Analysis

EcofeminismChs45MiesShiva.pdf

PART 2: SUBSISTENCE V D E V E L O P M E N T

4. The Myth of Catching-up Development Maria Mies

Virtually all development strategies are based on the explicit or implicit assumption that the model of 'the good life' is that pre vai l ing i n the affluent societies of the North: the U S A , Europe and Japan. The question of how the poor in the North, those i n the countries of the South, and peasants and women worldwide may attain this 'good life' is usually answered i n terms of what, since Rostow, can be called the 'catching-up development' path. This means that by following the same path of industrialization, tech nological progress and capital accumulation taken by Europe and the U S A and Japan the same goal can be reached. These affluent countries and classes, the dominant sex — the men — the domi nant urban centres and lifestyles are then perceived as the realized Utopia of liberalism, a Utopia still to be attained by those who apparently st i l l lag behind. Undoubtedly the industr ial ized countries' affluence is the source of great fascination to al l who are unable to share i n it. The so-called 'socialist' countries' explicit aim was to catch up, and even to overtake capitalism. After the break down of socialism in Eastern Europe, particularly East Germany, the aim is now to quickly catch up with the lifestyle of the so- called market economies, the prototype of which is seen i n the U S A or West Germany.

A brief look at the history of the underdeveloped countries and regions of the South but also at present day East Europe and East Germany can teach us that this catching-up development path is a myth: nowhere has it led to the desired goal.

This myth is based on an evolutionary, linear understanding of history. In this concept of history the peak of the evolution has already been reached by some, namely, men generally, white men i n particular, industr ial countries, urbanités. The Others' — women, brown and black people, 'underdeveloped' countries, peasants — w i l l also reach this peak wi th a little more effort, more

Shiva, Vandana, and Maria Mies. Ecofeminism, Zed Books, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/asulib-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1644031. Created from asulib-ebooks on 2021-04-05 18:45:59.

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

56 Ecofeminism

education, more 'development'. Technological progress is seen as the dr iving force of this evolutionary process. It is usually ignored that, even i n the early 1970s, the catching-up development theory was criticized by a number of writers. Andre Gunder Frank, 1

Samir A m i n , 2 Johan Galtung, 3 and many others have shown that the poverty of the underdeveloped nations is not as a result of 'natural' lagging behind but the direct consequence of the overde velopment of the rich industrial countries who exploit the so- called periphery i n Africa, South America and Asia. In the course of this colonial history, which continues today, these areas were progressively underdeveloped and made dependent on the so- called metropolis. The relationship between these overdeveloped centres or metropoles and the underdeveloped peripheries is a colonial one. Today, a similar colonial relationship exists between M a n and Nature, between men and women, between urban and rural areas. We have called these the colonies of White M a n . In order to maintain such relationships force and violence are always essential. 4

But the emotional and cognitive acceptance of the colonized is also necessary to stabilize such relationships. This means that not only the colonizers but also the colonized must accept the lifestyle of 'those on top' as the only model of the good life. This process of acceptance of the values, lifestyle and standard of l i v i n g of 'those on top' is invariably accompanied by a devalua t ion of one's o w n : one's o w n culture, work, technology, lifestyle and often also philosophy of life and social institutions. In the beginning this devaluation is often violently enforced by the colonizers and then reinforced by propaganda, educational pro grammes, a change of laws, and economic dependency, for ex ample, through the debt trap. Finally, this devaluation is often accepted and internalized by the colonized as the 'natural ' state of affairs. One of the most difficult problems for the colonized (countries, women, peasants) is to develop their o w n identity after a process of formal decolonization — identity no longer based on the model of the colonizer as the image of the true human being; a problem addressed by Fanon, 5 M e m m i , 6 Freire, 7

and Blaise. 8 To survive, wrote M e m m i , the colonized must op press the colonizat ion. But to become a true h u m a n being he/ she, him/herself, must oppress the colonized w h i c h , w i t h i n themselves, they have become. 9 This means that he/she must overcome the fascination exerted b y the colonizer and his life style and re-evaluate what he/she is and does.

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

The Myth of Catching-up Development 57

To promote the elimination of the colonizers from within the colonized, it is useful to look more closely at the catching-up development myth.

It may be argued that those who have so far paid the price for development also look up to those at the top as their model of the future, as their concrete Utopia; that this is a k i n d of universal law. But if we also consider the price nature had to pay for this model, a price that now increasingly affects people i n the affluent socie ties too, it may be asked w h y do not these people question this myth? Because even i n the North , the paradigm of unlimited growth of science and technology, goods and services — of capital — a n d G N P have led to an increasing deterioration i n the environ ment, and subsequently the quality of life.

Divide and rule: modern industrial society's secret Most people i n the affluent societies live i n a k i nd of schizophrenic or 'double-think' state. They are aware of the disasters of Bhopal and Chernobyl, of the 'greenhouse' effect, the destruction of the ozone layer, the gradual poisoning of ground-water, rivers and seas by fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, as wel l as industrial waste, and that they themselves increasingly suffer the effects of air pollution, allergies, stress and noise, and the health risks due to industrially produced food. They also know that responsibility for these negative impacts on their quality of life lies i n their o w n lifestyles and an economic system based on constant growth. A n d yet (except for very few) they fail to act on this knowledge by modifying their lifestyles.

One reason for this collective schizophrenia is the North's stub born hope, even belief, that they can have their cake and eat it: ever more products from the chemical industry and clean air and water; more and more cars and no 'greenhouse' effect; an ever increasing output of commodities, more fast- and processed- foods, more fancy packaging, more exotic, imported food and enjoy good health and solve the waste problem.

Most people expect science and technology to provide a solu tion to these dilemmas, rather than taking steps to l imit their o w n consumption and production patterns. It is not yet fully realized that a high material l iv ing standard militates against a genuinely good quality of life, especially if problems of ecological destruc tion are clearly understood.

The belief, however, that a high material l iv ing standard is tantamount to a good or high quality of life is the ideological

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

58 Ecofeminism

support essential to uphold and legitimize the constant growth and accumulation model of modern industrial society. Unless the masses of people accept this the system cannot last and function. This equation is the real ideological-political hegemony that over lies everyday life. N o political party i n the industrialized countries of the North dares question this schizophrenic equation, because they fear it w o u l d affect their election prospects.

We have already shown that this double-think is based on assumptions that there are no limits to our planet's resources, no limits to technological progress, no limits to space, to growth. But as, i n fact, we inhabit a limited world , this limitlessness is mythical and can be upheld only by colonial divisions: between centres and peripheries, men and women, urban and rural areas, modern industrial societies of the Nor th and 'backward', 'traditional', 'underdeveloped' societies of the South. The relationship between these parts is hierarchical not egalitarian, and characterized by exploitation, oppression and dominance.

The economic reason for these colonial structures is, above al l , the externalization of costs10 from the space and time horizon of those who profit from these divisions. The economic, social and ecological costs of constant growth i n the industrialized countries have been and are shifted to the colonized countries of the South, to those countries' environment and their peoples. Only by d i v i d ing the international workforce into workers i n the colonized peripheries and workers in the industrialized centres and by maintaining these relations of dominance even after formal decol onization, is it possible for industrial countries' workers to be paid wages ten times and more higher than those paid to workers in the South.

M u c h of the social costs of the reproduction of the labour force wi th in industrial societies is externalized within those societies themselves. This is facilitated through the patriarchal-capitalist sexual division of labour whereby women's household labour is defined as non-productive or as non-work and hence not remu nerated. Women are defined as housewives and their work is omitted from G N P calculations. Women can therefore be called the internal colony of this system.

The ecological costs of the industrial production of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, atomic energy, and of cars and other com modities, and the waste and damage for which they are responsi ble during both the production and the consumption process, are being inflicted on nature. They manifest themselves as air-, water-,

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

The Myth of Catching-up Development 59

soil-pollution and poisoning that w i l l not only affect the present, but al l future generations. This applies particularly to the long- term effects of modern high technology: atomic industry, genetic engineering, computer technology and their synergic effects which nobody can either predict or control. Thus, both nature and the future have been colonized for the short-term profit motives of affluent societies and classes.

The relationship between colonized and colonizer is based not on any measure of partnership but rather on the latter's coercion and violence i n its dealings wi th the former. This relationship is i n fact the secret of unlimited growth in the centres of accumulation. If externalization of al l the costs of industrial production were not possible, if they had to be borne by the industrialized countries themselves, that is if they were internalized, an immediate end to unlimited growth w o u l d be inevitable.

Catching-up impossible and undesirable The logic of this accumulation model, based on exploitation and colonizing divisions, implies that anything like 'catching-up development' is impossible for the colonies, for a l l colonies. This is because just as one colony may, after much effort, attain what was considered the ultimate i n 'development', the industrial cen tres themselves have already 'progressed' to a yet more 'modern' stage of development; 'development' here meaning technological progress. What today was the T V is tomorrow the colour TV, the day after the computer, then the ever more modern version of the 'computer generation' and even later artificial intelligence ma chines and so forth. 1 1 This catching-up policy of the colonies is therefore always a lost game. Because the very progress of the colonizers is based on the existence and the exploitation of those colonies.

These implications are usually ignored when development strategies are discussed. The aim, it is usually stated, is not a reduction i n the industrialized societies' l iv in g standards but rather that a l l the 'underdeveloped' should be enabled to attain the same level of affluence as in those societies. This sounds fine and corresponds to the values of the bourgeois revolutions: equal ity for al l ! But that such a demand is not only a logical, but also a material impossibility is ignored. The impossibility of this de mand is obvious if one considers the ecological consequences of the universalization of the prevailing production system and life style in the North's affluent industrial societies to everyone now

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

60 Ecofeminism

l iv ing and for some further 30 years on this planet. If, for example, we note that the six per cent of the world's population who live in the U S A annually consume 30 per cent of all the fossil energy produced, then, obviously, it is impossible for the rest of the world's population, of which about 80 per cent live i n the poor countries of the South, to consume energy on the same scale. 1 2

According to Trainer, those l iv ing i n the U S A , Europe and Japan, consume three-quarters of the world's energy production. 'If present wor ld energy production were to be shared equally, Americans w o u l d have to get by on only one-fifth of the per capita amount they presently consume'. 1 3 Or, put differently, wor ld pop ulation may be estimated at eleven bil l ion people after the year 2050; if of these eleven bil l ion people the per capita energy con sumption was similar to that of Americans i n the mid-1970s, con ventional o i l resources w o u l d be exhausted i n 34-74 years; 1 4

similar estimations are made for other resources. But even if the world's resource base was unlimited it can be

estimated that it w o u l d be around 500 years before the poor coun tries reached the l iv ing standard prevailing i n the industrialized North; and then only if these countries abandoned the model of permanent economic growth, which constitutes the core of their economic philosophy. It is impossible for the South to 'catch-up' wi th this model, not only because of the limits and inequitable consumption of the resource base, but above all , because this growth model is based on a colonial wor ld order i n which the gap between the two poles is increasing, especially as far as economic development is concerned.

These examples show that catching-up development is not pos sible for all . In m y opinion, the powers that dominate today's wor ld economy are aware of this, the managers of the transna tional corporations, the World Bank, the IMF, the banks and gov ernments of the club of the rich countries; and i n fact they do not really want this universalization, because it w o u l d end their growth model. Tacitly, they accept that the colonial structure of the so-called market economy is maintained worldwide. This struc ture, however, is masked by such euphemisms as 'North-South relations', 'sustainable development', 'threshold-countries' and so on which suggest that all poor countries can and w i l l reach the same l iv ing standard as that of the affluent countries.

Yet, if one tries to disregard considerations of equity and of ecological concerns it may be asked if this model of the good life, pursued by the societies i n the N o r t h , this paradigm of

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

The Myth of Catching-up Development 61

'catching-up development' has at least made people in the Nor th happy. Has it fulf i l led its promises there? Has it at least made women and children there more equal, more free, more happy? Has their quality of life improved while the G D P grew?

We read daily about an increase of homelessness and of pov erty, particularly of women and children, 1 5 of rising criminality i n the big cities, of growing drug, and other addictions, including the addiction to shopping. Depression and suicides are on the in crease i n many of the affluent societies, and direct violence against women and children seems to be growing — both public and domestic violence as well as sexual abuse; the media are ful l of reports of all forms of violence. Additionally, the urban centres are suffocating from motor vehicle exhaust emissions; there is barely any open space left in which to walk and breathe, the cities and highways are choked with cars. Whenever possible people try to escape from these urban centres to seek relief i n the countryside or i n the poor South. If, as is commonly asserted, city-dwellers' qual ity of life is so high, w h y do they not spend their vacations i n the cities?

It has been found that in the U S A today the quality of life is lower than it was ten years ago. There seems to be an inverse relationship between G D P and the quality of life: the more G D P grows, the more the quality of life deteriorates. 1 6 For example: growing market forces have led to the fact that food, which so far was still prepared i n the home is now increasingly bought from fast-food restaurants; preparing food has become a service, a com modity. If more and more people buy this commodity the G D P grows. But what also grows at the same time is the erosion of community, the isolation and loneliness of individuals, the indif ference and atomization of the society. As Polanyi remarked, mar ket forces destroy communities. 1 7 Here, too, the processes are characterized by polarizations: the higher the G D P the lower the quality of life.

But 'catching-up development' not only entails immaterial psychic and social costs and risks, which beset even the p r i v i leged i n the rich countries and classes. W i t h the growing num ber of ecological catastrophes — some man-made like the Gulf War or Chernobyl — material life also deteriorates i n the rich centres of the w o r l d . The affluent society is one society which i n the midst of plenty of commodities lacks the fundamental ne cessities of life: clean air, pure water, healthy food, space, time and quiet. What was experienced by mothers of small children

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

62 Ecofeminism

after C h e r n o b y l is now experienced by mothers i n K u w a i t . A l l the money of o i l - r i ch K u w a i t cannot b u y people sunlight, fresh air, or pure water. This scarcity of basic c o m m o n neces sities for s u r v i v a l affects the poor and the r ich, but w i t h greater impact on the poor.

In short, the prevailing w o r l d market system, oriented towards unending growth and profit, cannot be maintained unless it can exploit external and internal colonies: nature, women and other people, but it also needs people as consumers who never say: 'IT IS E N O U G H ' . The consumer model of the rich countries is not generalizable worldwide, neither is it desirable for the minority of the world's population who live i n the affluent societies. More over, it w i l l lead increasingly to wars to secure ever-scarcer re sources; the Gulf War was i n large part about the control of oi l resources i n that region. If we want to avoid such wars i n future the only alternative is a deliberate and drastic change of lifestyle, a reduction of consumption and a radical change i n the North's consumer patterns and a decisive and broad-based movement towards energy conservation (see chapter 16).

These fact are widely known, but the myth of catching-up devel opment is still largely the basis of development policies of the gov ernments of the North and the South, as well as the ex-socialist countries. A T V discussion 1 8 in which three heads of state partici pated — Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Vaclav Havel of the CSFR, and Richard von Weizsäcker, President of the then FRG — is a clear illustration of this. The discussion took place after a showing of the film The March, which depicted millions of starving Africans trying to enter rich Europe. The President of the F R G said quite clearly that the consumption patterns of the 20 per cent of the world's population who live i n the affluent societies of the industrialized North are using 80 per cent of the world's resources, and that these consumption patterns would, i n the long run, destroy the natural foundations of life — worldwide. When, however, he was asked, if it was not then correct to criticize and relinquish the North's consumption patterns and to warn the South against imitating the North he replied that it would be wrong to preach to people about reducing consumption. Moreover, people i n the South had the right to the same living standard as those in the North. The only solution was to distribute more of 'our' wealth, through development aid, to the poor in the South, to enable them to 'catch-up'. H e d id not mention that this wealth originated as a result of the North's plundering of the colo nies, as has been noted.

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

The Myth of Catching-up Development 63

The President of socialist Zimbabwe was even more explicit. He said that people i n the South wanted as many cars, refrigera tors, T V sets, computers, videos and the same standard of l iv ing as the people in the North; that this was the aim of his politics of development. Neither he nor von Weizsäcker asked whether this pol icy of universa l iz ing the N o r t h ' s consumption patterns through a catching-up strategy was materially feasible. They also failed to question the ecological consequences of such a policy. A s elected heads of state they dared not tell the truth, namely that the lifestyle of the rich in the North cannot be universalized, and that it should be ended i n these countries in order to uphold the values of an egalitarian wor ld .

Despite these insights, however, the catching-up development myth remains intact i n the erstwhile socialist countries of the East. Development i n East Germany, Poland and the ex-Soviet Union clearly demonstrate the resilience of this myth; but also the disas ter that follows when the true nature of the 'free' market economy becomes apparent. People i n East Germany, the erstwhile G D R , were anxious to participate i n the consumer model of capitalist F R G and, by voting for the destruction of their own state and the unification of Germany, hoped to become 'equal'. Political democ racy, they were told, was the key to affluence. But they now realize, that i n spite of political democracy and that they live i n the same nation state as the West Germans, they are de facto treated as a cheap labour pool or a colony for West German capital, which is interested i n expanding its market to the East but hesitates to invest there because the unification of Germany means that the East German workers w i l l demand the same wages as their coun terparts i n West Germany. Where, then, is the incentive to go East? Less than a year after the unification, people i n East Germany were already disappointed and depressed: unemployment had risen rapidly; the economy had virtually broken down; but no benefits had accrued from the new market system. According to the politicians, however, a period of common effort w i l l be re warded by catching-up with the West Germans. A n d , inevitably, the women in East Germany are worst affected by these processes. They who formerly had a participation rate of 90 per cent i n the labour force are the first to lose their jobs, and more rapidly than men; they form the bulk of the unemployed. Simultaneously, they are losing whatever benefits the socialist state had provided for them: creches, a liberal abortion law, job security as mothers, time off for child-care, and so on.

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

64 Ecofeminism

But due to their disappointment wi th the socialist system peo ple do not, yet, understand that this is the normal functioning of capitalism; that it needs colonies for its expansionism, that even democracy and formal equality do not result automatically in an equal standard of l iv ing or equal economic rewards.

In East Germany, the anger and the disappointment about what people call their betrayal by West German politicians, particularly Chancellor K o h l , has been converted into hostility towards other minorities, ethnic and racial minorities, foreign workers, other East Europeans, a l l of w h o m wanted to enter the 'European House' and sit at the table of the rich.

In other parts of the w o r l d the collapse of the catching-up development myth leads to waves of fundamentalism and nation alism directed against religious, ethnic, racial, Others' within and outside their o w n territory. The main target of both nationalism and fundamentalism, and communalism, is women, because reli gious, ethnic and cultural identity are always based on a patriar chy, a patriarchal image of women, or rather control over O u r ' women, which, as we know from many examples/ almost always amounts to more violence against women, more inequality for women. 1 9 Moreover, the collapse of the myth of catching-up de velopment results i n a further militarization of men. Practically all the new nationalisms and fundamentalisms have led to virtual c iv i l war i n which young, militarized men play the key role. A s unacceptable as equals by the rich men's club and unable to share their lifestyle they can only show their manhood — as it is under stood i n a patriarchal w o r l d — by shouldering a machine-gun.

The myth of catching-up development, therefore, eventually leads to further destruction of the environment, further exploita tion of the 'Third World' , further violence against women and further militarization of men.

Does catching-up development liberate women? So far we have looked at the ecological cost effects of the catching- up strategy for the countries of the South. This strategy has been pursued, virtually since the Enlightenment and the bourgeois rev olutions, as well as i n the various movements for emancipation from oppression and exploitation: the working-class movement, the national liberation movements, and the women's movement. For women l iv ing i n the industrialized countries catching-up de velopment meant and continues to mean the hope that the patriar chal man-woman relationship w i l l be abolished by a policy of

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

The Myth of Catching-up Development 65

equal rights for women. This policy is at present pursued by demands for positive discrimination for women, special quotas or reservations for women i n political bodies, and i n the labour mar ket. Several state governments i n Germany have issued special promotion programmes for women. Efforts are made to draw women into those sectors of the economy that formerly were exclusively men's domains, such as the new high-tech industries. Women's resistance to these technologies is seen as a handicap for their liberation, because technology as such is considered as men's area of power and therefore one that women must invade if they are to be 'equal'. A l l these efforts and initiatives at the political level add up to the strategy of women catching-up wi th men. This equalization policy is usually promulgated by the political parties in power or formally in opposition; it is shared by many i n the women's movement, conversely, it is also opposed by many women. They see that there is a wide gap between the rhetoric and the actual performance of the political and economic system, which continues to marginalize women. What is more important, this strategy of catching-up with the men means that men gener ally, and white men i n influential positions, are seen as the model to which women must aspire. The implications of this strategy are that the structure of the w o r l d economy remains stable, that na ture and external colonies continue to be exploited, and that to maintain this structure militarism is necessary as a final resort.

For affluent societies' middle-class women this catching-up pol icy presupposes that they wiD get a share of the White Man's loot. Since the Age of Enlightenment and the colonization of the world the White Man's concept of emancipation, of freedom and equality is based on dominance over nature, and other peoples and territo ries. The division between nature and culture, or civilization, is integral to this understanding. From the early women's movement up to the present, a large section of women have accepted the strategy of catching-up with men as the main path to emancipa tion. This implied that women must overcome within themselves what had been defined as 'nature', because, i n this discourse, women were put on the side of nature, whereas men were seen as the representatives of culture. Theoreticians of the women's move ment, such as Simone de Beauvoir20 and Shulamith Firestone,21 made this culture-nature divide the core of their theory of emanci pation. Today this dichotomy again turns up i n the discourse on reproductive engineering and gene technology (see chapter 19).

But more specifically let us ask why, for women, the catching-

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

66 Ecofeminism

up development path even i n the affluent societies of the industri alized North, is and w i l l remain an il lusion.

1. The promises of freedom, equality, self-determination of the individual , the great values of the French Revolution, proclaimed as universal rights and hence also meant for women, are betrayed for many women because all these rights depend on the posses sion of property, and of money. Freedom is the freedom of those who possess money. Equality is the equality of money. Self-deter mination is the freedom of choice i n the supermarket. This free dom, equality, self-determination is always dependent on those who control the money/property. A n d i n the industrialized socie ties and nations they are mostly the husbands or the capitalists' state. This at least is the relationship between men and women that is protected by law; the man as breadwinner, the woman as housewife. 2 2

Self-determination and freedom are de facto l imited for women, not only because they themselves are treated as commodities but also because, even if they possess money, they have no say i n what is to be offered as commodities on the market. Their o w n desires and needs are constantly manipulated by those whose aim is to sell more and more goods. Ultimately, women are also persuaded that they want what the market offers.

2. This freedom, equality and self-determination, which depend on the possession of money, on purchasing power, cannot be extended to all women i n the world . In Europe or the U S A the system may be able to fulfil some of women's demand for equity with men, as far as income and jobs are concerned (or wages for housework, or a guaranteed minimum income), but only as long as it can continue the unrestricted exploitation of women as pro ducers and consumers i n the colonies. It cannot guarantee to all women worldwide the same standard of l iv ing as that of middle- class women in the U S A or Europe. Only while women in Asia , Africa or Latin America can be forced to work for much lower wages than those in the affluent societies — and this is made possible through the debt trap — can enough capital be accumu lated in the rich countries so that even unemployed woman are guaranteed a minimum income; but all unemployed women i n the w o r l d cannot expect this. Within a wor ld system based on exploitation 'some are more equal than others'.

3. This, however, also means that with such a structure there is no real material base for international women's solidarity. Because the core of i n d i v i d u a l freedom, equality, self-determination,

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

The Myth of Catching-up Development 67

linked to money and property, is the self-interest of the individual and not altruism or solidarity; these interests w i l l always compete with the self-interests of others. Within an exploitative structure interests w i l l necessarily be antagonistic. It may be i n the interest of Third World women, working in the garment industry for export, to get higher wages, or even wages equivalent to those paid i n the industrialized countries; but if they actually received these wages then the working-class woman i n the North could hardly afford to buy those garments, or buy as many of them as she does now. In her interest the price of these garments must remain low. Hence the interests of these two sets of women who are l inked through the w o r l d market are antagonistic. If we do not want to abandon the aim of international solidarity and equality we must abandon the materialistic and self-centred approach to fighting only for our o w n interests. The interests' approach must be replaced by an ethical one.

4. To apply the principle of self-interest to the ecological prob lem leads to intensified ecological degradation and destruction i n other parts of the world . This became evident after Chernobyl, when many women i n Germany, desperate to know what to feed to their babies demanded the importation of unpolluted food from the Third World. One example of this is the poisoning of mothers' mi lk i n the affluent countries by D D T and other toxic substances as a result of the heavy use of fertilizers, pesticides and insecticides i n industrialized agriculture. Rachel Carson had al ready warned that poisoning the soil w o u l d eventually have its effect on people's food, particularly mothers' mi lk ; 2 3 now this has happened many women in the North are alarmed. Some time ago a woman phoned me and said that in Germany it was no longer safe to breastfeed a baby for longer than three months; mothers' milk was poisoned. As a solution she suggested starting a project in South India for the production of safe and wholesome baby food. There, on the dry and arid Deccan Plateau, a special millet grows, called ragi. It needs little water and no fertilizer and is poor people's cheap subsistence food. This millet contains al l the nutri ents an infant needs. The woman suggested that ragi should be processed and canned as baby food and exported to Germany. This, she said, would solve the problem of desperate mothers whose breast mi lk is poisoned and give the poor i n South India a new source of money income. It w o u l d contribute to their devel opment!

I tried to explain that if ragi, the subsistence food of the poor,

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

68 Ecofeminism

entered the wor ld market and became an export commodity it w o u l d no longer be available for the poor; its price would soar and that, provided the project worked, pesticides and other chem icals w o u l d soon be used to produce more ragi for the market in the North. But ragi production, she answered, w o u l d have to be controlled by people who w o u l d guarantee it was not polluted. This amounts to a new version of eco-colomalism. When I asked her, w h y as an alternative, she would not rather campaign in Germany for a change i n the industrialized agriculture, for a ban on the use of pesticides, she said that this w o u l d take too much time, that the poisoning of mothers' milk was an emergency situ ation. In her anxiety and concerned only wi th the interests of mothers i n Germany she was wi l l ing to sacrifice the interests of poor women i n South India. Or rather she thought that these conflicting interests could be made compatible by an exchange of money. She d i d not realize that this money w o u l d never suffice to buy the same healthy food for South Indian women's infants that they now had free of cost.

This example clearly shows that the myth of catching-up devel opment, based on the belief of the miraculous workings of the market, particularly the w o r l d market, in fact leads to antagonistic interests even of mothers, who want only to give their infants unpolluted food.

Notes

1. Frank, A. G., World Accumulation 1492-1789. Macmillan, New York, 1978. 2. Amin, S., Accumulation on a World Scale. A Critique of the Theory of Underdevelop

ment Monthly Review Press, New York, 1974. 3. Galtung, J., Eine Strukturelle Theorie des Imperialismus, in D. Senghaas (ed.)

Imperialismus und strukturelle Gewalt. Analysen über abhängige Reproduktion. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt, 1972.

4. Mies, M . , Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale, Women in the International Division of Labour. Zed Books, London, 1989.

5. Fanon, F., Peau Noire, Masques Blancs. Edition du Seuil, Paris, 1952; English version: Black Skin, White Masks. Paladin, London, 1970.

6. Memmi, Α., Portrait du Colonise. Edition Payot, Paris, 1973. 7. Freire, P., Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1970. 8. Blaise, S., he Rapt des Origines, ou: Le Meurtre de la Mere. Maison des Femmes,

Paris, 1988. 9. Memmi, op. cit., quoted in Biaise (1988) p. 74.

10. Kapp, W. K., Social Costs of Business Enterprise. Asia Publishing House, Bombay 1963.

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

The Myth of Catching-up Development 69

11. Ullrich, O., Weltniveau. In der Sackgasse des Industriesystems. Rotbuchverlag, Berlin, 1979, p. 108.

12. See The Global 2000 Report to the President US Foreign Ministry (ed.) Washington, Appendix, 1980, p. 59.

13. Trainer, F. E., Developed to Death. Rethinking World Development. Green Print, London, 1989.

14. Ibid., p. 61. 15. Sheldon, Danzinger and Stern. 16. Trainer, op. cit., p. 130. 17. Polanyi, K., The Great Transformation. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt, 1978. 18. This discussion took place under the title: 'Die Zukunft gemeinsam meistern'

on 22 May 1990 in Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR). It was produced by Rolf Seelmann-Eggebert.

19. Chhachhi, A. 'Forced Identities: The State, Communalism, Fundamentalism and Women in India', in Kandiyori, D. (ed.) Women, Islam and the State. Univer sity of California Press, 1991.

20. de Beauvoir, S., The Other Sex. Alfred A. Knopf Inc., New York, 1952. 21. Firestone, S., The Dialectic of Sex. William Morrow & Co., New York, 1970. 22. Mies, M. , op. cit, 1989. 23. Carson, R. Silent Spring. Fawcett Publications, Greenwich,1962. Hynes, P. H .

The Recurring Silent Spring. Pergamon Press, New York, 1989

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

5. The Impoverishment of the Environment: Women and Children Last* Vandana Shiva

Ruth Sidel's book, Women and Children Last1, opens with an ac count of the sinking of the unsinkable Titanic. Women and chil dren were, indeed, the first to be saved on that dreadful night — that is, those i n the first and second class. But the majority of women and children d i d not survive — they were i n the third class.

The state of the global economy is in many ways comparable to the Titanic: glittering and affluent and considered unsinkable. But as Ruth Sidel observed, despite our side-walk cafes, our saunas, our luxury boutiques, we, too, lack lifeboats for everyone when disaster strikes. Like the Titanic, the global economy has too many locked gates, segregated decks and policies ensuring that women and children w i l l be first — not to be saved, but to fall into the abyss of poverty.

Environmental degradation and poverty creation Development was to have created well-being and affluence for all in the Third World. For some regions, and some people, it has delivered that promise, but for most regions and people, it has instead brought environmental degradation and poverty. Where d i d the development paradigm go wrong?

Firstly, it focused exclusively on a model of progress derived from Western industrialized economies, on the assumption that Western style progress was possible for all . Development, as the improved well-being of all , was thus equated with the Westerniza tion of economic categories — of human needs, productivity, and growth. Concepts and categories relating to economic develop ment and natural resource utilization that had emerged in the specific context of industrialization and capitalist growth in a

* This is an extensively revised version of a background paper presented for the UNCED Workshop 'Women and Children First', Geneva, May 1991

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

The Impoverishment of the Environment 71

centre of colonial power, were raised to the level of universal assumptions and thought to be successfully applicable i n the en tirely different context of basic-needs satisfaction for the people of the erstwhile colonies — newly independent Third World coun tries. Yet, as Rosa Luxemburg 2 has pointed out, early industrial development i n Western Europe necessitated permanent occupa tion of the colonies by the colonial powers, and the destruction of the local 'natural economy'. According to Luxemburg, colonialism is a constant, necessary condition for capitalist growth: without c o l o n i e s , c a p i t a l a c c u m u l a t i o n w o u l d g r i n d to a hal t . 'Development' as capital accumulation and the commercialization of the economy for the generation of 'surplus' and profits thus involved the reproduction of not only a particular form of wealth creation, but also of the associated creation of poverty and dispos session. A replication of economic development based on com mercialization of resource-use for commodity production i n the newly independent countries created internal colonies and per petuated o ld colonial linkages. Development thus became a con tinuation of the colonization process; it became an extension of the project of wealth creation i n modern, Western patriarchy's eco nomic vision.

Secondly, development focused exclusively on such financial indicators as G N P (gross national product). What these indicators could not demonstrate was the environmental destruction and the creation of poverty associated with the development process. The problem with measuring economic growth i n G N P is that it mea sures some costs as benefits (for example, pollution control) but fails to fully measure other costs. In G N P calculations clear-felling a natural forest adds to economic growth, even though it leaves behind impoverished ecosystems which can no longer produce biomass or water, and thus also leaves impoverished forest and farming communities.

Thirdly, such indicators as G N P can measure only those activi ties that take place through the market mechanism, regardless of whether or not such activities are productive, unproductive or destructive.

In the market economy, the organizing principle for natural resource use is maximization of profits and capital accumulation. Nature and human needs are managed through market mecha nisms. Natural resources demands are restricted to those regis tering on the market; the ideology of development is largely based on a notion of br inging al l natural resources into the

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

72 Ecofeminism

market economy for commodity production. When these re sources are already being used by nature to maintain production of renewable resources, and by women for sustenance and liveli hood, their diversion to the market economy generates a scarcity condition for ecological stability and creates new forms of poverty for all , especially women and children.

Finally,the conventional paradigm of development perceives poverty only i n terms of an absence of Western consumption patterns, or in terms of cash incomes and therefore is unable to grapple with self-provisioning economies, or to include the pov erty created by their destruction through development. In a book entitled Poverty: the Wealth of the People,3 an African writer draws a distinction between poverty as subsistence, and poverty as depri vation. It is useful to separate a cultural conception of subsistence l iving as poverty from the material experience of poverty result ing from dispossession and deprivation. Culturally perceived poverty is not necessarily real material poverty: subsistence econ omies that satisfy basic needs through self-provisioning are not poor i n the sense of deprivation. Yet the ideology of development declares them to be so because they neither participate over whelmingly in the market economy nor consume commodities produced for and distributed through the market, even though they might be satisfying those basic needs through self-provision ing mechanisms. People are perceived as poor if they eat millets (grown by women) rather than commercially produced and dis tributed processed foods sold by global agribusiness. They are seen as poor if they live in houses self-built wi th natural materials like bamboo and m u d rather than concrete. They are seen as poor if they wear home-made garments of natural fibre rather than synthetics. Subsistence, as culturally perceived poverty, does not necessarily imply a low material quality of life. O n the contrary, millets, for example, are nutritionally superior to processed foods, houses built with local materials rather than concrete are better adapted to the local climate and ecology, natural fibres are gener ally preferable to synthetic ones — and often more affordable. The cultural perception of prudent subsistence l iv ing as poverty has provided legitimization for the development process as a 'pov erty-removal' project. 'Development', as a culturally biased pro cess destroys wholesome and sustainable lifestyles and instead creates real material poverty, or misery, by denying the means of survival through the diversion of resources to resource-intensive commodity production. Cash crop production and food process-

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

The Impoverishment of the Environment 73

ing, by diverting land and water resources away from sustenance needs deprive increasingly large numbers of people from the means of satisfying their entitlements to food.

The resource base for survival is being increasingly eroded by the demand for resources by the market economy, dominated by global forces. The creation of inequality through ecologically dis ruptive economic activity arises in two ways: first, inequalities i n the distribution of privileges and power make for unequal access to natural resources — these include privileges of both a political and economic nature. Second, government p o l i c y enables resource intensive production processes to gain access to the raw material that many people, especially from the less privileged economic groups, depend upon for their survival. Consumption of this raw material is determined solely by market forces, unim peded by any consideration of the social or ecological impact. The costs of resource destruction are externalized and divided un equally among various economic groups in society, but these costs are borne largely by women and those who, lacking the purchas ing power to register their demands on the modern production system's goods and services, provide for their basic material needs directly from nature.

The paradox and crisis of development results from mistakenly identifying culturally perceived poverty with real material pov erty, and of mistaking the growth of commodity production as better satisfying basic needs. In fact, however water, soil fertility, and genetic wealth are considerably diminished as a result of the development process. The scarcity of these natural resources, which form the basis of nature's economy and especially women's survival economy, is impoverishing women, and all marginalized peoples to an unprecedented extent. The source of this i m poverishment is the market economy, which has absorbed these resources i n the pursuit of commodity production.

Impoverishment of women, children and the environment The U N Decade for Women was based on the assumption that the improvement of women's economic position w o u l d automatically flow from an expansion and diffusion of the development process. By the end of the Decade, however, it was becoming clear that development itself was the problem. Women's increasing under development was not due to insuff ic ient and inadequate 'participation' i n 'development' rather, it was due to their en forced but asymmetric participation whereby they bore the costs

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

74 Ecofeminism

but were excluded from the benefits. Development and disposses sion augmented the colonial processes of ecological degradation and the loss of political control over nature's sustenance base. Economic growth was a new colonialism, draining resources away from those who most needed them. But now, it was not the o ld colonial powers but the new national elites that masterminded the exploitation on grounds of 'national interest' and growing G N P s , and it was accomplished by more powerful technologies of appropriation and destruction.

Ester Boserup 4 has documented how women's impoverish ment increased during colonial rule; those rulers who had for centuries subjugated and reduced their own women to the status of de-ski l led, de-intellectualized appendages, discriminated against the women of the colonies on access to land, technology and employment. The economic and political processes of colonial underdevelopment were clear manifestations of modern Western patriarchy, and while large numbers of men as well as women were impoverished by these processes, women tended to be the greater losers. The privatization of land for revenue generation affected women more seriously, eroding their traditional land-use rights. The expansion of cash crops undermined food production, and when men migrated or were conscripted into forced labour by the colonizers women were often left wi th meagre resources to feed and care for their families. A s a collective document by women activists, organizers and researchers stated at the end of the U N Decade for Women:

The almost uniform conclusion of the Decade's research is that with a few exceptions, women's relative access to economic resources, incomes and employment has worsened, their burden of work has increased, and their relative and even absolute health, nutritional and educa tional status has declined. 5

Women's role i n the regeneration of human life and the provi sioning of sustenance has meant that the destructive impact on women and the environment extends into a negative impact on the status of children.

The exclusive focus on incomes and cash-flows as measured in G N P has meant that the web of life around women, children and the environment is excluded from central concern. The status of women and children and the state of the environment have never functioned as ' indicators' of development. This exclusion is

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

The Impoverishment of the Environment 75

achieved by rendering invisible two kinds of processes. Firstly, nature's, women's and children's contribution to the growth of the market economy is neglected and denied. Dominant economic theories assign no value to tasks carried out at subsistence and domestic levels. These theories are unable to encompass the ma jority in the world — women and children — who are statistically 'invisible'. Secondly the negative impact of economic develop ment and growth on women, children and environment goes largely unrecognized and unrecorded. Both these factors lead to impoverishment.

A m o n g the hidden costs generated by destructive develop ment are the new burdens created by ecological devastation, costs that are invariably heavier for women, i n both the North and South. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that a rising G N P does not necessarily mean that either wealth or welfare increase propor tionately. I w o u l d argue that G N P is becoming increasingly a measure of how real wealth — the wealth of nature and the life sustaining wealth produced by women — is rapidly decreasing. When commodity production as the prime economic activity is introduced as development, it destroys the potential of nature and women to produce life and goods and services for basic needs. More commodities and more cash mean less life — in nature through ecological destruction and in society through denial of basic needs. Women are devalued, first, because their work co-op erates with nature's processes, and second, because work that satisfies needs and ensures sustenance is devalued in general. More growth in what is maldevelopment has meant less nurturing of life and life support systems.

Nature's economy — through which environmental regenera tion takes place — and the people's subsistence economy — within which women produce the sustenance for society through 'invisible' unpaid work called non-work — are being systemati cally destroyed to create growth in the market economy. Closely reflecting what I have called the three economies, of nature, peo ple and the market in the Third World context, is Hi lkka Pietila's 6

categorization of industrialized economies as: the free economy; the protected sector; and the fettered economy.

The free economy: the non-monetary core of the economy and society, unpaid work for one's own and family needs, community ac t iv i t i es , m u t u a l h e l p a n d c o - o p e r a t i o n w i t h i n the neighbourhood and so on.

The protected sector: production, protected and guided by official

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

76 Ecofeminism

means for domestic markets; food, constructions, services, admin istration, health, schools and culture, and so on.

The fettered economy: large-scale production for export and to compete with imports. The terms dictated by the wor ld market, dependency, vulnerability, compulsive competitiveness and so forth.

For example, in 1980, the proportions of time and money value that went into running each category of the Finnish economy were as follows!

Table 5.1

Time Money

A . The free economy, 54% 35% informal economy

B. Protected sector 36% 46% C . The fettered economy 10% 19%

In patriarchal economics, Β and C are perceived as the primary economy, and A as the secondary economy. In fact as Mar i lyn Waring 7 has documented, national accounts and G N P actually exclude the free economy as lying outside the production bound ary. What most economists and politicians call the 'free' or 'open' economy is seen by women as the 'fettered' economy. When the fettered economy becomes 'poor' — that is, runs into deficit — it is the free economy that pays to restore it to health. In times of structural adjustment and austerity programmes, cuts i n public expenditure generally fall most heavily on the poor. In many cases reduction of the fiscal deficit has been effected by making substan tial cuts in social and economic development expenditure, and real wages and consumption decrease considerably.

The poverty trap, created through the v ic ious cycle of 'development', debt, environmental destruction and structural adjustment is most significantly experienced by women and chil dren. Capital flows North to South have been reversed. Ten years ago, a net $40 bil l ion flowed from the Northern hemisphere to the countries of the South. Today in terms of loans, aid, repayment of interest and capital, the South transfers $20 bil l ion a year to the North. If the effective transfer of resources implied i n the reduced prices industrialized nations pay for the developing world's raw materials is taken into account, the annual f low from the poor to

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

The impoverishment of the Environment 77

the rich countries could amount to $60 bil l ion annually. This eco nomic drain implies a deepening of the crisis of impoverishment of women, children and the environment.

According to U N I C E F estimates, in 19888 half-a-million chil dren died as a direct result of debt-related adjustment policies that sustain the North's economic growth. Poverty, of course, needs to be redefined in the emerging context of the feminization of pov erty on the one hand, and the l ink to environmental impoverish ment on the other.

Poverty is not confined to the so-called poor countries; it exists in the world's wealthiest society. Today, the vast majority of poor people in the US are women and children. According to the Cen sus Bureau, in 1984, 14.4 per cent of all Americans (33.7 million) lived below the poverty line. From 1980 to 1984 the number of poor people increased by four-and-a-half mill ion. For female- headed households in 1984, the poverty rate was 34.5 per cent — five times that for married couples. The poverty rate for white, female-headed families was 27.1 per cent; for black, woman- headed families, 51.7 per cent; and for woman-headed Hispanic families, 53.4 per cent. The impact of women's poverty on the economic status of children is even more shocking: i n 1984, the poverty rate for children under six was 24 per cent, and in the same year, for children l iv ing in women-headed households it was 53.9 per cent. A m o n g black children the poverty rate was 46.3 per cent; and for those l iv ing in female-headed families, 66.6 per cent. A m o n g Hispanic children 39 per cent were poor, and for those l iving in female-headed families, the poverty rate was 70.5 per cent.9

Theresa Funiciello, a welfare rights organizer i n the US, writes that 'By almost any honest measure, poverty is the number one killer of children in the U.S.' (Waring, 1988).

In N e w York City, 40 per cent of the children (700,000) are l iv ing in families that the government classifies deprived as 7,000 chil dren are born addicted to drugs each year, and 12,000 removed to foster homes because of abuse or neglect (Waring 1988).

The first right mentioned in the Convention of the Rights of the C h i l d is the inherent right to life. Denial of this right should be the point of departure for evolving a definition of poverty. It should be based on denial of access to food, water and shelter in the quality and quantity that makes a healthy life possible.

Pure income indicators often do not capture the poverty of life to w h i c h the future generations are being condemned, w i t h

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

78 Ecofeminism

threats to survival from environmental hazards even in conditions otherwise characterized by 'affluence'. Poverty has so far been culturally perceived i n terms of life styles that do not fit into the categories of Western industrial society. We need to move away from these restricted and biased perceptions to grapple with pov erty i n terms of threats to a safe and healthy life either due to denial of access to food, water and shelter, or due to lack of protection from hazards i n the form of toxic and nuclear threats.

H u m a n scale development can be a beginning of an opera tional definition of poverty as a denial of vital human needs. At the highest level, the basic needs have been identified as subsis tence, protection, affection, understanding, participation, leisure, creation, identity, freedom. These needs are most clearly manifest in a child, and the chi ld can thus become our guide to a humane, just and sustainable social organization, and to a shift away from the des truct iveness of w h a t has been c o n s t r u e d as 'development'. 1 0

While producing higher cash flows, patriarchal development has led to deprivation at the level of real human needs. For the child, these deprivations can become life threatening, as the fol lowing illustrates.

The food and nutrition crisis Both traditionally, and in the context of the new poverty, women and children have been treated as marginal to food systems. In terms of nutrition the girl-child is doubly discriminated against in such countries as India (see Table 5.2)11.

The effects of inadequate nourishment of young girls continue into their adulthood and are passed on to the next generation. Complications during pregnancy, premature births and low birth weight babies with little chance of survival result when a mother is undernourished; and a high percentage of deaths during preg nancy and childbirth are directly due to anaemia, and childhood undernourishment is probably an underlying cause. 1 2 Denial of nutritional rights to women and children is the biggest threat to their lives.

Programmes of agricultural 'development' often become pro grammes of hunger generation because fertile land is diverted to grow export crops, small peasants are displaced, and the biologi cal diversity, which provided much of the poor's food entitle ments, is eliminated and replaced by cash crop monocultures, or land-use systems ill-suited to the ecology or to the provision of

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

The Impoverishment of the Environment 79

people's food entitlements. A permanent food crisis affects more than a 100 mil l ion people in Africa; famine is just the tip of a much bigger underlying crisis. Even when Ethiopia is not suffering from famine, 1,000 children are thought to die each day of malnutrition and related illnesses. 1 3

Everywhere i n the South, the economic crisis rooted i n maldevelopment is leading to an impoverishment of the environ ment and a threat to the survival of children. It is even possible to quantify the debt mortality effect: over the decade of 1970 to 1980, each additional $10 a year interest payments per capita reflected 0.39 of a year less in life expectancy improvement. This is an average of 387 days of life foregone by every inhabitant of the 73 countries studied in Latin America. 1 4 Nutritional studies carried out i n Peru show that i n the poorest neighbourhoods of Ijma and surrounding shanty towns, the percentage of undernourished children increased from 24 per cent in 1972 to 28 per cent in 1978 and to 36 per cent in 1983.

Table 5.2

Foods received by male and female children 3-4 and 7-9 years (India)

Food items in grams Age in years

RDA

3 - 4

Male Female RDA

7 - 9

Male Female

Cereals 173 118 90 250 252 240 Pulses 55 22 18 70 49 25 Green leafy

vegetables 62 3 0 75 0 0 Roots and

tubers 40 15 13 50 42 0

Fruits 50 30 17 50 17 6 M i l k 225 188 173 250 122 10 Sugar and

jaggery 22 13 16 30 30 12 Fats and oils 30 5 2 50 23 8

Source: Devadas, R. and G. Kamalanathan, Ά Women's First Decade', Paper presented at the Women's NGO Consultation on Equality, Development and Peace, New Delhi, 1985.

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

80 Ecofeminism

In Argentina, according to official sources, in 1986 685,000 chil dren i n greater Buenos Aires and a further 385,000 i n the province of Buenos Aires d id not eat enough to stay alive; together consti tuting one-third of all children under 14.1 5

Starvation is endemic i n the ultra-poor north-east of Brazil , where it is producing what IBASE (a public interest research group in Brazil) calls a 'sub-race' and nutritionists call an epi demic of dwarfism. The children i n this area are 16 per cent shorter and weigh 20 per cent less than those of the same age elsewhere in Brazil — who, themselves, are not exactly well-nour ished.

In Jamaica, too, food consumption has decreased as is shown:

Table 5.3

Item No.of No.of Change calories calories % August November

1984 1985

Flour 2,232 1,443 -35 Cornmeal 3,669 2,013 -45 Rice 1,646 905 -45 Chicken 220 174 -20 Condensed milk 1,037 508 -51 O i l 1,003 823 -18 Dark sugar 1,727 1,253 -27

Source: Susan George, A Fate Worse than Debt, 1988, p.188.

As the price of food rose beyond people's ability to pay, children's health demonstratively declined. In 1978, fewer than two per cent of children admitted to the Bustamente Children's Hospital were suffering from malnutrition, and 1.6 per cent from malnutrition-related gastro-enteritis. By 1986, when the ful l ef fects of the adjustment policies were being felt, the figures for malnutrition-related admissions had doubled, to almost four per cent; gastro-enteritis admissions were almost five per cent. 16

Numerica l malnutrit ion is the most serious health hazard for children, particularly i n the developing countries. Surveys i n different regions of the w o r l d indicate that at any moment an estimated ten m i l l i o n children are suffering from severe malnu trition and a further 200 mi l l ion are inadequately nourished. 1 7

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

The Impoverishment of the Environment 81

The increase i n nutritional deprivation of children is one result of the same policies that lead to the nutritional deprivation of soils. Agriculture policies which extract surplus to meet export targets and enhance foreign exchange earnings generate that sur plus by creating new levels of nutritional impoverishment for women, children and the environment. A s Maria Mies has pointed out, 1 8 this concept of surplus has a patriarchal bias because, from the point of view of nature, women and children, it is based not on material surplus produced over and above the requirements of the environment or of the community, it is violently stolen and appro priated from nature (which needs a share of her produce to repro duce herself) and from women (who need a share of nature's produce to sustain and to ensure the survival of themselves and their children). Malnutr i t ion and deficiency diseases are also caused by the destruction of biodiversity which forms the nutri tional base i n subsistence communities. For example, batkua is an important green leafy vegetable wi th very high nutritive value which grows i n association with wheat, and when women weed the wheat field they not only contribute to the productivity of wheat but also harvest a rich nutritional source for their families. With the intensive use of chemical fertilizer, however, bathua be comes a major competitor of wheat and has been declared a 'weed' to be eliminated by herbicides. Thus, the food cycle is broken; women are deprived of work; children are deprived of a free source of nutrition.

The water crisis The water crisis contributes to 34.6 per cent of all child deaths in the Third World. Each year, 5,000,000 children die of diarrhoeal dis eases.19 The declining availability of water resources, due to their diversion for industry and industrial agriculture and to complex factors related to deforestation, desertification and drought, is a se vere threat to children's health and survival. A s access to water decreases, polluted water sources and related health hazards, in crease. 'Development' in the conventional paradigm implies a more intensive and wasteful use of water — dams and intensive irrigation for green revolution agriculture, water for air-conditioning mush rooming hotels and urban-industrial complexes, water for coolants, as wel l as pollution due to the dumping of industrial wastes. A n d as development creates more water demands, the survival needs of children — and adults — for pure and safe water are sacrificed.

Antonia Alcantara, a vendor from a slum outside Mexico City,

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

82 Ecofeminism

complains that her tap water is 'yellow and full of worms'. Even dirty water is in short supply. The demands of Mexico City's 20 mil l ion people have caused the level of the main aquifer to drop as much as 3.4 metres annually. 2 0 Those with access to Mexico City's water system are usually the wealthy and middle classes. They are, i n fact, almost encouraged to be wasteful by subsidies that allow consumers to pay as little as one-tenth the actual cost of water. The poor, on the other hand, are often forced to buy from piperas, entrepreneurs, who fix prices according to demand.

In Delhi, in 1988,2,000 people (mainly children) died as a result of a cholera epidemic in slum colonies. These colonies had been 'resettled' when slums were removed from Delh i to beautify India's capital. This dispensable population was provided with neither safe drinking water, nor adequate sewage facilities; it was only the children of the poor communities who died of cholera. Across the Yamuna river, the swimming pools had enough chlori nated water to protect the tourists, the diplomats, the elite. 2 1

Toxic hazards In the late twentieth century it is becoming clear that our scientific systems are totally inadequate to counteract or eliminate the haz ards — actual and potential — to which children, in particular, are subjected. Each disaster seems like an experiment, with children as guinea pigs, to teach us more about the effects of deadly sub stances that are brought into daily production and use. The patri archal systems w o u l d l ike to maintain silence about these poisonous substances, but as mothers women cannot ignore the threats posed to their children. Children are the most highly sensi tive to chemical contamination, the chemical pollution of the envi ronment is therefore most clearly manifested in their ill-health.

In the Love Canal and the Bhopal disasters, children were the worst affected victims. A n d i n both places it is the women who have continued to resist and have refused to be silenced as corpo rations and state agencies w o u l d wish.

Love Canal was a site where, for decades, Hooker Chemical Company had dumped their chemical wastes, over which houses were later built. By the 1970s it was a peaceful middle-class resi dential area but its residents were unaware of the toxic dumps beneath their houses. Headaches, dizziness, nausea and epilepsy were only a few of the problems afflicting those near the Canal. Liver, kidney, or recurrent urinary strictures abounded. There was also an alarmingly high rate of 56 per cent risk of birth defects,

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

The Impoverishment of the Environment 83

including childhood deafness, and children suffered an unusually high rate of leukemia and other cancers. 2 2 There was a 75 per cent above normal rate of miscarriage, and among 15 pregnancies of Love Canal women, only two resulted in healthy babies.

It was the mothers of children threatened by death and disease who first raised the alarm and who kept the issue alive.

In Japan, the dependence of Minamata Bay's fishermen and their families on a fish diet had disastrous results as the fish were heavily contaminated with methylmercury, which had been dis charged into the Bay over a period of 30 years by the Chissio chemical factory.

In Bhopal, i n 1984, the leak from Union Carbide's pesticide plant led to instant death for thousands. A host of ailments still afflicts many more thousands of those who escaped death. In addition women also suffer from gynaecological complications and menstrual disorders. Damage to the respiratory, reproductive, nervous, musculo-skeletal and immune systems of the gas victims has been documented i n epidemiological studies carried out so far. The 1990 report of the Indian Council of Medical Research 2 3

states that the death rate among the affected population is more than double that of the unexposed population. Significantly higher incidences of spontaneous abortions, still-births and infant mortality among the gas victims have also been documented.

A few months after the gas disaster, I had a son. H e was alright. After that I had another child in the hospital. But it was not fully formed. It had no legs and no eyes and was born dead. Then another child was born but it died soon after. I had another child just one and a half months back. Its skin looked scalded and only half its head was formed. The other half was filled with water. It was born dead and was white all over. I had a lot of pain two months before I delivered. M y legs hurt so much that I couldn't sit or walk around. I got rashes al l over my body. The doctors said that I w i l l be okay after the childbirth, but I still have these problems. 2 4

Nuclear hazards

Hiroshima, Three Mi le Island, the Pacific Islands, Chernobyl — each of these nuclear disasters reminds us that the nuclear threat is greater for future generations than for us.

Lijon Eknilang was seven years o ld at the time of the Bravo test

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

84 Ecofeminism

on Bikini Island. She remembers her eyes itching, nausea and being covered by burns. Two days after the test, Lijon and her people were evacuated to the US base on Kwajalein Ato l l . For three years they were kept away because Rongelap was too dan gerous for life. Lijon's grandmother died in the 1960s due to thy roid and stomach cancer. Her father died during the nuclear test. Lijon reports that:

I have had seven miscarriages and still-births. Altogether there are eight other women on the island who have given birth to babies that look like blobs of jelly. Some of these things we carry for eight months, nine months, there are no legs, no arms, no head, no nothing. Other children are born who w i l l never recognise this wor ld or their o w n parents. They just lie there with crooked arms and legs and never speak. 2 5

Every aspect of environmental destruction translates into a severe threat to the life of future generations. M u c h has been written on the issue of sustainability, as 'intergenerational equity', but what is often overlooked is that the issue of justice between generations can only be realized through justice between sexes. Children cannot be put at the centre for concern if their mothers are meantime pushed beyond the margins of care and concern.

Over the past decades, women's coalitions have been develop ing survival strategies and fighting against the threat to their children that results from threats to the environment.

Survival strategies of women and chi ldren As survival is more and more threatened by negative develop ment trends, environmental degradation and poverty, women and children develop new ways to cope with the threat.

Today, more than one-third of the households i n Africa, Latin America and the developed wor ld an? female headed; i n Norway the figure is 38 per cent, and i n Asia 14 per cent. 2 6 Even where women are not the sole family supporters they are primary sup porters i n terms of work and energy spent on providing suste nance to the family. For example, i n rural areas women and children must walk further to collect the diminishing supplies of firewood and water, i n urban areas they must take on more paid outside work. Usually, more time thus spent on working to sus tain the family conflicts with the time and energy needed for child care. A t times girl children take on part of the mother's burden: i n

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

The Impoverishment of the Environment 85

India, the percentage of female workers below 14 years increased from four to eight per cent. In the 15-19 year age group, the labour force participation rate increased by 17 per cent for females, but declined by eight per cent for males. 2 7 This suggests that more girls are being drawn into the labour force, and more boys are sent to school. This sizeable proportion perhaps explains high female school dropout rates, a conclusion that is supported by the higher levels of illiteracy among female workers, compared with 50 per cent for males. It has been projected that by the year 2001 work participation among 0-14 year old girls w i l l increase by a further 20 per cent and among 15-19 year olds by 30 per cent. 2 8

The International Labour Organization (ILO) has estimated that at the beginning of the 1980s the overall number of children under 15 who were 'economically active' was around 50 mill ion; the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates put it at 100 mil l ion. There are another 100 mil l ion 'street' children, without families or homes. These are victims of poverty, underdevelop ment, and poor environmental conditions — society's disposable people — surviving entirely on their own, without any rights, without any voice.

Chipko women of Himalaya have organized to resist the envi ronmental destruction caused by logging.

The Love Canal home owner's association is another well- k n o w n example of young housewives' persistent action to ensure health security for their families; this has now resulted i n the Citizens' Clearinghouse for Hazardous Waste.

The Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahi la U d y o g Sangathan, a group of women victims of the Bhopal disaster, has continued to struggle for seven years to obtain justice from Union Carbide Corporation.

Across different contexts, i n the North and in the South, i n ecologically eroded zones and polluted places, women identify with the interest of the earth and their children in finding solu tions to the crisis of survival. Against al l odds they attempt to reweave the web which connects their life to the life of their children and the life of the planet. From women's perspective, sustainability without environmental justice is impossible, and environmental justice is impossible without justice between sexes and generations.

To whom w i l l the future belong? to the women and children who struggle for survival and for environmental security? or to those who treat women, children and the environment as dispens able and disposable? Gandhi proposed a simple test for making

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

86 Ecofeminism

decisions i n a moment of doubt. 'Recall the face of the least pr iv i leged person you know' , he said, 'and ask if your action w i l l harm or benefit him/her. ' 2 9 This criterion of the last person' must be extended to the 'last chi ld ' if we are serious about evolving a code of environmental justice which protects future generations.

Dispensability of the last child: the dominant paradigm From the viewpoint of governments, intergovernmental agencies, and power elites, the 'last chi ld ' needs no lifeboat. This v iew has been explicitly developed by Garrett H a r d i n i n his 'life-boat ethics' 3 0: the poor, the weak are a 'surplus' population, putting an unnecessary burden on the planet's resources. This view, and the responses and strategies that emerge from it totally ignore the fact that the greatest pressure on the earth's resources is not from large numbers of poor people but from a small number of the world's ever-consuming elite.

Ignoring these resource pressures of consumption and destruc tive technologies, 'conservation' plans increasingly push the last child further to the margins of existence. Official strategies, reflect ing elite interests, strongly imply that the wor ld w o u l d be better off if it could shed its 'non-productive' poor through the life-boat strategy. Environmentalism is increasingly used i n the rhetoric of manager-technocrats, who see the ecological crises as an opportu nity for new investments and profits. The World Bank's Tropical Action Plan,the Climate Convention, the Montreal Protocol are often viewed as new means of dispossessing the poor to 'save' the forests and atmosphere and biological commons for exploitation by the rich and powerful. The victims are transformed into villains in these ecological plans — and women, who have struggled most to protect their children i n the face of ecological threats, become the elements who have to be policed to protect the planet. 3 1

'Populat ion explosions' have always emerged as images cre ated by modern patriarchy i n periods of increasing social and economic polarizations. M a l t h u s 3 2 saw populations exploding at the dawn of the industrial era; between World War I and II certain groups were seen as threatening deterioration of the human genetic stock; post Wor ld War II, countries where unrest threatened US access to resources and markets, became k n o w n as the 'population powderkegs' . Today, concern for the survival of the planet has made pol lut ion control appear acceptable and even imperative, i n the face of the popularized pictures of the world 's hungry hordes.

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

The Impoverishment of the Environment 87

What this focus on numbers hides is people's unequal access to resources and the unequal environmental burden they put on the earth. In global terms, the impact of a drastic decrease of popula tion in the poorest areas of Asia, Africa and Latin America w o u l d be immeasurably smaller than a decrease of only five per cent i n the ten richest countries at present consumption levels. 3 3

Through population control programmes, women's bodies are brutally invaded to protect the earth from the threat of over population. Where women's fertility itself is threatened due to industrial pollution, their interest is put i n opposition to the inter ests of their children. This divide and rule policy seems essential for managing the eco-crisis to the advantage of those who control power and privilege.

The emerging language of manager-technocrats describes women either as the passive 'environment' of the child, or the dangerous 'bomb' threatening a 'population explosion'. In either case, women whose lives are inextricably a part of children's lives have to be managed to protect children and the environment.

The mother's womb has been called the child's 'environment'. Even i n the relatively sheltered environment of the mother's uterus the developing baby is far from completely protected. The mother's health, so intimately l inked to the child's well-being is reduced to a 'factor within the foetus's environment'.

Similar decontextualized views of the womn-chi ld relationship are presented as solutions to managing environmental hazards i n the workplace. 'Foetal protection policies' are the means by which employers take the focus off their o w n hazardous production by offering to 'protect the unborn' by removing pregnant (or want- ing-to-be pregnant) women from hazardous zones. 3 4 In extreme cases, women have consented to sterilization i n order to keep their jobs and keep food on the table. More typically, practices include surveillance of women's menstrual cycles, of waiting for a woman to abort her pregnancy before employing her. A s L i n Nelson has stated: 'It is all too easy to "assume pollution" and accept indus trial relocation and obstetrical intervention, but they are responses to the symptoms, not the disease.' 3 5

Grassroots response Community groups, N G O s , ecology movements and women's movements begin the reversal of environmental degradation by reversing the trends that push women and children beyond the edge of survival. A s mentioned earlier, the Chipko movement i n

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

88 Ecofeminism

India has been one such response. In Kenya, the Green Belt move ment has fostered 1,000 Community Green Belts. In Malaysia, the Sahabal A l a i n Malaysia (SAM) and Consumer Association of Pe- nang have worked with tribal, peasant, and fishing communities to reverse environmental decline. Tribals' blockades against log ging i n Sarawak are another important action i n which these organizations have been involved. In Brazil the Acao Democratica Feminina Gaucha (ADFG) has been working on sustainable agri culture, indigenous rights, debt and structural adjustment.

What is distinctive about these popular responses is that they put the last chi ld at the centre of concern, and work out strategies that simultaneously empower women and protect nature. Emerg ing work on women, health and ecology, such as the dialogue organized by the Research Foundation of India and the Dag H a m - marskjold Foundation of Sweden, 3 6 the Planeta Femea at the Global Forum i n Rio 19923 7 are pointing to new directions i n which children's, women's and nature's integrity are perceived in wholeness, not fragmentation.

Putting w o m e n and children first In 1987, at the Wilderness Congress, Oren Lyons of the Onondaga Nation said: 'Take care how you place your moccasins upon the earth, step with care, for the faces of the future generations are looking up from the earth waiting for their turn for l i fe . ' 3 8

In the achievements of growing G N P s , increasing capital accu mulation, it was the faces of children and future generations that receded from the minds of policy makers i n centres of interna tional power. The child had been excluded from concern, and cultures w h i c h were child-centred have been destroyed and marginalized. The challenge to the world's policy makers is to learn from mothers, from tribals and other communities, how to focus decisions on the well-being of children.

Putting women and children first needs above all , a reversal of the logic which has treated women as subordinate because they create life, and men as superior because they destroy it. A l l past achievements of patriarchy have been based on alienation from life, and have led to the impoverishment of women, children and the environment. If we want to reverse that decline, the creation, not the destruction of life must be seen as the truly human task, and the essence of being human has to be seen i n our capacity to recognize, respect and protect the right to life of all the world's multifarious species.

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

The Impoverishment of the Environment 89

Notes

1. Sidel, Ruth, Women and Children Last. Penguin, New York, 1987. 2. Luxemburg, Rosa, The Accumulation of Capital. Routledge and Kegan Paul,

London, 1951. 3. Quoted in R. Bahro, From Red to Green. Verso, London, 1984, p. 211. 4. Boserup, Ester, Women's Role in Economic Development. Allen and Unwin,

London, 1960. 5. D A W N , 1985, Development Cnsis and Alternative Visions: Third World Women's

Perspectives. Christian Michelsen Institute, Bergen. 6. Pietila, Hilkka, Tomorrow Begins Today. ICDA/ISIS Workshop, Nairobi, 1985. 7. Waring, Marilyn // Women Counted. Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1988. 8. UNICEF, State of the World's Children, 1988. 9. Quoted in Marilyn Waring, op. cit. p. 180; and Ruth Sidel, op. cit.

10. Max-Neef, Manfred, Human Scale Development, Development Dialogue. Dag Hammarskjold Foundation, 1989.

11. Chatterjee, Meera, A Report on Indian Women from Birth to Twenty. National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child Development, New Delhi, 1990.

12. Tïmberlake, Lloyd, Africa in Crisis, Earthscan, London, 1987. 13. Susan George, A Fate Worse than Debt. Food First, San Francisco, 1988. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid. 17. UNICEF, Children and the Environment, 1990. 18. Maria Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale. Zed Books, Lon

don, 1987. 19. UNICEF, op. cit., 1990. 20. Moser, Caroline, Contribution on OECD Workshop on Women and Develop

ment. Paris, 1989. 21. Shiva, Mira 'Environmental Degradation and Subversion of Health' in Vand

ana Shiva (ed.) Minding Our Lives: Women from the South and North Reconnect Ecology and Health , Kali for Women, Delhi, 1993.

22. Gibbs, Lois, Love Canal, My Story. State University of New York, Albany, 1982.

23. Bhopal Information and Action Group, Voices of Bhopal. Bhopal, 1990. 24. Ibid. 25. Pacific Women Speak, Women Working for a Nuclear Free and Independent

Pacific, 1987. 26. United Nations, World's Women, 1970-1990. 27. Chatterjee, Meera op. cit. 28. UNICEF, op. cit., 1990. 29. Kothari, Rajni, Vandana Shiva, 'The Last Child' , Manuscript for United

Nations University Programme on Peace and Global Transformation. 30. Hardin, Garrett, in Bioscience, Vol. 24, (1974) p. 561. 31. Shiva, Vandana 'Forestry Crisis and Forestry Myths: A Critical Review of

Tropical Forests: A Call for Action/ World Rainforest Movement, Penang, 1987.

32. Malthus, in Barbara Duden, 'Population', in Wolfgang Sachs (ed) Develop ment Dictionary. Zed Books, London, 1990.

33. UNICEF, op. cit., 1990.

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

90 Ecofeminism

34. Nelson, Lin, 'The Place of Women in Polluted Places' in Reweaving the World: The Emergence of Ecofeminism, Irene Diamond and Gloria Orenstein (eds). Sierra Club Books, 1990.

35. Ibid. 36. 'Women, Health and Ecology/ proceedings of a Seminar organized by Research

Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy, and Dag Hammarskjold Foundation, in Development Dialogue 1992.

37. 'Planeta Femea' was the women's tent in the Global Forum during the U N Conference on Environment and Development, 1992.

38. Lyons, Oren 4th World Wilderness Conference, 11 September 1987, Eugene, Oregon.

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

6. Who Made Nature Our Enemy? Maria Mies

When, what we have theoretically k n o w n w o u l d happen does happen what then is the use of wri t ing about it? The ecology movement, large sections of the women's movement, and other groups and individuals repeatedly campaigned against the con struction of nuclear power plants, because nuclear power is a source of energy so dangerous that it cannot be controlled by human beings; a fact confirmed by the Chernobyl disaster and its aftermath. What purpose can be served by writ ing about it now? Should we not rather emulate those feminists who say: 'We are not responsible for this destructive technology We do not want it. Let those men, or those patriarchs w h o are so enthusiastic about their technological dominance over nature now clear up the mess. We are fed up with being the world's housewives.'

This reaction is understandable, but does it help us? Women don't l ive on an island; there is no longer any place to which we can flee. Some women may feel that it is better to forget what happened at Chernobyl and to enjoy life as long as it lasts since we must all die eventually. But women with small children cannot afford this nihilistic attitude. They try desperately to keep children off the grass, because the grass is contaminated; they wash their shoes after they have been outside; they follow the news about the latest measurements of nuclear contamination i n vegetables, milk, fruit, and so on, and become experts i n choosing relatively uncon- taminated food for their children. Their daily life has drastically changed since the Chernobyl disaster. Therefore we must ask: how has this catastrophe changed women's lives and their psy chic condition? A n d what have women to learn from all this?

Everything has changed — everything is the same Spring at last! Everything is green, flowers everywhere, it is warmer! After a long and depressing winter people long to get out of their houses, to breathe freely and enjoy nature. But everywhere there are invisible signboards which warn: 'Don't touch me. I am contaminated!' We can enjoy the trees, the flowers, the grass only

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

92 Ecofeminism

as voyeurs, as if nature was a T V show We cannot touch nature, we cannot communicate wi th nature as l iv ing natural creatures; an invisible barrier separates us. Those within w h o m an empathy for nature is already dead, those who have become machine-men, may not even mind . Their sensuality has already been reduced to a mechanical stimulus-response reaction. But those i n whom it is still alive — the children and many women — experience this sudden separation from nature as a deep, almost physical pain. They feel a sense of deprivation, of loss. This barrier between themselves and the rest of the natural wor ld seems to undermine their o w n life energy.

I met many women in A p r i l 1986 who felt that the Chernobyl event had destroyed their joie de vivre, as if radioactivity had already penetrated and broken their bodies. They reported not only depressions but also feeling sick; to look at children and the glorious spring made their stomachs turn and ache. W h y go on? I had similar feelings when I had to face the young women and men who were my students. What was their future? What was the use of teaching and preparing them for a future profession? The phys ical radioactive contamination had become augmented by psychic contamination.

A n d yet women continued to live, to shop, clean, cook, go to their workplace, water the flowers, as they had always done. After Chernobyl, this meant more work, more care, more worries, sim ilar to life i n times of war. While the propagators of atomic energy, the scientists, politicians and economists still maintain that atomic energy is necessary to maintain our standard of l iving, women must worry where to get uncontaminated food for their family, their children. It is women who began to realize that this 'standard of l iv ing ' had already been swept away. Can they still buy lettuce? M i l k is dangerous, so are yoghurt and cheese; meat is contami nated. What to cook and to eat? Women began to search for cereals or milkpowder from the years before Chernobyl, or to look for imported food, from the U S A or the 'Third World' , Sweden flew i n fresh vegetables from Thailand every week. What w o u l d happen when the pre-Chernobyl reserves were used up and when imports from non-contaminated countries stopped?

It was women who had to keep small children indoors, to keep them occupied, to pacify them. Those advocates of nuclear tech nology — and responsible for the Chernobyl disaster — the scien tists and the politicians, simply decreed: 'Don't allow children to play i n the sand!'

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

Who Made Nature Our Enemy ? 93

A n d what of pregnant women? What were their fears, their anxieties? H o w d i d they cope? M a n y asked their doctors if it was 'safe' to continue their pregnancy M a n y felt isolated with their fears of perhaps giving birth to a handicapped chi ld . M a n y oth ers miscarried, without clearly being able to connect this to Chernobyl .

Women, both i n the then Soviet Union and i n the West, felt responsible for life. Not the men i n science, politics, and econom ics, who are usually seen as the 'responsible' ones. It is the women who are afraid of contaminating their families, not their men. Women, not the politicians or scientists, feel guilty if they are unable to get uncontaminated food. As a woman from Moscow put it i n M a y 1986: ' M e n do not think of life, they only want to conquer nature and the enemy, whatever the costs may be!' (Die Tageszeitung, 12.5.1986). M e n seem to be experts for technology, women for life, men make war, women are supposed to restore life after the wars. Can this division of labour be upheld after Chernobyl?

Some lessons — not only for women What happened i n Chernobyl cannot soon be undone. This tech nology is irreversible. We already knew this. What can we do? I think we must first draw the correct lessons from this event and then act accordingly to prevent worse catastrophies. These lessons are not new, but after Chernobyl they developed a new urgency.

1. N o one can save herself or himself individually; it is an i l lus ion to think that Ί alone' can save my skin. Industrial catastrophies like Chernobyl may happen far away, but their ef fects do not recognize political borders. Therefore, geographical distance is no longer a guarantee for safety.

2. What modern machine-man does to the earth w i l l eventually be felt by all ; everything is connected. 'Unlimited Progress' is a dangerous myth because it suggests that we can rape and destroy l iv ing nature, of which we are an integral part, without ourselves suffering the effects. A s White M a n has for centuries treated na ture like an enemy it seems that now nature is hostile to us.

3. To trust those w h o call themselves the 'responsible' ones is dangerous. Chernobyl has shown clearly that the main concern of those 'responsible ones' is to remain i n power. Politicians' arbitrary manipulation of permissible limits of pollution is clear evidence that science b o w s to p o l i t i c a l oppor tuni ty . The politicians' promise compensations only where they must fear

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

94 Ecofeminism

election losses: traders and farmers. They w o u l d f ind the sugges tion of compensating women for their extra work to protect their children absurd; such work does not appear as work and as labour costs. But all the work i n the world cannot undo what Chernobyl has done to the environment.

4. Confidence i n the ruling men i n politics and science is dan gerous, above all because their thinking is not based on principles of ethics. It is wel l -known that many scientists are prepared to do research which is morally questionable because it is paid for; i n the US 60 per cent of scientists do research paid for by the Penta gon. Even scientists who warn of the dangers of nuclear energy and genetic engineering still distinguish between 'value-free' 'pure' research and applied research. At a public discussion on gene technology i n Germany one of the leading researchers in genetic engineering, when asked where he saw the limits of scien tific research said: Ί do not see such limits. In order to know whether certain technologies are dangerous we must first develop and apply them. Only then can the public decide, following dem ocratic principles, whether these technologies should be used.' This means, in order to know the dangers of atomic energy, the atom bomb must be made and exploded. Similar arguments can be applied for gene technology. Many scientists' 'value-free' re search is hindered by moral considerations, fears of the people, emotions, and particularly any financial restrictions by the politi cians. Ethics and morality should have a say only after the re search has been done, when the question arises whether or not it should be applied. Only then are ethics commissions created. But the final decision is left to the politicians. These, on the other hand, turn again to the scientists for guidance and expertise when they have to make difficult ethical decisions like fixing the permissible limits of contamination. In reality, both the scientists and the poli ticians are dependent on those who have the money to finance a certain technology and who want to promote it for the sake of profit.

5. It is dangerous to trust politicians and scientists not only because they have no ethics, but also because of their lack of imagination and emotion. To be able to do this type of research a scientist must k i l l i n himself all feelings of empathy, al l imagina tion that w o u l d lead to thinking about the consequences of this research. A s Brian Easlea 1 and the two Böhme brothers 2 have shown, modern science, particularly nuclear physics, demands people who are emotionally crippled.

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

Who Made Nature Our Enemy ? 95

6. After Chernobyl the reactions of some of the leading 'respon sible ones' i n science and politics were extraordinary. Those who, for years, had assured us repeatedly that nuclear energy was safe, that the scientists had everything under their control, that their safety measurements were correct, i n 1986 told the public that the figures shown on their Geiger-counter — 200, 500, or even 2,000 becquerel—were not dangerous, there was no need to panic. Both scientists and politicians minimized the danger, i n spite of the high level of radioactivity measured by their accurate machines. Instead of 'believing' their apparatuses they told the housewives to 'wash the lettuce', to 'keep the children at home', to 'wash their shoes'. A n d the wife of Chancellor K o h l appeared on TV, buying and preparing lettuce, i n order to show people that even the Chancellor's family d i d not believe the evidence of the high rates of radioactivity revealed by the Geiger-counters. Suddenly the old magic of science with its statistics and precise measurements is being replaced by an older imitative and picture magic. 3 The public relations managers try to pacify the people by showing public salad-eating performances on T V by some scientists and politicians. Scientific organizations publish ful l page advertise ments i n which they reassure the public that 'scientific analysis has shown' that radioactivity so far measured was so low that panic or fear for health risks were unnecessary. These advertise ments were financed by the nuclear industry (Frankfurt Rundschau, 12.6.1986).

7. Chernobyl made clear there is no 'peaceful' use of atomic energy. Atomic energy, and, too, the other new 'future' technolo gies, such as reproductive and genetic engineering, are war tech nologies. Not only were they developed as a result of military research financed, originally at least, by defence departments, but their methodology is based on the destruction of l iv ing connec tions and symbioses. Modern science means, as Carolyn Merchant has shown, warfare against nature. Nature is the — female — enemy which must be forced into man's service. 4

8. But all the frantic endeavours to pacify the people also showed that those i n power were afraid of the people, they were afraid of the people's fear, they were less afraid, unlike the women, that life on this planet could be destroyed. But women were no longer ready to listen to them: they went into the streets, they demonstrated and demanded an immediate end to nuclear power plants. Women saw fear and anger as the most rational emotions, as the most powerful energies to be mobilized i n the

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

96 Ecofeminism

months after Chernobyl . Everywhere spontaneous groups of 'Women Against Nuclear Power ' , 'Mothers Against Atomic Energy', 'Parents Against Atomic Energy' etc. sprang up demand ing a halt to this war-technology against nature.

9. Chernobyl taught us the lesson that it is not those who demand an immediate opting out of nuclear energy who push us back 'into the Stone Age' but rather those who propagate this technology in the name of progress and civilization. They are, as became evident i n the months after Chernobyl, the 'fathers of want' not those who have warned against this 'progress'. They are responsible for the fact that in the midst of abundant commodities there is a lack of the simple necessities of life: of green vegetables, of clean water or milk for children.

Atomic energy, but also gene- and computer-technology are often legitimized by the argument that it w o u l d take too long to change social relations and to develop an alternative to the pre vailing scientific paradigm and its technology based on a different relationship of human beings to nature; women also use this argu ment and demand short term, 'pragmatic' solutions or technolog ical fixes. Chernobyl, on the other hand, forced us to think i n other time dimensions. We had no time to form a different relationship to nature. We now have to wait for 30 years t i l l cesium 137 loses half of its radioactivity; the half life of plutonium is 24,000 years; that of strontium 90,28 years.

The ruin of Chernobyl w i l l contaminate the surrounding area for many years to come, causing disease, death and despair for many people. These time dimensions are the outcome of technical solutions propagated by the 'realists', the 'pragmatists', of those who favoured quick results. If we reflect on these time dimensions we should at last ask the really important questions now. A n d we should no longer leave the questions of survival to those experts in politics, science and the economy. It is time to demand an immediate end to nuclear power plants, an opting out of gene- and reproduction technology and to begin to establish a new, benevolent and reciprocal relationship with nature. It is time to end the warfare against nature, it is time that nature is no longer seen and treated as our enemy, but as a l iv ing entity, of which we are an integral part.

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .

Who Made Nature Our Enemy? 97

Notes

1. Easlea, Brian, Fathering the Unthinkable, Masculinity, Scientists and the Nuclear Arms Race. Pluto Press, London, 1986.

2. Böhme, Gerhard, Hartmut Böhme, Das Andre der Vernunft, 1987. 3. Neususs, Christel, Sie messen und dann essen sie es doch: Von der Wissenschaft

zur Magie, in: Gambaroff et al: Tschernobyl hat unser Leben verändert. Vom Aus stieg der Frauen, rororo aktuell, Reinbek, 1986.

4. Merchant, Carolyn, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology and the Scientific Revolu tion. Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1983.

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 01

4. Z

ed B

oo ks

. A ll

rig ht

s re

se rv

ed .