Naomi Klein and Arundhati Roy Help Launch Global Green New Deal Project With Worldwide Invitation
"The time to build the future we deserve is now, and international solidarity is the tool we need to begin its construction"
SOURCE: CommonDreams.org, 2020-05-20
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Authors Arundhati Roy and Naomi Klein took part in a virtual conversation on Tuesday to help launch a Global Green New Deal project to foster internationalism and visualize possibilities for a new and better world for people and the planet.
The online event, entitled "Into the Portal, No One Left Behind," was co-sponsored by The Leap, War on Want, and Haymarket Books. Asad Rehman, executive director of War on Want, moderated the discussion.
"We knew our system was broken. But the COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced the cruelty of the global economy, and deepened the visceral injustices of our societies," organizers said in the conversation's event description. "The time to build the future we deserve is now, and international solidarity is the tool we need to begin its construction."
"Corona is an X-Ray on our society"
-- @chilledasad100 #GlobalGND
-- Global Green New Deal (@GlobalGNDeal) May 19, 2020
Klein said that driving the cruelty is "the violence of a capitalist system" rooted in "an extractivist logic that treats... the Earth itself, individual places, and entire groups of people as disposable," a "logic of endless extraction and disposal that really cherishes nothing and no one."
"The #GlobalGND grew out of a critique from Green New Deals in the UK, the
US. We need a redistribution of resources on a scale that has never been
seen before, recognizing the debt of the North on the South"
-- @NaomiAKlein
-- Global Green New Deal (@GlobalGNDeal) May 19, 2020
The coronavirus crisis means that we are now hearing the "roar of workers who are on the frontlines who are talking about being simultaneously essential and disposable or simultaneously essential and sacrificial," said Klein, adding that this duality has parallels with slavery and land theft.
A more justice vision for life on the other side of the "portal" post-pandemic should be "bounded in treating no one as if they are sacrificeable-and nowhere," she said.
Watch the full conversation:
Join Arundhati Roy and Naomi Klein in a conversation moderated by
[Source]
We knew our system was broken. But the COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced the cruelty of the global economy, and deepened the visceral injustices of our societies.
Before the virus stuck, the effect of climate catastrophe and obscene inequality meant that millions were already living in multiple crises.
Now, as the pandemic wreaks an untold impact, we know that it is those who are most vulnerable-whether from their inability to access healthcare, or because of their economic precarity-who bear the heaviest burden. In times of crisis, it is always the poorest, the most oppressed, and those under occupation, who are most affected.
Our only recourse is to amplify the calls for justice ringing from every corner of the globe. The time to build the future we deserve is now, and international solidarity is the tool we need to begin its construction.
We can move from crisis to justice with a Global Green New Deal for people and planet.
Join Arundhati Roy and Naomi Klein in a conversation moderated by Asad Rehman and hear how we can begin to build a global transformation.
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In the coming weeks, alongside our partners, The Leap and War on Want will launch a Global Green New Deal, in the spirit of internationalism, to call for collaborative action. Together, we will build a people's plan to implement a resilient global economy, based on the principles of a just recovery and transition.
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You can get involved by joining and supporting each of this event's sponsoring organizations.
The Global Green New Deal
The Leap
War on Want
Haymarket Books
Check out Naomi Klein's latest book, "On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal"
Read Arundhati Roy's "The Pandemic is a Portal"
Pre-order Arundhati Roy's "Azadi: Freedom. Fascism. Fiction."
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Haymarket Books is an independent, radical, non-profit publisher. Every dollar we take in from book sales and donations goes directly to support our project of publishing books for changing the world-a project has never been more necessary or more urgent. We need your help to continue to do the work.
While all of our events are freely available, we ask that those who are able make a solidarity donation in support of our continuing to do this important work.
Roy said the pandemic meant "the machine of capitalism has come to a halt," and suggested a global movement toward justice could heed lessons from the "ferocious, beautiful, and militant movements" in India.
What those movements have done, said Roy, is to ask "the world to redefine the meaning of progress, to redefine he meaning of civilization, to redefine the meaning of happiness. Do you really need to treat the Earth like a resource in order to call yourself civilized?"
We're left with the language of justice which has been reduced to talk of
human rights, the language where they adjudicate. The real crisis we face
is how do we mobilize and how do we become militant about what we want and
what we believe in. "
-- Arundhati Roy #GlobalGND
-- Global Green New Deal (@GlobalGNDeal) May 19, 2020
"If people think coronavirus is a problem, it's a stuffed toy compared to the climate crisis that's coming," she added.
"The main thing is to change our imagination," said Roy. "Once you understand that you just can't extract everything, that things are finite," a new, more just vision can emerge.
Roy said that it was important to acknowledge that "change doesn't mean that you're going to necessarily suffer."
"Life," she continued, "could be so much more beautiful." People could be in a situation in which they respect the Earth and "have a more equal relationship with people."
"The answer to the question "how do we change the world?" isn't in any of us Join us at https://t.co/ds0pLg4vjd to build from crisis to justice -- Global Green New Deal (@GlobalGNDeal) May 19, 2020 The The Global Green New Deal website says that a call to action is will be released in the coming weeks. "Together," says the new site, "we will create a people's plan to build a resilient global economy, based on the principles of a just transition and recovery, which guarantees the right to a dignified life for all."
individually, it's in all of us collectively."
-- @chilledasad100
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