Envrionmental Education

For all its positive attributes and ideological importance, mainstream education about the environment, including in the media, schools, and society in general, is lacking. The consumerist attributes of modern society do not allow much needed environmental change to occur, shifts that may literally one day save our lives. Through both intentional and incidental means, the capitalist model dulls the blow of the environmentalist message, sometimes even using its ideals to meet profitable ends.

The main way this happens is through the institutions providing temporary fixes, which give the appearance of solutions to the problems. This takes the focus of the real reason there are problems in the first place. The symptoms may be treated, but the systemic problems are left unscathed. One example of this comes through the idea of recycling. According to “The Story of Stuff,” the production of a product uses seven times as many resources as the final product contains. So, the video says, even if one recycled every bit of waste one produced, there would still be seven times that used in the production stages. Recycling is undeniably important, but it is not helpful that it is presented as an easy and fun way to save the earth, ignoring the glaring other, more systematic problems such as consumerism. An article by David Adam of The Guardian highlighted this fact in his article entitled, “Green idealists fail to make grade, says study.” He found that the people who were the most environmentally minded, who were acutely aware of the issues and lived “green lifestyles” also had high incomes and so travelled much more than the average person. The study Adam cites states that any benefit they created by cutting down on waste (some had achieved a “zero-waste” household) and saving electricity was completely “swamped” by the amount of jet fuel they used in travelling around the world. Recycling is very important, but as a relatively simple piece of the problem, it is often taken as an answer. Recycling will help, certainly, but changes in many more aspects will have a much larger impact.

There is also an observable tying of brands to environmental issues (this has also happened with many social issues). A company simply changes its marketing and advertising strategies to have the appearance of being more “green” when in reality it all amounts to about the same function. In this way, people are made to believe they are making a big difference by simply buying a different product. The marketing industry is not shy about this strategy either. One article found on a marketing website, entitled “Consumers Would Partner with Brands for Social Change, Environment,” details the fact that surveyed consumers would be willing to change their habits or even promote a product if it gave an image of being for a “good cause” of some sort. The fact remains, though, that the purpose of the product and its sale is to make money. The business sector has even gone so far as to create consultancy firms (goodpurpose was the one detailed in the article) to help shift the image of a company’s products to link them to environmental and social issues (not necessarily putting a high value on those issues). In the end, it is all done to sell more stuff to consumers. The choice to the consumer really ends up being a choice to buy a product that makes claims like this or one that does not. These “compassionate” companies will do what it takes to ensure it is their product or service that the consumer chooses. The choice never given, however, is to not buy anything at all. Manish Jain of Shikshantar, whom I spoke with on multiple occasions, once also discussed how in many ways, the market gives something value. For instance, if the “green movement” can be commoditized, it becomes valuable and a part of our everyday system. Things that are not in the market, such as products produced at home or day spent free from earning or spending money, are given a low value and labeled as part of the past. When companies link their products to environmental issues, whether to intentionally sell more product or they are actually well intentioned, they are doing harm.

In my high school economics class, I remember talking about how technology would keep up with our consumption and new technologies would emerge when either the consumer or the conditions demanded it. No governmental or social institutions were necessary. Daily, I would read in the papers about such new technologies and things that would allow us to live better and longer. There was never a choice or a thought given to not buying something and to keep living the way that has kept one healthy and happy, or any consideration given to the fact that a new technology would not necessarily be absolutely good for humanity. Indeed, in our system, the fact that business and economics and money-making should come first is taken as common sense. Often this is the foundational premises upon which we base our lives and education. Those who would challenge that are written off as “extremists,” “tree-huggers,” and “hippies.” In silencing these voices, which is done mostly by the fact that our system is set up in such opposition to these opinions, we are not left with any real choices (or questions) about how we want to and how we should live. As long as it makes the right people money and perpetuates the system, it is good and desirable.

Fortunately, though, this is not the way all people operate. There are plenty of examples of people “waking up” to these realities and making true, significant changes. Here in Udaipur, I worked with an organization called Shikshantar, which works on many environmental issues in a way that is completely different. Indeed, their vision is not to be a big, powerful organization that teaches the masses how to live correctly, but to have a smaller and smaller budget every year, letting the community and the people they work with provide mutual support. Additionally, they live the values they promote, and welcome anyone who has similar thoughts or wishes to discuss them. One doesn’t have to travel all the way to India to find people like this, though. Even in mainstream media, there have arisen dissenting voices, such as Kim Severson’s article in the New York Times, “Be It Ever So Homespun, There’s Nothing Like Spin,” where she talks about her move into awareness of corporate “greenwashing” and companies changes in advertising to make themselves look “organic-ish,” as she says. Additionally, she also sees this as a passing trend, and is optimistic that people will wake up to these tactics and ask deeper questions.

Increasing and nurturing the inquisitive nature is of primary importance in truly educating people about the environment and the importance of the choices they make in living their lives. Policy changes can also have an impact on the sorts of messages people are exposed to, and these policies can help make companies responsible for what they say. For example, Alister Doyle of Reuters, wrote an article about Norway’s new advertising laws, which will not allow car companies to make claims about the environmental nature of their products, as the government believes people should be given a fair and fully accurate description of the product. This is next to impossible with these cars, as much of the environmental damage comes in the production of the car, rather than the driving of it. Additionally, it is absolutely crucial that we support a decrease in the consumerist nature of society. This is the primary cause of environmental degradation. People should know they have the choice to not buy, and that this choice is often the most “environmentally friendly” one available. One step in accomplishing this goal is supporting the removal of the emotional attachments that people have to brands, as discussed earlier, and get back to minimal, factual, and practical claims about our true needs.

Education on environmental issues in schools and in society is of the utmost importance. Currently, the mainstream sources “miss the mark” in many ways. At the same time, there is plenty of hope. One simply needs to take an active look around his or her community to find like-minded people who live the changes and work together to find ways to raise awareness and make real change happen. Indeed, hard work and a questioning attitude can ensure this world remains habitable for the future generations.

Right Wing Resistance Movements and Globalization

Globalization is a term that means something different or even absolutely nothing depending on your viewpoint and perspective. Often those who are aware of the word “globalization” are those perpetrating or benefiting from it. Most poor Indians have scarcely heard of globalization, evidenced by our many confused discussions on globalization- ones that are preceded by a lengthy translated explanation (implying a lack of knowledge on the concept) and then conclude with short and confused answers that don’t quite provide any opinion in response. This murky and unknown definition leaves the meaning of globalization to those politically motivated or profit-oriented, which in many cases causes a negative outcome.

Globalization, with all of its vagaries and confusing aspects, often fosters identity crises in affected nations. Often the added plurality and exposure to global media culture that accompanies globalization results in right-wing reactionary movements that radically try to redefine what is original and “pure” about a nation undergoing development. They often carry an undercurrent of fundamentalism and nationalism. One of the most obvious of these movements is the far-right Hindu BJP. BJP literature speaks with extreme derision the customs of the British: “Mythology. The whole construct is a British anthropological revenge on us. Hence we adopted their standards, their calendar, their ways to greet the guests, their worldview became ours, and we discarded everything that we cherished, adopted their attire and weird uniforms to look modern and progressive.”[1] This quote portrays the British dominance over India to shape a certain victimhood, based on Hinduism, which is therefore used as the basis of a new “Indian” identity.

In its press releases and media outreach, the BJP often exploits anti-foreign and anti-pluralist sentiment to hijack social relations between religions and people and force a constructed concept of what is “Indian.” The BJP is attempting to project a certain definition of the Indian citizen. This sort of stance is encouraged by the increased plurality that globalization brings about. The BJP is not even expressly anti-capitalist in any way and supports most of the economic parts of the spread of global capital. But this is combined rather fascistically to still remain an anti-foreign and anti-plural movement. Globalization has directly influenced and caused these sorts of movements to spring up across the world. While not directly relational (the BJP would still exist even if globalization were not happening), globalization encourages and delivers a perfect environment for these parties to thrive. Globalization provides both an enemy- foreign influence, plural religions- and a means for success- a modular media and easy communication. This leads to tragic violence and a loss of what truly makes a society- not homogeneity and exclusion, but plurality and inclusion.

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[1] http://www.bjpfriends.org/bjp-html/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=906

Fragmented Memories of Goa:

Soft Sand

Disappearing Beaches

Triumphant Sunsets

Thriving Drug Dealers

Spicy Food and Cold Beer

Five Star Hotels Drying Up Wells

Being a Tourist

Having Animosity Toward Tourists

People Resisting

Corporations Dominating

Sardines in the Covenant

Dry, Repetitive Lectures

Spreading Information

Smell of Burning Garbage

Thunderous Waves

Creepy Gawking Men

Eating Squid

Seeing Bottom Trawlers

Fenni

Ten O' Clock Curfew

A Long Ride There

A Long Ride Back

Identity, Resistance, and Liberation

We are in the last days of wrapping up our first course on “Identity, Resistance, and Liberation.” During this course we have met with leaders of women’s movements, the dalit movement, child rights advocates, bonded labor opponents, sexual minorities, religious minorities, adivasis (indigenous peoples), and farmers. We have visited NGO projects that help the disenfranchised reclaim their identities, fight for their rights, and seek justice. Most striking for me were the SWATE women in the villages near Karur, Tamil Nadu who rallied against illegal sand mining to the point of over 300 of them being arrested, the women of Mahila Samakhya Karnataka who left forced arranged child marriages to return for an education, and the women and children of the short stay home in Koppal, Karnataka who escaped abusive spouses, in-laws, or parents to seek education, freedom, and dignity.

Rich/poor contrasts and Islam in Bangalore

This is an email I sent home about a week or so ago.

One day we visited both a slum and a western style shopping mall. The slums were quite
appalling in their poverty. The smell was sickening and almost immediately approaching
the slum area we had to avoid stepping in human feces. Garbage, a common sight in India,
was even more piled up in the slums. The slum streets were abuzz with all sorts of
activity- cooking, begging, wandering, and peddling, these people doing whatever it is
they do. I already admitted I have little idea what these people are up to all day. I
actually felt more at ease in the slums than on the streets in Bangalore elsewhere. The
people were more friendly and curious than in other areas. But I had the feeling that I
had more wealth than a whole city block of people here. The occupations that the people
in the slums have include sorting garbage. One man, if he was able to collect enough milk
packets, would earn 30 to 40 rupees a day, a little less than a dollar.

The mall area we went to afterwards, despite all the Indian people around, felt exactly
like a Western mall. I was shocked at how exactly it matched a typical American mall. The
stores and merchandise was, down to the stitch, Western. I reflected as I wandered around
that the people shopping at this mall were trying to emulate my lifestyle- that of a
young American with disposable income. A bit strange that this is an exalted lifestyle.
Seeing the people casually strolling about paying what essentially were American prices
for things illustrated how extreme the rich-poor divide is here, especially contrasted
with the slums. I thought the many security guards were a rather authoritarian touch. It
made me wonder if the shoppers here ever consider what the guards mean- they have to have
guards because the mall is threatened by masses of poor people.

After the venture into town we discussed how the mall and the slums require each other to
exist. They feed off and reinforce each other. The garbage from the mall likely ends up
in the slum, strewn on the streets or being sorted by a slum dweller. The staff at the
mall and the security guards were probably slum dwellers as well. And not everyone can be
as rich as the shoppers at the mall. Some people have to be poor so that the mall
shoppers can have the lifestyle they do. I thought this was an interesting example for
the economic distribution of earth. A common statistic states that it would take six
earths to support the global population if everyone had the living standard of Americans.
Since we do not have six earths, it is clear that there are huge inequities on this
planet.

This means that the living standards of the US could not exist without a large portion of
the globe suffering under poverty. So our technology and things we take for granted only
exist on the backs of the rest of the planet, with women and children working in
sweatshops and low grade factories to provide us with goods to consume. As standards of
living rise in the developing world and as Western media outlets pump Western values and
standards into homes around the world, people on earth are going to want the same
standards of living as Americans. But there is only one planet, not six. How is this
going to be settled? Could we all settle on a more modest life? Or will somebody always
have to be decadent to the point of causing global suffering?

Another amazing experience I had was a homestay over the weekend with a Muslim family.
They were quite comfortable in their means and built and operated the local mosque.
Harun, the older son, and Hamza, the younger one, were incredibly well versed in American
and global politics and we had many interesting discussions. It was interesting to live
with them because in the US I think we don?t get much exposure to Islam unless it is in
the context of terrorism. This was simply a normal, friendly family. We observed prayer
at the mosque and had a traditional fast breaking meal there as part of Ramadan. Muslims
fast from sunrise to sunset for a month
.
The stay was particularly interesting because I saw Islam blending with modernity. Hamza
was probably one of the kids I saw wandering about the mall. Hamza played the same video
games and watched the same movies as us. One day we went out to town with Hamza and a
friend of his. Hanging out in his friend?s room with posters of American bands on the
walls, playing guitar, and watching them play Counterstrike, I almost forgot I was in
India. But then they would go to the mosque five times a day to pray. It was a surreal
and amazing experience. The discussions we had on Islam were interesting as well. I got
the feeling that Harun was trying to defend the relative conservatism of Islam to us.

I asked him about women in Islam, as I know that is a big criticism of it in the West. I
was a bit hesitant to ask because I don?t want to ask loaded questions about something I
do not fully understand. But seeing no women at the mosque and knowing that the mother in
our house was waking up to prepare the first meal at about 3:30 in the morning, I thought
I had to ask. Harun said some things that were new to me- that the burqas were just part
of a standard of modesty across Islam- that men are required to dress modestly as well.
He also said it was about valuing women as people and not for their looks. He also talked
about preventing the comingling of the sexes and that in the West people have almost 5
partners throughout their life- he portrayed this as a horrible problem. It was
interesting but confirmed my suspicions of the conservatism of Islam towards women.

Homestay Weekend

What a weekend. I didn’t really know what to expect going to stay with an Indian family. It was certainly a stretching time. I do feel that I learned a lot, but I still don’t know how much of a “real” Indian experience I got. My family was very educated, Nimmi (the mother) worked for Greenpeace India, and the father, Deena, had been trained as a clergy, but now worked in other areas. They had two teenage boys (which was fortunate, as they possessed a perspective I was very interested to gain) one in ninth and the other in his first year of college. They also had a Muslim boy living with them, whose family situation was "not good." Apparently he was to act as sort of a maid, but came with no domestic skills to speak of.

Most of the time, I felt a bit uncomfortable. I think this mostly came from the language barriers. The whole family did speak English fluently, and indeed probably spoke in English more than half the time (and always while they were speaking to me). However, the half they did not speak in English often was the second half of phrases and even sentences, so I would just not understand what was going on. However, whatever language they used, I was interested to see that it was always peppered by the phrase “Oh Shit!” Every member of the family seemed to like to swear.

The first evening there, I accompanied the father and younger son to the hospital, as the boy had had some minor trouble with his ears and was going for a follow-up appointment. That was quite the experience. This hospital was one that tended to cater to the poor community, and to keep costs low, they had to make some cuts. In this case, those cuts were in maintenance. The building looked straight up dilapidated. However, they kept it pretty clean, as I was reminded as the blast of disinfected hit my nostrils as we walked in. Not the place I might choose to go, but they seemed to give pretty good and reasonably priced care. I had an interesting discussion on the fact that in the U.S., though our hospitals might look a little nicer, behind practically every one was a very rich person getting very much richer, and many poor couldn’t afford medical care of any kind.

On Sunday we went to St. Mark’s, an English speaking church, affiliated with the Church of South India (CSI). It was a beautiful building. Apparently, on the corner outside the church was a statue of the Mahatma, so it was the sight of many political protests. And, indeed, while we sat in the stuffy church (they had closed all the windows to try to muffle the sound) we could hear the chanting of angry voices.

After church, there was a family gathering at our house, and the place became a bustling center of activity. I learned (some of) the rules of cricket, and felt very odd, quiet, and out of place. It seemed that all of the extended family that was not present (and some that was) worked in the IT industry, and were all very well to do also. They put on a Bollywood movie (“Rock On”) that luckily had English translations, but they were horribly done, and some quite funny. Also, I was reminded of how long those movies are, as it took us well into the evening.

I get the sense that I was in a very well to do, westernized family. For the boys, the big hang out places were the mall and relatively posh coffee shops. Our conversations about Indian culture tended to focused on what was changing, which evidently is everything. At the same time, I sensed (and observed) a much stronger family focus than what I am accustomed to in the United States. I would say my family is above average in that department, but there still are many meals and events that are rather “optional” for everyone to be in attendance. Here, it was different. Everyone was at every meal, the boys went to church with us on Sunday morning, and I got the sense that the boys did what their parents asked them. Always.

The food was excellent. It seemed there was always someone making something in the kitchen, and we never had a meal with less than five different offerings of food. The first day I nearly ate myself sick.

I wonder if they will remember me a year from now. I felt rather helpless all weekend. But even in an observer role, it was an amazing experience to see how family works in this part of the world.

कृष्ण कृष्ण हरे हरे

If you were to ask any of us on this trip where we were, we could probably tell you right outside of Bangalore. That is true but not until yesterday when we brought a compass with us on our visit to town did we know where we were in comparison to everything. Being here our senses told us Bangalore was just north of us and being that it is almost always overcast as of yet in Kanartaka we didn’t know any better. This Monday we made a large tour of the city and this tour or third so far really made Bangalore big. We went to the temple of Krishna and chanted for what seemed 108 times. It was intimating. Bahh.. We got out of there and headed over to grab a quick lunch. Market place was open for us and al other 100,000 people there or something of that range. The market I rally don’t know how many people were there but it was a maze of bright colours, rugs, powders, food, overpriced everything. The scam of all scams and some sweets which I got ripped off on, but a box of sweets for 20 rupees is still not bad being that he tried to sell me a large box and charge me for all the stuff I didn’t want. But now I have some sweets. Ym yum , well not all were so good. I really want to go back to the market and bargain with people and just explore all the neat things. I’m sure it will happen. Sept. 8^th