[E-rundbrief] Info 295 - RLA 2005 - Maude Barlow, Tony Clarke (CDN)

[Matthias Reichl]

E-Rundbrief - Info 295: Right Livelihood Award 2005 (RLA 2005) - Maude 
Barlow and Tony Clarke (Canada) - The Council of Canadians: Canadian 
activists receive "alternative Nobel prize". Writers Union (Canada): 
Portrait Maude Barlow. Wikipedia (Deutschland): Maude Barlow. Maude Barlow: 
Address to the Class of 2005 (Speech at Lakehead University, Canada). 
(Siehe auch Info 292)

Bad Ischl, 30.9.2005

Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit

www.begegnungszentrum.at

===========================================================

Canadian activists receive "alternative Nobel prize"

PRESS RELEASE

September 29, 2005

Ottawa  Maude Barlow, National Chair of the Council of Canadians, and Tony 
Clarke, Director of the Polaris Institute, will be receiving the 
prestigious Right Livelihood Award (RLA) known worldwide as the 
"alternative Nobel Prize". Jakob von Uexkull founder of the RLA announced 
today that the two Canadians would share the prize of approximately $300, 
000 CAD with two other recipients from Malaysia and Botswana.

Founded in 1980, the Right Livelihood Award is presented annually in the 
Swedish Parliament. According to von Uexkull, the award was introduced "to 
honour and support those offering practical and exemplary answers to the 
most urgent challenges facing us today."

Longtime leaders in the global movement for social justice, Barlow and 
Clarke were chosen, among other accomplishments, for their recent work 
promoting the fundamental right to water.

In 2002, the pair combined their expertise and research findings in the 
bestselling book Blue Gold. The book documents the privatization and 
commodification of water around the world  a rapidly proliferating 
enterprise enabled by recent international trade agreements. It has been 
translated into 12 different languages and is sold in over 40 countries.

Unlike the Nobel Prize, the RLA has no categories. "We recognize that in 
striving to meet the human challenges of today's world, the most inspiring 
and remarkable work often defies any standard classification," says von 
Uexkull.

Previous awards have been presented to such prominent international figures 
as former prime minister of New Zealand and nuclear disarmament advocate, 
David Lange, Indian feminist ecologist Vandana Shiva and world-renowned 
Filipino environmentalist and journalist, Walden Bello.

Barlow and Clarke will receive the award at a ceremony held in the Swedish 
Parliament on December 9, 2005.

www.canadians.org

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Maude Barlow is the National Chairperson of  The Council of Canadians, 
Canada's largest citizen's advocacy organization with over 100,000 members 
and the founder of the Blue Planet Project, which works to stop 
commodification of the world's water. She is also a Director with the 
International Forum on Globalization, a San Francisco based research and 
education institution opposed to economic globalization. Maude is the 
recipient of numerous educational awards and has received honorary 
doctorates from four Canadian universities for her social justice work. She 
is the best-selling author or co-author of fourteen books. Her most recent 
publications are Blue Gold, The Fight to Stop Corporate Theft of the 
World's Water (with Tony Clarke), now published in 40 countries; Profit is 
Not the Cure, A Citizens' Guide to Saving Medicare; Making the Links: A 
Peoples' Guide to the WTO and the FTAA (Tony Clarke); and The Canada We 
Want: A Citizen's Alternative to Deep Integration.

Selected Publications:

The Fight of My Life: Confessions of an Unrepentant Canadian. Toronto: 
HarperCollins, 1998.
The MAI and the Threat to Canadian Sovereignty. With Tony Clark. Toronto: 
Stoddart, 1997.
Class Warfare: The Assault on Canada's Schools. With Heather-Jane 
Robertson. Toronto: Key Porter Books, 1994.
Straight Through the Heart: How the Liberals Abandoned the Just Society. 
With Bruce Campbell. Toronto: HarperCollins, 1993.

Email: mbarlow at canadians.org
www.canadians.org

from: www.writersunion.ca/b/barlow.htm

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Maude Barlow

aus Wikipedia, der freien Enzyklopädie

Maude Barlow (* 19. Mai 1947 in Toronto, Kanada) ist eine kanadische 
Schriftstellerin und Aktivistin. Sie lebt in Ottawa in zweiter Ehe mit 
Andrew Davis zusammen. Nach Aktivitäten in der feministischen Bewegung 
wurde sie 1983 die erste Beraterin für Frauenfragen (adviser on women's 
issues) des kanadischen Premierministers (damals Pierre Trudeau). Einige 
Zeit nach einem Regierungswechsel gab sie ihre Stelle bei der Regierung auf 
und wurde 1988 Vorsitzende des linksgerichteten Council of Canadians, der 
größten Bürgerrechtsbewegung Kanadas. Ende der 1990er Jahre setzte sie sich 
zusammen mit anderen Kräften der Zivilgesellschaft gegen das von der OECD 
geplante multilaterale Abkommen über Investitionen (MAI) ein, das auch von 
vielen Entwicklungsländern als neue Form der Kolonisierung kritisiert 
wurde. Die OECD ließ den Plan fallen, aber die WTO will mit dem 
Vertragspaket GATS Ähnliches durchsetzen. Ein weiterer Schwerpunk ihrer 
Arbeit ist Kritik am panamerikanischen Freihandelsabkommen (außer Kuba) 
FTAA. Auch hier kritisiert sie, dass in intransparenten Verhandlungen 
Großkonzerne gegenüber der Bevölkerung und kleinen Ländern bevorteilt werden.

Barlow ist außerdem Vorstandsmitglied des International Forum on 
Globalization und Mitbegründerin der Umweltschutzbewegung Blue Planet 
Project, die das Trinkwasser vor der "Bedrohung durch Handel und 
Privatisierung" schützen will.

Werke (Auswahl):

MAI: The Multilateral Agreement on Investment and the Threat to American 
Freedom. (mit Tony Clarke, Vorwort von Lori Wallach) Stoddart Pub., Canada 
1989, ISBN 0773759794

The Last Frontier. 2001. (ein wichtiger Text der globalisierungskritischen 
Bewegung; wendet sich gegen das GATS)

Blaues Gold. Das globale Geschäft mit dem Wasser. (mit Tony Clarke). 
Kunstmann, 2004, ISBN 3888973279

* Alternativer Nobelpreis 2005 gemeinsam mit Tony Clarke für ihren 
weltweiten Einsatz für gerechten Handel und die Anerkennung des Grundrechts 
auf Wasser

Weblinks

http://www.ifg.org - The International Forum on Globalization (IFG)

http://www.canadians.org - The Council of Canadians

-------------------------------------------------

Address to the Class of 2005

by Maude Barlow

Lakehead University Honorary Degree Recipient

...
I am a social justice activist. My work takes me all over Canada and around 
the world on a wide variety of issues but I thought I would take my few 
minutes this morning to talk to you about the one closest to my heart  the 
world's freshwater crisis.  My concern over this issue started years ago 
with our fight to take water out of international trade agreements like 
NAFTA and the WTO and to stop the sale of Canada's water for profit.  But 
the more I learned about Canada's water, the more I knew that I would have 
to deal with the fact that there are many parts of the world with little or 
no water for life at all.

The world is running out of fresh water. Humans are depleting, polluting, 
and diverting the world's supply of fresh water so fast, that by 2025, 
unless we dramatically change our ways, two-thirds of the world's people 
will be living (or dying) under severe water shortages. As it is now, every 
eight seconds, a child dies of water-borne disease.

This shouldn't be possible. We were all taught that the hydrologic cycle is 
closed, that there is a finite amount of water in our system, which remains 
unchanged over time. Our teachers were not lying. Not only is there the 
same amount of water on the planet as at its creation, but also it is the 
same water.

What is also true, tragically, and what our teachers could not have 
foreseen, is that it is possible to render this water unusable for humans 
and unsafe for the ecosystem itself. Industrial farming and massive 
pollution, combined with the destruction of wetlands and the diversion of 
rivers by massive dams have destroyed much of the world's surface waters, 
leading us to mine the groundwater all over the world, thirstily depleting 
ancient aquifers before nature can replenish them. As a result, the earth 
now resembles an apple that is drying up on the inside, with brown spots on 
an otherwise healthy-looking fruit.

Right now an epic struggle is taking place in many parts of the world 
around these dwindling freshwater supplies.  Large transnational water 
corporations are taking over the operation of water systems where poor 
governments cannot provide these services. Because the companies have to 
charge high prices in order to make a profit for their investors, millions 
of poor people cannot afford to buy their water and have to rely on 
contaminated rivers and streams for their water supplies.

As well, big bottling companies like Coke and Nestle are hunting for new 
water sources as the quality of public water is allowed to deteriorate in 
many parts of the world. Last year, companies put over 100 billion litres 
of water in plastic bottles around the world  - an act of collective 
insanity as far as I am concerned. So I call water "Blue Gold" as it is 
becoming more precious than oil.

However, all over the world, communities are fighting to take back their 
local water systems from these giant corporations. People in hundreds of 
communities are demanding that their governments provide them with safe 
clean and affordable water as a public service. In October 2004, Uruguay 
became the first country in the world to vote in a national election for a 
constitutional amendment to guarantee every citizen the right to water on a 
not-for-profit basis.

These groups have formed into a powerful international civil society 
movement devoted to reclaiming water as a global "commons." Central to this 
movement is the fight for a United Nations Convention on the Right to 
Water. The omission of water from both the original United Nations Charter 
and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a problem that has 
hampered the efforts of those working for the right to water for all.

The answers to a water-secure world lie on the twin foundations of 
conservation on one hand  using every drop once  and water justice on the 
other  the fundamental right of every person to water for life. What is 
needed now is a concerted effort by the peoples of the earth and their 
governments to fundamentally change our relationship to water and 
to   create a global plan of survival based on these cornerstones.

So on this wonderful day, I invite you to join us in the fight for a just 
and sustainable world. It may not be the fight for clean water that will be 
your challenge. It may be the fight against poverty, or discrimination, or 
violence. You may choose to fight for a united Canada or peace or a just 
system for Canada's First Nations peoples, who by the way, could teach us 
how to live in harmony with nature instead of destroying it for our own 
pleasure.  But choosing to live for something greater than yourself is the 
best decision you can make in life.  And it is this choice I urge you to 
make today.

Money has its place. It is good to have enough money to provide stability 
and opportunity for your family; to allow you to be a good friend in time 
of need; and to help you be a productive and generous member of your 
community  locally and internationally.  But the pursuit of money for its 
own sake will not give you the quality of life or peace of mind that a life 
lived for others will provide. Trust me.

And trust me that having an ethical compass will stand you all your life. 
My favorite are the seven deadly sins that Mahatma Gandhi asks us to reject:

Pleasure without conscience;
Knowledge without character;
Commerce without morality;
Wealth without work;
Worship without sacrifice;
Science without humanity;
Politics without principle.

There is a new world waiting to be born. South African spiritual leader 
Archbishop Desmond Tutu says this to the old one: "You have already lost. 
You need to get out of the way so that we can rebuild  for our children and 
all life on this planet."

Your life choices await you.

http://communications.lakeheadu.ca/wp/?id=87

Lakehead University, 955 Oliver Road, Thunder Bay, ON
P7B 5E1 Canada, Phone (807) 343-8110 Fax (807) 343-8023