PHA-Exchange> Globalization by Vandana Shiva

[sunil.deepak at aifo.it]

Dear all, on Claudio's suggestion I am presenting here brief excerpt from
article of Vandana Shiva on Globalization. The full article is available in
our book Poverty, health and development. Those who wish to get a free copy
of the book please write to <felicita.veluri at aifo.it> 

Sunil, AIFO, Italy

GLOBALISATION: A WAR AGAINST NATURE AND PEOPLE OF THE SOUTH 
Dr. Vandana Shiva
						

Globalisation is often projected as a natural, inevitable, evolutionary
process, which is  bringing prosperity and growth, embracing us all and
knitting us into a Global Village.  Those who value equality and solidarity
in the North support globalisation because it will allow the people of the
South to join this Global Village. It is even assumed that only by
participating in global markets do the Third World people get access to jobs
and livelihoods.

However, globalisation does not create jobs, it destroys livelihoods and
hijacks the resources of the poor. Globalisation is not a natural process of
inclusion. It is a planned project of exclusion.  It draws the resources and
economies of the poor of the South into the global market place and global
corporate ownership by displacing people from their life-support systems,
livelihoods and lifestyles.  It pulls resources and markets into the global
economy while pushing the poor out of livelihoods both at the local and
global level. The destruction of local economies and livelihoods is never
counted.  In fact the destruction of people's lives, livelihoods and
cultures is defined as growth in the global economy. Growth through
globalisation is based on the theft of people's resources, knowledge and
economies. Global trade rules, as enshrined in the W.T.O. Agreement on
Agriculture and in the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs)
Agreement are primarily rules of economic hijack, camouflaged by arithmetic
and legalese.  In this economic hijack, the corporations gain, and people
and nature loose.

Rules of Market Competition: This war of corporations against people and
nature is symbolised in the metaphors and logic of "market competition".
The W.T.O.  rules of market competition serve two functions.  Firstly, they
transform all aspects of life into markets. Culture, biodiversity, food,
water, livelihoods needs, rights are all transformed and reduced to markets.
Secondly, the destruction of the nature, culture livelihoods and ethics is
then justified on the basis of the rules of competition. Violence and
warfare is thus neutralised and rationalised.

All ethical and ecological rules, which sustain and maintain life are
reduced to trade barriers.  The obligation to protect the weak and
vulnerable, the duty to give and share, the need to keep certain domains
beyond commerce and commodification are all being dismantled as
"protectionism". Co-operation and mutuality which is the very basis of
ecological survival are rendered "illegal" by the W.T.O. rules of
competition.  Protection of people and nature is being replaced by corporate
protectionism.

The global reach of corporations to take over the resources of the poor of
the Third World is made possible not just by reduction and removal of
tariffs.   It is also made possible by removal of ethical and ecological
limits on what can be owned as private property and what can be traded.

Globalisation is completing the project of colonisation, which led to the
conquest and ownership of land and territory.  Now biodiversity and water,
the very basis of life's processes, which have so far been held in common by
local communities for equal rights to biological sustenance and economic
livelihoods are being colonised, privatised and commoditized.

Agriculture, which is still the primary livelihood for three quarters of
humanity, and which is as much a cultural activity as an economic one, is
also threatened through the "trade liberalisation" of agriculture, driven
both by structural adjustment programmes of the World Bank and IMF, and the
Agreement on Agriculture of the W.T.O. Globalisation of food and agriculture
systems in effect means the corporate take over of the food chain, the
erosion of food rights, the destruction of cultural diversity of food and
the biological diversity of crops, and the displacement of millions from
land based, rural livelihoods.  The impact of a few years of globalisation
illustrates the destruction in store for the planet and people if
globalisation is not stopped and reversed.

Global free trade in food and agriculture is the biggest refugee creation
programme of the world, which reduces Kosovo to insignificance.  It is
equivalent to ethnic cleansing of the poor, the peasantry and small farmers
of the Third World.