HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- ----- Original Message -----
From: Walter
Lippmann
Sent: Thursday, December 27, 2001 9:16 PM
Subject: [CubaNews] Jose Bove profiles: Granma & Utne
Reader farmer Jose Bove. What a remarkable change this is from the role of French farmers in the past. Until recent years, farmers in that country often supported extreme right and reactionary political trends, such as that of Pierre Poujade. No longer. The second profile was taken from the activist list and is presented to complement the first. Cuba's support for the struggle against capitalist globalization is clear from its attitude toward Bove, who came to world attention for militant action he took against a McDonald's restaurant in his home country. ===================================== GRANMA December 19, 2001 Jos� Bov�: the new hero of the anti-neoliberalism movement? French small farmer gains recognition for his commitment against the globalization of 'bad food' . The life of a man and his struggle ACCOMPANIED by other activists from the Small Farmers' Federation, on August 12, 1999, Jos� Bov�, a sheep farmer in Larzac, France, launched a symbolic dismantling of a McDonald's restaurant under construction in the city of Millau, in response to an increase in the price of Roquefort cheese imposed by Washington. Consequently detained in Villeneuve-les-Magueione prison for vandalism, the trade union leader was released after 19 days, prior to receiving a heavier sentence. The hero of that summer's judicial soap opera, thanks to the intransigence of a Millau judge, Jos� Bov�, the inveterate enemy of "bad food", has become the herald of a global struggle against neoliberal society. Born in Bordeaux in 1963 into a family of brilliant agronomists, Jos� Bov� incorporated pacifism and anti-militarism into his ideology at an early age. A fervent opponent of the U.S. war against Viet Nam, at the age of 20 he traveled to India, where he discovered Gandhi's pacifist philosophy, which he incorporated into his anarchist and libertarian ideals. He defines himself as an anarcho-syndicalist, his principal reference point being the creation of the First International. In 1973, Bernard Lambert organized the first major meeting in Larzac (30,000 persons). Jos� Bov� and his girlfriend Alice attended and discovered what was already a high spot for the revolutionary left in France. Chance thus changed him from student to agricultural worker. The couple began raising sheep and cultivating tomatoes, until the first Bov� scandal broke out in 1974, when he and around 100 small farmers opposed the extension of a military camp. He was imprisoned for three weeks and denied his civil rights. In 1981, when Socialist Fran�ois Mitterrand came to power, the state turned the exploited Larzac land over to civil society. Bov� then dedicated himself to the construction of an active agricultural trade unionism and in 1987 he co-founded the Small Farmers' Federation, whose program moved steadily toward anarcho-syndicalism. If any protest action served to train Larzac rebelliousness for important battles, it was the Millau McDonald's case that converted Bov� into a spokesperson and international star of the agrarian anti-globalization movement. Right in the middle of summer, a period of scant political news, the magistrate transformed a demonstration that would have merited only a few lines in the Parisian press into a national saga. Arrested by the police, a photo was taken of him with his handcuffed fists aloft, proud of what would have been a cause for shame in others. Jos� Bov� declared war on corporate farming. In his book, The World is not a Commodity, he lays out the principles of a coherent agriculture, respectful of consumers and small farmers, and concerned both about the present and the future. The anti-WTO position of the Small Farmers' Federation is clear: "It is necessary to fight for the protection of nutritional plants and food sovereignty. Today, the WTO is organized around the objective of dismantling populations' possibilities of choosing their own method of organization as well as their nutritional self-sufficiency. The WTO is a kind of global mafia that decides for the whole world, arranging everything to its interests alone." Since its creation, the Small Farmers Federation has denounced the corporate farming development model of the last 30 years, directed toward an industrial agriculture. The union defends small farmers' interests, for the benefit of all the world's citizens. During his speech in Seattle, Bov� said, "We would like to further challenge the effects of world trade and international exchange, boosting one of the prime rights of peoples: that of nourishing themselves with the riches produced by their own lands. Exchanges have to come later, in order to respond to needs that cannot be satisfied on our own. If we leave that role to the multinationals that want to disarrange everything, agricultural workers will suffer and the consumers will be harmed." Since his effective action during the Seattle demonstrations, Jos� Bov� is no longer a simple small farmer. The Millau demonstration and the ensuing scandal have developed into a worldwide struggle, with Jos� Bov� at its head. The categorization of that demonstration is also under discussion, as many people believe it was a legitimate action. On June 30, 2000, anti-globalization supporters decided to attend Bov�'s trial, transforming it into a huge rally and concert where both the "criminal nature" of the trade union action and the logic of globalization were denounced. Various anti-globalization movements were present, converting it into an international forum. Brazil's landless campesinos movement plus Zapatistas from Chiapas were able to make their voices of rebellion heard. Jos� Bov� stated that "the Zapatistas established that the defense of Native Indian communities is a fundamental right in the fight against market forces. Globalized trade treaties such as the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) are an attempt to transform their territories into areas of agricultural and trade exploitation that only serve the interests of international corporations. This is why we identify with the Zapatista movement." The forum also became an occasion to exchange ideas on mad cow disease. For Bov�, the crisis is "clearly linked to a mode of industrial production. The market is being liberalized to increase profits. That is why people in Europe are currently very sensitive to the theme of quality in agriculture, uniting to demand a radical reform of agricultural policies. We want to produce our milk, cereals and meat but not at the cost of food dumps that serve world market needs. We produce bad-quality food and cause environmental problems by using pesticides and genetically modified organisms." LEGALITY LACKS LEGITIMACY Jos� Bov�'s legal situation is becoming more complicated from trial to trial. He went on trial at the Millau court on September 13, 2000. But despite his defense lawyers' request, the appeal judge did not acknowledge that the Small Farmers' Federation members acted out of a "state of need." Nor did the Court of Appeal recognize the trade unionist's justification. In March 2001, the public prosecutor sentenced Bov� to three additional months in prison. And the famous small farmer's reaction? "The reasons for our actions were judged more than the acts themselves. Our commercial society hid behind a legality that lacks legitimacy." Jos� Bov� and his comrades will take their case to the Supreme Court, even to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary. Because he wanted to take justice into his own hands - so say his detractors - because he fomented rage worldwide struggle, Jos� Bov� became the victim of the criminalization of an act of protest. Julien Dray, a member of the socialist left, expressed his indignation: "Those who fight liberal globalization and its corruption are hit hard, whilst those who take advantage of the system by swimming in illegality [tax havens, etc.] escape justice." Like a new hero of the anti-globalization struggle, Jos� Bov� is a condemned man with worldwide support: this is an issue of trade union freedom, a man tried for having opposed a policy, in this case the neoliberal globalization that is increasingly affecting consciences. As he writes in The World is not a Commodity, in which he proposes the creation of strong international links: "Other values rather than growth, money, or progress for progress' sake do exist. Cooperation, solidarity, ideas of durability and renovation that are synonyms of hope for the entire planet are not fictitious values." The enemy of "bad food" has extended his fight beyond France; he is as much concerned with agricultural victims of transnationals, trade unions and political parties, as with people enraged by promises of a better world who are excluded from political decisions and actions. All those men and women who no longer believe in a single market are ready to organize themselves. Jos� Bov� will continue to fight for his convictions, at the risk of jeopardizing his legal fate. ============================================= ----- Original Message ----- From: "eric stewart" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, December 27, 2001 2:30 PM Subject: [Activist_List] A French farmer who dismantled a McDonald’s Jos� Bov� A French farmer who dismantled a McDonald's By Florence Williams http://www.utne.com/bNewPlanet.tmpl?command=search&db=dArticle.db&eqheadlinedata=Jose%20Bove%20108 The accused threads his way up the steps of the stone Palais de Justice in the ancient French city of Montpellier. He has receding sandy hair and a comically long walrus mustache, wears a little yellow neck scarf, and clutches a pipe. Muscular young activists in yellow T-shirts escort him past dozens of aggressive TV cameramen, all jockeying for a better angle. Halfway up the stairs, the defendant turns, smiles into the cameras, and gazes over the several hundred protesters gathered on the street below. He gives a thumbs-up and pumps his fist. The crowd goes wild. Their hero is, with the possible exception of President Jacques Chirac, France's most famous political personality. His name is Jos� Bov�. He makes cheese. It is the morning of February 15, 2001, and Bov�, 47, and his nine (virtually unnoticed) co-defendants are appealing their sentences for criminal vandalism convictions, charges resulting from a 1999 protest in which a McDonald's under construction just outside the farming village of Millau was disassembled, bolt by bolt, and carted away. Bov�, sentenced to three months in prison, is unapologetic. He took apart the McDonald's to protest American imperialism, its trade policies, and the general, noxious spread of malbouffe. Malbouffe, Bov� has said, "implies eating any old thing, prepared in any old way . . . both the standardization of food like McDonald's--the same taste from one end of the world to the other--and the choice of food associated with the use of hormones and GMOs [genetically modified organisms], as well as the residues of pesticides and other things that can endanger health." Needless to say, the McDonald's Corporation was not amused-and is still not amused. "We are so the wrong target," says company spokesman Brad Trask from global headquarters in Oak Brook, Illinois. "Our French outlets are virtually entirely locally sourced and Bov� knows that quite well. You'll find no better supporter of local agriculture than us." Besides, Trask sniffs, "Bov� is a gentleman farmer who got his farm by squatting and falling into it." The McDonald's dismantling was a perfect media event. There was Bov� on televison, lugging around a broken McDonald's sign bigger than he was. There was the parade of farm vehicles loaded with debris, which was gently deposited on the lawn of local government offices. There were women cheerfully passing out locally made Roquefort snacks to passersby. "You see," Bruno Rebelle, director of Greenpeace France, says, "in the United States, food is fuel. Here, it's a love story." Since the storming of the McDonald's, "Bov�mania" has spread around the world. During the 1999 anti-World Trade Organization (WTO) protests in Seattle, Bov� delivered fiery speeches and gave away 500 kilos of contraband Roquefort cheese smuggled in from France. (The U.S. government imposed a steep tariff on Roquefort and 76 other French farm products in retaliation for France's restrictions on beef from the United States with hormone additives). Last year, he traveled to India, Turkey, and Wisconsin (cheese capital of the USA), to rouse farmers against globalization. Last January, he led hundreds of Brazilian campesinos on a midnight raid to uproot genetically engineered soybean plants on farmland owned by the Monsanto Corporation. Bov�'s free-market enemies have dismissed him as a mercenary, a poseur, and a nationalistic xenophobe. But wielding a campy blend of folksiness and intellectualism, along with an unerring instinct for political theater, he has elevated the debate over food purity and the importance of traditional agriculture in France to the highest levels of the national agenda. Bov�, who has been making powerful enemies throughout his adult life, is indeed more complicated than the gruff peasant he projects. The son of two crop scientists, Bov� lived in Berkeley from the age of 3 until he was 7 while his parents studied microbiology at the University of California. In 1971 he dropped out of Bordeaux University after a month. "I thought I had other things to do," Bov� says-things like campaigning for disarmament and hanging around Bordeaux reading Thoreau and Gandhi. It was antimilitary activism that drew Jos� to the Larzac region of southern France. In the fields outside the town of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon, native ewes graze native grasses, and the cheese made from their milk is infused with the venerable fungus Penicillium roqueforti and aged for months in limestone caves. In the 1970s, a large swath of this sacred cheeseland lay in the path of a proposed army base expansion. Jos� joined local farmers fighting to save their land. In 1976, he moved to Larzac full time to squat on land purchased by the army. By the time the government gave up its plans, in 1981, Jos� had, with four partners, a robust flock of sheep producing fine Roquefort milk. With the army off their backs, the Larzac farmers turned their attention to other issues facing their region, and in 1987 Bov� and fellow farmer-activist Fran�ois DuFour helped found the Conf�d�ration Paysanne, the small farmers' union. For the next decade, the new union created co-ops and fought increasing use of the hormone bovine somatotrophine (BST) in milk. In 1996, as the mad cow crisis roiled Europe, Bov�'s genius for symbolism reached new heights. He led Gertrude and Laurette, a cow and her calf, to the steps of the Mus�um National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris to dramatize how normal farm animals would be rendered obsolete if the import of hormone-fed meat was permitted. But it was the McDonald's incident that made Bov� known far outside his home region. He wrote a book (with his union colleague Fran�ois DuFour) that sold 100,000 copies in France and is now being translated into nine languages, including Turkish, Japanese, Korean, and Catalan. The U.S. version, The World Is Not for Sale, was published by Verso Books this summer. Bov�'s agricultural solutions are extensions of his philosophy of self-reliance and the French tradition of terroir ("of the earth"), meaning the very essence of the soil which, as with wine, infuses an agricultural product. "Each area in the world should feed its own population, not the whole world," he says. The Montpellier district courtroom is small. To the left sit the McDonald's Ten, their army of attorneys, and their families and friends. Strains of festive zydeco and reggae waft in from the plaza next door, where the cow-costumed, sign-waving crowd will soon swell to 15,000. The defense intends to paint the farmers as the conscience of the nation, citizens whose acts of civil disobedience, while perhaps technically illegal, are nevertheless forgivable cries of truth in an otherwise ruthless and technocratic world. Bov� is the first to take the stand. "McDonald's," Bov� says, "is the symbol of standardization of food. What we did was like the Boston Tea Party." "McDonald's is a French investment," the chief justice argues, "with local jobs, local meat, local produce." Then he switches tack. "What did you think of the headlines saying you sacked the place?" Bov�: "It was an exaggeration. We didn't sack it. We dismantled it." Judge: "What does 'dismantle' mean? When you took off the tiles, some of them broke." Bov�: "What did it mean when they dismantled the Bastille?" The crowd guffaws. To Bov�-and indeed, most Frenchmen-the debate is about nothing less than cultural survival: Will France become more like the rest of the world, or will the rest of the world become more like France? Over half the food we blithely buy in U.S. supermarkets contains genetically modified organisms, most of them unlabeled. A third of our corn and half our soybeans contain cross-species genes. French food, on the other hand, rarely contains genetically modified ingredients, and if it does it must be identified. More than 60 percent of French markets have agreed not to sell such food at all. But while the French have an inherent distrust of inauthenticity, they are equally suspicious of showmanship. "Bov� is serious, but like everyone who becomes a media symbol, he becomes quite ridiculous at the same time," says Paris food writer Benediot Beauge. "What is it Bov� believes in?" asks Antoine Jacobsohn, a Franco-American who sits on the board of the Museum of Vegetable Culture, which does exist, in Paris. "Targeting the McDonald's was a good idea, but . . . I'd like to see him promoting an image of terroir, not just destroying things." Although, thinking for a moment, he adds, "I liked it when he pissed on imported wheat." In March, Bov� was ordered to serve his three months for the McDonald's affair, a sentence he will appeal again. "Jail is jail," Bov� says from his cell phone on his way to Sweden to address its farmers' union. "If I have to go, I have to go." In the meantime, he has space-age travel plans. He figured prominently in protests at the Summit of the Americas in Quebec in April and Genoa in July. He'll hit Qatar in November if the WTO meeting that follows up the disastrous 1999 session in Seattle is not canceled. Then maybe West Africa, where he has fans. The sheep farmer opposing globalization has become a global celebrity. ========================== Walter Lippmann [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.walterlippmann.com ======================================================================= To subscribe to CubaNews, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://TOPICA.COM/u/?a84x2u.a9WB2D Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================ |
