Alberta, August/agosto 2008
17
ALTERNATIVA Latinoamericana
ENGLISH SECTION
When Democracy Gets in the Way,
Just Sign it, eh?
The Story of Stuff:
Annie's story
On June 7 2008, less than one year after
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper
announced the beginning of bilateral free trade
talks with Colombia, the Canadian Department of
Foreign Affairs and International Trade
announced the conclusion of negotiations.
While the US-Colombia free trade
agreement has been stalled in the US, due
mainly to the grave human rights situation in
Colombia and, some say, a US election
campaign, Canada has offered transnational
capital an opening through the back door.
Canada-style, eh?
The Government of Canada is delivering on
its commitment to open up opportunities for
Canadian business in the Americas and around
the world," stated the Minister of Foreign Affairs
and International Trade David Emerson,
revealing the true beneficiaries of this agreement.
Emerson went on to note that "the free trade
agreement will expand Canada-Colombia trade
and investment, and will help solidify ongoing
efforts by the Government of Colombia to create
a more prosperous, equitable and secure
democracy."
Many Colombians might ask just what
"efforts" for a "prosperous, equitable and secure
democracy" Emerson is referring to. It seems
obvious that Canadian officials don't understand
what those "ongoing efforts" look like in
Colombia.
In a feeble and superficial attempt to
understand the situation in Colombia, several
Canadian members of parliament made a short
and very limited trip to Bogotá last month. The
delegation didn't leave Bogotá, on the advice of
the Canadian embassy, but they did meet with
trade unionists and Colombian president Álvaro
Uribe Vélez.
After this very limited foray into Colombia,
without further investigation into the situation on
the ground for communities affected by the
ongoing armed conflict in Colombia, and also
without waiting for the completion of a report
about the deal being prepared by the Standing
Committee on Foreign Affairs and International
Trade, the negotiations have concluded, and the
agreement is heading for ratification.
NDP International Trade critic Peter Julian
told the Toronto Star that the Harper government
has made "a horribly bad move by signing the
agreement rather than respecting the procedure,
rather than respecting the opinion of the
committee."
The truth is that the negotiations and the
agreement remain shrouded in absolute secrecy.
All Canadians and Colombians are told is that
Canadian business will have greater access to
Colombian markets and, perhaps more crucially,
to their
resources.
Even if
Canadians
overlook the
current
occupations of
Afghanistan and
Haiti, as well as
the flaring
conflicts
between
indigenous
peoples and
extractive
industries
across the
country, the
latest phase of
Canadian
imperialism also
falls short in
terms of
Canadian
democracy. The
Canada-Colombia FTA:
Canadian public will get not so much as a
debate, as Harper et al. open the back door for
capital that has no national allegiances.
The Canada-Colombia free trade
agreement is seen as a cornerstone in the
Harper government's policy of "re-engagement
in the Americas," where Canada fancies itself as
a "third way" for Latin American countries
seeking to break the United States' historical grip
on the region.
Hardly a superpower itself, the Canadian
government mascarades around the world as an
altruistic superhero and human rights defender.
Tell that to the Haitians, the Afghans, the victims
of genocide within Canada, and now to the
Colombians whose brutal regime the Canucks
are shaking hands with, taking them under their
wing and showing them how to "do" democracy.
I have to wonder what kind of democratic
lessons Canada has in mind for the Colombians
when there are no conditions for serious debate
on free trade, among a slough of other issues, in
Canada itself?
Uribe's Colombia: a country for sale
Colombia, the greatest recipient of US
military `aid' in the hemisphere, is widely
considered one of the last bastions of US power
in Latin America. In the context of the so-called
`war on drugs' and more recent `war on terror,'
there is `Plan Colombia', implemented in 2001,
marketed as an anti-drug strategy that has at its
heart a counterinsurgency strategy.
Colombia is home to Latin America's
longest-surviving leftist guerrilla group, the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or
FARC. The Harper government sees increasing
economic `partnerships' with the country as part
of the road to peace.
However, a trade deal with Colombia in the
context of a 60-year armed conflict has been
controversial to say the least. The Colombian
state is the greatest perpetrator of violence
against civilians in the conflict, and the country
remains the most dangerous place in the world
for trade unionists (year after year, more
Colombian trade unionists are murdered than in
the rest of the world combined), the much-
lauded Colombian democracy is of dubious
legitimacy, at best.
Claims that Uribe has toned down political
violence in the country are contradicted by the
increase of `false positives,' whereby civilians
murdered by the Colombian armed forces are
dressed up as guerrillas in order to "gain points."
President Uribe has been condemned for
his human rights record by international
observers in the country, whom he
Michaél Ó Tuathail (La Chiva)
Annie Leonard told me she found her life's
purpose standing in the middle of Fresh Kills landfill
(one of two man-made structures visible from
space--the second is the Great Wall of China) on
Staten Island, amidst a sea in every direction of
couches, refrigerators, books and banana peels.
Meeting Annie reminded me of why I wanted to
tell stories about people who just start something and
stay with it, somehow knowing it will make a
difference. They inspire me to keep taking one step
at a time toward what I care about. Though it's only
four months and 2.5 million views ("Some of those are
repeat visits by my mother," she says) since the
December launch of Story of Stuff, the real story, the
story of Annie the activist, researcher, educator, and
mom, started when she was 6.
"MacDonald's came to our school to tell us
about the new McDonald's opening in our town. They
told us how much they cared about the environment,
and I was so excited I did what all the other kids did.
I went home and said, `We've got to go to
McDonald's.' I walked in, and in the middle of the
store was a big planter with plastic flowers. I was
sooo disappointed in them."
Child of "a mother with a strong moral compass"
and product of an environmental education in the
Northwest, Annie traces her curiosity about where
stuff comes from and where it goes to the family's
annual camping trip. "I looked out the window as we
were driving. Each year it took longer to get to the
forest, and where there once was forest were strip
malls."
Certain that she wanted to do something for
those forests, Ann set off to New York where she
studied city and regional planning. What she told me
was that, while she was doing graduate work in New
York, she would walk from 110th to 116th every day.
In the morning the curb would be piled with trash as
high as she is tall, all the way down those six
blocks. She started to dig around in it and found
cardboard, paper, boxes--her trees! At night the
piles would be gone. From Fresh Kills and beyond,
she decided she would work to prevent waste, fight
landfills and incineration. Her idea, and many others',
were that if waste began to be harder for corporations
to get rid of, "they'll stop."
But they didn't stop. What no one counted on
was that, as the regulation increased on corporations'
waste, they began shipping the waste to third-world
countries. She joined Greenpeace and began to work
on the UN campaign to stop shipping waste to foreign
countries. "Everyone (at Greenpeace) had a piece of
the work--lobbyists, researchers. Mine was sampling
and documenting the waste sent to other countries--
all over the world." Here's where she rattled off story
after story of incinerator waste being sent to Haiti as
fertilizer, PCB's shipped to a farmer's land in South
Africa, of an Indian hospital with an incinerator where
demonstrators posted a banner, "Cancer caused and
cured here," and of a load of hazardous waste she
mixed with fertilizer she tracked down to a
Bangladeshi farmer.
She's got a million stories, and deep friendships
around the globe--with those who explored with her
"the factories where our stuff is made and the dumps
where our stuff is dumped." When her daughter went
through `her princess phase', she drew beautiful
pictures of the prince and the princess, with the
dump in the background. After 10+ years her
daughter's school started asking for full attendance
and she had to figure out how to keep `investigating
garbage' but with less travel. It was then she began
working for the Global Alliance for Incinerator
Alternatives (GAIA).
For 10 years, Annie's been telling the story of
our stuff, fighting incinerators around the globe, and
working to create awareness internationally and at
home. After years of requests for a filmed version of
her talk, the Tides Foundation approached her to do
the Story of Stuff. Enter the creative geniuses at Free
Range Studios and the rest is...or will be history.
What I love about Annie and her story is that
she's just a person (ok, a very smart, cool person)
who followed her curiosity and her passion step by
step, to a place that will bring about awareness and
change that we'll all benefit from. I predict that in a
few years we'll look back on Annie and sustainability
the way we look at Jeffrey Sachs and poverty or Paul
Farmer and healthcare. I can't wait to see what
happens.
(Excerpt,
humankindmedia.typepad.com)