Mon Jan 07, 2013 at 10:17 AM PST
EXPANDING THE REALM OF THE POSSIBLE IN 2012
<http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/07/1177027/-EXPANDING-THE-REALM-OF-THE-POSSIBLE-IN-2012>
by Bev Bell <http://www.dailykos.com/user/Bev%20Bell>
January 7, 2012
In the high desert outside Taos, New Mexico, I drove down a dirt road
that parallels the Rio Grande and saw the thick haze of a forest fire.
To see the spectacle, I quickly reversed my planned course and drove as
close as I was able. Across a long line of mountains, red flames flicked
up like snake's tongues amongst dense black ropes of smoke. Where the
blaze had worn down, thinner smoke wisps arose above charred, black land.
One small helicopter moved high above the flames, dangling from a rope a
bucket of fire retardant. From my vantage point, it looked about the
size of a large picnic basket. I knew from years of living in
forest-rich and tinder-dry northern New Mexico that the aircraft would
make many runs, restocking and then returning to drop anew. This
gesture, the repetitive pouring of small quantities of chemicals over an
inferno which stretched as far west as the eye could see, seemed either
nobly brave or insanely quixotic. Either way, it appeared a fool's
mission, this attempt at a solution seemingly far outstripped by the
problem.
Four hours later, driving back along the same road, I again detoured to
the fire site. There were no angry flames. No oily plumes billowing
upward. From the disaster site remained only one column of smoke,
exhaling a dying breath as it diffused into the air. The minute but
steady interventions of that helicopter pilot, his patient commitment to
his mission, had won the day.
This is precisely the story of organized communities and people's
movements the world over. What we see in the news and in our computer
inboxes are crises. So vast and fiery are the problems that it may seem
impossible to imagine that solutions exist, or that change may be
imminent. And yet, 2012 brought many unlikely advances and victories,
part of a long trajectory through which committed individuals are,
incrementally and episodically, shifting the debate, transforming power,
and winning real gains in quality of life. Below is a round-up of some
such news, much of which fell below the media radar, beginning with the
most recent. The stories are a small representation of the campaigns,
public actions, and collective strategies that last year changed, in the
grand or the local, a piece of history. Many were made possible by the
organizing of people without money or connections, those whom the
Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano called "the owners of nothing."
For starters, who might have imagined, when 2012 was dawning, that the
failures of capitalism -- especially as seen through inequality which is
crescendoing like a bottle rocket (currently, the richest 20 percent
<http://www.unicef.org/socialpolicy/index_58230.html> of the world's
population rakes in about 80 percent of total income) - would become
standard dinner-table conversation in the US? Motley Occupiers around
the country achieved that.
A women's rights movement in the Philippines successfully pushed for
passage of a reproductive rights bill, against heavy pressure by the
Vatican. On December 21, President Benigno Aquino III signed
<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324669104578208891390006944.html>
the law, which guarantees contraception for those too poor to buy it,
and promotes contraception and sex ed in schools.
You likely know that on November 29, the UN General Assembly
overwhelmingly voted to upgrade Palestine's status to "nonmember
observer state," despite the vigorous protests
<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323751104578149193307234514.html>
of Israel and the US. Less noticed was the next step in the status
upgrade: on December 21, the UN changed its documents and plaques
<http://www.timesofisrael.com/after-upgrading-status-un-officially-switches-from-palestine-to-state-of-palestine/>
from "Palestine" to "State of Palestine." The Palestinian delegation had
requested such a change just after the General Assembly vote, but UN
officials denied it at that time. This time, the UN's legal department
recommended the change, and the body concurred. These developments would
never have happened without decades of resistance by Palestinians, who
have continually brought their case for independence to the eyes and
ears of the world.
Who could have imagined this? At the beginning of December, after 39
years of tenacious grassroots pressure, a Chilean judge ordered the
arrest
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-20861432#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa>of
eight former army officers for having assassinated folk singer Victor
Jara in 1973. Jara was a leader in the cultural uprising that was
creating a new society and economy under socialist president Salvador
Allende. Jara was tortured -- including having his guitar-playing hands
and wrists smashed, the bones broken -- and executed during the
military-led, and US-backed, coup.
Also at the beginning of December, a one-week strike
<http://www.ilwu.org/?p=4326> by 450 clerical workers, members of the
International Longshore and Warehouse Union, won protections against
outsourcing to Texas and Taiwan. Ten thousand dock workers in Los
Angeles and Long Beach joined in solidarity, impacting the national economy.
Of course there was the new flurry of organizing for higher wages and
better conditions by workers of Walmart, the famously anti-union
mega-corporation. Walmart employs almost 1% of the US workforce. And
though the store makes $15 billion a year in profits, it pays most of
that workforce less than $10 an hour and denies them benefits by keeping
them part-time. The organizing drive shook up the country on Black
Friday, with strikes at reportedly 1000 stores
<http://www.democracynow.org/2012/11/26/wal_mart_worker_uprising_protests_held>.
Beyond that, workers have engaged in many actions over the past months,
and show no signs of abating
<http://www.inthesetimes.com/uprising/entry/14320/8_reasons_the_walmart_winter_is_a_game_changer/>.
On November 19, significant pressure from different social sectors of
Colombia brought the government and the FARC rebels to the negotiating
table. While they have yet to come to agreement on their five-point
agenda, this is still a move in the right direction for a five-decade
internal armed conflict. It is the oldest in the world and one which has
brought the death of at least 300,000 people and the disappearance of at
least 27,000 more, most since the 80s. Another 4.5 million have been
forcibly displaced by the military and its paramilitary associates.
Earlier in the year, the indigenous Nasa people in the Cauca region of
Colombia chose to take the peace process into their own hands. For
decades, they have been terrorized by the military on the one hand and
FARC on the other. In July, they reclaimed their territory. Community
members mobilized to expel soldiers and dismantle the illegal military
installations on their lands. A group of women took prisoner the FARC
guerrillas who had engaged in attacks against them, and confiscated
their weaponry. Nasa authorities convicted the guerrillas of crimes
against humanity and condemned each to 30 lashes, a local ritual which
represents purification.
An advisory referendum in Iceland in late October, regarding a draft
constitution, included this question: "In the new Constitution, do you
want natural resources that are not privately owned to be declared
national property?" In a resounding display of support for the global
commons, eighty-one percent voted yes.
In February and again in October, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers
(CIW) won two more in a string of 11 victories that commenced in 2005,
after a four-year boycott against Taco Bell. Last year, both Chipotle
Mexican Grill and Trader Joe's signed onto the Fair Food Program
<http://www.ciw-online.org/FFP_FAQ.html>, almost doubling the wages for
tomatoes picked and guaranteeing a code of fair conduct for the pickers.
The CIW, a small group of farmworkers from the hardscrabble Florida town
of Immokalee, are the embodiment of the (source-disputed) quote, "If you
think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a
mosquito." The farmworkers and their allies are moving like steamrollers
toward getting all tomatoes picked in the US with dignity, rights, and
fair wages. Publix, CIW's current target, may as well just give up now.
Cornell University terminated
<http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/14220/adidas_expelled_from_cornell>
its contract with Adidas for the corporation's labor violations, the
first university to do so. The victory came October 1, after a campaign
led by the 150-campus United Students Against Sweatshops
<http://usas.org/>, for Adidas having closed a plant in Indonesia
without warning, leaving almost 3,000 workers unemployed and without
severance pay.
In Chicago - the third-largest school district in the nation - more than
29,000 members of the Chicago Teachers Union <http://www.ctunet.com>
went on strike last September to advance demands for better health
benefits, job security, and changes in teacher evaluation systems. While
winning many concessions from the district, the strike also elevated
discussion of systemic problems resulting from school "reform" efforts
around the country, such as growing racial segregation of schools,
school closings, and the corporate-backed move towards privatization of
education.
In South Africa, thousands of Lonmin platinum mineworkers who survived
the August 16 massacre (in which 34 were killed and 78 wounded) stayed
out on a wildcat strike another three weeks. In September, they won a
22% wage increase
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/18/south-africa-mine-strike_n_1893796.html>.
They also inspired a wave of strikes in the world's most unequal
country, helping to justify the World Economic Forum's naming of South
African workers as the world's most militant in 2011-12.
In Argentina three years ago, significant pressure by media activists
and progressive intellectuals pushed through a law to free the press
from its singular control by the elite. The law's most important
contribution was to commit 33% of the FM band to non-profit media. When
a suit by the media group Grupo Clarín challenged the law, a judge
declared
<http://www.farco.org.ar/index.php/en/noticias/1942-el-juez-fallo-a-favor-de-la-constitucionalidad-de-la-ley-de-medios-y-se-termino-la-cautelar.html>
radio to be part of the public good, and said that liberty of expression
does not give "absolute immunity to excessive concentration." While some
aspects of the law remain blocked, and the decision is being appealed by
Clarín, community mobilization resulted in 2012 in the granting of
licenses
<http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/laventana/26-206767-2012-10-31.html>
to many groups who had long awaited the ability to control their own
media. They included indigenous peoples, cooperatives, and rural
low-frequency stations.
The indigenous Achuar people of Peru won
<http://amazonwatch.org/news/2012/0917-victory-talisman-to-withdraw-from-peru>
their multi-year fight against oil exploration by Talisman Energy on
their Amazonian lands. On September 13, Talisman announced it would stop
exploration and would leave Peru as soon as it wrapped up ongoing
commercial transactions. "Now that Talisman is leaving we can focus on
achieving our own vision for development and leave a healthy territory
for future generations," said Peas Peas Ayui, President of the National
Achuar Federation of Peru (FENAP).
Three years of intensive advocacy, protests, legal efforts, and media
campaigns in Haiti and around the world finally resulted in some
progress
<http://truth-out.org/news/item/13503-ny-times-suggests-its-pointless-to-report-rape-in-haiti-ignoring-serious-efforts-to-protect-women>
in deterring and punishing rape against Haitian women and girls. The
incidence of abuse escalated hugely after the 2010 earthquake,
especially against those who have been left exposed and vulnerable in
internally displaced people's camps. The criminal court session of last
summer included the unprecedented number of 22 rape cases. Of the 13
results that were posted, 12 were convictions, and only one was an
acquittal. And the Ministries of Justice and Women's Affairs are moving
forward in drafting laws to make it easier to prosecute rape as a crime
and to decriminalize abortion in limited cases, such as rape and incest.
The Kichwa people of Sarayaku, Ecuador won two precedent-setting
victories. First, in April, the national government acknowledged
responsibility for illegally granting a license to an oil company to do
business on indigenous territory without the community's consent. Then
in July, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled
<http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/article/human-rights-court-rules-in-favor-of-kichwa-community-against-ecuadorian-government-125906>
against the Ecuadoran government for not having consulted with the
community before signing the exploration agreement with the company, and
ordered the government to pay the Kichwas $1.34 million in damages, and
more in reimbursement for legal fees.
In May and June, the world saw a Mexican-style Occupy arise with the Yo
Soy 132 (I am 132) movement. Students and others rose up throughout the
country in a mass mobilization against PRI presidential candidate
Enrique Peña Nieto, and against control of elections and the press by
the elite. At that time, and through subsequent public actions, the
movement has shown its fierce commitment to remain a force in reclaiming
democracy and freedom of expression. The Mexican Spring also includes
the reappearance of the Zapatistas, beginning on December 21 when more
than 40,000 of the Mayan revolutionaries marched to five cities for a
silent demonstration <http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/8775> of strength.
In Senegal in March, sustained protests and a landslide vote blocked
<http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/03/2012325215047179839.html>
President Abdoulade Wade from an unconstitutional third term.
In Nigeria at the very beginning of last year, labor unions and
activists defeated the attempted removal of gas subsidies by the
government and the IMF. Strikers and demonstrators
<http://saharareporters.com/news-page/fuel-subsidy-withdrawal-nlc-and-tuc-urge-nigerians-prepare-massive-street-demonstrations>
across the country almost brought down the Jonathan administration as
they achieved their goal of keeping gas prices low.
For more progressive advances and victories of 2012, please consult
Democracy Now <http://www.democracynow.org>, YES! Magazine
<http://www.yesmagazine.org/?v2>, Truthout <http://truth-out.org>, In
These Times <http://www.inthesetimes.com/>, Other Worlds
<http://www.otherworldsarepossible.org>, and On the Commons
<http://www.onthecommons.org/>.
Are we winning? No. We are getting hammered by those more powerful and
rich than we, who are able to buy up elections, the sky (think carbon
offsets <http://www.storyofstuff.org/movies-all/story-of-cap-trade/>),
the historical record <http://fair.org>, and pretty much everything else
you can think of. If you're from the Northeastern US, you lived through
the fallout of climate change-induced crazy weather
<https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/08/05>. If you're part of
the 99%, you surely know someone who has lost their job, apartment, or
home in the past few years. If you're from Pakistan, Yemen, or Somalia,
you may know someone on Obama's "kill list," or just an unlucky
bystander, who was assassinated by a drone strike
<http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/01/11/obama-2012-strikes/> in
2012.
Noam Chomsky once said in a Democracy Now interview, "If you want things
to stay exactly the way they are, just do nothing." Alternatively, with
the knowledge that almost anything is possible in 2013, but that we
never know where or how change will spark, we can choose to do as much
as we can, all the time.
To slightly revise the anonymous quote: Shoot for the moon. Even if you
miss, you may land among the stars.
/Thanks to Saulo Araújo and Sara Mersha of Grassroots International
(US), Patrick Bond of the Centre for Civil Society (South Africa), Juan
Carlos Houghton (Colombia), Ernesto Lamas of the World Association of
Community Radio Broadcasters (Argentina), Mary Ann Manahan of Focus on
the Global South (Philippines), Institute for Justice and Democracy in
Haiti (US/Haiti), and On the Commons (US).
/
*Read more from Other Worlds here
<http://www.otherworldsarepossible.org/>, and follow us on Facebook
<https://www.facebook.com/otherworldsarepossible> and Twitter
<https://twitter.com/Other_Worlds>.*
//Beverly Bell has worked for more than three decades as an advocate,
organizer, and writer in collaboration with social movements in Latin
America, the Caribbean, Africa, and the U.S. Her focus areas are just
economies, democratic participation, and gender justice. Beverly
currently serves as associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies
<http://www.ips-dc.org> and coordinator of Other Worlds
<http://www.otherworldsarepossible.org>, and is a member of the advisory
board of Truthout. She is author of /Walking on Fire: Haitian Women
Stories of Survival and Resistance/ and of the forthcoming /Fault Lines:
Views Across Haiti's Divide.///
/
/Copyleft Beverly Bell. You may reprint this article in whole or in
part. Please credit any text or original research you use to Beverly
Bell, Other Worlds.//
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