Wednesday, December 31, 2014

"DISOBEDIENCE IS VITAL" - VANDANA SHIVA


Vandana Shiva : « Désobéir, c'est vital »

"Disobedience is vital"


Elle - ‎1 hour ago‎
La première fois que l'on rencontre Vandana Shiva, c'est en octobre 2013, au Women's Forum de Deauville, un rassemblement annuel de femmes d'influence de tous continents. Son sari tranche dans le ballet des costumes des businesswomen. Ses idées ...
Translated by Google Translate: 
If environmentalists are heard today is thanks to her. Teaches us that opponent to the giants of the food? Answers in a fascinating book *.

The first time we meet Vandana Shiva, it was in October 2013, the Women's Forum in Deauville, an annual gathering of influential women from all continents. Slice her sari in ballet costumes of businesswomen. His ideas also. In her mouth, no discourse on competitiveness, but rather an exhortation to cooperation and solidarity. Wisdom, benevolence that Gandhi feminine applied all his life environmental activist. The second head-to-head is held by Skype in fall 2014. Even by interposed screen, Vandana Shiva has the aura of women in particular needed. Sure of herself and her struggle, she also has an unshakable faith in the men's capacity for change. Meet a whistleblower unusual.

IT. You gave a conference on agro-ecology in Paris, sold on December 6. This will he reassures have your case heard?
Vandana Shiva. Yes I Am. But it's been that I no longer feel alone in my fight for biodiversity, fortunately. I gave this conference with the wonderful poet and philosopher Pierre Rabhi. He defends, like me, a model of society more respectful of man and nature. And advocates a happy sobriety. There are thirty, I was fighting to save Indian agriculture in the race to pesticides and the threat of GMOs; Today, I am joined by many NGOs, politicians around the world. That's reassuring.

IT. Since when you are struggling to preserve the planet and its resources?
Vandana Shiva. My first act of resistance, I made unconsciously, on the feast of my 6 years. My grandmother was very proud to offer me a nylon sari, made I know not where. I politely declined preferring to keep my own organic cotton. It was just a piece of cloth, but I felt myself, high to a grasshopper, it was more than that. At 22, I became involved in the movement Chipko Andolan: women chained themselves to trees to prevent deforestation.

IT. Where do you get this rebellious soul?
Vandana Shiva. My family! My mother was an intellectual, a university, but it was someone very close to nature and even became a farmer on later. And my father was a ranger. I spent my youth roaming the forests of the Himalayas, to study the virtues of medicinal plants, herbaria tinkering ... My grandfather made a hunger strike to defend the creation of a School girls in the 50s, I was deeply affected. He braved the dominant caste to which the idea of educating girls at the time was preposterous. He died in 1956, a few months before the opening of the facility. He won, but he never knew.

IT. Why have you abandoned your scholar teaching position at the University of Bangalore to take up the cause of Indian farmers?
Vandana Shiva. Because I could not juggle everything! After my PhD in quantum physics in Canada, I'm back home in the Dun Valley. The damage from intensive agriculture jumped in my face, I saw the desperation of farmers. I decided to found an eco-friendly farm, a training center for farmers along my Navdanya association for the conservation of biodiversity and the protection of the rights of farmers.

IT. What is your life in this ecological farm?
Vandana Shiva. That of a peasant! Birdsong pulls me out of bed at 6:00. There is no radio or television. I have assembled a team of scientists studying the seeds, we train farmers in organic method. We managed to identify 670 different varieties of rice! And we receive each year, twenty trainees worldwide.

IT. What solutions do you advocate?
Vandana Shiva. The return to local production and a short-circuit distribution. Citizens have the opportunity to act on their scale. Moreover they begin to do so. I was in Italy last October. The Province of Rome has the largest green spaces in all European cities. A law will allow the unemployed to cultivate municipal lands for their own consumption and allow them to sell their produce. And France, shared gardens explode.

IT. You are now enemy number 1 food multinationals. Are you at risk?
Vandana Shiva. We do not risk much when we burn Monsanto's cotton fields, except for a few weeks in jail. It's nothing compared to the suicide of a farmer who is drowning in debt. Between 1995 and 2012, 284,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide. Food sovereignty was dismantled in favor of Walmart, Cargill, Monsanto and Coca-Cola ... India is facing a dilemma: strong growth - up to 9% by 2011! - Yet, according to UNICEF, an Indian woman in three is undernourished. I admire non-violence advocated by Gandhi, but that does not mean sit back against the plundering of our resources.

IT. "Disobedience" is a word you are fond ...
Vandana Shiva. This is vital to disobey when faced unjust laws. Only the human rights prevail. Anyone can say no ... Look Malala.

IT. What is your greatest victory?
Vandana Shiva. That of having Federated 500,000 farmers and helped launch 120 seed banks. That of having been suspended by the Indian Supreme Court for large-scale trials of transgenic cotton in 1999. It is close to have a Coca-Cola plant that emptied the water table in Kerala in 2010. But there will other trials, other events and other victories.

IT. You have a son, would you send it?
Vandana Shiva. Kartikey is a photographer, including ELLE India. But it gives me a hand on the farm. I am transmitting the virus ecology my family, I have a doctor and a pilot brother sister retired. All help me on the farm.

IT. You have 62 years, until when will you fight?
Vandana Shiva. Until the end! It is the engine of my life, my mission. So many people rely on me to defend them, I can not let them down. This is the result of my education. My parents always told me: "Ask yourself what contribution you can make to the world, rather than asking you what you can get." And in my heart I am 20 years old.

* "Vandana Shiva, for a creative disobedience," interviews with Lionel Astruc (Ed. Actes Sud).

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