St.+Stephen’s+PV+–+Justin+Patrick+&+Paul+VanMiddlesworth+-+Aff

Observation I. Echoes from a Toxic Well

A Poem by Ken Saro-Wiwa, written after his arrest in Port Harcourt prison: [[|http://www.ratical.org/corporat ions/CmurderProf.html]] Ogoni! Ogoni! Ogoni is the land The people, Ogoni The agony of trees dying In ancestral farmlands Streams polluted weeping Filth into murky rivers It is the poisoned air Coursing the luckless lungs Of dying children Ogoni is the dream Breaking the looping chain Around the drooping neck of a shell-shocked land.

So wrote the Ogoni human rights activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa. It was a poem he wrote from prison following his arrest by Nigerian security forces. He writes out in pain against the decades of exploitation and ecological destruction faced by his homeland. The Ogoni awoke in 1958 to find themselves living on top of oil, and ever since have experienced a nightmare of oppression and ecological destruction. The Nigerian government gave oil corporations free reign in the Delta, and Shell and Chevron enforced their rule through rape, pillage and murder. During the years prior to his arrest in 1994, Saro-Wiwa successfully organized a non-violent Ogoni movement that became a symbol of popular resistance against tyranny and environmental racism throughout the globe. His arrest generated international outrage, as did his execution. He was put to death on November 10th 1995 by a Nigerian military tribunal along with eight other Ogoni leaders. His final statement, written fifty days before his execution, was not admitted at his trial. We shall read excerpts from it now.

[[|www.ratical.org/corporations /KSWstmt.html]]

Over a decade has passed since Saro-Wiwa’s death, but the struggle in the Niger Delta continues. We will rely on Andy Rowell, James Marriott, and Lorne Stockman to describe contemporary life there. They are three Northern activists who have worked with Saro Wiwa and others for years on oil and ecological justice issues in Africa.

Rowell et al 2005 [The Next Gulf 2005 ix-xiii]

Observation II. This is our empire.

We sit at the St Mark’s tournament in the city of Dallas, a vast metropolis built upon oil wealth extracted from the Niger Delta. Ogoni blood fuels our cars, and our laptops are built from Ogoni bones. Do we dare deny our complicity?

James Marriott, Northern activist working against environmental racism in West Africa, 2005 [The Next Gulf p. 245-246]

THE UNITED STATES FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHOULD PROVIDE ECOLOGICAL REPARATION IN THE FORM OF PETROLEUM POLLUTION PREVENTION AND CLEANUP TO THE NIGER DELTA.

Observation III: Endorse our Demand

First, the people of the Delta demand ecological reparation

Rowell et al 2005 [The Next Gulf p. 247-248]

Secondly, the demand for Nigerian ecological reparation is key to mobilizing mass activism against global structures of exploitation Dr Festus Iyayi, Department of Business Administration at the University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria, 2001 Thirdly, ecological reparation is an ethical imperative: we must acknowledge our responsibility for ecological devastation that our corporations have wreaked in places like Nigeria. We must do what we can to cooperate with the peoples living in the places from which we profit.

Darryl Macer, Ph.D. at UNESCO, 2007

[[|http://209.85.165.104/search?q =cache:ji1a-CU41DQJ:www .unescobkk.org/fileadmin/user _upload/shs/EJAIB/EJAIB92007 .pdf+%22ecological+reparation %22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=19&gl=us &client=firefox-a]]

Observation IV: Our Framework for evaluating the plan

Rather than imagine the benefits of instantly implementing plan through some fantastical act of the USFG, we must instead focus on how to make our aspirations a political reality. You must position yourself before the colon of the resolution. You are a potential advocate who must decide whether to fight for the plan.

Traditional policy-making promotes a technical-solution-oriented model that fails because it’s disconnected from popular struggles. We must link ecological destruction in Nigeria to transnational environmental justice struggles, contributing to a genuine international ecological Left necessary in a world of crisis capitalism. Our aff is both a political and a pedagogical imperative.

Daniel Farber, Director of the Environmental Justice Research Project at Northeastern University, 2002 [and James O’Connor Toxic Struggles ed. Hofrichter p. 20-22]

We must move beyond a focus on “effects” of plan to the causes of ecological destruction in order to create a genuinely democratic politics that can transcend technical expertise.

Lucy Ford, Oxford University, 2004 [Future as Fairness ed. Haugestad p. 105, 109-114]

The advocacy of environmental justice is powerful because it ethically implicates us. Bracketing our responsibility creates false “neutrality” that makes genocide just another professional duty.

Kristen Schrader-Frechette, Professor of Philosophy and Biology at University of Notre Dame, 2002 [Environmental Justice: Creating Equality, Reclaiming Democracy p. 195-197]