Surveillance expert Robin Tudge and Professor of Conflict Beatrice de Graaf go head-to-head.
(from New Nationalist Magazine issue 454)
Robin
A defining element of the kinds of abusive, totalitarian regimes seen in our lifetimes has been all-pervasive surveillance – be it in East Germany, J Edgar Hoover’s FBI, or Qadafi’s Libya – including the routine steaming open of people’s letters, tapping phone calls, or sifting through their emails.
But Western governments have passed law after law, ranging from the UK’s new bid to monitor all our online usage, to the US Patriot Act, the US’s impending Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, and the EU’s Data Retention Directive, all supposedly protecting us from terrorism and crime in the age of global communications, but really demolishing our rights to privacy and to live free of this blanket, state-directed paranoia in which people’s lives are shut down on suspicion alone. These are freedoms that previous generations paid mightily to protect, but which governments are now casually destroying.
Sifting through private emails and phone calls only obscures the genuine threats and throws up false leads, while laws allowing such practices to become warped by function creep. The UK’s Regulation of Investigative Powers Act was brought in to guard against terrorism and serious crime, but is mostly used to monitor fly-tipping or to see whose children live in a school’s catchment area.
If we lose the right to privacy and allow all-pervasive monitoring then people will fear becoming a target for greater state scrutiny and curtail their own political, creative and social engagement: all while the state remains unaccountable and democracy silently dies.
This lack of transparency leads to corruption – the state becomes the one with something to hide – while regimes increasingly use surveillance to crush the growing dissent. Ultimately, the seeds of oppression reap revolution – see the Communist Bloc, the Arab Spring, even News Corp – but only after countless innocent lives have been lost or compromised and blood has been spilled on the streets.
Beatrice
Rather than dramatizing the cumulative effect of privacy and surveillance failures – which still do not amount to the level of repression exercised by regimes in East Germany or Syria – experts should be much more vocal on the lack of effect of these monitoring efforts and on the real reasons why they are used.
First of all, we cannot make a case for the rise of a bloodstained Big Brother state (yet) in Western democracies. Yes, there have been numerous insults, wrongdoings and police failures in Britain, France or other European countries, let alone in the US. But these do not compare to intentional killings by Syrian secret police, or to the psychological warfare communist countries once waged against their populations.
Second, the general views about repressive surveillance will be swept away with one single terrorist attack, or even thwarted attack.
Third, leaving security out of the equation exposes a black hole of uncertainty and fear that cannot be filled by human rights or freedom principles alone, however noble they may be. It just does not work that way in populist politics any more.
Being too dependent on monitoring is the real problem. In a world of economic cutbacks, the danger of over-reliance on privatized and computerized security looms large. Israeli airports have exchanged detectors for highly trained, schooled and professional human officers – because they produce better results.
If experts are not able to educate and inform the public about the real costs of security, the side-effects of monitoring and the lack of real effects in terms of preventing attacks, we will keep collecting haystacks with small chances of actually finding the needle. Thus, rather than presenting monitoring as either a catch-all solution or an Orwellian nightmare, let’s present it as it is: at best a second-tier, expensive and ambivalent assistance to real-life security personnel that sometimes succeeds and sometimes fails in the struggle against terrorism and crime.
Robin
Citizens don’t have to justify their need for privacy; the state has to justify its need to subject everybody to wholesale suspicion. No-one would accept having a police officer or bureaucrat sit alongside as they wrote an email or text, so why should they endure such surveillance if it’s done remotely by unknown persons for reasons unknown?
Nor are people so stupid or weak simply to allow governments to demolish their ‘noble’ rights following terror attacks. While the US Patriot Act was passed before the dust of 9/11 had even settled, enough people persistently and emphatically rejected and eventually killed off the following Total Information Awareness program that would have collated all real-time communications and databases everywhere. Opposition to ID cards in Britain strengthened even after 7/7, because people knew these tracking devices couldn’t stop terrorism but would create a mother lode of personal data for the government, hackers and criminals to trawl through and sell.
Guantánamo Bay, confessions extracted by waterboarding, executions by drones, extraordinary rendition and torture in ex-Soviet gulags, and the lies that led to the Iraq War, as well as enterprises set up or colluded in by the CIA, MI6 and elected governments in the US, Britain and Europe – all these show how very violent and repressive Western states actually are.
This is not to mention that anyone foreign-looking may be subject to stop searches, deportations, shootings in underground stations or house-arrests for non-existent plots involving ricin or [the Manchester United stadium] Old Trafford. And apparently we can forestall the inevitable blowback by ever more irrelevant surveillance measures, such as governments reading our emails. To which I will not say ‘go right ahead, I’m sure it’s all for my own good’.
Beatrice
Zigazou under a CC Licence Blatant injustices and torture speak for themselves. Hardly anyone would want to justify the gross violations of human rights that happened in Iraq, Afghanistan or in the extra-rendition prisons in some remote countries. However, Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo are really 2004’s problems. What we are facing now is a much more complex, stealthy and pervasive threat: that of all kinds of data-retention programs, vetting and profiling attempts – not so much initiated by governments, but by commercial enterprises, operating without boundaries, borders or oversight mechanisms.
Thus, again, rather than pointing to supposedly oppressive regimes, we should be aware of the ‘security as enterprise’ approach that is pervading our industrialized world. Security nowadays is nothing much to worry about for most people. Current worries are presented by the monetary and economic crises, not by invisible data collection programs. But this ‘security as enterprise’, or even ‘security as comfort’ approach creates victims by the thousands: it divides whole populations into risk-free citizens on the one hand and risk-bearers on the other. People with double passports, travellers to the Middle East, even people with diabetes, if profiled as bearing a risk to the commercial enterprise of an airport, or as otherwise deviating from purported safe standards, will be tracked, endlessly vetted, and discriminated against in all kinds of ways.
In short, rather than remaining entrenched in last year’s battles, let’s concentrate on the techniques of profiling and collecting data. And let’s not point fingers at governments alone, but challenge private companies to come clean about how they sell false security promises for their own benefits, creating new divisions in societies in their wake.
Robin
New InternationalistHomeMagazineBooksBlogShopSubscribeGet app Politics Environment Economics Culture Humanrights Activism Corporations Development Country Argument More» ____________________________________________________________
Home ›Sections ›Argument ›Does the government have the right to monitor private emails?
issue 454
Surveillance expert Robin Tudge and Professor of Conflict Beatrice de Graaf go head-to-head.
Every month we invite two experts to debate, and then invite you to join the conversation online. The best comments will be printed in the next magazine.
Robin
A defining element of the kinds of abusive, totalitarian regimes seen in our lifetimes has been all-pervasive surveillance – be it in East Germany, J Edgar Hoover’s FBI, or Qadafi’s Libya – including the routine steaming open of people’s letters, tapping phone calls, or sifting through their emails.
But Western governments have passed law after law, ranging from the UK’s new bid to monitor all our online usage, to the US Patriot Act, the US’s impending Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, and the EU’s Data Retention Directive, all supposedly protecting us from terrorism and crime in the age of global communications, but really demolishing our rights to privacy and to live free of this blanket, state-directed paranoia in which people’s lives are shut down on suspicion alone. These are freedoms that previous generations paid mightily to protect, but which governments are now casually destroying.
Sifting through private emails and phone calls only obscures the genuine threats and throws up false leads, while laws allowing such practices to become warped by function creep. The UK’s Regulation of Investigative Powers Act was brought in to guard against terrorism and serious crime, but is mostly used to monitor fly-tipping or to see whose children live in a school’s catchment area.
If we lose the right to privacy and allow all-pervasive monitoring then people will fear becoming a target for greater state scrutiny and curtail their own political, creative and social engagement: all while the state remains unaccountable and democracy silently dies.
This lack of transparency leads to corruption – the state becomes the one with something to hide – while regimes increasingly use surveillance to crush the growing dissent. Ultimately, the seeds of oppression reap revolution – see the Communist Bloc, the Arab Spring, even News Corp – but only after countless innocent lives have been lost or compromised and blood has been spilled on the streets.
Beatrice
Rather than dramatizing the cumulative effect of privacy and surveillance failures – which still do not amount to the level of repression exercised by regimes in East Germany or Syria – experts should be much more vocal on the lack of effect of these monitoring efforts and on the real reasons why they are used.
First of all, we cannot make a case for the rise of a bloodstained Big Brother state (yet) in Western democracies. Yes, there have been numerous insults, wrongdoings and police failures in Britain, France or other European countries, let alone in the US. But these do not compare to intentional killings by Syrian secret police, or to the psychological warfare communist countries once waged against their populations.
Second, the general views about repressive surveillance will be swept away with one single terrorist attack, or even thwarted attack.
Third, leaving security out of the equation exposes a black hole of uncertainty and fear that cannot be filled by human rights or freedom principles alone, however noble they may be. It just does not work that way in populist politics any more.
Being too dependent on monitoring is the real problem. In a world of economic cutbacks, the danger of over-reliance on privatized and computerized security looms large. Israeli airports have exchanged detectors for highly trained, schooled and professional human officers – because they produce better results.
If experts are not able to educate and inform the public about the real costs of security, the side-effects of monitoring and the lack of real effects in terms of preventing attacks, we will keep collecting haystacks with small chances of actually finding the needle. Thus, rather than presenting monitoring as either a catch-all solution or an Orwellian nightmare, let’s present it as it is: at best a second-tier, expensive and ambivalent assistance to real-life security personnel that sometimes succeeds and sometimes fails in the struggle against terrorism and crime.
Robin
Citizens don’t have to justify their need for privacy; the state has to justify its need to subject everybody to wholesale suspicion. No-one would accept having a police officer or bureaucrat sit alongside as they wrote an email or text, so why should they endure such surveillance if it’s done remotely by unknown persons for reasons unknown?
Nor are people so stupid or weak simply to allow governments to demolish their ‘noble’ rights following terror attacks. While the US Patriot Act was passed before the dust of 9/11 had even settled, enough people persistently and emphatically rejected and eventually killed off the following Total Information Awareness program that would have collated all real-time communications and databases everywhere. Opposition to ID cards in Britain strengthened even after 7/7, because people knew these tracking devices couldn’t stop terrorism but would create a mother lode of personal data for the government, hackers and criminals to trawl through and sell.
Guantánamo Bay, confessions extracted by waterboarding, executions by drones, extraordinary rendition and torture in ex-Soviet gulags, and the lies that led to the Iraq War, as well as enterprises set up or colluded in by the CIA, MI6 and elected governments in the US, Britain and Europe – all these show how very violent and repressive Western states actually are.
This is not to mention that anyone foreign-looking may be subject to stop searches, deportations, shootings in underground stations or house-arrests for non-existent plots involving ricin or [the Manchester United stadium] Old Trafford. And apparently we can forestall the inevitable blowback by ever more irrelevant surveillance measures, such as governments reading our emails. To which I will not say ‘go right ahead, I’m sure it’s all for my own good’.
Beatrice
Zigazou under a CC Licence Blatant injustices and torture speak for themselves. Hardly anyone would want to justify the gross violations of human rights that happened in Iraq, Afghanistan or in the extra-rendition prisons in some remote countries. However, Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo are really 2004’s problems. What we are facing now is a much more complex, stealthy and pervasive threat: that of all kinds of data-retention programs, vetting and profiling attempts – not so much initiated by governments, but by commercial enterprises, operating without boundaries, borders or oversight mechanisms.
Thus, again, rather than pointing to supposedly oppressive regimes, we should be aware of the ‘security as enterprise’ approach that is pervading our industrialized world. Security nowadays is nothing much to worry about for most people. Current worries are presented by the monetary and economic crises, not by invisible data collection programs. But this ‘security as enterprise’, or even ‘security as comfort’ approach creates victims by the thousands: it divides whole populations into risk-free citizens on the one hand and risk-bearers on the other. People with double passports, travellers to the Middle East, even people with diabetes, if profiled as bearing a risk to the commercial enterprise of an airport, or as otherwise deviating from purported safe standards, will be tracked, endlessly vetted, and discriminated against in all kinds of ways.
In short, rather than remaining entrenched in last year’s battles, let’s concentrate on the techniques of profiling and collecting data. And let’s not point fingers at governments alone, but challenge private companies to come clean about how they sell false security promises for their own benefits, creating new divisions in societies in their wake.
Robin
It seems we agree that endemic surveillance is hell on wheels and is being implemented with the illusion of being done in all good faith by governments and private companies, although it’s palpably not true to say that Guantánamo etc is ‘2004’s problem’.
They illustrate the extremes of abuses that governments of all hues and their privatized partners readily undertake while demanding from us that the price of freedom is to stand naked at all times before the state under all-pervasive suspicion, where threat is based not on realities, but on what might be.
This has been enabled by the pernicious concept of ‘risk’, taken up by governments working with no open oversight or scrutiny, providing entirely venal solutions to non-existent problems, leading to schoolchildren having to surrender their fingerprints to take books out, or mothers needing criminal record bureau checks to taxi their chronically ill children to hospital.
The surveillance industry is a growing business that provides profits, employment and sponsorship for politicians pushing a world where it’s not about who you are or what you know but what you can prove you’re not.
Beatrice
‘Risk’ is indeed the new buzzword; it is not just a new way of perceiving security issues, but has become a mode of governance. The concept of risk not only tackles historical and actual threats (by using them as calculation models for future ones), but also suggests a taming of an uncertain future. By means of risk assessments, apocalyptic horrors are invoked on a daily basis, based on worst-case scenario thinking, stress testing or premeditation.
We see it in courts, where what-if arguments replace habeas corpus considerations, such as in the numerous convictions of terrorism suspects that were apprehended on little more than rumours, or ambiguous taped conversations. Securitization of justice is well under way.
Risk has also become the new dividing principle throughout society, whether you’ll be profiled as a risk while queuing at an airport, or as an uninsurable citizen, forced to pay outrageous insurance premiums.
Therefore, rather than focusing on the obvious and blatant transgressions of democratic rule of law or human rights alone, we should demonstrate how the new politics of risk and prevention work, and how they are increasingly overturning considerations of prudence, accountability and civil rights.
There is enough work to be done for all of us, experts, academics and human rights activists alike. The new ideology of risk and security management is simply too expensive, too ineffective and plain unjust.
Robin Tudge is the author of the No-Nonsense Guide to Global Surveillance, inspired by his campaigning for NO2ID. He also wrote the pioneering Bradt Guide to North Korea and is now based in Newcastle where he works as a freelance journalist and actor.
Beatrice de Graaf is Professor for Conflict and Security History at Leiden University, the Netherlands and the author of Evaluating Counterterrorist Performance: A Comparative Study. Visit her research site at: http://hum.leiden.edu/history/enemies-of-the-state
What do you think?
Wednesday, 27 June 2012
Monday, 24 October 2011
Profit before Planet - who is making deals with your government.
A Friends of the Earth Article.
OIL COMPANIES SUPERMARKETS PETR0-CHEMICAL FIRMS. AIRLINES
Globally they spend millions of pounds undermining environmental policy
Big businesses spend serious money on advertising and PR telling us that they are doing their bit for the environment. But away from the public eye they're spending many millions holding back environmental progress.
Airlines are spending millions to persuade governments to expand airports. Petro-chemical companies are blocking environmentally friendly measures because of the cost to them. Oil companies are funding "independent thinktanks", designed to undermine serious climate change research. And they are all doing it for one thing - profit.
TO THEM IT'S JUST GOOD BUSINESS. THEY WANT TO CARRY ON AS USUAL. AND THEY ARE READY TO SPEND MILLIONS TO MAKE SURE THEY CAN.
For more information contact Friends of the Earth.
OIL COMPANIES SUPERMARKETS PETR0-CHEMICAL FIRMS. AIRLINES
Globally they spend millions of pounds undermining environmental policy
Big businesses spend serious money on advertising and PR telling us that they are doing their bit for the environment. But away from the public eye they're spending many millions holding back environmental progress.
Airlines are spending millions to persuade governments to expand airports. Petro-chemical companies are blocking environmentally friendly measures because of the cost to them. Oil companies are funding "independent thinktanks", designed to undermine serious climate change research. And they are all doing it for one thing - profit.
TO THEM IT'S JUST GOOD BUSINESS. THEY WANT TO CARRY ON AS USUAL. AND THEY ARE READY TO SPEND MILLIONS TO MAKE SURE THEY CAN.
For more information contact Friends of the Earth.
Friday, 7 October 2011
Feral scum - a view of the recent riots
Feral scum? Look no further than our politicians
by Anna Chem (New Internationalist, October,2011)
How was your Summer? Ours was ... um .. interesting.
If you look up the word schadenfreude and you'll likely find an image of the English riots examined by the laughing faces of Chinese, Iranians and other assorted recipients of British democracy know-how down the ages.
With only months to go before the 2012 olympics, based half an hour up the road from Hackney, one of the riot hot spots, the world takes another lurch nearer to the Twiligh Zone. Next year's British sporting spectacular has gone from being merely the austerity Olympics to the take your own life in your hands and see who comes out of this alive extravaganza.
Synchronized fleeing and dodge-the-javelin are likely to be major attractions.
The first rule of Riot Club is that you must not talk about the causes. The second rule of Riot club is ....
What was amazing was to see our politicians who had been dragged back from their August holidays, lining up in Parliament to condemn the looters at the bottom of society. MP's who had been caught with their fingers in the till wrungs their hands over the culture of greed.
If you want to study the genesis of the current cycle of "something for nothing" surely you need look no further than Mr and Mrs Freebie, Tony and Cherie Blair. It was only a short while prior to the insurrection that we'd woken up to the fact that Britain has been run by dark forces for decades. Press, politicians and police fell into disgrace as the full depth of their corruption was exposed by Hackgate. The bankers whose crisis started the recession have been laughing all the way to their annual bonuses while we turn into rats in a sack, head chickens and attention-deficit goldfish.
But now British society doesn't know whether to bang up the biggest or the nearest. And so a bystander to the riots, who picked up a bottle of water from a smashed shop was imprisoned for six months.
It feels like 1930's Germany, with a soupcon of Parisian Communard-baiting as kids are written off as "feral scum" and "rats".
Perhaps the Prime Minister, David Cameron should invite the Taliban to keep control in the Olympic village next year, much as the Hells Angels were employed by the Rolling Stones to maintain discipline at their infamous Altamont concert. After all, Cameron wanted to bring in the head of the notorious L A cops (with their record beating murder figures) for advice. So why not?
Insurrection, calls for a mangled internet and soldiers on the streets .... if I wanted an army turning on its own people, I'd go back to Tiannaman square. Rumours have it that, after years of berating them for their contempt for freedom of speech, Cameron is consulting the Chinese authorities on shutting down the social networks.
Now that is a riot!!
by Anna Chem (New Internationalist, October,2011)
How was your Summer? Ours was ... um .. interesting.
If you look up the word schadenfreude and you'll likely find an image of the English riots examined by the laughing faces of Chinese, Iranians and other assorted recipients of British democracy know-how down the ages.
With only months to go before the 2012 olympics, based half an hour up the road from Hackney, one of the riot hot spots, the world takes another lurch nearer to the Twiligh Zone. Next year's British sporting spectacular has gone from being merely the austerity Olympics to the take your own life in your hands and see who comes out of this alive extravaganza.
Synchronized fleeing and dodge-the-javelin are likely to be major attractions.
The first rule of Riot Club is that you must not talk about the causes. The second rule of Riot club is ....
What was amazing was to see our politicians who had been dragged back from their August holidays, lining up in Parliament to condemn the looters at the bottom of society. MP's who had been caught with their fingers in the till wrungs their hands over the culture of greed.
If you want to study the genesis of the current cycle of "something for nothing" surely you need look no further than Mr and Mrs Freebie, Tony and Cherie Blair. It was only a short while prior to the insurrection that we'd woken up to the fact that Britain has been run by dark forces for decades. Press, politicians and police fell into disgrace as the full depth of their corruption was exposed by Hackgate. The bankers whose crisis started the recession have been laughing all the way to their annual bonuses while we turn into rats in a sack, head chickens and attention-deficit goldfish.
But now British society doesn't know whether to bang up the biggest or the nearest. And so a bystander to the riots, who picked up a bottle of water from a smashed shop was imprisoned for six months.
It feels like 1930's Germany, with a soupcon of Parisian Communard-baiting as kids are written off as "feral scum" and "rats".
Perhaps the Prime Minister, David Cameron should invite the Taliban to keep control in the Olympic village next year, much as the Hells Angels were employed by the Rolling Stones to maintain discipline at their infamous Altamont concert. After all, Cameron wanted to bring in the head of the notorious L A cops (with their record beating murder figures) for advice. So why not?
Insurrection, calls for a mangled internet and soldiers on the streets .... if I wanted an army turning on its own people, I'd go back to Tiannaman square. Rumours have it that, after years of berating them for their contempt for freedom of speech, Cameron is consulting the Chinese authorities on shutting down the social networks.
Now that is a riot!!
Should foreign investment replace aid for Africa?
The virtue of overseas aid is back in the spotlight, as Africa's economies boom.
Should foreign investment replace aid for Africa?
Donu Kogbara believes it should. Her many experiences in Ethiopia and other African countries have convinced her that donors are inadvertently encouraging developing countries to be dependent.
African nations are riddled with corruption and incompetence, they are, therefore, the architects of most of their misfortunes. They must grow up, clean up their acts, get off their backsides and learn how to become more self reliant, dynamic and dignified
She believes Africans must think big, believe in themselves, demand high standards, take full responsibility for their destiny and aggressively embrace the "trade not aid" mantra.
More pressure, she says, should be put on the leaders to deliver progress and transparecy, the priority should be the creation of wealth, the empowerment of indigenous entrepreneurs and foreign investment pursued.
Being spoon-fed handouts by well meaning white liberals, who have a penchant for not telling us tough home truths, is the last thing we need.
I'm convinced that foreign donors are de-motivating Africans with kindness. They infantilize us with their soothing 'there, there' approach and make us feel that it's fine to whip out begging bowls. Donu Kogbara
Dereje Alemayehu disagrees, he agrees and shares the contempt and outrage with regard to Africa's leaders, but says that Aid cannot be made responsible for what it is not meant to do. Aid cannot buy democracy. Aid is not the primary support that props up corrupt regimes.
He believes that if the primary motive to attain political power is self enrichment, then you will be a thief with or without aid. Getting rid of tyrants and thieves is the responsibility of African citizens.
The solution to aid abuse is the fight for accountability and transparency to make it serve its purpose, not to cut off aid. When aid is perverted by donor countries to promote business interests or to buy the loyalty of corrupt regimes for geopolitical ends, this is not aid, it is economic and political corruption.
Aid should have only one purpose - the eradication of poverty. That is why he supports aid and is engaged in fighting its abuse.
Can we rely on foreign investors to deliver development? The amount they steal through agressive tax evasion is fourfold what comes in as aid. I can't see how ending aid would make them change their behaviour. Dereje Alemayehu.
Donu in response to this says that she too is concerned about the misuse of aid, but states that she didn't have this in mind when she spoke about foreign donors, she expressed her view that they are unintentionally making developing nations weak.
She suspects that this leads to welfare dependency, and believes that most economically challenged individuals and countries will, as a general rule, perform more impressively if they are urged to stand on their own feet. We are capable, she says, of solving our poverty problems without leading on Western philanthropists.
Dereje argues that Donu seems to suggest that a causal link exists between aid and poor political leadership. But he believes aid dependency syndrome only comes about if there is a self seeking leadership. He believes development isn't about money, but a political process propelled by nationalism. By this he means a national project that makes ending poverty a priority, an outrage at the preponderance of abject poverty in a country and a decision to tackle it with the utmost urgency it deserves. A leadership committed to this kind of nationalism, instead of using political power for self-enrichment, would necessarily use aid as a complementary resource to national efforts.
The driving motive for foreign investment is short term profit maximization to pay fat dividends to ever-greedy shareholders. Putting profits first will not serve long term equitable and sustainable development. It will promise shareholder value by making the rich richer, but it will not end poverty.
Donu responds by saying she is not totally heartless!! and doesn't object to generous amounts of emergency aid being provided by the international community whenever countries or regions are crippled by natural disasters and famines.
However in her belief, foreign investment will always be superior to foreign aid within the context of non emergency scenarios. She provides examples of aid from the EU being serious errors of judgment and not serving the purposes it was intended and believes that investment in the area would have helped more people than the aid.
She cites as an example a town in Nigeria's Niger delta which was once a semi comatose backwater, but is now a thriving hive of commercial activity thanks, she says to an Italian oil company.
Derej says attracting FDI with generous tax holidays and freedom to repatriate profits is already a priority in all African countries, but the dynamism that Donu alludes to is just not there. Foreign companies tend to extract wealth in enclaves without helping the development of host countries productive capabilities.
Colonial policy was all about 'nipping productive capacity in the bud' and multi-national dominated globalization is carrying on in the same vein. That is why diamonds cause death and poverty in Lubumbashi but riches and glory in Antwerp.
FDI has not distrubed the peaceful co-existence between lucrative foreign business and perennial stagnation, has not liften African commodity producers out of subsistence income levels. Its advances towards promoting value chain activities, creating decent jobs, transferring knowledge and technology or investing in research and development are negligible. You cannot expect miracles in this department. He goes on to say that profits go to companies' countries of origin and rampant tax evasion drains resources from Africa's social infrastructure provision.
Aid is not useful only when directed at providing help during emergencies. It also builds resilience for the next emergency, and helps plug the vital infrastructure gap that FDI will never address.
The two participants of this debate are:
Donu Kogbara a Nigerian print and broadcast journalist. She acts as a Director on the Greater Port Harcourt City Development Authority Board and is part of the African Arguments debates forum. africanarguments.org
Dereje Alemayehu is a development worker of Ethiopian origin, Christian Aid's Country Manager for East Africa and Chair of the Tax Justice Network Africa.
The views expressed in this debate are entirely his own.
Please feel free to comment on this article.
Should foreign investment replace aid for Africa?
Donu Kogbara believes it should. Her many experiences in Ethiopia and other African countries have convinced her that donors are inadvertently encouraging developing countries to be dependent.
African nations are riddled with corruption and incompetence, they are, therefore, the architects of most of their misfortunes. They must grow up, clean up their acts, get off their backsides and learn how to become more self reliant, dynamic and dignified
She believes Africans must think big, believe in themselves, demand high standards, take full responsibility for their destiny and aggressively embrace the "trade not aid" mantra.
More pressure, she says, should be put on the leaders to deliver progress and transparecy, the priority should be the creation of wealth, the empowerment of indigenous entrepreneurs and foreign investment pursued.
Being spoon-fed handouts by well meaning white liberals, who have a penchant for not telling us tough home truths, is the last thing we need.
I'm convinced that foreign donors are de-motivating Africans with kindness. They infantilize us with their soothing 'there, there' approach and make us feel that it's fine to whip out begging bowls. Donu Kogbara
Dereje Alemayehu disagrees, he agrees and shares the contempt and outrage with regard to Africa's leaders, but says that Aid cannot be made responsible for what it is not meant to do. Aid cannot buy democracy. Aid is not the primary support that props up corrupt regimes.
He believes that if the primary motive to attain political power is self enrichment, then you will be a thief with or without aid. Getting rid of tyrants and thieves is the responsibility of African citizens.
The solution to aid abuse is the fight for accountability and transparency to make it serve its purpose, not to cut off aid. When aid is perverted by donor countries to promote business interests or to buy the loyalty of corrupt regimes for geopolitical ends, this is not aid, it is economic and political corruption.
Aid should have only one purpose - the eradication of poverty. That is why he supports aid and is engaged in fighting its abuse.
Can we rely on foreign investors to deliver development? The amount they steal through agressive tax evasion is fourfold what comes in as aid. I can't see how ending aid would make them change their behaviour. Dereje Alemayehu.
Donu in response to this says that she too is concerned about the misuse of aid, but states that she didn't have this in mind when she spoke about foreign donors, she expressed her view that they are unintentionally making developing nations weak.
She suspects that this leads to welfare dependency, and believes that most economically challenged individuals and countries will, as a general rule, perform more impressively if they are urged to stand on their own feet. We are capable, she says, of solving our poverty problems without leading on Western philanthropists.
Dereje argues that Donu seems to suggest that a causal link exists between aid and poor political leadership. But he believes aid dependency syndrome only comes about if there is a self seeking leadership. He believes development isn't about money, but a political process propelled by nationalism. By this he means a national project that makes ending poverty a priority, an outrage at the preponderance of abject poverty in a country and a decision to tackle it with the utmost urgency it deserves. A leadership committed to this kind of nationalism, instead of using political power for self-enrichment, would necessarily use aid as a complementary resource to national efforts.
The driving motive for foreign investment is short term profit maximization to pay fat dividends to ever-greedy shareholders. Putting profits first will not serve long term equitable and sustainable development. It will promise shareholder value by making the rich richer, but it will not end poverty.
Donu responds by saying she is not totally heartless!! and doesn't object to generous amounts of emergency aid being provided by the international community whenever countries or regions are crippled by natural disasters and famines.
However in her belief, foreign investment will always be superior to foreign aid within the context of non emergency scenarios. She provides examples of aid from the EU being serious errors of judgment and not serving the purposes it was intended and believes that investment in the area would have helped more people than the aid.
She cites as an example a town in Nigeria's Niger delta which was once a semi comatose backwater, but is now a thriving hive of commercial activity thanks, she says to an Italian oil company.
Derej says attracting FDI with generous tax holidays and freedom to repatriate profits is already a priority in all African countries, but the dynamism that Donu alludes to is just not there. Foreign companies tend to extract wealth in enclaves without helping the development of host countries productive capabilities.
Colonial policy was all about 'nipping productive capacity in the bud' and multi-national dominated globalization is carrying on in the same vein. That is why diamonds cause death and poverty in Lubumbashi but riches and glory in Antwerp.
FDI has not distrubed the peaceful co-existence between lucrative foreign business and perennial stagnation, has not liften African commodity producers out of subsistence income levels. Its advances towards promoting value chain activities, creating decent jobs, transferring knowledge and technology or investing in research and development are negligible. You cannot expect miracles in this department. He goes on to say that profits go to companies' countries of origin and rampant tax evasion drains resources from Africa's social infrastructure provision.
Aid is not useful only when directed at providing help during emergencies. It also builds resilience for the next emergency, and helps plug the vital infrastructure gap that FDI will never address.
The two participants of this debate are:
Donu Kogbara a Nigerian print and broadcast journalist. She acts as a Director on the Greater Port Harcourt City Development Authority Board and is part of the African Arguments debates forum. africanarguments.org
Dereje Alemayehu is a development worker of Ethiopian origin, Christian Aid's Country Manager for East Africa and Chair of the Tax Justice Network Africa.
The views expressed in this debate are entirely his own.
Please feel free to comment on this article.
Disabled rights defenders pile on the pressure
From an article in New Internationalist magazine, September edition 2011
Sick of being labelled work-shy by the tabloid press, disabled and frail people across Britain are mounting a powerful campaign against government cuts.
Some 10,000 people turned out for the Hardest Hit March in London in May to demand the right to a decent life, with income and support for the most vulnerable.
Since this mobilization, the largest rally of disabled people in living memory, a lot of e-activism and organising has brought the fight home to cities across the country.
People are worried about losing their benefits, some say if they lose their mobility benefits it would mean being stuck indoors 24/7. Some of the marchers say they (the government) should take the barriers to work away, not the support.
Groups are springing up all over the country and are fiercely grass roots and user led and firmly rooted in the wider anti-cuts movement. Beth Tichborne from Campaign for a fair society believes that there is a really good philosophy emerging and says "It's about making protest accesible and not talking on behalf of people"
Eleanor Lisney fromm Disabled People Against Cuts believes it is a question of self-defence, everyone is affected and believes this is the reason for the unprecedented response. She says her community are reeling from the cuts on all sides.
The chronically ill and dying have been having benefits taken away from them by the Atos computer programme - and this has sparked depression and even suicide for some people. Benefits like the disability living allowance are also under review, plus local councils are cutting back on vital social care.
This growing movement is making an impact, the sit ins and vigorous lobbying against Atos has helped prompt a highly critical select committee report. Legal challenges are forcing local authority re thinks and DPAC hope to force a goverment U-turn on benefit changes.
Some links for readers who want to read further:
dpac.uk.net
campaignforafairsociety.org
mylifemychoice.org.uk
Sick of being labelled work-shy by the tabloid press, disabled and frail people across Britain are mounting a powerful campaign against government cuts.
Some 10,000 people turned out for the Hardest Hit March in London in May to demand the right to a decent life, with income and support for the most vulnerable.
Since this mobilization, the largest rally of disabled people in living memory, a lot of e-activism and organising has brought the fight home to cities across the country.
People are worried about losing their benefits, some say if they lose their mobility benefits it would mean being stuck indoors 24/7. Some of the marchers say they (the government) should take the barriers to work away, not the support.
Groups are springing up all over the country and are fiercely grass roots and user led and firmly rooted in the wider anti-cuts movement. Beth Tichborne from Campaign for a fair society believes that there is a really good philosophy emerging and says "It's about making protest accesible and not talking on behalf of people"
Eleanor Lisney fromm Disabled People Against Cuts believes it is a question of self-defence, everyone is affected and believes this is the reason for the unprecedented response. She says her community are reeling from the cuts on all sides.
The chronically ill and dying have been having benefits taken away from them by the Atos computer programme - and this has sparked depression and even suicide for some people. Benefits like the disability living allowance are also under review, plus local councils are cutting back on vital social care.
This growing movement is making an impact, the sit ins and vigorous lobbying against Atos has helped prompt a highly critical select committee report. Legal challenges are forcing local authority re thinks and DPAC hope to force a goverment U-turn on benefit changes.
Some links for readers who want to read further:
dpac.uk.net
campaignforafairsociety.org
mylifemychoice.org.uk
Tuesday, 19 July 2011
Palestinian newborns are dying at checkpoints
This was an article in New Internationalist Magazine.
Palestinian newborns are dying at checkpoints
Posted by Libby Powell | 3
In their home just outside of Bethlehem, a young couple, Farid and Nadia, put their son to bed. First-time parents, they tiptoe in and out of his nursery. The view from the window is dominated by the drab grey slabs of the Separation Wall, which stands just 20 metres from the house.
Nadia is a Jerusalem ID holder. Farid, however, only holds a green West Bank ID card and is prohibited from owning property or driving a car in the district.
After the delay, the Israeli military who guard the checkpoint forced Nadia to drive herself to hospital.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, 10 per cent of pregnant Palestinian women were forced to endure labour or childbirth at a checkpoint between 2000 and 2007, resulting in the death of at least 35 babies and five women during the seven-year period. This data is at the centre of a new research abstract published this week in the leading medical journal, The Lancet.
The abstract’s author, Halla Shoaibi, is a lawyer at the University of Michigan. She believes there may be grounds for Israel to be prosecuted for crimes against humanity for obstructing pregnant Palestinian women as they try to reach medical care during labour.
Israel has over 500 checkpoints and barriers across occupied Palestine; a journey that should take minutes can take hours. Approximately 18,000 pregnant Palestinian women each year will develop complications.
Sexual and reproductive health consultant Carol Bradford says that checkpoint delays complicate an already fragile situation:
The Fourth Geneva Convention states that ‘expectant mothers shall be the object of particular protection and respect’. Yet, in 2009, the Committee Against Torture said it was ‘seriously concerned’ by the ‘undue delays and denial of entry’ at Israeli checkpoints of those seeking urgent medical care. Shoaibi’s analysis will investigate a claim against Israel based on the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Article 7 (1) (k), which prohibits ‘inhumane acts…intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health’.
Individual testimonies lodged with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights certainly indicate inhumane treatment, great suffering and the loss of life as a result of checkpoint delays. A testimony given in August 2003 reported the birth, and death, of a baby girl at a checkpoint in northern West Bank. The mother was prevented from reaching an ambulance on the other side. The baby died after the father was forced to cut his baby’s umbilical cord with a stone.
Yet, despite the gravity of individual cases, Shoaibi will need to show that Israel’s actions are intentional, widespread and systematic. The statistic of one in 10 [women giving birth at checkpoints] would suggest a widespread problem. But it’s very likely that even this number is a huge underestimation, because many cases from isolated rural areas never get reported.
Proving Israel’s strategic intent to cause suffering will be a challenge. However, there have been indications of an attitude of aggression amongst the Israeli military towards childbearing Palestinian women. In March 2009, there was international outrage over a set of t-shirts commissioned by Israeli soldiers depicting a pregnant Palestinian with a target over her belly. Over the image were the words One shot – two kills.
Whether or not Shoaibi is able to validate a claim to the International Criminal Court, the fact that a significant number of pregnant women have routinely been denied safe passage to a hospital must raise alarm bells. The international rule of occupation requires Israel to enable the people of occupied Palestine to live as ‘normal’ a life as possible.
‘Is it normal that our women are giving birth at checkpoints?’ asks Farid. ‘If you think it’s normal I have nothing more to say.’
Palestinian newborns are dying at checkpoints
Posted by Libby Powell | 3
In their home just outside of Bethlehem, a young couple, Farid and Nadia, put their son to bed. First-time parents, they tiptoe in and out of his nursery. The view from the window is dominated by the drab grey slabs of the Separation Wall, which stands just 20 metres from the house.
‘I fear that he will grow up thinking this is normal,’ Farid says.
Nadia is a Jerusalem ID holder. Farid, however, only holds a green West Bank ID card and is prohibited from owning property or driving a car in the district.
‘The night that my wife went into labour,’ Farid recalls,
‘we made our way to hospital. Because I wasn’t allowed to drive I had to sit beside her. She was in severe pain. I thought she was going to deliver in the car. At the checkpoint, we were made to wait. They wouldn’t allow us to switch so I could drive, although she was clearly in severe pain.’
After the delay, the Israeli military who guard the checkpoint forced Nadia to drive herself to hospital.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, 10 per cent of pregnant Palestinian women were forced to endure labour or childbirth at a checkpoint between 2000 and 2007, resulting in the death of at least 35 babies and five women during the seven-year period. This data is at the centre of a new research abstract published this week in the leading medical journal, The Lancet.
The abstract’s author, Halla Shoaibi, is a lawyer at the University of Michigan. She believes there may be grounds for Israel to be prosecuted for crimes against humanity for obstructing pregnant Palestinian women as they try to reach medical care during labour.
Israel has over 500 checkpoints and barriers across occupied Palestine; a journey that should take minutes can take hours. Approximately 18,000 pregnant Palestinian women each year will develop complications.
Sexual and reproductive health consultant Carol Bradford says that checkpoint delays complicate an already fragile situation:
‘The Thaddeus and Maine “Three Delays Model” identifies the main causes of needless death of a mother and, often, her newborn. The first delay is getting out of the home when a woman needs emergency care; the second is in getting to the facility; and the third is when the facility can’t help her because it doesn’t have the right equipment or supplies. All three are at play in the occupied Palestinian territory.’
The Fourth Geneva Convention states that ‘expectant mothers shall be the object of particular protection and respect’. Yet, in 2009, the Committee Against Torture said it was ‘seriously concerned’ by the ‘undue delays and denial of entry’ at Israeli checkpoints of those seeking urgent medical care. Shoaibi’s analysis will investigate a claim against Israel based on the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Article 7 (1) (k), which prohibits ‘inhumane acts…intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health’.
Individual testimonies lodged with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights certainly indicate inhumane treatment, great suffering and the loss of life as a result of checkpoint delays. A testimony given in August 2003 reported the birth, and death, of a baby girl at a checkpoint in northern West Bank. The mother was prevented from reaching an ambulance on the other side. The baby died after the father was forced to cut his baby’s umbilical cord with a stone.
Yet, despite the gravity of individual cases, Shoaibi will need to show that Israel’s actions are intentional, widespread and systematic. The statistic of one in 10 [women giving birth at checkpoints] would suggest a widespread problem. But it’s very likely that even this number is a huge underestimation, because many cases from isolated rural areas never get reported.
Proving Israel’s strategic intent to cause suffering will be a challenge. However, there have been indications of an attitude of aggression amongst the Israeli military towards childbearing Palestinian women. In March 2009, there was international outrage over a set of t-shirts commissioned by Israeli soldiers depicting a pregnant Palestinian with a target over her belly. Over the image were the words One shot – two kills.
Whether or not Shoaibi is able to validate a claim to the International Criminal Court, the fact that a significant number of pregnant women have routinely been denied safe passage to a hospital must raise alarm bells. The international rule of occupation requires Israel to enable the people of occupied Palestine to live as ‘normal’ a life as possible.
‘Is it normal that our women are giving birth at checkpoints?’ asks Farid. ‘If you think it’s normal I have nothing more to say.’
‘The mountain that eats men alive’
Cerro Rico is famed for the harsh conditions faced by its miners. But, as James Dryburgh discovers, it is not only men who are ‘rock-breakers’ in Bolivia’s Potosí region. Women too, some as old as 81, work in the shadow of the sacred mountain.
Potosí, once one of the largest and richest cities in the world, has an incredible history. It is estimated that as many as eight million Andean Indians died because of the mining of its Cerro Rico (Rich Hill). The workers were brought from all over the region – in today’s Bolivia and Peru – to serve the Spanish Crown. Even now, two miners die each week of silicosis in Potosí, in addition to deaths from other mining-related illnesses and accidents. The ‘mountain that eats men alive’ has been written of many times, though perhaps not often enough read. While the vast majority of miners are men, it is not only men who live in the shadow of Cerro Rico.
The good mother
The mountain itself is female. In indigenous Andean culture mountains represent Pachamama (Mother Earth). The Spanish conquerors understood her importance and she became synonymous with the Virgin Mary, helping to convert the indigenous to Catholicism. This association is particularly evident in Potosí’s most famous painting, the 18th century La Virgen del Cerro, by an unknown artist, in which the Virgin Mary is the mountain of Cerro Rico.
Since Pachamama is a ‘good mother’, people toast to her honour almost every day by spilling a small amount of the fermented corn drink chicha to the earth, before drinking the rest. The toast is called ch’alla, from the word for offering, in the native language of Quechua.
Celestina, Macaria and Maria are palliris, a name given to female rock-breakers, which comes from the Aymara language, meaning ‘to select’. For around four dollars a day, the women sort through discarded mine tailings on the surface of the mountain, breaking the rocks with a small hammer to separate tin, silver and zinc. Their decades of experience allow them to determine each mineral by sight and by weighing the rocks with their hands.
Celestina is 81 years old, and has been a palliri for around 40 years. Maria, Celestina’s 62-year-old daughter, has been working with her mother for 18 years. Though Maria enjoys working with her mother, she laments that Potosí has given Bolivia, and indeed the world, so much, but never gets anything back. Maria has a point.
Working in the mines
Their hands look strong and wise, coated in the fine, light blue-grey dust of the minerals they sort. Celestina has a heavily lined face shadowed by her wide-brimmed black hat and wears dangly metal earrings. They all wear hats and cover their skin with thick, long skirts and llama wool cardigans. Celestina’s eyes almost look permanently closed from decades of squinting at the harsh high-altitude sun reflecting off the light coloured rock.
As we start talking, the face of 68-year-old Macaria lights up. She is immensely proud of her community and begins telling me her story before I even ask a question. She is a palliri because neither her husband, who was left brain-damaged after a mining accident, nor her daughter, who doesn’t have any legs, can work.
Macaria began working in the mines before the age of 15, when her father died. At first, the mine boss said she was too young, but she had a Spanish godfather who pulled some strings and soon she was working alongside her brothers. She worked until she was 23 in lead and silver mines, later working outside separating minerals with water and gravity.
When the US flooded the market in 1985, the price of tin crashed, making life even tougher on the mountain. Female workers got together and organized a support and response group called Centre of Palliris. They started street cleaning and tree planting groups to deal with unemployment. Macaria was president of the organization for several years and tells me she’s a very political person and is proud that, with little opportunity, she still enjoys life and is informed. Today, the group is called the Association of Female Workers of Cerro Rico, Potosí.
The important things in life
We sit, green bags on our laps, de-veining then chewing the coca leaves they contain to suppress the effects of altitude, fatigue and hunger as we look over the formerly government-owned miners’ houses that are now mostly empty. The women all reflect that conditions were much better before the crash and subsequent re-privatisation of mining in Bolivia. I ask Macaria what the three most important things in life are. She explains that work is the most important, because without it you cannot have health or look after your family.
Today Cerro Rico is hollow, but still standing at 4,860 metres above sea level. She has not once slept during the past 460 years, since the Spanish learnt of her riches. She still gives. She still takes away. She is tired, but not exhausted. Each day approximately 3,000 tonnes of mineral are brought out of Cerro Rico by around 15,000 miners, working in over 500 separate mines.
Macaria explains that work is the most important, because without it you cannot have health or look after your family
Potosí is one of Bolivia’s most indigenous regions. Over a third of its population only speak native languages. Almost every mining family is indigenous with Quechua, or sometimes Aymara, as their first language.
In 1581, Phillip II of Spain told an audience that a third of Latin America’s Indians had already been wiped out, and, referring to Potosí specifically, that mothers killed their own children to save them from the horrors of the mines. It is estimated there were 70 million Indians in Latin America when Columbus sailed towards its shores thinking he had found a back door to Asia. A century and a half later, there were just 3.5 million. Modesta only speaks Quechua and lives in a tiny adobe (mud brick) building on the side of the mountain. Two thirds of the building houses mining equipment and the other third is home to Modesta, her husband, and five of their seven children. She earns US$45 a month for protecting a mine entrance and mining equipment from thieves, all day, every day. She has six scrawny dogs to help.
What hope?
Modesta is spinning llama wool to make clothing and bedding for her family while she tells me of her 14 years living amongst the mines. Originally Modesta’s family were peasant farmers in the region of Santa Cruz, but if the rains were unkind to their crops they had no food. They moved to Potosí and her husband took a job in the mines. He is now a second-class miner earning between $30 and $70 a week, depending on production and the quality of minerals extracted. Modesta tells me that almost half his last pay went on his weekly alcohol binge. Drinking is a huge problem within the mining community. Alcohol not only exacerbates poverty, it brings violence and unplanned children into the home.
Modesta doesn’t want her children to work in the mines because of the danger, poor pay and short life, but she confesses, ‘
Her eldest child has a job in a brick factory in Argentina and her 14-year-old son, Saturino, wants to follow his older brother after one more year of school. Modesta believes the only opportunity for her 12-year-old daughter Sylvia is to become a maid for a wealthy family, and if she is lucky, in a richer region of Bolivia.
Elias is seven and the only child with a local interest. Modesta helps him to collect coloured rocks and minerals, which he sells to tourists. Sadly, many of the children of Cerro Rico do likewise, which causes rivalry between the child sellers, leading to bullying, violence and an absence of friendships. Fortunately, Modesta’s children have some friends nearby, who aren’t competitors for tourists’ short change.
Despite centuries of tragedy on this mountain, there is a joy, dignity and beauty within her people. Though she provides the livelihood for thousands of people, and there is a subtle fear about the day Cerro Rico is finally exhausted, she is sacred to the people of Potosí
Modesta shines with a huge, almost toothless smile as she talks about Jose, her youngest, who is only four. Too young for school, he spends the days with his mother and clings to her as we talk. Given the average life span of miners in Potosí is around 38 years, the odds are that his father will be dead before Jose is 10. He and his brothers will likely be forced to follow their father’s fading footsteps, down the hill, into the mine, and into an early grave.
Miners generally don’t have access to running water, let alone hot showers, and are permanently coated in fine dust, meaning intimacy often results in sickness, especially in women. The wives face a future that is likely to bring the early loss of their husband and the primary family income, creating the need for children to begin working at disturbingly young ages. These mothers and wives have to deal with anxiety and fear for their children and husbands below in the mines every single day.
The women of Cerro Rico are widows or widows in waiting and are eventually left with the responsibility of trying to ensure their husbands can at least rest in peace. The miners are proud men who can truly say they have sacrificed their life for their family. But for the poorest miners of Potosí, even death is a struggle. If a miner is not in a co-operative, his family has to pay for a burial plot on a five yearly basis. If they cannot afford the payments, the remains are discarded and the plot used for someone else. Despite centuries of tragedy on this mountain, there is a joy, dignity and beauty within her people. Though she provides the livelihood for thousands of people, and there is a subtle fear about the day Cerro Rico is finally exhausted, she is sacred to the people of Potosí. Huge protests towards the end of 2010, in which Potosinos went on strike and blockaded the entire region for 20 days, ensured an agreement with the national government to preserve the form of Cerro Rico, even if it means leaving some of her wealth where it is.
A few days later, looking up from the city to the conical red mountain, I say to Jacqueline, a local woman, ‘that mountain must be the keeper of millions of stories.’ ‘She never stops speaking,’ Jacqueline replies.
James Dryburgh is a Scottish-born Tasmanian writer passionate about truth and helping the world’s muffled voices to be heard. He has lived in Scotland, Spain and Latin America and is Associate Editor of tasmaniantimes.com.
Potosí, once one of the largest and richest cities in the world, has an incredible history. It is estimated that as many as eight million Andean Indians died because of the mining of its Cerro Rico (Rich Hill). The workers were brought from all over the region – in today’s Bolivia and Peru – to serve the Spanish Crown. Even now, two miners die each week of silicosis in Potosí, in addition to deaths from other mining-related illnesses and accidents. The ‘mountain that eats men alive’ has been written of many times, though perhaps not often enough read. While the vast majority of miners are men, it is not only men who live in the shadow of Cerro Rico.
The good mother
The mountain itself is female. In indigenous Andean culture mountains represent Pachamama (Mother Earth). The Spanish conquerors understood her importance and she became synonymous with the Virgin Mary, helping to convert the indigenous to Catholicism. This association is particularly evident in Potosí’s most famous painting, the 18th century La Virgen del Cerro, by an unknown artist, in which the Virgin Mary is the mountain of Cerro Rico.
Since Pachamama is a ‘good mother’, people toast to her honour almost every day by spilling a small amount of the fermented corn drink chicha to the earth, before drinking the rest. The toast is called ch’alla, from the word for offering, in the native language of Quechua.
Celestina, Macaria and Maria are palliris, a name given to female rock-breakers, which comes from the Aymara language, meaning ‘to select’. For around four dollars a day, the women sort through discarded mine tailings on the surface of the mountain, breaking the rocks with a small hammer to separate tin, silver and zinc. Their decades of experience allow them to determine each mineral by sight and by weighing the rocks with their hands.
Celestina is 81 years old, and has been a palliri for around 40 years. Maria, Celestina’s 62-year-old daughter, has been working with her mother for 18 years. Though Maria enjoys working with her mother, she laments that Potosí has given Bolivia, and indeed the world, so much, but never gets anything back. Maria has a point.
Working in the mines
Their hands look strong and wise, coated in the fine, light blue-grey dust of the minerals they sort. Celestina has a heavily lined face shadowed by her wide-brimmed black hat and wears dangly metal earrings. They all wear hats and cover their skin with thick, long skirts and llama wool cardigans. Celestina’s eyes almost look permanently closed from decades of squinting at the harsh high-altitude sun reflecting off the light coloured rock.
As we start talking, the face of 68-year-old Macaria lights up. She is immensely proud of her community and begins telling me her story before I even ask a question. She is a palliri because neither her husband, who was left brain-damaged after a mining accident, nor her daughter, who doesn’t have any legs, can work.
Macaria began working in the mines before the age of 15, when her father died. At first, the mine boss said she was too young, but she had a Spanish godfather who pulled some strings and soon she was working alongside her brothers. She worked until she was 23 in lead and silver mines, later working outside separating minerals with water and gravity.
When the US flooded the market in 1985, the price of tin crashed, making life even tougher on the mountain. Female workers got together and organized a support and response group called Centre of Palliris. They started street cleaning and tree planting groups to deal with unemployment. Macaria was president of the organization for several years and tells me she’s a very political person and is proud that, with little opportunity, she still enjoys life and is informed. Today, the group is called the Association of Female Workers of Cerro Rico, Potosí.
The important things in life
We sit, green bags on our laps, de-veining then chewing the coca leaves they contain to suppress the effects of altitude, fatigue and hunger as we look over the formerly government-owned miners’ houses that are now mostly empty. The women all reflect that conditions were much better before the crash and subsequent re-privatisation of mining in Bolivia. I ask Macaria what the three most important things in life are. She explains that work is the most important, because without it you cannot have health or look after your family.
Today Cerro Rico is hollow, but still standing at 4,860 metres above sea level. She has not once slept during the past 460 years, since the Spanish learnt of her riches. She still gives. She still takes away. She is tired, but not exhausted. Each day approximately 3,000 tonnes of mineral are brought out of Cerro Rico by around 15,000 miners, working in over 500 separate mines.
Macaria explains that work is the most important, because without it you cannot have health or look after your family
Potosí is one of Bolivia’s most indigenous regions. Over a third of its population only speak native languages. Almost every mining family is indigenous with Quechua, or sometimes Aymara, as their first language.
In 1581, Phillip II of Spain told an audience that a third of Latin America’s Indians had already been wiped out, and, referring to Potosí specifically, that mothers killed their own children to save them from the horrors of the mines. It is estimated there were 70 million Indians in Latin America when Columbus sailed towards its shores thinking he had found a back door to Asia. A century and a half later, there were just 3.5 million. Modesta only speaks Quechua and lives in a tiny adobe (mud brick) building on the side of the mountain. Two thirds of the building houses mining equipment and the other third is home to Modesta, her husband, and five of their seven children. She earns US$45 a month for protecting a mine entrance and mining equipment from thieves, all day, every day. She has six scrawny dogs to help.
What hope?
Modesta is spinning llama wool to make clothing and bedding for her family while she tells me of her 14 years living amongst the mines. Originally Modesta’s family were peasant farmers in the region of Santa Cruz, but if the rains were unkind to their crops they had no food. They moved to Potosí and her husband took a job in the mines. He is now a second-class miner earning between $30 and $70 a week, depending on production and the quality of minerals extracted. Modesta tells me that almost half his last pay went on his weekly alcohol binge. Drinking is a huge problem within the mining community. Alcohol not only exacerbates poverty, it brings violence and unplanned children into the home.
Modesta doesn’t want her children to work in the mines because of the danger, poor pay and short life, but she confesses, ‘
I have no hope for our situation’.
Her eldest child has a job in a brick factory in Argentina and her 14-year-old son, Saturino, wants to follow his older brother after one more year of school. Modesta believes the only opportunity for her 12-year-old daughter Sylvia is to become a maid for a wealthy family, and if she is lucky, in a richer region of Bolivia.
Elias is seven and the only child with a local interest. Modesta helps him to collect coloured rocks and minerals, which he sells to tourists. Sadly, many of the children of Cerro Rico do likewise, which causes rivalry between the child sellers, leading to bullying, violence and an absence of friendships. Fortunately, Modesta’s children have some friends nearby, who aren’t competitors for tourists’ short change.
Despite centuries of tragedy on this mountain, there is a joy, dignity and beauty within her people. Though she provides the livelihood for thousands of people, and there is a subtle fear about the day Cerro Rico is finally exhausted, she is sacred to the people of Potosí
Modesta shines with a huge, almost toothless smile as she talks about Jose, her youngest, who is only four. Too young for school, he spends the days with his mother and clings to her as we talk. Given the average life span of miners in Potosí is around 38 years, the odds are that his father will be dead before Jose is 10. He and his brothers will likely be forced to follow their father’s fading footsteps, down the hill, into the mine, and into an early grave.
Miners generally don’t have access to running water, let alone hot showers, and are permanently coated in fine dust, meaning intimacy often results in sickness, especially in women. The wives face a future that is likely to bring the early loss of their husband and the primary family income, creating the need for children to begin working at disturbingly young ages. These mothers and wives have to deal with anxiety and fear for their children and husbands below in the mines every single day.
Keeper of a million stories
The women of Cerro Rico are widows or widows in waiting and are eventually left with the responsibility of trying to ensure their husbands can at least rest in peace. The miners are proud men who can truly say they have sacrificed their life for their family. But for the poorest miners of Potosí, even death is a struggle. If a miner is not in a co-operative, his family has to pay for a burial plot on a five yearly basis. If they cannot afford the payments, the remains are discarded and the plot used for someone else. Despite centuries of tragedy on this mountain, there is a joy, dignity and beauty within her people. Though she provides the livelihood for thousands of people, and there is a subtle fear about the day Cerro Rico is finally exhausted, she is sacred to the people of Potosí. Huge protests towards the end of 2010, in which Potosinos went on strike and blockaded the entire region for 20 days, ensured an agreement with the national government to preserve the form of Cerro Rico, even if it means leaving some of her wealth where it is.
A few days later, looking up from the city to the conical red mountain, I say to Jacqueline, a local woman, ‘that mountain must be the keeper of millions of stories.’ ‘She never stops speaking,’ Jacqueline replies.
James Dryburgh is a Scottish-born Tasmanian writer passionate about truth and helping the world’s muffled voices to be heard. He has lived in Scotland, Spain and Latin America and is Associate Editor of tasmaniantimes.com.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)