Land
Movements, Participatory Democracy &
Rural
Landless Workers’ Movement (MST)
This
week’s readings were on local and national land movements, participatory
democracy, the Rural Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) of Brazil and the local
and global challenges of land grabbing processes. The end of Cold War in the 1980s
not only brought a shift in the dominant discourse of security and development,
but also the rapid and vigorous spread of globalization. With globalization came
inherent promises of “human progress” and “development.” It also did not only
create national and global changes in the landscape, economy, politics and
cultures, but also hammered its way through the traditional fabrics of local systems,
which include local food systems, patterns of production and consumption,
security, human rights and ability to continually possess what we have had for
years passed down from previous generations.
Land is a significant aspect of
human existence especially so when it is used for the production of
agricultural produce for households consumptions and marketing locally. It is
the responsibility of the nation-state to its citizens to provide the needed
land for all its citizens to live a dignifying and fulfilling lives and to also
reciprocate such sentimentality to the land on which their survival is
protected. However, when the nation-state becomes so powerful and corrupt in
using the “commons” for its own gain and profitability at the margin and
expense of the populace especially those who are at the extreme of these
margins; that is, the poor, people of colored, ethnic minorities, Native
Indians and peasant farming families then there is a need to seek an
alternative discourse to challenge and counteract the current perspective of
the dominant paradigm of the nation-state.
There
is only one step that needs to be taken to repossess what has been forcefully
and illegitimately taken from them by this powerful and controlling system and
invasive apparatus; that is, the nation-state. This option rests on the local,
national and systematic revolt against this controlling and powerful system of
the nation-state. It is a revolution that is organized in total agreement of
the masses to reclaim their land and resources that have been extracted by this
‘big belly beast,’ whose nature and final goal is to completely devoid what it
has violently and repressively possess.
Wolford
takes us through her work in Brazil excavating the diligence of the Rural
Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) that seeks to reclaim what have been taken
away from them and “enclosed” by the nation-state. MST challenges the current
paradigm of economic progress that seeks to project globalization,
industrialization and economic development at the expense of peasant farmers
whose land were extracted from them.
Land grabbing, land deals and human
rights issues are crucial in most developing countries especially in
sub-Saharan Africa. As most developing countries continuously rush to the
development-oriented agenda, which is trap to extract their natural resources
and continue the pattern of dependency. The issue of large-scale investment
initiatives and land allocation became unavoidable and unprecedented. These large-scale
investment opportunities in the names of ‘development,’ ‘progress,’ and
globalization put local communities especially traditional farming communities
and their families at the margin of these investment schemes, making them the
victims of such processes; that is, development schemes and investment
initiatives, which continue to feed this ‘big belly beast’ and its
collaborators.
Their
local resources including land, water, air and forest systems became polluted
as a result with very limited efforts to mitigate and restore normalcy. In some
instances, local dwellers are not appropriately consented for their acceptance
for the project to take place. This happens to villagers Tanzania of the
Bagamoyo district in Tanzania when a Swedish firm took their land for a
large-scale development project with the backing of the Tanzanian government in
the name of development. The issue of land grabbing and human rights issue is
exacerbated in regions that are undergoing arm conflicts or with unstable
governments where the warlords claimed territories and lands in areas that they
captured and use the local resources as investment towards arm dealers usually
from the West. This was similarly done in Sierra Leone with the blood diamond
illegal trade and Liberia with the timber and rubber plantation and Ivory Coast
with the illegal sales of Ivories. James Scout deliberated on the subject of
the state’s power to control and how over the years the nation-state has
developed several programs and services, but yet has failed to meet the needs
of its citizens.
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