourished even if, as some were, they were jailed for the use of their own language. The issue of cultural workers creating in the context of their own society has reemerged after years of repression. Capitalism may have introduced technology and means, but these further consolidated its elitism and control of other cultures. The printing press could control whose work was published and originally Africans who were published wrote with biblical and positive colonial themes. Universities in Africa further strengthened these trends; students were schooled in European literature to the neglect of their own heritage.

It was jail that clarified the issue for Ngugi, after publishing in English; he grasped during incarceration the necessity to commit his creativity to a truly African novel. In fact in this book, he makes it clear that this is the last work he will write and publish in English Translation he welcomes, but the original work needs be in the language of its creator. Later when teaching, he also pursued the importance in schools and universities of the teaching and study of African languages. This became a vital role for the educated class in order to reconnect and situate themselves among their own people, the peasants and workers who could not read English. It seems straight forward, but it was truly an amazing new and bold transformation of scholarship only a few decades ago.

In 1978 he said, “Kenyan writers have no alternative but to return to the roots, return to the sources of their being in the rhythms of life and speech and language of the Kenyan masses if they are to rise to the great challenge of recreating in their poems, plays and novels, the epic grandeur of that history.”

Towards the end of this forceful and impassioned book he quotes another product of colonialism, the Guatemalan poet, Otto Rene Castillo, who asks intellectuals what they will answer when asked what they did when our nations dried out slowly, ‘like a sweet fire, small and lone’.

“What did you do when the poor
Suffered, when tenderness
And life
Burned out in them?”

In the end Ngugi says this is all part of and really about the struggle for liberation on all levels.

“Struggle makes history. Struggle makes us. In struggle is our history, our language and being.”

That is a good place to end a book and to begin a commitment we can all make to human and personal liberation.

“Nations become what they produce. Bitumen, the new national staple, is redefining thr character and destiny of Canada.”
“Investment in the tar sands, including pipelines and upgraders now totals approximately $200 billion. The tar sands boom has become the world´s energy project, the world´s largest construction project, and the world´s largest capital project. No comprehensive assessment of the megaproject´s environmental, economic or social impact has been done.”
It starts with a declaration of a political emergency — the above statements and many more. An emergency must Canadians would not recognize; but after reading this book no one can claim ignorance of the appalling destruction of a resource, a massive environmental disaster, the egregious nature of our politicians and the end of our political integrity.
The Athabasca tar sands, centred around Fort McMurray, occupy a vast area in northeastern Alberta. The Athabasca River flows through the area. Its water, 3 barrels for every tar of oil extracted will be used, polluted and spewed out, back into the northern ecosystem. These low grade deposits of bitumen called by our Prime Minister Harper as “an ocean of oil” are the last great resource of our nation. We are squandering it, essentially giving it away to the war—based economy of the USA and the ever profit—hungry corporations; our government has gift wrapped them in the paper of NAFTA and SPP.
Nikiforuk has written an organized, fact—filled highly readable analysis of this megaproject in all its horror and the ramifications of the political deals that make this exploitation possible. Read it and be enraged. To understand the politics watch “You, Me & the SPP.” And contemplate the plans for nuclear power to generate the energy to release and refine the tar. Fortunately the author ends his work with a long and comprehensive 12 point list of the action we can take —now. The most important is, “Don´t wait for politicians”. Read this critically important book and act now.

The story of a sustainable logger, a committed social activist and a persistent thorn in the side of governments and corporations.  Merve is one of my heroes. He lives near Victoria and his beautiful forest is in the process of becoming a preserve now that he is in his eighties and is slowing down a little bit.

Review by Theresa Wolfwood

“What better place than here
What better place than now”

This quote really sums up the main thrust of this highly original critique of the Judeo–Christian mythology of future and distant rewards. He makes a strong case for ignoring determinist historic theory and urges us to seize the moment and make our own destiny, where we are, now, using many examples of social action that were unpredicted and successful from the decline of the WTO starting in Seattle to the rise of autonomous power in Chiapas, Mexico. Recently I have hears speakers from Oaxaca, Mexico who also reject state governments and are creating their own systems of governance. So Noble’s book is very much an expression of hope as well as a critique.

Noble is an iconoclastic academic at York University who frequently sees what others deny and speaks out on these unpopular issues. He wrote an excellent essay in September, 2005 Canadian Dimension on the privatization of universities and learning; he does not think that religious holidays should be observed by universities – unless they all are – and has refused to teach on Muslim holy days, because York has recognized Judaic holidays.

He believes that these myths dominate science, technology and politics and postulate a sense of inevitability that oppresses our thinking and our creative choices of action. He says that,“…while the myth of the promised land could mean different things to different people, in all its forms it had one basic structure – a structure that located the fulfilment of the promise in a place and time far removed from which it was offered…and onto some abstract predetermined destiny.”

Thus the promises of a better place and a better time can be a useful tool for the oppressor and a hope for the oppressed. As Noble points out both radical religious activists like Martin Luther King and today’s suicide bombers take comfort in this abstraction.

Noble recounts the recorded history of the Babylonian Gilgamish whose central thesis to wanderers is to go home and make peace, advice given by a wise goddess, Shiduri, who directed, “that the only true comfort for mortals lies in their awareness and celebration of the joys of being alive.”

Centuries later another leader rose, according to some records, Abraham, whose received message, given by a disembodied voice, was to go forth to find a promised land, not only both an earthly and an unearthly territory, but also power among and over other people. Then along came Jesus, who is described as a descendant of Abraham who represents, “the culmination of the Hebrew story…the realization of the promise.”

The author says, “the Christians, then took the eschatological essence of the Hebrew mythology and triple–distilled it into the purest of fantasies: an otherworldly promise of triumph over nature and the limits of human existence that for two millennia has fuelled the West’s fevered flight from place and the wisdom of the elders.” Muslims also believe in predetermined destiny and the possibility of eternal bliss.

My understanding of Noble’s explanations is that the drive to conquer minds, continents, peoples and nations in our contemporary society is fuelled by our acceptance of these myths, which paradoxically also preach pre-destiny and power in the might of an external force usually called God. How handy when we can believe that this god is on our side and we have the right to kill, plunder and pillage! Surely the roots of capitalism and expanding consumerism lie in our divine right to have it all, as they say in the USA – even if it includes Iraq and outer space. How clever is this! In fact, our right to have power over everything allows us freedom to oppress and offer the oppressed the hope of the promised land, also, but later!

Noble also sees this mythology as the force that binds the USA to Israel. Early leaders of the USA compared their country to a new Israel, a holy, Promised Land. Modern USA leaders use this mythology to bind fundamental Christianity to modern Israel, but don’t just trust in God, but make sure there are enough weapons to secure the Promised Land for the deserving mighty.

It takes powerful and creative thinking to shake off divine determinism and to face the world, here and now, wherever we are. There have been thinkers and philosophers who have helped shape the new paradigm of engaged activism. Noble writes about many of them including the famous philosopher, Sartre, who believed we must free ourselves from the old myths and grasp our own destiny saying, “life is nothing until it is lived, but it is yours to make sense of.”

Noble embraces this reality of optimism and finds it all around us in the activism of today; feminists who question patriarchy (surely another biblical myth), ecologists who develop a new way of living as part of the earth, not dominion over it, and the poor and oppressed who are determined to make a better world.

I recommend this book to all those who are committed to and interested in social change. Even in the darkest times, we have choices, possibilities and power. Noble has provided a documented and original sophisticated thesis to support hope for change if we are willing to try – here and now. TW, 2006

Review by Theresa Wolfwood

“When refugees take flight from violence and persecution, their human life is stripped bare, with all political qualifiers (presence, voice, agency) erased from their identity.” P.124

This rarely questioned truism is where Nyers begins his intense and challenging text on the political reality and the real people whom we label as Refugees. The challenge starts with the cover: a seemly traditional photograph of young females from an unidentified African or Asian region. But a second look at the classic pose of the central figure with a baby on her lap reveals her gaze firmly fixed down the sights of a gun instead of looking soulfully into the camera. The refugee has become an agent of her own destiny, not just an object of our pity.

“The refugee is an aberration only when people accept as a matter of common sense that citizenship is the only authentic political identity of modern life.” P.17

The concept of the Refugee Warrior, described in Chapter 5, is one of an active, politicized, militarized agent with an agenda we seldom consider belonging to any but states. These refugees see themselves as engaged and empowered to choose a role in defining their destiny – a far cry from the classic mother with a limp baby on her breast. Nyers provides many examples; the Kurds in Iraq and Iran who are in conflict with Turkey, the Kerens who fight against the military regime of Myanmar from Thai refugee camps and even the Cubans who dream from Florida of overthrowing the government of their homeland. None of these appear passive; some have support and recognition from governments, others act independently. This concept contradicts the common definition of a refugee and it goes against our comfortable illusions of humanitarian kindness being bestowed on (preferably grateful) inactive recipients.

Because, in order to be an authentic refugee as defined by the UN Refugee Convention, the refugee must have a well-founded fear of persecution, we think right away we are dealing with a fearful person whom we are rescuing; already by accepting this definition we have disempowered her. It is certainly easier to be charitable to people without speech, security or place, than those who seize and act through a sense of full humanity. Nyers explains that we are encouraged to see refugees as less than human; in fact we assign them the position of animals, captive in our perceived free societies; a position Nyers says even a dog does not deserve.

Nyers uses a poem by a refugee, Agustin Nsanzineza Gus, to illustrate the contradictions of refugee definition, political restriction and human connectedness.

‘...We all belong to the family of humans Did I say humans? No, sorry The world of potential refugees Or better than that The world of refugees to be....’ Quoted on P.65

This is a leap in conventional thinking; that all people are in a state of being or becoming refugees, unless we revise our definition of refugee-ism. We might have to see that we all have times when we are or feel we are insecure, even fearful, unwelcome, pushed out, marginalized or excluded, including economically. These are unrecognized states of being that the cold war based official definition of Refugee does not include. Nyers says that this poem suggests we have obligations to humanity that are greater than our obligation to the sovereign state.

In Chapter 2, provocatively titled, ‘On Humanitarian Violence’, Nyers exposes the fallacy that humanitarianism is neutral and separated from politics. He writes that ‘...my position is that humanitarianism has always been an inherently political concept.’ The structures that cause and promote violence and generate refugees are not opposed or revealed. Thus the refugee phenomenon is seen as a non-political occurrence; yet to even operate in a limited way, agencies must recognize and cooperate with sovereign states, including those whose violence results in refugees. This humanitarian aid can be seen as violent if it is seen as legitimizing and supporting violent regimes and appearing to maybe seemingly cynical observers that so-called humanitarianism is just another hierarchical business opportunity. In his current writings Nyers discusses the new concept of “Responsibility to Protect” a new definition of state intervention into the territory and politics of other states by the powerful under the aegis of ‘protecting’ those who again are presented as fearful, voiceless and powerless. This is an incredibly complex issue leading to Nyers’ questioning of a set of opposing, but related constructs; coercion and altruism, violence and morality, the political and the ethical. He tells us to ask ourselves the question “what relation of universality and particularity allows me to express my humanitarian vision?”

As Jenny Edkins argued, “The relationship between humanitarianism and either violent militarism or politics is not an oxymoron. Humanitarianism is essential to both: it is deeply implicated in the production of a sovereign power that claims monopoly of the legitimate use of force.” Quoted on p.42

In its most profound essence this work is telling us that we somehow think that those who lack a nation-state, a paramount construct of our globalized world view, are somehow lesser humans than we are. Thus we can shuffle these people around in ways that both suit our political purposes and also enhance our own self-image as humanitarians taking care of victims. This works until the victims, showing less than subservient gratitude, find their own voices and follow their own agendas. This concept is being challenged more and more, politicians as well as society are recognizing a different reality. Refugees won’t play the victim any longer. Also being challenged and recognized is that private persecution, mainly against women in a state that supports patriarchal values, must, as feminists insist, be recognized as persecution that gives women that right to claim asylum. It is just beginning to happen. The importance of humanity is gradually being recognized as states, institutions and agencies fail to serve people and instead reinforce the violence of the status quo of powerful elites.

“Through their resistance and their imagination, they powerfully help us give [politics] a new life. We owe them this recognition, and to say it, and to commit ourselves even more numerously at their side, until right and justice are repaid them.” Etienne Balibar quoted on P.123

Nyers has written a fine scholarly, well-documented work, achieving his purpose of providing new insights and information while forcing us to think and rethink in vastly new and different ways about a previously well packaged and controlled group of people. Nyers is an academic; he is also a political activist working with refugees in central Canada. His book is an admirable blend of scholarship and an impassioned call to action.
TW

Review by Theresa Wolfwood

“…wafers of warm bliss give
moments of ecstatic oblivion to all who taste
but this pleasure has no history …”from a poem by T. Wolfwood

Carol Off, a Canadian journalist, sets off into the jungle of West Africa in search of the truth about Cote d’Ivoire’s most precious commodity, cocoa. She reached a poor remote village where the tired and weary people have no school, no clinic, no electricity or phones. She says they grow “the food of the gods”, but live a long way from paradise. They grow cocoa, sell it to buyers, but have no concept of what happens to it or where it goes when the raw product leaves their community. When chocolate bars are explained to the children of the village they do not grasp the idea that children here eat chocolate bars frequently.

She writes, “…the children who struggle to produce the small delights of life in the world I come from have never known such pleasure, and most likely, never will. It’s a measure of the separation in our worlds, a distance now so staggeringly vast…the distance between the hand that picks the cocoa and the hand that reaches for the chocolate bar.” The misery and slavery – yes, slavery – of today’s cocoa producers, including thousands of children, is the present result of centuries of injustice. Off describes in Bitter Chocolate the horrific history of the production of cocoa and its sweet offspring, chocolate, that our privileged world loves so much.

When Cortes invaded what is now Mexico he found the elite of Montezuma court and army drinking a miraculous liquid that nourished and strengthened leaders and soldiers. He took it cocoa, a commodity so precious that it was used in the conquered lands as currency, to Spain from where is spread in popularity across Europe. Thus began our society’s participation in the more than 500 years of exploitation, colonialism and slavery that continues to this day so that millions of the privileged can enjoy chocolate in all its forms. From the plantations of indigenous people the trade expanded so that slaves were imported from Africa to the new colonies to produce both sugar and cocoa. Meanwhile improvements and additives made the popularity of the new drink spread throughout Europe – from the royalty down to any who could afford it. Cocoa became a beverage imbued with health, sexual and sensuous pleasures. By the 1700s Van Houten, a Dutch inventor, had created cocoa powder and the Fry enterprise in England invented the modern chocolate bar.

The Fry’s were Quakers and soon other Quakers, Cadbury’s and Rowntree’s, were in the chocolate business (a nice alternative to the arms trade) and they all had sense of social responsibility to their workers. They pioneered social benefits, housing and good working conditions for their English employees (as did Hershey later in the USA); but their morality did not extend to the workers who produced the cocoa who “had hardly any control over their destinies and lived and died as slaves”. By then cocoa production had been established in Africa with a ready source of labour in European colonies. Journalists began to track the story, a task which continues to the present as chocolate grown with slave and child labour is still promoted as a symbol of love, luxury, religion and even health. New empires were created on cocoa by Hershey, Nestles and Mars. It just keeps growing (and so do profits) to fill our endless desire for this pleasure.

It seem like such a cosy and warm feeling thing to do – give a lover a box of chocolates, make a cup of cocoa for a sick a child, take chocolate chip cookies to a party. But as Susan Hawthorne says in Wild Politics, Disconnection is critical for a system based on profit. And profit is what contemporary trade and food production is all about. We enjoy these small luxuries (and expensive ones, like diamonds) without any connection to the workers who make our pleasure possible. Off makes the connections for us without mercy for our sensitivities, driven by her experiences in West Africa where she followed other journalists who were murdered because they sought the truth. Organizations dedicated to human rights and relief also feel the pressure, many pack up and leave countries when their work and workers are threatened.

Today the Ivory Coast still produces more cocoa than any other country but no nation controls the production or price of the raw cocoa it exports. Slave child labour is still used, no supposed agreements and commitments to end this practice has worked, because there is not proper monitoring and as Off learned, trying to reveal the truth is dangerous. We are talking big business here; marketing is controlled by the notorious Cargill and the lesser known Archer Daniels Midland – both secretive and powerful in many agricultural commodities. Cocoa, like diamonds, is a useful currency for the arms that the minority world industry and governments are happy to peddle in the majority world to dictators who have no desire to upset this trade by creating justice for peasants and labourers.

Several issues become very clear as one reads Bitter Chocolate; issues that stay with the reader, issues firmly based in the documentation Off provides. First of all, we in the minority world seem to believe we have a divine right to cheap food and other commodities, but especially food. We rarely connect the price of food to the conditions of farms, including the rapidly disappearing Canadian family farm. Another issue is the much

touted “free trade” we are supposed to enjoy. The powerful nations, corporations and institutions like the IMF, which inflict trade liberalization on small, poor, countries that produce raw materials, all support the subsidies and protection that big farmers in the USA and European Union enjoy (and then there is British Columbia, a global exporter of raw logs and always being manipulated by USA softwood lumber interests).

This book does a good job of explaining the advantages and problems of Fair Trade using a project in Belize as an example. Here Mayan farmers have gone back to traditional varieties of cocoa trees that do not need chemical inputs. The farmers get a guaranteed price for their production; they and their communities prosper. In order to assure European consumers of the trustworthiness of fair trade, the cost and administrative work is very high for farmers. A Canadian manager tells us that the bureaucratic demands will be difficult to sustain, these costs present real problems, particularly for small producers who want to have the security of fair trade. The need of veracity and the limited capacity of small farmers have to be addressed and reconciled if we want to support community based Fair Trade.

One company that Off does not mention is Camino, the cocoa brand that I use; it is widely available in supermarkets as well as specialty shops. Based in Ontario, Camino products come from La Siembra growers in the Dominican Republic. Since 1999, La Siembra has increased its sales as the first organization to import, manufacture and distribute fair trade certified organic cocoa products in North America. La Siembra’s Cocoa Camino products include cocoa, chocolate bars and chocolate chips. See: www.lasiembra.com. It is a sobering incentive to buy Fair Trade when we know that the producer of coca gets barely 5% of the profit of this finished retail product.

So it is possible to enjoy cocoa products that mean better lives, health and working environment for whole communities. So far only a few thousands of the 14 million cocoa works worldwide enjoy this opportunity, in Belize and Dominican Republic as well as those on cooperatives in Ghana, but the Fair Trade of cocoa products is growing rapidly and cocoa sales are approaching those of Fair trade coffee.

Fair Trade is the immediate answer for privileged consumers but we also need to work on the dismantling of unfair trade regulations and the appalling power of corporate buyers who can make or break producers, whole countries, at will. We have to respect food and be willing to pay those who produce it. Bitter Chocolate is a real eye–opener and expose of a filthy oppressive trade system. I recommend we follow up Off’s references and incorporate the issues she illustrates with action.

A good book to read as a companion to this book is The Bittersweet World of Chocolate by Troth Wells & Nikki van der Gaag of the New Internationalist Publications. It has wonderful recipes interspersed with interesting information about cocoa and Fair trade as well as references and action data.

Canadians involved in the Co–op movement can initiate action here like this: the UK Co–operative 2,400 supermarket chain sources all cocoa for its own brand of chocolate bars from the Ghanaian Kuapa Kokoo farmers.

The words and faces of cocoa producers that benefit from Fair Trade will melt your heart faster than chocolate in your mouth and will convince anyone to use Fair Trade.

************************************************************

Revue littéraire de T. Wolfwood.  En francais de Andreé Scott

“Ceux qui se délectent à ces gaufrettes de chaude béatitude
Connaissent un moment d´oubli ravissant
Mais ce plaisir cache son pass´.” … extrait d´un poème de T. Wolfwood

 

Carol Off, journaliste canadienne, parcourt la jungle africaine à la recherche de la vérité concernant le cacao, denrée précieuse de la Côte d´Ivoire. Elle a fini par atteindre un village pauvre et écarté où les gens las et abattus manquent de clinique, d´électricité et de téléphone. Elle affirme qu´ils cultivent ‘la nourriture des dieux’, mais la vie qu´ils mènent est loin d´être le paradis sur terre. Ils cultivent le cacao, le vendent aux acheteurs, mais n´ont pas la moindre idée oú il se rend par la suite ou ce que l´on en fait une fois que disparaît le produit á l´état brut. Lorsqu´on explique aux enfants du village le concept des tablettes de chocolat, ils ne saisissent toujours pas l´idée qu´il y ait des enfants ailleurs qui mangent du chocolat à leur gré.

Elle témoigne, “…les enfants qui s´éreintent pour produire un des délices du monde auquel j´appartiens n´ont jamais connu de tels délices, et de toute évidence, n´en connâitront jamais.” Ceci démontre la séparation de nos mondes, dire qu´il peut y avoir une distance aussi frappante, la distance entre la main qui cueille le cacao et la main tendue pour saisir la tablette de chocolat! La misère et l´esclavage — oui, l´esclavage — des producteurs actuels de cacao, y compris des milliers d´enfants, est le résultat actuel des siècles d´injustices. Dans son livre CHOCOLAT AMER, Off décrit l´affreuse histoire de la production du cacao, et de sa progéniture alléchante, le chocolat, dont raffole notre monde privilégié.

Lorsque Cortès a envahi ce qui est aujourd´hui le Mexique, il s´est aperçu que l´élite de la cour de Moctézuma et de son armée dégustaient un breuvage miraculeux qui nourrissait et fortifiait les nobles et les soldats. C´était la cacao, une denrée si précieuse qu´on s´en servait entre pays en guise d´unité monétaire.  Cortès en a rapporté en Espagne, d´où sa renommée s´est répandue à travers l´ Europe. Ainsi commença la participation de notre société aux 500 ans et plus d´ exploitation, colonialisme et esclavage qui continuent jusqu´ à nos jours afin que les millions de privilégiés puissent savourer le chocolat sous toutes ses formes. A partir des plantations des indigènes, le commerce du cacao s´ est accru, si bien que des esclaves ont dû être importés d´Afrique pour cultiver et le sucre et le cacao. 
Cortes
Pendant ce temps, dûe aux améliorations apportées au nouveau breuvage, sa rénommée s´ est répandue à travers l´ Europe — depuis la royauté jusqu´aux gens du peuple qui en avaient les moyens. L´ on croyait que le cacao représentait la santé, la vigueur et la sensualité. Dans les années 1700, un inventeur hollandais, Van Houten, a crée la poudre de cacao, et les entreprises Fry d´ Angleterre ont inventé la tablette de chocolat de nos jours.

La famille Fry était Quaker, et bientôt d´ autres Quakers, les Cadbury et les Rowntree, se sont joints à l´entreprise du chocolat (une alternative plus sympathique que la traite des armes); ils étaient aussi conscients de leur responsabilité sociale envers leurs employés. Ils ont été pionniers dans le domaine des bénéfices sociaux, de la construction de l´hébergement et des conditions de travail acceptables pour leurs employés anglais (tout comme le ferait Hershey plus tard aux E—U), mais leurs principes n´allaient pas jusqu´à inclure les paysans qui cultivaient le cacao et qui  “n´avaient guére de contrôle sur leur destin, et vivaient et mouraient en esclavage”.  A cette époque, la production du cacao était bien établie en Afrique grâce à la main-d´oeuvre disponible des colonies européennes. Les journalistes se sont mis à suivre le sujet, et le font encore de nos jours, puisque le cacao cultivé par des enfants et des esclaves nous est prôné comme étant un symbole d´amour, de luxe, de culte et même de santé. Le cacao a créé de nouveaux empires — ceux de Hershey, Nestlés et Mars — qui ne cessent de croître, ainsi que leurs profits, pour rassasier notre envie de cette friandise.

On dirait un geste chaleureux — offrir des chocolats à son amant, préparer une tasse de chocolat chaud pour un enfant malade, apporter à une fête des biscuits aux brisures de chocolat. Mais comme le dit Susan Haworthe dans son livre  ‘Wild Politics’, la déconnection s´impose si on veut composer avec un système basé sur le profit. Et le profit est à la base du commerce contemporain et de la production alimentaire. Nous jouissons de ces petits luxes (et aussi des plus chers, tels les diamants) sans nous soucier de la main d´oeuvre qui a rendu possible tout ça.

Off nous expose ces liens, sans scrupules, inspirée par ses expériences en Afrique occidentale où elle a suivi les traces d´autres journalistes — assassinés pour avoir cherché la vérité. Les organizations vouées aux droits humains et aux secours frissonnent d´inquiétude; nombreux sont ceux qui abandonnent le travail menacé.

Aujourd´hui la Côte d´Ivoire produit toujours plus de cacao que tout autre pays, mais aucun pays ne contrôle ni la production ni le prix du cacao brut qu´il exporte. Le travail des enfants esclaves continue, aucun soit-disant accord ni engagement n´ayant été honoré à cause du manque de suivi, et, comme Off l´a appris à ses dépens, parce que les contrôles fiables manquent et qu´il est dangereux de chercher à exposer la vérité. Il s´agit de la grosse entreprise; la mise en marché est dirigée par la Cargill notoire, et la moins connue Archer Daniels Midland — compagnies cachottières et puissantes qui s´immiscent dans plusieurs denrées alimentaires. Le cacao, tout comme les diamants, sert de monnaie pour l´achat des armes à feu que le tiers monde veut bien marchander aux dictateurs du monde majoritaire: ceux-ci n´ont aucun intérêt à renverser ce commerce en faveur d´un monde plus juste pour les paysans et les ouvriers. Notre temptation

Plusieurs questions nous viennent à l´esprit en lisant CHOCOLAT AMER; des questions qui peuvent agasser le lecteur, des questions dont les réponses se trouvent dans la documentation fournie par l´auteur.  En premier, nous du monde minoritaire semblons croire avoir droit à l´alimentation et à d´autres nécessités, à prix modiques. Rarement faison—nous le lien entre le prix des aliments et les conditions du secteur agricole, y compris la disparition de plus en plus accentuée de la ferme familiale canadienne.

Et la question du fameux ‘Libre commerce’ qui va nous enjoliver la vie! Les pays puissants et les sociétés enregistrées qui fournissent les matières premiéres, tous appuyent les subventions et l´appui financier offerts à la grosse industrie agricole aux Etats-Unis et en Europe. (Sans oublier la Colombie-britannique, exportateur global de bois à l´état brut et toujours à la merci des marchands américains de bois de charpente.)

Ce livre illumine les avantages et les problèmes du Commerce Equitable, prenant comme example un projet au Bélize. C´est là que des paysans Maya entreprennent la culture des variétés de cacao qui ne demandent aucun engrais chimique. Les cultivateurs recoivent un prix fixe —une sécurité pour eux et pour la communauté. Afin de convaincre les consommateurs européens de la bonne foi du Commerce Equitable, les cultivateurs s´engagent à assumer les coûts additionnels et le travail supplémentaire d´administration. Un gérant canadien opine que les exigeances administratifs seront difficiles à soutenir, et que les coûts
présentent un obstacle pour les petits producteurs qui aspirent  à la sécurité du Commerce Equitable. Le besoin de véracité ainsi que la capacité limitée des petits producteurs sont des problèmes qu´il faut solutionner afin d´appuyer le Commerce Equitable à base communautaire.

Off ne fait pas mention de la compagnie Camino, la marque de cacao que j´utilise: on en trouve facilement dans les supermarchés ainsi qu´aux magasins specialisés. Basés en Ontario, les produits Camino viennent des producteurs La Siembra en République dominicaine. Depuis 1999, la vente des produits La Siembra ne fait qu´augmenter, puisque c´est la première organization en Amerique du Nord à importer, confectionner et distribuer les produits de Commerce Equitable en Amérique du Nord. Parmi les produits Cacao Camino de La Siembra, on compte le cacao, les tablettes de chocolat et les brisures de chocolat. Voir:www.lasiembra.com
Sachant que les producteurs du cacao réalisent à peine 5%; des profits de leur produit au détail, nous devrions sûrement profiter de toute occasion pour acheter les produits de Commerce Equitable.

Ce qui veut dire qu´il est possible de nous régaler des produits chocolatiers tout en contribuant à l´amélioration les conditions de vie, de santé et de l´environnement de travail pour des communautés entières.
Jusqu´à présent, seuls quelques mille des quatorze millions de travailleurs de cacao à travers le monde jouissent de cette avantage, ceux au Bélize et en République Dominicaine, tout comme ceux des coopératives au Ghana: cependant, le mouvement du Commerce Equitable est en croissance rapide, et la vente du cacao se rapproche a celle du café Commerce Equitable.

Le Commerce Equitable est le juste moyen pour les consommateurs privilégiés, mais il nous faut agir pour nous débarasser des règlements onéreux de commerce et la puissance épouvantable des acheteurs corporatifs qui exercent le pouvoir de vie et de mort sur les producteurs, voir même sur certains pays. Il nous faut respecter la nourriture et accepter de compenser ceux qui la produisent. ‘CHOCOLAT AMER’ est un appel à l´action, une révélation sordide d´un système de commerce opprimant. Je recommende que l´on suive les recommendations d´Off, et que l´on passe à l´action!

Le lecteur de ce livre profiterait également de la lecture du ´MONDE  DOUX-AMER DU CHOCOLAT´, de Troth Wells et Nikki vander Gaag, publié par New Internationalist Publications. On y trouve de bonnes recettes emaillées de faits divers sur le cacao et le Commerce Equitable, aussi bien que des rérérences et des informations sur des actions à prendre.

Les canadiens qui font parti du mouvement coopératif peuvent s´inspirer de la UK Cooperative, dont les 2400 supermarchés achètent le cacao pour sa marque de tablettes de chocolat chez les cultivateurs ghaniens de Kuapa Kokoo.

Les paroles et les visages que vous trouverez dans ce livre sur les producteurs de cacao qui profitent du Commerce Equitable vous fera fondre le coeur comme le chocolat à la bouche, et saura vous convaincre de faire vos achats chez le Commerce Equitable.

"...your wife has been for me, ever since I was a boy, one of the great interpreters of the world."
Hubert Butler, Ireland. page 149

I know the editor of this book and have read her works; some are reviewed on this site. A whole book of condolence letters seemed such a narrow and peculiar subject that I would not have chosen to read it if it weren’t for my knowing Oldfield. I am so glad I did seek it out and pour over these letters. They gave me the realization that the greater world of friendship and creativity can enclose us all.

Oldfield taught at the University of Sussex for many years and lives near Rodmell where Woolf lived and died. Her previous writing and her own commitment to peace and feminism makes her sensitive and knowledgeable on the life and importance of Virginia Woolf. She is the right person to gather these letters and link them with information and perception. In 2006 she gave the Annual Virginia Woolf Birthday Lecture in London on ‘The Child of Two Atheists–Virginia Woolf’s Humanism’.

We live in an era where letter writing is no longer common – replaced by the brief and ephemeral E-mail and telephone. We are fortunate that all these letters were preserved and apparently every one of them was answered personally. Every letter is different and each expresses a personal and literary sense of loss. This collection is a vivid cultural history of the significance of one woman, her work and her place in the world. Not least was her part in the life of a ten year old friend who wrote a touching letter of sincere sympathy.

Oldfield prepares us with an excellent introduction setting the correspondence in a time of crisis, when England was at war and defeat seemed possible. The Woolf home in London was bombed; their country home, Monk’s House, close to the Sussex coast, was in a restricted zone. Virginia Woolf was opposed to war and her sorrow at this time is reflected in her work. Her death was however a result of her recurring bouts of extreme mental illness and her suicide was her way of ending her fear of yet another attack of pain and illness. Her husband Leonard and her close family, devoted at all times and caring throughout her bouts, were grief-stricken at her action, but she could not face her pain or theirs any longer. When I visited her home, a bright and pretty house, preserved with the colourful art and craft of friends and family, I saw her sunny and humble garden studio and the peaceful meadow leading to the River Ouse, I could not begin to imagine the depth of her fear and despair.

The editor’s introduction and the notes after every letter with a brief biography of the writer and her/his connection to Woolf put the letters in a broad historic, personal and literary context and give them a wider and deeper meaning. It is truly amazing how many people from all walks of life – neighbours, writers, academics, politicians, activists, her wider readership and friends of all kinds – poured out their sympathy, love, grief, and acknowledged their personal and artistic debt to this great figure of the 20th century. I was moved by so much eloquence, honesty and compassion. I felt I learned much about this woman to whom all feminists and pacifists owe so much. I finished the book in tears and went out to obtain and re-read Three Guineas. Sixty years later she is interpreting my world and helping me understand the present. TW

"How dare the government presume the right to kill others in our name?"
Women in Newbury Court, UK, 1982.

"...The Pentagon sits on like sone grotesque chicken caged in its nest and fed/ cancerous hormone, exceed and exceed and exceed/ Hiroshima, over and over and over, in weight/ in power/ in horror/ of genocide" Denise Levertov, 1980
(2 quotes from this book)

Sybil Oldfield is half- German and half English, so by her birth and her well articulated convictions is the ideal person to write movingly about many woman of the last century. Some are famous, some are barely known; Oldfield says that we honour, even if we do not heed, many men for their ‘anti-militarism and internationalist humanism’, but women do not get heard.

Opposition to war is still not universal. Oldfield says that the legitimations of ‘the iron fist’, the myth of war-prevention by war preparedness, the preferrability of death to defeat are still with us. She reveals the terrible philosophy of Bismarck and von Treitschke as the founding philosophy of the 20th Century – still now into the 21st... without war no state could be...the features of history are virile...after internal law and order the next essential function of the State is war.

Many women have challenged this philosophy in Europe and North America – the geography of this study. The well-known Virginia Woolf believed that war could not be prevented for as long as men in power continue to exclude women’s socially constructed, traditional values of the private life – including the value of every irreplaceable individual.

Simone Weil, the French philosopher worked hard to prevent WW2 and was articulate on the subject of war as the affliction of the 20th Century. Although she saw the defeat of Hitler as necessary as did the UK pacifist, Maude Royden, both with great reluctance, Weil said that defeat must come from the combatants against Hitler becoming more democratic and ant-racist themselves and not try to out do Hitler’s brutality. (Eisenhower’s role, documented elsewhere in disposing of more that 1 million Germans after the war in a camp – maybe be seen as the immediate failure of the victors who have now become the bullies of the world – and torturers of prisoners in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay TW)

Sophie Scholl, a young German woman, and her brother were beheaded for treason for their courageous work in the internal German resistance – a virtually unknown part of WW2 history. She believed that those who put their faith in force deny the real purpose of life: life.

Oldfield writes about Europeans Christa Wolf, Inge Thorsson, the Greenham Common women, Clara Ragaz and USA women who opposed war – the poets Muriel Rukeyer, Denise Levertov, Sharon Olds whose words and political actions continue to inspire.

This is the book that really inspired me to write about the women I know who oppose war and oppression; to make an impression in the historic neglect of women who lived and died for freedom from the evils of war and war preparation. Oldfield has written other good books; I particularly liked Spinsters of this Parish, mainly the story of women’s rights activist, Mary Sheepshank. We need many more of these kinds of books. TW/2005

Review by Theresa Wolfwood

“I think there was a concern that the American people, given the facts, would not make the right risk—benefit judgements.” Peter Libassi, Chair, Interagency Task Force on the Health Effects of Ionizing Radiation.

“If your mountain is not in the right place, drop us a card.” Edward Teller

“I´m pretty sure you don´t like to see your home blasted by some other people who don´t live in your place like we live in Point Hope.” Kitty Kinneeveauk

Tikigaq, home of the Inupiat people is a finger of land in the Chukchi Sea, north of the Arctic Circle in Alaska. It is place of great antiquity, continuous habitation for millennia, a polar Machu Picchu and may predate the pyramids. This place roots the whale hunting Tikiramiut in a feeling “of belonging inalienably where they are” as they practice in modern times their traditional hunting combined with available technology and English literacy — vital to their struggle for survival against the dreams of “the firecracker boys” as the Tikiramiut of the nearest, community, Point Hope, called the atomic scientists who wanted to use their homeland as a testing ground for “weapons for peace.”

Even before the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, atomic scientists were dreaming of an atomic future where the friendly atom would do much of the drudgery of humanity and would create a “promise of Utopia” in an “atomic garden of Eden.“ By 1942 it was not utopia but the bomb that occupied the minds of scientists as the USA raced to develop the bomb and use it before Germany. An enormous, secret and expensive infrastructure was created across the USA which exploded Trinity, the first atomic bomb, in Nevada in July, 1945, unleashing not only massive power and radiation, but fear, awe and excitement in its creators. Though Germany had not built this bomb and Japan was on the verge of surrender the military said, “…if we have such a weapon we are going to use it.”

Three weeks after the Trinity test, bombs were dropped on Japan, the immediate deaths and the continuing deaths from these now, relatively small bombs, were appalling. Five years later, half a million were dead in what President Harry Truman called “the greatest achievement of organized science in the world.”

This is an amazing and extremely important book — amazing in its wealth of connected detail and history, excellent writing and vivid personal stories and 50 years later, highly relevant. O´Neill even makes nuclear physics understandable to the non—scientific reader. He also makes it clear, that the end of the war and the horror of August, 1945, did nothing to deter those hell—bent on continuing nuclear bomb research; the cold war just provided a handy excuse. Every page has an important quote — this review could be almost as long as the book. But this book is vital reading and reference for any group and anyone concerned about history, racism, contemporary nuclear weapons, Disarmament and Test Ban Treaties, ´Cold War´ politics and nuclear energy. Most important, perhaps, how a small group of people worked together, shared information and committed themselves to a cause with overwhelmingly odds and won; they created models that peace and environment activists have been following ever since.

As the book unfolds we learn about the life and motivation of the real anti—hero or, some would say, villain of the time, Edward Teller, the father of the H—bomb, and the development of a powerful cabal of scientists who seemed to be willing to do or say anything to further their primary cause after bizarre failures like nuclear powered airplanes, cars and other attempts to make nuclear a household commodity. Then came Teller´s idea of the ´peaceful´ bomb´, mooted to create an alternative Suez Canal during 1956 when the canal was closed — by exploding enough bombs from the Mediterranean through Israel to the Gulf of Aqaba to “excavate an enormous ditch.” Beyond that he had all kinds of other “landscaping” projects in mind for Earth — like a new canal in Central America — as well as nuking the moon. But the scientists noted “there is some kind of a public relations problem here,” as “all kinds of phobic public reactions have been built about nuclear bombs.”

Project Plowshare, a perversion of a biblical quote, was name given in 1957 to the program to investigate nonmilitary uses of nuclear explosions to use not only for nonmilitary purposes but in Lewis Strauss´ words, to “highlight the peaceful applications of nuclear explosive devices and thereby create a climate of world opinion that is more favourable to weapons development and tests.” Strauss, then Chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) is the infamous author of the now infamous declaration, “It is not too much to expect that our children will enjoy in their homes electric energy too cheap to meter.” Teller became the project director in Livermore, California; he called it ´Geographic engineering´ and said, “We will change the earth´s surface to suit us.”

A national test site was decided on before trying to convince other nations to accept nuclear engineering and where better than remote and thinly populated Alaska? The Livermore scientists consulted an expert in Alaskan geology about the best place to blast out a harbour. Dr. Hopkins was leery of military—oriented science; he had been involved in a project that used geology to find out the effect of nuclear attack on Moscow & Leningrad and later regarded his part in that project as “one of the greatest sins of my life.” Some years later that project continued elsewhere in the USA and I was a lowly geologic researcher on it. But then Hopkins thought a harbour scheme had some “constructive value”. The possible site was narrowed down to 31 miles SE of Point Hope, near the Ogotoruk Creek entry into the Chukchi Sea. Soon a survey camp established by the creek was spotted by Daniel Lisbourne, president of the Port Hope Village Council. This field crew were the advance party of the scientists that Lisbourne and his Eskimo community were to call, “the firecracker boys”.

Those boys lead by Teller then launched a well—funded leave—no—stone—unturned public relations campaign in Alaska on government, academia, media, business and citizens. With promises of economic benefits and lavish spending to compensate for the decrease in wartime & military spending, Teller and his “Project Chariot” intended to create a crater with thermonuclear bombs that would make a great deep sea harbour. Even though some of these groups posed difficult questions and objections to the proposal, Teller had reassurances, promises and answers for just about everyone — except the people who would be most affected whom they finally got around to visiting — the Eskimo citizens of Point Hope. “Charming and persuasive”, Teller bustled around Alaska, always changing figures and projections — flexible and responsive to any doubters. “Charming and lying”, might be a more accurate description; he insisted, to biological scientists that, “radiation hazard was a nonissue.” O´Neill has done a meticulously documented report of this campaign — he used not only press & print archives, but has interviewed dozens of people exposed to the fallout of this PR campaign.

This was all at a time when people the world over, including in Point Hope, had read and learned about the effects of bombs dropped in Japan and the results of ongoing tests in the South Pacific. In Canada in 1959 groups were coalescing around the initiative of Mary van Stolk in Edmonton, forming branches of “The Canadian Committee for the Control of Radiation Hazards.” I was a founding member of this group in Regina Saskatchewan; we were concerned with the levels of fallout blowing north into Canada from Nevada bomb test sites. Even the Saskatchewan government was willing to measure and monitor fallout; the dangers of radioactive strontium and caesium, particularly to children were well known. This group later became the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, following the lead of the UK campaign — knowing that radiation without disarmament and an end to testing nuclear weapons could never be controlled. The Canadian Voice of Women launched a brilliant campaign of collecting baby teeth from Canadian parents in order to analyze the absorption of radioactive elements. At the time my co—activists and I were desperately trying to stop a life—threatening juggernaut; now, in perspective I see that the peace movement of the time, in Canada and elsewhere, was actually also an environmental movement, long before Save the Whales or old—growth forests movements. Yet today, few environmentalists are aware, interested or involved in activism on the connected issues of militarism and environment.

It was soon documented in Canada and the USA, that caribou, the main food source for many indigenous northern people had amazingly high levels of radioactivity — their food source was lichen which absorbs its food from the atmosphere and thus concentrated radioactivity in caribou. Thirty years later, thousands of highly contaminated reindeer (caribou´s European relatives) were destroyed in northern Europe after the Chernobyl disaster.

All these things that were known to citizen groups were also known to the Livermore scientists but they did their best to brush radiation hazards under the rug or as they promised — out to sea towards nearby Russia. Teller and his boys had other hidden agendas. They really did not care about the economic feasibility to Alaska anymore than they cared about fallout; later release of documents reveal that Teller really wanted a model for a new Panama Canal and to promote its value for military development of the bomb use. As the AEC manager said, “the circumstances created by an integration of work performed to produce explosive nuclear devices, whether for peaceful application or for weapons, makes it impractical to separate this function.” After these uses of the bomb were finally discredited, the use of nuclear energy has continued to today to be inseparable from military functions. Now nuclear power is being mooted as the clean response to global warming and simultaneously, there is an upsurge in nuclear weapons production, mainly in USA and other major nuclear nations.

By 1958, even as Teller worked his powers on government and academia, people were questioning the value of a blast planned to be “1600 times larger than Hiroshima.”  Scientists within the USA establishment were concerned about nuclear tests and Eisenhower, always a reluctant nuclear warrior, agreed to negotiate a test ban treaty with USSR after Khrushchev took the initiative; but Teller and his boys kept up the pressure for ´peaceful´ tests.

Meanwhile the Teller´s boys were touring the Arctic trying to sell Project Chariot without the promised economic benefits but purely for research purposes. At a meeting in Fairbanks, biology faculty at the University of Alaska were not impressed by the physicists who, with no data or background expertise in radiobiology, were giving categorical assurances that there would be little environmental damage and even claimed the project would yield valuable bioenvironmental information. But they had no background studies for reference even the gung—ho University President had proposed some baseline work was needed. But the biologists did not think that Chariot should do its own research as one fisheries instructor cited the “AEC´s well-known reputation of ´mendacity.”  That prompted a break while the visiting physicists looked up the meaning of that word and “they were furious.” The biologists went public with their objections as did citizens like Ginny Wood, a retired bush pilot. She called the proposal “a pig in a poke” and shredded the AEC´s assurances, but local commerce and media were still boosting Chariot as a boon to the north; “located in the wilderness, far away from human habitation.”

“…the village of Point Hope was only 31 miles from ground zero”…and seasonally occupied.,. ground zero itself — to collect the eggs of cliff—nesting birds.”

But Chariot survived and contracts for ´health and safety studies´ were promised as politicians in Alaska and Washington were embroiled in struggles with AEC and Livermore — Teller´s own empire. An AEC biologist, John Wolfe, who appreciated the north and its people, was appointed to oversee the study.  After visiting the Arctic, he said, “Not infrequently it is described as remote, barren and climatically rigorous….It is not remote to the Eskimo, the Arctic fox, the ptarmigan, the flowering plants blooming by the thousands…and the arctic climate is most salubrious to indigenous dwellers among which are some of the most majestic animals of the earth, not excluding man.”

He hired University of Alaska biologists to work on the project, they saw it as an opportunity to do fieldwork, but also suspected, “that we were the tame biologists they had bought.” In 1959, that institution bestowed an honorary PhD. on Teller. The ´tame biologists´ turned out to be strong opponents of Chariot and supporters of the Eskimo people who opposed the project and scientists were increasingly disturbed at the manipulation and misrepresentation of data.

Plans and surveys continued without any communication to the residents of Point Hope, the supportive scientists were aghast. The community of Point Hope, closest to the proposed blast site was not on the list of visited places. Still living in a traditional way, the Eskimos were literate in English, politically sophisticated, skilled communicators and were well-informed and aware of world events. They knew much about the results of Japan & South Pacific bombing. They loved their land and all the lived on it and in the sea around. They sent a unanimously approved petition to the AEC. “We, the undersigned the Point Hope Village Council do not want to see the explosion at the near area of our village Point Hope for any reason and at any time.”

The local media, fed by the AEC, was claiming that “these natives living largely a primitive life would not be disturbed…or suffer future ill effects”. In March 1960 the AEC finally met the people of Point Hope. The degree of preparation of the locals and their questions and reactions were a surprise to the AEC men who thought they could easily sell Chariot. After much prevarication and outright lying by the AEC boys, “we will protect your interests completely”, enough was enough. Outspoken Kitty Kinneeveauk was knowledgeable and articulate, talked about AEC´s other projects and their disastrous results; she, council leader Daniel Lisbourne and others kept asking embarrassing questions & ended up by reinforcing their petition and accusing other Alaskans as supporters of Chariot because they were profiting from it. Absolutely true. The community of Point Hope got all the mendacity down on tape and remained implacably opposed to Chariot. O´Neill devotes a whole chapter to the data then known about the effects of bombing Japan, and tests in Nevada and Bikini, showing indeed that those in power for AEC were lying from one end of Alaska to the other.

I read this book at the same time I read ´the GIRL in SASKATOON: A Meditation on Friendship, Memory and Murder´ by Sharon Butala. They are vastly different books. Hers is ultimately a meditation on the nature of evil, as expressed in the murder of one of her school colleagues. ´The Firecracker Boys´ is also a meditation on the nature of evil; the evil of men with the power of knowledge and money who abuse both for their own ambitions with little feeling for the immense destruction they did and could unleash.

O´Neill leads us through the labyrinths of evil, but he also documents how concerned scientists, citizens and workers throughout the USA and the world were also capable of good; how many people of integrity sacrificed jobs, status and energy to organize and to educate others about the evil of war and war preparation that might and still could destroy the world. Remember this was the Cold War period and undercover agents were everywhere, even in Alaska; intimidation was real and dangerous for many. Citizen groups were alerted to the violation of law and the unauthorized use of Native Land and worked with the Eskimos. Groups concerned with the dangers of radiation were in contact exchanging and distributing information, using the slow and awkward ´Gestetner´ machine to copy in those pre— internet and photocopying days. More lies were revealed and doubts were spreading about the ´peaceful bomb´ by conservation societies whose members clearly understood the effects of thermonuclear explosions. The contract scientists in the field were in a major ethical quandary as their findings were ignored or misrepresented. Those who were on contract from the University of Alaska were fired from there by its pro—AEC president. Churches got involved — on both sides. Still the opposition to Chariot grew, forming the early peace—environment alliance that happened in Canada at the same time. By 1961, “…the ripple was widening. It was becoming, in fact, a wave.”

I felt as I read through the description of the ´wave´ that I was in a much neglected meditation on good. It is not easy; today we see the same abuses of knowledge and power on greater, even more destructive levels, the horror of the widespread use of ´Depleted Uranium´ containing weapons on innocent people in Iraq, the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and where else? All this serves as an example of the evil we confront now, as innocent people — some whom I have know — die from the effects of DU. Weapons with DU emit radioactivity just as other forms of Uranium do, but without a nuclear bomb, just impact and dissemination can spreads the deadly isotopes. Enormous and obscene military spending, the use of DU, continuous war on earth and soon in space and the revival of building nuclear weapons are being rebuilt in many forms around the world — but mainly in the USA — are all part of our daily confrontation with evil.

Back to “Spiking the Wheels of Chariot” and the final chapters of this true life thriller. By 1961, more Alaskans were questioning the wisdom of a nuclear harbour and in the USA main stream media were also running articles that expressed doubts about the blast. Support groups were springing up across the USA. New political officials in the federal government were concerned about native land rights and the effects on Eskimos and their environment of the Chariot project. The meteorology of the blast time, the geologic effects on rocks and permafrost and more public information about the biological effects were raising major
qualms about the blast — even its value as research data for ´peaceful bombs´ elsewhere like Panama were in doubt. In 1962 the AEC commissioners were concerned about “intervening political events” like a Test Ban Treaty.

The Sedan Bomb, exploded in Nevada on July 6, 1962, was the answer and face saver. “…the largest explosion to have occurred on North America up to that point was substantially dirtier” than the claim that 95% of its radioactivity was contained; not so, it spread across the USA in immediate clouds and crossed the Canadian border. But the AEC could then claim that they did not need the Chariot blast in Alaska, it got the data they sought from Sedan. But in reality the AEC had “internal analyses that recognized the political and public relations influence of certain “small but very vocal groups.”

“And something larger than Project Chariot had been knocked off course. Bogged down also was Edward Teller´s headlong rush to establish Plowshare as a highly visible affirmation of the value of fission. Indeed, the civilian application of nuclear energy — other than for electric power generation — never regained its momentum.”

Scientists who put their intellectual integrity on the line were later refused academic positions in the USA because of AEC interference and one who returned to Alaska to do research, Don Foote, died after a minor car accident in 1969. Another, William Pruitt became a Canadian and is recognized now as “the father of North American boreal ecology.” In 1993 he and his colleague Leslie Viereck were awarded honorary doctorates by the University of Alaska ´in recognition of the very actions for which the men had lost their jobs thirty years earlier.´

In his Epilogue, Afterword and Appendix on Methodology, O´Neill brings us up to date on the many results of the proposed project, response to it and its cancellation, the history of those involved, the current political USA political situation and his avenues and sources during research for this book.

For me, in the end, this story is an affirmation of the rights of citizens to know, to organize and to control their own lives. To never forget that social movements are effective; in day´s world we are needed more than ever. Around the world groups organize, inform and act, often at great danger to themselves, to present an alternative to cynical, violent and greedy political powers that rule us. And to remember always, no matter how futile it appears or how small we think we are, in the words of Rebecca Solnit in HOPE IN THE DARK: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities: “It´s always too soon to go home. And it´s always too soon to calculate effect.”

“Ethnic cleansing is a crime against humanity, and people who perpetrate it today are considered criminals to be brought before special tribunals.”

Pappe is a distinguished and respected Israeli historian. His research and publications have made him the object of death threats; he left Israel to teach in the UK. In this book he carefully records the often refuted, little—known and suppressed history of one of the major crimes against humanity. Palestinians call it the Nakba, the disaster in which Zionists drove nearly a million people from their homes and lands in 1948.

The story of this crime has been obfuscated by Zionist and their supporters. They deny anyone the right to investigate or criticize their deeds. They claim only they and their supporters, mainly the USA government, can solve the increasing injustice and impose a settlement.
Pappe is very clear: he is a historian who accepts the responsibility of his knowledge. As a previous historian once said; Knowing is not Enough: Work for Peace and Justice. Pappe explains his position:
“But the story of 1948, of course, is not complicated at all, and therefore this book is written as much for the newcomers to the field as it is aimed at those who already, for many years and many reasons, have been involved with the question of Palestine and how to bring us closer to a solution. It is the simple but horrific story of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, a crime against humanity that Israel has wanted to deny and cause the world to forget. Retrieving it from oblivion is incumbent upon us…but it is, as I see it, a moral decision, the very first step we must take if we ever want reconciliation to have a chance, and peace to take root, in the torn lands of Palestine and Israel.”

To read this book and not act is in itself a crime of apathy and cruelty. Palestine is the location of one of the last major struggles against colonialism of our time. When the 60th anniversary of the Nakba was marked in Canada as well as across the world, the mainstream finally began to notice what peace activists and independent media have been saying for years; injustice was done to Palestinians and it continues to be done. I was amazed to read in Canada´s major newspaper, the Globe & Mail, an excellent interview of a film maker who is planning to tell the events of the Nakba thorough the story of his grand mother.

Some Arabs have Israeli citizenship, others live in refugee camps in other countries or have emigrated abroad, but many still suffer life in a brutally occupied and shrunken Palestine (now 15% of its historical size) Pappe warns that unless a just solution is reached and the colonization ends, “…many Palestinians who are not under occupation,… and this includes those in refugee camps” are not free “from the potential danger of future ethnic cleansing”.

Pappe records the ugly details of home destruction, massacres, disempowerment, brutality and rape by the colonizing Israelis. He praises the work of the many groups, which include Palestinians and committed Jews who try to support Palestinians today — the internal and external refugees, those who still daily face the loss of homes and lands — while they try to convince others of the injustice of the past and present and the need for political wisdom. He says that, “But before these committed few will make a difference, the land of Palestine and its people, Jews and Arabs, will have to face the consequences of the 1948 ethnic cleansing”.

This book is an immediate message and urgent appeal to the whole world.

Review by Theresa Wolfwood

“The best way to ensure that food is produced in harmony with one´s local environment is to learn about the local environment, and then grow the food oneself.”

Is it possible that the overeating of the rich in many countries, including nations we consider ´poor´, is related to the starvation and malnutrition of many who live side by side of the overfed? Patel, a scholar from South Africa with a wide experience in academia, international institutions and social movements makes a convincing case that it is globalization and all its corporate—controlled institutions that have caused more poverty and hunger as some suffer the results of over eating.

When I was in Mumbai a few years ago I was amazed to learn that the newest growth industry in India is the weight loss business. I saw thousands of small, skinny people sleeping on the side of roads and train tracks; I could also see billboards promoting slimming diets. With almost a billion people, India has over 100,000 people who are well—off to super—rich. Servants are cheap and always available from the underclass of those slight drab little people who hustle constantly for their next meal. The wealthy, particularly women, do no physical work and ordinary exercise like walking or hiking are not popular, hence diet and gym centres are increasing as western style fat laden food becomes chic. But still it came as a shock to someone forced to clean off her plate while she was exhorted to think of the starving children in India.

In countries like USA and UK where children are growing up on sugar laden drinks and fat filled salty snacks, youth obesity has reached alarming rates. In Central America, many children in private school uniforms are bursting their buttons as they drop their empty foil bags on the sidewalks. I found his chapter, ´you have become Mexican´, the most horrific — every Canadian who voted for NAFTA should read it. It explains both poverty and obesity graphically enough to convince the most devoted Wal—Mart shopper.

It is important to our survival to understand this phenomena and the widespread response to it. Patel presents a wide and comprehensive analysis of world food production from the forgotten rural producers to the corporate processors and sellers to us, the consumers. He writes the stories of alternatives, new visions of food production and distribution, the empowerment of small farmers, mainly women. He writes that rural communities are leading the way in forging a new and different food system.

These Ugandan farmers are at the mercy of global markets.

“Community organizations are fighting back for a deeper kind of choice.”

He documents the increasing strength and desirability of local markets — where he says that, contrary to supermarket propaganda, food is better, cheaper, fresher and more varied. So if one cannot grow one´s own food, there are now many alternatives to mass marketing. He writes about the growth of Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs) initiatives in many countries which cut down on transport as well as recycling money back into the local economy. Buying local and trying to buy local organic helps de—link us from the powerful global corporations, including the petroleum industry.

At the same time as local initiatives are flourishing, many groups are going global with solidarity and support for each other. The most successful, Via Campesina, an international grouping of many national and local groups, including Canada´s National Farm Union, has organized against the WTO, NAFTA and the IMF as well as corporations in defence of small farmers and farm workers — with great success. The Slow Food movement, started in Italy in response to the invasion of global fast food franchises, now everyone from Prince Charles to Percy and Louise Schmeiser ( see www.bbcf.ca for the story of these courageous Saskatchewan farmers) have endorsed Slow Food. Via Campesina continues to spread its work and here is a recent quote from the Transnational Institute in Netherlands, www.tni.org “Via Campesina´s rise to prominence as a transnational peasant farmers movement fighting against neoliberal land policies has helped to generate new meanings of global citizenship giving concrete expression to the popular civil society saying of ´not about us without us´.

Urban agriculture, pesticide—free, flourishes in Havana and Tokyo, inspiring food activists in many cities to take over vacant and city land to grow food. Allotment gardens for apartment dwellers are sought after everywhere. Going beyond the now corporate co—opted use of the word ´organic´ these new movements now recognize the importance of ´organic´ agroecological farming in contrast to the supermarket mass monocultured ´organic´. It is all about that slogan — if we found healthy food security it has to be with us.

“It´s an approach that farms with nature, developing and maintaining soil fertility, producing a wide range of crops, and matching the farming to the needs, climate, geography, biodiversity and aspirations of a particular place and community… develops deep local expertise, and means farmers aren´t disposable and substitutable resources as they are under the reign of ´industrial organic.´ It promises to be able to feed the planet.”

As Patel documents in detail (100 pages of references) the disasters and failures of globalized food system, he weaves in stories from everywhere of the wonderful new vision and creative actions of those who see beyond despair and lead us into another deeper choice of reclaiming and empowering a world of food for people grown by people.

In his closing words, Patel shows us, “The way we become singular is to become plural. That means coming together locally, regionally and internationally, to better understand the choices we make and the food we eat in the places we make them. As the MST [Brazil´s movement of the landless] put it, ´Against barbarism, education. Against individuality, solidarity´. It is time to organize, educate, savour, reclaim and build anew.”

Get this book, read it, pass it on and get involved. Get the DVD and invite your neighbours and friends to view and discuss it.

The DVD of Patel speaking on the issues in his book to The National Farmers Union 2008 Convention is available for $20 from: National Farmers Union, 2717 Wentz Ave. Saskatoon, SK. S7K 4B6

"What you are seeing is not just a consolidation of seed companies; it is really a consolidation of the entire food chain. Robert Fraley, Monsanto, 1996." quoted on p.24

This excellent reference book on the corporate control of our food is a great example of good globalization; it is a cooperative work of scientists, activists and organizations from Canada, UK and Malaysia. It names corporate names, processes, and government agencies and institutions that empower “hungry corporations".

The authors have compiled a clear and concise analysis and history of, "different ways in which the source of the food stream, basic to human life, is being diverted through the advocacy of genetic engineering and the patenting of living organisms to serve the priorities of transnational corporations."

In Chapter 2 on the history of corporations, they say, "The rise of the modern corporation, with its increasing freedom to operate and its lack of obligation, except to make profits, has helped to shape modern technology in general, and the development of genetic engineering in particular."

We need to be reminded of the power of corporations that have both assets and budgets greater than many countries. But the authors also remind us that they are a new presence in the centuries-old practice of agriculture, and also, that changes and adaptations which increase food production have a long history of farmer and community based knowledge. In the last decade we have seen this knowledge challenge the new power of corporate control, from the successes at the WTO meetings to organized rejection in many regions of genetically modified crops to the growth of organic, local farming in the minority world.

We are fortunate that the diversity of resistance to corporation agriculture has many facets and a wide range of organizations and actions we can participate in and contribute our own experience to. There is much to be hopeful about - there are many opportunities for citizens to take responsibility from the individual to the global level. Hungry Corporations provides impeccable and documented research and presents detailed and useful data – on the dangers and the possibilities - that will help us in our work to regain food security and sustainable agriculture.

Theresa Wolfwood, Victoria, BC. www.bbcf.ca

An Economic Hit Man, an EHM, is apparently a precise job description, a profession practised around the world by people (primarily white, male and USA citizens) who are usually known as advisors, consultants or experts.

It took John Perkins a long time to get around to publishing his confessions, complete with a fair amount of hair pulling and wearing of hair shirts. But somewhere around retirement age, Perkins decided to tell all and keep the respect of his adult daughter. His hand wringing lasted for 40 years and it gets a bit tiresome, but in the end Perkins comes through with the goods – a detailed record of his experiences. This is a very dense account; he must have kept good notes and have a good memory, he also tried to write his confession four times before he completed this book. It is a story that needed to be published and I hope it gets a wide circulation and readership. Maybe his personal revelations will make it easier for readers to identify with him and to accept this amazing record of the deliberate destruction of one country after another, the impoverishment and oppression of million of people, to advance the construction in cold blood of the most powerful and greedy empire the world has ever known: The United States of America.

The introduction to the preface lays it all out.

“ETM are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the world out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, USAID and other foreign “aid” organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet´s natural resources. Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization.
I should know; I was an EHM.”

For many people who do read this book, the revelations are no surprise, although I hope it is read by many to whom they are new and shocking. What is shocking for me is the extraordinary complexity and decades of planning and duplicity on so many levels that makes these events possible. I have always assumed that for every plane crash, killing an independently minded leader, for every currency failure, or for any overthrow of a government in the last 50 year, the USA was to blame. Other sources, like William Blum, have verified these assumptions. This book reveals exactly how it was done, by people with families, personalities, problems, who deliberately choose and are proud of their choice of a career that could and does create tragedy and terror for many. It is the exactness and wealth of detail that are so amazing. A friend in the USA told me, after reading this book, “When we say these things, we are disregarded. The value here is that Perkins was an insider and really knows – he can´t be disregarded.”

It is a global journey from South America to Indonesia to Iran and Iraq and around again. Bringing his story up to date he writes that maybe Venezuela, a new exciting model for many countries, may have been saved by Iraq or maybe it means things are changing, but that change is fragile and Venezuela has to be careful. He has a special interest in Ecuador where he started his career as a Peace Corp volunteer and EHM in training. He sees it as the case study for everything that all USA governments have done for decades, destroying nations, ruining people and culture and stealing resources. The USA government took the lead with the help of banks, corporations and other countries along with thousands of ordinary people who just did their jobs in the system, relishing the rewards and opportunities. Perkins was just one of them. His good fortune was to know the indigenous people of the Andes and to have the grace to listen to them. Maybe their clarity and understanding of USA and globalization was one influence; another was the history of USA against colonialism. The events of September 11, 2001 finally convinced Perkins wrote his story for all to read and to accept his responsibility for his actions as an EHM — who he says are even more ubiquitous today than ever before.

This play script is the result of 2 writers in two countries collaborating to produce a drama about the international movement to which they both belong. A group of Women in Black (set in the USA) are arrested for holding a silent vigil to witness for peace and non-violence. They are sent to a mental hospital where they are considered crazy for being publicly unpatriotic.
The play explains the context and effect of laws that try to repress peaceful dissent and to instil fear in those who work for peace. It also shows the diversity of reasons why people choose to act and stand in public for their beliefs. The women are believable and credible; the development of all the characters is also credible. The resulting action is engrossing, the play moves quickly and holds our attention as we wonder what will be the result of trying to break the spirits of this group of "ordinary" women.
In the play some workers are obsessed with professional advantage but some search their souls, at least one knows the women are not crazy. They do escape and they do continue to be: A global network for women who stand in/ solidarity whenever and wherever/ violence disrupts the human community.
This would be an excellent play for students, professionals and activists to perform and to present to others the opportunity to examine dominant ideas and their power, to also see our power to resist and to create new ways of thinking and acting.

Chances are, if we stray from the fantasy world of smoke and mirrors called the mainstream media and try to find out what is really happening in the world, we will find the work of John Pilger, the Australian born, now London–based writer and filmmaker. For thirty–five years he has written many books, hundreds of articles and made dozens of films. He has made a living, found a wide readership and audience, gained international respect and won many awards, including an Emmy, the UK Richard Dimbleby Award and has been named the International Reporter of the Year. All without selling his soul or compromising his commitment to the real story from East Timor to Iraq, from Vietnam to Nicaragua.

If we learned in all the sentimentality of the reporting of the Tsunami tragedy of December that lives could have been saved if the USA military had passed on the warning from its gigantic base on Diego Garcia, we have Pilger to thank. In fact, if we have ever even heard of this base in the Indian Ocean, it is thanks to Pilger. In 2004, he released a film, “Stealing A Nation ”. This documentary tells the shocking story of the UK government giving away the Chago Islands to the USA. The people lived a paradisiacal existence on these tropical islands; they used much loved pet dogs to fish for them; the dogs swam out and returned with fish in their mouths for their owners. One of the first acts of the USA military occupation in 1971 was to kill all the dogs with fumes from their vehicles. Then they “swept and sanitized” to prepare the island for its one billion dollar base - all the Chagossians were secretly expelled from paradise and left without hope or help in the slums of Mauritius. Pilger documents all this, using old film from the pre–occupation to the present as the Chagossians challenge the UK in court to return their homeland to them.

For many of us the truth about the first war on Iraq in 1991, the effects of the inhumane embargo on Iraq and the deaths and devastating illnesses attributed to depleted uranium, compounded by poor nutrition and lack of medicine came from Pilger’s many films about Iraq. In 2004, Pilger’s, ‘ Breaking the Silence: Truth and Lies in the War on Terror’, won the gold award in the political category at the prestigious 2004 WorldMedia Festival in Hamburg, Germany over 300 entries from 23 nations. This film, set in Iraq, Afghanistan and Washington, traces the mendacious history of events leading to the ‘war on terror’ and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Returning to the Tsunami, Pilger writes mainly for independent UK papers, The Guardian and The New Statesman. (many articles are available on www.johnpilger.com ) He reveals that while people of good heart responded overwhelmingly to the disaster, governments had a different agenda for Asia. In The Other Tsunami, The New Statesman, 10 January 2005 he says:

“While the sea may have killed tens of thousands, western policies kill millions every year. Yet even amid disaster, a new politics of community and morality is emerging. The west’s crusaders, the United States and Britain, are giving less to help the tsunami victims than the cost of a Stealth bomber or a week’s bloody occupation of Iraq. The bill for George Bush´s inauguration party would rebuild much of the coastline of Sri Lanka. Bush and Blair increased their first driblets of “aid” only when it became clear that people all over the world were spontaneously giving millions and that a public relations problem beckoned. The Blair government’s current “generous” contribution is one–sixteenth of the £800m it spent on bombing Iraq before the invasion and barely one–twentieth of a £1bn gift, known as a soft loan, to the Indonesian military so that it could acquire Hawk fighter–bombers.

On 24 November, one month before the tsunami struck, the Blair government gave its backing to an arms fair in Jakarta, "designed to meet an urgent need for the [Indonesian] armed forces to review its defence capabilities", reported the Jakarta Post. The Indonesian military, responsible for genocide in East Timor, has killed more than 20,000 civilians and “insurgents” in Aceh.

“My best work, I believe, has been produced in harness and comradeship with some of the great photographers of my time. ”Pilger is always generous to his co-workers and recently I was fortunate enough to see a major exhibition organized by Pilger to honour photographers he has worked with, names we seldom see or remember, but the images remain in our consciousness. Photos that accompany his thirty-five years of journalism are reproduced in:
REPORTING THE WORLD: John Pilger’s Great Eyewitness Photographers, published by The Barbican Gallery, London, UK. see www.21publishing.com
I remember a haunting image of a South African woman in 1985, her hands raised against mighty military vehicles by Paul Weinberg. It showed the world the incredible bravery of the anti–apartheid struggle. Equally unforgettable is Susan Meisalas’image of the pope in Nicaragua, chastising the Sandinistas in 1983. All of these photos are memories of our times, haunting, horrific and necessary for understanding.

TELL ME NO LIES: Investigative Journalism and its Triumphs edited by John Pilger, published by Jonathan Cape, London UK, 2004 is Pilger’s tribute to his colleagues in journalism who reveal the message and myths behind the superficial story. On the back cover is a great quote from Claud Cockburn,“Never believe anything until it is officially denied.”

This thick treasure of a collection with many recognizable names is well worth owning and revisiting often. Felicity Arbuthnot, a frequent speaker in Canada, writes about an Iraqi poet she met selling cigarettes in Basra. She had his poems published, but Jassim died of cancer at fourteen before he saw his poetry book. The late Edward Said, the great Palestinian intellectual, is given a final tribute and his article. “Covering Islam” is reprinted here. He says. “Malicious generalizations about Islam have become the last acceptable form of denigration of foreign culture in the West.” There are witty - as always - words from Eduardo Galeano of Uruguay. Linda Melvern’s article on Rwanda “A People Betrayed” has become a book about that tragedy.

New Rulers of the World, Verso, UK, 2002, Pilger’s authoritative, extensively researched and referenced work on Globalization and the people and corporations who control the world, is still timely and useful.

For all of us who are committed to meaningful change through political and social movements rigorous examination of events and actions is imperative to our understanding. Understanding is the first step towards the creation of change. For those who want to record contemporary events, Pilger is an essential teacher. We are fortunate to have writers and filmmakers like Pilger as models and as sources of knowledge about the complexity of contemporary history.

Review by Theresa Wolfwood

“Rise like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number.
Shake your chains to earth like dew.
Which in sleep has fallen on you.
Ye are many — they are few.” Percy Bysshe Shelly in The Mask of Anarchy.

With that quote Pilger begins another of his impassioned and important books about “empire, its facades and the enduring struggle of people for their freedom.”

Pilger reinforces and documents all our doubts the mainstream, official government or corporate media and how they have historically served and continue to serve their imperial masters. He tells us that every day, including September 11, 2001, 36,615 children die from the effects of extreme poverty. But that is not news, it is normal, and therefore never front page or prime time news.

Chapter by chapter, Pilger tells us how and why the truth is buried, obscured or omitted from ´the news´. He explains this in terms of empire; what happens to ´us´, the imperial world is important. Our victims are honoured and personalized; our misdeeds are glossed over. What happens to “them”, those who once tasted freedom or thought they had achieved it, be they desperate Indian farmers, children dying from depleted uranium induced cancers in Iraq, millions of Palestinians driven from their homeland or innocent villagers bombed in our war to bring ´democracy´ to Afghanistan, is not important enough to be major news for ´us.´ In fact, the suppression of coverage of these events and the fillers of trivia and ´human interest´ and ´lifestyle´ news about ´us´ is a deliberate and essential part of war and empire. These humans — our sisters and brothers — Pilger´s heroes on the road to ´freedom, next time´ are never personalized as victims are in our society. But for him they are the news, the story and the hope.

Pilger has been a relentlessly brave and tireless award winning journalist and filmmaker for forty years; his beat is the world, but he is rarely published by media more mainstream than the UK Guardian, yet his articles, books and films do get seen and read by millions.

 In the introduction he provides a historic background with information on lesser known evils such as massacres by the British Raj in India and the ignoring of Harold Pinter´s brilliant Nobel Prize acceptance speech by the august BBC, to secret powers of George Bush and the refusal of ´us´ to accept the results of elections that displease, as in Palestine recently.

´Stealing a Nation´, the first chapter, was also the title and subject of his stunning film about the treatment of the people of the Chagos Islands, site of the major USA military base, Diego Garcia. This story of the continuing collaboration of UK and USA to wipe out a culture and nation and evict its citizens from their home is still developing thanks to a few Chagosians with great persistence and some supporters. The right of these people, deemed not to exist, to return to their homeland, has been up held in the highest court in the UK, but now being appealed by the UK government who gave it away. When you have read the book, find the film and view it and check out his films on Iraq & Palestine. And his many other books that have stood the test of time.

Other chapters cover in depth the suppressed and distorted ´news´ we are snowed by — from Palestine — but the news comes mainly from Israel — globalized India, post—apartheid South Africa and the wonderful war for democracy in Afghanistan that Canada is so proudly part of. Everything Pilger writes is documented and true. The blizzard is over, we can, if we choose, see clearly and act with a conscience as great as Pilger´s.

His righteous rage stirs me to continue to ignore our ´media´. I don´t have TV nor do I subscribe to any mainstream media, even ´liberal´ publications I am often told about by well meaning friends. It takes more work but the truth can be found in the independent media, wise use of the internet and most important, being part of a local and global community that distributes knowledge like the publication of this book. Knowledge is one of civil society´s most valuable resources, Pilger holds up the truth like a banner, it is up to us to carry it forward.

As are most progressive thinkers, Pilger is hopeful about the rise of social forces around the world that challenge empire, show new directions and strategies for change and rock our comfortable assumptions. He writes, “The continuation of a struggle may appear frozen, but it is a seed beneath the snow. Look at Latin America…” Don´t let the corporate media snow us about what is really important and what is really happening. We have work to do; Pilger makes out task easier, not only with vital knowledge, but also with his integrity and commitment as an example.

Carolyn Pogue has combined her original stories, based on children’s experiences in many parts of the world, with practical and clear guidelines for hand-on creativity for peace; making paper, peace flags, solar cookers and water games. Adults will find the activity instruction clear and useful; children I know will enjoy the projects. Pogue provides study and question guides for the stories and ideas. Based in Christianity, the book has much universal wisdom and knowledge of other faiths. And I liked the biographies of real people who have changed the world dispersed through the book and Danka’s vivid and appealing illustrations add to the books charm. Not just for ‘leaders´but anyone who lives and plays with children. Carolyn has written other useful and informing books and is a much sought after workshop facilitator and teacher.

From www.carolynpogue.ca:

"Carolyn´s passion is building a better world of peace and justice for all. Story telling, humour and artistic flair go into the mix in her workshops and writing. Whether she is working with children, teens, seniors or ages in between. Carolyn´s commitment to changing the world for the next generations is at the heart of her work."

By Theresa Wolfwood

“For peace and non-violence to prevail, we need to foster a Culture of Peace through Education.”
from the introduction.

Carolyn Pogue is a multitalented peace activist — poet, writer, visual artist and organizer (of Calgary women in Black, among other things) but in recent years she has deliberately chosen to concentrate on children; she sees our young people as the real hope for changing the world.

Seasons of Peace is one of several books she has written directed at peace education for children. This is peace education in its fullest dimension. As Dr. Lois Wilson says in her introduction,
“Many years ago I learned from K.H. Ting, a Chinese friend, that the three words for peace in his language spell out the conditions which make peace possible. Translating the visual Chinese symbols literally, he explained that the word peace can mean “a roof over one“s head,” or rice in the mouth.” or “two hearts beating together in understanding and friendship.” Without social security, economic security and human reciprocity, there can be no peace.”

Pogue has integrated this rich definition of peace into this guide for teachers, community workers, parents or any interested peace activist. Throughout the year she illustrates people, organizations and causes from around the world which are appropriate for the time. For example in April she writes about Earth Day; in June on Aboriginal/Solidarity Day and in August about Hiroshima & Nagasaki.

Her action and presentation suggestions are well laid out and accessible. For June she recommends book displays, a visit to a local native centre or an invitation to a native to speak; talking about Pauline Johnson and her poetry; she includes a read aloud story about the Tree of Peace and actions for children on the concerns and information given.

For August she does not only explain the use of the first atom bombs, but she draws children into the stories of children involved and the present actions of many activists, including Japanese mayors to ban nuclear weapons.

All her monthly topics are richly illustrated, have many references for more information and wonderful creative suggestions from planting seed to mask making for children to do.

In the appendices are sample letters, music and words to songs, puzzles, graphics, and for teachers, curriculum suggestions. Together with the monthly presentations they form an invaluable guide towards Pogue’s bold vision,

“Every day more of us are learning that the planet cannot sustain a culture of greed and violence, so we follow the new leaders and lead the followers on a new path that is daring, courageous, visionary, and practical. We are building a Culture of Peace.”

This is a unique and important collection of creativity and information on an important subject; peace in all its manifestations concerns us all; Pogue’s book should be in the hands of every teacher and activist who seeks to inspire and inform the next generation.

Review by Theresa Wolfwood

“He points out that no—one is just a consumer or a producer — we are all both at the same time. He argues that the time has now come to put body and soul, justice and the environment together. There´s no time to lose." Stan and Marci Marcel Thekaekara in the introduction.
This is another book from a long list of excellent short pithy guides to issues ranging from Climate Change to Animal Rights that The New Internationalist produces. Always readable & reliable.

Fair trade, an idea whose time has come and is working well on many levels, is in direct contrast to so—called Free Trade. Globalization has created free trade agreements and many international institutions that always favour big, rich producers and manufacturers to the disadvantage of the poor and small. Ransom visits many farmers & tells the stories of farm workers and small farmers impoverished by deals made in distant lands. Under NAFTA, the small Mexican maize producers were soon bankrupted by the dumping of the USA of subsidized (and often GMO) maize on the ´free´ Mexican market. Free trade has much to do with corrupt government officials who loot the public treasuries, borrow funds abroad and enforce debt repayments on the labour and products of the poor.

He also visited farmers who have made deals through their cooperatives & work groups with fair trade buyers, guaranteeing set prices and a new form of security. It is a growing form of trade, benefiting buyers who get a superior product, usually sustainably and organically grown, and sellers who get a decent payment and are able to pass the benefit on to their own local communities. Coffee is one of the best known and most traded crops, followed by cocoa and fruit.

Ransom addresses the concerns that many of the world´s exploited workers are in factories — producing clothing and equipment. He follows the production of our iconic blue jeans as an example of how exploitation occurs at many levels and some of the efforts to address these issues. It is hard to establish and to monitor these companies — many of whom claim fair practices that are hard to verify. The workers are still at the mercy of the bosses.

He says that it will take much more than individual fair trade deals to make a significant difference; what is needed is mass action by citizens calling for ´Trade Justice´ and laws to enforce it, more action and solidarity in labour movements in the minority world and more democracy and workers´ rights in the majority world.

In spite of the bureaucratic problems of ensuring safeguards and trust at all stages of the fair trade process, the idea in action is out there and growing rapidly. Ransom gives us many ideas that will put body and soul, justice and the environment together.

Books about Others: review by Beth Burrows.
Beth Burrows is the president/director of the Edmonds Institute, a public interest, non-profit group headquartered in the Pacific Northwest of the USA" See: www.edmonds-institute.org . Reprinted with permission.

Surprisingly little has changed in “fitness” circles since the Washington Post first asked, “Who are the unfit?” and then pointed out that the “unfit” tended to be anyone not belonging to the particular group having the discussion.

In the ninety-one years since the Post posed the question, those belonging to the groups having such discussions have managed to do away with a considerable number of those “under discussion”. Unfortunately, the question behind the “who are” question was too frequently, “And what are we going to do about them?”

There have always been those who resisted the solutions that others had in mind for them. Some resisters, like Eli Wiesel and Ward Churchill, wrote extraordinary books about dealing with the intentions of others. (See, for example, Wiesel´s Night or Churchill´s A Little Matter of Genocide.)

Recently, two more books have been added to the resistance genre. Both are instructive, monkey-wrenching, first person accounts about disability. One of them is even funny, almost impossible to put it down.

The first book, Melinda Tankard Reist´s Defiant Birth, Women Who Resist Medical Eugenics (Spinifex Press: Australia, 2006), is a collection of accounts about women who continued their pregnancies despite the advice of others.

Between her own didactic chapters about the eugenic pressures emanating from medicine, technology, and mainstream society, Reist places nineteen narratives by women who were told not to have their babies, either because of perceived imperfections in the fetuses or perceived imperfections in the women. Whether or not the predictions turned out to be accurate (and some did not), all the would-be mothers in this collection point us to a single take-home message: welcome others as they are and find the value in each life, no matter how strange and unfamiliar or short.

As Abby Lippman, board chair of the Canadian Women’s Health Network, notes in a cover quote, “The stories challenge our general notions of what is a ‘good’ mother, and what makes for a ‘happy&rsq baby. They lay bare how simplistic - even dangerous - are offers of ‘choice’ when society limits the childbearing options for women and judges anyone less than ‘perfect’ as disposable.”

Another book with much the same message but written by a much lighter hand is Too Late to Die Young, Nearly True Tales from a Life (Henry Holt, New York, 2005). The author, Harriet McBryde Johnson, unable to walk, bathe or dress herself since birth, has given us a witty and engaging memoir about a life well-lived. Whether arguing a case in a Charleston courtroom, wheeling down the bumpy streets of Havana, stuck “behind the butts” at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, meditating in bed about the pleasures of the flesh, or debating her own right to existence with a Princeton academic who “thinks the humans he is talking about aren’t people, aren’t persons,” this witty lady -- who also happens to be a lawyer, an inside party politics player, a frequent contributor to the New York Times Magazine, and the holder of the world endurance record for protesting the Jerry Lewis telethon (for its pity-mongering) -- is convincing evidence of what can happen when people (with a little help from their friends) resist the assumptions and stereotypes of others.

The gripping endless story of one of the most amazing social movements of our time. The Mayan peasants of Chiapas in Mexico struggle to retain their traditional life by using modern technology and sophisticated planning and communication.

This collection of essays and speeches by India’s award winning writer ranges across the world on many important issues from globalization to AIDS. My thoughts on these issues are similar to hers, but I lack her power of language, her precision of vision, her genius to take an issue and facet it until we can see our own situation brilliantly reflect in her little jewels of illumination.

Roy’s acceptance speech for the USA Lannan Prize for Cultural Freedom she urges her USA audience to remember their history of brave resistance. She speaks as “a subject of the American Empire” when she says the change has to begin in America. She calls on its citizens and says,“ The only institution more powerful than the US government is American civil society.”

In “When the Saints Go Marching Out” Roy examines the myths and the cult of personality surrounding Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Their stories have been packaged and commodified; their actions and motives forgotten. The living hero, Mandela, the symbol of freedom for Africa, has commodified his country, passing it from one form of oppression to another. Dreams have been betrayed and for those who call these icons, heroes, it is time to take up their causes again, leave the T-shirts behind.

“Do Turkeys Enjoy Thanksgiving?” Using the allegory of quaint historic practices – like saving one good turkey and slaughtering millions– Roy says that there are always a few good turkeys from minority or oppressed groups that get rewarded while the vast majority are penned and imprisoned. She warns us that the forces against us are too great for any one person, even a charismatic leader, to challenge. We must get back to meaningful actions, like the Salt Marches in India, which strike at the economic underpinnings of the powerful. We must be wary of settling for “feel-good political theatre.” She urges us to start with focussed actions, like boycotts on war makers, which will show an economic effect. It´s already happening – here and everywhere. If we want justice and survival, she says we have to shut them down and “we must consider ourselves at war.”

This is a slim but rich volume; I will not try to paraphrase all the analyses Roy makes. In her last essay on empowerment in a time of global power, she ends with this call and warning, “Fearlessly, but non-violently, we must disable the working parts of the machine that is consuming us. We´re running out of time… the circle is closing in… change will come. It could be bloody, or it could be beautiful. It depends on us.”

The brilliant novelist, author of The God of Small Things, turns her talent and commitment to local and global politics. In the Cost of Living she exposes dam-building and nuclear weapons as expression of political domination and betrayal of people and the environment. POWER POLITICS. South End Press, USA is her recent impassioned exposure of global war and oppression.

Very original discussion of nuclear physics, scientific research linked to a personal journey to Switzerland following the trail of early sci-fi writer, Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein.

“As someone in Gaza told me, “events are continuous ”. Palestinians never seem to have the luxury of digesting one tragedy before the next one is upon them…younger people often viewed my research into the events of 1956 with bemusement…the past and the present cannot be so easily disentangled; they are part of a remorseless continuum, a historical blur.”

Sacco has once again created an amazing documentation in comic strip form. He has brought the blur into sharp focus and shows how as one Palestinian said to him, hatred was ´planted´ in hearts. Sacco chooses a graphic, raw and direct way of communicating history and experience. This is a new trend in political reportage and is very successful in reaching popular readership, particularly among the young.
He provides well— researched and factual detailed background and context in print — but his story is all there in bold images. The faces of people are expressive and clearly delineated. The action is boldly portrayed. He spares nothing in illustration or captions in his record. He starts by researching a buried footnote in history of a massacre in Gaza in 1956. He goes to Gaza to find the story behind this forgotten (by most of the world) event. Some witnesses remember and tell their story. Others relate family memories. During his stay in Gaza, he finds that continuous thread of bitterness as the region goes through one disaster after another. He weaves all the memories and evidence of the past into his experience of the present — living with and speaking to many Palestinians who continue to try to live ´normal´ lives in a time of extreme hardship under the blockade and amidst the rubble of the latest disaster — the invasion by Israel in 2008— 2009.
The images and personal words are painful to behold, but our society needs to face up to the disasters we (our governments and mainstream society) support with our actions, taxes and —our ignorance.

This is another one of these rare formats; a political comic book and like “Addicted to War” it is comic only in form. It is a serious, original, accessible rendering of the complexity of the reality that is Palestine. Introduced by the late Edward Said in a thoughtful and laudatory statement, Sacco’s collection of graphic style memoirs and personal stories makes the Palestinian people human, personal and understandable. Said considered the content important, of course, but he praised the form and expression of the story of Palestine by this young visiting journalist. Sacco is honest, but sensitive to his hosts, all the time questioning himself and his distracted outsider reactions and priorities. But he makes Palestinians into real people as few reporters bother to even try.

I liked the woman who is tired of being interviewed about her son killed by Israelis; she turns the table on the hapless journalist, Joe himself. She wants to know how being interviewed is going to help her or Palestine.

And when was the last time you thought of Palestinians being flooded out of their homes by torrents of rain and backed-up sewage in some of the most densely populated communities in the world?

A boy at the end is kept standing in the rain by questioning soldiers – his sense of powerless is overwhelming and I am left wondering: how long can a people tolerate utter humiliation and domination? Somehow seeing it in comic strip form made it very understandable to me.

Palestine is a reprinted version of Sacco’s first comic work. He has produced comic versions of his stories of the former Yugoslavia as well. His books have won awards in the USA, rare for cartoon format books; he is Maltese and lives in the USA, working successfully as a cartoonist and writer.

The book continues to be popular and timely. In fact it has rare acclaim. My check of search engines revealed a diatribe attacking him that describes his work “as dangerous and insidious as the Nazi cartoons, Der Sturmer. If this man and his writings can’t be stopped, they must be fought against” and he is accused of, “misusing the media to further the Palestinian–Arab terrorists’ movements. Sacco is a person who refuses to acknowledge that he is supporting terrorists by stubbornly refusing to look at reality.” In fact this Israeli government support website accused Sacco of being a “current threat to truth” that must be fought against and it urges, “Don’t let the terrorists win.” To me this is an excellent recommendation for Sacco!

Since Sacco stories are available in many versions from other visitors, workers and writers who have got to know Palestinian people in their own homes and communities, I gather his successful format – popular with young people, particularly, as well as teachers and activists – is a real threat to the global media machine that harasses anyone who tries to speak out for a just cause and an oppressed people – in Palestine. Sacco himself says that the occupation of Palestine is an issue of international law and basic human rights. So the virulent criticism by supporters of the occupation is a good indicator of a successful work of journalism – a rarity in today’s corporate media.

TW

Indian writer, now living in Germany, presents cogent reasons why growth-based capitalism will ultimately destroy the environment and how ecology-based socialism is the solution.

Review by Theresa Wolfwood

This book is part of a new trend to create books that are in comic book form to express cultural and political ideas. See other reviews on www.bbcf.ca including Addicted to war: why the U.S. can´t kick militarism and There You Go!

This is a engaging and rare story of a girl and then a young woman growing up in a loving, liberal family in Iran during the time of massive political and social upheaval. With her willingness to question whatever status quo exists at the time, she has a stormy and difficult coming of age. She cannot express herself artistically or personally and at the end of the story she leaves Iran ´for good´ and her weeping mother tells her that, ´the Iran of today is not for you, I forbid you to come back.´ I was gripped by this lovable character right up to the end — and it is a thick book. The unique and honest voice of Satrapi and her expressive carton art form are irresistible.

The writer now lives in Paris, writes and makes films, not knowing when change will come. This tiny prism into her society shows just how hard it is make good changes, bad change always seems easier.

“Globalization threatens to extinguish much that is essential to human survival”.

There is a thriving industry in books about globalization; I have read many and have learned much from good authors and activists. But if I was looking for just one book to recommend to a newly interested friend, a student or seasoned activist – this would be it.

Seabrook gives us the history, the background, the results of globalization which he defines as: the emergence of a single worldwide economy that has declared war on all other cultures. By definition globalization makes all other cultures local.

Globalization consumes other cultures and in the process affects more than economies. It radically transforms the lives of millions of people. In the process it destroys their traditions, impoverishes their lives and destroys dreams and wisdom. Seabrook describes the lives of people forced from their land into urban squalor, paralleling the history of his family only three generations back, he understands and empathizes with globalization’s flotsam and jetsam. When he details lives shattered by a force which is far greater than economic he explains, “Economic globalization violates many deeply held moral and spiritual values.” It is soul-destroying. Witness the obscene consuming culture of the minority world that destroys global resources while it destroys the soul of the consumer. Seabrook documents these processes in vivid heart-wrenching stories that form the substance of the dry statistics.

Seabrook writes about the many cultures of living resistance to globalization. Where ever we live we can join some organization working on this most urgent issue of our times; we can find meaning in our lives and companions in the struggle which will help us overcome the loneliness and isolation of globalization enforced individualism. We soon learn that this most important issue is connected to all we hold dear – peace with justice, a sustainable, healthy environment and safe and dignified life for all.

The New International inspires the world’s independent media; the magazine just keeps getting better. Now they have an excellent booklist with this winner and their series of No-Nonsense Guides to everything from AIDS to terrorism. For clear information on any topic check www.newint.org first.

The Viveka Foundation, a centre for alternative perspectives launched this exhaustive study of the World Social Forum process at the WSF in Mumbai, 2004. There are essays and statements from individuals and groups around the world who have been involved in the process and various years of the WSF.

In the foreword, Hilary Wainwright, editor of UK’s RED PEPPER journal, says that features of the new social movements include their diversity and breadth and their belief that change is created by people working together, not just by politicians and political parties.
The many aspects of the WSF movement are analyzed by both activists on the inside of this movement and observers from academia and activism. The growth of the concept into many regional forums has not diminished the appeal or importance of the annual anchoring event – held three times in Porto Alegre and once in Mumbai; it scheduled to return to Brazil in 2005 and to Africa in 2006.

In spite of its flaws and weaknesses the WSF has proved to be a beacon of hope and inspiration for thousands, a massive networking occasion and a possibility for connecting and strengthening many grassroots movements. It is all discussed in this volume that included contributions of two Canadian authors – BBCF’s Theresa Wolfwood’s report on the 2002 WSF and an interview of Thomas Pooniah who discusses some of the problems of the WSF as well as its continuing strengths as a part of a process of globalizing a new radical democracy.

The author of CRUDE has written another excellent, well–researched book – this time about the unscrupulous behaviour of the mega–sized drug corporations of the world.

John le Carre says in his introduction: “….Imagine the uproar if dozens of drug-trial patients in America were to perish from deadly side effects known to the FDA. Consider the commotion if AIDS babies in Europe were to die while being administered placebos rather than potentially life–saving drugs. These scandals did happen–just elsewhere. In The Body Hunters, investigative journalist Sonia Shah describes drug trials in places like India and Zambia that would have occasioned outrage if conducted in the developed world. The Body Hunters describes how the multinational pharmaceutical industry, in its quest to develop lucrative new drugs, has begun quietly exporting its clinical research business to the developing world, where ethical oversight is minimal, and desperate patients abundant. Faced with crumbling facilities, miniscule budgets and towering health crises, developing countries often encourage these very trials, even as they cause scarce resources to be diverted from providing care toward the business of servicing drug companies.”

She documents how drug corporations fuel their profits by testing drugs on people in the majority world who are desperate for treatment of any kind. The companies abandon their subjects after they have tested a drug that only rich minority world people can afford. Many, along the way, supposedly professionals who care about health, get bought off – doctors, clinics, academic researchers and politicians. Profit, not ethics are what this is all about. Read this and be aware of our own role in the corporate colonization of the poor and unsuspecting.

She writes, “The drugs that enabled me to survive an emergency caesarian section, those that allow my son to breathe despite allergic asthma, the other ones that correct a hormonal deficit in my mother have been administered to us with success and confidence in part because they´ve been tested in hundreds and perhaps thousands of human subjects in experimental trials… Today, savvy drugmakers loudly publicize new medical products, but conduct the required experimentation quietly. And so, while we exult in, bicker over, and complain about the products of medical research–how much do the drugs cost? who pays? what are the side effects?–the vast business of percolating new drugs burrows underground. If the history of human experimentation tells us anything… it is that the potential for abuse will fall heaviest on the poorest and most powerless among us.”

As the forces of globalization entrenched in international institutions that continue to empower and enrich the few and drive many in the majority world to desperate measures while we try to get the “best deal” from bloated drug companies, we are going to have to face up to the debt we owe to our brothers and sisters elsewhere. We owe not only our access to cheap raw materials, but our access to available and affordable drugs to the many that cannot afford a chocolate bar, let alone heart medication. If we want to change the world we’d best start at home & demand accountability and access to all aspects of the production of our life support products. Disconnection means irresponsibility and irresponsibility means tragedy and misery for many. TW

Review by Theresa Wolfwood

“This book tells the story of oil from its birth hundreds of millions of year ago, when ancient creatures floated with sun-dappled seas sucked carbon out of the air, through to its maturation entombed deep underground.”

In vivid prose and documented detail, Shah does exactly what she sets out to do. Along the way, we learn about the slow process of oil formation and the appalling rapid depletion of this resource, so miraculous it appears to do our work for us, while changing forever our human institutions and physical environment.

“Once we encountered oil, we wallowed in it, consuming crude about one hundred thousand times faster than it could possibly accumulate again.”

This small book is the best overview of the subject I have ever read. Shah is a USA–based writer and journalist who has written for many progressive publications and this is an impressively documented and well written book that provides excellent background for current environmental to political issues

“The story of oil is written on a time scale that humans can scarcely grasp, but it starts with something innocuous and seemingly peripheral: the slimy dregs at the bottom of the sea.”

With Shah we follow these dregs until they become oil, gas and tar sands. She also documents our human involvement with oil from the time of ancient Mesopotamia to our modern total immersion, the marriage of the automobile industry and oil which transformed modern warfare forever in WW 1, to the ubiquitous presence and myriad uses of petroleum-based plastics. Petroleum is also the basis of nitrogen & ammonia based explosives as well as fertilizers which created modern chemical agriculture.

The book chronicles the exploits of western nations and corporations in the Middle East as oil diminished in the USA and political strategy focussed on domination of oil–bearing countries – we know the results of those policies and interventions.

For Canadians her chapter, Running on Empty, which details the problems and consequences, including political, of the development of the Alberta tar sands is worth the price of the book alone. Venezuela also has tar sands as yet undeveloped, adding to its politically precarious position a major oil source.

My father rode a camel, I drive a
Car, my son rides in a jet airplane.
His son will ride a camel.
– Saudi Arabian saying (quoted on p. 173.)

Shah discusses the end of oil, as many have; she shows in tables the estimated reserves, ownership, profits and consumption of oil up to 2002. Canadians per capita are right up there with the USA as monster global gas guzzlers.

She writes about alternative energy sources. Solar could be widespread and cheap – but the technology is controlled by oil companies. Now is the time to examine our basic assumption that. “…according to conventional wisdom, the west’s high–tech, hydrocarbon–based society lies at the pinnacle of a natural, inevitable development path”. This is the ultimate message of Shah’s book, documented and illustrated so that we understand the folly of our assumptions, and we can have no doubt about a future without oil.

Review by Theresa Wolfwood

“…for every story there is an ending.”

“…the biography of these hills is… my own.”

This memoir is a guided journey; the reader goes with the author as he remembers and reflects on his sorhat (spiritual walks to nourish the soul) around his home city of Ramallah, for the last twenty—seven years. He has walked many routes, many times over in this period and is able to vividly express “the language of the hills.”

 

 

These are the changes Shehadeh meets — swathes of fence and Israeli—only highways, closed gates at check points and large urban settlements where there once were olive groves, forests, villages and pasture. Photos: TW/08s

But as Shehadeh, a lawyer and founder of the Human Rights group, Al—Haq, looks back on his family and community life, rooted in these hills, he mourns the changes wrought by war and occupation to his land. Illegal urban settlements, industrial development, roads, wall, fence have all contributed to the shrinking and destruction of his beloved landscape. He writes that the destruction of this beautiful place is a loss for Arabs, Jews and all lovers of nature.

He is disillusioned by his profession and has lost faith in the power of the law because the occupiers have no respect for even their own laws and are contemptuous of any effort by Palestinians to contest their theft and destruction. He meets Zionist settlers, who absolve themselves of any guilt: they claim that they serve a higher purpose (God) that justifies their actions.

For over 100 years, European Christians promoted a concept of this biblical land that ignored the reality of Palestine. That concept stills permeates much of the European and North American support of Israel no matter how violent and lawless its wars and occupation are.

Palestine is disappearing like the waters of the Dead Sea; Israel´s diversion of the Jordan River for its own purposes has reduced the river to a trickle and the Dead Sea has decreased by 20%.

Shehadeh sees all this on his seven often repeated walks, with their constrictions, losses and confrontations with Israeli soldiers and settlers. His eighth walk is the story of his own troubled life as he reflects that his legal career did not work. But his life in Ramallah is “a narrative linked to liberation…to freedom from occupation” in a land where Palestinians live in ´reservations´ like those invented for indigenous peoples by the British.

A peasant friend, Sabri, says that not to fight for his land is sacrilege. The author, like many, lives a life of anger under the occupation but cautions against loosing one´s principles.

He quotes the poet, Robinson Jeffers, where the image of history and life remains in grain of granite. Nature creates a concept of time in which beauty prevails. An image of strength and hope,

But the struggle against colonization continues; there can be no trust until the occupation ends. For the author, his new direction is that of working in organized civil society in resistance. Acting, speaking and writing honestly and bravely — to win the cause and to overcome the trauma of defeat.

Nature and justice can and shall prevail. The story has not ended; Palestine shall not remain as “a victim of a map” as the poet Darwish wrote.

Review by Theresa Wolfwood

“We can either keep sleepwalking to extinction or wake up to the potential of the planet and ourselves,”

Soil, Not Oil is another of this well known environmentalist´s pithy treatises on topical and important issues. Shiva has a knack of bringing together issues we often see as separate and linking our awareness to these connections. And indeed these three issues are more than connected; they are closely intertwined.

She starts out by writing that this triple crisis is a triple opportunity. This awareness gives us a chance to change our attitudes and acceptance of industrial farming which is based on petroleum from the use of chemical herbicides and fertilizers to the use of gas—guzzling large machinery and the transportation of food all over the world.

“We can and must respond creatively to the triple crisis and simultaneously overcome dehumanization, economic equality and ecological catastrophe.”

“Climate change demands we reduce fossil fuel use and CO2 emissions.”
What better and more immediate way than to change our food habits. We can buy local, support small organic farmers, start a garden and ignore the out— of” season travellers that entice in our supermarkets. Strawberries in February? They taste like cardboard, picked green for their journey and are saturated with chemicals.

Shiva encourages us to power down our consumption as we power up our creativity which includes using democracy and human energy for change. She encourages us to relate to small farmers who practise sustainability and live near us. Build community institutions — like the farm markets we already have — to support people—centred agriculture.

In the chapter: Sacred Cow or Sacred Car she documents how the car eats people — through the use of land for growing biofuels instead of food, building roads and parking, the effluent and emissions of the industry poisoning our soil and air and wasted resources. She uses some European cites similar to Victoria, Freiburg and Strasburg, as examples of the decrease in car use by creating pedestrian zones, expensive parking, and traffic calming while, most important, building up efficient public transit.

And as we, the rich minority of the world, may still think it is our divine right to consume finite resources, our consumption is not only causing massive eco— injustice for the majority world but also produces effects we ourselves cannot escape — climate change and environmental degradation all around us.

Shiva has summed up many of the issues, grounding them in her own country but also in our northern world, and she outlines many possible responses. Soil not Oil is easy to read, straightforward and realistic. There is no time to wait for governments or corporations to act ´voluntarily´. Action is up to us —now.

This beautiful conceived and created book is more than a guide for birth attendants; it is a tribute to the act of creation and our creators - mothers. It comes from a land where women and their role in creating life are devalued and ignored. That birth is an act worthy of dignity should be sung from roof tops of mansions and shacks; this book is the libretto of that song, a guide for the restoration of the value of women and motherhood.

It is also a guide to a circular journey that lead a midwife from a forest glade on a small island off the southwest coast of Canada to a crowded village in India to find a companion who understood her vision: To see women birth in dignity and to uphold the work of the traditional midwife to help them with this. And so with Abha Bhaiya, her companion, the way was set. Abha is a co- founders of Jagori; a New Delhi based feminist collective, 20 years ago, committed to the spread of feminist ideology to create a just society for women and other marginalized groups. Abha’s dream was to create a Women’s Health Literacy Program that would educationally support the village Dai, the traditional midwife, and preserve and promote traditional and self-help health care.

This book is the result of that meeting and the commitment of Diane Smith to be open, to listen and to learn from Dais and all Indian women. The book begins with a record of women and birth through art and history from a time then women were honoured and birth was an act of wonder and awe. The present situation where women have such a demeaned status that they eat last, if any food is left over, and fast if there is only enough for men. This affects not only their health but the health of their children. Part of honouring women’s lives is to increase their self-confidence, empower them to act in their society and to change their degraded status. Health literacy is part of the process.

Much of the book is the practical journey through pregnancy to birth and to post-natal care, based in community where traditional knowledge must be restored and preserved.

The illustrations and photos are clear and detailed; the guide could be used anywhere for helping women. The wisdom of the women who participated in the workshops that provide he basis of this work is carefully documented. All the basic information about pregnancy, gestation and birth as well as outlined care instructions will help any community of women and birth attendants to work to together for the benefit of all. (photo by D.S)

With the publication of this powerful book, Diane Smith closed the circle and returned to Canada to assist her daughter to give birth last year. This book is a lasting testament to her passion and vision: To see women birth in dignity and to uphold the work of the traditional midwife to help them with this.

"In the face of what is called globalization-a world with no borders for capital–let us welcome this vindication of the internationalism of human solidarity." Eduardo Galeano, Uruguay on page 447 "Participate, don’t spectate."
"Listen, don’t preach." page 482

"If you come only to help me, you can go back home. But if you consider my struggle as part of your struggle for survival, than maybe we can work together.” by an un-named aboriginal women, from People’s Global Action Manifesto, on page 447

In the introduction to this excellent guidebook, Solnit says he is a carpenter and that, "I have packed this book like a tool belt, with the most useful and practical tools: ideas and understandings of how to uproot the system causing our problems to build a better world." He is also the brother of the eloquent writer & activist Rebecca Solnit; they credit and support each other in their work for global justice.

The book lives up to its introduction. There are essays by well known activists, like Walden Bello and Starhawk (see also Ellen Elster on www.bbcf.ca for a thoughtful feminist analysis.) This delightful book begins Section 1, What’s The Problem with a message from the U’wa of Colombia for us to love and respect Mother Earth entitled: The Money King is Only an Illusion. Surprises continue as this USA activist tries to present a truly global view.

Moving around the world from the collective to individuals, Section 2, How To Change Things brings us updates from the Zapatistas of Mexico to USA inner city activists and clear ‘how we did it’ reports. In Section 3, Ideas in Action, we learn about street theatre, USA farm workers, factory workers in Argentina, organizing anti racist resistance in Canada and overturning poll tax in the UK.

If I had to choose books for beginning activists and jaded older ones, I would certainly recommend this literary tool belt – it lives up to Solnit’s words, it is well-organized, many facets of social movements are explained, positive actions and results are laid out and there are great photos and illustrations.

Read it and then contemplate these words (page 483) from Subcommandante Marcos, "We are here and we are a mirror. Not reality, but merely its reflection. Not light, but merely a glimmer. Not a path, but merely a few steps. Not a guide, but merely one of the many routes which lead to tomorrow."

I would delete the "merelys." Each reflection, glimmer, step, path is important, including ours. We make the path by walking together and sharing light – this book does it well.

TW

"It´s always too soon to go home. And it´s always too soon to calculate effect."

Activists who feel despondent and or just plain tired will read this book and take heart in our work and find purpose in the creative search for a better world. Solnit believes we’ve had many successes; we can and should rejoice – and then carry on.

"I once read an anecdote by someone in Women Strike for Peace, the first great antinuclear movement in the United States, the one that did contribute to a major victory: the 1963 end of aboveground nuclear testing with its radioactive fallout that was showing up in mother’s milk and baby teeth. She told of how foolish and futile she felt standing in the rain one morning protesting at the Kennedy White House. Years later she heard Dr. Benjamin Spock –– one of the most high–profile activists on the issue then –– say that the turning point for him was seeing a small group of women standing in the rain, protesting at the White House. If they were so passionately committed, he thought, he should give the issue more consideration himself."

This is one of Solnit’s many stories of the unforeseen effect of activism – the work for peace and justice – and it sets the tone for her passionate commitment to a life of social action.

Her social history of the successes of social movements and their unpredictability give great hope to us all. She uses many well–known and some obscure examples to make her point: the possibilities of sustained social action, the results we dream of are what make it possible for us to find joy, purpose and creativity in our lives and that by recognizing our successes we don’t quit, but find strength to continue.

I looked a bit askance at the chapter heading, "A Dream Three Times the Size of Texas" and then found it was about indigenous peoples and the formation of Nunavut, the Inuit homeland, formerly part of the NWT. It covers one–fifth of Canada and represents a major accomplishment for the Arctic indigenous people who were decimated by first contact with the Europeans and then had to resist assimilation into the dominant culture. Like the Mayan leader, Rigoberta Menchu, Solnit sees the resurgence of indigenous populations in Canada and around the world as a source of great hope to us all when we consider that historians predicted the obliteration of indigenous culture by the end of the 20th century. She asks, "How do your measure the space between a shift in cultural conversation and a landmass three times the size of Texas?" We can’t measure but we can certainly recognize and learn from this wild possibility that became a reality.

Peace activists did not stop the war in Iraq from starting, but we built a global movement which still has the possibility to end the war. Our job did not begin with the occupation of Iraq, it shifted and continues. This is not the time to quit, but the time to work even harder. It’s way too soon to go home.

She details the progress of the resistance to the World Trade Organization since 1999 as social movements give information and encouragement to many governments to stand up against the bullies of the world. The resistance to the MAI in 1996–1998 and the failure of that agreement formed the basis of wild possibility in Seattle, Cancun and now Hong Kong latest WTO fiasco.

I thought of the ripple effect of the early labour organizers, the Tolpuddle martyrs in 1834 who were freed from hard labour in Australia by public outcry and thereby inspired other workers to organize. In Solnit’s hometown of San Francisco, USA, there are murals of social leaders, a statue of Bolivar and a starting place for rallies and demonstrations Market Square where the UN Charter was born. She says, "...for now this a place where history is still unfolding. Today is also the day of creation."

Read this book, take heart, take comfort and stand together in all social action. We make history and change history as we stand; the results are for future historians to record. We will have to make sure they are not untold; we need more activist historians everywhere like Solnit to illuminate our activism.

TW

Solnit weaves a wide ranging survey of an activity most of us take for granted from about the age of two on. She writes about walking as a historic activity from Greek philosophers to Romantic poets to urban nature seekers to spiritual pilgrims. Walking is movement which allows for visual pleasure, sensory delight and makes possible and easy, thought, reflection and creativity. She says walking is, “endlessly fertile: it is both means and end, travel and destination”. Solnit writes about walking as a leisure activity that developed into labyrinths and mazes, organized treks and tours, courting rituals, elite fashion parades and a chance for industrial workers to get clean air and exercise.

She tells us, most revealingly, “It was nuclear weapons that first lead me to walking history”. She writes about the power of people walking – speaking with their feet as they resist war and weaponry. She sees walking as a force that unifies people breaking through the abstraction and isolation of their resistance. Walking becomes, when it is an act of defiance, the power of many who occupy the public landscape and move through it, creating change and hope. This presents a contrast to the isolated acts of many lives – occupying rooms, offices shops, and vehicles in a world of disconnected spaces. She says, “On foot everything stays connected, for while walking one occupies the space between these interiors…one lives in the whole world rather than in interiors built up against it.”

Walking as an integral part of art and creativity still flourishes in this time of mechanized travel. “Walking as art calls attention to the simplest aspects of the act…to the way each act reflects and reinvents the culture in which it takes place.” This reminds me that I was told if I wanted to meet the great Uruguayan historian, Eduardo Galeano, I could just walk the beach of Montevideo in the morning and I would find it. There seems to be a correlation between moving feet and whirling brain cells.

Her research soon leads her to realize that solitary walking, walking freely and easily, walking at night is almost always the prerogative of the male. Indeed, a woman walking alone at night is widely known still as a streetwalker, a seller of sex. Women walk in safety mainly with companions in religious procession or in clubs and protests.

To walk alone is seen as an invitation; blaming the victim is often the rule. Others may also suffer assault and attack when walking – gays and racial minorities, for example, but Solnit says these are contextualized attacks, understood to be based on the nonconformity of the male victims. But thousands of women are killed and injured every year while trying to claim their place in the commons; their fates are not contextualized as specific to gender and seemingly, “do not require social reform or national soul–searching”. Certainly the death of over seventy women in the Vancouver area, taken one by one from the streets, has not resulted in widespread uproar in Canada. “Take Back the Night” and “Reclaim the Streets” are acts of resistance that will have to continue until the commons of open space is safe for all who travel on foot. Solnit sees this freedom as vital and ends her treatise on a poetic and hopeful note. “…walking has been one of the constellations in the starry sky of human culture, a constellation whose three stars are the body, the imagination and the wide–open world…walking has a history, the history trod out by all those poets and philosophers and insurrectionaries, by jaywalkers, streetwalkers, pilgrims, tourists, hikers, mountaineers.” We have a public responsibility to maintain the universality of this movement; to tread the footpaths of the globe.

The right to walk and connect with the world is a right we must exercise, cherish and protect. Walking is nothing less than the ultimate democratic freedom.

Reviewed by Theresa Wolfwood

“Scientific progress alone would be a hollow victory without the moral or ethical progress that must accompany it and ensure the humanization and humanity of our development and use of science.”

The canary used to detect poisonous gas in coal mines is a vivid metaphor for those who detect danger in our society and environment. (See my poem: We Are the Canaries. TW). When this doctor and specialist in medical law and ethics from The Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law at McGill University, Montreal, was invited to give a speech in Lubeck, Germany, she wanted to get the attention of her audience and realizing she was wearing yellow and black, she flapped her arms like a bird and said:

“I am an ethical canary or rather that the allocation of resources to health care is such a canary: How we deal with the allocation of resources to health is such a canary; How we deal with this issue will test the ethical air in our societal mineshaft. And if the ethical healthcare canary is sick, we need to worry about the ethical tome of our society as a whole.”

Her hosts from the Drager Foundation told her they were endowed by the company that developed equipment that replaced canaries in mineshafts. A good coincidence and still the image lives and touches many of us who have never seen a coal mine. Coincidences multiply, as I write, CBC 2 plays a tune called ‘The Hot Canary’ and I await news of my grandchild’s birth. My daughter refused “canaries” for her unborn child, both amniocentesis and ultrasound. She said she did not know what she would do with the information if it told her something unusual.

The Ethical Canary explores many ethical issues and their place in contemporary society; the author presents them as a collective with commonalities, as concerns that we all must face, individually and as a society. To define what is ethical is not easy; we have a secular pluralistic society where some may base their ethical decisions on various religious beliefs and others cleave to the modernity of reason and rationality. But neither science nor technology is neutral; both are conceived and controlled by human beings with emotions and diverse experiences. Both are available to people around the world with vastly different cultural values. This is where Dr. Somerville, an Australian now living in Canada, tries to bring some basis for ethics that most in our society can share or respect.

“If, therefore, the contemporary search for ethics is the search for values on which we will base our societies, we must all, especially as citizens of a global commons, be engaged in it.”

Some of the problems are well known to us. Abortion rights mean vastly different ideas, even within Canada. The right or non–right to abortion after rape or an unwanted pregnancy, abortion because amniocentesis has signalled a female child or one with physical disabilities or because the mother is considered in danger all provoke highly charged emotional reactions.

>Male circumcision and female genital mutilation are legal and accepted in some cultures and religions. Medical practitioners perform both in some parts of the majority world – claiming that it is safer and healthier when done in a medical environment. Yet both practices are opposed by many in our society. Do parents’ right supersede society in not only these customs but in treatment of seriously ill children? Some parents for religious reasons do not want blood transfusions given to their children; they are often overruled by court decisions favoured by the medical profession. What are ethical solutions? Another increasingly familiar and contentious issue is the intentional termination of one’s one life or that of a terminally ill or incapacitated relative; alternatively there is also the process of terminating life support without patient or family consent – a blanket practice in some Canadian hospitals. Somerville warns us that, “we must consider the impact of legalizing euthanasia not only at an individual level, (which has been the focus of the debate in the media), but also at the institutional, governmental and societal levels, and not only in the present but for the future”.

In a country where we persist in electing governments that cut all services except the bloated military, the ‘security’ and business support sectors, the author raises the problem of our ethical response to shrinking health care budgets and insurance payments. Who makes the decision to deny a treatment to some, but not others? She also looks at new drugs and their costs and access to treatment. One example is the case of women who have a genetic predisposition to breast cancer and their wish for paid access to tests in the USA and later to new expensive drugs. She also questions the dynamics of healthcare systems where politicians, bureaucrats, lawyers, doctors, other medical workers and patients often have conflicting needs and values. And often money trumps all.

There are more complex issues waiting in the wings yet to be considered as major concerns by most of our society, yet the ramifications of the new techniques of genetic manipulation and cloning are immense now and unimaginable for the future. Do we want to create disease-free babies? Intellectually-enriched children? Do we condone the selling of organs for organ transplant by the poor or involuntary organ sales from prisoners? What about the replacement of human parts with animal parts? Is it OK with pig parts but not chimpanzees? Should we encourage genetic manipulation if it cures disease? Should embryos be used for cloning, a process that kills the embryo? There is a whole raft of related implications to consider.

If science can do it, some feel that it should or will happen. The author compares our present state of new biological power with the grasping of nuclear power in 1945. She quotes the atomic scientist, Robert Oppenheimer, who said: “In some sort of crude science which no vulgarity, no humour, no overstatement can quite extinguish, the physicists have know sin; this is a knowledge they cannot lose.”

It seems that we are facing the same dilemma again, and look where that one got us. We need to educate ourselves about these issues –this book, tough dealing with complex issues is well–written and easy to follow and understand. And we can do well by holding in our minds and heart, Dr. Somerville’s guidelines for values to apply when we accept our responsibility to control and direct new science and technology: “These values are that we must have profound respect for life, in particular human life, and we must act to protect the human spirit – the intangible, invisible, immeasurable reality that we need to find meaning in life and to make life worth living – tat deeply intuitive sense of relatedness or connectedness to the world and the universe in which we live.”

Before I finish this review my partner has finished a book he started, not knowing the book I was reading. He read the witty and perceptive novel, The Cloning of Joanna May, by UK writer Fay Weldon, which she wrote very prophetically as it turns out, in 1989. The villain who works in the nuclear industry clones his wife & gets his just desserts in the end.

And as I finish this review, I celebrate the birth of a healthy child to my daughter and her loving partner.

Review by Theresa Wolfwood.

The common ground of these essays which span twenty–five years of journalism is the ground where Arabs and non–Arabs co–exist. The author of several novels, including ‘The Map of Love’, which was a Booker Prize finalist, wrote these articles from 1981–2004. She says that they “are the direct product of the interaction between myself and the condition of living in the UK.”.

She is keenly aware that the UK and western media present a twisted and biased view of the Arab and Middle Eastern world. She writes that, “It was impossible – apart from a few notable exceptions – to find in the media of the West coherent interpretations of all this that did justice to the people of the region and their history.” Yet she says that the view of the West in the Arab media focuses on policies, technology and art, particularly those that connect to the Arab world. So the reader can feel her frustration and find a remedy in her many articles that reflect her interests and involvement; the stories range in locale from Morocco to Palestine to Iran; many of her subjects are women, the half of a population pretty much ignored by western media and writers.

She writes a good review of Fatima Mernissi’s latest, The Forgotten Queens of Islam, (which I will now track down) which addresses two issues, important in Islamic society; who can govern and how, and do women have any right to govern. Mernissi relates the history of a number of little known women who ruled in Islamic countries and Soueif, like Mernissi, regrets the loss of such leadership.

There is much criticism in this collection, not only of outsiders trying to write about and interpret another culture, but also of insiders who have glorified themselves at the expense of history and other people. Her review of a collection of Palestinian stories is pretty harsh, even though she recognizes the effort to reflect the rich culture of this nation struggling to just survive. In fact, my first contact with Soueif was not as a novelist, but as the translator of Mourid Barghouti’s memoir I Saw Ramallah (reviewed in this list), she comes down hard on bad translations and inaccurate use of Arabic – which is completely understandable in light of its importance in world affairs as well as cultural understanding. She is enough of an outsider, a visitor to the common ground to view her birth culture with a somewhat detached view but at the same time with intimate knowledge and sensitivity.

The essay on the veil, a symbol for the West of Islamic women, points out that fashion in clothing is in every culture, the veil of Islam is different in every country and not always worn by every Islamic woman. She sees the attention given to it in the West as a fearful obsession of this concrete symbol of difference. The veil has become political in many instances as hostility towards Western modernism grows in many countries. (After reading her essay on USA military torture of Iraqi prisoners, one can understand why.) Today’s world is all about image and the veil is a powerful image of identity for millions.

This is a rich and varied collection with many insights and glimpses into a world little known to us, I recommend it to all those interested in the richness of another culture. I end with a few words from her tribute to Edward Said, the great Palestinian intellectual (who lived and taught in the USA, which I can never understand, but I admired him also.) She described him, “in the most private conversation, as well as in public, he was always human, always fair, always inclusive. ‘What is the matter with these people?’ he asked after a recent debate. ‘Why does no one mention truth, or justice anymore?’ He believed that ordinary people all over the world still cared about truth and justice. My life and many others’ are desolate without him.” A heartfelt tribute to a major thinker and a fine person. She says it well. TW

This is wonderful sweep of fiction across a century of people and their place in society, war, oppression, and cultural differences in the vast and complex history of North Africa. Its colonial past and the seeds of contemporary violence in Egypt and Palestine are woven into the development of two love stories, one hundred years apart, both highly unconventional for their times.

Anna Winterbourne is the widow of a soldier who was emotionally destroyed by his role in the British massacre of Sudan where, “An army of 7000 British and 20000 Egyptian soldiers lose 48 men and kills 11000 dervishes and wounds 16000 in the space of 6 hours”. …Sadly out–armed the Sudanese fought with spears as, “Men impassioned by an idea of freedom and justice in their own land.” And today the seeds of those colonial tragedies resonate across our television screens.

She goes to Egypt to find answers to her husband’s trauma, becomes immersed in the nationalist struggles of Egyptians, suffering under European domination and falls in love.

Almost one hundred years later her descendent, Isobel Parkman, falls in love with an Egyptian conductor and tries to piece together their connection revealed in evocative letters found in an old trunk. She and Amal, her lover’s sister, who has her own struggles with present day corruption and injustice in Egypt, unfold the story of their common heritage.

Amal is trying to preserve the life of her home village, but a friend with globalized profits in mind – and more – wants to modernize and maximize agriculture. He says, “…If land is to be viable, it has to pay.”

And she replies, “Yes, but can’t it pay just a little? Why does it have to keep paying more and more? I don’t understand all this growth business – surely growth can’t be infinite, can it?” A question that can be asked anywhere in today”s world.

The wonderful and eloquent writing carry readers into an amazing insight into past politics and history and to a clear understanding of current struggles for justice. With the appeal of totally believable and sympathetic characters of widely different cultures and times, we are held enthralled and captivated through 500 pages and a century of events.

Theresa Wolfwood.

Witty but wise look at the great lengths and deceit the corporate world will go to, to sell us products and lies that damage and destroy life and society. Some great anecdotes about how some have been exposed.

The Water You Drink: Safe or Suspect? is a comprehensive manual on the use and conservation of our most precious resource. Stauffer starts by explaining that although much of our planet is covered with water, most is salt water and large scale desalinization of the oceans is not feasible. Only 3% of our water is fresh and of that, less than 1% is available for drinking water. Water does not disappear; it is a constantly recycling resource. We may drink and pee the same molecules many times in our lives. Much of our accessible water is becoming polluted by the chemical industry, human sewage and salt. What brings that home to me was the World Social Forum, Mumbai, where in a crowded and leaky women’s toilet, I found a poster: YOUR PEE IS SAFER THAN THE WATER 2 BILLION PEOPLE DRINK.

The answer, according to the author, is to first understand the limitations of water availability and then face the fact that we, North Americans, use and waste more water than any other society. The author takes us through the contamination of water, systems of extraction and distribution and how water can be made safe. She provides information and instruction for those of use who get our water from a municipal system as well as for the many Canadians who get their own water from wells and surface water.

There are individual solutions for water safety but most important thing we can do is become active in community water care – keep it public, accountable and safe. The book devotes a whole chapter to the important subject of reducing consumption. Water is a political issue and we need to be political about it. Private systems and privatization of distribution and sources of water are elitist and dangerous. The rich can ignore universal clean water as a social necessity if they are allowed to encourage the privatization of distribution and consumption of our precious resource – because they can, or think they can, always pay for purity and plenty.

The book also covers the increasing use of bottled water for drinking. She says that bottling factories are visited every 12-18 months by The Canadian Food Inspection Agency. It may be no better than your tap (in fact, it may be your tap water) and using it avoids many important concerns – the quality and care of public water, contamination in your washing, and the expense – water can cost the same as gasoline! And think about the pollution caused by the production and pollution of billions of plastic bottles. That leads us straight into the new book by Tony Clarke.

Review by Theresa Wolfwood

“The perfume of freedom has burned my mind…”

When I finished reading this history of a remarkable and committed activist and the anthology of his sixty years of poetry, prose, and speeches, I regretted my own failure to talk with him four years ago. In a grassy field by the river in Porto Alegre, we were participating in the opening of the World Social Forum; I was carrying two of my handmade banners that many people wanted to photograph. A wispy gray haired man approached with a camera and asked me about the banners and chatted for a few minutes. He introduced himself as Dennis Brutus. I was speechless – a rare event – but managed to say: Are you the South African Dennis Brutus, the poet? Then, photos taken, I scuttled off in confused awe and never saw him again.

In my years of work in the international and local anti–apartheid movements and my pursuit of poetry that spoke to political reality, I discovered Brutus’ poetry and heard of his activism. But I knew few details of his life and work. This book of memoir, speeches, interviews and poetry is an excellent account of Dennis Brutus and informed my admiration of his courage, commitment and perseverance.

Classified as “coloured” by the South African government, Brutus’ parents were schoolteachers and they instilled a love of literature in their son; he also was able to get a reasonable education. At an early age he became aware of the injustice and inequality in South African society; an active boy, he saw the results in sport; non–whites had not the opportunity, equipment nor place to become good athletes. None were allowed on prestigious national teams. He saw the system in South Africa as a form of Nazism, developed and strengthened by the white South African government after WW2. Brutus was teaching school then and he began to challenge apartheid on many levels, including education and sport. He lost his job, was arrested, shot and jailed for his activism in 1964.

The accounts of his time in jail are horrific, the conditions were appalling and both guards and prisoners were dehumanized and brutal in this terrible system. Brutus, as were all prisoners, was beaten and tormented; but he still cared for others he saw as weaker and more vulnerable – young men who were tortured until they accepted rape and constant sexual abuse. He managed to express his feelings and observations in poetry that carries the smell and feel of horror.

In Letters to Martha, he writes:

“…To what separate limits are they driven
and what fierce agonies they have endured
that this, which they have resisted,
should seem to them preferable,
even desirable.”

In a series of stanzas entitled, Robben Island sequence, he describes the bleak setting and the soul destroying labour that prisoners on this infamous hellhole endured.

“ neonbright orange
vermillion
on the chopped broken slate
that graveled the path and yard
bright orange was the red blood
freshly spilt when prisoners had passed; …”

Some died, others were broken, but Brutus survived; perhaps poetry and political conviction helped him through.

“…Take out the poetry and fire
or watch it ember out of sight,
sanity reassembles its ash
the moon relinquishes the night.
But here and there remain the scalds
a sudden turn or breathe may ache,
and I walk soft on cindered pasts
for thought or hope (what else) can break.”

Brutus not only survived; after leaving prison and going into exile, he helped bring the conditions in South Africa to world attention. He organized massive and wide reaching actions that saw the government South Africa isolated and despised throughout the world. Brutus organized successful boycotts of white–only South African athletes’ attendance at the Olympics and many touring sport events. In the early 1970’s I remember I heard a news report on CBC radio – I was living in Yellowknife at the time – that my friend, Don Grier in Edmonton, had been carried off a football field and was one of many protestors jailed because they demonstrated against a white South African team playing in Canada, an act, no doubt inspired by Brutus and his comrades. Soon South African became isolated in many areas – cultural workers refused to go there, trade and tourism boycotts became widespread. The Rand sank in value.

Brutus was working hard throughout Europe and North America to expose apartheid. One group that got support, even from governments like Mulroney’s Conservatives in Canada, was The Aid and Defense Fund to help families of jailed and killed political activists and to provide legal assistance to those arrested for their political actions.

This was a group I was also involved in and we were able to funnel millions to the needy in South Africa and give them hope and dignity along with material assistance. Brutus writes that international support was crucial for the anti–apartheid struggle and its success.

When the jubilation over the fall of apartheid and the possibility of true democratic government in South Africa had passed by and world attention moved on to other issues –like the end of the ‘cold war’ and new trade liberalization agreements, Brutus and many others saw the beginning of betrayal of commitment to social justice by the new government they had worked so hard to support and elect in the new South Africa.

Even as early as 1974 Brutus saw a deeper and more complex reality. He said then that the struggle was deeper and more complex than apartheid, “…the significance of the Southern Africa [he was including Namibia, Mozambique etc.] Liberation movement is that it goes beyond resistance. It is not resistance to oppression; it is not even liberation merely in the sense of freedom to govern yourself…It is not a local nor even a national struggle. We see ourselves as an element in the global struggle against imperialism….”

So although Brutus does not live in South Africa he connects all struggles and is still in 2006 deeply committed to justice in South Africa. He participates in and supports the new movements against neoliberalism and privatization in South Africa, the oppression by the World Bank and the IMF and South Africa’s new role as a sub-imperialist power for the USA.

He is criticized for his global view and for his long distance involvement; but he remains connected, optimistic and active. When speaking about cultural change he says that, “…that one of the things we are doing is to engage ourselves in the struggle to recover and rediscover our humanity…” He sees that resistance is part of presenting to society that there are other ways of being and that creative political engagement requires that we participate in the creation of ‘another possible world’ as the Social Forum process calls it. In an interview in 2002 Brutus says that, “The reality is that Africa has been recolonized. It is the neocolonial process that is now paralyzed” by conflicts in which South Africa arms both sides, so he concludes, “don’t send in the killer to clean up the killing. Find alternatives among themselves.” A call that was also eloquently stated by Wangari Maathai in her Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 2004 when she said that solutions to problems must come from us.

>The answers lie in all of us, not in powerful forces that help create the problem. This seems to me to be at the heart and to be the strength of Brutus’ life work – not only protest but constructive resistance that creates new ways of living together and serving liberation and justice, “in the struggle for the liberation of humanity in Africa and the rest of the world, in an attempt to achieve our full potential, our full dignity, our full humanity.”

This connected engagement is very clear when he talks about his poetry. He says he could not be a full time poet, that poetry is an outflow of his personal and political life. He says that the poet as a pet has no obligation to be committed to social activism – he believes that the poet as a human being, that all human beings have an obligation.

“We ought all to be committed because we are people, we’re all part of the same human environment.” He says he could not make a total commitment to poetry because it, “would do damage to what I now regard as essential to integrity for me. Which means social concern.”.

Although some of his poetry may seem fleeting and fragmented, when looked at in the total context it is part of a continuous flow of life, work, feelings and relationships. That gives it a vivid power and a particular strength.

Just after I met him so briefly he would have written these lines in: At night, after Porto Alegre: South African Airways 747

“In this dim winged cathedral
soaring above oceans of silvery cloud
far beyond Atlantic’s tumultuous heave
we move, star–girt distant
from greed’s debris, genocides, calcined bones
curled in our private shrines
or bent over light–pooled pages
to a new world, new earth, where finally
our dreams can be fulfilled.”

Much can understood of Brutus’ perseverance and productivity by reading an untitled poem in 1989 where he wrote:

“…the creative act is an act
of dissent and defiance: creative
ability is a quintessential part
of being human: to assert one’s
Creativity is also to assert one’s
Humanity. This is a premise on which
I have acted all my life and it is
the premise I have offered to others
As an inspiration.”

TW

This is a harrowing, but believable novel by the actor Meg Tilly who grew up in British Columbia. Although it is a novel, Tilly says she suffered abuse from men her mother knew in her childhood; this novel is based on some of her experiences.

Childhood sexual abuse by close family members and friends is one of the last taboo subjects in our society. Yet nearly every family has experienced it, some acknowledge it and others ignore it. What is so hard to comprehend is expressed in this book, that often parents, particularly mothers, and others know what is happening & turn a blind eye to abuse. This seems incredible, but in many instances is part of the terrible destruction of the trust and responsibility a parent owes a child. In this book we see this abuse through the mind and words of a child who is trapped by adult power and the lack of an alternative. Gemma is abducted and taken on a sordid road trip though the USA. Attempts to break away are never recognized and supported by other adults. Finally a doctor and a police officer save her and the child slowly begins to believe that adults can be trusted.

Tilly also captures the mentality of the brutes who abuse children. Somehow in the twisted mind of Gemma’s captor and rapist, he actually thinks he loves and cares for her. That is truly the scariest part of the book and made me think about the justification for war in Afghanistan where we are killing and impoverishing women because we want to “free” them. Her captor similarly thinks he is doing her a favour and that she will welcome him when he returns (from jail).

This twisted mentality results in more violence at the personal and political level and a societal denial that individuals and societies cannot be saved by force. We have to recognize in our own community that power abuse is common, widespread and tolerated – just as it is on a global level.

A great collection of essays from a global range of authors about all different aspects of biotechnology, from food to body parts, from cancer to cloning. Very hopeful that this is one struggle the people for life may win.

By Theresa Wolfwood

“Cultural intervention can alter a whole society, destroying traditions, customs, values and mores developed over centuries…Far beyond its economic exploitation, cultural intervention destroys the aspects of life that best identify a whole people from all their history, imagination and character…
Psychological intervention invades the mind, telling its subjects what they are to believe and be.” Ramsey Clark in his opening essay

Some years ago I was struggling to understand the situation in the former Yugoslavia, the conflicts, wars and disintegration of a nation. I came across the IAC´s book “NATO in the Balkans”. It made the situation clear to me; the post cold war naivety that infected many of us was stripped away and I could grasp the power of USA global dominance.

While much of our global attention is focussed on conflict in Asia, economic and environmental disasters, the USA is continuing its many decades of intervention and sabotage in Latin America. Colombia is the launching pad for the USA´s economic, political, military and environmental attack on Latin America. The thirty — eight contributions in this valuable guide are organized under themes; USA intervention in Colombia, Voices from Colombia, USA intervention: the regional picture, the world responds to Plan Colombia and the people of the USA say No. Altogether, the writers not only make clear the domination of Colombia by the USA but also the superpower´s past and future designs on Latin America — seen though the eyes of USA activists, Colombian resisters in many organizations — unionists, peasants, indigenous peoples, human rights workers and intellectuals — and the viewpoint of other Latin Americans and Europeans.

The topics range from the phony ´War on Drugs´ to the machinations of ´Plan Colombia´ to personal stories of those who choose armed resistance, those who struggle at great risk in trade unions, the future of coca agriculture to essays and speeches by leaders in Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador and the actions coming out of major international conferences.
As Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador challenge the USA; politics are heating up daily in Latin America, and the USA beefs up its 16 known military facilities inside Colombia to threaten both Bolivia and Venezuela. That leaves the Colombian military and paramilitary to control its population — from taking peasants off the land to assassinating any resistance activists who oppose the USA puppet regime.

Of particular interest is the campaign against Coca Cola — the symbol and active presence of the USA everywhere. A boycott of CC organized by Colombian unions (whose leaders are regularly disappeared and murdered) and USA unions should be one of the most effective global boycotts ever — CC is guilty of many transgressions, not only in Colombia, and to say nothing of rotting the teeth and stomachs of millions. The power of advertising and lobbying seems to prevent people world—wide from really endorsing and joining the boycott.

All these varied and important contributions come together to give a clear picture of the almost 200 years of USA´s (and Canada´s, more recently, from our trade to our gift of ruthless advisors to Colombian presidents) cosy involvement with a protected and ruthless regime in a land of rich resources and a majority population whose millions live in poverty and insecurity.

This useful summary and overview is part of a series of beginner’s guides published by Oneworld. I’d like to see the others also – on Genetics, Palestine–Israel and particularly Postmodernism, a subject on which I shall always be a beginner.

Tormey presents a well organized schematic look at the modern anti–capitalist movement in recent years. He believes that the last five years since WTO Seattle in 1999 calls for a redefinition of anti–capitalist movements – essentially the hopeful and forward looking strategy that has developed globally. He says, “What we have witnessed since Seattle is an enormous outpouring of analyses, commentaries, manifestos all to go alongside of the huge increase in activist materials, websites, newspapers and periodicals.” The author has set himself the task of winnowing through and noting books and materials relevant to this new phase of global resistance.

He notes works from the movement, including by the Notes from Nowhere Collective and collections edited by Veronica Bennholdt–Thomsen et al, with many global writers, as well as “expert analyses” by academics and researchers. Many are USA or UK oriented like Moore and Chomsky, others like Bello give a global perspective from the majority world. He provides a useful list of websites.

He gives a good basis for the investigation of the nature of capitalism and the new global democracy and social justice movements – as I prefer to call them. He discusses the work of the Mexican Zapatistas; a modern movement in every sense who rose up in Chiapas the day NAFTA came into effect, 10 years ago, and went online to the world. I wish he could have found space for more grassroots groups, mainly of women, around the world and the local community building in Argentina as it disintegrated at the national government level. I recommend a good companion read would be Wild Politics by Susan Hawthorne (Spinifex Press, Australia) for what Tormey did not fit in.

Tormey’s analysis of the future of the movements and their problems is very thoughtful. To change the political structures and policies, we ultimately must face the question of power. How do we maintain the radical rooted democracy we profess when we strategize to gain and keep political power? He is thorough in his questioning but optimistic – we saw the supposed impossible fall of Soviet-style communism, we now face the failure of liberal democracy. We need to be prepared to create “another possible world” which we struggle to define and articulate as we work in the everyday struggle. Tormey (whose dedication to his mother is one I would love to have) helps not only beginners, but seasoned activists, to clarify and focus on our movement building.

Review by Theresa Wolfwood

“Music has an inexplicable way of elevating humankind to its noblest action.” Youssou N´Dour, Senegalese singer

“…creative
ability is a quintessential part
of being human: to assert one´s
Creativity is also to assert one´s
Humanity.” Dennis Brutus, South African poet

“…music can enable people, somehow, to ´get inside´ each other´s minds, feel each other´s suffering and recognize each other´s shared humanity –that is, in common understanding, to have empathy for each other”. Felicity Laurence. P. 14

This collection of essays by thirteen authors from five continents explores a new terrain – the relationship of music with peace as an active search. Music is easy to define, an art form in sound which all cultures create and use. For many peace is the absence of war, for some it is the absence of fear and need, for others peace is presence of justice. For this book the agreed definition of peace, conceived by peace researcher and contributor to this volume, Johan Galtung is: peace is the capacity to transform conflicts with empathy, creativity and non-violence.

To work for peace in any medium is a true act of creativity. The geography of pace is vast and barely charted. We can never be sure what event or action will bring peace to fruition; probably many factors are involved. So if music can be developed to be part of the process; to add to the sowing of many seeds, to empower us for peace–building and to disempower the forces of violence, so much the better for all.

Olivier Urbain is the co–founder of a global network, Transcend: Art and Peace, (see: www.tapnetwork.org/about_us/index.html) which is dedicated to using all the arts in the cause of peace. An amateur musician and a peace researcher with the Toda Institute for Global Peace and Policy Research, he is ploughing new ground when he brings together academics with abstract ideas on the topic, practitioners of music as a way to achieve peace on a personal and group level with musicians who try through their work to influence society to be peaceful.

As George Kent and others explain, music itself is not peaceful; in some contexts it is violent and hostile. Governments and the military have used the power of music for centuries to stir soldiers and populaces into warfare and xenophobia; music is used to harass prisoners and street people. But music has the power to move us deeply, to release feelings of love and unity as well as to reveal deep wells of creativity in all of us; even artists who are not musicians can be inspired by music to create in the search for our common humanity. Music is an important part of oral history, those without written history have kept their stories of resistance to oppression and their journey to peace and justice alive down through centuries to continue to move us and feel empathy with their lives.

Music therapy, the use of music to create personal health and recovery from mental and physical illness and social trauma, has a well–documented history and is practised in hospitals and schools, prisons and situations of local conflict. In her chapter, Maria Elena Lopez Vinader gives an excellent background to the practice of this therapy and how she applies it in her work while she challenges us to see if this discipline can move towards ´a social music therapy´ in a greater social and even planetary transformation.

Vegar Jordanger describes a process called Guided Imagery with Music (GIM) helping to reconcile Chechen, North Ossetian and Russian participants to create a ´collective vulnerability´ where all might transform feelings of shame and anxiety into positive emotions within the group; a part of the process of healing cultural violence.

In the context of peace activism, music has a long history of strengthening peaceful feelings and supporting peaceful action. Several writers explore this path in the book. The role of music in the USA civil rights movement, as well as in peace and popular movements in Europe and USA, is better known than the importance of music in the struggle for freedom in South Africa – which surely could be called the struggle for peace. It was documented in an excellent film a few years ago. ´AMANDLA: A revolution in 4 part harmony´ (see www.bbcf.ca film reviews) showed how music kept alive the revolution against the cruelty of apartheid for decades in South Africa. In her contribution, Anne–Marie Gray carries that further as she documents the history of music and social change in South Africa to its application to the important reconciliation process after apartheid was abolished. This continuing process as Cynthia Cohen writes can assist in social integration. She says that, “music is well suited to the work of building peace, because it can facilitate communication, understanding and empathy across differences of all kinds.”
Building across differences is described in Urbain´s chapter on the musician, Yair Dalal, self–identified as an “Arab Israeli Jew”. Through the revelation of his own mixed sense of identity and his results in uniting Arabs and Israelis in their common musical heritage, he seeks to create peace through the bonds of music. He not only uses the music and instruments of both groups but brings together Arab and Israeli adults and children to create and perform music together. Urbain writes, “Yair Dalal´s music allows us to build a better appreciation of the common roots of the people in the region [Middle East] , and it gives hope that they one day may find a way to once again share their ancestral lands.”.
We should also heed one writer´s timely warning that we must carefully guard against the globalized music industry, selling music as a commodity for enormous power and profit. Connecting peace and music — indeed all forms of creativity — is an important and powerful way to ensure that all artists and arts are honoured for their creations and to encourage everyone to recognize her or his potential to create art. If to create art is to recognize our humanity, surely that creative impulse will be linked to a sense of interconnectedness between all humans in a possible peaceful world.

In a brief review it is impossible to do justice to all the contributors on the many interpretations and reflections about connecting music and conflict resolution. My bias is to seek practical examples; I am an activist, not an academic. Another reader might choose to highlight different parts of the book. Regardless of emphasis, anyone interested in this little explored field will find in this volume many nuggets of insight and fertile ideas to nurture study, action and performance in the essays as well as the valuable appendices and references.

Olivier Urbain has done an admirable collaboration with a diverse group of writers to present a thoughtful and thought–provoking exploration of new connections in human endeavour where we all belong. A complementary website with sources & music is being created: www.book.music4ct.org/media

In the quoted words of Antjie Krog, South African poet,

“…among the keynotes of song and suffering there are soft silences where we who belong, all of us, can come to rest.”

“A culture is no better than its woods.” W. H Auden, p. 215

“How would you convince people that material temptations, social status, and educational institutions, are used to preserve and perpetuate the status quo, with very little real consideration for life on earth?” Grant Hadwin. p.171

The main threads of this engrossing work are the lives of one obsessed man and a mutant Sitka spruce in Haida Gwaii (the Queen Charlotte Islands, BC). The fabric is an impressive swath of the history of coastal BC, of globalization, privatization, and resource-depletion from centuries past, long before those terms were invented. A deserving winner of the Governor General’s award, Vaillant has done an incredible job of writing a fast-moving and gripping story while including and connecting not only the history of this region, but global trade, geography, botany, cultural studies and a fair amount of psychology and philosophy. The main myths are poignant stories of Haida culture but also include a few of the dominant culture of Canada. The greed and madness revealed in this story, far from being that of one man, are of all humanity.

Grant Hadwin, an experienced BC woodsman of amazing strength and determination, on a dark night in 1997 alone with a chainsaw, killed a 300 year old spruce with golden needles. A golden spruce is a beautiful rarity in itself, but this was also one of a few old growth Sitka spruce – a tree that only grows in the temperate rainforest of the northern Pacific coast. Hadwin’s life is in the centre of this understanding of his shocking vandalism. This golden tree was sacred to the Haida but was also visited and studied by scientists and tourists. In his last writings Hadwin refers to the tree as a “pet” tree of the logging companies who have stripped the life and beauty of so much of BC in their zeal to profit as richly as possible while still possible. Although considered by many to be mentally disturbed or mad, Hadwin challenges us in these messages to recognize the madness of our society. He chopped down the tree (with later apologies to the Haida) in order to make a point about our short sightedness, greed and stupidity as we destroy nature while we attempt to separate ourselves from it. He attacks sees how proud we are of our technological powers as we clear cut paradise.

Hadwin wrote, “...re-examine your perspective...we tend to focus on individual trees like the Golden Spruce while the rest of the forests are being slaughtered.” Even though most people did indeed fail to use the event to focus on massive destruction of our biosphere, a Haida ex-logger agreed that it was “a great idea”. It was MB’s (MacMillan Bloedel, the lumbering giant of the time has since been sold to Weyerhaeuser of the USA, another sign of our times, and most recently re-sold. TW ) pet tree.” The ex-logger explained the prevalent attitude as, “If I don’t do it, somebody else will.” Sea otters, salmon, buffalo, and many species have been depleted by this twisted logic – and still we continue.

After he confessed to the act, Hadwin left Price Rupert on some of the roughest water in the world, saying he intended to kayak to his trial at Masset on Haida Gwaii. He never arrived. Months later his kayak and some belongings were found on an island. Many people believe that Hadwin, the mythic man of the woods, is still alive. Meanwhile, a rooted shoot from the tip of the felled giant has been planted in a park in Port Clements in Haida Gwaii where residents still mourn the loss of their sacred spruce.

Science and commerce pursue the dream of replicating and controlling nature – a myth in itself. So next time you go to the USA (where else?) to show the kids Disneyland or loose your shirt in Las Vegas, you can pick up a puny, stunted graft of the famous tree for only $40 at retail nurseries. By the end of the book, it is clear where the madness is rooted and if we realize and respond to this book, the death of the golden spruce may have served a purpose.

TW

Warnock was the first person who came to me in the mid-eighties and said: you have to learn about Free Trade; It´s very important. So when an elderly friend told me to do something about the planned FTA, I responded to her by organizing a meeting for Jack to speak about Free Trade. Since then he has published several books on this topic, all excellent resources about the planned takeover of our commons.

Jack moved back to Saskatchewan and has been very active in political life there in recent years. His return to the crucible of much of the radical political thought and change in Canada has inspired his latest combination of history, criticism and analysis.

He traces the rise of political movements in Saskatchewan led by farmers and workers who had a clear understanding of their problems and solutions. One of the solutions was the formation of the CCF party which wanted universality of social programs, control over the economy and the elimination of poverty. In the middle of the last century we saw many of these goals realized. But today the corporations control most of our economy; including public media and education (just see all the agri-biz companies on the grounds of the University of Saskatchewan). The possibility for public debate and analysis based on knowledge has shrunk to invisibility. Warnock says that the media and academia both promote the free market as the solution to all ills.

Political parties echo that ideology and the NDP, the offspring of the CCF no longer promotes public ownership or universality with any conviction. What holds for Saskatchewan, in spite of its radical history, holds for all of Canada. The study of economics, Warnock says, makes no mention of wealth and power. And he details the sellout of social democracy everywhere, with the Labour Party of UK as a leading example.

Warnock closes this book with a chapter on building an alternative to neoliberalism – locally and globally. In fact, the two are in today’s world, indivisible because neoliberalism is aimed at disempowering citizens in the powerful minority world while it impoverishes and degrades the majority world. The results are most severe in the majority world and it is there that the leadership of the new anti–globalization and social justice movements has risen. We have seen the opposition to the corporate right in this region in Seattle, the opposition to trade agreements and in Mexico, on the day NAFTA came into effect, the Zapatistas burst into or consciousness and for 10 years have provided an example of local people power against global elite power. Ecology based movements and parties in many countries now present alternatives to the right and centre traditional parties.

Warnock points out that the world capitalist system is going through an economic and political crisis. The war on Ira is one example. The crisis of legitimacy as Walden Bello of the Philippines calls it, has revealed the false promise of capitalism to many in the majority world. And here, Warnock says, people still are opposed to privatization of public assets, we oppose militarism in many instances and we are, in spite of our governments not convinced of closer integration with the USA. Warnock is optimistic that people in Canada, as elsewhere, will build on our new resistance movements and reject the elitist free market solution whose façade is cracking everywhere. It is our task to enlarge those cracks and to push up from our roots, a new organic and just society.

A work of fiction by the famous British novelist, this is truly the most brilliant satire I have ever read on war, militarism, social justice and human stupidity; written nearly twenty years ago, it is still as biting and relevant as when first published.

It is the story of a events on a snowy winter’s night at the Shrapnel Academy, named after Henry Shrapnel, inventor of the exploding cannonball. The occasion is the annual Wellington Lecture to be given by General Leo Makeshift. Guests, both honoured and otherwise, assemble for the Eve–of–Waterloo dinner after being assigned their rooms, each named after a battle or general – Napoleon, El Alemain, Genghis Khan. The snow storm continues and the dinner, expertly prepared with unusual ingredients and served with fine beverages, loosens tongues and morals while international and cultural conflicts rage beneath the stairs in the servants’ quarters. The whole evening comes to a satisfying climax and the folly and innocence of 331 people is resolved. Read it and find out!

Review by Theresa Wolfwood

This small book is from an excellent series on single items — others worth reading are on condoms, diamonds and mosquitoes; as are most writing by The New Internationalist, including other books series and their monthly magazine; pithy, easy to read and packed with interesting information — that always makes global connections.

The universal T—shirt started with a simple undershirt, a singlet, worn in Europe, became an army garment and it emerged by 1950s as a popular outer garment in the T form we know today — cotton, short sleeves and round high neck.

The plain T—shirt soon became an irresistible blank canvas for images and messages — geographic souvenirs, political slogans, cartoons and sophisticated photo and silk screen pictures. But it is the popular concept of people being willing to buy something, probably made in an Asian sweatshop, and wear it while advertising the corporation that sells it that amazes me. Why are so many people willing to pay to make themselves and their children into billboards and pay for the ´privilege´?

Che Guevara must be the most popular T—shirt decoration in the world — sadly more of a fashion statement than a political stance. Here he is shown smoking — a rare image— on a young man in Palestine — a place where smoking is almost universal. Photo: TW/08

It is because of the essential cotton content that she says, “the T—shirt is a perfect guide to the veiled world of cotton.” This is a world of global commerce, chemicals and politics.The beauty and simplicity of this garment still masks a nasty history and an ugly reality from the slave trade to indentured labour to the present of sweatshops. Powerful corporations that manipulate genes with ease can manipulate our desires just as easily. Independence movements and colonialism have been replaced by trade agreements and economic neo—colonialism

Cotton is grown and harvested in hot and humid weather. In modern times it is the world´s most chemically treated plant — from seed to store. GMO cotton has been promoted in Asia — often followed by crop failure, massive peasant debt and frequently resulting in suicide of the ruined farmers. Labourers harvesting cotton world wide do gruelling work for low wages. In factories making yarn and garments sweatshop workers (including children) of today are as badly treated and disposable as slaves in the past. All this to fuel the vast greedy corporations that create today´s consumer world.

Gandhi spun cotton as a political and spiritual act every day. His concern for cotton fuelled an independence movement and his spinning wheel is on the Indian flag. Photo by Rita James, my mother, on board ship, 1931.
Many organizations are challenging and informing about our access to cheap T— shirts.
“Sam Mahr of Look Behind the Label, which campaigns against sweatshops, says: When you buy a T—shirt for a few pounds it´s only so cheap because someone else is paying the cost.”

There are two forces trying to change our consumer habits. Better known is the campaign for ´organic.´ While not addressing the need for labour justice, this campaign is helped by personal concern about ´healthy choices´ in the minority world and a more general concern for the environment. Wells says that the organic T—shirt does not contain chemicals, respects the fertility of the soil and promotes the development of wildlife. While workers are not exposed to massive levels of chemicals, they may still be exploited by owners and bosses. This is where fair trade comes in. A fair trade product means that workers at all levels have decent working conditions and secure wages; it also means that community life — schools, clinics, utilities are supported.

“T—shirts are big business: the industry is currently worth about $60 billion a year, The challenge is to have more support for Majority World producers on fair terms.”

That requires a massive consumer re—education campaign. We Minority World shoppers who think we have a divine right to cheap and plenty have to re—think our values. It can be done — fair trade has been growing at a rapid pace in coffee, cocoa and tea — changing the lives of millions of workers. It can be done with cotton. We can shop less and when we buy, buy justice — on T—shirts ” everything. And when we wear a decorated T—shirt, choose our message carefully, make the statement we support. Wells has given us documented reason to change our values and to get us active. She ends with a never truer than now quote from Shakespeare.

“The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.”

Review by Theresa Wolfwood

The Bitter Sweet World of Chocolate is much more than a beautiful cookbook. It intersperses short articles about many aspects of the life of cocoa and its use with really good recipes. It is a cookbook with a difference – it is a cookbook to encourage Fair Trade. Through the book are photos and the words of farmers who benefit from Fair Trade, mainly on cooperative farms in Ghana and the book ends with sources of more information, contacts and action ideas on Fair Trade.

The layout and illustrations are beautiful, this is a great book to own or to give; the recipes are wonderful, I have already made the biscotti and I love a cookbook that is a reference book as well. There are charts on the production and consumption of chocolate worldwide; Switzerland is per capita the highest, Canada ranks sixteenth. Nearly all the major processors of chocolate are in Europe and the USA. None are in Africa where most of the raw material of chocolate is produced.

Chocolate need not be bitter if it is Fair Trade, a form of just marketing that is growing rapidly in the minority world where consumers who are aware of the oppression and poverty of food producers are willing to pay a little more so that farmers can live in dignity and security.

CAMINO Fair Trade cocoa, hot chocolate, chocolate chips and bars are widely available in supermarkets and speciality shops. These products are marketed throughout Canada and come from cooperatives in the Dominican Republic. So we can enjoy the seductive sweetness of chocolate without guilt, knowing we support justice and dignity for farmers and communities in another country. This cookbook with a difference has lots of information as well as the recipe. For a more detailed history and the story of the search for truth in today’s cocoa production read: Canadian Carol Off’s BITTER CHOCOLATE: Investigating the dark side of the world’s most seductive sweet. 2006. Random House Canada

Despite the Hunger
Despite
the hunger
we cannot
possess
more
than
this:
Peace
in a garden
of
our own.

Alice Walker (2003)

This is more than a biography of a famous – still living and active – USA writer, poet and activist. It is a powerful history of the USA from the rare point of view of a woman, a woman of colour and an artist and social activist. The subject of the biography herself says Social Action is The Rent We Pay for Living on This Earth. All the rich and complex threads of a life lived with courage, creativity and honesty are woven into a rich tapestry in this skilful biography. White is a USA woman of colour herself, but is rumoured to be now living on Saltspring Island, BC; she has produced a wonderful tribute to a great writer of our time.

Overcoming gigantic obstacles of poverty, sexism and racism, Walker acquired her education, worked in the dangerous battlefields of the USA Civil Rights Movement, became a wife and mother, but never lost sight of her calling to writing or her roots and family culture. She was the first woman of colour to win the Pulitzer Prize, she worked with leading feminists on MS. Magazine and published novels and poetry. She lived through the traumas of injury, divorce and betrayal. She does it by, in her own words:

Expect nothing. Live frugally
on surprise.

Her readers and admirers are no longer surprised at her out pouring of creativity. Her novel,“ Colour Purple” was made into a box office success film and was followed by “Possessing the Secret of Joy”, a vivid story of a woman who has suffered genital mutilation. This book has spoken to millions of women and helped the movement against this cruelty.

The strongest affect this book had on me was the realization that Alice Walker is also a woman who has never remained silent in the presence of injustice. That is the most consistent quality in her extraordinary personality. She inspires me to speak up with clarity and firmness whenever I witness injustice – something I am both lax and timid about. But just after reading this I confronted a business man who was harassing a street person.

Walker has been criticized and vilified by people of colour and white establishment of the USA. She has learned to cope: “as an artist, you’re really just opening up your veins and bleeding for people.”. She has also been criticized for her open bisexuality, her ability to love and relate to people of all races and to passionately express her right to that love. For me she expresses this most powerfully in the poem:

LOVE IS NOT CONCERNED
Love is not concerned
with whom you pray
or where you slept
the night you ran away
from home.
Love is concerned that the beating of your heart
should kill no one.

I am a banner maker, the first banner I decided to quilt and exhibit in a quilt show on Hornby Island was the quilt bearing the last two lines of this poem. I did this before I read that quilting is an important art and a precious metaphor for her culture for Walker. TW/June, 2005

In this beautifully written memoir of a naturalist and her love of place about the Great Salt Lake of Utah and the nearby sanctuary, the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, both essential parts of her professional life, the author describes and illuminates her experiences, insights, and reflections in stories of lyric prose. Her life is relevant to many of us who both reflect and agonize about ethics and political activism as we seek meaning and hope in our brief lives.

“It is a fertile community where the hope of each day rides on the back of migrating birds…It is here in the marshes that I seal my relationship to Great Salt Lake.”

She has also created a memoir that connects the loss of bird habit as a result of rising lake levels with the loss of her mother and the grandmother who taught her to love birds and with the loss of the wholeness and the fragility and fragmentation of life.

Williams is a Mormon and this authoritarian religion with its family–centred organization gives her strength even as she doubts and questions its validity. She prays to a God and she also prays to birds.

“I pray to the birds because I believe they will carry the messages of my heart upward...I pray to the birds because they remind me of what I love rather than what I fear. And at the end of my prayers, they teach me how to listen.”

Her mother and grandmother both die of cancer. As these much loved women die, she listens to them as they encourage her to continue to love and to keep her faith with the earth. This is sorely tested when she comes to realize she belongs to “The Clan of One–Breasted Women.” The women of her family, not all related by blood, have an incredible rate of cancer. Williams herself when still young has “borderline malignancy”. Mormons are supposed to be healthy people as many studies have shown. But living in Utah is a major health hazard.

She learns from her father that a recurring dream of a flash of light in the desert was not a dream. She discovers that as child on her pregnant mother’s lap in the car just before dawn, she and her family had witnessed a nuclear explosion.

“It was at this moment I realized the deceit I had been living under. Children growing up in the American Southwest, drinking milk from contaminated cows, even from the breasts of their mothers, my mother– members, years later of the Clan of One-Breasted Women.”

Utah was considered “virtually uninhabited desert terrain” so it did not really matter to Cold War crazed USA government that the fallout from atmospheric tests from 1951 to 1962 spread and settled across Utah. Later, in suits filed by cancer survivors, lower courts ruled that the government was responsible for causing cancer; higher courts over ruled on the basis of “sovereign immunity”.

Even so, the testing ended – there– I can remember demonstrating against atmospheric testing in the USA and Canada– which got its own share of north westerly moving fallout. Soon many of us opposed and still oppose all nuclear weapons. It was a hard connection for Williams.

She says that Mormons respect authority and obedience. Independent thinking is discouraged. But she could not stop thinking.

“For many years, I have done just that – listened, observed, and quietly formed my own opinions, in a culture that rarely asks questions because it has all the answers.” She watched too many people die and writes, “The price of obedience has become too high.”

She turns to action with her new awareness.

“Tolerating blind obedience in the name of patriotism or religion ultimately takes our lives.”

She finds strength and hope with others – she joins women who will no longer accept the poisoning of land and life; they trespass and gather on nuclear test sites and are arrested. They are bussed into the desert, a desert of blooming life with memories of her Mother and doves and owls. Then they are dumped out.

“The officials thought it was a cruel joke to leave us stranded in the desert with no way to get home. What they didn’t realize was that we were home, soul–centred and strong women who recognized the sweet smell of sage as fuel for our spirits.”

TW

“The Soil is ours to make or mar,
and we should aim to leave it
when the time comes for us to pass it on,
in as good or better condition
than when it first came under our hand.”
Seager Wheeler, famous Canadian farmer, 1919
see www.seagerwheelerfarm.org

“Topsoil is more vital to human survival than almost any other resource, for without topsoil we cannot feed ourselves.”
Michael S. Northcott, quoted in book’s introduction.

When the author was contacted by an irate small town mayor who claimed toxic elements in fertilizers were poisoning the land, he says he it was “unbelievable.” So the investigative reporter from Seattle went to meet the mayor of a Washington town, Quincy. The mayor, a housewife and mother, a conservative daughter of the military, was not the usual environmental activist. She had become mayor because people liked the recycling project she started – maybe her experience there have her an inkling of why local farmers were having poor harvests and their animals were getting sick.

Quincy is home to Cenex/Lands of Lake processing company which Mayor Patty Martin claimed was disposing of hazardous wastes by putting them into fertilizers and selling them to farmers. This became a story with global implications.

A long and ugly battle followed which Wilson chronicles in the book as he investigated citizens, farmers, corporations and the government. It is expensive to store, ship and dispose of toxic waste, including heavy metals like arsenic and cadmium and chemicals like dioxin, as many companies, including the giant Monsanto, have learned. So as Martin says, “they call a dangerous waste a product, and It´s no longer a dangerous waste. It’s a fertilizer. …It is recycling gone amok.”

Wilson conducted his investigation for several years, he writes a good story well with personal observations, interspersed with his legal and scientific research, all documented, as he tells the events and results when a few people, the mayor and some farmers, stood up against corporate polluters.

He found, unbelievably, that recycling heavy metals into fertilizer was legal in the USA. Lead-laden waste from pulp mills and even low-grade radioactive waste was sold as fertilizer. It seems that even “organic” fertilizers like mineral additives and fish fertilizer may be contaminated. And what about other countries? Does Canada which imports so much from the USA (and it seems, exports toxic waste to fertilizer companies) have any regulations or testing of fertilizers? He reports some results; bans on phosphate sales in Canada and Washington State because of Cadmium; 56 stop-orders were issued by Washington including one against Siemans AG of Germany for selling nuclear fuel waste as fertilizer! More has changed and we can hope, more is and will change. But it requires citizen vigilance; we can thank Patty Martin for her courageous initial efforts.

The author concludes with emphasizing the “precautionary principle” of being safe, not sorry, when there are any doubts, the onus is on companies to prove their product is not harmful. He also says his values as a reporter begin with “the right to know”. We all have the right to know what any manufactured or processed product contains.

And his last words are a call to us all. “This was a small town story, but in one way or another, we all live in small towns on a small planet.” TW/ 2005

“Human beings are the future–eaters”. Tim Flannery

This quote, used by Wright, encapsulates the essence of this thoughtful, rather gloomy book, based on the 2004, CBC Massey lectures.

Wright gives many examples of human societies that so increased their consumption that they ate the future and did themselves in. The people of Easter Island, motivated by religious faith, cut down their last tree to help raise their stone statues. He poses this as the so far inevitable model of what we call civilization or societies.

This is a provocative thesis. Wright says that societies destroy themselves by unsustainable consumption, and he has many examples from Central America to the plains of Babylon. When he writes about the sudden collapse of the Mayan civilizations of Meso-America, he implies that everything ended and the jungle moved in on the great pyramids but he also says the temple courts of Tikal were vacated by royalty and then occupied by squatters after the fall. Were not these commoners part of Mayan society? And when as he says, two million people today still speak Mayan languages (language is most recognized indicator of a distinct society) and practise some form of Mayan religion – then did this civilization really perish or is it our definition of civilization wrong?

If a civilization is by definition hierarchical, elitist, oppressive to most of its citizens, wasteful, territorial and militaristic, then maybe we need to rethink civilization. Humans have been on the earth for a scant two million year on a planet that is more then two billion years old. Recorded history is barely twelve thousand years old. In what I suspect is irony; the author thinks progress has a very short history, indeed. We have been around longer than progress, measured by agriculture, settlement and record keeping. Maybe this experiment in massive reproduction of our species and its unsustainable consumption that we call progress is just a short evolutionary experiment about to burn itself out with the last barrel of oil. And maybe we deserve that fate; if we do not become extinct, maybe our survivors will find another path that will integrate humanity back into the rest of nature.

So far, Wright sees that there is a distressing sameness in all civilizations – the tendency to elitist, oppression of many by the few and the consumption which forces expansion which requires organized aggression – militarization. His major concern is that of our proclivity to ecological destruction, a tendency shared by all the human groups we call societies. The present form of human society has, with its love and awe of the technological fix, accelerated this change, mainly evidenced in the last few years through measurable global warming; the results of this are complex, difficult to understand and often egregiously interpreted.

But the fact remains, humanity in varying degrees in different societies and levels of society is using up renewable resources faster than the earth can replace them. We are beginning to face up to the end of petroleum and our disregard of our destruction of the land, the soil, the trees, fresh water and trees to support the climate and ecosystems on which our agriculture, our food and ultimately our life, depend.

Wright warns us that, “Civilization is an experiment, a very recent way of life in the human career and it has a habit of walking into…progress traps.” We disregard the mistakes of the past and blunder on, thinking we are different as we make the same mistakes. We forget to ask ourselves Paul Gauguin’s question: where are we going?

In times of crisis, Wright says, we build walls from China to Palestine, and all the walls are backed with military power. As territory and resources become scarcer, armies must be strengthened to protect the riches of the current empire, today it is the USA, and to conquer to acquire and secure more. Yet is the use of military force, the creation of monstrous weapons, their industries and their gobbling up of humans and their brains as well, that is the greatest user, waster, of natural resources and the greatest polluter of the world – from the Marshall Island to Great Bear Lake to the of Iraq, nuclear warfare (and I include all the production and use of radioactive weapons) have spread a killing field of radiation that will still be sowing death when our sun goes dark – whether we are here or not.

To save the environment we will have to find new forms of human relationships that use non violent processes of conflict resolution. We will have to stop glorifying war and violence in order to save life. Wright offers some cautious hope, although he warns, “…hope drives us to invent new fixes for old problems…Hope elects the politician with the biggest empty promise…Hope like greed, fuels the engine of capitalism.”

What he tells us is that we have a slight possibility to change our ways, even though, “at the economic level there is now only one big civilization, feeding on the whole planet’s natural capital.” That possibility is our knowledge of past mistakes and some awareness that it is just possible to find solutions that can save us and force us to walk a less destructive path. He tells us this is not altruism, nor saving nature for is own sake. “The most compelling reason for reforming our system is that the system is in no one’s interest. It is a suicide machine.”

Learn to share, clean up the earth, provide basic health care and services to all, re-distribute wealth, learn peace and maybe we can make leave a better form of civilization and a renewed earth for our descendents. He concludes by saying, “Now is our last chance to get the future right.”

Don’t be deceived by the light and breezy style of this USA journalist – this is a serious and useful work. Single substance topics have become very popular with writers; everything from salt to saffron gets a book of its own. But few substances are as important and universal as oil and Yeomans does an excellent survey, from a USA perspective, of elaborating the significance of oil in our daily lives; he details the history, geography and geopolitics and global oil supplies and use. Whatever the USA does to satisfy its addiction to petroleum affects the whole world.

“The oil industry has dominated global affairs for nearly 150 years. Most of that time, it has been controlled by a small cadre of powerful companies and producing nations that have set prices and production levels to maximize their profits.” P. 217

In 1859 “rock oil” was discovered in the USA and its usefulness as a source of light, measured by the original developer, Edwin Drake, in whisky barrels of 42 USA gallons – about 150 l. – still the standard measurement of today when 75 million barrels are consumed every 24 hours.

Since then, the USA has become the world’s most powerful nation while it consumes one-quarter of global oil production. Yeomans explains how from Colombia to Canada, from Iraq to Kazakhstan, oil dictates USA foreign and military policy and implementation. Addictions must be fed and new addictions created – from the love of the automobile to air conditioning and plastics – and so oil must not only be obtained, but as Yeomans makes clear, the addict must control the flow. And he is very clear about the dangers of a USA government and society addicted to the power of petroleum.

“Never before has the United States, and the world, needed the strong leadership of a president who can resist partisan politics and the funding of special oil interests to move the Unites States beyond oil.” P. 157

The present USA government is totally controlled by oil interests, the citizens of the USA need to recognize these dangers and change their government.

Much of what this book says is not new, but it is good to have the facts, context and illustrations all organized in one book and it helps those us outside the USA, but linked to by a complex oil-based politic, to understand this domineering global power.

Yeomans says that only conservation, a drastic curtailing of the consumption of oil will save the USA and modern life everywhere on earth. Alternate energy may develop, more efficient vehicles will be sold, but only reduction in use will really help and that requires a major re–thinking of everything from public transit to militarization.

This book is a good resource with many references for further research. It helps us understand the driven mentality of the all USA governments and forces us to examine our own assumptions about our right to consume the material goodies of our lifestyle.

TW

Reviewed by Theresa Wolfwood

“We´re here at the gates of hell/ in the hills of Scotland…singing hope into life.”

This amazing book is a political treatise, personal journals, lively commentary, an invaluable history and a guidebook to sustained activism, all in one volume. This is a work to be read and consulted for many years by activists everywhere.

Activist Angie Zelter and her friends contemplated the weakening of the UK peace movement and its lack of energy in 2005. Instead of moaning and hand wringing they created an ambitious plan to galvanize British activists. They came up with the idea to blockade Faslane in Scotland for 365 days with 100 blockaders at the gates of this base every day.

For readers not so familiar with the UK scene, Faslane, fifty kilometres from Glasgow, is the naval base where the UK military keeps nuclear powered submarines, equipped with Trident missiles and up to 200 nuclear warheads — each can deliver about eight times the destructive power of the bombs that flattened Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Although this is a specific location in a specific culture, the lessons taught by this action can be applied universally and can inspire any peace activist or group. Zelter makes the connections when she states, “…it is the necessity to have compassion for all people and all living things…” She describes many of the issues facing the world and says, “All of these issues at their heart are about real security.” All relate to our acceptance of the ultimate destruction weapon — the nuclear bomb. For one year wonderfully diverse groups of people concerned with real security blockaded a base that represents to Scotland, Britain and the world, death and destruction; an epicentre of appalling insecurity.

The organizers drew up guidelines to ensure real non—violence that included not only the, no weapons, no non—medical drugs and no violent behaviour, but required an attitude of respect and sincerity to all those their actions encountered; the key to any successful peace action and its transformative value.

The book has poetry, art, photographs, vivid personal stories of meetings with local people, school children, politicians; accounts of academic seminars, encounters with both police and the military. It has chapters on asylum seekers, the law, health issues, the many groups that participated and personal reflections. Informative appendices add to its value. Faslane 365 is gripping and lively reading.

The blockade ended on October 1, 2007. Faslane still exists but this campaign brought national and world attention to this dangerous place; the blockade and all its events inspire and inform activism everywhere. It is too soon to quit and too early to ever give up: the spirit of the Faslane Blockade lives!

 

 

 

 

This monthly magazine (NI) has been a constant source of inspiration and information for many years. NI is published by a collective in UK, Canada, and Australasia with contributions from many parts of the world. Every colourful, well illustrated issue has a special focus, over the thirty years of publication that has included specific countries, issues like AIDS, water, Climate Change, Slavery, Fair Trade, and Human Rights. Every issue has stories of success, as well as actions and analysis.

The August, 2003 issue is Songs of Dissent: the Politics of Music which has wonderful stories of musicians, including Victor Jarre, Mariam Makeba and Mercedes Sosa – and even comes with a CD with many songs of peace and resistance.

In this same issue is a wonderful, moving essay by Palestinian poet, Mourid Barghouti , entitled: Verbicide .   He has published 12 books of poetry and won many awards. The essay first appeared in AUTODAFE #3, Spring, 2003. His autobiographical book, “I Saw Ramallah” is published by AUC PRESS, UK and Anchor Books, Random House, USA.

In this essay Barghouti writes about how language has been used to obliterate the Palestinian nation and identity. “For decades Palestine has been pushed to the edge of history, the edge of hope and the edge of despair, present and absent, reachable and unreachable, fearful and afraid. This Palestine is my identity; this Palestine is the absence of my identity; my imposed memory and my imposed oblivion.”

He tells us how people learn to accept the relative and the imperfect, how they dream of small miracles, like having a bath or even a pen. But he warns dreams may become dangerous when they are simple, so many of his poems are about “tiny little things that might seem insignificant.”

His poetry uses language that resists the process of “collective vulgarization” and tries to create a fresh perception.

“Poetry is stepping out of the orchestra to play solo with the single instrument of language. That is why the poetic imagination becomes an act of resistance par excellence.”

He believes, “We are witnessing an international apartheid language, a language that labels and defines, and divides values and virtues and segregates nations into two categories of good and evil………..poetry remains one of the most astonishing forms in our hands to resist obscurantism and silence.”.

Barghouti hands us an awesome responsibility: to use our language with care and clarity, to be concrete and specific, to face any realities of war and peace, oppression and liberation. Poets must liberate themselves from the “collective vulgarization” of our global market society to understand and express the deepest, simplest human needs and to help us all find truth and meaning in our resistance against the political language of stupidity and hate.

NI is available by subscription worldwide, but needs to change its rates which are higher for the majority world than the affluent minority world. Some of its publications and subscription information are available on: www.newint.org