SftP Statement of Support for Dr. Valentina Azarova and CAUT  

Science for the People express our support for Dr. Valentina Azarova and for the Canadian Association of University Teachers’ (CAUT) censure of the University of Toronto. 

As detailed by CAUT in this report explaining the decision to censure, “Dr. Azarova specializes in legal and human rights issues arising from immigration detention, the arms trade, and

occupation and annexation. As part of this latter work, she has written several articles and book chapters on the application of international law and treaty obligations within the context of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territories.“ 

The university rescinded its offer to hire Dr. Azarova as the next Director of the International Human Rights Program, despite the fact that, as concluded in the Cromwell Report, she was the “strong, unanimous, and enthusiastic first choice of the selection committee.” The report, in its attempt to exonerate the administration, all but confirmed that there was external influence on the ultimate decision made by the Dean of Law; it is now evident that an alumnus of and major donor to the law school interfered with the decision to hire Dr. Azarova, privately expressing concerns over Dr. Azarova’s past work on Israel’s abuses in occupied Palestine. Full details of the chronology of events leading to this decision can be found here and here.

Science for the People is deeply concerned by this blatant violation of academic freedom, and call on the University of Toronto and its Faculty of Law to immediately reinstate Dr. Azarova’s offer. We also affirm that this incident is part of a broader campaign to silence, harass, and intimidate academics, overwhelmingly Arab and Muslim, who advocate for the Palestinian cause. As Palestine Legal, amongst others, have documented in detail, there is a widespread effort to chill and censor advocacy for the Palestinian people on university campuses in the US. Dr. Azarova’s case is an example of similar efforts occurring in Canada. In the US, in 2020 alone, Palestine Legal “responded to 213 incidents of suppression of U.S.-based Palestine advocacy”. This campaign cannot be separated from the colonial structures to which Palestinian scholars are themselves subjected, and that deny Palestinians their right to academic freedom and mobility. 

These attacks do not fall on deaf ears. Scholars and activists continue to organize against censorship and retribution. Initiatives include Against Canary Mission, Palestine Legal, and Center for Constitutional Rights.

Science for the People urges all academics to engage with such organising efforts and to pledge to respect the CAUT censure of the University of Toronto until the conditions specified by CAUT are met and specifically until an offer to direct the IHRP is made to Dr. Azarova. If the University of Toronto is interested in upholding the principle of academic freedom, extending such an offer to Dr. Azarova is a necessary first step.

Resource Radicals Reading Group

Between January and April 2021, Science for the People co-organized a reading group along with DSA Ecosocialists and The Dig podcast of Thea Riofranco’s “Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador,” a thoughtful and generous analysis of the history and politics of ongoing dynamic debates within the diverse Ecuadorian lefts. If you would like to organize future reading groups with Science for the People, please contact us at sftp.revitalization[at]gmail.

Below we have done our best to summarize some of the take-aways of the reading group experience in three sections:
1. Guiding/Discussion questions
2. Reading group reflections
3. Supplemental reading and materials

 

GUIDING/DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

Marcha Plurinacional por el Agua y la Vida

Session 1: Introduction + Chapter 1 (From Neoliberalismo to Extractivismo)

  • How did anti-extractivism emerge as a political demand to organize around under a Left government in power?
  • What are the central tensions between the left in power and the left on the streets? Do these tensions still play out in current day Americas (both North and South)? If yes, how so?
  • What is the “extractive model” and what are its trappings for an ascendent Leftist movement? What have been its concrete achievements? What were the alternative means proposed for similar objectives by the anti-extractivist left?
  • Was resource nationalism a definitive break from neoliberalism? Discuss your arguments (for/against) within the context of global capital.

Session 2: Chapter 2 (Extractivismo as Grand Narrative of Resistance)

  • How does extractivismo as an organizing principle differ from the mainstream environmental movement in the Global North? Are there any similar principles in the Global North? If not, how can organizers/activists raise such a consciousness?
  • Discuss the technocratic framing of a neoliberal state as “weak” and “inefficient” as compared to a socialist “regulatory” state – how does this framing compare with the conception of an anti-capitalist state? How does this framing compare with actually existing socialist states such as Cuba and the USSR?
  • What functions did bureaucrats like Maria Belen serve in the Correa administration? How did their roles influence the tensions between the anti-extractivist activists and the Correa govt?
  • How does the dichotomy of anti-extractivism vs resource nationalism play out in terms of anti-imperialist politics?

Session 3: Chapter 3 (Consulta Previa)

  • Where did Ecuador’s 2008 Constitution originate from and how did it shape the coming battles between anti-extractive activists and the government
  • What lessons can be learned from Ecuadorean activists practicing constituent politics and how can they be applied to local environmental fights in the Global North, especially the US and/or Canada?
  • In Abel Arpi’s formulation of state ownership of non-renewable resources and anti-extractivism, is there room for developmentalism? Discuss Arpi’s proposal as a path towards wielding state power for socialist goals.
  • Are there parallels to the use of 1040 Decree by government bureaucrats, such as in the Mirador project, to the use of information by US governments when justifying extractive operations?

Session 4: Chapter 4 (The Demos in Dispute)

  • How did the question around the Quimsacocha gold mine bring up the question of who “the people” are? How did the idea of “the people” differ in the communities compared to that held by state functionaries?
  • What role did plurinationality, as incorporated in the 2008 constitution, play in shaping the exercise of constituent power by UNAGUA members?
  • What risks underlie the use of democratic exercises as resistance? 
  • In a socialist state, can a national interest ever be fully aligned with local interests?

Session 5: Chapter 5 (Governing the Future)

  • Does the dichotomy of Left-in-Power vs the Left-in-Resistance serve a useful lens to view future socialist politics? Discuss why or why not. 
  • How can questions of national sovereignty be resolved in a plurinational state? 
  • Within radical resource nationalism, is there room for internationalist solidarity? 
  • Given the short window of time to enact meaningful changes to combat the climate crisis, which is planetary in nature, how can the Left-in-Power vs the Left-in-Resistance dialectic be resolved?

Session 6: Chapter 6 (Conclusion)

  • Does the dichotomy of Left-in-Power vs the Left-in-Resistance serve a useful lens to view future socialist politics? Discuss why or why not. 
  • How can questions of national sovereignty be resolved in a plurinational state? 
  • Within radical resource nationalism, is there room for internationalist solidarity? 
  • Given the short window of time to enact meaningful changes to combat the climate crisis, which is planetary in nature, how can the Left-in-Power vs the Left-in-Resistance dialectic be resolved?

READING GROUP REFLECTIONS 

  • Quote – Coming Soon
  • Quote – Coming Soon
  • Quote – Coming Soon

SUPPLEMENTAL READING + MATERIALS

Second SftP statement on COVID-19 pandemic

The United States has entered a severe and dangerous phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.   Cases and deaths are surging, and many areas are facing critical shortages in hospital facilities and staff.  The gap in the hardships experienced by minority and low-income people compared to the rest of the population continues to widen, with those who have low paying manufacturing, sales, healthcare and service jobs forced to work in person while others are able to work from home.   This combined with generally denser living conditions and more common comorbidities has led to much higher case and death rates  of COVID-19 among these individuals.  Furthermore, over half of people of color surveyed are facing economic challenges as a result of the pandemic (reported here, here and here).

 

The depth of the crisis has been exacerbated by irresponsible actions of the government and private enterprises at national, state and local levels. At the federal level there is a glaring lack of national plan to address the pandemic with government officials failing to act and even encouraging people to flaunt public health rules. Congress continues in its failure to enact adequate legislation to provide economic relief to those impacted. The response of State governments has been uneven, with some States acting more responsibly and others being totally negligent.  In the private sector, employers are unrestrained by any pandemic-related safety regulations. Universities, pursuing a business model of success, prematurely opened for in-person instruction, creating hot spots for spreading COVID-19.

In justifying failed policies, government officials often promote a false and dangerous dichotomy between public health and economic growth. In fact the two are deeply intertwined. Economic deprivation increases morbidity and mortality,  while opening businesses and permitting public gatherings without adequate planning and testing, leads to outbreaks which disrupt economic growth. Indeed, countries that have used strong social policies to contain the cases and deaths in the pandemic have tended to do the best economically.

Scientific facts and concepts are critical to developing an effective pandemic policy.  Yet these concepts have been distorted and “weaponized” by government actors and conservative politicians. Added to the outright lies that COVID is no worse than the flu and that a vaccine would be available in a few weeks are more subtle distortions. For example:

  1. Herd immunity is a valid concept that describes how the spread of an epidemic declines when enough members of a population become immune to an infection so that propagation of the infection in the population is not sustained.  It is most safely achieved by mass vaccination.  This concept has been used to irresponsibly suggest that letting the pandemic run its course without public health intervention is a reasonable public health strategy. 
  2. Vaccines are expected to be effective in protecting individuals and slowing down the pandemic.   But they are not a panacea that negates the importance of public health restrictions and safer workplaces.   To do so, will result in many more lives lost and slow the process of economic recovery.  Every case prevented before and as  vaccines are  distributed will make vaccines more effective in limiting the spread and impact of the pandemic..

At the same time that scientific concepts are distorted in justifying irresponsible policies, important scientific research is neglected.  In order to minimize the spread and impact of COVID-19 we need more scientific knowledge on multiple fronts:  For example, we need studies to understand how long immunity lasts after recovery from COVID-19 and the long-term effects after recovery. We need better information on the comparative dangers of various activities, e.g. opening elementary schools, outdoor social gatherings, as well as the impacts of pandemic-related restrictions on child development and how to address them. We also need to determine the extent of additive and synergistic effects of COVID-19 and environmental exposures like air pollution, and the efficacy of vaccines across virus strains and against transmission from asymptomatic individuals. Finally, we must understand and address the reasons for “vaccine hesitancy”. Answers to these questions will enable us to save many lives and promote economic recovery. But research on these questions is inadequately supported by government and private sector organizations and when it is done it is often scattered, incomplete and distorted by political agendas.

The use of scientific work in combatting the pandemic has also been set back by an erosion of trust in critical federal public health agencies such as the CDC and FDA. Scientists exposing problems in public health policy in these agencies have been silenced or intimidated, and the agencies have often provided conflicting and inconsistent information to the public. Although workplaces are key settings for spreading the pandemic, the leading federal agencies on occupational health, OSHA and NIOSH, have been almost completely ineffective in making workplaces safer in terms of the spread of COVID-19.  OSHA has received thousands of whistleblower complaints related to COVID and has failed to act on almost all of them. Federal emergency paid sick leave is far from adequate and leaves many workers uncovered.

It is expected that the new administration in Washington will be more truthful in reporting on the status of the pandemic and will rely more on public health and scientific expertise in making policy decisions.  These are welcome changes. However, this will not be enough to combat the health and economic crisis we are facing. To do so we need:

  1. A national plan to control the pandemic that combines stringent public health restrictions with generous economic support to those most impacted by the pandemic.
  2. Strong federal and state legislation providing economic support to those most impacted by the pandemic, including ample, comprehensive and extended unemployment benefits, child care support, an end to evictions and support for gig, contingent and contract workers.
  3. Development and enforcement of regulatory standards for protecting workers from COVID hazards, including provisions for decreasing worker density, minimizing exposure, protection for whistleblowers and comprehensive extended paid leave for those ill with COVID, in quarantine, isolation or needed to provide assistance to family members.  These must be applied for all workers including undocumented, temporary, contract and gig workers.
  4. A detailed plan to distribute vaccines when they become available with proper consideration of optimizing deployment to minimize the spread and impact of the pandemic, and equity in distribution to different sectors of the population. For example, priority must be given to vaccinating prisoners and prison workers, because prisons are hotspots of the pandemic.
  5. Rebuilding and enhancement of the scientific and public health infrastructure that has declined in recent years, and promotion of research that examines the social and political determinants of disease spread and impact.
  6. A national plan to provide free universal healthcare coverage to all people, including undocumented immigrants.

 

SPANISH UNIVERSITY & RESEARCH STAFF GOING ON STRIKE ON OCTOBER 21st

Read a news commentary about the successful first action (Spanish only).


The Spanish labor union CGT (Confederación General del Trabajo) organizes a strike of University and Research staff for the next 21st of October 2020. This is the first time that this sector is calling for industrial action at the national level, and will hopefully establish the first of many fights aiming at winning decent working conditions for all members of staff and the end of neoliberalization of education and research—we fight towards university and science for the people. We build on internationalism to strengthen our position; the recent wildcat strikes of the University of California, and the strikes all over higher education in the UK by the UCU union are important references to follow. The current health crisis, due to COVID-19, shows that the working class cannot wait in order to organize the struggle. The many climate crisis that are to come must find a strong labor movement. Let us unite. Let us fight.

Why are University and Research sectors striking?

Over the past years, employees at universities and research centers have seen how working conditions deteriorate. The current COVID crisis made the situation even worse; employers are rapidly worsening labor conditions, intensifying job insecurity including safety measures.

Our inability to act strongly during the lockdown and after has allowed the Government, along with management teams at universities and research centers, to rule against workers. For example, staff were not involved in drafting plans for returning to work, negotiations on ongoing conflicts were suspended and causal contracts not renewed. This came in a moment in which institutions need more staff, and in better working conditions, in order to guarantee health and safety—let alone high quality of education and research.

This is not a time to be patient, as we are told from above, but a time to fight against the marketization of education and research. Time to fight for our working conditions.

Serious conflicts in these sectors remain as relevant today as ever: illegal and casual contracts, not a single upgrade in job stability demands, outsourcing, absurd staff hierarchies, increasingly higher fees for students, and evaluation criteria for staff still promotes levels of competitiveness that are harmful for both staff and education/research.

We need to stop the neoliberalization of higher education and research. We demand a model for the benefit of the working class. We fight for:

  • Funding 100% public and managed by staff.
  • Free education. Reduce student fees by 100%.
  • No staff hierarchies. Equal pay for equal work.
  • End casualization.
  • Work-life balance.
  • End outsourcing.
  • Change evaluation criteria to promote cooperation over competition.
  • Prioritize health and safety concerning COVID-19.

These are some of the most urgent demands, but there are plenty reasons for organizing the struggle. Let all members of staff unite and fight. Let’s start. Many voices; one fight.

We call all members of staff of universities and research centers for strike action on the 21st of October.

 

Recommended Readings: Internationalism in the Pandemic

The following are a list of webinars and readings to complement the discussion of “The Science We Have and The Science We Need: Internationalism in the Pandemic,” our own webinar, co-hosted by Ciencia para el Pueblo.

Suggested readings: 

Past & future webinars:

  • Science for the People – Western Massachusetts on  “Making Science Work for Social Justice.” Recordings, slides and handouts all archived here.

  • Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental institute for Social Research on “CoronaShock: How the Socialistic Part of the World is Dealing with the Global Pandemic.” Solidarity across Distances website

  • Tafadzwa Choto, Femi Aborisade, Gacheke Gachihi, Lena Anyuolo, Gyekye Tanoh and Heike Becker on “Africa and the Pandemic: Clampdown, Survival and Resistance.” Review of African Political Economy. http://roape.net/2020/05/14/africa-and-the-pandemic-clampdown-survival-resistance/
  • Dr. Ivette Perfecto, Dr. John Vandermeer and Kristel Sánchez on “Ciencia para el Pueblo: Movimiento radical de la comunidad científica”.  Ciencia para el Pueblo – México

  • Cliff Conner on “Innovation for What?” based on his forthcoming book The Tragedy of American Science. Thursday, June 4 at 1:00 PM EDT. Center for Innovation in the Design and Construction Industries.

 

The Science We Have + The Science We Need: Internationalism in the Pandemic

On Thursday, May 21st, we will be co-hosting a webinar on internationalism in the pandemic with our compañerxs from Ciencia para el Pueblo. Far from a secondary issue, internationalism is the reason Science for the People was born. Back then, scientists organized against the use of their labor for oppressive ends during the Vietnam War.

Today, Covid19 is magnifiying structural violences and inequalities across borders. It is urgent that we reflect on radical science history, international struggle, and avenues for solidarity. “The Science We Have + The Science We Need: Internationalism in the Pandemic” aims to do just that.

REGISTER FOR THE WEBINAR 

THE WEBINAR

The webinar will be covering the following three issues:

(1) The Science We Have: an analysis of the dominant structures, institutions, and paradigms that contribute to austerity and the misuse of science for oppressive ends, and how the resulting power dynamics limit a humane and transformative response to the ongoing crisis in the context of Covid19.

(2) The Science We Need: rooted in the specificities of regional contexts, possible avenues towards the transformation of “science as a whole” in the interests of justice and human need. How might have a transformed terrain of science rooted in justice have responded to a pandemic like Covid19?

(3) On-the-Ground Organizing: How do we transition from the science we have to the one we need? What can we learn from historic and ongoing struggles in the sciences and across borders? What is the role of knowledge production, application, and distribution in this process? Prior to and during Covid19, what on-the-ground political activities were and are taking place across local and regional contexts?

Thursday, May 21st 2020
11 a.m. EDT 
REGISTER HERE FOR THE WEBINAR

The webinar will be livestreamed on: Zoom, Youtube, and Facebook


SPEAKERS 

  • NNIMMO BASSEY is the director of the Nigeria-based ecological think-tank, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) and member steering committee of Oilwatch International. He was a co-recipient of the 2010 Right Livelihood Award also known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize.” His books include To Cook a Continent – Destructive Extraction and the Climate Crisis in Africa and Oil Politics – Echoes of Ecological War.
  • DR. LUIS ALBERTO MONTERO CABRERA is a professor in the Department of Chemistry, chairing the branch of Natural Sciences at the Academy of Sciences of Cuba. He also chairs the Scientific Council of the University of Havana.
  • SHANTY ACOSTA SINENCIO is an independent biologist and chemist from the Faculty of Science at UNAM, Mexico, and a member of Ciencia para el Pueblo- Mexico.
  • ZHUN XU is an assistant professor at the Department of Economics at Howard University, having previously taught at Renmin University in Beijing. His research areas include Political Economy (health, food and development in general), Chinese Economy, and Economic History.  He is the author of From Commune to Capitalism: How China’s Peasants Lost Collective Farming and Gained Urban Poverty.
  • DR. SIGRID SCHMALZER is a professor of History at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, with a Ph.D. in Modern Chinese History and Science Studies from UC San Diego. She is a co-founder of the revitalized Science for the People and the co-editor of Science for the People: Documents from America’s Movement of Radical Scientists.
  • SAMAN SEPEHRI is an analytical chemist at Northwestern University and a long-time activist of Iranian descent. He has written on Middle East politics, the internal dynamic of Iran, and questions of world energy and the geopolitics of oil. He is currently a member of Chicago DSA.
  • LAURA PEÑARANDA (Moderator) is a Colombian labor organizer with Trade Unions for Energy Democracy (TUED). She is a member of the International Committee of DSA, Science for the People, and Colombia Humana.

Art by MYLES MARSHALL


 

Dialogues On The Quarantined Earth: Waiting For …? 

Science Education and the pandemic of human/sciences

From an Indian Researcher trying to make sense of Science and Society

Original screenplay and Illustrations by the author

Departing spring. Light, unsettling breeze of the cruelest April bellows the curtains. It is some hour late in the afternoon. A room in an unnamed urban metropolis of India.

Unsettling it is too for the ‘image’ of India, which has been undergoing debilitating body blows in recent times. A pandemic scare, yes (with its effects to be felt more in the socioeconomic realm rather than perhaps medical) but not just that. The country’s Muslim communities, its largest religious minority population, are faced with the possibility of mass disenfranchisement and en masse lockup in detention centers. The national capital and a global cosmopolitan centre — New Delhi — saw in February one of the most brutal Muslim genocides the country has ever seen. It was designed to act as a crackdown on the ongoing Occupy Movement in the country against the National Register of Citizens and the mass disenfranchisement it promises. The threats of losing citizenship are so real that several protest sites initially refused to discontinue their protests even under the threat of pandemic, but gave in to brute force of police and state and an imposition of public medico-morality. Politico-religious leaders who have been consistently describing Muslims in the country as ‘virus’ and ‘termites’, are now to negotiate with a microorganism, against whom vilification does not work. Though they are trying desperately for a convergence. The rulers who claimed that border fences and armed forces will ‘protect’ their nations from ‘outsiders’ are now doubling down on their racist monologues in a desperate attempt to hide their incapability of dealing with an actual crisis like this. A nation state which prepared itself with elaborate arrangements to lock down its religious minority population inside detention centers, suddenly finds itself having to lock itself down. It is a cruel season, and a crueler irony.

But this play cannot possibly travel to the nooks and corners of the disheveled nation. Not just any nook or corner, it can not even visit the burnt mosques in the capital city itself, or such multiple minor inconveniences. Surely there are troubles in our modern societies and we are not allowed to digress. Else we won’t be doing science. Stick we must, to objectivity and hard-lipped lack of ‘sentiments’. The play chooses, instead, to show the mundane normal. Something which is without the vile, crass and paranoia. A stage is thus constructed. Beyond it lies troubled times which it will allude to, but not show. We close down on specifics.

This is the makeshift working space of the middle-aged man we find, who seemed to be dozing in his daydreams. Stacked on various pieces of furniture around him are students’ notebooks and unchecked examination scripts – there are heaps of them. There are teaching materials, charts showing the parts of the human digestive system and types of ores on earth; diagrams of molecules and the oscillating pendulum, students’ paper models of various forms and types. Curricular textbooks, exam guides and assessment worksheets strewn haywire. He is in the middle of preparations for an online lockdown class for the following day, for his high school Science students. Clearly, he is waddling in a sea of pedagogic burden.

His face reads as if bemused, his body wrought with inaction at the desk. His eyes are shut tight.

A stagnant silence pervades.

VOICE. [at a distance, from a yet-to-be visible form] Hey there, working from the confines of home—cozy, isn’t it?

MAN. [undisturbed, faintly murmurs] Um-hmm.

VOICE. Prepping for the upcoming pandemic session with students, sir? What are you going to teach — health, environment, microorganisms, plants, balanced diet? You plan to cover your biology syllabus through studying the pandemic?

TEACHER. [Continues dozing with his eyes shut, but keeps murmuring to himself] Yeah—who knows—all these seem— [yawns] so irrelevant—we just—need to—curb this—save lives—

VOICE. Sheesh, predictable! Isn’t it the right time to reassess the lesson plans for teaching science?

TEACHER. Huh, what? [Jolts up in his chair and adjusts his glasses. His dozing has missed a beat, and squints his eyes. He turns his head around to look suspiciously] Whose voice… was it my fever dream?

VOICES. Not really!

A big blob drops centerstage from the space above. It has a greyish greasy appearance, and some bright protruding red spikes. Like bright decorations. It lands gently, rolling and tumbling, with no care in the world.

TEACHER. [Stands up alert] What the — who are you?!

BLOB. Oh you need some ID? Do I look like a docile body that will submit to surveillance? Geez, you haven’t paid heed to the news lately!

Another blob drops from above, but quite sharply. It bounces off its bum, ricochets and then comes to a halt. The first blob helps to pull it up. And then drops in a third. They all look identical in their greasy dull greys and bright reds.

TEACHER. [stupent] Crap! That’s it! [shoots across the room towards the drawers]
Where are my masks, oh dear, my ol’ sanitizer! [haphazardly moving about in the further corner of the room]

BLOB 2. [In a suave tone] Easy mister, easy. That ain’t very rational of you — that isn’t social — [sniggers]

TEACHER. [Shell-shocked] Please come no near — please —

BLOB 3. [chuckling to his colleagues] Funny how they behave! [Turns to the teacher] We are supposed to distance ourselves physically [gesturing the space between them] — like we are doing — but not aggravate it to such panic!

TEACHER. [with mortified, bulged out eyes] But you are a vicious threat, a havoc, a global catastrophe, the great plague of many centuries — you have not only caused a planetary crisis affecting every single person, but also wrecked such havoc on the most vulnerable amongst us! Look at the number of people of colour, people without proper nutrition, that are dying – look at the impact on the people who are still having to go out to work on the frontlines –

BLOB 1. Aww, did I do all that? [Mimics a tone of self-pity] Poor, poor you. It surely must’ve been my folks who told you to ditch the notions of [throws up fingers as if to enumerate] universal public health, and economic equality, and unstratified class-less society, and anti-racist politics and a humane science —

The blobs have now positioned themselves comfortably in the space around. They surround the teacher on all sides, but maintain a cordial distance, as is socially sanctioned these days.

TEACHER. [regaining] But, how come science isn’t huma—

BLOB 3. [Swiftly raising a pointed finger in excitement] Knew you would jump the gun at it — so predictable! Of all the other things I mentioned, you so instantly opted to defend science.

TEACHER. Well our science has helped save lives, improved longevity, dispelled harmful superstitions — our drugs have resisted against germs and diseases, except for — till now [gives an accusative look] you nasty buggers—

BLOB 2. — who brings a curtain down on the world order, right? [chortily lets out a full belly laughter, blobs 1 and 2 join him] Am I the vice-incarnate? The reason for all mayhem on earth currently? Am I also responsible for your rampant Islamophobia, class hatred, untouchability, your shameless racism? Funny how Science is the all do-gooder neutral God, but is so ready to collapse its high tower gates and feign ignorance and culpability when responsibility or crisis comes knocking!

TEACHER. It surely is powerful, and there are reasons for it. But [now, after regaining composure] why should I explain that you? You are an enemy, the major one that we can’t get our hands on — not that we would like to — virulent enemies. I can’t believe we are even having a conversation —

BLOB 1. But you must, my dear teacher of science — because I think — rather a hell lot of us in the nature thinks — that humans can actually do a lot better with some dollops of sane advice and reality check.

TEACHER. Ahh. [Recoiling back now and slightly more steady] Then open up your secrets! Tell us how we can tackle the pandemic — How to create a vaccine in no time — or [his face lights up with possibility] at least tell us how to trigger a mutiny amongst your ranks — is it possible to engineer a mutant that will neutralize you –

All the blobs break into splitting laughter. The teacher is dumbfounded.

BLOB 3. [Recovering from the dose of humour] Funny you are, with your sense of entitlement! I promise you that we intend nothing of that sorts. And as for mutinies and infighting, I trust the humans to be doing it sooner and killing themselves off than we do! [Another bout of laughter ensues]

TEACHER. [Quite crossed] That is insensitive!

BLOB 2. [Addressing Blob 1 and 3, in a hushed voice] Hey, isn’t this fun! Give me some silence. [Then sushes everyone up loudly. They all stop laughing].
[Turns to address the Teacher] Hey! You know what’s sensitive?
You can teach them mathematics of graphs and simulations through the body counts. You know, someone observed—a single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic. [They all burst into laughter again]

TEACHER. [His frustration now changes into a lack of proper words] Oh you’re dark!

BLOB 2. Not quite as dark as the smoked mosques of your cities!

The teacher goes silent at this, presumably out of shame. The blobs exchange smirks and glances with each other.

BLOB 1. [Still smirking] Relax Mr. Science Teacher, my friends are just being mischievous. [Gesturing the teacher to take a seat, without fear] Actually we thought we can also partake in a bit of the sciences that you teach, you know, for ourselves. It’s a nice, productive way to spend time working from home — right? [Allows the Teacher to cool himself down]. Maybe we can at least help you prepare for your online session tomorrow.

TEACHER. [Sitting down on his chair, looking drained, resigning to a conversation he now realizes he can not escape] How?

BLOB 2. Let’s see – you mind starting with your official texts? [gestures to a particular book lying on the desk]. As you were so quick to relegate us to your micro-foes, might you just help us read up from the textbook and say why exactly are we foes? We were quite curious, you see.

The Virus called Capitalism

TEACHER. Is it so?

BLOB 1. Yes, absolutely.

TEACHER. [Slowly relaxes himself on the chair] Umm, well [looks for a particular book from the pile] I don’t think we need a textbook reference for this. But still, since you insist. I remember the chapter talking about some, erm, I don’t remember the exact words — but what the book says are ‘harmful’ bacteria and protozoa — [searching for the appropriate pages] can’t see any mention of any ‘beneficial’ virus! Yeah, right here – chapter titled “MICROORGANISMS: FRIEND AND FOE” – it says —

“common ailments like cold, influenza (flu) 
and most coughs are caused by viruses. 
Serious diseases like polio and 
chickenpox are also caused by viruses.”

There you go!

BLOB 3. Hahahaha! Demonization spares not even the tiniest of organisms! Funny how you guys have the same categorization for microorganisms that you use for your fellow humans! Why the sharp divide? I understand viruses are your foes, but who actually are your micro-friends?

TEACHER. Those would be the ones used in the preparation of medicines such as antibiotics, in fixing nitrogen for agriculture. Those that ‘are used in the preparation of curd, bread and cake,’ and also ‘for the production of alcohol’. And those that

“are also used in cleaning up the environment. 
For example, the organic wastes (vegetable peels, 
remains of animals, faeces, etc.) are broken down 
into harmless and usable substances by bacteria.”

BLOB 2. Oh hold there a bit. Folks [turning to his colleagues] I am a bit confused, what he just described are a series of unidirectional benefits. It isn’t friendship – maybe leeching? [Turns to the teacher] Don’t you think ‘collaborators’ is a better word?

TEACHER. [Only half resigned to it] Call whatever, what’s there in semantics?

BLOB 2. A hell lot! Semantics reflect world-views. [Stands up and paces down the carpet] Your ascribed friendliness is specifically meant for those microbes that help you make stuff that you consume — food, alcohol, medicines, crops — or kill other microbes that you don’t like. Friends are those that serve you benefits, easy gifts. What about those microbes that have got nothing to do with human productive activities? Or those types of bacteria that are the one of the world’s most numerous and crucial constituents of any living matter? Do your science texts even consider their existence in nature? For example, cyanobacteria — the blue-green algae?

TEACHER. Yes, they are the nitrogen fixing ones that help us produce crops—

BLOB 3. Look at the association that you just made, my Einstein! [Slaps its own forehead] Oh lord — I bet the chapter does not mention that it is the same blue-green algae that produced the first oxygen for the Earth’s atmosphere? That, over time, most of the oxygen produced in the planet’s history has been done by this family of bacteria? That they can change oceans? The fact that these are responsible for the earliest photosynthesis? Hell, humans would not even exist if there were no cyanobacteria. Do you reveal this aspect of the natural world to the readers of the text, at least to be grateful about it?

TEACHER. No, erm, it doesn’t. But see, ultimately this is a book written by humans, for other humans. You should expect it to be human-centric, talking about things they can relate to.

BLOB 1. [In a more earnest, imploring voice] But science is about nature, right? It squarely rests on the locus of viewpoint. You can be at the center and grab and derive things from nature’s reserve; or place yourself at the periphery and gather what nature lets you have. Truth is, humans don’t think they are a part of, or a product of, nature. You think you own nature. [Picks up a textbook and casually flickers through the pages] Your Science textbook chapters can’t think beyond terms such as ‘resource’ or ‘management’ or ‘production’ or ‘conservation’ in the chapter headings. Semantics, you see!

TEACHER. Are you angry because viruses have not been emphasized much in the textbooks?

BLOB 2. Yes, but not in the way you think. We are angry not because ‘we’ haven’t been given the kind of attention that we deserve, but because how glaring these omissions are in totality. [Blob 1 and 3 nod in unison] Did you mention the cowpox virus? The one used to make vaccines for your kids against smallpox – the virus sequence that regulates the amylase gene cluster, enabling humans and other primates to eat starchy foods you otherwise couldn’t? Your immune system is in large parts a gift of microorganisms — the ones you inherit through your mother’s milk, the ones that you find in your gut. By the way, good luck explaining that to your formula foods industry and the ‘scientists’ who work there! But anyway, these should have made it to your list of ‘friendly’ microbes, even by your own standards.

TEACHER. So you would be okay if this missing piece of information gets added, right? To perhaps paint a more true and balanced description of microorganisms —

BLOB 3. [In a deep angry tone] You precisely miss the point. Textbook science must work to reveal Nature, not place value judgments on its functional outcomes! Why don’t you trust the young minds to do it for themselves? They’ll make their own judgment by relating to what they experience in the world around them. [Earnestly] I mean, they’re reflective, right? Or would you rather not have them exercise that rationality — dictating bluntly what they must infer and think out of facts? [It is for the blob a clear moment of terrible realization] Or — is it — that you do not trust them — Maybe that’s why your species is this messed up? Because you don’t trust your young ones intellectually? [The more it goes on, the more furious it gets with the indignation] Or — is it that — you are scared that they might ask too many uncomfortable questions? About your Science, about your Society — your project of using the mask of Science for hiding the scandal you call Social will be torn off you think —

At this point, Blob 1 rushes to pacify Blob 3, who is clearly taken aback by its own afterthought. Blob 1 lets out a deep exhalation and turns towards the teacher with a what-have-you-done gesture. The teacher is lost.

BLOB 2. [Clears his throat and recomposes himself] Well, keep that as something for later — you’ll surely understand. [Pauses and breathes deeply] But, what we were saying is, erm — what must be revealed in science books — is that transmitting foreign genomes into your cells, which causes the disease in you — is exactly what we are supposed to do! Reveal the true nature, that’s it. You may hate us for it currently because it serves you in no productive way. But did you consider thinking of us as just biological ferries that carry genes between different organisms and even different species? Tch tch! Do you realize that viruses keep doing this all the time between species, contributing to the creation of this wonderfully complex body called Nature that you are ultimately a tiny part of? In such contexts, do your theories really matter then, whether we came from fish, or from bats, or snakes, or all of these through multiple transfers and such —

BLOB 3. [Chuckles half-heartedly to Blob 2] I think it matters for them to keep alive tales. Not like stories meant for young kids in junior classes, not like that. But tales which are juvenile. Juvenile ideas which short-change biodiversity as if some kind of pristine alchemy, magic — and proceeds casually to criminalize diversity based on use-value. No wonder their kids trained with such ‘Science’ education grow up to become such believers!

BLOB 1. And what was supposed to be the fundamental difference between them (humans) and other constituent beings of nature has now fueled the runaway system that is beyond attainable control – even for themselves!

TEACHER. Err, what would that be — arms race, unsustainable growth, technology?

BLOB 1. Yes, the building instinct — to make and manufacture — the constant drive to engineer and produce — generate and layer on top of the other and keep on making.

But this itself [pauses for a bit] is fundamentally driven by something more crucial to you guys — a much more primal act of making and manufacturing, as ancient as your first spoken languages.

TEACHER. And what’s that?

BLOB 2. — your making of myths and stories! Your manufacturing of consent! Layers upon layers of them, like an onion. Layers of myths that are frozen through time, till they begin to look like hard truths. God-given in some cases, Science-given in others.

TEACHER. Ah — [Pondering] So you are not just referring to human religions, cultural myths –

BLOB 1. No we’re not. We are not just talking about beasts and demons, all-powerful Gods and their miracles, heavens and the netherworld. We are basically talking about everything that you do — everything that is ‘human’ – what you call the ‘society’ or ‘law’ or ‘economy’ — or even ‘science.’

TEACHER. But myths help us survive, don’t they? Stories that rock us to sleep while containing us safe in the imaginaries. They aren’t necessarily a problem.

BLOB 3. [Chuckling at this point] Hey, don’t tell your academic bosses that you discussed science and society issues with a ‘microbe’! They will cancel your pay-check and you will have to “stay back at home”, rather than “working from home”! Not that you are an “Essential service provider” in any case.

TEACHER. [With a half grin] Huh. It’s not even clear anymore if they would need jobs such as mine anymore, even when all this is over – if at all. You go on –

BLOB 2. Hmmmm. [Trying to pick up the conversation from where it got paused] So we were talking about – erm – yeah, necessary myths. Yes, quite rightly so. You probably do need myths to survive. But you see, the problem is elsewhere. The problem is when you forget so easily that myths are myths, and start believing in them as the ‘objective reality’. For example, Nature’s other societies — migrating birds, hardworking ants, patient bees — do not create myths about themselves or others. There exists laws, like natural selection, prey-predator relations, division of labour in bee colonies. These exist as phenomena. But humans, who can create stories, picked up selectively from what they observed. And to what end? To use, for example, something like the system of queen, worker and drone bees as a model to justify your brutally oppressive construct of the caste system — and that’s a shame.

BLOB 1. There are the million minute balancing acts, and rope tricks, that keep Nature in furtive motion. Symbiosis which exists in Nature, or mutualisms — are fine lessons to be ingrained in your society — to make no distinction between the weakest and fragile and those that have. You would have worshiped diversity instead of morally panicking about it. You would have learned to celebrate differences within your own species, instead of using my excuse to pour out racist venom against specific biological features or religious identities.

BLOB 3. You failed to interpret the detailed notes that your scientists gathered in their field visits. You failed to interpret them as social commentaries. And therefore, my friend, you failed to interpret them as even scientific commentaries. Else you would’ve noticed how other fishes treat the ‘cleaner fish’ — the ones that clean other predators by feeding off their dead cells. Not only do the predators respect and protect the cleaner fish, but they are also known to reduce their aggression towards even other prey species, while at the cleaning stations. Is there something to be noted? [advances menacingly towards the Teacher] How does your society treat those people who clean your wastes?

Well, this is a crucial juncture. The play did warn, when it started, that troubled times outside of what is visible on the stage would be referred to — here and there. Who would have thought that it would make mention of all things mundane, picking up things from the streets. Should the daily commonplace be the focus of the quarantine? Surely that was not meant to be. When it took a sharp turn towards the dingy by-lanes of wastes and sanitations, it was probably the time that footnotes could only do so much.

As required, the audience would be, for cogency, shuffling through the handouts to find the relevant subtexts, or would google furiously on their smartphones for brief summaries. They might buy time for more thoughts, and embarrassingly excuse themselves. Or they might choose to sit back, they would like to see an end to this — with clenched jaws and slitted eyes resonating with the Teacher — they would make their own questions the Teacher’s questions, own doubts the Teacher’s doubts. We think the latter possibility is ripe, though the reasons are feeble. The play continues with its tattered set pieces. The confines of discussion have opened up. The world outside has moved within.

TEACHER. It feels we humans are too detached today for any contemplation. We are so torn between our biological, or perhaps ‘natural’ existence, and our economic existence. Tell me, does Nature also have an ‘economy’ of sorts, that it has to manage?

BLOB 2. What do you think? What is the etymological origin of the word ‘economy’?

TEACHER. I think it means management of household resources. But I have my doubts — can nature at all be likened to a household — and is there any need to manage its ‘household’? What would be the finances — is it not more like regulation of biotic substances — exchanges of sorts —

BLOB 1. [Imploring] Oh you mean — like money? Like bartering of commodities?

TEACHER. Umm — yes, I think so.

BLOB 1. Ah — [throwing up his arms] that’s again one of the myths humans have created for themselves.

TEACHER. What do you mean?

BLOB 3. I mean the myth of equating the idea of ‘economy’ with ‘money’, or ‘market economy’. [A gentle smile plays on its lips] Money was only created to manage your debts. But you have lived inside the money-driven market economy for so long now that you yourselves have forgotten all that it ever was [clicks his fingers] — just a myth!

BLOB 2. Well, only if you need some recap, the first currencies—in the form of sea shells and other stuff — were constructed in order to keep track of IOUs. Now does nature have IOUs? Yes! Just look at the mutualism between different species in a niche — a household, as nature sees it — like say the one between the clown-fish and the sea-anemone. If this feels too basic and not-so-complex as human monetary exchange relations, look at entire ecosystems. All that different organisms are doing there is a complex interconnected net of IOUs. There are complex practices of saving for the future as well – just peep into an ants’ colony, or a termites’ fortress. Everyone is putting in their labor all the time, and at the same time, no one appropriates anyone else’s labor. That’s an entire complex economy in action — yes economy, in the ‘household management’ sense of the term. But there is no ‘money’ or currency of exchange! There is no private property, there is no accumulation of ‘resources’, there is no ‘owning’ of Nature by anyone, there are no Wall Streets, there is no class war.

TEACHER. But there are parasites in Nature, isn’t it? Wouldn’t you say they are examples of appropriating the host’s labor?

BLOB 2. [Snaps fingers] Parasites? [Shares quick glances with its colleagues] I suppose you mean things like us? [Menacing look threatening to make a comeback]

TEACHER. [Embarrassed, apprehensive of the reactions] No no, didn’t specifically have you all in mind.

BLOB 1. But that’s how your books classify us, don’t they? Parasites! Tell me, if on the one hand you have us as agents in the ‘Natural economy’ let’s say, on the other hand you have your capitalist class who can’t be accused of putting in any labour in your mythical ‘Money economy’ – which of these are ‘parasites’ in the true sense you think?

The Virus Called State

BLOB 3. And to talk about how fragile your myths about money are. The myth lost its clothes for instance, when the populace of your own country was told overnight that your five hundred rupee paper notes had no value any more! It just took a strongman at the center of power, backed up by a xenophobic populist mass politics to create a myth to supercede from earlier. That is amazing by all standards! An entire country’s currencies gets invalid overnight, or gets blown up, like what happened in Venezuela, and that kind of seems okay with all!

BLOB 2. Tomorrow if everyone in your country starts believing that for whatever reason, the currency notes lying right now in your wallets is of no value, it will actually lose all its value. You will then realise that all that note really is – a piece of printed paper with someone’s face on it. It is a fabulous construct that shifts shapes, and assumes value, as required. Like now, in South Korea, where it is deemed useless — because they think that the cash reserves are infected and will carry the pandemic. So they burn it — poof!

BLOB 1. Like [turning to the other two blobs while trying to hide his laughter] like — pfft — believing in the myth that the pandemic can be tackled ‘scientifically’ while maintaining the dominant economic model — hahahaha! [All the blobs burst out into laughter] And your governments — they are conducting triages to determine whose life is more important, whose to save, and whose to let go! Such is the glorious dawn over your mass graves — that you, you treat not the older people — because your health set-up and economics would not be able to afford it!

BLOB 2. Well, they do conduct triages in ordinary times as well. Till now, the pandemic deaths cumulatively in the country are lesser than the number of children who died in Bihar last year from Acute Encephalitis Syndrome. They were all malnourished, belonging to working class families. Within a month’s time hundreds of them died! What was your nation’s response? Zilch! What happened to the doctor who blew the whistle on the state of public health infrastructure, in the state that was responsible for the children just allowed to die like that? Is he out of prison yet?.

There have been abrupt sequences of entries and exits — mostly curious entries — of similar looking blobs in the stage, through various wings, orifices, vents of the hall. They have dropped and rolled in the scene, scrawled and squealed across the stage floor. They have been taking up space around — sitting on top of racks, the steel wardrobe, behind the refrigerator. When we began, we thought the play could very well be in a closed contained space, undisturbed. But not quite so. These movements of these blobs have been too random — they have been in a flurry, in packs, in pairs, at random. We could not follow up with that. Do we know who orchestrated such movements, or was it meant to happen? Their invasion in this play is sudden, the outbreak is blurry. Nothing is quite clear.

TEACHER. [Sheepishly in a tone of admission] Yes, I understand the fallacy, but why would you conflate science thus? Isn’t it a pursuit of facts — truth — isn’t it more than just being convincing stories and believable fables —

BLOB 2. [Hits back with a defiant tone] Yet it maintains a garb of nonchalance. Of being a noncommittal bystander. Surely, if textbooks can relegate viruses to being the perennial foe, science can do something to annihilate it completely? [Flips through a few pages of the textbook at hand] Pray tell me, why do your school-level science textbooks not discuss the possibilities of designing a Universal anti-Influenza vaccine?

TEACHER. From my experience, well, I can tell that it might be — erm, because it is too complicated to explain such things to school students.

BLOB 2. Oh, really? [Zeroing in on one particular page of the textbook] Is it more complicated than, say, explaining the design of a universally non-biodegradable building material? The one that you call ‘plastics’ — which merits a dedicated chapter in the textbook. Let me read out what it says:

“Plastic is also a polymer like the synthetic fibre. 
All plastics do not have the same type of arrangement 
of units. In some it is linear, whereas in others 
it is cross-linked... 
Plastic articles are available in all 
possible shapes and sizes as you can see in Fig.... 
Have you ever wondered how this is possible?”

Jeez, it doesn’t look very simple to me! Does it to you guys? [Other blobs shake their heads in denial] Look at the emphasis it creates and the optics it produces — it comes as the 3rd chapter in the book, whereas something as vital as pollution in the study of nature is relegated to the 18th chapter slot. You also know most of your classrooms may not even make it to the end of the book in an academic year.

BLOB 3. [Turning to Blob 2] I think I know what it is. The narrative of highlighting pollution and downgrading plastics do not quite make a good saleable myth, do they? Public discussions about anti-Influenza vaccines either through textbooks or medical journals are perhaps a threat to the future profits of the patent-based medicine industry? On the other hand, it seems much more economically profitable to motivate children to work for industries, which unquestioningly manufacture and use plastics, one form or the other.

[Turns towards the Teacher] And you would still say the myth of your money economy is not connected with your science? There is no attempt to raise such questions in your Science education, and thus the ‘scientists’ you produce are far less likely to think of concerns about a universal vaccine as concerns of Science. [Moves closer to the Teacher and leans forward with a sharp whisper] The body of science research you collectively construct is skewed, cherry-picked, filled with half-truths, and therefore — a myth.

TEACHER. [Trying to put up one last desperate wall of defence] But scientists are curious about Nature. [Paces down the room, troubled, bruised — more with self-doubts, than from the Blobs] There are sincere biologists who consider science as the literature of Nature; and Nature as something more real than Science. They do work hard to reveal its wonders I think —

BLOB 1. It matters not what a few good-willed researchers do, my dear. Because sporadic efforts fall far short of the global rhizome of the industrial complex trying to rein in and govern ecological networks, with evidenced scientific knowledge in its hands. Particularly when the salaries of your scientists come from this very industrial complex! Look how the lungs of the Earth — the Amazonian rainforests — are being devoured in sustained spurts of fire — snatching away swathes of Brazil, parts of Peru, gnawing down Paraguay and Bolivia. From outer space, they are such ghastly perforations on the body of the globe. Years of weakened environmental protection, human profit-making and prolonged arid seasons from human-engineered global warming did it! Is your global science — the entirety of it from various disciplines — sincere in this cause? Does it rally otherwise, washing up the wounds? No. The respiratory ecological network of the earth is being injured and inflamed, cut up in pieces, and sold off. It is going up in the air in bloody smoke! I heard the current pneumonic attacks on human lungs do the same — create hazy patches on the outer edges of the lungs. Can’t help but comment that it is perhaps a tremendously sad poetic justice?

TEACHER. [Taken aback] Oh — this is — devastating. This is – oh – a very sharp stab in the heart. But I am sure — there will be — [stutters] there are ongoing — efforts — from the governments — agencies — people —

BLOB 1. Sorry, who? If the forest fires were a distant event, look what your governments are doing to the forests right now, when entire countries are shut down — giving approvals to wildlife clearance for strings of developmental project proposals, lifting already ritual limits on carbon emissions, bailing out fossil fuel industries – all under the excuse of ‘turbo charging’ an economy that is right now collapsing like a house of cards. This is nothing short of ecocide! What is the fate of the environment when such guile pervades human systems throughout?

TEACHER. Oh the sheer audacity! [Clenches his head and bows down in despair]

The Virus Called Media

BLOB 3. And even those who wish to do good are silenced so easily by authorities. Even a human health tragedy falls short of the pride of a nation. In any case your Government and Scientific community have outsourced the responsibility and costs of the pandemic to the most vulnerable people in your midst, through locking them down instead of spending on testing, and health services. They used the technologies of your ‘value neutral’ Mathematics and Science to formulate and justify these policy decisions. Not to mention the kind of all-pervasive surveillance technologies your Governments are institutionalizing, taking this opportunity. Like we said before, more than the virus itself, harm would be due to panic, xenophobia, authoritarianism and lies that humans will bring upon themselves. You need Science not because you are in love with Nature. But because you need to control and govern Nature—which is a blasphemy for me, because the same humans are only a tiny part of the same Nature. How can you guys ever dream of governing it? You are not even capable of governing yourselves!

TEACHER. I get it, I realize it now. [A blank stare in the wide open] This is all a cyclic loop — Science feeds the myth which then sustains the nations and their ploys —

BLOB 3. That is true.

TEACHER. [In a long drawn pause of contemplation] I think I can see the craftily built myth that you are referring to — in science education as well. [With a deep breath] Stories that crumble — because we are detached from Nature — we treat Nature with a certain fear, of staying away, staying put, replete with metaphors of containment. Oh yes — [Hurriedly returns back to his desk] I remember this [Pulls out a textbook page]

“We live in an environment that is full of 
many other creatures apart from us. 
It is inevitable that many diseases 
will be transmitted by other animals.”

This is a fallout of the project of colonising the Nature, isn’t it?

BLOB 2. Yes. [Solemnly] Colonialism, with the classical mix of deep fear of the ‘wild other’. This fear necessitates your need to create myths for yourself to feel safe – you had begun with simple myths about Gods and Demons, and now over thousand years, you have graduated to more complex ones such as your economic measures, your quarantine measures, your border walls and transport bans, your insurance policies, for-profit medicine industry and private health-care, your detention centers and prisons, your corporate bail-outs, your army and surveillance-capitalism, your biopolitics, your governmentality, your “work from home”s and your pathetic “social distancing”, your medico-social population registers, your “War on Viruses”.

BLOB 1. Look for yourself if you can make out this ‘othering’ of Nature from the chapter titled ‘OUR ENVIRONMENT’ here. [Sifts through the textbook again] It attributes increased amounts of waste material to “improvements in our life-style” and “changes in attitude”, such as the use of “more disposable” things and increased “packaging”. And the one on ‘POLLUTION’ tells an untrue fact when Delhi is shared as a “success story” in the “fight against pollution”. Neither does not mention that New Delhi is the most polluted capital city in the world, nor the fact that twenty-one Indian cities are among the world’s most polluted. Hell, we have done more in just a few months to clean up the air of your cities than all the glorious efforts you mention in your propaganda material here! [throws away the book in disgust]

BLOB 2. [Makes a gesture towards BLOB 1 to calm down. Then addresses the teacher] Point is, this is the integrity with which substantial facts about our immediate Nature and anthropogenic presence is being reported in your textbooks. What attitude does it demand from the users of such text? Look at the recommendations it lists! Switching over from fossil fuels to alternative fuels such as “solar energy, hydropower and wind energy”, without any serious discussion about how to effect such a change in the current global economy, without any critical analysis of really how environmentally ‘friendly’ these sources of energy are after all. There is no mention of the need to cut down on human energy consumption. Or a shift in the entire premise of the human activity and political economy. Statements like “small contributions [that] can make a huge difference”, such as planting trees and nurturing “the ones already present in the neighbourhood” fails to address the massive elephants in the room — global MNCs, hand-in-gloves governments, crony think-tanks. Yet somehow places the individual man as the likely saviour — in whose hand the salvation of the planet rests! It fails to comment that the natural forests on this planet didn’t come into being because humans planted those trees. Majority of science texts talk about pollution in Nature, while keeping Nature completely out of the picture. It feels like a doctor talking about a disease while keeping the body itself out of the discussion. Doesn’t work that way — that is patronising and colonising attitude — of looking down beneath —

And people in the audience, among those who stayed back, are looking all around. Why are they hovering and closing in with one another with each passing minute. Why are they disobeying the unsaid rule to maintain silence and distance — as always? They must sit at their designated places, do as they are commanded to — as always. There are murmurs of the actors being too provocative. What, these monologues are unscripted? Who said so? Who allowed them? Who conducted the auditions for these roles? Various possibilities are ripe, but the play barely notices any such trivialities.

BLOB 3. [Trying to pacify the Teacher] Look, as we said before, we do not consider ourselves to be friends of humans. You are not an enemy either, you are just another host on whom we can latch on to. And we learn from our pasts, unlike you do. The past gene transfers, through cats, bats, camels and others, resulting in Ebola, SARS, MERS, H1N1, and the ongoing one. We are a far smoother and benign foreign body for humans than our earlier versions which were more destructive on your bodies — therefore in turn more self-destructive and less successful. But we navigated and produced more virulent genotypes. We did not create myths to fool ourselves, we just became more successful. Don’t you think you have something to learn from us?

TEACHER. I am not even sure anymore about our learning capabilities –

BLOB 1. Touche! Not just us, even History itself seems to have failed on you and your learning abilities. Host immune systems and foreign bodies like viruses have always co-evolved as long as life has existed, following the mechanism of evolution by natural selection. But the time and the nature of such unfolding must be questioned. 1918’s Spanish Flu eradicated anywhere between 50 to 100 million humans from the world, approximately 18 million were from your own country. How could it kill so many people? Because your rulers were busy fighting a global war, and thought of accepting the reality of the pandemic as an inconvenience to their war-time ‘national interests’! What has led to the gigantic scales of the current one? Heady mix of chemical and biological production processes, your industrial scale food industry, never-seen-before environmental destruction. hyper-connections within human societies due to economies of scale, and to top it off – yet again – the reluctance of your political rulers to accept the reality. You have essentially no public health infrastructure, no creation of healthy jobs, no way to provide adequate food for most of your species members, and a broken society where no one is equal to anyone else, where healthcare is a business, and doctors’ jobs are being done by the police force. Be sure that gene transfers from across the diverse ecosystems are going to keep happening, and COVIDs-20, 21 and 22s would keep manifesting because of cumulative human faults. Be ready my friend!

BLOB 2. [Steps in to chilling whisper] And just to add — we have no idea what kind of micro-organisms lie latent inside those ice sheets in the melting poles. I don’t think anyone in the past several generations has met them — but what I hear the stories — they sure are scary as hell!

TEACHER. [Quite visibly slipping into a bout of depression at this point] We’ve messed up!

BLOB 2. Pretty much. Look at what you have done to the climate! You are at war not with any so-called virus, you are at war with the planet itself. You have converted the entire planet into a furnace because of your greed. Your inane words like ‘Friends’ and ‘Foes’ are going to be fried when those microorganisms wake up!

Eerie. Something quite eerie has happened over the past stretches of time. One cannot be certain what is being said, and being said by whom. Words are echoing off from the theatre floor to the stage and back, from the parapets onto the heavy curtains. It is a miscellany of voices. There are ruptures from the darkness and silhouettes. Words are indistinguishable from the porous light. Who is it that speaks and who listens? The phrases distant and utterances are incoherent — they recede and overlap among multitudes. Can we really sift through what is happening around? The play has now recruited its themes from those who gather around to see (and read). Some of them are crawling from the margins, others from the streets below the hall, some from wide, some far. The cast has multiplied and faces may not have names. Yet the play proceeds, and follows convention — of assigning words to known accomplices.

BLOB 3. But you know what, the script is already known. Humans will again take refuge in yet another favorite myth of theirs — that everything’s gonna be alright. That they somehow own the almighty Time as well, that they can buy and sell time, while taking refuge in ‘flattening the curve’ — the war cry, the savior slogan! You will quarantine yourself and shut down all economic activities in such crisis times thinking that you are ‘buying’ time, hoping that that you will earn ‘herd immunity’ for free, at the dirt-cheap cost of working-class bodybags. When things get better you will come out of your caves, get back onto the floors of your Stock Exchanges and factories, start selling and betting on time again — like a bull on steroids — and think that you will make up for the losses. You will be faced with relentless waves of health epidemics, economic epidemics — like you have been having since 2008 — climate epidemics and refugee epidemics. But remember brother, Time is on our side – not yours!

[A grandfather clock chimes its bell at a distance at this point, and then another, and another – as if to announce their unanimous agreement with the Blob. It’s midnight. The sound of the bell echoes across the stage. The eeriness has never been so loud, yet so freezing silent]

The Virus Called Caste

BLOB 1. [Once the echoing bells fade out] What a tragedy you guys are! Look at the irony of the situation now: those very hands that were the evolutionary miracle that made you who you are today from your primate stages – have now turned into your biggest enemies. If you are to survive the epidemic, you essentially need to treat your own hands—your building instinct—as your nemesis! A small micro-organism was enough to wreck the myths of the liberal establishment that you have built with those hands over the ages—all your Gods, social customs, priests, economies, medicines, leaders, everything and everyone has either left you in the middle of this crisis, or are useless, or worse, are out there making profits off the crisis. Your rulers are using this opportunity to map you to the minutest of details. Your Government’s public health advisories read as if everyone in your society belong to your arrogant urban ivory towers. You guys don’t even have an idea of how to compensate the daily-wage earners in your economy in the midst of a global shutdown—this after being an economy-driven species for 3000 years! You say ‘social distancing’ but you are not willing to provide unconditional basic income and ration to every citizen irrespective of what work they do. ‘Social distancing’ has been your social organising principle even when there were no ‘virus attacks’!

BLOB 2. There is no one or no object that you can really trust anymore. Your investors can not trust your economy anymore. Your citizens don’t really trust your Governments anymore. Your neighbors can’t trust each other anymore. Your students can not trust your school systems anymore. You thought schools and colleges were next to your temples; but the pandemic has proved that you don’t really need any of those institutions when it comes to the question of basic survival. All your own manufactured products have become potential careers of infection for you. Humans are such a tragedy! Can your ‘Science Education’ handle these truths? Does it even come into cognizance with these as truths? Both you and me know the answer to that!

The teacher at this point has given up all attempts to even answer back at anything.

BLOB 1. [Realizes the drain on the poor human body in front of them, and perhaps as an act of pity, says – ] Ok, maybe one last question, before we leave. What is the definition of a ‘VIRUS’, what do you mean by a ‘PANDEMIC’, and what is the meaning of ‘DISEASE’?

TEACHER. [His throat is dry from exhaustion at this point. Gulps some water, either to wet it, or to buy some time to gather the strength to speak, we will never know] Well, I can give you the definitions from Science text books, but I know that is not what you are looking for…

BLOB 1. Yes, I mean the literal, etymological definition. The word ‘VIRUS’ in Latin literally means “poisonous substance”. ‘PANDEMIC’ means “pertaining to all people; public, common”. ‘DISEASE’ is derived from the old French word ‘desaise’ which means “lack, want; discomfort, distress; trouble, misfortune; disease, sickness”. In your textbook chapter on health and diseases, there is no talk about the health of Nature itself – the point that your health is inseparable from the health of Nature and Environment as a whole. The only context in which the ‘Environment’ is even mentioned in that chapter is when it is portrayed as a Petri dish of health hazards that humans should be wary of:

"The health of all organisms will depend on their 
surroundings or their environment. 
The environment includes the physical environment. 
So, for example, health is at risk in a cyclone 
in many ways ... For vector-borne infections, 
we can provide clean environments. This would not, 
for example, allow mosquito breeding. In other words, 
public hygiene is one basic key to the prevention of 
infectious diseases."

But what about the health of the Environment? What if it is fatally sick, suffering from several ‘DISEASES’? Not just that it is sick, what our Nature is faced with today is nothing less than a grave ‘PANDEMIC’—a disease that pertains to all constituents in Nature, across the globe and across all ecosystems. One million species of plants and animals are at the brink of the greatest ever mass extinction in the history of the planet, and it’s all due to human activity. One million species!! YOU are the poison as far as Nature is concerned! What if YOU, my brother, are the VIRUS for all of us? If anything, if me or my successors and other family members are successful in either wiping you guys out, or at least in putting you in your place, then shouldn’t we be treated as the ‘ANTI-VIRUS’ for mother Nature? I am not the villain you are looking for, just get a mirror for yourselves!

BLOB 3: But you know what? I think we are going to fail in this. Even we are not capable of leveling the kind of hierarchies you have built over the ages!Your own constructed family of Race, Caste, Capitalism viruses are possibly still going to win this time. In all likelihood, it is in fact going to become a much more unequal world of humans, post this pandemic. But we can also tell you that this is not the end my friend. The battle, if at all, has only just begun.

Eerie silence at this point. A sense of all pervasive failure droops down on the stage like a thick mushroom cloud. The teacher is seen stooping down on his desk, covering his face with his hands, clearly with no energy to pay heed to the non-stop advisories of “avoid touching your face”.

Finally he lifts his face. A look of utter helplessness and plea in his eyes.

TEACHER. But we must think of some refuge, for the kids at least — for the learners — they have not played any role in any of this isn’t it – they should not have to inherit this catastrophe –

BLOB 2. Begin with apologizing to them! Overhaul the attitudes of your education — first teach yourselves to acknowledge the truths as they are, before you go on the preaching mode. When you meet your students the next time , ask them to physically distance themselves from each other, but also remind them the difference between physical distancing and social distancing. Teach them to talk to each other, to differ with each other, to ask questions. Teach them that the only truth is that which is meant for the good of every human being on earth. You can’t give up the locus of the human subject. You must strengthen it — through sense and empathy —

BLOB 1. — and solidarity against oppression. Teach them to rally against colonization of other humans, and colonization of Nature! Teach them about those who fought such struggles. Teach them the history of common people. Remember Chief Seattle’s letter to the US President? Why not start with that – Remember that he wrote without a shred of doubt –

“The President in Washington sends word that 
he wishes to buy our land. 
But how can you buy or sell the sky? The land? 
The idea is strange to us. 
If we do not own the freshness of the air and 
the sparkle of the water, how can you sell them? 
Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. 
Every shining pine needle, every humming insect. 
All are holy in the memory 
and experience of my people.”

He also talked about Education of children —

“Will you teach your children what we have 
taught our children? 
That the earth is our Mother? 
What befalls the earth befalls all 
the sons of the earth.”

How about realizing a science curriculum that The Chief envisioned so long back —

“This we know: The earth does not belong to man, 
man belongs to the earth. 
All things are connected like the blood 
that unites us all. 
Man did not weave the web of life; 
he is merely a strand of it. 
Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.”

Teach them, teach them to teach themselves. Teach them to free up knowledge for all. Can your science, your science education reconstruct itself like that? Can you humans adapt to it?
Maybe time will tell.

[Takes a long pause]

Perhaps, only time will tell.

Curtains, as if there were any.

 

A New Education, from a Graveyard

*The author is a Mathematician and Education Researcher and can be reached at tathagataletters[at]riseup[dot]net

Statement on COVID-19 Pandemic

SftP Statement on COVID-19 Pandemic                                

The COVID-19 Pandemic has generated multiple crises across healthcare, economic, and social systems in the U.S. and across the world.

Progressive and radical organizations must rise to meet the immediate challenges of these crises, while also working to replace the failing systems that gave rise to them. We must practice solidarity by aiding impacted communities and by marshaling scientists and scientific resources in these efforts. We demand accountability for the effects of these crises from government, financial, and social institutions. We must support institutions conducting, supporting, and applying scientific research related to the pandemic. 

The pandemic is causing great harm not only due to direct effects of COVID-19 on health, but also through economic devastation affecting livelihoods, housing, transportation, medical care, education, access to nutrition, and all systems necessary for our health and well-being. Physical distancing and anxieties regarding the pandemic will have negative impacts on mental health and social relationships, with even greater impacts on working people laid off amidst financial collapse. Meanwhile, the absence of adequate resources for healthcare, combined with the focus on protecting the financial sector, lay bare the priorities of the capitalist system. 

People in low income and marginalized populations, often with compromised health and denied adequate healthcare long before the pandemic, are the hardest hit. Current government assistance plans proposed during this crisis have been woefully inadequate and leave out major sections of the population: the unemployed, the houseless, the disabled, people who are imprisoned, and the vast majority of people with no wealth and much debt, who are disproportionately people of color. We demand that their needs are put first in public assistance programs dealing with the pandemic. 

It is crucial that we grow and amplify scientific knowledge amidst this pandemic through responsible transparent research and technological development.  Building knowledge about the virus and the disease, including publicly available resources for genomics, epidemiology, infection control and vaccine development will improve containment and medical treatment. Centering vulnerable populations in our priorities will help protect them and build the best overall public health strategy; when vulnerable populations have good healthcare, care is better for everyone. Projections of the extent and severity of COVID-19 are crucial for planning strategic deployment of resources; testing must be universally available and implemented. We demand that any science and technology developed to respond to the pandemic are available for all, without profit or patent.

Nurses and other healthcare workers are on the front lines of fighting the pandemic and face great risks delivering care. Supporting these workers is critical for public health. They must have access to the personal protective equipment, adequate testing resources, and training programs needed to stay safe while providing care. Additionally, we must support the right of these workers to form unions and engage in collective bargaining to support their interests. Public funds must be allocated to greatly increase the number of healthcare professionals and to adequately compensate them. We demand that all public and private healthcare institutions listen to and meet the needs of nurses and healthcare workers.

The workers who are ensuring adequate supplies of food, transportation, and other essential supplies by continuing to go to their jobs through the pandemic, are mostly underpaid and lack the resources to choose to not show up. Farmworkers, many of whom are migrants in precarious situations, are continuing to work in the fields. We demand that these workers be given adequate pay, benefits, and protection immediately, not only during the pandemic but permanently.

Production of masks, protective clothing, ventilation systems, isolation rooms, and other protective equipment must become a top economic priority, to be provided free wherever needed. Universities, research institutions, government agencies, the military, and private enterprises that have personal protective equipment in their inventories must offer these resources to support medical response to the pandemic. We demand that healthcare and essential service workers be given proper personal protective equipment for their safety.

This pandemic shows us the impact of neoliberal defunding of public health institutions and attacks on science, education and  public media. Stopping and reversing this trend is critical for our survival. The exorbitant funds allocated for the military and state security apparatuses should be immediately reallocated to public health and social support systems. Professionals with expertise and experience in infection control must be given the opportunity to provide honest communication to the public. We demand truth in reporting and accurate data about the pandemic.

Local efforts to support these needs and control the pandemic should be supported. However, there is a pressing need for more adequate infrastructure and leadership from the federal government. We must support, politically and financially, institutions such as the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health, while at the same time greatly increasing the funding and political support for community health organizations and State and local health departments. We must develop and implement strategies for increasing the cooperation and collaboration of local health departments with the national institutions such as CDC. Combined, these measures help lay the groundwork for implementing the necessary programs for combating the pandemic and ensuring public health. We demand adequate funding and support for public research institutions.

The pandemic is a global phenomenon. It cannot be addressed by isolationist, xenophobic and  nationalistic “America First” policies. Internationalism and anticolonialism must guide collaborations across the world, for sharing research and resources, and for learning from best practices wherever they are occurring. In particular, sanctions that prevent countries such as Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela from accessing needed medical equipment and supplies must be suspended or cancelled.We demand a global and peaceful response to the pandemic.

Science for the People stands in solidarity with all people across the world as we work together to end the pandemic. We ask that scientists uplift these demands and provide aid where they can.

Science for the People

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How Borders Work: Colombian, Mexican + Mediterranean Frontiers

 

This event brings together writers and activists from the Colombia-Panama, US-Mexico and Mediterranean borders. Between them, they have decades of experience documenting and opposing the global reach of border militarization. Our speakers will discuss the role of borders as instruments of race and class warfare in the service of capital, the place of migrants in the contemporary landscape of labor, and strategies for political organizing against border regimes on either side of the Atlantic.

Friday, January 24th 6-8pm
Location: Columbia University, Room #963 Schermerhorn Extension

Co-sponsored by: Science for the People NYC, Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine, Potere al Popolo, Punto Rojo Magazine, Architecture Lobby NYC, and the Colombian Studies Group

***
SPEAKERS

Edgar Frank is a farmworker organizer in Washington State. He participated in the formation of the first independent farmworker union in WA State since 1986 and today works with Familias Unidas por la Justicia and unions on food sovereignty, participatory democracy models, and just transition demands.

Justin Akers Chacón is a professor of U.S. History and Chicano Studies in San Diego, California and is the author, with Mike Davis, of No One is Illegal.

Francesco Piobbichi is an Italian activist of Mediterranean Hope who organizes both on the Italian border island of Lampedusa, and in the “bracciante” camps of the Italian South, where criminalized migrants are employed as agricultural day laborers. His collections of writing and drawing aim to keep a record of border struggles in the Mediterranean migrant passage and the militant tradition of migrant organizing in Italian agro-industry.

Carlos Villalón is Chilean award-winning photojournalist based in Colombia whose work has been published in National Geographic, The New York Times, and The Guardian, among other outlets. One of his current long-term projects covers the dynamics at the Darién Gap, a jungle region at the border between Colombia and Panama where each year hundreds of migrants from Africa, Southeast Asia and the Americas pass on their way to North America.

Chloe Haralambous (moderator) works with the Greek island collective, Lesvos Solidarity, and the Mediterranean migrant rescue organization, Sea-Watch. She is a PhD candidate at Columbia University.

For questions/media:
Laura Penaranda: societyisland at gmail.com

‘Mubarak On Our Mind’: The Popular Uprising in Puerto Rico [Part II]

AP Photo/Carlos Giusti

In Part I of the interview, JunteGente organizers Bernat Tort and JuanCarlos “Juanqui” Rivera Ramos discussed the motivations, factors, and historical context for the Puerto Rico uprising with SftP member Lala Peñaranda. We examined the different demands following Ricky’s July 24th resignation announcement and looked at the movement’s conscious decision to step back from the status question

JunteGente and other initiatives support demands which include: auditing the debt, declaring a gender-based violence state of emergency, the resignation of Wanda Vasquez, strengthening unions, guaranteeing job security, releasing all those previously arrested for political protests, considering climate debt, electoral reform, restitution of stolen public funds, criminally prosecuting corrupt officials, and the creation of popular assemblies. While sobering, Juanqui and Bernat reminded us that the hardest organizing is still to come. 

Part II of the interview covers climate justice, the role of unions, Arab Spring reflections, and openings for international solidarity. 

Science for the People: It’s been over a week since Ricky Rosselló announced he would resign. In that time, Wanda Vásquez has proclaimed she doesn’t “want” to replace Rosselló, in what can only be described as a recognition of the movement’s power. With your Arab Spring reflections in mind, what has the past week looked like politically?

Juanqui: Well, the challenge is for this not to become a “seasonal change” but an epochal change, and since the spring is turning into summer… The PNP is fighting among itself for the leftovers of power. In the meantime, several asambleas auto-convocadas (self-organized assemblies) have been happening and organizing around the Island-archipelago. 

Whatever happens in the next hours (which is a “mystery” for everyone), needs to have its contrary in the street and in the organization of the people. We (progressive and Left forces) are now in an aggressive organizing phase while simultaneously trying to keep the protests in the street and analysing the situation as we go… Difficult yet hopeful times indeed. There is a possibility that things could take a turn for the worse in terms of who holds power—but not in terms of broadening the radicalization of the public sphere and of organizing efforts.

Science for the People:  By all estimates, Puerto Rico will continue to experience increasingly polarized climate patterns. What role has climate change occupied in the uprising’s political discussions?

Juanqui: The political situation hasn’t allowed us to talk about it as much, but we need to tackle this planetary struggle. In the Caribbean, hurricanes, floods, and droughts are going to be stronger and we are going to continue living with them. The issue of climate debt has to be brought to the struggle. Yes, that implies the relationship with the US but how can we begin to weigh in on different struggles in the US? How can we radicalize the idea of the Green New Deal, including what it means for Puerto Rico? The Green New Deal is going to impact Puerto Rico so how we guarantee we have a say in how it plays out? 

And then there’s the important issue of our relationship to the diaspora. Because we have been through so much. We are 8.5 million Puerto Ricans in the world but only 3 million in the island archipelago. How do we keep that relationship going? That’s one of the reasons we went to the Socialism Conference in Chicago and to meet with Rossana Rodríguez Sanchez [alderwoman in Chicago’s 33rd ward]. 

Bernat: There are real organizing challenges here. The demands have been very simple: Ricky Resign, end the Junta, etc. But when you enter the topic of climate change and climate justice, it’s a very complex discussion even just to distinguish: should Puerto Rico care about climate change? On the one hand, even if Puerto Rico went 100 percent green tomorrow, it would have no effect on tomorrow’s global greenhouse gas emissions. We wouldn’t be able to contribute to the conversation in that sense. We don’t sit at the table in any of the G8 meetings, of course, and we don’t have the international power to strike deals for green energy, etc. 

On the other hand, we are suffering the effects of the consumption of the First World, the industrial corporations, and the military complex. So we should turn our gears towards demands for a Just Transition. We need to train workers for new sectors and stop pushing for tourism given our coast will be increasingly flooded– and because in the near future, it’s just not a sustainable industry anyhow for Puerto Rico. It’s a hard conversation to have.

Science for the People: We agree that if the US is going to pass a Green New Deal, Left forces must seriously consider its international dimensions, including Puerto Rico and beyond. I know you’re still thinking through these complex topics, but what would you say are some of the demands coming from Puerto Rico for a Green New Deal? What should organizations like ours be pushing for within a People’s Green New Deal regarding Puerto Rico?

Juanqui: In JunteGente, we have different sorts of working groups. Currently one of them is organizing an international meeting around climate change. Those encounters are intended to gather people- from farmers, pescadores, scientists- to listen to each other, collect information and based on that, JuneGente can develop a platform. So I don’t feel comfortable saying ‘this is what we want” because we haven’t had that meeting yet. 

Bernat: Our political logic is that we gather the people who actually do the agroecological and environmental work and ask them- have a convening- to collectively set the agenda. 

Juanqui: But to answer your question, in general we need support around Just Transition, climate debt, the debt crisis. I mean,  The colonial process and the transformation of Puerto Rico has been imposed by a US-focused development. So naturally, our ecological issues are directly related to that. In the past we’ve had the sudden transformation of a diverse archipelago to a sugar monoculture with ecological devastation. Add to that the imposition of the US suburbanization and urbanization models. The car model is the main form of transportation. Puerto Rico has one of the largest concentrations of roads and motor vehicles, and the urban sprawl is just insane. These are all US models. Fordism transformed our landscape. I mention all this because, yes, there is an ecological and climate debt that we have to talk about regarding the US. But these are just general notions. 

Science for the People: You are organizing a conference. Can you tell us a little bit about it and why people should attend? [We will link to the conference site here as soon as it goes up.]

Juanqui: Yes, we are trying to bring together social movements, community organizations, scientists, people in public policy, and other sectors to reflect on our planetary crisis but specifically within the context of the Caribbean and Puerto Rico in terms of political ecology, of bringing the political dimension to the ecological reality. Two JunteGente members are leading the organizing of the two-day conference.

We think that we are in a different country. I mean, as Lenin said, there are decades where nothing happens and weeks where decades occur. These two weeks have been decades and decades of happenings. We are in a different country and I think this conference is important given the current political juncture. We want to take advantage of the fact that perhaps we can inspire other people to rise up, reflect, and mobilize. Hopefully in the US as well, because Trump is an embodiment of these chats.

Bernat: He’s a walking chat.

Juanqui: I think people in the US can also rise up and get inspired by the “colony down here”.

Artwork by Colectivo La Puerta

Science for the People: Definitely. I got chills with your mention of asambleas populares and the state of emergency against gender-based violence. A recent NACLA piece argued that these protests are quite literally about life and death, as you have mentioned. Quoting the article, “the rhetoric and attitudes of the Governor and his closest allies captured in the chat are ones that promote harm and death in a number of ways, from the outright incitement of violence to the promotion of a neoliberal politics of deadly neglect.” What does the “deadly neglect” of neoliberal politics mean to you?

Bernat: One of the things I find most striking, a catalyzing factor in people showing up, is not only the blatant disregard for Puerto Rican life and well-being but the actual ineptitude and neglect for governance. The administration has neither the capacity nor the inclination, nor the vocation for governance. It makes you– I say this very cautiously– it almost makes you yearn for decent right-wing people.

Juanqui: Oh shit—

Bernat: But you know what I’m saying. They would govern in a direction I disagree with and they would have a different view of what society should be but at least it’s a political debate. This is like blatant egoistic greed. Regarding “deadly neglect,” I would stress that, yes, they took on a task without being up to the challenge but the worst part (though hopeful) is knowing that literally anyone could do a better job. If we learn something from the chat, it is that anyone can govern, that we can govern ourselves. If these were the people who were supposedly the experts on governance, then we know that we can do it, that anyone can do it. Pick someone at random and say, “what do you think should be the direction in which we should administer the Puerto Rican well-being?” —and anyone would do a better job.

Juanqui: In Puerto Rico at least, the government is an institution to hire, contract, and accumulate a maximum profit. These people are thinking as a group- not even a company, “how can we get rich?” These wealthy families are casta criolla [homegrown caste] but they’re also just the natural product this logic– in a colonial framework. It’s a competition for who gets the money: the gringo or the criollo.

Bernat: The neoliberal state has deteriorated or made almost extinct an entire class of public servant experts. There were career public servants who knew the nooks and crannies of how things got done. And suddenly we don’t have that in our utilities. That puts the government in a position of hiring”experts” who do not have public service as their goal, but just profit.

Science for the People: One of the counterforces to this rampant privatization have been the unions. What role have the unions played in the uprising?

Juanqui: First, a little context. Since at least the late 1990s after the Telefonica Strike in 1997-98, unions became really fragmented and lost a lot of power under neoliberalism. This is partly why unions have not been a big organizing force. This is not to say that there aren’t militant unions active in today’s processes. Militant unions like UTIER and others have been involved in the mobilizations and in resisting utilities privatization. They have contributed to the moment with their knowledge on the logistics of marching in massive numbers. They have also offered their offices to different movements so we can have our political meetings, reflect on what’s happening, and organize actions.

Bernat: There have been unions in the meetings and on the streets. As we mentioned, one of the demands of the mobilizations was to repeal the new labor reform, strengthen unions, and fight for job security. Something beautiful that would have happened on Monday [had Ricky not announced his resignation] – is that the union of truckers, instead of simply going on strike, put out a public statement saying “we are going to have a meeting to propose a strike but we want to know that the Puerto Rican public are ready to withstand the effects, the consequences of our striking, because if we strike there won’t be gas in the stations, there won’t be food in the stores, nor basic medicine in pharmacies. This was planned to be an indefinite strike to pressure Ricky. So they did a democratic social media referendum and people were saying, “yeah, of course, let’s do it, we are ready.” It was one of the most beautiful demonstrations of participatory democracy.

Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Science for the People: Let’s talk about the Right.  What has been its response to the uprising and to Ricky’s resignation? 

Juanqui: You have a very wealthy elite of criollos that really don’t know shit about el pueblo in Puerto Rico; and yet they make all the decisions, living in their own class bubble. At this time yesterday even the most conservative, pro-capitalist organizations, were like “ok, Ricky Renuncia” because we were affecting them. All the biggest malls in Puerto Rico, which are part of the political party of the governor, agreed he had to step down. The malls closed today and in previous days. Those are millions of dollars that they lost. So the economic pressure was real.

Bernat: There is something peculiar about this context though. Some people are referring to the chats as “the David Sanes of the uprising”. David Sanes was a Puerto Rican employee of the US Navy who was killed in one of the bombing practices in Vieques. His death was the catalyzing agent for the struggle to close the Navy Base in Vieques. People are calling these chats the David Sanes – i.e. the catalyzing agent- of the uprising. But there is a peculiarity. As soon as Sanes was killed, it was the organized Left that led the struggle to close the base. They were a very ecumenical, rigorous, and extremely organized part of the Left.

But in this case, an FBI intervention was among the catalyzing events. The FBI arrested Julia Keleher, the now-former Secretary of Education and five other people [on charges of steering federal money to politically connected and unqualified contractors]. So we have to be cautious because the catalytic agents were from the Right, from the colonial powers. On one side we have the FBI arrests and on the other, we have the leaked chats which came from inside the ruling party. The latter was a political fight that got blown out of proportion— I’m sure they didn’t intend for this to play out the way it did. Right now, the Party is rumbling. Right now I’m sure they’re lamenting having put that out. Those two occurrences provide context for the struggle.

Now that we have the struggle, how is the Right going to react? The sad part is that they don’t have to mobilize much for their agenda to work because Wanda Vasquéz is going to replace Ricky as interim Governor, Wanda has already been singled out for having done illegal contracts, etc. So they already put in place another corrupt figure. So she won’t change much. The sad part is that the Right doesn’t have to do that much to gain control of the political opening. That’s why we have to continue fighting and struggling. 

Juanqui: Yea, this plays well for the US Right. A part of our challenge is precisely to show, bring forward, that Trump and Ricardo Rosselló are the same in their hatred towards poor people, black people, women, all sorts of minorities, immigrants, etc, etc. This is part of the struggle: how can we unite #RickyRenuncia, #TrumpRenuncia? One sector of the Right will want a stronger Junta, with an expansion of IMF-type neoliberal policies around Puerto Rico. Some rich Puerto Ricans will benefit from that. There is another sector of the Right that wants their own sphere of autonomy over the economy. In that context, how do we move the conversation towards more radical democracy? That’s one of our great tasks.

Science for the People: Some people have called the recent uprising in Puerto Rico, the Puertorrican Summer, making a direct comparison with the Arab Spring. Do you agree with this assessment, that implies desires for longterm regime change in Puerto Rico? 

Bernat: Not only are we honored as a country by the analogy, because honestly Tahrir Square and everything that happened in the Arab Spring was inspiring to us but also because that was the first thing that popped into our minds as soon as the protests started saying “Ricky Reununcia” we said: “Ok, what happened after Mubarak? Nothing” That was very present in people’s minds.

The day after they got Mubarak out, the military and the Muslim Brotherhood took the better part of the political moment and there was no real or radical regime change. If you go to Spain, and the Occupy Movement, what they have in common is that since the Arab Spring we’ve been very good at appearing in masses everywhere, coming out hardcore in multitudes.  But then there has to be a program of political organizing after the fact, after the protests, and we have to be ready for the next step of radicalizing, for the next step of political organizing in the direction of true participatory democracy.

So this is what we’re going to see from today onwards: if we’re going to stay at that level of the Arab Spring or if we are going to take it to the next level or what we think should be the next steps in the international people’s struggles. 

Science for the People: With that in mind, what are some immediate next steps? 

Juanqui: We are calling for immediate extraordinary elections outside of the old electoral system. We mentioned some of the electoral reform demands. 

Bernat: It would be very interesting if the different sectors that have been protesting could sit at the table and, for example, with Victoria Ciudadana and actually negotiate. OK, we’re going to back you up. But not to cross our arms and say “okay, let’s see what you do”. No, the basis is to continue mobilizing. The power of the people that we have seen through the demonstrations is what sparked the idea for the assemblies. So if have enough feedback from what people want, you can sit down and say “OK, we’ll back you up but these are the demands we have”. That is the most actionable scenario that I see right now because of the way things are set. Not joining a party but putting our demands with a party who would have the possibility of gaining the support of the people who have been manifesting.

Science for the People: Do you have any advice to US-based organizations like Science for the People who stand in solidarity with the Puerto Rican protests and struggle on how to best support the efforts following Ricky’s resignation? 

Juanqui: It’s important to recognize the victory. We have to understand that this is not a revolution in the sense of a radical transformation of the system but it is a revolution in the sense of the people changing at least their ways of recognizing their power.  

Bernat: the political zeitgeist has changed.  

Juanqui: That’s powerful. For me, the topic of solidarity is crucial and beautiful. One thing is to maintain the presence of Puerto Rico in the reflections that you have- political reflections and beyond. La importancia de mantener nuestra presencia en la ecuación. The other expression of effective solidarity is to also rise up and struggle against your own oppressions in the US against ICE, against Trump, against xenophobia, racism, and misogyny. Wherever you are, join the struggles there. Let’s ensure we continue to see the connections between Puerto Rico and all other struggles. So, those two things: keep us alive in your conversations and be a part of the struggle against your oppressors– which are our same oppressors. 

Bernat:  And I would not hesitate to call this an international movement in the sense that you mentioned the Arab Spring. For example, the feminist movement that we were inspired by Argentina and Spain, we’re in an international movement, we need to solidify those points. This is internationalism at work: we have to own that, we have to believe that it is an international movement. These are not just separate accidental international struggles. This is a global fight against neoliberalism, against capitalism, and against a process that denies climate change and denies that we need to mobilize now to transform in order to save the habitability of our planet.  

Juanqui: What Bernat says is crucial. I mean, yes, there is a particular political and colonial context for Puerto Rico but this is also a global struggle for radical democracy. That’s why we talk about the Arab Spring, the Puerto Rican Summer with a Caribbean taste and whatnot but this is a struggle for radical democracy and it should be everywhere. Cause otherwise—they will keep winning and nobody will be safe. 

The good news is we have the momentum. People have the power. This is democracy in practice. This is sovereignty in practice. This is decolonization in practice because, at the end of the day, colonialism is also about not identifying yourself as a human being capable of transforming the world, right? So if you’re a colonial subject you think you cannot change the world, etc. But here we as a people we toppled a fucking government. So hey, we can do this. This is self-determination.