March For The Alternative - Why they are here and who they are 26.03.11

The March for the Alternative was organised by the TUC and joined by UK Uncut, a self-organised direct action group.

While the Trade Unions marched toward Hyde Park where this film was made, the UK Uncut under the "Shut Down London" operation was targeting "Tax Dodgers" retailers. Their philosphy is non violent and consist in entering the shops, in this case Fortum and Mason and do "sit-downs" with their placards. Obviously shoppers don't feel like buying anything... then the shop manager has to shut down... Mission accomplished :-)

In this film the protesters have been asked why they are here and who they are. 

While interviewing people from different walks of life, I realise that they all shared a common characteristic. They care for others. They are conscious of the implications of these Public Service spending cuts on their friends, family and local communities.

There was half a million of people coming to London from across the UK to show their opposition to this Tory Libdem lead government spending cut bill. Many citizens that aspired to change, voted for the Liberal Democrats at the general election thinking that it will make a difference. Most of them, feel deeply betrayed and question the true value of democracy. If we are in a democracy, why is it that our "representatives" once elected do not keep their promises. Does our voice count? This government instead of acknowledging the overwhelming opposition to Public Service cuts, they use the media propaganda of the state to divert the public opinion from this truth and focus on minor incidents that have been made bigger than they really are.

What's next?

The people that came to the protest know that all of this is no true. Until we rely on the BBC to tell us what's happening we will be kept submerge from real consciousness and unable to fight for our rights to health, education, settler.... It is time to get back our power and be listen to. Keep up to date.

References:
Filming and Editing: Sandra De Andrade
Interviewer: Liz Rojas

Music: Zapac Test Drive

The End of Poverty film

“End of Poverty?” a good question. It is the title of Philippe Dias documentary that received numerous awards and recognitions. This week The Tipping Point Film Fund organised the screening at the Lexi cinema.

I always wondered how people can be hungry and poor when nature can produce anything we need to at least not to be hungry.

One of the most striking scenes was a group of Kenyan farmer showing their devastated land and dying animals. Just two miles away, a foreign corporation has just opened. A recent built dam has destroyed all their cultures bringing cholera and other forms of deceases. To make things worse, the rice produced in their land is sold abroad and does not even nourish their own people.

The economical system and financial institutions created by the west keeps developing countries under-development.  This neo-liberalism system is the continuation of colonization. It sucks all the wealth produced in poor countries in debt repayment to the West creditors.

Through the imposition of debt, the countries lose their sovereignty…. letting external vested interests dictate the country policies.

It is happening here:

Until recently Europe was protected from the side effects of the market. Now it is happening here! The financial crisis has justified savage cuts in the welfare system and the selling of public service units (Gaz, Water, Electricity, Telecommunication….) to private interests. There is no real political alternative, the “right” says large fast cuts and the “left” says cuts but not so fast. Their argument is we have too much debt! Non sense! We always had debt! It is part of the functioning of the capitalist system.

Critics:

From the floor – in the audience someone pointed out that English subtitles were only use when black speakers were speaking when American-Asians clearly had an accent. I think it is a pity that the film director did not challenge his own prejudice. In my point of view, the film is a bit too long partly due to the large quantity of interviews. Philippe Diaz could have cut on few speakers. Some discourses were repetitive and did not add further information. Moreover, some historic explanations about the colonisation were simplistic.

Conclusion:

The “End of Poverty?” is very rich and triggers many questions that need to be investigated separately. A long debate about aid followed in the audience.The successful role of UKUncut in the organisation of grassroot spontaneous protests to expose tax-doding corporations.

Further reading that reinforce the idea of western economies responsibility in the extreme poverty of the South.

http://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/2011/02/pilger-fascism-bahrain-egypt

Panel discussion speakers:

Andrew Simms - the New Economics Foundation

The New Economics Foundation is an independent think-and-do tank that inspires and demonstrates real economic well-being...

John Hillary - War on Want: 

War on Want fights poverty in developing countries in partnership with people affected by globalisation. they campaign for human rights and against the root causes of global poverty, inequality and injustice.

This film is supported by:

Share the world resources

STWR advocates for essential resources such as food, water and energy to be shared internationally under the agency of the UN in order

A day embedded in the student protest – Sat 29 January 2011

I joined a small group of activists to produce jointly a film covering the National Protest organised by NCA£C and lead by students to tell the story that is not getting told.

My contribution to the project was the filming of the character embodied in Flaminia, an Italian masters degree student at Goldsmith University.

If it does not play; click here.

Last Saturday 29 January 2011, I joined Flaminia at the National Protest meeting point in Mallet Street, London. She was with a few other students from her university getting ready for the march.

This National demonstration was called by National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts in the absence of action by NUS (National Union Student). 

Aaron Porter, the president of the National Union Student has been asked to step down as he has lost his legitimacy in representing students since last November protest that saw students hurt, arrested and prosecuted. Students’ words are hard but irrevocable “Aaron must step down”. At the core of the recrimination a profound let down explained in Laurie Penny’s article. 

So why are students protesting when the university raise in tuition fees to £9,000 per year bill has already  been voted in Parliament since December 9^th December 2010?

They see their fights against the raise in tuition fees as part of the Tories’ ideological spending cuts strategy. They don’t understand why they should be paying that amount of money when corporations like Top-shop, Vodafone…. are avoiding billions in taxation as UK uncut pointed out. Moreover, they are worried about their future and the prospect of finding a job in this current economical climate. What support is the state going to give them? 

Since the overwhelming majority of the population seem apathetic` at the daily announcement of spending cuts, students feel compelled to act for all of us in the hope that their fight will trigger a wake-up call across the society.  They dream of a unified movement where cleavage of class, age or sex ceases to fight a common goal following the path of their bothers in Tunisia and Egypt. 

You could see the disappointment of the students when they realised that their protest was losing momentum at the Egyptian embassy…still they are not defeated they will return more united than ever having learned from their mistakes. 

Read about :

The story of UK Uncut by Samira Shackle

Join: 

http://www.facebook.com/ukuncut

http://www.facebook.com/NCAFC

When forests become a commodity – How do you preserve the right of indigenous people?

Intact worldwide rain forests act as carbon sinks and currently absorb 15% of CO2 emissions caused by the release of burnt fossils fuels into the atmosphere. Deforestation represents an estimated 12-20% of CO2 emissions in the world and thus contributes to global warming.

At the Copenhagen climate conference, all participating nations agreed that the global temperature rise should be kept under 2C° to prevent an irreversible climate run-away. Therefore, “we” all agree that forests should be protected from logging, clearing and fires. That is world leaders argument to introduce the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) scheme. But, what forests are they talking about? What does it mean for local people? Why is that scheme controversial?

 

The causes behind deforestation

The causes behind deforestation are numerous and complex, and range from agriculture to minerals extraction. Rising population numbers have caused the urban infrastructure such as roads, dams and cities to be extended at the expense of forests. At the same time, It impacts on agriculture by clearing forests to grow crops and feed livestock. In short, deforestation is the direct consequence of scarce availability of farm land to fulfill the needs of an ever growing urbanised population.

Forests are also a lucrative business. Trees can for instance be logged to make goods such as furniture and paper, or maintained to harvest their valuable leaves or e.g. rubber. The highest danger for the preservation of forests however, comes from mineral extraction, notably gold, and global markets economy behind them. The increasing demand on the world markets for raw material, prominently driven by companies based in Western world countries, are putting more and more pressure on countries with still large virgin rain forests, to give in, and trade their natural forest resources for the consumption driven demand.

The role of rain forests as ecosystems

Unfortunately though, such activities ignore the important role of forests in maintaining eco-systems and biodiversity for the planet Earth as a whole, for increasingly rare or nearly extinct species, and last but certainly not least for the livelihood of numerous tribes of indigenous people. For the latter, rain forests are their reservoir for survival, be it through edible and medicinal plants, bush-meat, fruits, honey, shelter, firewood and many other goods, as well as through cultural and spiritual values.

“Defend life”, a video by the World Rain Forest Movement (WRM) illustrates what the rain forest means to local people, and what happens when rainforests are cleared to make space for monoculture tree plantations.

What is REDD?
Although the REDD scheme has only been added to the global Cop15 accord last December in Copenhagen, pilots projects already exist. According to industrialised nations in favour of REDD, deforestation is the consequence of low monetary value placed on intact forests. They suggest that paying forest owners for their conservation in rain forest rich (but economically disadvantaged) countries will help protect the rain forest.

BBC Q&A about REDD

How does REDD work? And why we should worry?

REDD is part of the market-based flexible mechanism called Clean Development Mechanism, which aim at meeting CO2 reduction targets. It is, roughly, based on an accounting scheme based on how much carbon a country/corporation has avoided discharging into the atmosphere by NOT cutting trees. Large polluters, that have been awarded carbon credits by their governments under the Carbon Cap & Trade scheme, can then invest their credits into forests projects in rain forest countries in order to offset/absorb their emissions. These offsetting projects are mainly financed by banks on the base of future lucrative speculation gains.

Watch a debate between to experts on Cap & Trade: A Critical Look at Carbon Trading

In contrast to industrialised nations, which assume that deforestation is the consequence of low monetary value placed on intact forests, indigenous people fear – and rightly so, based on their past experiences notably with the REDD pilot projects – that putting a price on rain forests will, rather help to preserve them, increase land tenure by large companies and governments who will be standing to be rewarded by REDD funds.

This is why at Copenhagen, indigenous people demanded that their consent was to be taken into account on their ancestors’ land before any project authorisation is granted to corporations. Yet, despite the failure to protect indigenous livelihood in currently ongoing REDD pilot projects, the REDD scheme still was approved and is to go ahead and scale-out globally.

The danger of replacing rainforest with tree plantations

A key issue and major concern in the discussions around REDD is the fairly lax definition of ‘forest’.

In the words of the Word Rainforest Movement:

“The latest definition given by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, formally the main body responsible for forests within the UN system, is so broad that most green urban areas can be considered major forest eco-systems.”

The fact that such a highly valued thing as the rain forest has been so poorly define by the UN, effectively means that tree monoculture plantation can qualify for REDD and receive subsidies … Or more to the point:

Imagine palm oil, Agrodiesel and Ethanol plantation rewarded with subsidies at the same time as turning out huge profits. Sounds like eating the cake and have it – an ecological-economical perpetual motion machine.

Sadly, that is how the startling reality looks like in West Papua in Indonesia were ancient forests are replaced with Palm oil – as documented by Aljazeera in December 2009.

Conclusion:

The driving demand on raw material will put high pressure on countries with rain forests, making it hard and harder for them to stand up against the pressure and preserve their natural resources. Because of the REDD schema’s broad definition of the term “forest”, in fact any green plantation will potentially be in the position to claim subsidies for carbon avoidance emissions.

To make matters worse, there is no such thing as an international standard or agreement of to measure or calculate carbon absorption – it’s open doors for false claims and achievement pretenders.

Renowned climate experts believe that pollution permits and cheap offsetting projects in rain forest rich countries allow polluters to continue business as usual instead of motivating them to invest into clean technologies that cost, on the short term, significantly more than just sticking to the status quo. Credible claims state that the market based approaches only delay both, the transition to a low carbon economy and the shift from fossil fuel into renewal energies.

Finally, the one side question that is hardly ever asked, and never answered: Who guarantees, and how, that the subsidies are indeed going to local communities, when they are distributed through public, governmental channels of countries that are not always well known for their reliability and accountability to their citizens?