ÜLKEDE ÖZGÜR GÜNDEM 29 July 2006
Invest in
Caring Not Killing: Women’s Opposition to Dams and War
by
Maggie Ronayne
Global Women’s Strike
and
Lecturer in Archaeology, National University of Ireland Galway
The US-led war
against the world is not only waged by military means or by globalisation,
but by development projects. These very profitable projects displace large
numbers of people and have devastating cultural and environmental impacts.
In cases of environmental devastation, whether by military or other means,
it is women who generally have to pick up the pieces, caring for those made
ill by pollution, fallout from weapons or displaced into extreme poverty by
a dam. The GAP development project, in which US and European companies and
governments (and it seems Israeli companies also) are involved is a prime
example of all this.
I am a
professional archaeologist and an academic. I am also an activist with the
Global Women's Strike, a grassroots women’s network in over 60 countries,
independent of all political parties and organising together under the theme
‘Invest in Caring Not Killing’. Since 1999 my academic work has involved
looking at the cultural and environmental impact of Ilısu and other dams in
the GAP project, meeting with affected communities, particularly women
villagers on many occasions.
‘How can
village women have anything to say about the environment or know anything
about culture or heritage?’ we are told. In fact they know a great deal
about culture and environment. Women everywhere are usually the main carers
for their families and carry an enormous unwaged workload in the home and in
the community. And in most of the world they work on the land as well,
growing food and tending animals to keep families alive. So they are the
experts on what being displaced from the village and the land – by dams or
war – really means. In Turkey, women, especially Kurdish women, have faced
a terrible additional burden because of the conflict. By means of this work
for everyone’s survival, women make a fundamental contribution to culture.
There would not be any culture without this work. I have called this the
culture of caring and this is the most important part of culture that the
dams threaten.
This
orientation towards women and women's cultural work, which informs my work
as an archaeologist and academic, has been worked out within the Global
Women’s Strike. In the context of the dams it has meant finding out and
publicising why women in particular oppose or are worried about these
projects and the impact of the dams and the conflict on women and all of
those in their care. I don’t dig up ancient sites on the archaeological
salvage projects – many villagers don’t want that anyway. They see those
digs as making a way for the dams to go ahead – quite rightly. Instead I
have been able to use my skills as an archaeologist to comment on the value
of the cultural heritage – ancient and recent, including this cultural work
– that would be submerged. And these archaeological considerations support
the case of affected communities against the destruction threatened by the
dams.
Recently, in consultation
with women villagers, I prepared with the Strike a review of a report: the
Update of the Environmental Impact Assessment for the Ilısu dam. We sent it
to the Swiss, German and Austrian governments who are considering funding
the project. Companies and governments have to do these reports in order to
secure funding and political backing. But communities worldwide find that
the documents and the surveys for them are prepared without input from the
people directly affected. Or they may also misrepresent the situation.
Unsurprisingly, I found the
report to be much the same as the previous 2001 version, the same cover up,
lack of information, breaches of basic standards. It demeans the culture
and heritage of grassroots rural people, beginning with women and their
cultural work to ensure everyone’s survival, their villages, their
connection to the land and all the resources on it. And it goes to great
lengths to avoid mentioning the impact of the dam on Kurdish culture in
particular.
Together with
women villagers and the Strike, I have been working hard to try to make
visible the demands of women in the region on Ilısu and other dams. These
demands are part of the struggle we are all making against poverty and war.
The authorities and dam builders don’t want to hear women’s demands and
often NGOs and political parties don’t either.
The dam builders and
assessors finally now mention women in the reports – but only as victims
whose poverty is used an excuse for the dam to go ahead.
If you believed these documents, the dam would do wonders for women
especially.
Of course the
promises are not backed up by any concrete plans or funding, there are few
local benefits of the dam.
As women from
Suçeken (Kurdish name Şikefta) village say: ‘our question is: will it be
harmful to us?’ But they have not received a truthful answer or even any
substantial information about these reports.
There is no
evaluation in the report we reviewed of women’s contribution to society
through their caring work, I found no evidence that carers would benefit,
and in all likelihood they would have to undertake an even greater burden of
work in conditions of increased poverty if the dam went ahead. Proposals
for ‘training’ and ‘income generation’ projects for women displaced by the
dams are not properly budgeted for and the way the report speaks about
involving the private sector and NGOs, it seems likely that any money for
these programmes would go to professionals for ‘helping the poor’ rather
than to women themselves.
The effects of
the conflict are hardly mentioned even though, as village women from Suçeken
recently informed us: ‘the
main problem is war. This is the main reason for our poverty. The first
thing we want is an end to war.’
It is outrageous that professionals write such reports and
implement these projects. But there are professionals who want to be more
accountable to grassroots communities or at least can’t remain silent. Mr
James Ramsay CEnv, an experienced impact assessor involved with World Bank
projects among others, contacted me to comment on Ilısu and we have included
his very interesting comments in the review:
I was involved with the
Ilısu Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) in April and May 1997 as a
possible team leader, before pulling out when the farcical nature of the
whole process became apparent. The Swiss-German engineer responsible at that
time for putting together the environmental team for the international EIA
made it clear that resources and permission for credible fieldwork and
consultation would not be forthcoming, and that the EIA would not have any
significant effect on the project, which would go ahead with or without
impact assessment.
How can EU governments back
the dam in these circumstances?
There’s much to learn from what has been won elsewhere as
well. Earlier this year I was in Venezuela as part of the Global Women’s
Strike delegation. The multi-national corporations and the US-backed
white elite stole Venezuela’s oil revenue for decades while the majority of
people of Black and Indigenous descent lived in poverty. We heard at
first hand from the grassroots how the oil wealth is now being returned to
communities. In Venezuela, women’s unwaged work is valued in the
constitution and a State bank is dedicated to financing economic initiatives
of grassroots women. Grassroots women lead land surveys for title deeds to
squatted land; while re-distribution of idle land (previously held by
landlords and multi-nationals) is backed by a land law that prioritises
woman-headed households.
While we were there the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez,
announced that half a million women, beginning with the poorest, would get
paid some wages for their caring work. As of May this fantastic victory for
women everywhere was beginning to be implemented. The Venezuelan
constitution shows us how much they value the culture of caring, for example
Article 88:
‘…The State recognises work in the home as an economic
activity that creates added value and produces social welfare and wealth.
Housewives are entitled to social security.’
The wealth is people - that’s what the culture of caring
produces. By contrast, GAP and the plans for Ilısu not only devalue but
attempt to destroy this culture; in fact they are an attack on women, all
those in their care and the caring work women have done for generations and
continue to do today.
They are not suggesting that others relieve
women of overwork of being the only carers. No, they are attacking women and
their work in order to attack all those in their care. The attack on this
work is thus a measure of its political importance.
For help with contacting women in Suçeken village in 2006 and
translation we thank Ayşan Sönmez from Feminist Kadın Çevresi.
For more information on the Global Women’s Strike, including
materials in Kurdish and Turkish, see
www.globalwomenstrike.net
© Maggie Ronayne July 2006
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