‽istis ponders ‘pan-globally’‽ (weekending
September 30th 2023)
This week in the UK it seems
that perhaps some of the airwaves have been filled overwhelmingly with all-too
audible dog-whistles[i],
the sound of dead cats landing[ii]
and waftings - like those that may foul the throat and assault the senses
during a walk down a country lane at muck-spreading time…[iii]
Amid all the noise, fury,
announcements, speeches, accusations, outrage, brazening-out, non-apologies or
conditional apologies (if I have offended anyone), questions, evasions,
distractions, heat and maybe the odd glimmer of light shed or shared - ‽istis
has gleaned (or forged?) possible links between what may have been some rather
less prominent news and stories:
‽ Pan-Africanism and proposed underpinning
values[iv]:
·
ubuntu: broadly -‘humanity to others’,
‘I am what I am because of who we all are’
·
ujaama: broadly - a system of village
co-operatives based on equality of opportunity and self-help
·
uhuru: broadly - freedom
·
sankofa: broadly - retrieving things of
value from our knowledge of the past
‽ continued oil extraction by the
UK: with regulators approving planning for the Rosebank oilfield, ‘the largest
untapped oil field in the North Sea’ [v]
‽ a proposal by ex-Prime Minister
Gordon Brown for an international windfall tax on ‘petrostates’ that could help
poor countries in climate crisis. ‘Former British PM calls for 3% levy on oil
and gas export revenues of biggest producers to generate $25bn a year for
global south.’[vi]
So, at the all-too common
personal risk of bringing a few ideas together to then conjure and contrive something
that is perhaps more than the sum of the parts (or more than the parts can
bear), ‽istis wonders whether, given:
·
the
‘value’ words and ideas from the Pan-African perspective
·
the
reminder that countries (who have perhaps polluted and exploited more than enough
over the last few centuries) continue to seek to extract fossil fuels
·
the
redistributive tax suggestions – taking us some way to an inter-national position
of linked responsibilities, duties and needs
could a case be made for a
next-step radical view[vii]
of the way we might think about countries/nations/states and also of the world’s
natural resources, especially those derived and extracted so significantly and
impactfully from the earth‽
What if:
- national and state boundaries were thought of as primarily human constructions and artifices; a legacy of past politics, power and governance arrangements; a representation of current governance, power and governance – for only some of them are even defined tangibly and visibly as built walls, as coastline or topographical features
- those national and state boundaries were considered to be changeable, reconstructable or even deconstructable
- the ‘static’ extractable resources (that may already have been exploited more for the over-development, benefit and enrichment of just some of the nations and just some of the people within those nations) were considered to be precious pan-global resources of and for the whole world and all its people (rather than the exclusive, claimed belongings of the nation in whose territory or territorial waters they had been ‘found’, accessed and distributed – with associated benefit flowing along and reinforcing the existing lines of any nation’s or state’s socio-political character: less or more stratified, more or less equal)
- the renewables - solar, wind and wave power ('less tethered', not so fixed by relatively static location - an oil field, a coal seam, a gas reserve - not so ‘claimable’, not so uniquely exploitable or exclusively profitable within current politically-defined artificial national and state boundaries) are seen not just as vital for a sustainable future[viii] but perhaps as pan-global resources of both symbolic importance for possibly a post-nationalistic future - and maybe also the vital practical progressive, redistributive, restorative, reparative development, benefit and enrichment of all‽
…then just imagine how different the world could be.
©‽istis
NB: further reflections and
comments linked to this week’s theme and past blog entries to be found on
Twitter: replies, retweets (which don’t necessarily indicate approval,
sometimes the very opposite!) and ‘likes’: @Pistis_wonders. Twitter ‘follows’
and respectful comment and dialogue welcome...
[iii] https://www.staffordbc.gov.uk/odour-from-muck-spreading
Particular waftings assaulting ‽istis’ back of the
throat have included a speech by the current UK Home Secretary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrpAMttlIkQ;
the felling of a symbolic and much-loved tree: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/9/29/boy-arrested-in-england-over-deliberate-felling-of-famous-tree
; the behaviour of two now-suspended
GBNews presenters: https://pressgazette.co.uk/news/gb-news-laurence-fox-dan-wootton/
; the HS2 trainline saga: https://www.theengineer.co.uk/content/news/poll-should-the-birmingham-to-manchester-leg-of-hs2-be-scrapped/
; the ‘ennoblement’ of what may be seen as ex-PM Johnson’s court favourites: https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/priti-patel-jacob-rees-mogg-honoured-boris-johnson-resignation-list-published
; a current PM’s responses to questions from local radio presenters: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-66945279
; the tragic, tragic stabbing and death of a young woman in London: https://www.itv.com/watch/news/teenager-charged-with-murder-of-elianne-andam-remanded-into-custody/sdn7ctc
[iv] from
a film commissioned by @BrainFooood (on ‘X’/Twitter) https://twitter.com/i/status/1675152653712596993
[v]
References include: https://esgclarity.com/uk-continues-green-rollback-with-new-oilfield-approval/
[vi]
References include: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/25/petrostate-windfall-tax-oil-gas-climate-crisis-gordon-brown
[vii]
…and possibly the working out of a radical approach in practice?
