Anarcho-environmentalism allegorised

The name Anaarkali in the present context has many meanings - Anaar symbolises the anarchism of the Bhils and kali which means flower bud in Hindi stands for their traditional environmentalism. Anaar in Hindi can also mean the fruit pomegranate which is said to be a panacea for many ills as in the Hindi idiom - "Ek anar sou bimar - One pomegranate for a hundred ill people"! - which describes a situation in which there is only one remedy available for giving to a hundred ill people and so the problem is who to give it to. Thus this name indicates that anarcho-environmentalism is the only cure for the many diseases of modern development! Similarly kali can also imply a budding anarcho-environmentalist movement. Finally according to a legend that is considered to be apocryphal by historians Anarkali was the lover of Prince Salim who was later to become the Mughal emperor Jehangir. Emperor Akbar did not approve of this romance of his son and ordered Anarkali to be bricked in alive into a wall in Lahore in Pakistan but she escaped. Allegorically this means that anarcho-environmentalists can succeed in bringing about the escape of humankind from the self-destructive love of modern development that it is enamoured of at the moment and they will do this by simultaneously supporting women's struggles for their rights.

Sunday, September 23, 2012

The Power of We

Like every year since 2007 this year too October 15th is to be celebrated as Blog Action Day. It is an attempt to mobilise a large number of bloggers to post on a single topic and so create a groundswell around it. Whereas, initially it was a voluntary effort, over the years it has been taken over by what can only be termed as the International Non-Profit Mafia. These are the big international NGOs which are involved in funding voluntary action throughout the world as a palliative for the ill effects of capitalist globalisation so as to prevent radical mass action that may put a stop to such an exploitative expansion. A trajectory that has also been followed by the World Social Forum jamborees which are heavily funded by big ticket Capitalist Foundations. It is indeed intriguing that projects that initially start off with anarchist pretensions later take the course of centralisation as prescribed by their capitalist sponsors.
Anyway like in other years this year too this blog will concentrate on the theme of Blog Action Day which is "The Power of We". Basically, the theme derives from the massive popular mobilisations that have taken place over the past year or more all over the world against oppressive dictatorships in the Middle East and against the economic and political dominance of the kleptocratic financial behemoths in the developed countries. Obviously the organisers of this blogging action will not question the capitalist roots of present day atomisation and alienation but we will certainly do so.
The important question is to what extent do the We have Power? In the developed countries at least it has become clear that the We do not really have much power. The Occupy Movements in the United States and Canada have not really been able to bring about any substantial change the way the financial behemoths run those countries. While the European mobilisations have been much more in numbers and militancy, they too have not been able to reverse the trend of financial globalisation. The less said about the Middle Eastern mobilisations the better. While they may have removed long standing despots, they have not been able to bring about any substantial change in the power structurea and it appears as if the erstwhile ruling classes still hold power. So how to establish the genuine Power of We will be the subject of our discussions here up to and on Blog Action Day.

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