When I was given this book by the editor, a world respected authority on biosafety, I knew it was about our biological resources and knowledge, but I was not prepared for the outrageous information about such a benign sounding concept. “Benefit Sharing” is yet another way in which politically and economically poor groups and countries are forced to render unto the Caesars of the world their biodiversity and natural wealth. This one issue is the metaphor for current imperialistic globalization. To read it is to be instructed in how Read more [...] Author Archives: Theresa Wolfwood. Director, The Barnard-Boecker Centre Foundation
Burrows, Beth, Editor. The Catch: Perspectives in Benefit Sharing. Published by The Edmonds Institute, Edmonds, WA, USA. 2005.
When I was given this book by the editor, a world respected authority on biosafety, I knew it was about our biological resources and knowledge, but I was not prepared for the outrageous information about such a benign sounding concept. “Benefit Sharing” is yet another way in which politically and economically poor groups and countries are forced to render unto the Caesars of the world their biodiversity and natural wealth. This one issue is the metaphor for current imperialistic globalization. To read it is to be instructed in how Read more [...] Comments Off on Burrows, Beth, Editor. The Catch: Perspectives in Benefit Sharing. Published by The Edmonds Institute, Edmonds, WA, USA. 2005.
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Butalia, Urvashi. The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India. 2000. Duke University Press, USA Viking Penguin, India.
“If we had a keen vision of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.” George Eliot in Middlemarch.
History is made by everyone and recorded by the powerful. The silence of the poor, the weak, the illiterate – mainly women – is seldom noticed. Urvashi Butalia, an Indian feminist, writer and publisher, grew up in a family whose life was shaped by the Partition. The roar was suppressed but still there.
This 1947 Read more [...]
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Butala, Sharon. The GIRL in SASKATOON: A Meditation on Friendship, Memory and Murder. 2008. HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. Canada.
“Children such as Alex and I lived in mystery…”
Butala is the much loved author of many books and plays; she is best known for her “Perfection of the Morning”, a memoir of her experiences for nature and landscape in southern Saskatchewan. Her writing is deeply rooted in the life of the prairies. If Saskatchewan could be called the quintessential Canada, Butala can be called the quintessential Canadian writer. All her writing has been imbued with the sense of continuity and hope of life despite hardships and failures. Her latest work, Read more [...]
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Browdy De Hernandez, Jennifer. WOMEN WRITING RESISTANCE: Essays on Latin American and the Caribbean. 2003. South End Press, USA.
“Justice forgets about the dead women of Juarez”
On that mountain near
El Mozote in El Salvador
Where they took them away
Young girls as petite as their rag dolls.”
from Death in the Desert: The Women of Cuidad Juarez by Marjorie Agosin.
Nearly all the writers in this collection now live and teach in the USA, an ironic situation when one considers the role of the USA in supporting the oppression that many of them fled. Cherrie Moraga, a USA born Chicana, recognizes this when she asks herself: How can I, as a Latina, identify with Read more [...]
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Brazier, Chris, Dinyer Godrej & Alan Hughes. PEACE. A New Internationalist Book to Go. 2005. New Internationalist publications. UK.
This is one of a series of small easy to pocket & carry books that also include Green Action & Political Animals. The New Internationalist is the global voice of inspiration and information for all of us in the work for peace and social justice; it produces an excellent magazine and many publications including The World Guide.
Peace is full of quotations from many lands & peoples – a bit heavy on men & USA presidents & generals but still it is a little gem and an excellent ethical gift for a person just starting out in the Read more [...]
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Bok, Sissela. ALVA MYRDAL: A Daughter’s Memoir. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company. USA.
“The greatness in being human lies not in giving up, not accepting one´s own limitations.”
“…:that by whatever means they choose, all human beings can and must struggle to resist propaganda and falsehoods; and that this resistance is never more important than for those who have thought and language as their professions.”
Called by some, the mother of Swedish social democracy; it is her work in nuclear disarmament and peace issues is what Alva Myrdal is now usually remembered for; the work that earned her the Nobel Prize Read more [...] Comments Off on Bok, Sissela. ALVA MYRDAL: A Daughter’s Memoir. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company. USA.
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Boullata, Kamal. Palestinian Art. SAQI. 2009. London, UK & Beirut, Lebanon.
In the introduction to this big and beautiful book by Boullata, a prolific Palestinian artist and writer, the UK artist, John Berger, writes about the absurdity of the identity cards Palestinians are required to carry. He says they have nothing to do with identity; they are an inventory of stolen facts. He goes straight to the heart of Palestinian identity when he writes: True identity can be neither delivered on demand nor stored as mere information. To believe that it can be is weakness of all so–called security records kept by oppressors. Read more [...] Comments Off on Boullata, Kamal. Palestinian Art. SAQI. 2009. London, UK & Beirut, Lebanon.
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Bocking, Richard C. Mighty River: A portrait of the Fraser. Douglas & McIntyre. Vancouver/Toronto, Canada. 1997.
The Fraser is one of the largest rivers in the world, and still, one of the few unfettered by dams or diversions. It flows through British Columbia creating a giant “S” before it empties into the Pacific at Vancouver. Bocking, an eloquent writer and passionate naturalist, describes the Fraser as the organizing element of a vast landscape. The Fraser traverses desert, alpine meadows, forests, deep canyons and a broad island—dotted valley of its own creation over the last 12 million years.
I lived most of my early life near the Fraser, Read more [...] Comments Off on Bocking, Richard C. Mighty River: A portrait of the Fraser. Douglas & McIntyre. Vancouver/Toronto, Canada. 1997.
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Blum, William. Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire. Common Courage Press, Monroe, Maine, USA. 2004.
A new book by Blum is an occasion. He has only written two earlier books of political analysis; Killing Hope: U.S.A. Military and CIA interventions Since WW2 and Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower. His exhaustive research combined with witty commentary make his books easy to read but powerfully authoritative.
In this latest collection of essays his fertile mind ranges across a wide geography of issues and events. On the subject of, “Interventions Are Us,” Blum reminds us of the USA bombing of a drug factory in Sudan Read more [...]
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Blum, William. Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower. Common Courage Press, Monroe, ME 04951, USA. Recently revised & republished in 3rd edition.
In Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower, William Blum shows that in spite of the efforts of U.S. leaders to make their actions appear humanitarian and democratic, the U.S. has run a global protection racket based on four imperatives:
(1) making the world hospitable for globalization, particularly for U.S.-based corporations;
(2) enriching military contractors who donate generously to politicians;
(3) preventing the rise of any society that might serve as an alternative to capitalism; and
(4) extending political, economic and Read more [...]
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Bjornerud, Marcia. READING THE ROCKS: The Autobiography of the Earth. 2005. Westview Press, USA.
“It [the story of the earth] is larger than all of us, shaped by rules that antedate and superseded every economic, legal and religious doctrine humans have ever created.”
It is not often that a scientist writes a book about her area of study that can be easily understood and appreciated by any reader. Bjornerud is a geologist with a deep and broad love of our planet; she makes the history and existence of our Earth relevant to the important issues facing humanity today. She makes all the vital inks between resource depletion, global warming Read more [...]
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Bertell, Rosalie. Planet Earth: The latest weapon of war Black Rose Books, Canada, 2001. The Women’s Press, London, UK, 2000.
“…in spite of fears of abuse, Earth is still an amazing and beautiful creation…It deserves our best efforts. Enjoy it, love it and save it!” RB
Rosalie Bertell believes, as have many ecologists before her, that the current focus on economics is at the expense of ecology and the social environment. In Planet Earth, this internationally-respected scientist states that the most urgent problem facing humanity now is how to sustain Earth, our life-support system. To do this, we must find a new model of global living which is not based Read more [...] Comments Off on Bertell, Rosalie. Planet Earth: The latest weapon of war Black Rose Books, Canada, 2001. The Women’s Press, London, UK, 2000.
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