”Una terrorista de las 70s”

A few weeks ago I went to a book presentation by Javier Rodriguez Pardo at the cultural centre Chico Mendez in Buenos Aires. Pardo presented his book Vienen por el oro, vienen por todo: las invasiones mineras 500 años después [They’re coming for the gold, they’re coming for everything: Mining invasions 500 years later]. The book was used for the documentary that Pino Solanas made, Tierra Sublevada (2009) which I commented on earlier, and is a typical example of how the environmental movement is concerned with the ongoing colonization. At the presentation Pardo was accompanied by the sociologist Maristella Svampa, who gave her tribute to the role that Pardo has played in the constitution of the environmental movement in Argentina. I left the presentation feeling like I had received an important piece for my investigation on the mobilization of the environmental movement in Argentina, and with the book by Pardo in my bag. As many times before during my fieldwork the book has made me reflected on the possible comparisons one can do with Sweden. At a section in the book Pardo describes how he was called an “ecological terrorist from the 70s” by provincial officials in San Juan, who feared his capacity to inform the citizens of the province of the environmental consequences of the mining business. Here I will not delve into the issue of how this is a clear example of environmental activists being criminalized, which was one among the current concerns that Svampa expressed, but how the environmental movement relates to historical political experiences. It made me think about a consideration that one of the participants in the march in San Lorenzo in September shared with me. He said that he was happy that there were so many young people who participated. I responded spontaneously that in Sweden it seems like marches and demonstrations are more common among the younger sections of the populations. He responded in turn that this has to do with the experiences of the dictatorship during the 70s and 80s, which have made younger people afraid of political mobilization. It is obvious that the environmental movement, and the way environmental politics is done, has to be understood in relation to these historical experiences, which most likely have repercussions for trust in authorities and governmental possibilities to govern environmental challenges. At the same time one cannot neglect the more recent experiences like what took place under the rule of President Menem during the 1990s, or what is currently happening for that matter, which often turn up in the discussions I have with environmental activists.

Running the risk of taking this blog entry in an awkward direction, I cannot help but reflecting on the “globality” of the mining business. While taking a break from the book - where I was just reading about the connections that Pardo does between what is happening in Argentina, and the relationship between Barrick Gold and the civil war atrocities in the Democratic Republic of Congo – I skimmed a Swedish newspaper and found an article about a report by Global Witness. They argue that the hunt for metals for Western mobile phones and computers aggravates the civil war, since all participating actors in the civil war are involved in the armed conflict. I further read a related article about the systematic rapes that Congolese women face, and feeling how a grip of hopelessness about the world seizes my mind, I wonder what a true definition of a terrorist would be?