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Safety As Freedom
By Vandana Shiva
Source: Aljazeera
Wednesday, February 06, 2013
The Delhi gang-rape of December 2012 brought to the streets the deep and growing concern about violence against women and the demand for women's safety. The movement is the voice of women reclaiming their right to safety and freedom, through resistance to all forms of patriarchal power and celebration of women's peaceful power and energy.
Commodification, appropriation and control over women's bodies and the resources of the earth are one aspect of the threat to safety. Imposition of hazardous technologies that we do not need is another aspect.
Safety has emerged as an overpowering concern - safety of women and children, tribals, farmers and rural communities, safety from nuclear hazard, and environmental as well as health hazards of GMOs. Across India, protests and movements are also growing about the safety of people's resources and wealth - their land, their forests, their rivers, their property - in the context of the violent resource grab that is the basis of the new "growth" economy.
There is a pattern in this continuum of violence and threats to life and safety, just as there is a pattern in the continuum of the struggles for the defence of life, safety and freedom. The exponential rise in concern for safety - reflected in the explosion of people's protests to stop violence against women, tribals, fishermen, peasants, the urban and rural poor and the violence against environment and life on earth - is a direct consequence of the dominant culture of greed and commodification.
Commodification, appropriation and control over women's bodies and the resources of the earth are one aspect of the threat to safety. Imposition of hazardous technologies that we do not need is another aspect.
Safety has emerged as an overpowering concern - safety of women and children, tribals, farmers and rural communities, safety from nuclear hazard, and environmental as well as health hazards of GMOs. Across India, protests and movements are also growing about the safety of people's resources and wealth - their land, their forests, their rivers, their property - in the context of the violent resource grab that is the basis of the new "growth" economy.
There is a pattern in this continuum of violence and threats to life and safety, just as there is a pattern in the continuum of the struggles for the defence of life, safety and freedom. The exponential rise in concern for safety - reflected in the explosion of people's protests to stop violence against women, tribals, fishermen, peasants, the urban and rural poor and the violence against environment and life on earth - is a direct consequence of the dominant culture of greed and commodification.
Full article: http://www.zcommunications.org/safety-as-freedom-by-vandana-shiva
