A gaunt man stands on the seashore, watching the waves roll in. Behind him, the crowd has hushed in solemn anticipation as the moment approaches. The merciless sun has baked the sand dry; it is covered with a whitish, salty crust where the tide has retreated. There is no shade, both beach and crowd are painted with bold strokes of white and light brown, a monochrome sepia landscape as far as the eye can see. A seagull cries and the man bends down, picking up a tiny clump of salt.
The crime: Picking a handful of salt and dirt.
The punishment: Six months in jail.
This was eighty years ago on the shores of India, and the man was Mahatma Gandhi. The Salt March was the beginning of a non-violent revolution that ended the British colonization of India and showed the world that guns were not needed to win a war. The salt was a rallying symbol because it was something that bound everybody together, from the richest of the rich to the poorest of the poor. Everybody needed salt; this was something that people could understand. Every revolution needs an injustice so obvious that nobody can overlook it.
Let us go back a century. Britain is a world power when it comes to salt. When rock salt was discovered nearby, Liverpool Salt became famous. Like any industry it wanted to sell its products at a good price, and India was a colony and thus a huge market for British goods. The problem was that India had a thriving salt production of its own. The hot marshy shores of the subcontinent were perfect for evaporating sea-salt, and so the Brits set about demolishing that industry. Formerly wealthy local communities turned poor overnight. At first some local production was allowed, but it went too well and produced salt too cheaply, so the factories were soon closed and most of the salt had to be imported from abroad. This imported salt was already expensive, but on top of it a tax was added; the infamous salt tax.
Today, when some politicians speak of wanting a flat taxation rate, this is exactly what they are talking about. The reason salt was chosen to tax was because it was reasoned that everybody ate salt, and that the rich and the poor ate about the same amount so the tax would be “fair”. Of course the burden of this expensive salt rested heavily on the poor, but when protests were raised, the reply was quite revealing; “Paying the salt tax is the only good the poor ever do for their country.” So no change came about despite the protests. Unlike taxing imported luxury products, salt was something readily available if you lived near the sea. Thus it became illegal to collect sea salt and to evaporate sea water. The more people smuggled, the more draconian the countermeasures became.
In the end this could not last. The absurdity of being forbidden to utilize something that Mother Nature provided for free eventually led to revolution and freedom. Salt became a symbol of civil disobedience, and a rallying point for an otherwise splintered and diverse people.
But this is all ancient history, right?
We would like to think so. Let’s jump 70 years in the future.
Early January, 2000
Anger is brewing in the city center. From the countryside peasant irrigators trickle in, armed with angry banners. They are joined by the retired and the organized, unions as ever a focal point for unrest. The young and unemployed begin to build barricades in the streets. The crowds grow as street vendors and sweatshop employees abandon their jobs to rub shoulders with middleclass anarchists. The homeless and the street children join in, and the anger culminates in a massive strike that shuts the city down for four whole days.
This is the beginning of the Cochabamba Water Wars.
Most people have never heard of this event, though it changed the course of a country. In the early eighties Bolivia had managed to throw off its military dictatorship and was struggling to build a civilian administration. Weighted down by debt, the country turned unstable, and after a bout of hyperinflation that nearly wiped out the entire economy, the country turned to the World Bank for help. For the next 20 years they dutifully privatized everything that was not nailed down, since the World Bank had the view that governments were inefficient, and private (American) companies could do much better. In this they were as efficient as the rest of the third world, so come 1999, not much is left to sell.
In order to receive a much needed loan, the World Bank finally demands that Bolivia privatize its water supply. No bidding took place; a new consortium was created which was owned by 6 corporations, most of them foreign, the most powerful one being the American company Bechtel. This consortium, run by foreigners, quickly raised prices, and suddenly a normal water bill could be a fifth or more of an average person’s income. This was more than people spent on food. And what was even more infuriating, it was suddenly a crime to collect rainwater.
For the poor, collecting rainwater from roofs was common practice. But since all water resources in Bolivia had been sold, this was now something that you needed a license for. People could only be pushed so far until the anger over this absurd state of affairs would lead to protest. One of the people involved in these Water Wars was Evo Morales, an Aymara Indian who would eventually end up being the President of Bolivia. In the past, the socialist wave of south/central America was attributed to Soviet propaganda, and these days it is blamed on terrorist dictators like Chavez. But the truth is; it is events like these that spur the socialist movements. When confronted with the insanity of rampant neo-liberalism, people can only take so much before they strike back.
Now
The American Midwest. Birds are soaring in the blue sky, and irrigated circles shine green in the otherwise dry landscape. Bees shuttle pollen back and forth, busy preparing their hives for the coming winter. But not all is idyllic. The farm is bankrupt and about to go out of business, and the birds and the bees are to blame. They have no concept of boundaries and have flown to a neighboring farm, where a new crop is grown. When they return, they carry seeds and pollen that pollutes the farmer’s fields, and they are now facing million dollar charges of theft and patent infringement.
The crop is genetically modified, owned by Monsanto who has a staff of spies trawling the fields of America taking samples to see if someone is growing something that they are not supposed to. GM crops are everywhere these days, and the genes are not staying put. Plants pollinate each other, and crops miles and miles away can be contaminated. To the naked eye, nothing separates a GM seed from a normal one. Farmers won’t know the difference, and neither will people who deal in seeds. A spill there, a mix-up there, and people can be ruined without ever having meant to do anything wrong.
The only way to be sure is to buy your seeds from Monsanto, but be ready to provide proof of purchase if asked for it. The ancient practice of saving part of your crop to plant next year is suddenly illegal. Farmers have to sign a contract with Monsanto where they promise not to. Their crop is leased on a one year basis, and thus they will be tied up to their corporate sugar-daddy year after year, because if you have grown a GM crop once, there is no turning back. Traces of those genes will always be there.
However, in less civilized places it might not be as easy to inspect farms. Thus the Terminator Gene was introduced. It guarantees that no seed will grow to be a new plant, they are sterile and lifeless. Though this practice gives most people pause, it is already approved on a case by case basis, and in countries such as Iraq the farmers have no choice. Big business decides.
It does not end there, people and companies patent seeds and plants that have been in use for centuries, and it only seems to be a matter of time until we wake up and find out that a specific genetic sequence have been patented, and we all will have to pay a license since it is in our bodies.
The future turns darker and more frightening by the year.
But, there is hope. If there is anything we can learn from the past, it is that the harder the people in power suppress something, the more likely the people are to push back. Most people just want to get along, live their lives, raise their families and have what little happiness they can. People accept being stepped on, we all do. Life might be unjust and our boss might be a bastard, but as long as things do not get completely out of hand, we can justify our inaction. Things are not too bad after all.
And then comes the tipping point. The moment when someone proclaims that the Emperor is naked and everybody realize just how absurd our accepted oppression really is. How can people be put in jail for picking up salt that just lies there on the ground? How can it be illegal to collect rainwater? How could someone be run out of business because bees have no concept of ownership? There is an old saying here in Sweden, that it is useless to make any law that goes against the common conception of what is right. The law will not be enforceable. Perhaps that’s why we’ve become the poster-country for computer piracy despite our government making more and more draconian measures to enforce their laws.
I was already writing this for my English blog, and after the events yesterday where Israel soldiers rappelled down from helicopters to board the convoy 'Ship to Gaza' in international waters, it feels more important than ever. This six ship convoy was organized in part by swedes, and carried humanitarian aid to the Gaza strip. Nobody knows how many are dead yet, there is talk of 19 dead, and 60 injured. The convoy was unarmed, and strict security measures had been enforced to make sure that they carried nothing that could be perceived as weapons. Politicians, authors and others were on the ships to try to deter Israel from attacking them. It didn't help. We don't know if any swedes are dead yet. The political scandal here is huge, and people are out in the street demonstrating, but I'm having a hard time finding any english-speaking links that doesn't just spout the Israeli party line. Amongst the things blockaded from bringing into the Gaza strip is: pasta, notebooks, school supplies, shoes, clothes, cement, building materials, medical supplies and so on. In no way do I condone Hamas views on many things, but the Israeli response is nothing short of a warcrime.
I end this entry with some words by Oscar Olivera, one of the leaders in the Water War:
"I believe we live in a world of fear. People are afraid of everything; they're afraid of the dark, they're afraid of losing their jobs, afraid to speak, afraid to give their opinion, afraid to act. I think that it's important for us to lose our fear. We're going to lose that fear once we have the capacity to be united, to be organized; once we regain the confidence in ourselves and in other people, then we can open our hearts to those feelings of solidarity of brotherhood to all, thinking that globalization is uniting everyone. We all have the same problems, but we all have the same dreams; it's important to lose the fear."
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