Students and faculty filled the Chapel to listen to world- renowned environmental thinker and activist Dr. Vandana Shiva on Sept. 7. Shiva is the first speaker of the 2003 Kirkland Project series, "Alternatives to Globalization and War." The lecture was co-sponsored by the biology department, the environmental studies department, and the Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center at Hamilton.
In 1982 Dr. Shiva founded an independent institute, the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology in Dehra Dun, dedicated to researching the most significant ecological and social issues of our times. According to Dr. Shiva, globalization is the "belly of the American beast" and it draws all others into war with America. But it is not war in the traditional sense, it is a trade war fought in the courts and in the government legislature.
It began when Columbus landed in 1492, starting the age of colonization. Healthcare and other commodities of life have become the "spices" of trades in today's economy in what Dr. Shiva calls the "corporate takeover of life." She continued by citing many examples of the recent exploitations of corporations who are privatizing water to create markets, and it is the creation of markets through which globalization is taking place.
The creation of markets promotes the takeover of life by corporations; the corporations are then defended by government clauses and militarism in foreign countries. There are clauses in a U.S. Bill that "verify and give cause for the U.S. to start a 'trade war' on any country that does not open trade to the U.S." Dr. Shiva asked how we can be fighting for the promotion of peace when there is no possibility for peace to exist because we cannot have peace with insecurity. Furthermore, it is not the kind of insecurity that comes from a lack of protection by the military from foreign invaders; it is domestic insecurity that comes from people being uncertain about their own future, she said.
This story was written by Thomas S. Lapinski '06.
