Vandana Shiva- Terrorism and Intellectual Property Rights

Our CES 440 class was first introduced to Vandana Shiva when we watched a movie called “This is Democracy” about the 1999 Seattle protest movement. We have also seen her in a movie about the Bolivian water war in Cochabamba. She spoke out against the comodification of water that has been going on around the world, partly as result of  third world countries indebtedness to the WTO, IMF, and the World Bank and their demands for privatization of their water and other public services. At her ZNet HomePage where many of her speeches and opinions can be found, I found this introduction.

 

“Dr. Vandana Shiva is a physicist, ecologist, activist, editor, and author of many books. In India she has established Navdanya, a movement for biodiversity conservation and farmers’ rights. She directs the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy. Her most recent books are Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge and Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply.

 

 

To me she represents a well respected, outspoken, passionate, but sensible purveyor of sage wisdom who stands up for what is right for the Indian people, farmers, democracy, biodiversity, and the for the poor everywhere.  In doing so she sets an example for social justice activists everywhere. Today, many times that means standing against big multinational corporations and their government backers that often leave destruction in the wake of profit pursuit.

 

In her stand for small farmers she has made a stand  against the patenting of nature, an action she terms, biopiracy.  Shiva points out that when big corporations are allowed to patent seeds and then hold the intellectual property rights to licensing fees for the use of those seeds, indigenous cultures lose the right to use the very thing they have spent 100’s if not thousands of years developing naturally. That is a seed that is genetically adapted to the environment it was developed in. A seed that doesn’t need extra water, fertilizer and pesticides to be grown as happens with genetically modified seeds. Even though the claim is often that GM seed will save money it’s usually the opposite that’s true. This has been proven over and over when Indian farmers believing the advertising buy the seed and fail so miserably they kill themselves. Over 85,000 suicides since 2002 of indebted Indian farmers who could not pay back the loans for GM seeds, because they couldn’t even cover the cost of production.

 

An article titled “Terrorism, Agriculture and U.S. India Cooperation”, 2005 Shiva who points out reasons that the Green Revolution’s industrialized agriculture and its commercial ties has hurt farmers and increased terrorism, not made it better. In her article she talks about an agricultual agreement signed by Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh’s and President Bush where they commit themselves to democratic values and to “fight terrorism relentlessly”.

• “While the two leaders resolve, “to combat terrorism relentlessly” they are promoting the technologies, and trade models, which serve the US corporate interests and destroy farmers’ livelihood security thus becoming the breeding ground for terrorism as I have shown in my book “The Violence of the Green Revolution” (Zed Books).”

 

“Why did a ‘Revolution’ awarded a Nobel Peace Prize lead to so much violence? The Green Revolution came with a promise of peace. But its crude linearity – Technology -> Prosperity -> Peace – failed. The reason for this failure was because the technologies of the Green Revolution, like technologies of war, leave nature and society impoverished. To expect prosperity to grow out of violent technologies that destroy the earth, erode biodiversity, deplete and pollute water and leave peasants indebted and in ruins was a false assumption made during the launch of Green Revolution. This false assumption is being repeated in the launch of the Second Green Revolution based on biotechnology and genetic engineering, which are at the core of the US – India agreement.”

  Picture from www.daughters-sisters.org

I believe what Shiva is saying is that industrial agriculture didn’t make life better for farmers, the genetic revolution won’t make it better either. In fact when people can’t feed themselves because the policies of technological advancement that that are forced on countries like India support the wealthy (seed patent owners and hurt the poor), the poor get angry and fight back. The military have to be called in to enforce these policies and perform government terrorism to force compliance on the citizens.

To read more of Shiva’s logic on terrorisms ties to the Green Revolution click here.

 

Here is a video of Vandana Shiva drawing the connections of globalizations advancements, that includes GM seed company’s intellectual property rights and how these rights are enforced through military terrorism. Why, because intellectual property rights take away what should be natural rights and the  people they affect naturally fight against them. For example, the right to trade and share saved seeds, the right to food unpoisoned  with pesticides and chemical fertilizers, the right to at least eke out a living without going into debt, the right to clean water and clean air, all natural right taken away by corporate globalization.

 

 Coming up, Terminator Technology.

~ by Lorina Coble on April 13, 2008.