“I practice what I believe in and I’m giving”
Fiorella Connie Carollo
“I’ve
never built my reputation, I’ve just done what needed to be done. I’ve lived by
my consciousness and I’ve lived a life of integrity and practicing what I’ve
believed in…and I’m giving. Of course this has seemed as a big threat to a
system that doesn’t believe in integrity that buys whatever you want: you want
a journalist you buy a journalist, you want a scientist you buy one, you want a
politician you buy a politician. So when everything is bought they cannot deal
with someone that doesn’t buy and sell but give.” That’s Vandana’s answer to my
question how was she able to become one of the ten most influential people in
Asia considering that at the starting line all she got was being highly
educated and having a family that supported her but, on the other hand the
downside was her being a woman and an Indian. How did she manage not being
crushed or overwhelmed by what she call the “system”, meaning the giant food
corporations that want to substitute farmers and become the one and only food
producers in the world. Corporations which have been under Vandana’s attack for
the last twenty five years, attacked in her speeches, a thousand or so, because
Vandana is a tireless lecturer flying worldwide, attacked in her books,
seventeen so far, because she’s a prolific writer, too. Eventually, her battles
against Monsanto have been rewarded last
25th May, when about million people marched to protest against the
giant of transgenic seeds in fifty countries around the world. Today in Ubud,
central Bali, Vandana is clad in a sari
of a brilliant green maybe because
she’s going to talk about seeds and protecting nature or maybe she chose it in
honour of the beautiful hills that loom up against the stunning scenario around
Neka Museum. As usual from behind her chignon
some pendants peep out jolly, the sari
and the tikala, the red spot between
the eyebrows, are the symbols of her being Indian that she always displays
wherever her activism takes her. This grand mama
of the world recalls another grand of recent past, Bapu Gandhi, like him she has entirely devoted herself to a mission impossible: ”I made a decision
long time ago, to devote my life to the safeguard of the Earth.” We ‘re talking
here about a remarkable super-mama on a
mission and ready for anything. Highly educated, trained as a philosopher
and also as a scientist, Vandana has a winning strategy on her side: being
raised by a mother passionate follower of Gandhi, Vandana has known since an
early age that David can win Golilah, no doubt about that truth, because to
her, like to many Indians, that actually
is a fact rather than a truth. The
only question is: it took thirty years to Gandhi to defeat the British Empire,
how many years will need Vandana to win over the food Corporations?
[to
continue]
[leggi il reportage nella sezione "I Reportage"]
Dichiarata da Asian Week una tra i cinque comunicatori più influenti dell' Asia e "eroe ambientalista" dal Time Magazine attualmente sta collaborando con il Governo del Bhutan su un progetto triennale di sostenibilità ambientale. Ha collaborato a numerosi progetti in Italia e Spagna e dal 1991 ha fondato Navdania un movimento per la difesa della biodiversità che ha coinvolto 70.000 contadini, fondato 34 banche dei semi in 13 stati dell'India, promosso azioni per la difesa della terra, la conservazione dei semi, dei sistemi tradizionali di coltura e dal 2004 in collaborazione con il famoso Shumacher College in U.K ha attivato un college internazionale per il vivere sostenibile. Al suo attivo ha più di 21 pubblicazioni e numerosi riconoscimenti tra cui uno anche dalla Presidenza italiana. Scienziata, fisica, ambientalista, scrittrice e attivista Vandana è un'irriducubile portavoce in difesa dei contadini contro la politica del colosso Monsanto, nonchè portavoce sugli effetti deleteri della globalizzazione che lei chiama "la morte della democrazia".
Dobbiamo uscire dalla mitologia della crescita che ci tiene tutti intossicati. Dobbiamo incominciare a riconoscere l'importanza del sapere e dei sistemi di produzione del passato. Dobbiamo incominciare ad ascoltare i piccoli produttori, i piccoli venditori, il dettagliante, il contadino, il pescatore perchè loro costituiscono la maggior parte degli uomini e delle donne. In questo modo avremo la vera ressurrezione della diversità e delle piccole economie a basso impatto per la terra ma ad alto impatto per la sicurezza ed il futuro delle persone.
italian masala: Vandana e i semi: . Se una multinazionale agroalimentare volesse trasformare l'indipendenza dei contad...