What are you fighting for?

“There’s only so much protest can accomplish. At a certain point you have to talk about what you’re fighting for” (Naomi Klein in the movie “The Take”)

This is how Naomi Klein argues in the movie The Take, which is about the events that took place in Argentina in relation to the economic and political crisis in December 2001. Leaving these central events aside for later, geographer Carlos Reboratti whom I spoke to recently, argued in a similar manner about the environmental movements in Argentina. If they only say “no” to everything: no to the minas, no to the paper mills, no to genetically modified products, no to soybean production, people will find that the environmental movements are just negative and not suggesting any solutions.

This was further an essential issue yesterday at a meeting for environmental organizations who are planning an event for the Environmental Day on the 5th of June here in Argentina. After having discussed all the problem that exist, and the role of the State in environmental politics, the group of ten activists from different environmental organizations agreed that they had to come up with suggestions, and not just question practices. The matter which was raised then concerned whether to talk about an alternative model to the neoliberal capitalist model, or whether it was more open ended to talk about “alternative suggestions” since there is not just one model, but several different ways to reorganize productive system to become more sustainable.

Among all the problems that the network wants to focus on - and they are the mining business which causes pollution; the present agricultural production containing agrochemicals, mono cultivation and genetically modified products; and public health since many households lack water and sewage systems which lately has caused a dengue epidemic in the country – the network focused on international conventions that Argentina has signed, but not yet incorporated in national law, or failure to observe the law. The Stockholm Convention was mentioned.

At the next meeting the network will discuss what possible activities that can be carried out at the event in June, and I can’t wait to learn about their ideas! An interesting point of departure for analysing this is that since I was the first to arrive at the meeting yesterday I had time for a little chat with one of the organizers, and his response to my description of my study was that “we are working with many international organisations, and very often they suggest activities that are far from adapted to the Argentine situation”. Now I have to learn more about what these organisations find as adapted activities.