[E-rundbrief] Info 297 - RLA 2005 - Barlow/ Clarke-Portraet

[Matthias Reichl]

E-Rundbrief - Info 297: Right Livelihood Award 2005 (RLA 2005) - Right 
Livelihood Award Foundation: Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke (Canada) - "... 
for their exemplary and longstanding worldwide work for trade justice and 
the recognition of the fundamental human right to water." Porträt, 
Interview by Ole Uexküll. (Siehe auch Info 292)

Bad Ischl, 30.9.2005

Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit

www.begegnungszentrum.at

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Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke

Canada

RLA 2005

"... for their exemplary and longstanding worldwide work for trade justice 
and the recognition of the fundamental human right to water."

Both Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke are long-term activists on trade and 
justice issues, now with a special focus on water, whose campaigning lives 
have intertwined for many years.

Barlow, now 58 years old, was a high-profile leader in the women's movement 
in Canada, serving as the Director of Equal Opportunity for the City of 
Ottawa and leading a national coalition against violence against women. She 
later became Pierre Trudeau's advisor on women's issues when he was Prime 
Minister in 1983-84, but left formal politics in 1985 to help found the 
Council of Canadians (CoC), of which she has been the elected honorary 
chairperson since 1988, earning her living through her books. The Council 
now has 100,000 members and 70 activist chapters. Its original mandate was 
to campaign against the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement and to fight for 
Canadian sovereignty in the area of natural resources (including water), 
social programs and foreign policy. Most of Barlow's work has been focused 
on the regional and global trade agenda, with water being an issue of equal 
special concern. She is the author or co-author of 15 books on all aspects 
of globalisation and the theft of the 'global commons', the latest being 
Too Close for Comfort, Canada's Future in Fortress North America. She is 
also working through the Council of Canadians on a ten-city "Citizens' 
Inquiry Into Canada/US Relations", a "Beyond Factory Farming Coalition" and 
a fair trade campaign. She has received honorary doctorates from six 
Canadian universities.

Tony Clarke, now 60 years old, did graduate studies and earned his 
doctorate in social ethics at the University of Chicago in 1974, and, 
inspired by Paulo Freire's work, returned to Canada to work on the social 
justice programmes of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB), 
where he became head of the social action department, and worked on a whole 
range of national and international social justice issues. In 1987 he 
chaired (first with Barlow, later by himself), the Action Canada Network 
(ACN), the largest coalition of civil society organisations and labour 
unions ever assembled in Canada to mobilise opposition to the free trade 
agenda. Through these two organisations (Clarke was a member of CoC's 
national board from 1997-2003 and vice-chair most of that time) and others 
(e.g. the International Forum on Globalisation) their working lives have 
been closely connected for over 16 years.

In 1993 he was dismissed from his position in the CCCB, subsequently 
writing a book, Behind the Mitre, the Moral Leadership Crisis in the 
Catholic Church (1995), documenting this experience. He documented the 
unaccountable power and influence of big business in another book, Silent 
Coup: Confronting the Big Business Takeover of Canada (1997). He founded 
the Polaris Institute (PI, with Barlow on the Board) "for the purpose of 
unmasking the corporate power that lies behind government." Areas of PI's 
work have included an Anti-Star Wars Campaign, a project called Continental 
Security Check, a Corporate Campaigns Project, a GATS campaign, an Energy 
Security Project, a set of water campaigns (e.g. on bottled water), and 
ideas for alternative trade regimes. PI also analyses strategies of 
multinational companies and develops counter-strategies, as well as 
publishing 'company profiles' to inform activists world-wide about the 
companies. Barlow and Clarke were also working closely through the 
International Forum on Globalisation (IFG) which had been set up in 1998.

These were the organisational bases from which they played a key role in 
building opposition to, and defeating, the Multilateral Agreement on 
Investment (MAI), and in campaigning against the World Trade Organisation 
(WTO) agenda, especially at Seattle (1999) and Cancun (2003). They are now 
recognized as two of the most respected citizen leaders in Canada and in 
the global justice movement generally. Both have been featured speakers at 
the World Social Forums in Porto Alegre and Mumbai. They have been 
important innovators in cross-border organising, shown in their work 
against the MAI and WTO; in creating democratic models of organising, shown 
by the Council of Canadians; in bringing new issues to the forefront of the 
movement, as with NAFTA, the MAI and water; and in developing credible 
alternatives, which are discussed in their joint book Global Showdown: How 
the New Activists are Fighting Global Corporate Rule (2001).

A major common focus of their work in recent years has been the world's 
water resources. In 2002 they published Blue Gold: the Battle Against 
Corporate Theft of the World's Water, which is now published in 40 
countries. Clarke's latest book Inside the Bottle highlights concerns about 
the bottled water industry and its impact on the water resources of the poor.

Barlow and Clarke have built a considerable network of activists in the 
South, and an important part of their work has been visiting and assisting 
communities struggling for water rights, e.g. the village of Plachimada in 
Kerala fighting against a Coca-Cola plant. One particular victory for the 
international water movement was the adoption of a constitutional amendment 
in Uruguay by referendum (63% of the votes). It included a new article 47 
into the Uruguayan constitution ensuring not only that access to piped 
water and sanitation is a fundamental human right available to everyone, 
but also that in the creation of water policies social considerations take 
precedence over economic considerations. Further, the constitution must now 
reflect that the "public service of water supply for human consumption will 
be served exclusively and directly by state legal persons". Barlow's visits 
to Uruguay (speaking in parliament and on television) greatly helped the 
campaign, as did PI's profiles of water companies, and the jointly authored 
Blue Gold. Inspired by this victory, Barlow is now also deeply involved 
with an international campaign for a United Nations Convention on the Right 
to Water building on the new Uruguayan legislation.

Contact Details:

Maude Barlow
Council of Canadians
700-170, Laurier Ave.
West Ottawa
Ontario, Canada
Phone: +1 613 233 4487 ext. 234
Cellphone: +1 613 795 8685 (Meera Karunananthan, Media Officer)
Email: meera at canadians.org

Tony Clarke
Polaris Institute
312 Cooper Street
Ottawa K2P-0G7
Ontario, Canada
Phone: +1-613-746-8374
Email: tclarke at polarisinstitute.org

http://www.rightlivelihood.org/recip/2005/barlow-and-clarke.htm

Interview with Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke
on September 27, 2005

conducted by Ole von Uexkull,
Right Livelihood Award Foundation

Q: Is the world running out of water?

A: Barlow: Yes, in varying ways. The contamination, depletion and diversion 
of fresh water systems around the world is proceeding at an alarming rate. 
By the year 2025, the United Nations says that two-thirds of the world's 
population could be facing water scarcity. The global rate of water 
consumption is doubling every 20 years, twice the rate of population 
growth, largely because of increasing amounts of water required for 
agribusiness operations and industry. By 2025, the demand for water is 
expected to outstrip the supply of water by 56 percent. Furthermore, the 
hydrological cycle, which replenishes the earth's watersheds, is being 
damaged by the spread of urbanisation, industrial expansion, factory farms, 
and climate change.

Q: Why are you against water privatisation?

A: Clarke: Well, if privatisation is understood to mean the takeover of the 
delivery of drinking water by for-profit corporations, then we are opposed 
on several grounds. First, water is the essence of life on this planet, no 
living organism can survive without it. So, water belongs to all people, 
plants and animals. It is an important part of the commons, to be shared by 
all, and must not be exploited by a few for profit. Second, water is a 
fundamental human right and must be made universally available to all 
people. Unlike the public water delivery, the market system distributes on 
the basis of the ability to pay - those who have the ability to pay have 
access to quality water, those who are unable to pay go without. We realise 
that private sector may have contributions and expertise that can improve 
the delivery of drinking water, but basic water delivery is a public good 
and service that should remain in public hands wherever possible.

Q: Can you tell about one success story in the international water campaign?

A: Clarke: Well, we could cite a string of victories against water 
privatisation in countries like Bolivia, Argentina, Ghana, India, Brazil, 
the Philippines, the United States and Canada, to name a few. But, perhaps 
one of the most enduring success stories comes from Uruguay where public 
water workers and community groups organised a petition to have water as a 
human right and a public good enshrined in the Uruguayan constitution. ... 
For nearly three years, people went door-to-door collecting sufficient 
signatures and supporting documentation to put this constitutional 
amendment to a countrywide vote through a plebiscite in their national 
elections. When the plebiscite took place in October 2004, the amendment 
was passed with 63 percent voting in favour.

Q: What does this award mean to you?

A: Barlow: The work we do does not always have tangible results. It is 
often difficult to measure whether or not you are making progress or 
producing results. What the Right Livelihood Award does is to recognise 
that this work for global justice may not have immediate results and may 
indeed take a lifetime to achieve ... But, equally important, this award 
gives public recognition to the water rights movement, in particular, and 
the global justice movement, at large ... This award belongs to these 
social movements which constitute our extended family, both in Canada and 
internationally.


Matthias Reichl, Pressesprecher/ press speaker,
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