One of the few consistent themes in Clare Short's speeches and public statements is her visceral loathing of environmentalists. While making the appropriate noises about "sustainability", she is furiously dismissive of those who seek to promote it. Environmental protesters, she has claimed, are white, priveleged people, opposed to the interests of the poor. She appears to see her battle with the greens as the last outlet for a class war she is no longer permitted to fight on any other front.
Though the great majority of the world's environmentalists live in poor nations, and though environmental destruction, as her own department acknowledges, hits the poor hardest, environmentalism is still perceived by many people as the preserve of toffs and proto-fascists. Indeed, in its early days as an acknowledged movement in the West, it was. But, now led by the poor world, it has come to represent the very opposite interests to those it championed in the 1930s. Clare Short, however, still appears to see the greens in the rich world as class enemies, while not seeing the greens in the poor world at all.
This formulation provides the necessary cover for her abandonment of the socialist principles she once defended, and her support for corporations and governments against the people. The development secretary's outdated worldview permits the destruction of 20 million lives.
By George Monbiot. http://www.georgemonbiot.com/
Published in the Guardian, April 2, 2002. Reprinted with permission of the author.
For more information, please see: www.iied.org/pdf/Prajateerpu.pdf
Though the great majority of the world's environmentalists live in poor nations, and though environmental destruction, as her own department acknowledges, hits the poor hardest, environmentalism is still perceived by many people as the preserve of toffs and proto-fascists. Indeed, in its early days as an acknowledged movement in the West, it was. But, now led by the poor world, it has come to represent the very opposite interests to those it championed in the 1930s. Clare Short, however, still appears to see the greens in the rich world as class enemies, while not seeing the greens in the poor world at all.
This formulation provides the necessary cover for her abandonment of the socialist principles she once defended, and her support for corporations and governments against the people. The development secretary's outdated worldview permits the destruction of 20 million lives.
By George Monbiot. http://www.georgemonbiot.com/
Published in the Guardian, April 2, 2002. Reprinted with permission of the author.
For more information, please see: www.iied.org/pdf/Prajateerpu.pdf