July 6, 2008 by Mirjam Hirch.

Sports events turn into big advertisement campaigns and entertainment shows. Asics, PowerBar, Red Bull, and other products the sports commentator talked about at length at today’s Ironman triathlon in Frankfurt, Germany. The focus was less on the strong athletes and their outstanding efforts but the products the sportsmen wear and consume as well as on the sponsors of the event.

While the Ironman triathlon and like commercialized events get immense coverage, invisible in mainstream media is another very remarkable effort. People of diverse nations, colors and countries have been walking along, sharing their own histories and situations during the 2008 Longest Walk for the last 5 months. The commemorative walk marks the 30th anniversary of the original Longest Walk in 1978. It is a 4,400 miles long journey from Alcatraz to Washington D.C which started on February 11,2008 and which will arrive in Washington, D.C. on July 11.

Along the way, the group has stopped at the Governor’s Office of each state it passed through and was taking notes on environmental problems in the cities it crossed to present a Manifesto for Change to the United States government.

The Longest Walk raises awareness of environmental and justice issues. Indigenous peoples are disproportionately faced with pollution, devastation of the people and the land as well as some of the most destructive industries on the planet, such as the military and mining industries.
Multinational corporations responsible for the exploitation take the resources but do not care what happens afterwards in the area. They will be gone.

The ones who continue to live on the land and have to deal with the devastation caused are indigenous peoples. We need to hear about and make known their efforts and protect indigenous rights all over the world, as indigenous peoples are the ones still in close relation to the earth. And they do care. Teaching the world and singing: We are still strong!

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July 5, 2008 by Mirjam Hirch.

How fun to watch them dance. Whirling around quickly. Different colors and sizes. The big black ones are the best. They equal great success. Even though the red ones are good for the tax.
Behind computer screens shielded from the rest of the world people fervently watch moving numbers on bank accounts. All energy is put in the effort to have those numbers grow. As they seem to represent the meaning of existence. Rather reduce the number of people- a common and widely accepted goal e.g. for corporate marriages.

It is all about the financial aspects- numbers and figures. Little focus is on the human element and cultural cohesion on which societies’ and companies’ tangible assets ultimate rest.

Sure, nobody likes to find out that his job is going away. But at least when it is honestly communicated and people hear it up front they do not feel like unneeded tokens removed from the board by some global players without knowing what is happening.

Companies’ strategies, however, used to get rid of individuals often are pretty well disguised. A strict dress code might be introduced for people working in back offices even though they have no contact with customers at all, together with many additional small changes that spread the fear- instilling certainty of being watch and controlled.
All this can have devastating health effects. Oftentimes it is the beginning of the end of a silent and stressful fight that invisibly erodes the physical and mental well being of the individuals and families. Unable to defend themselves against the intangible attack the individuals quietly disappear.

Is this freedom of democracy and right of justice? Clearly we should not accept the right of companies which establish their laws daily to control our lives, make us dependant, and keep us from getting active, reducing us to fear. We cannot afford that the principle of fear governs our world as the last path to silence a population longing for solidarity and freedom. We have to fearlessly fight the theft of our human rights and common wealth so we can see happy people dancing, celebrating life.

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June 25, 2008 by Mirjam Hirch.

“We have no private life,” the secretaries of a German law firm state. Getting up at 6 o’clock in the morning to commute to work, unable to pay the rent in the metropolis. The secretaries usually won’t be back home before late evening after a day full of work. Then they are too tired to get anything more done.

This is the reality of people living in a super rich country, Germany. What kind of life is it? Working in a formal atmosphere of hierarchy and control where employees who were not fortunate enough to attain higher education get per week what their bosses make per hour. This system allows the latter to be admired because of being able to afford fancy toys in the form of sports cars and own nice homes in exclusive areas. At the same time though their screaming bodies are not the most aesthetic to look at. Some move like broomsticks covered with mountains of meat, dressed to the nines.

Unable to hit the stop button, caught in the zero sum game of life’s hedonistic treadmill, finally the body tries out the emergency exit. Making neglect heard in the form of e.g. a heart attack.
Those stories of “Happiness in the Face of Materialism?” tend to be rather short. One can quickly read them in the persons’ wrinkles, which are either not yet showing or decidedly not from laughing and joy.

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June 9, 2008 by Mirjam Hirch.

“I`d like to get the Indian ointment.” This is what German consumers say at the pharmacy after having seen a TV commercial on Kytta, an ointment of comfrey (“knitbone”) for muscle and bone aches. The over-the counter product is manufactured by Merck in Darmstadt, Germany, the oldest pharmaceutical and chemical company in the world with a tradition of over 300years.

Merck does not shy away from using stereotypes of indigenous peoples to market traditional medicinal knowledge and increase profits. With great success as the company’s Kytta advertisement is one of the most liked commercials currently shown on television.
The commercial uses the persistent stereotype of the stoic, strong and healthy Native North American who does not know pain. Evidently the romantic ideal based on the writings of Karl May, a novelist who had never been to the US before writing his stories, is still predominant in German understanding. It is not in the thinking that a Native American could live in a city and work with computers e.g. as a bookkeeper. Accordingly the “noble savage”, the Native North American of the TV commercial is portrayed dancing in beautiful nature.

The timing of the TV advertisement seems interesting. While a few experts were negotiating topics related to biodiversity, biopiracy and access and benefit sharing in Bonn during the Conference of the Parties to prevent the further exploitation of our beautiful world’s remaining natural resources, millions of Germans could see the Merck advertisement on TV.
Unfortunately not a lot of stories and results of the Bonn conference made it into the media. The meaning of biopiracy or appropriation of indigenous knowledge without prior and informed consent still remains comparatively unknown.
This makes one’s head ache.

Technorati-Tags: pharmaceuticals, advertisement, stereotypes

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June 1, 2008 by Mirjam Hirch.

Despite expressed rejection by the German public, it was decided two days ago that the German national railway company, Deutsche Bahn is to be partially privatized.
German Railways is the world’s second largest transport and logistics network and the largest rail transport company in Europe.

The planned privatization was subject of a highly controversial political discussion in the country. Deterioration of service, discontinuation of the less used lines is feared by the public as well as the loss of work places.
The voices of the Deutsche Bahn workers were barely heard. They demand the democratization of the union. Trade unions need to move from unions of uniformity to entities of diversity. Many railway workers and most of the public are opposed to the driving idea behind these and similar developments- maximizing economic profits. They want to keep the railway a social network regarding the train as a public good to be used and administered on the basis of grassroots democracy. The understanding is that decentralized non-hierarchical systems do work. The many opportunities of decentralized networks need to be realized.

In discussions at conferences as well as in pubs or when chatting on the streets people talk about global capitalism, not local governments, that is the driving force behind the current, unwanted developments.

What needs to be clear in this and like debates is that our participation gives the consent. We should ask ourselves what are we willing to do ourselves? Are we willing to run the system? Freedom and responsibility goes hand in hand.

Technorati-Tags: privatization, grassroots democracy, transportation, trade unions

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May 31, 2008 by Mirjam Hirch.

Greed has become the highest organizing principle of human life. Howsoever disastrous the effects of individual greed may be, corporate greed wipes out whole societies. Grassroots activist Vandana Shiva who received the Alternative Nobel Prize in 1993, explains the current situation in India during an international conference in Frankfurt on Main, Germany taking place this weekend: “About thirty years ago indigenous peoples chased away from their land fled to the city. Nowadays they are not tolerated there. Farmers who lost their lands found refuge in slums. Today these slums are bulldozed. There is nowhere else for these groups to go.” At the same time one can watch the elite in India get crazy about fancy bags which along with various other symbols of modern lifestyle they bring back from expensive trips to Paris and other big cities in the world.

The dichotomy in this is very evident to a lot of Indians on the ground. Solidarity is their magic key to protect themselves against corporate greed and selling off of land. “All we had was solidarity against Monsanto, no money,” Vandana Shiva underlines. More and more Indian farmers understand that money is of no use to them. Trading their land for money deprives them of their future. Therefore they simply refuse to part with it, believing that belonging to the earth no appropriation of land is possible. Their land is not for sale.

Technorati-Tags: capitalism, land ownership, self-determination

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May 30, 2008 by Mirjam Hirch.

This is not their story. Nor is it good news to the people the media reports concern.
The coverage of a recent fly-over of a remote part of the Amazon rainforest during which members of one of the world’s last uncontacted tribes were spotted is all about chasing ratings by European media.

What about the key principles of good reports such as sensitivity and accuracy? Not a lot of these can be discerned in the articles on the newly “discovered” tribe.
Certainly the pictures of and reports about the tribe could be a great chance to highten the awareness of the world to the plight of indigenous tribes. However, there is little to thoroughly inform and educate the civilized world about the true situation of indigenous peoples. Quite the contrary, the common notion of the soon to be extinct indigenous tribes is promoted as, even though very sad, simply inevitable.

In Germany people were sending around pictures of the Amazonian tribe today like trophies of the exotic. The need was expressed that anthropologists should immedialtely research and study the tribe to satisfy the readers’ curiosity. No question was raised about whether the tribe maybe might not want this to happen. The common understanding being one of the tribes as the primitives „we“ cannot put in control of their own lives.
Strangely enough the so-called “primitives” appear so much more healthy and strong than their obese and diseased counterparts in the western world.

What is clear in this is that to uncontacted tribes reports about their existence often equals sure destruction and death, seeing friends and families die at the hands of outsiders, in genocidal massacres or epidemics, as well as long-term annihilation of their cultures through self-destructive coping methods such as substance abuse and suicide.

It is high time we get the real news and true reasons for and interests in specific developmental efforts and what they mean for regional tribes. If we want to go beyond sensationalism we need to fight for the survival of every single indigenous culture ensuring that indigenous territory is protected in accordance with international law.

Technorati-Tags: media, education, uncontacted tribes

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May 18, 2008 by Mirjam Hirch.

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April 21, 2008 by Mirjam Hirch.

It is a rich ghetto. Block-type, closed- shaped buildings form a concrete jungle of cold steel and glass constructions: Living in a Bock’s in newly developed little SoHo, Deutschherrnviertel, in Mainhatten, Bankfurt, alias Frankfurt on Main, Germany. The incarnation of a trendy locale, modern lifestyle- the urban principle of the global city.
Functions are mixed: living and working in the upper areas, below are studios and offices, restaurants and shops, swimming pools, a health club. The quarter, Deutschherrnviertel, is named after the Teutonic Knights (in German Deutschherrn), an old germanic crusading military order during the Middle Ages and much of the modern era. In former times the imagery of the Teutonic Knights was used to promote German nationalism, the symbol of the German Empire’s policy used by the Nazis to spread their propaganda and ideology.

The image of the Deutschherrnviertel residents is not one of the traditional local families but one of the dynamic, cosmopolitan, young and happy ladies and gentlemen.
The comfortable neighborhood draws the most affluent residents. The Capital Aristocracy, a class of gentry whose wealth is the dictate by which they rule, seperate from other people and the land. It is an atmosphere of self- ghettoization or “monetary apartheid.”
Most residents base their actions on external pressures - the pressure to appear to be a certain kind of person, the pressure to adopt a particular mode of living, the pressure to ignore one’s own moral and aesthetic objections in order to have a more comfortable existence.
This insularization of the wealthy on the side of the Main river tells tales of similar recent developments within European societies and of the global mentality that affects peoples the world over.

Walking down the streets of the quarter instills one with a feeling of sterile monotony, alienation, loneliness, even threat. The sidewalks in this area- empty. Where are the kids the elderly, the people. Where are laughter, love, life?
Here and there are plants. They look like parts of a scenery, not allowed to grow and develop naturally, but arranged in line or planted in big plant pots.
Where in this is the room for existential experiences of a deeper reality, the feeling for the mysteriousness of life? The marvel and wonder at fantastic constructions, their inspiring forms and shapes that stirs our curiosity, makes us want to explore and fills us with respect for all of creation? Where is this essential quality of life there?
What types of mentality must places like this shape? What is a child’s experience of reality growing up in such modern lifestyle surroundings?

The children sure grow to understand that public housing is sold to international investors. And that a landlord is not a living being you can see, hear, and talk to. The landlord is some sort of property group based somewhere in this world where taxes are low, created to develop, invest and manage funds in real estate. The administration of the buildings is completely disconnected and anonymous, without anyone feeling responsible. The residents simply appear as a number in a computer system.

Certainly digital numbers on screens of their bank accounts, the newest technology, fancy cars, fashionable (and expensive) clothing, personal comfort and concentrating wealth are the dominant preoccupations on these residents’ minds. Only occasionally a neighbor might quietly disappear due to insolvency. But there is no time in the busy day to give this a second thought. Nor is there room to think about justice and life, humanity, the loss of cultural and biological diversity. Whatever that is, it must affect someone else, happen somewhere else, at another time, in another world maybe?

Technorati Tags: lifestyle, housing, culture

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April 14, 2008 by Mirjam Hirch.

It is a quiet war. In the face of brutality against peoples in numerous countries around the world European governments are banging their doors. People seeking asylum are made to “leave of their own free will.” Private organizations, hired to do the governments’ dirty work take care of this voluntary deportation- in many cases even through wrong legal advice. The organization bearing the euphemistic name Human Rights Austria is one such “private governmental organization.“ Officially a Non Government Organization (NGO) Human Rights Austria is completly financially dependant on the Austrian government.

Simultaneously medical doctors, so called “fit-to-fly experts,” are paid by governments to immediately provide the medical opinion needed to send the refugees back to their home countries to avoid delay and additional costs.

Traumatized and full of fear those refugees have to return to places of utter insecurity. Oftentimes life threatening circumstances are awaiting them upon their return.
These days European countries are thinking of allowing in some of the 4.5 million Iraqis seeking refuge, fearing murder, persecution and brutality. About 20 thousand of them might find temporary refuge in Germany.

The situation of the Assyro-Chaldeans, Mandaeans, Yazidi and many other minorities in Iraq are recognized to be especially precarious as they are brutally persecuted. Their security situation is worse than ever before with neighboring countries having no more capacity to accept more refugees.

During a two day conference on ethnic and religious minorities in the current Iraq this past weekend in Frankfurt am Main, Germany Iraqi minorities voiced their concerns. They reported first hand about the ongoing persecution and systematic terror which threatens whole peoples in south- central Iraq and which might mean the end of their almost two thousand year old history.

What needs to be ensured is the survival of Iraqi minorities. This is not merely about offering first aid to the people threatened by death, searching refuge in other countries, the indigenous groups maintain. This is about finding political solutions in the region- through an extensive constitutional amendment including an expansion of the federal system which grants safety and equal rights to self-determined indigenous peoples of Iraq.

Technorati Tags: Iraq, refugees, political solutions

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