The Lemon Tree: An Arab, A Jew and the Heart of the Middle East is an agonizingly beautiful, sad and yet even hopeful story of two people and two peoples, two nations and one land. Listening again, as I have before, to the stories of partition, independence, refugees and war, I was overcome with emotion and my thoughts wandered as they have often during such times to my own India-Pakistan. And I had to remind myself that this was Palestine-Israel.
]]>The Lemon Tree: An Arab, A Jew and the Heart of the Middle East is an agonizingly beautiful, sad and yet even hopeful story of two people and two peoples, two nations and one land. Listening again, as I have before, to the stories of partition, independence, refugees and war, I was overcome with emotion and my thoughts wandered as they have often during such times to my own India-Pakistan. And I had to remind myself that this was Palestine-Israel.
Weaving historical facts over a span of 60 years, it revolves around the lives of and relationship between Bashir Khairi – a Palestinian Arab whose family lost their home and a homeland in 1948 – and Dalia Eshkenazi – an Israeli Jew whose family got that home and a homeland that year. This week, as Palestinians observe the nakba (catastrophe) and Israelis celebrate independence, we invite you to read this account of Bashir and Dalia’s first meeting.
]]>All around us we saw small terraced plots intercropped with maize, beans, bananas, squashes, and tubers like cassava. Bright red Flame of the Forests dotted the hillsides throughout. Coconut palms grew somewhat less frequent as we climbed but betel nut palms with their cascading green blooms (which turn white, looking like grains of rice strung together) were abundant. Haitians feed the nut to their cattle, which I found intriguing since betel nut is commonly chewed by people all across South Asia (where I'm from).
In Cap Rouge we met about 40 members of VEDEK (Life, Hope and Development for Cap Rouge), a community-led peasant association that works closely with PAPDA (Haitian Platform for Alternative Development). People from the region formed VEDEK in 1988 after Hurricane Gilbert as a way to work together on reconstruction. Grassroots International has been supporting a number of PAPDA's pilot projects, one of which is with VEDEK that provides income generation by converting cassava into a tortilla-like bread; but more importantly serves as an entry point for organizing local communities to be advocates for their development.
Lena Jean-Baptiste, a young woman leader from the aptly named Fanms Dyname (Dynamic Women), one of VEDEK's gwoupmons (gwoupmon is a Kreyol derivation from the French groupement, or grouping), told us proudly, "VEDEK negotiated with mayors and local schools to get this hardy nutritious bread sold to school lunch programs in our region." This seemed a lot like what organizations like the National Family Farm Coalition have advocated for in the US with farm-to-cafeteria programs.
At the cassava processing center the tubers are brought from around the area on mules and mopeds. They're then peeled, washed, pounded to a pulp, all of the water removed, sieved, and dried to make flour. We got to try some of the tasty bread hot off the stove. Now VEDEK is working to get the bread marketed in Port au Prince, which means it's also working on getting the government to provide a good paved road to Jacmel, the capital of the Southeast that is linked to Port au Prince.
We heard from a number of other youth activists like Jean Michelé from the gwoupmon Men e Men (Hand in Hand), who was an educator using popular theater and radio as a tool for consciousness raising and education. Maxi Elius from Epal pou Epal (Shoulder to Shoulder), who had participated in learning exchanges with organizations in Brazil and Venezuela (one of which Grassroots had supported), said, "This is very inspiring for us - to see that we are not alone in our struggles and goals. We learn first hand what people are doing in Venezuela on sustainable agriculture and teach them what we are doing here in Haiti."
]]>The starkness of the landscape as we fly over the countryside is immediately apparent. Most of the mountains that surround Port au Prince and that we cross to get to the Central Plateau are dusty brown and devoid of any vegetation. Many have deep white gashes running the length of the peaks where limestone quarrying or erosion caused by deforestation have left gaping wounds. Rivers (this is the dry season) are wide and dry, speckled intermittently with shallow pools of water.
Hinche, however, is awash in color - an explosion of red and green on the dry brown landscape. Flags, buntings, t-shirts, bandanas, and posters in the MPP's colors proclaim the celebration. The MPP, Haiti's largest and oldest peasant organization, works in the Central Plateau to organize peasant farmers and farm workers and mobilizes them to be strong advocates for change and have a voice in Haiti's development.
As Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, the MPP's founder and leader explains, "The organization uses popular education as a tool, focusing on several entry points for organizing the rural population: agroecology [a method of environmentally sustainable agriculture], alternative income generation projects, cooperatives, integrated health care, and leadership training."
We are not visiting any of the MPP's projects, spending two days observing its convention. Hundreds of delegates have traveled (most of them by foot) from across the department (in Haiti a department is similar to a state in the U.S.) to participate. For them this meeting is an important way to participate in the running of their organization, and participate they do!
"We are fighting for a new Haiti" one participant says. Speaking from the floor, delegates talk about the importance of pulling together home-grown resources and not being dependent on outside support. Men and women both stress the need for jaden lakay/prekay (home/backyard gardens) for attaining self-sufficiency in food production, relating it to the concept of food sovereignty for Haiti. Youth members of the MPP who might be selected for scholarships to train as agronomists or educators commit to giving back to the organization by working for it and contributing 20% of their salary.
There are visitors at the "kongrè" as well. Besides us, there are a couple of foreign delegations, including Juana Mercedes Brioso, the General Coordinator of CONAMUCA (National Confederation of Rural Women) from Haiti's neighbor to the east - the Dominican Republic, with which it shares the island of Hispaniola. CONAMUCA, like the MPP, is a member of the Via Campesina, a 200 million strong global network of peasant and farmworker organizations. Juana's presence, she notes, "is a way of expressing solidarity with neighbors."
More importantly, there are representatives of other Haitian peasant organizations, such as Tet Kole (which works primarily in the Departments of the Artibonite and the North West) and KROS (Kordinasyon Rejyonal Organysasyon Sides), a southeast regional organization. This is a sign that peasant and rural organizations across the country recognize the importance of working together and presenting a unified front for demanding the rights of Haiti's marginalized rural majority. Such attempts have been made in the past but it seems that this time around the different organizations and their leadership are acutely aware of the need to bury their differences and work together -- and, in fact, all of them told us so. To them, and to us, this is one of the most hopeful signs of the convention.
The other is the process of grassroots democracy in action. Since February, MPP members have been debating at the cooperative, zonal, and arrondissement (county) levels various resolutions and ideas for action. These are now put forward by the convention delegates (who represented the larger membership) as resolutions for consideration by the organization's general assembly. Proposed as a slate, the resolutions are to be voted up or down by the delegates - but not without spirited debate even at this stage, with passionate individuals making the case for or against certain ideas and proposals. Young and old, women and men, take the microphone, either supporting or challenging a proposal or asking probing questions of the organization's leadership. In the end, the count is 304 votes for, 38 against, and 13 abstaining.
One of the most significant proposals (and one that had generated some debate) is the idea that as an organization and a movement, the MPP should not support or endorse any particular electoral candidate, especially one not known to it, in elections, in recognition of the importance of maintaining its political autonomy and holding accountable whichever political party or candidate elected. This is a crucial step for building peasant unity and jointly demanding peasant rights and the rights of the majority rural Haitian population. It passes with the adoption of the slate.
]]>But the Economist's declaration, while grandiose, is misleading. The collusion of profit-seeking corporate agendas and ill-conceived government policies that drove the green revolution is what is poisoning Punjabis. While the Economist quickly resorts to its "free market" fallback of ending what it deems as populist subsidies to farmers, the problems are much more complex than what the magazine's editors might consider to be electioneering sops.
As Indian researcher and activist Vandana Shiva has noted in The Violence of the Green Revolution: Ecological Degradation and Political Conflict in Punjab (see excerpt), the economic and ecological devastation that occurred in the state caused peasants and small producers to be the worst hit. This led to increased conflicts over water between Punjab and its neighboring states, and was directly linked to the more than 10 years of political violence that fueled a movement for autonomy and later secession that was brutally repressed. The major beneficiaries of that green revolution Shiva points out were agribusinesses and large landowning farmers.
In one morbid sense the Economist is correct that Punjabis are poisoning themselves. Many peasants and small farmers who are deeply in debt from loans taken out for expensive inputs that are part of the green revolution package are, in a sad twist of irony, drinking the very pesticides they buy to put an end to their misery! P. Sainath, an Indian journalist who regularly covers the countryside has observed that farmer suicide is a pandemic across the country including Punjab.
The solution to these problems is not a new green revolution grounded in an ever more tightly concentrated and corporate-controlled agricultural and food system but food sovereignty as envisioned by the Via Campesina, an international network of peasant and small producer organizations on 5 continents, which seeks agroecological production for local markets and counts among its members some of the major peasant organizations across India, including the Punjab state unit of the Bháratíya Kisán Union (Indian Peasants Union).
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On this World Food Day 2007, with the theme of the Right to Food, which was recognized as a universal human right in 1948 in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, over 850 million people around the world, particularly in least developed countries, suffer from hunger and malnutrition. For IFOAM, the Right to Food is the right of every person to have regular access to sufficient, nutritionally adequate and culturally acceptable food for an active, healthy life. It is the right to feed oneself in dignity and to produce healthy and culturally appropriate food through ecologically, socially and economically sound methods, defining one’s own food systems, rather than the right to be fed. This counts for each and every individual, as well as for communities and regions.
Currently global trade relations and rules, international and national policies, structural adjustments and trade concentration affect food security in a number of ways. The inequitable competition between producers in industrial countries and those in developing countries severely constrain production in developing countries. The most direct effects are caused by developed countries dumping their agricultural surpluses in developing countries and creating unfair competition resulting from perverse subsidies. When sold on the world market at less than the cost of production, these surpluses depress local prices, thereby lowering production and peoples’ direct access to food, although they may officially have a ‘Right to Food’ in their own countries.
From IFOAM’s perspective, the Right to Food also means that life cannot be patented. Patents on life support the monopoly control of genetic resources by few, thereby extensively undermining peoples’ right and access to food. IFOAM believes that the Earth’s gene pool cannot be claimed as commercially negotiable genetic information or intellectual property by governments, commercial enterprises, other institutions or individuals. The intentional use of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), which is banned in organic production, epitomizes abhorrence of the Right to Food. GMO’s and patents on life substantially contribute to the current deplorable world food situation.
Organic farming systems prioritize local and national economies and markets and empower peasant and family farmer-driven agriculture, food production, distribution and consumption based on the Principles of Organic Agriculture, which ensure environmental, social and economic sustainability. Through its traceable systems, whether through third-party organic certification or through Participatory Guarantee Systems and the involvement of the community, organic production guarantees just income to all peoples and the rights of citizens to choose their food and nutrition patterns. Organic production is the systematic approach that helps ensure the rights of people to control their destiny, and as a result, to beat hunger and malnutrition. Organic farming offers the tools and techniques necessary to ensure the Right to Food for subsistence farmers and local communities, and offers sustainable models for regional development and international trade.
The reality of what Organic Agriculture can and is doing for food security and in securing the Right to Food is being proven by intergovernmental agencies and independent universities. At the conference Organic Agriculture and Food Security in May 2007 at the headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the findings were that Organic Agriculture empowers social systems to control their own food supply and organic labels enforce the right to choose food, and that in sub-Saharan Africa, a conversion of up to 50 percent would likely increase food availability and decrease food import dependency.
Reputable studies by major universities are finding organic agriculture can feed the world as well. A recent study by the University of Michigan showed that organic farming can yield up to three times as much food on individual farms in developing countries, and that in developed countries, yields were almost equal on organic and conventional farms. A 22- year study by Cornell University concluded that organic farming produces the same yields of corn and soybeans as conventional farming, but uses 30 percent less energy, less water and no pesticides.
IFOAM is the international umbrella organization of organic agriculture movements worldwide.
“We cannot choose the historical conditions we find ourselves in, but we can choose how we respond to them” – Ajamu Baraka, Director, U.S. Human Rights Network, Atlanta, Georgia
These two quotes, among many other hopeful messages I heard at the U.S. Social Forum (USSF) from June 27 to July 1, 2007 in Atlanta epitomized for me the USSF – what it stands for and envisions in terms of a different kind of United States. Both represent the truth embedded in the official slogan of the USSF – Another World is Possible; Another US is Necessary.
]]>“We cannot choose the historical conditions we find ourselves in, but we can choose how we respond to them” – Ajamu Baraka, Director, U.S. Human Rights Network, Atlanta, Georgia
These two quotes, among many other hopeful messages I heard at the U.S. Social Forum (USSF) from June 27 to July 1, 2007 in Atlanta epitomized for me the USSF – what it stands for and envisions in terms of a different kind of United States. Both represent the truth embedded in the official slogan of the USSF – Another World is Possible; Another US is Necessary.
The almost 10,000 people and over 1,000 organizations that gathered in Atlanta came from every state of the United States. Busloads of folks came in the People’s Freedom Caravan organized by the Southwest Organizing Project, Southwest Workers Union, Southern Echo, and the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond traveling across the Southwest and the South into Atlanta. Along the northeast corridor, a similar caravan brought busloads of youth from Boston, Providence, New York and Washington. Some participants flew from Alaska and Hawaii, others from Puerto Rico.
They were joined by 400 activists from 68 countries in Latin America/Caribbean (Brazil, Mexico and Haiti for instance), Asia (India and South Korea among others), Africa (including Kenya) and the Middle East (Palestine and Iraq). One of them was Faleh Abood Umara from the Iraqi Federation of Oil Workers' Unions who brought the audience to its feet when he thundered that "we kicked out Saddam, we kicked out KBR (Halliburton's subsidiary) and we will kick out the occupiers!"
The amazing diversity of people and movement sectors and the very visible and huge youth presence was energizing and hopeful.
There were over 300 workshops/panels and 6 major plenaries besides numerous other musical, cultural and related events throughout the 4 days. Events took place in public spaces like Atlanta’s Civic Center and Central Library, churches, campuses, and downtown hotels. The plenary sessions, which emphasized key movement building moments focused on Gulf Coast Reconstruction; U.S. Imperialism, War, Militarism and the Prison Industrial Complex; Indigenous Voices; Immigrant Rights; Liberating Gender and Sexuality; and Workers’ Rights in the Global Economy. Around the Civic Center were theme-based tents such as the Palestine Tent, the Africa Tent, the Americas Tent, and the Water Tent (which we shared) – where activists networked, shared strategies and literature, or just took a break from the heat.
The Forum was kicked off by an opening march with almost 4,000 people including puppets on stilts and babies in strollers that began at the Georgia State Capitol and wended its way through Atlanta’s busy downtown to the Civic Center. Corrina, Maria, Ginger and I marched with our “Building the Global Movement for Food Sovereignty” banner right behind the truck carrying Chicago hip hop youth artists who rallied the marchers rapping messages of resistance and hope; and ended with a People’s Movements Assembly that discussed “New Paradigms of Change in the US” and a closing ceremony that included a “Movement Building Kick-Off.”
The USSF is part of the World Social Forum process and next year rather than have a WSF the WSF international council has called for a Week of Action and a Global Day of Mobilization to happen in January 2008 around the world. However, there are plans to have a continental Americas Social Forum in Guatemala City in October 2008 and the next WSF is slated to happen in January 2009 in Brazil.
Grassroots International participated in the USSF, with Maria Aguiar, Corrina Steward and Nikhil Aziz from Staff attending, and Nikhil joining the Funders Network on Trade and Globalization delegation. We were joined by three of our partners: Maria Luisa (Maisa) Mendonça of the Social Network for Justice and Human Rights or Rede Social-Brazil, Alberto Gomez Flores of the National Union of Autonomous Regional Peasants Organizations or UNORCA-Mexico, and Camille Chalmers of the Haitian Platform to Advocate for Alternative Development or PAPDA-Haiti. We also had the wonderful surprise of running into Ziad Abbas of the Ibda’a Cultural Center-Palestine, especially since Jamal Juma’ of Grassroots’ partner the Stop the Wall Campaign-Palestine was unable to come because of the worsening crisis in Palestine and U.S. visa issues. Jamal sent us a statement that we read and passed out to folks.
Grassroots worked closely with U.S. allies (including some from the Building Sustainable Futures for Farmers Globally campaign), such as the National Family Farm Coalition, the Rural Coalition, the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, Food First, Food and Water Watch, Friends of the Earth-USA, World Hunger Year, Action Aid-USA, and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy to put together three panels and a workshop on food sovereignty that were well attended and received.
Our workshop, which was coordinated by Grassroots consultant Ginger Nickerson focused on Fixing the Broken Food System. Our panels covered food sovereignty perspectives on crises and conflicts, biofuels, and the U.S. farm bill. Maisa, Alberto and Camille floored the panel audiences with their knowledge, their passion, and their message. All three were extremely busy throughout the Forum, strategizing with other activists from both the global South and North. For example, Alberto spent a lot of time with immigrant and minority farmworkers from across the United States to introduce and recruit them to the Via Campesina – the global alliance of farmers, farm workers and other producers that many of Grassroots’ partners and allies are members of. Corrina and Maria also participated in panels organized by other organizations including a debate on trade and a strategy session on biofuels, and we all tried to attend as many other panels and workshops we possibly could.
The USSF organizers had put out an inspiring message to the world that "the US Social Forum is more than a conference, more than a networking bonanza, more than a reaction to war and repression [and that it] will provide space to build relationships, learn from each other’s experiences, share our analysis of the problems our communities face, and bring renewed insight and inspiration. It will help develop leadership and develop consciousness, vision, and strategy needed to realize another world. [They asserted that] the USSF sends a message to other people’s movements around the world that there is an active movement in the US opposing U.S. policies at home and abroad [and] that we must declare what we want our world to look like and begin planning the path to get there. A global movement is rising. The USSF is our opportunity to demonstrate to the world 'Another World is Possible!'"
The USSF was truly all that. Organized over the last two years, largely by the labor and dedication of numerous mass-based movement organizations from across the United States – primarily grounded in People of Color and working class communities, the Forum with all its overwhelming logistics was shaped by a national planning committee, regional committees, a local organizing committee of Atlanta-based groups, and numerous working groups. While financial support from various foundations covered some of the costs, most of the costs, including labor and in-kind contributions were borne by people’s organizations themselves and through grassroots fundraising. This massive organizing effort was itself movement building in action.
To paraphrase Jerome Scott of Project South, Michael Leon Guerrero of Grassroots Global Justice, Ruben Solis of the Southwest Workers Union, Sarita Gupta of Jobs with Justice, and other organizers – No one believed we could do it. They said it was not possible in the US. But we did, and we were mostly all working class and people of color movement organizations.
After being at the USSF it is quite apparent that not only is Another World Possible, Another US is Possible too!
]]>The rally and the march to the White House were jointly convened by the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (of which Grassroots International is a member) and United for Peace and Justice (a national coalition of more than 1,300 organizations that is the lead coordinator of the anti-war movement today). Similar actions were held around the world in Asia, Latin America, Africa and Europe, and in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel.
As Hosam El-Nounou, from Grassroots’ partner the Gaza Community Mental Health Program reminded the gathering, “Freeing Palestine is not just freeing Palestinians it is freeing Israelis and everyone everywhere. It’s our mutual responsibility to act to end the occupation and work for justice.” Today, hundreds of activists are doing just that by meeting House and Senate members to demand a change in U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Around the world, activists are similarly calling on their governments to end support of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territories and to work towards a just peace.]]>
In commemoration of International Peasants' Struggle Day, the Via Campesina and its allies are organizing activities and actions all over the world. Peasants and friends will rally around the demands that the Via posted on its website.
]]>In commemoration of International Peasants' Struggle Day, the Via Campesina and its allies are organizing activities and actions all over the world. Peasants and friends will rally around the demands that the Via posted on its website.
]]>Meanwhile, last week, Grassroots International and 712 other human rights, development, environmental, farm, labor, faith-based and other organizations signed a letter initiated by Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch to Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid opposing Fast Track Authority for the President for such free trade agreements.
]]>Meanwhile, last week, Grassroots International and 712 other human rights, development, environmental, farm, labor, faith-based and other organizations signed a letter initiated by Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch to Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid opposing Fast Track Authority for the President for such free trade agreements.
At the eleventh hour, the United States and South Korea signed the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement (KorUS FTA), the second largest free trade deal since NAFTA. President Bush and big business claim victory, but democracy has lost.
It is a sad day for peoples’ movements around the world who are fighting to preserve human dignity amid growing corporate power over our lives and democracies. At 3:55 pm on April 1, 54-year old Heo Se-Wook, a union member of KCTU, attempted suicide by self-immolation as an act of resistance against the Korea-US FTA negotiation. He is in critical emergency condition at the Han River Sungshim Hospital in Korea.
Heo Se-Wook, Lee Kyung-Hae and others who have sacrificed their lives have done so to salvage what little social protections remain under corporate-led globalization. By eliminating the power of governments to protect their own farms and factories that provide livelihoods to their citizens, the KorUS FTA will enable the largest corporations in the world to dictate our nations' development.
This is the lesson of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), which has exported over 1 million good paying U.S. manufacturing jobs and has forced over 1 million Mexican corn farmers off the land. The same will happen under the KorUS FTA, and even greater intellectual property rights will be granted to corporations to overturn our public laws, in the United States and South Korea.
Tens of thousands of people in South Korea have been protesting the KorUS FTA for the past 10 months, fearing what it will do to their livelihoods, their access to medicine, and their right to food security and food sovereignty. A nation that until recently suffered over three decades of brutal repression under dictatorships knows well the experience of sacrificing democracy for development. And again, democratic rights have failed.
The South Korean government has deployed severely repressive tactics to quash dissent and opposition to the free trade talks. Whether it was the mere 20 minutes allowed for a hearing, before President Roh Moo Hyun announced trade talks, or the fact that the Korean Advertising Broadcasting Agency blocked running an advertisement produced by farmers and filmmakers, the government has not allowed for open, public debate about the FTA’s impact on the nation’s economy and sovereignty. Tens of thousands of police have been deployed, checkpoints set up on major roads to halt workers and farmers from exercising their freedom of assembly and travel, and water cannons and batons have been used to strike fear into the minds and bodies of protestors.
The police has issued summons and warrants for over 170 social movement leaders, raided the local offices of civic organizations, detained leaders of farmers and workers organizations, and even made threatening phone calls to potential participants of public rallies. But this has not stopped the South Korean people from using their hard won democratic rights to organize by the tens of thousands in protest, waging hunger strikes and candlelight vigils.
Despite the South Korean government’s efforts to quash dissent to the FTA, popular opposition has turned the disapproval rate of the FTA from 29.2 percent on June 7, 2006 to over 70 percent in the most recent poll, driven by economic anxieties and the growing conviction that civil society has been shut out of the negotiations process.
Promising development while ignoring democratic failure works against U.S. interests in South Korea. Should the FTA become law after an undemocratic process and in spite of mass popular opposition, the FTA will drive the perception in South Korea that America’s democratic rhetoric is merely a cover for profit-seeking behavior. The U.S. does not need an FTA that further incites anti-Americanism; annual trade between South Korea and the U.S. already tops $74 billion, and this will continue whether or not the FTA becomes law.
We must work together to call on Congress, who has just an up or down vote, to vote against the Korus FTA. We must work together to call on Congress to end the Trade Promotion Authority to President Bush that doesn't allow for any voice from Congress or the people. We must call on Congress to start a fresh dialogue for a U.S. trade policy that respects international norms that uphold the human right to food, housing, health, education, and dignity. Without these goals as a centerpiece of our trade and development agenda, we will not secure more peace and security in the world.
Korean Americans for Fair Trade
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