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dam-l Inspiring words on Narmada/LS



This inspiring little essay is about the Narmada dams in India.... rather
far from Africa, but a story none of us can ignore!

>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1999 19:22:11 -0000
>From: George Monbiot <g.monbiot@zetnet.co.uk>

>My Inspiration - by George Monbiot, for Radio 4
>
>This autumn, as the waters of the River Narmada in north-western India rise,
>hundreds of people have sworn to drown in them. They're not, as you might
>imagine, members of a weird religious cult, but peaceful protesters prepared
>to risk their lives in the hope of preventing one of the most devastating
>development projects on earth. Their courage takes my breath away.
>
>The dams the Indian government is building across the Narmada River will
>flood the homes of hundreds of thousands of people, and drown great tracts
>of fertile farmland and rare forest. The government claims that they will
>bring electricity and freshwater to the impoverished people of Gujarat and
>Madya Pradesh; in truth, the dams are diverting water desperately need by
>poor villagers to the sugar plantations of the rich and powerful.
>
>The people resisting the dam are a great antidote to feeling smug about
>yourself. When I look at what they're prepared to go through, I realise that
>nothing I've done yet stacks up to very much, my brave words really amount
>to just bluff and bluster.
>
>It's not just the villagers in danger of losing their homes who are ready to
>die, but people who have come from all over India to make the ultimate
>sacrifice in solidarity with them. They've been beaten up and imprisoned by
>police determined not to let them drown, in order to avoid a national
>scandal. But they have gone back repeatedly to the rising floodwaters, and
>staged hunger strikes in prison. However much violence they face, they
>refuse to respond in kind.
>
>The members of this movement draw on an age-old Indian tradition of
>non-violent protest and self-sacrifice, epitomised for many people by the
>privations of the Mahatma Gandhi and his followers. The tradition has echoes
>all over the world: among the landless labourers and rubber tappers of
>Brazil, the democracy movements in Burma and China and the Zapatista rising
>in Mexico. It's well established in Britain too. In the 1640s, the Diggers
>held out against house burnings, beatings and imprisonment as they tried to
>establish the rights of ordinary people to till the land, without ever
>raising a fist in anger. Today, the people of the Ploughshares movement are
>also putting their necks on the line. After seriously damaging a Hawk jet
>destined for Indonesia, and a Trident submarine stationed in a Scottish
>loch, they waited until the police came to arrest them. In court they argued
>that they had caused the damage in order to prevent greater crimes from
>being committed. To many people's astonishment, they were acquitted on both
>occasions.
>
>The people I've met in these movements remind me of the heretical Christians
>Tolstoy described in his great and underrated novel Resurrection. Though
>they were waiting in a hideous dungeon to be executed, they displayed only
>joy and tranquility. Having accepted that they were to be killed, they had
>realised that the state no longer had any power over them. There was nothing
>left to fear, and they could do what they believed was right without a
>moment's hesitation.
>
>I wish I could be like that too, but I still find myself too firmly chained
>to the world. I'm just glad there are inspirational people out there who are
>so much braver than I am.
>

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      Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program,
        and Editor, World Rivers Review
           International Rivers Network
              1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, California 94703, USA
                  Tel. (510) 848 1155   Fax (510) 848 1008
                        http://www.irn.org
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