The Burmese Way to Fascism

---

Far Eastern Economic Review - October 2007

by Bertil Lintner 

If Karl Marx was right that history repeats itself first as tragedy and then as farce, Burma is still stuck in the tragedy phase. The protests and crackdown in Rangoon in recent days are reprising the doomed democracy movement of 1988. As time passes and the security forces succeed in cowing the population, the world's outrage gives way to ineffectual responses and then resignation.

HARRY HARRISON

In the initial euphoria that such mass movements inevitably bring, the Western media dubbed this Burma's saffron revolution, comparing it to the peaceful "color revolutions" of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. So named because of the leading role played by Buddhist monks, the movement seemed destined to sweep away the unpopular military regime that has impoverished a country once among the wealthiest in Asia. The moral authority of the clergy, combined with the flow of information to the outside world facilitated by new technology, stoked the sense of optimism. The U.S. imposed tougher sanctions, while even China and the Association of South-East Asian Nations, not normally known for putting pressure on their neighbors, issued strong statements.

However, the reality is that nothing substantive has changed since 1988. In fact, the Burmese regime is arguably stronger than it has ever been. It is well prepared to weather this new storm of domestic and international criticism.

The survival of successive military regimes in Burma is one of the enigmas of Southeast Asian politics. The key to this puzzle is understanding that Rangoon is no "ordinary" military dictatorship, and it cannot be compared with Thailand, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan or other countries in the region which also have had spells of military rule.

When the army first seized power in Burma in 1962, it not only took control over the government, but also assumed economic power.

Branded the "Burmese Way to Socialism," this meant that almost all private property was confiscated and handed over to a number of military-run state corporations. The old mercantile elite, which to a large extent was of ethnic Indian and Chinese origin, left the country, and so did many of Burma's intellectuals. Prior to the 1962 coup, Burma had had one of the highest living standards in Southeast Asia, and a fairly well-educated population. But thereafter the military became the only elite.

The Burmese military establishment also developed into a state-within-a-state, a society where army personnel, their families and dependents enjoy a position far more privileged than their counterparts ever had in, for instance, Thailand and Indonesia. In both those countries, some degree of pluralism was always accepted even during the darkest years of military dictatorship.

After the last uprising in 1988, the Burmese Way to Socialism was abolished after the 1988 uprising, perhaps in an attempt to appease the international community, which had condemned the carnage in Rangoon, but also because the military had realized that they could make more money in a free-market economy. Private enterprise and foreign investment were permitted after the bloody events of 1988, when at least 3,000 protesters were gunned down, but, in essence, the Burmese Way to Capitalism is also a military-dominated economy.

There are few major enterprises which are not directly or indirectly controlled by the military, or by businessmen affiliated with the military, like the powerful, 43-year-old tycoon Tay Za, who is close to junta leader Gen. Than Shwe and his family. His Htoo Trading Company was one of two main contractors that built Burma's new administrative capital, Naypyidaw. The other was the Asia World Group, which is headed by Tun Myint Naing, or Steven Law, the son of Lo Hsing-han, who in the 1970s was branded by U.S. authorities as the king of opium in Burma's sector of the Golden Triangle.

In Burma, there are special schools and hospitals for the military and their dependents. They live in secluded, subsidized housing and shop for goods that are not available in ordinary stores. An army pass assures the holder of a seat on a train or an airplane, and a policeman would never dare to report him or her for violating traffic rules. The military's only civilian support base is the Union Solidarity and Development Association, USDA, which was formed in 1992. It claims to have 21 million members, but that is mainly because membership is compulsory for civil servants and ordinary citizens are forced to join. Like the Burma Socialist Program Party, BSPP, which ruled Burma until the 1988 uprising, it is a colossus on feet of clay, which, in the wake of current events, is likely to collapse, as the BSPP did 19 years ago.

The rise of military power in Burma began shortly after independence from Britain on Jan. 4, 1948. Communist as well as ethnic rebel armies rose in rebellion against Rangoon, and, in the northeast, remnants of Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Chinese forces retreated across the border after being defeated by Mao Zedong's communists. At independence, the Burmese army was only 15,000 strong, plus militias. But by 1955, because of the civil war, the ranks of the army had increased to 40,000, and it was already involved in businesses such as shipping, banking and publishing. When the emerging state-within-a-state gobbled up the state in 1962, there were 104,200 men in all three services. That rose to 140,000 in 1976, 160,000 in 1985, and, at the time of the 1988 uprising, 180,000 in the army and nearly 200,000 in all three services.

Today, the strength of the three services is estimated at 400,000, and they are much better equipped than at any time in Burma's modern history, mainly due to massive procurement of arms from China. The latest expansion comes at a time when the ruling military has managed to strike cease-fire agreements with most of the country's rebel groups, so, during the past decade, there has been very little fighting in Burma's traditionally volatile frontier areas. The enemy now is the population at large.

China's support is a key factor in the junta's staying power, and Beijing wants "stability," not a regime change. In January this year, China—along with Russia—used its veto power to block a U.S. and U.K.- sponsored resolution in the U.N. Security Council, although a majority of U.N. members had voted in favor. The Chinese insisted that the Burmese regime did not a pose a threat to regional security and, therefore, the Security Council was not the right forum to pass resolutions on political repression in Burma. Not even appeals by activists for a boycott of the 2008 Beijing Olympics seem to have swayed China into being more critical of the Burmese regime. China has not reacted to pictures from the carnage in Rangoon showing Burmese soldiers carrying Chinese-made T-56 automatic assault rifles.

It may be argued that Chinese military aid is of little help in quelling urban unrest. But the modernization of Burma's armed forces since 1988 has also served the purpose of ensuring the loyalty of the military, which is crucial for the survival of the present regime. Nothing is going to change as long as the military remains united, and there have so far been no credible reports of splits within the military. Given the abuse of power, their privileges and the atrocities they have committed, the Burmese military has everything to lose and nothing to gain from allowing more openness and transparency. Foreign-based opposition groups like to talk about "dialogue" and "national reconciliation," but these are no more than popular buzzwords with little relevance inside Burma, where the military talks to no one but itself.

A Rangoon-based Western diplomat once put it to me quite bluntly: "They fear that if they don't hang together, they'll hang separately." The junta is now reading from its standard playbook, blaming the "disturbances" on "internal and external destructionists." In a speech on Sept. 24, Burma's religious affairs minister, Brig.-Gen. Thura Myint Maung, asserted that "political extremists" from the pro-democracy National League for Democracy, NLD, "remnants" of the Communist Party of Burma (which has been defunct for more than 18 years), and foreign broadcasting stations had instigated Buddhist monks and others to demonstrate. The situation, he said, was being handled "softly" and "with care."

Meanwhile, the National League for Democracy, formed shortly after the 1988 uprising, has been decimated. Its main leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has charisma but she remains under house arrest, and nearly the entire, original leadership of the NLD is either dead, in prison or has simply given up all political activity. Most young NLD activists have been imprisoned, cowed into submission, or have fled the country. Only a handful of elderly spokespersons remain, and none of them has the strength and charisma to carry the party forward. That serves the interests of the junta, since the new-look NLD would appear to the outside world not to be a viable alternative.

Nor have external forces had much influence over Burma's ruling generals. Western sanctions have had minimal effect, as the country's neighbors—China, India and Asean—continue to trade and invest in the country, allowing the generals to use their ample natural resources and strategic geographical position to survive. China was the first major country to show interest in Burma's riches, even before the events of 1988. Pan Qi, former vice minister of communications, wrote an article in the Sept. 2, 1985 Beijing Review entitled "Opening to the Southwest: An Expert Opinion," outlining the possibility of finding an outlet through Burma to the Indian Ocean for trade from China's landlocked provinces of Yunnan and Sichuan. He mentioned the Burmese railheads of Myitkyina and Lashio in the northeast, and the Irrawaddy River, as possible conduits for the export of Chinese goods.

By late 1991, Chinese experts were assisting in a series of infrastructure projects to spruce up the poorly maintained roads and railways. Chinese military advisers also arrived in the same year, the first foreign military personnel to be stationed in Burma since the Australians had a contingent there to train the Burmese army in the 1950s. The total value of Chinese arms deliveries to Burma is not known, but intelligence sources estimate it to be about $1.4 billion.

Burma's close relationship with China caused concern in India. To counter China's growing influence, at first India supported Burma's pro-democracy movement. But when it became clear that it was not going to come to power within the foreseeable future, India began to court the junta. Enticing Burma to distance itself from China, however, was not New Delhi's only concern; the rapidly expanding Indian economy needs energy, and Burma has ample resources of natural gas.

During the current turmoil, China blocked an attempt by the U.N. Security Council to adopt a binding resolution of Burma, while a spokesman for the Indian government on Sept. 26 made a rather bland statement: "The government of India is concerned at and is closely monitoring the situation in Myanmar (Burma). It is our hope that all sides will resolve their issues peacefully through dialogue. India has always believed that Myanmar's process of political reform and national reconciliation should be more inclusive and broad-based."

Burma's generals are, therefore, firmly entrenched in power, and not overly worried about condemnation by the West. That doesn't mean that their position is entirely secure. They remain profoundly despised by the population at large and, last year, an entirely new movement began to take shape. It consisted of veterans of the 1988 uprising, the most prominent among them being Min Ko Naing, a student leader who was arrested in March 1989—and released only in November 2005, after nearly 16 years in solitary confinement. In 1988 he was a 26-year-old zoology student addressing crowds of tens of thousands in Rangoon. When he was released he was 42, and his years in prison had left their mark on his face and body. In 2005, he looked old and haggard—but his fighting spirit had not been quelled. "The people of Burma must have the courage to say `no' to injustice and `yes' to truth," he said at a meeting of the newly formed "88-Generation Students' Group" in Rangoon in August 2006.

Min Ko Naing's group played an important role in organizing the first protests in August, shortly after the authorities had increased the price of petrol and fuel, causing further hardships for a population that was already suffering from rising living costs. But the entire leadership of the group was arrested immediately, depriving the movement of direction. The monks, who took the initiative in the street marches which led to a renewed mass movement, can only mobilize people and take the moral high ground; as monks, they cannot be political leaders. Thus, unlike in 1988 when a number of political leaders emerged, among them Aung San Suu Kyi, the current movement is leaderless and rudderless.

The bitter reality is that nothing is going to change as long as the military remains united and willing to gun down its own people. A younger generation of army officers, who see the need to negotiate with the pro-democracy movement, is probably the only hope. But for now, no one is aware of any "young Turks" lurking in the wings, and there are no signs of serious cracks within the ranks. But if change does come to Burma, it will in any event be because of action taken by such younger army officers, not demonstrations led by monks. The protests can, at the most, influence sections of the army to realize that there is no future in supporting the present regime. But only time will tell if that is going to happen.

Mr. Lintner is a free-lance writer based in Thailand. He is the author of several books on Burma.

Dari Catatan Harian Imam Bonjol

Tempo - Edisi. 34/XXXVI/15 - 21 Oktober 2007

Iqra

Imam Bonjol meninggalkan sejumlah catatan hidupnya saat diasingkan. Ada catatan tentang jalannya pertempuran dan negosiasi dengan Belanda. Tak ada tentang kebrutalan.

"Ini ada surat kumpeni menyuruh saya datang kepada kumpeni sekarang. Bagaimana kiranya segala datuk-datuk atau baik saya pai (pergi—Red.) atau tidak?"

Imam Bonjol wafat di Manado. Selama di Manado, ia ternyata menulis semacam otobiografi dalam huruf Arab Melayu. Oleh anaknya, Naali Sutan Chaniago dan Haji Muhammad Amin, yang ikut dibuang ke Manado, naskah itu diselamatkan.

Dalam catatan itu, kita temukan kesaksian Imam Bonjol menyerang daerah-daerah yang belum menjalankan syariah, juga kisah bagaimana ia mengirim Tuanku Tambusai ke Mekkah, yang kemudian membuat Tambusai bergelar Haji Muhammad Saleh.

Atau bagaimana di sebuah salat Jumat, ia menyerukan hukum adat basandi syarak. Ia melukiskan dengan agak rinci betapa ganasnya perang mempertahankan benteng Bonjol. Tapi bagian paling panjang adalah pengakuannya bernegosiasi dengan Belanda.

Diceritakan, utusan Belanda, Kroner (Kolonel) Elout, memintanya menyerah. Ia menolak, lalu terjadi pertempuran sengit. Dikisahkannya ia memasang meriam sendiri untuk menggempur Belanda. Tapi benteng Bonjol jatuh, dan utusan datang lagi. Di Padang, ia bertemu dengan Residen Francis.

Resident Francis: Dulu saya minta Tuanku, Tuanku tidak mau datang bertemu kami….

Tuanku Imam Bonjol: Tempo tuan kirim surat yang dahulu tuan minta saya. Saya kasih lihat surat itu kepada raja-raja dan penghulu. Hampir saya dibunuh orang tempo itu dan dicabik-cabiknyo dek surat itu. Surat kemudian tidak kasih lihat pada penghulu. Maka itulah sekarang mencari tuan….

Imam Bonjol akhirnya mau dibawa kapal ke Betawi, Surabaya, Buton, Ambon, sampai Manado. Di sanalah, di Lotak Pineleng, ia tinggal sampai wafatnya. Keberadaan naskah Tuanku Imam Bonjol pertama kali dilaporkan oleh Ph.S. van Ronkel dalam artikel Inlandsche getuigenissen aangaande de Padri-oorlog (Kesaksian Pribumi mengenai Perang Padri) dalam jurnal De Indische Gids, 1915.

Ronkel menyebutkan bahwa dia telah menyalin satu naskah berjudul Tambo Anak Tuanku Imam Bonjol setebal 318 halaman. Pada 2004, Sjafnir Aboe Nain dari Pusat Pengkajian Islam dan Minangkabau, Padang, menerbitkan transliterasi naskah Tuanku Imam Bonjol.

Kata pengantar yang ditulis Sjafnir menyebutkan bahwa salinan Ronkel itu sesungguhnya gabungan antara catatan Imam Bonjol yang berjumlah 191 halaman dan catatan anaknya, Naali dan Amin. Naskah itu sendiri, menurut dia, dikenal dengan nama Tambo Naali Sulthan Chaniago.

Transliterasi dilakukan Sjafnir ke dalam bahasa Minang-Melayu, membuat naskah ini agak sulit dipahami dalam waktu singkat. "Saya butuh waktu lama untuk memahami naskah ini," kata peneliti sejarah Tapanuli Selatan, Basyral Hamidy Harahap.

Tak ada bagian dari naskah ini yang menampilkan sikap Imam Bonjol akan kekerasan yang dilakukan Padri. "Tapi saya yakin Imam Bonjol mengetahui kekejaman kaum Padri, baik penculikan maupun pemerkosaan. Tapi ia diam saja," kata Basyral.

Ia merujuk, ada halaman yang menampilkan masalah penculikan dan jual-beli perempuan ternyata dibicarakan secara terbuka dalam suatu pertemuan yang dihadiri tokoh-tokoh umat, yakni Sultan Chaniago, Nan Pahit, Datuk Kayo, Datuk Limo Koto, Rajo Minang, Punjuak Batuah, dan Pado Alim.

"Pailah (pergilah—Red.) ke rumah Malin Kecil, basua (bertemu) perempuan. Ditanyalah dek (oleh) Datuk Limo Koto perempuan itu. 'Siapo nan manangkap di lading Batang Silasung?' kata Datuk Limo Koto. Alah (kemudian) menjawab perempuan, 'Nan manangkap saya dicari (si Cari) orang Durian Tinggi. Dijualnya dek si Cari itu saya kepada Rajo Manang. Dek Rajo Manang dijual pula ke Bamban.'"

Sejarawan dari Universitas Andalas, Padang, Dr Gusti Asnan, melihat, untuk sebuah catatan harian, Tuanku Imam Bonjol sangat tidak mungkin menuliskan fakta-fakta kebrutalan Padri. "Bila dibandingkan dengan sumber sejarah Belanda, Tuanku Imam Bonjol tidak memasukkan peristiwa pembakaran, perampokan, serta penculikan dan pemerkosaan perempuan. Tapi saya pikir dia tahu mengenai kejadian itu," ungkap Gusti.

Baik Basyral maupun Gusti melihat proses negosiasi Tuanku yang diwakili anaknya, Sutan Chaniago, dengan pemimpin Belanda sama sekali tidak menunjukkan ketegangan. Mengherankan, Imam Bonjol yang dikenal sebagai sosok penentang Belanda yang gigih kemudian seperti melemah. Bahkan Gusti melihat keakraban Tuanku dengan Residen Elout dan Residen Francis aneh.

"Sekarang Tuanku pergi ke negri Menado, karena negri Menado baik, tempat baik, makanan murah…."

"Sebagai seorang pahlawan nasional, apa iya Tuanku tidak merasa curiga terhadap niat Belanda?" tanya Gusti.

Sita Planasari Aquadini, Seno Joko Suyono

Kontroversi Kebrutalan Kaum Padri

Iqra

Tempo - Edisi. 34/XXXVI/15 - 21 Oktober 2007

Gerakan Padri selama ini diidentikkan dengan kepahlawanan Imam Bonjol dan kelom­pok­nya melawan Belanda. Tapi belakangan se­buah buku lama yang kontroversial dan me­nunjukkan sisi gelap Padri, Tuanku Rao, diterbitkan kembali. Lalu muncul buku baru dengan judul Greget Tuanku Rao sebagai reaksi.

Kedua buku ini memperlihatkan bahwa gerakan Padri sesungguhnya adalah gerakan Wahabi—gerakan pemurnian Islam yang dilakukan secara keras terhadap Islam kultural di Minang dan Batak. Dan itulah gerakan yang membuat puluhan ribu nyawa jadi korban. Imam Bonjol dianggap dengan sadar melakukan itu, sehingga ada usul gelar pahlawan nasional dicabut darinya. Be­tulkah demikian? Ikuti pembahasan Tempo.

… Petisi ini mendesak Pemerintah Indonesia untuk membatalkan pengangkatan Tuanku Imam Bonjol sebagai Pahlawan Perjuangan Kemerdekaan…. Imam Bonjol adalah pimpinan Gerakan Wahabi Paderi…. Gerakan ini memiliki aliran yang sama dengan Taliban dan Al Qaeda…. Invasi Paderi ke Tanah Batak menewaskan jutaan orang….

Petisi online itu tersebar di banyak mailing list seminggu lalu. Seorang anak muda, Mudy Situmorang—lulusan Teknik Elektro Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, kelahiran Simanindo, Pulau Samosir—telah mengirimnya. Dalam petisi itu, ia membeberkan dosa-dosa gerakan Padri, antara lain pembantaian massal keluarga Kerajaan Minangkabau Pagaruyung dan penyerbuan Padri ke Batak yang menewaskan Sisingamangaraja X.

Ia mengatakan petisi itu atas nama pribadi, bukan organisasi, dan semata-semata untuk pelurusan sejarah. "Kita tunggu sampai 500 pendukung. Hasilnya dikirim ke pemerintah," katanya saat dihubungi Tempo. Sampai sekarang, petisi itu memang belum "berbunyi".

Namun petisi ini mengingatkan orang akan dua buah buku bertema sama yang baru-baru ini terbit. Yang satu adalah buku lama karya Mangaradja Onggang Parlindungan berjudul Tuanku Rao. Buku itu pertama kali dicetak penerbit Tanjung Pengharapan, 1964, dan diluncurkan kembali oleh penerbit LKiS Yogya, Juni lalu, tanpa suntingan apa pun, bahkan tetap dalam ejaan lama.

Itulah buku yang pada 1964 menghebohkan. Buku itu tidak bercerita langsung tentang Imam Bonjol, tapi berisi kronologi penyerangan komandan-komandan Padri. Parlindungan sendiri menyusun buku itu berdasarkan data sejarah Batak yang dimiliki ayahnya, Sutan Martua Radja. Pada 1918, ayahnya adalah guru sejarah di Normaalschool Pematangsiantar. Ayahnya memiliki warisan dokumen sejarah Batak turun-temurun dari tiga generasi sepanjang 1851-1955.

Di samping itu, Parlindungan memakai bahan-bahan milik Residen Poortman. Posisi Poortman sama dengan Snouck Hurgronje. Snouck adalah seorang ahli Aceh, yang informasinya diminta oleh pemerintah Belanda. Sedangkan Poortman adalah seorang ahli Batak. Poortman pensiun pada 1930 dan kembali ke Belanda. Di Leiden, Belanda, Poortman lalu menemukan laporan-laporan para perwira Padri sepanjang 1816-1820 untuk Tuanku Imam Bonjol. Parlindungan mengenal Poortman secara pribadi dan pernah bertemu di Belanda. Poortman mengirimkan bahan-bahan laporan itu saat Parlindungan menulis bukunya.

Parlindungan bukan sejarawan profesional. Caranya menulis pun serampangan. Data yang diramunya itu sering ditampilkan cut and glue atau dinarasikan kembali dengan bahasa campuran: bahasa Indonesia lisan, kadang disisipi kalimat-kalimat Inggris yang panjang. Di sana-sini, ia memberikan komentar yang cara penulisannya seperti seorang ayah yang menerangkan kisah kepada anaknya. Kata ganti yang dipakai untuk dirinya adalah "Daddy". Sedangkan anak laki-lakinya di situ disebut "Sonny Boy". Ketika polemik menghangat, buku itu ditarik dari peredaran. Buku itu pun jadi buku langka. Di sebuah pameran buku di Jakarta, buku itu beberapa tahun lalu bahkan sempat dihargai Rp 1,5 juta.

Buku kedua, Greget Tuanku Rao, ditulis Basyral Hamidy Harahap, terbit September lalu. Basyral adalah Ketua Jurusan Perpustakaan Universitas Indonesia 1965-1967 dan pensiunan pustakawan Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (KITLV). Ia ingin mengoreksi beberapa info tentang Tuanku Rao yang dianggapnya kurang tepat. Tapi, pada garis besarnya, ia sepakat dan bahkan menambahkan data kekerasan yang dilakukan Padri. "Buku Parlindungan banyak salahnya, tapi buku itu ada di jalan yang benar."

l l l

Siapakah Parlindungan? Tak banyak yang tahu sosok pengarang ini. Basyral sendiri pada 1974 pernah bertemu dengannya di dekat rumah Hamka di Jakarta. Ia langsung menanyakan kabar polemik antara Parlindungan dan Buya Hamka. Agaknya Parlindungan tak suka. "Saat itu ia langsung mengarahkan tongkatnya yang berkepala gading ke arah dahi saya. Saya kaget, mengelak," kenang Basyral.

Hal ini sedikit terkuak ketika anaknya, Dorpi Parlindungan Siregar, kini 59 tahun, mau bercerita kepada Tempo—dialah anak yang dipanggil Sonny Boy dalam bukunya.

"Ayah saya seorang perwira KNIL. Perjalanan karier ayah saya dimulai ketika pada 1 Oktober 1945, Jenderal Mayor Oerip Soemohardjo mendirikan Tentara Keamanan Rakyat (TKR). Beliau mengumpulkan 17 anak muda di Yogyakarta, di antaranya Soeharto, Ibnu Sutowo, dan ayah saya."

Pada usia 27 tahun, menurut Dorpi, ayahnya memperoleh pangkat letnan kolonel. Sebagai insinyur kimia lulusan Jerman dan Belanda, ayahnya menjadi bawahan dr Willer Hutagalung, dulu dokter pribadi Jenderal Soedirman. Mereka kemudian mengambil bekas pabrik mesiu dan peralatan senjata Belanda, yang lalu menjadi Pindad.

Pada 1960, ayahnya ditahan rezim Soekarno karena dianggap pro-Masyumi. Tempat tahanan ayahnya berpindah-pindah, dan akhirnya menjalani tahanan rumah. Di sanalah, dengan data milik kakeknya dan Residen Poortman, ayahnya menulis buku Tuanku Rao.

Dan yang mengejutkan, bagian terbesar halaman buku ayahnya menceritakan kisah kejahatan algojo Padri bernama Tuanku Lelo, sosok yang tak lain menurut Parlindungan adalah kakek dari kakeknya sendiri. "Jadi ia seperti menceritakan aib keluarga sendiri. Tak banyak penulis yang berani seperti itu," kata Ahmad Fikri dari LKiS. Buku itu awalnya, menurut Dorpi, tidak diperuntukkan bagi umum, tapi bagi anak-anaknya saja. "Sehabis membaca Al-Quran setiap hari, Ayah membacakan cerita ini untuk saya dan adik," kenang Dorpi akan ayahnya yang meninggal pada 1975 itu. Atas desakan teman-temannya, buku itu akhirnya diterbitkan.

Buku itu intinya berisi informasi bagaimana gerakan Wahabi masuk Minang. Waktu itu, tahun 1803, Haji Piobang, Haji Sumanik, dan Haji Miskin kembali ke Minang setelah bermukim di Mekkah lebih dari 12 tahun. Mereka adalah bekas perwira tentara Turki. Mereka mencoba menanamkan mazhab Hambali di Sumatera, menekankan pemurnian Islam.

Gerakan pembersihan agama Islam ini menarik hati seorang mubalig besar bernama Tuanku Nan Rentjeh, yang tengah gundah lantaran di Minang berkembang Islam Syiah. Mereka bersama-sama kemudian mencita-citakan suatu Darul Islam. Piobang membentuk pasukan Padri yang sangat profesional. Pakaian mereka serba putih. Persenjataannya cukup kuat. Mereka, misalnya, menurut Parlindungan, memiliki meriam 88 milimeter bekas milik tentara Napoleon yang dibeli "second hand" di Penang. Dua belas perwira Padri dikirim belajar di Turki. Tuanku Rao, yang aslinya seorang Batak bernama Pongkinangolngolan Sinambela, dikirim untuk belajar taktik kavaleri; Tuanku Tambusai, aslinya bernama Hamonangan Harahap, belajar soal perbentengan. Pasukan Padri juga memiliki pendidikan kemiliteran di Batusangkar.

Sasaran pertama "gerakan kaum putih" ini adalah Istana Pagaruyung, karena istana itu dianggap sebagai boneka Belanda yang merintangi Darul Islam. Pada 1804, ribuan rumah dibakar dan keluarga Istana Pagaruyung dibantai. Untuk cita-cita Darul Islam, pasukan Padri ingin meluaskan agresinya ke luar alam Minangkabau—ke tanah Batak.

Salah satu tamatan pendidikan militer Batusangkar, bernama Peto Syarif Ibnu Pandito Bayanuddin, oleh Tuanku Nan Rentjeh diperintah mencari lokasi yang bakal digunakan sebagai benteng—basis tentara Padri menyerang Tanah Batak. Peto menemukan bekas sarang perampok di rute Minangkabau-Batak bernama Bonjol. Ia mengislamkan kawasan Bonjol, membangun benteng di sana, serta melatih kekuatan 10 ribu tentara. Sejak itu, ia dijuluki Imam Bonjol.

Buku Tuanku Rao ini menjelaskan cukup detail bagaimana persiapan dan kronologi invasi Padri ke Batak Selatan (1816) dan Toba (1818- 1820). Dari etape-etape dan serangan kilat (blitzkrieg), siasat-siasat, sampai notula rapat-rapat para panglima dideskripsikan. Pendiri Padri, Haji Piobang dan Tuanku Imam Bonjol, mengkoordinasi penyebaran pasukan di bawah pimpinan Tuanku Rao, Tuanku Tambusai, Tuanku Lelo, Tuanku Asahan, Tuanku Maga, dan Tuanku Kotapinang.

Toba dikepung dari empat penjuru. Tuanku Asahan dengan kavaleri berkekuatan 11 ribu tentara menyerang dari samping kanan; Kolonel Djagorga Harahap dengan kekuatan 4.000 anggota pasukan dari sayap kiri; Tuanku Maga menusuk dari sisi tengah atas dengan 5.000 anggota pasukan; Tuanku Lelo bersama 9.000 tentaranya merangsek dari sisi tengah bawah. Pada 1820, Sisingamangaraja X, yang bertahan di Benteng Bakkara, akhirnya tewas. Kepala Sisingamangaraja X ditusuk di atas tombak, dipancang di tanah.

Penyerbuan yang paling bengis dilakukan oleh Tuanku Lelo. Parlindungan sendiri menganggap "eyangnya" itu "kriminal perang". Tuanku Lelo bernama asli Idris Nasution. Sosoknya besar, berjanggut hitam, berambut panjang, berombak-ombak. Ia mengenakan baju jubah dan serban yang seluruhnya putih serta suka memakai selempang dan ikat pinggang berwarna merah bertaburan emas—yang dirampasnya di Pagaruyung. Ia dikenal sebagai algojo pembantai, juga maniak seks.

Parlindungan bahkan sampai menyebut eyangnya itu seorang big scoundrel yang memiliki kelakuan binatang. Di tiap kawasan, sang eyang mengumpulkan ratusan wanita, lalu memerkosanya. Di Toba, 14 malam berturut-berturut pasukannya dibiarkan melakukan pesta seks besar-besaran.

Ketika pasukan bergerak meninggalkan Toba, Tuanku Lelo memerintahkan ribuan wanita dikumpulkan di Red Light District di Sigumpar Toba. Dari Sigumpar, mereka digiring berjalan kaki melalui Siborong-borong, Pangaribuan, Silantom, Simangambat, Sipirok, menuju Natal Mandailing. Sesampai di Mandailing, hanya 300 wanita selamat; 900 mati. Yang capek dipenggal.

Kemudian Belanda memutuskan menyerang Padri. Pertempuran pada 1820, menurut Parlindungan, meletus di Benteng Air Bengis. Imam Bonjol turun sendiri. Tuanku Rao tewas di situ. Nah, di pertempuran Air Bengis ini, secara licik Tuanku Lelo melakukan desersi. Melihat Imam Bonjol terdesak, ia lalu memimpin kavalerinya sendiri menuju Angkola dan Sipirok. Ia melanjutkan petualangannya, menjarah, membunuh, melampiaskan nafsu seksualnya. Ia lalu menjadi warlord di Angkola dan Sipirok selama 1822-1833. Ia di sana mendirikan sebuah harem di bentengnya di Padang Sidempuan.

Buku Tuanku Rao hanya sedikit menyinggung peran Tuanku Tambusai. Namun, menurut Basyral, Tuanku Tambusai tak kalah kejam dibanding Tuanku Lelo. "Kebrutalan Tuanku Tambusai terjadi di daerah Padang Lawas, Dolok, dan Barumun. Salah satu kawasan yang paling parah terkena adalah daerah nenek moyang saya, Simanabun," tutur Basyral (lihat "Tambusai dan Pasukan Putih-putih").

l l l

Para sejarawan berbeda pendapat soal kebrutalan ini. "Sebetulnya masuknya Padri ke Batak bukan ekspansi. Kelompok-kelompok musuh Padri saat itu dapat dipukul mundur hingga ke Tapanuli Selatan. Karena itu, mereka bertempur sampai ke daerah tersebut," tutur Dr Mestika Zed, sejarawan dari Universitas Negeri Padang.

"Sebagai sebuah buku sejarah, buku Parlindungan sumbernya sangat lemah. Dokumen Poortman sendiri diragukan. Banyak yang tidak faktual," kata Dr Asvi Warman Adam dari Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan Indonesia. Hamka bahkan pernah menganggap Tuanku Lelo hanyalah karangan Parlindungan belaka (lihat "Mengenang Sanggahan Hamka"). Memang, sekarang mustahil untuk mengecek semua sumber yang digunakan Parlindungan, karena semua data itu dimusnahkan oleh Parlindungan sendiri.

Dalam bukunya itu, Parlindungan menyebutkan data yang diwariskan ayahnya kepadanya hanya meliputi 20 persen dari yang dimiliki ayahnya. Ia menyaksikan sendiri, pada 1941, ayahnya membakar sisanya sambil bercucuran air mata di tepi Sungai Bah Bolon.

"Daddy tidak mau risiko," katanya kepada anaknya. "Our family secrets yang ketahuan pada outsiders cukup yang terbatas dalam buku ini. No more." "Saya menduga, itu adalah alibi dia, yang sebenarnya tak cukup memiliki data otentik, atau bisa juga ia tak mau sejarawan lain menelitinya," kata J.J. Rizal dari Yayasan Bambu, yang menerbitkan Greget Tuanku Rao.

Akan halnya Dr Gusti Asnan, pengajar Jurusan Sejarah Fakultas Sastra Universitas Andalas, Padang, menganggap tidak semua sumber Belanda yang digunakan Parlindungan mengandung bias. Dari 100 laporan, ada 20-50 persen data yang benar. Menurut dia, historiografi Perang Padri sendiri dimulai pada 1950-an. "Saat itu terjadi dekolonialisasi historiografi Indonesia, termasuk Perang Padri. Demi persatuan dan kesatuan, bagian-bagian miring dari data yang ada, seperti kebrutalan Perang Padri, sengaja tidak disiarkan."

Ia juga melihat gerakan pasukan Padri tak semata-mata bermotif agama, tapi juga ekonomi. Sejak akhir abad ke-18 hingga awal abad ke-19, perkembangan ekonomi di Sumatera Barat memang luar biasa karena booming kopi.

Dr Gusti pernah membaca sebuah kisah tentang saudagar bernama Peto Magik di Pasaman. Ia dikenal sebagai saudagar Padri—bisa dianggap konglomerat. Seorang Belanda bernama Bulhawer yang melakukan kerja sama dengan Peto mengaku tidak melihat sedikit pun gambaran islami padanya. "Kesan yang dilihat Bulhawer, Peto Magik adalah seorang kapitalis. Dan gambaran ini saya rasa juga menggambarkan sebagian besar kaum Padri," ujar Gusti.

Maka, menurut Gusti, ketika daerah kekuasaan di Tanah Datar dan Agam mulai direbut Belanda, kaum Padri pun meluaskan ekspansi ke utara: Bonjol, Pasaman, dan Tapanuli Selatan. Mengapa ke utara? Karena daerah utara memiliki basis kekayaan yang sangat tinggi. Apalagi, dengan menguasai area tersebut, Padri masih dapat melakukan hubungan dengan kaum lain, seperti Aceh, melalui jalur sungai.

Sekalipun mengakui kekerasan yang dilakukan Padri, sebagian orang memandang dari sudut berbeda. "Soalnya saat itu kan tidak ada HAM," kata sejarawan Taufik Abdullah.

Basyral sendiri melihat Imam Bonjol mengetahui segala perampokan, pemerkosaan, dan mutilasi yang dilakukan perwira-perwiranya. "Mustahil Imam Bonjol tak tahu. Ia kan komandan," kata Basyral.

Tapi Taufik Abdullah tak sependapat. Menurut dia, kekerasan di awal gerakan Padri bukan tanggung jawab Tuanku Imam Bonjol. Saat gerakan Padri masih radikal di awal, Tuanku Imam Bonjol masih muda dan baru menjabat sebagai asisten Tuanku Bandaro, salah satu pemimpin gerakan Padri saat itu.

"Buat saya, pencabutan gelar pahlawan itu nonsens. Justru di bawah pimpinan Tuanku Imam Bonjol pasukan Padri lebih menitikberatkan serangan pada pihak Belanda," kata Taufik.

Menurut Taufik, keliru jika melihat sosok Imam Bonjol dalam Padri disamakan dengan Diponegoro. "Diponegoro merupakan pemimpin tunggal, sementara gerakan Padri merupakan gerakan sosial kolektif, dengan banyak pemimpin," katanya.

Taufik mengatakan, bahkan, Tuanku Imam Bonjol sempat mengirim empat anak buahnya ke Mekkah untuk naik haji, termasuk Tuanku Tambusai. Tujuannya untuk melihat kondisi Islam di Mekkah. Ternyata Islam saat itu jauh lebih moderat. Sehingga, ketika kembali ke Minang, Tuanku Tambusai pun menjadi lebih moderat. Sekembali dari Mekkah, seperti disebut dalam Tuanku Rao, ia pun menyesal melihat dengan mata kepala sendiri bagaimana wanita-wanita ditawan oleh pasukan Tuanku Lelo.

Menurut Taufik, adat basandi syarak justru mengemuka di bawah kepemimpinan Tuanku Imam Bonjol. Imam Bonjol wafat pada usia 93 tahun di Manado, pada 1864. Tak banyak orang yang tahu, ia meninggalkan sebuah "catatan harian" (lihat "Dari Catatan Harian Bonjol").

Seno Joko Suyono, Sita Planasari

Dua Jilid Terra Incognita

Tempo - Edisi. 34/XXXVI/15 - 21 Oktober 2007

Dua buku ekologi Papua diterbitkan, menggenapi lima seri alam Indonesia. Hanya menyingkap sebagian kekayaan Papua.

The Ecology of Papua
Editor: Andrew J. Marshall, Bruce M. Beehler
Penerbit: Periplus International, 2007 Tebal: 1.476 halaman (2 volume)

Sampai pertengahan abad lalu, para ilmuwan hayati dunia meyakini Papua sebagai satu-satunya terra incognita—dunia tak dikenal—yang terbesar dan masih tersisa. Bahkan, menurut G.S. Hope, peneliti dari Australia, sampai pertengahan 1976, hanya segelintir peneliti yang dengan izin khusus bisa memasuki kawasan ini.

Papua yang dekat, tapi begitu jauh dari jangkauan, merupakan persoalan kontemporer kita. Dan keadaan miris ini berlangsung hingga akhir September lalu—ketika dua volume Ecology of Papua, tebalnya mencapai 1.476 halaman, diterbitkan. Sebuah buku yang mencoba mencatat keadaan geografis serta kekayaan hewani dan nabati subkontinen yang menakjubkan itu. Patut pula dicatat, semua ini jadi lebih terbuka setelah 86 orang pakar hayati dan taksonomi bergerak sepuluh tahun silam, seraya mengumpulkan keanekaragaman hayati tanah Papua.

Ya, Ecology of Papua adalah hasil jerih payah yang panjang yang membuahkan hasil. Lihatlah bagaimana buku ini menggambarkan bahwa sebuah pohon roboh bisa dihuni oleh 173 jenis lumut. Tapi gambaran Papua yang tertangkap dalam buku ini tentu saja lebih dari itu. Ecology of Papua menyampaikan bahwa para pakar itu menjumpai 20-25 ribu spesies tanaman berpembuluh, dan sekitar 60-90 persen merupakan endemik Papua. Ada catatan istimewa tentang paku-pakuan yang meliputi sekitar 2.000 spesies; 30 persen di antaranya berada di atas ketinggian 4.000 meter dari permukaan laut.

Dari dunia nabati, kita juga bisa mendapatkan gambaran kekayaan anggrek Papua—plus Papua Nugini. Mereka menyimpan sekitar 2.800 spesies anggrek atau sekitar 11 persen dari anggrek dunia. Dengan kata lain, merekalah yang terkaya kedua, setelah Pegunungan Andes di Amerika Selatan.

Di luar kekayaan nabati, Papua punya kekayaan lain. Di pulau itu, para pakar menemukan antara lain 37.643 spesies vertebrata atau sekitar 6,5 persen dari binatang bertulang belakang di dunia. Di antaranya terdapat 600 spesies burung, termasuk 25 spesies cenderawasih. Mereka memperkirakan Papua memiliki 300-500 ribu spesies vertebrata. Serangga saja jumlahnya ditaksir 100 ribu spesies dan baru sebagian kecil yang dikatalogkan. Dengan jumlah flora dan fauna yang melimpah itu pun, menurut Direktur Pusat Penelitian Biologi Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan Indonesia Dedy Darnaedi, "Mungkin baru sebagian kecil kekayaan hayati Papua yang bisa diungkap."

Hewan Papua juga merupakan campuran hewan Benua Asia dan Australia. Ada satu hal yang menarik dicatat dari buku ini: temuan mereka tentang kanguru pohon. Dan ini membuktikan bahwa spesies itu belum punah. Sebagaimana diketahui, kanguru pohon yang hanya hidup di Papua itu tidak pernah ditemukan selama 90 tahun terakhir. Dilengkapi ratusan foto, gambar, dan peta, Ecology of Papua tak pelak lagi bisa menjadi rujukan untuk hal-hal yang sangat praktis. Misalnya zonasi dalam pengelolaan sumber alam. Dan kita mungkin masih ingat rencana pembangunan proyek listrik tenaga air Mamberamo dua-tiga tahun lalu—rencana yang terpaksa terhenti lantaran lokasinya masih masuk zona inti yang tidak boleh disentuh oleh pemanfaatan manusia.

Apa pun, yang jelas, terbitnya buku ekologi Papua ini menambah khazanah literatur ekologi Indonesia, yakni melengkapi lima seri ekologi Indonesia yang sudah ada: ekologi Sumatera, Kalimantan, Jawa dan Bali, Sulawesi, Nusa Tenggara dan Maluku, serta satu seri ekologi laut Indonesia.

I G.G. Maha Adi

Just a Prude? Feminism, Pornography, and Men’s Responsibility

By Robert Jensen
Original URL

I want to begin by coming out: I am a man. More specifically, I am a white man. That’s important because it suggest two things regarding what I know about the world. First, I know some things that women don’t know about men. By definition, women are never in all-male spaces. Women don’t directly experience what men say about them when there are no women around. I do, and that means I know some things that women don’t.

Being a man also means there’s a lot I don’t know, that I have had to learn—and have to keep learning—from women and a feminist movement. In these remarks, I’m going to speak about the feminist critique of pornography and the feminist anti-pornography movement, from which I have learned much. But in doing that, I should acknowledge the irony of a man talking to a group of mostly women about the feminist analysis of pornography. I need to make it clear that I am not speaking for women. Instead, I see my role as speaking with women, and with the ultimate goal of speaking about the insights of this critique to men.

But even that is complicated, of course, because women do not speak with one voice about pornography, nor any other issue. There are pro-pornography women who would contest much of what I have to say. All I can do is acknowledge the women who have helped me come to understand the issue, tell the truth as I see it, and ask men to take seriously this critique of the domination/subordination dynamic that is so common in pornography and, indeed, in the world.

The minute one begins to make such a critique, one can expect this response: Feminists who critique pornography are really just prudes at heart. Pornography’s opponents, we are told, are afraid of sex. In one sense, that’s true. I am afraid of sex, of a certain kind. I’m afraid of much of the sex commonly presented in contemporary mass-marketed pornography. I am afraid of sex that is structured on a dynamic of domination and subordination. I am afraid of the sex in pornography that has become so routinely harsh that men typically cannot see the brutality of it thorough their erections and orgasms. I’m not against sex or sexual pleasure. I’m against the kind of sex that is routinely presented in contemporary pornography. I’m against that kind of sex because it hurts people in the world today, and it helps constructs a world in which people—primarily the most vulnerable people, women and children, both girls and boys—will continue to be hurt.

 

Pornographic sex

Let me describe one kind of sex that I’m afraid of. This is a scene from the film Gag Factor #10 released by J.M. Productions, which boasts that it pushes the envelope in pornography. The company website brags that this gag series, which is going on #17 as of March 2005, offers ‘The best throatfucking ever lensed.’ If you want a sample, the website has pictures and short video clips, under the heading ‘this week’s victim,’ with the promise ‘new whores degraded every Wednesday.’

In one of the 10 scenes from Gag Factor #10, released in 2002, a nagging wife is haranguing her husband and asking why he is so lazy. ‘Why can’t you do anything?’ she asks, going on to insult his intelligence and criticize him because he doesn’t read. She asks him if he even can read, and then suggests Henry Miller, from which she starts to read. The camera focuses on her mouth as she reads, then cuts to his eyes, which look increasingly angry. The film cuts to the woman on her knees as he yells, ‘Shut the fuck up.’ He grabs her hair and thrusts his penis into her mouth. From this point on, we hear almost exclusively from him: ‘Your teeth feel good you little bitch. Eat that dick. … Are you OK? Are you crying? I love you. I fucking love you. Open that mouth.’ He slaps her mouth with his penis. ‘Open wide. Choke. Open wider, wider. You’re so good baby. Put your mouth on my balls. You treat me so fucking good. That’s why I keep you here. Give me the eyes [meaning, look up at me] while I gag you. … Do you like to gag? Beg for it. Say please. Say please gag me some more. … Your throat is so good.’ At this point, she re-enters the conversation. She says, ‘Keep going.’ He says, ‘Good, that’s the fucking answer I was looking for.’ He then flips her over, putting her on the table with her head hanging over edge. She gags several times when he thrusts into her mouth. He holds her by the cheeks, spreading her face apart. She gags but he doesn’t stop. He allows her to catch her breath. Her face is unexpressive, almost frozen. ‘I want those tears to come out again, baby. I want to choke the shit out of you,’ he says. He grabs her hair and drives his penis into her mouth. He says: ‘Suck that dick. Convulse. I want to see your eyes roll back in your fucking head. Yes, I love it.’ He asks her if she loves it; she says yes. He ejaculates into her mouth and says, ‘Spit that cum out. I can’t hear you. What did you say? Don’t talk with your mouth full.’ He walks away and says ‘Don’t give me any more shit.’

Gag Factor is a type of ‘gonzo’ pornography, which is the roughest form available in the mainstream pornography shops and also the fastest growing genre. This scene is more overtly misogynistic than some, but it is not idiosyncratic. The sex and the language in what the industry calls ‘features’ typically is not as rough, though the message is the same: Women are for sex, and women like sex this way.

Empathy

I am afraid of the sex I just described to you. I’m worried about the physical and emotional well-being of the woman in that scene. I’m afraid of the way in which the men who use that pornography will act in their own lives, toward women in their lives. I am afraid of the world that such sex helps to create. I am afraid, and you should be, too.

If anyone wants to dismiss these concerns with the tired old phrases ‘to each his own’ and ‘as long as they are consenting adults’—that is, if you want to ignore the reality and complexity of the world in which we live—I can’t stop you. But I can tell you that if you do that, you are abandoning minimal standards of political and moral responsibility, and you become partially responsible for the injuries done as a result of a system you refuse to confront. I will defend that conclusion in a moment. But first, I want to make sure we come to terms with the scene I just described. We live in a world in which a woman can be aggressively ‘throat fucked’ to facilitate the masturbation of men. We all live in that world. We all live with that woman in Gag Factor #10. She is one of us. She is a person. She has hopes and dreams and desires of her own. We all live with that woman who finds herself making a living by being filmed in another kind of gonzo film called a Blow Bang, in which a woman has oral sex in similar fashion with more than one man.

In one of these films, Blow Bang #4, released in 2001, a young woman dressed as a cheerleader is surrounded by six men. For about seven minutes, ‘Dynamite’ (the name she gives on tape) methodically moves from man to man while they offer insults such as ‘you little cheerleading slut.’ For another minute and a half, she sits upside down on a couch, her head hanging over the edge, while men thrust into her mouth, causing her to gag. She strikes the pose of the bad girl to the end. ‘You like coming on my pretty little face, don’t you,’ she says, as they ejaculate on her face and in her mouth for the final two minutes of the scene. Five men have finished. The sixth steps up. As she waits for him to ejaculate onto her face, now covered with semen, she closes her eyes tightly and grimaces. For a moment, her face changes; it is difficult to read her emotions, but it appears she may cry. After the last man, number six, ejaculates, she regains her composure and smiles. Then the narrator off camera hands her the pom-pom she had been holding at the beginning of the tape and says, ‘Here’s your little cum mop, sweetheart—mop up.’ She buries her face in the pom-pom and the scene ends. Dynamite is one of us. She is a person. She has hopes and dreams and desires of her own.

The women in the movement to end men’s violence have helped society understand that we have to empathize with the victims of sexual assault and domestic violence. We also need to extend that empathy to the women in pornography and prostitution. Now we are going to practice empathy, that most fundamental of human qualities. I want us to think of that scene with Dynamite. One woman and six men. After she has performed oral sex on six men, after six men have thrust their penises into her throat to the point of gagging, after six men have ejaculated onto her, the camera is turned off. Think not about the sex acts but about the moment when the camera shuts off. The men walk away. Someone throws her a towel. She has to clean the semen of six strangers off her face and body and from her hair. This woman, who is a person, who is one of us, who has hopes and dreams and desires of her own, cleans herself off.

Now, I want you to imagine that the woman in that scene is your child. I want you to think about how you would feel if the woman being handed a towel to wipe off the semen of six men were your child, someone you had raised and loved and cared for. How does that feel? Then imagine that woman is the child of your best friend, or of your neighbor, or of someone you work with. Then imagine that women is the child of someone you have never met and never will meet. Imagine that woman is just a person, one of us, with hopes and dreams and desires of her own. Forget about whether or not she is your child. She is a person; she is one of us. Imagine that you are the one handing her the towel. Look into her eyes. We need to dare to look into her eyes and try to understand what she might be feeling. You can’t know for sure what she is feeling. But try to imagine how you would feel if it were you.We are constantly told pornography is about fantasies. Those scenes I just described are not fantasy. They are real. They happened. They happened to those women. Those women are not a fantasy. They are people. They are just like us.

And after those scenes were put on videotape, the films were sold and rented to thousands of men who took it home, put it into VCRs or DVD players, and masturbated to orgasm. That also is real. Men fantasize when they masturbate, but the men who are masturbating are not a fantasy. Thousands of men have climaxed to the recording of those women being aggressively ‘throat fucked.’ Those orgasms happened in the real world. Those men’s sexual pleasure was being conditioned to images of women being aggressively ‘throat fucked,’ in the real world. Those specific women and those specific men are part of the world we live in. And that idea of what a woman is, and that idea of what’s men’s sexuality is—those ideas are also part of the world we live in. None of it is a fantasy. All of it is as real as we are.

So, I want to pose a simple question: What do we owe those women? What do we owe Dynamite? What is our responsibility to her, to her hopes and dreams and Choices, hers and ours?

At this point, some will think: ‘Whatever you or I may think of those activities, she chose to do that. She’s an adult. Who are we to condemn her choice?’ I agree; we shouldn’t condemn her choice, and we shouldn’t condemn her. We should empathize with her. And we should think not just about her choice abut about the choices of the men who pay for the tape and create the demand for aggressive ‘throat fucking.’ From research and the testimony of women who have been prostituted and used in pornography, we know that childhood sexual assault (which often leads victims to see their value in the world primarily as the ability to provide sexual pleasure for men) and economic hardship (a lack of meaningful employment choices at a livable wage) are key factors in many women’s decisions to enter the sex industry. We know how women in the sex industry—not all, but many—routinely dissociate to cope with what they do. We know that in one study of 130 street prostitutes, 68 percent met the diagnostic criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder. We know that any meaningful discussion of choice can’t be restricted to the single moment when a woman decides to allow herself to be sold sexually, but must include all the background conditions that affect not only the objective choices she faces but her subjective assessment of those choices. What matters is not just what is available but how she perceives herself in relation to what is available. We know that in anyone’s life, completely free choices are rare, that every choice is made under some mix of constraint and opportunity.

I know, for instance, that in my large lecture classes when I give a multiple-choice exam, virtually none of the students believes that such exams are an accurate or meaningful way of measuring their learning. I know that many of them find such exams to be ridiculous, as do I. But all of my students ‘choose’ to take a test they know to be virtually useless (except for the data it provides me in a large cattle-call class so that I can assign grades at the end of the term). They choose to take that exam because if they chose not to—no matter how sensible and compelling their analysis of the exam’s flaws—they will not pass the course, and they will be denied something that is important to them, a college diploma. They could choose to reject the institution, and thereby give up that asset, but it would cost them. Their choice is free, but it is not made under conditions of complete freedom, given their limited power in the system. So, let us not be naïve about choice.

But, for the sake of argument, let’s assume that the specific woman who was used in that aggressive ‘throat fucking’ movie made a completely free and meaningful choice to participate, with absolutely no constraints on her. That could be the case, but it does not change the fact that many women in the industry choose under dramatic limitations. And so long as the industry is profitable and a large number of women are needed to make such films, it is certain that some number of those women will be choosing under conditions that render the concept of ‘free choice’ virtually meaningless. When a man buys or rents a videotape or DVD, he is creating the demand for pornography that will lead to some number of women being hurt, psychologically and/or physically. That is a fact in the world in which we live. So, men’s choices to buy or rent pornography are complicated by two realities. First, at any given moment, the consumer has no reliable way to judge which women are participating in the industry as a result of a meaningfully free choice. And second, even if the men consuming pornography could make such a determination about specific women in specific films, the demand for pornography that their purchase creates ensures that some women will be hurt. Given that conclusion, there is only one decision that men who claim to have even minimal standards of moral and political responsibility can make: They must not buy or rent pornography. Let me restate that in a personal way: You and I must not buy or rent pornography. You and I must not create the demand that creates the industry that creates a world in which vulnerable people will be hurt.

If we buy or rent pornography, we bear some responsibility for that world. We can try to pretend we don’t know that, but we can’t avoid that responsibility.

Justice and self-interest

That’s the argument from justice. It’s an argument that men, and the women who buy or rent pornography, should take seriously unless they want to abandon minimal moral and political standards. But it is fairly obvious that arguments from justice do not always move people who are in positions of power and privilege. Maybe such arguments from justice should be enough to change people, but they often aren’t. So, arguments from self-interest are important, too.

Men should stop buying and renting pornography because it is the right thing to do. They also should do it because it is in their self-interest. To explain that, I want to tell a story from my experience at the 2005 convention of the pornography industry, the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo, which I attended as part of a team working on a documentary film called Fantasies’ Matter. At the end of our first day filming at the convention, the film’s director/editor, Miguel Picker, and I walked out of the Sands Expo Center in Las Vegas without saying much. We had just spent the better part of the day together on the exhibition floor, which featured about 300 booths visited by thousands of people. Miguel had been behind the camera, and I had been interviewing pornography performers, producers, and fans about why they make, distribute, and consume sexually explicit media.

We had spent the day surrounded by images of women being presented and penetrated for the sexual pleasure of men. All around were pictures and posters, screens running endless porn loops, and display tables of dildos and sex dolls. I had listened to young men tell me that pornography had taught them a lot about what women really want sexually. I had listened to a pornography producer tell me that he thinks anal sex is popular in pornography because men like to think about fucking their wives and girlfriends in the ass to pay them back for being bitchy. And I interviewed the producer who takes great pride that his Gag Factor series was the first to feature exclusively aggressive ‘throat fucking.’ Miguel and I had spent the day surrounded by sex for sale, immersed in the predictable consequence of the collision of capitalism and patriarchy. We had talked to dozens of people for whom the process of buying and selling women for sex is routine. When that day was over, we walked silently from the convention center to the hotel. The first thing I said was, ‘I need a drink.’

I don’t want to feign naivete. As a child and young adult, I used pornography in fairly typical fashion. I have been working on the issue of pornography since 1988. I have talked to a lot of people about pornography, and in very short and controlled doses, I have watched enough of it to understand how corrosive it is to our individual and collective humanity. But I had never been to the industry convention before; I had always found a reason to avoid it. As Miguel and I left the hall, I understood why. ‘I need a drink,’ I said, and we stopped at the nearest hotel bar (which didn’t take long, given how many bars there are in a Las Vegas hotel). I sat down with a glass of wine. Miguel and I started to talk, searching for some way to articulate what we had just experienced, what we felt. But all I could do was cry.

It’s not that I had seen anything on the convention floor that I had never seen. It’s not that I had heard something significantly new or different from the people I had interviewed. It’s not that I had had some sort of epiphany about the meaning of pornography. It’s just that in that moment, the reality of the industry, of the products the industry produces, and the way in which they are used—it all came crashing down on me. My defenses were inadequate to combat a simple fact: The pornographers have won. In the short term, the efforts of the feminists who put forward the critique of pornography, the sex industry, and men’s violence have failed. The pornographers, for the time being, have won. The arguments from justice lost. The pornographers not only are thriving, but are more mainstream and normalized than ever. They can fill up a Las Vegas convention center, with the dominant culture paying no more notice than it would to the annual boat show.

And as the industry has become more normalized, paradoxically, the content of their films becomes ever crueler and more overtly degrading to women. The industry talk is dominated by talk of how to push it even further. Make it nastier. Make it, in the terms of one industry observer, ‘brutal and real.’ That’s the way the pornographers and the customers like it: Brutal. Because brutal is real. And real sells. It is real, and that’s at the heart of the sadness. What was reflected on the convention floor was not just a truth about pornography, but a truth about gender and sex and power in contemporary culture, as well as a truth about the brutality of capitalism. At the end of that day, I was more aware than ever that the feminist critique of pornography is not simply a critique of pornography but about the routine way we are trained to be sexual, about the eroticization of domination and subordination. Feminism, as I learned it, is a full-bore attack on systems of illegitimate authority, of which male dominance is one, along with white supremacy, capitalism, and imperialism.

And at that moment, all I could do was cry. It was a selfish indulgence, because at that moment, my tears were not for the women who are used and discarded by the industry, or the women who will be forced into sex they don’t want by the men in their lives who use pornography. The tears were not for girls and young women who bury their own needs and desires to become sexually what men want them to be. I wish I could honestly say that was front and center in my mind and heart at that moment. But the truth is that my tears at that moment were for myself. Those tears came because I realized, in a more visceral way than ever, that the pornographers have won and they are helping to construct a world that is not only dangerous for women and children, but also one in which I have fewer and fewer places to turn as a man. Fewer places to walk and talk and breathe that haven’t been colonized and pornographized. As I sat that, all I could say to Miguel was, ‘I don’t want live in this world.’ I think at that moment Miguel didn’t quite no what to make of my reaction. He was nice to me, but he must have thought I was going a bit over the top. I don’t blame him; I was a bit over the top. After all, we were there to make a documentary film about the industry, not live out a melodrama about my angst in a Las Vegas hotel bar.

The next day Miguel and I hit the convention floor again. At the end of that day, as we walked away, I made the same request. We sat at the same bar. I had another glass of wine and cried again. Miguel, I think, was glad it was the last day. So was I.

Two days after we left Las Vegas, Miguel called me from New York. This time he was crying. He told me that he had just come to his editing and recording studio and had put on some music. Miguel is not only a director and editor, but a very talented musician. He’s one of those people who understand the world through music. He told me that he had put on music that he finds particularly beautiful, and then the floodgates opened. ‘I understand what you meant in the bar,’ he said, speaking through his own tears.

I tell that story not to glorify two sensitive new-age men. Miguel actually is a sensitive person, though not very new-age. I’m not new-age, and I don’t feel particularly sensitive these days. I feel harsh and mean. I feel angry most of the time. I spend most of my days on political organizing. I don’t write poetry. I’m from North Dakota. People from North Dakota don’t write a lot of poetry. We shovel snow. I tell that story because it’s never been clearer to me that in the struggle over pornography, the sex industry, and men’s violence, it is not enough to be right and to make arguments solely about justice. The central insights of the feminist critique of pornography are, I believe, right. I think it is the most compelling way to understand the issue. If anything, that critique of pornography is truer today than it was when the founding mothers of the movement first articulated it in the late 1970s. But we live in a society in which the pornographers have won, in the short term. Their products are more widely accepted and available than ever. Much of the culture has bought the ‘pornography is liberation’ and ‘pornography is freedom’ lines. To the degree that an anti-pornography position can get traction in the dominant culture, it comes from right-wing groups that have co-opted the language of feminism—the political language of harm—as a cover for a regressive moralism that rejects the values of feminism. Those same right-wing groups typically resist a critique of the capitalist commodification of everything, an analysis crucial to understanding pornography.

At this moment, being right is not enough. We have to find ways to tap into the humanity of people, a humanity that is systematically diminished and obscured by capitalism and patriarchy, as well as the explicit racism in pornography. That’s the argument from self-interest that men must hear. Men get something very concrete from pornography: They get orgasms. For most men, it’s an extremely effective way to gain physical pleasure. But it comes at a cost, and the cost is our own humanity. To be a man in this sense is to surrender some part of your humanity. I speak from experience here: It’s a bad trade-off. No orgasm is worth that much. That’s why the experience that Miguel and I had on the floor is important. On that day, the concentrated inhumanity of the pornographic world overwhelmed us. I went onto the convention floor knowing a lot about pornography. I left the floor feeling it more deeply than ever before. We know a lot about the pornography industry and its effects. We know there is a compelling critique. We have to be willing to feel it, as well.

Feeling and thinking our way forward, together

I realize that this task is difficult: We have to help men understand the depravity of their own pleasure. We have to make them feel that sense of desperation, articulating it in a way that leads people to action not paralysis, hope not despair, resistance not capitulation. We have to make them face what pornography does to us all, men and women. For men, we have to make them face that to be a pornography user is to be a john, to be someone who is willing to buy women for sex, someone who sees sex as a commodity, someone who has traded his own humanity for an orgasm.

Those realities are not easy for women to face either. I can’t speak for women, of course, but I assume that it is not easy to be a woman and understand how pornography portrays women and their sexuality, and to know that men like it. Put bluntly, in pornography, women are reduced to three holes and two hands. In pornography, women are reduced to the parts of their bodies that can sexually stimulate men. Women are not really sex-objects (which at least implies they are human) but more fuck-objects, simply things to be penetrated. I imagine that is not an easy thing to face when you are faced with pornography all around you. I imagine it is not easy to realize that this is the world in which women learned to be sexual.

Men have some difficult realities to face. So do women. I understand how painful those realities can be, because I have struggled, and continue to struggle, with them, and I have talked to many other people about their struggles. Sometimes I feel like I know too much. Sometimes I wish that I didn’t have all these pictures in my head. Sometimes I wish I had never heard the stories of women’s pain that I have heard. But I never wish I were back where I was 20 years ago, because 20 years ago I also was in pain, albeit a very different kind. In some ways, that old pain was easier to mask, but it was impossible to escape. This newer pain might be more intense at times, but it is a necessary part of the process that has changed my life for the better. I don’t really like it, but I accept the need for it, because this pain can lead somewhere. It can lead to a long and difficult, but ultimately rewarding, process of trying to revision sexuality. It can lead to involvement in a political movement to change the world that, even if not successful in the short term, holds out the hope for not just personal but societal transformation. Confronting the violence and pain of the world, both outside and inside me, has led me to meet many amazing people whose friendship and love has sustained me through difficult times.

When we talk like this, one of the predictable rejoinders is that we are trying to impose strict sexual rules on others. As one prominent pro-pornography feminist scholar, Linda Williams, put it in a recent interview, ‘Really, who are anti-pornography activists to tell us where our sexual imaginations should go?’ I agree. No one can tell others where their sexual imaginations should go. Imaginations are unruly and notoriously resistant to attempts at control. But our imaginations come from somewhere. Our imaginations may be internal in some ways, but they are influenced by external forces. Can we not have a conversation about those influences? Are we so fragile that our sexual imaginations can’t stand up to honest human conversation? It seems that pro-pornography forces live with their own fear of sex, the fear of being accountable for their imaginations and actions. The defenses of pornography typically revert to the most superficial kind of liberal individualism that shuts off people from others, ignores the predictable harms of a profit-seeking industry that has little concern for people, and ignores the way in which we all collectively construct the culture in which we live. I have no interest in telling people where there sexual imaginations must end up. But I would like to be part of a conversation about the direction in which we think our sexual imaginations can move.

So, I am afraid of the sex that pornography creates because it hurts people. But I am not afraid of talking about an alternative to the cruelty and brutality of the pornography industry. I need that conversation. I can’t do this on my own. I’m not smart enough and I’m not strong enough. I need help. I know the direction I want to move, but I stumble on the way. I have made mistakes that have hurt others and hurt myself. I can correct some of those mistakes on my own, but none of us can do this completely on our own. So, can we start talking about how to move our sexual imaginations toward respect, toward empathy, toward connections based on equality not domination? Can we give up enough of our fear of the unknown to try to imagine together what that might look like?

This culture tends to talk about sex in terms of heat: Who’s hot, what kind of sex is hot. What if we shifted to a language of light? Sex not as something that produces heat, but something that shines light. Can we talk about moving toward the light? The light that is inside me and inside you. The same light that is inside Dynamite. I want to live in a world in which Dynamite can tell us her name, not the pornographers’ name. I want to live in a world in which we hear her about her hopes and dreams and desires, not the pornographers’. I want to live in that world not just for her sake but for my own, because it is that world in which I can find my own authentic hopes and dreams and desires.

We have given the pornographers far too much power to construct our sexual imaginations. It is our world, not theirs. It is our world to take back. This is not just about taking back the night, but taking back the whole day, taking back the culture’s imagination, taking back the way we see men and women and sex. If we do not, I fear that the light inside us will dim. Our hopes and dreams will be increasingly shaped by the pornographers. And our hopes for a desire based on equality, maybe even the dream of equality, may not survive. I am afraid of that.

We all need to work to make sure that does not happen. For Dynamite’s sake. For your own. For all of us.
——————————————-
Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin, a founding member of the Robert Nowar Collective, and a member of the board of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center. He is the co-author of Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality (Routledge) and author of Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity (City Lights Books). He can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.

“Green and Red Revolution”

By Tom O'Lincoln

Original URL

Reviews:

• John Bellamy Foster, Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000);
• Donnella Meadows, Jorgen Randers and Dennis Meadows, Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update (White River Junction, Vermont: Chelsea Green, 2004);
• Paul Roberts, The End of Oil: The Decline of the Petroleum Economy and the Rise of a New Energy Order (London: Bloomsbury, 2004).

Last year I walked in Sumatran rainforests. It was a delight, and yet … There were almost no birds, because people steal the eggs to scratch a living. Illegal logging is chronic, and before being exported to the West, the logs travel to a plywood factory south of the provincial capital of Padang. The factory employs poor people for paltry wages. It squats menacingly at the top of beautiful Bungus Bay, where fisherfolk say pollution has reduced their catches by 90 percent. Men drag long nets across the bay, but all they catch is bits of wood.

It gets worse. This is one of the places where forest-clearing fires got out of hand in 1997 and blanketed the region with dark haze; the haze blocked the sunlight which in turn killed the coral reefs. So the tourists stay away, leading to more economic desperation, putting more pressure on the forests, the sea, the air. And we are only talking about one region of economically and ecologically miserable Indonesia, which is just one part of a crisis-ridden planet. How can we can survive, and will it mean radical changes in the way we live?

These three titles tell us what we’re up against. Limits to Growth, an update of the Club of Rome forecasts, audits just how badly the planet is damaged, offeirng scenarios for coming decades. The End of Oil is a racy account of the energy business and its social and environmental impacts. Marx’s Ecology has been with us since 2000, an authoritative guide to the old man’s ‘green’ thinking.

 
Limits to Growth

Some people dismiss the ‘Club of Rome’ as panic merchants. The right wing Cato Institute remembers their 1972 report this way:
The Club of Rome had just released its primal scream, Limits to Growth, which reported that the earth was rapidly running out of everything. The most famous declinist of the era, biologist Paul Ehrlich, had appeared on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson to fill Americans with fear of impending world famine and make gloomy prognostications, such as ‘If I were a gambler, I would bet even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.’

Seven years ago, by contrast, energy banker Matthew R Simmons reviewed the same report and remarked that ‘for a work that has been derisively attacked by so many energy economists, a group whose own forecasting record has not stood the test of time very well, there was nothing that I could find in the book which has so far been even vaguely invalidated.’

My reaction to the new volume is more like Simmons’. Everything in the new book seems to add up; nothing seems unreasonable. The authors don’t claim to predict the future. But they offer us some credible projections on which to base our own judgements. The outlook is grim:

It is a sad fact that humanity has largely squandered the past thirty years in futile debates and well-intentioned, but half-hearted responses to the global ecological challenge. We do not have another thirty years to dither. Much will have to change if the ongoing overshoot is not to be followed by collapse during the twenty-first century. (p. xvi)

The authors begin their main argument with a chapter on ‘exponential growth’. This might suggest a clash with Foster’s book, since Marx cut his theoretical teeth on demolishing Malthus’ theories, which said population must grow exponentially and therefore outstrip food supply. Marx’s reply was that different social contexts create very different population dynamics. Whereas Malthus blamed the poor for their own suffering; Marx blamed capitalist society.

After careful reading, I don’t think Limits to Growth is Malthusian in the strict sense. The authors’ charts do show exponential growth in population and industrial production (which may exhaust resources) and they’re certainly worried about population; but they also emphasize the social context:

… in pre-industrial societies both fertility and mortality are high, and population growth is slow. As nutrition and health services improve, death rates fall. Birthrates lag by a generation or two, opening a gap between fertility and mortality that produces rapid population growth. Finally, as lives and lifestyles evolve into the patterns of a fully industrial society, birthrates fall …(p.31)

So they recognize that ‘population problems’ are social problems. In fact, declining fertility is causing angst in 60-odd countries right now – which is one reason the United Nations expects the global population to plateau at around at 9 billion. The problem, the Limits to Growth team would still insist, is that the demands of 9 billion people may be enough to exhaust the planet.

The book asks just how serious is the depletion of sources of materials, taken together with the destruction or overwhelming of the sinks that absorb pollution. Forests, for example, are both sources and sinks: if you burn them you generate energy and release carbon, and at the same time you lose their ability to absorb the CO2 generated by industry and cars. The book traces demands on sources and sinks, considers the costs to humans, and throws up scenarios. These are complex, yet the lay reader won’t be daunted, because the authors take us through them in easy-to-read installments while beginning to suggest solutions.

Scenario One is the unlikely possibility of ‘business as usual’. If we do nothing differently, human welfare goes downhill fairly sharply in a decade or two. Under Scenario Two, if resources are more plentiful than we think, we may postpone the evil day for 20 years, but then the environmental costs catch up with us.

Later scenarios factor in pollution control technology, land yield enhancement, land erosion protection, resource efficiency technology. None makes the dilemma go away entirely. However, we can still achieve a reasonable lifestyle for all of humanity, if we act now. Along what lines? The headline answers in Limits to Growth are that we need to control population, control industrial production, and change the way we live. I think all three are deeply problematic.

Population control might seem like common sense. If there are less shoppers in Safeway, they will throw away fewer plastic bags; fewer people to keep warm in winter would mean less demand for energy. But when you look deeper, ugly problems arise. Thus the authors invite underdeveloped countries to take the lead in population reduction, because at least it’s an area where they can readily contribute. But impoverished third world people put less pressure on the planet per head than we ‘consumerist’ westerners do. India’s per capita ‘ecological footprint’ is less than 8% of the USA’s, so why is it up to Indians to have fewer babies? It’s not hard to see racist dangers along this path. The spectre of Malthus returns.

Moreover reactionary social policies are linked to reducing fertility, from forced sterilisation in India to China’s repressive one-child limit. To accept these policies legitimises the regimes that use them, yet reactionary regimes are more likely to take a slash-and-burn approach to the environment. In addition to infanticide and gender imbalance, the US National Intelligence Council reports another grim irony of China’s one-child policy: the Chinese are now madly industrialising and polluting ‘in a race to see if they can get rich before they get old. If economic growth cannot provide the capital to support its growing elderly population, China will be hard pressed to support its needs once the "one-child" generation dominates the labour market.’

Talk of reining in industrial production has its dangers too, seeming as it does to threaten workers’ jobs, which only opens up opportunities for the likes of John Howard to divide our side of politics. But there are ways to ensure both prosperity and environmental sustainability, as the authors emphasise: ‘The good news is that current high rates of throughput are not necessary to support a decent standard of living for all the world’s people.’ (p. 9, emphasis in original). How can do we do that? We’ll see a bit later.

The End of Oil?

Limits to Growth is a sober policy document. Paul Roberts’ The End of Oil offers something much racier. He has toured the planet, talking to Azerbaijani managers, Saudi ministers and renewable energy technologists, asking whether the world will run out of petroleum.

It’s not a new topic. In 1956 geophysicist M. King Hubbert predicted American oil production would peak in the early 1970s. Though derided by experts, he was right. Will the world as a whole reach ‘Hubbert’s peak’, and if so when? Harris thinks non-OPEC oil will peak by around 2015, and western rulers are nervous about depending on OPEC, particularly after the 2005 oil price spike.

No wonder Washington moved to seize Iraqi oilfields.. Roberts calls the 1991 Gulf War ‘the first military conflict in history that was entirely about oil,’ noting also that after the 2003 invasion, the Americans quickly secured the Oil Ministry while ‘hospitals, schools, utilities … were left to be burned and looted’. (p.105, 304)

He’s vaguer on the race for oil, gas and pipelines around central Asia and their connection to the 2002 Afghan war; and in fact Roberts doesn’t even come out clearly against these acts of imperial aggression. There’s nothing left wing about his book. It does however provide important facts about the economic and political sides of the environmental crisis.

Take politics. The Bush administration keeps pressing to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, with more than the obvious agenda: ‘ANWR can be used as a bargaining chip in an energy debate with far larger political stakes …. strategists have long known that the Arctic wilderness carries a far higher emotional impact among voters than does fuel efficiency …’ (p. 299-300) Congress can only manage one ‘green’ vote each year, and with the reluctant acquiescence of the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society they choose to protect ANWR rather than take the much more important step of imposing stricter fuel standards on car-makers.

The book summarises the global warming debate, surveying alternative energy strategies; and it’s convinced me big business won’t invest seriously in solar or wind power until some major shock gets their attention. The ‘renewables’ are too costly for the market to spontaneously embrace. Solar cells and wind farms are too decentralised to fit the dominant industrial paradigm, and neither guarantees power 24 hours a day. Of course there are technical fixes for all these drawbacks, they just need a lot of government-funded R&D of the kind George Bush is not going to sponsor.

But this doesn’t have to be an impasse, Roberts hopes, if governments use market mechanisms cleverly. The energy economy and its environmental consequences are an extreme case of ‘market failure’ -- as documented by researcher Joan Ogden, who calculated the ‘hidden costs’ of oil, petrol and cars ‘from well to wheels’, including health, mortality, and global warming’s consequences such as weather damage to crops. The price tag was $2006 per car. These are real costs, it’s just that society pays them rather than energy companies, car makers or owners.

One solution is to tax petrol so prices reflect total costs. Another is carbon trading. Governments combated acid rain fairly effectively by allowing companies to trade ‘pollution credits’ in sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, so why not trade carbon? The problem, which Roberts skates over, is that it’s easy for our rulers to manipulate these mechanisms. Do we trust governments not to hand credits to cronies? And in the international sphere, market arrangements can turn very ugly.

For example, the Kyoto Protocol allows western governments and corporations to earn credits for investing in projects to cut greenhouse emissions in poor countries. That could mean they dump older technology on China, while the west introduces new, clean equipment. If the old technology is "cleaner" than existing Chinese factories and power plants, the west may get greenhouse credits while the Chinese are stuck with obsolete infrastructure that won’t perform when China’s turn comes to directly reduce emissions. Thus a seemingly benign environmental program can veil an imperialist agenda.

Or consider the Bisasar Road landfill in Durban, South Africa. Under apartheid, this site filled with toxic waste, causing cancer in surrounding areas. Upon coming to power, the African National Congress promised to clean it up. Then in 2002 the World Bank proposed to Durban’s mayor that the site be left alone so that methane could be siphoned off for emissions trading under the Bank’s prototype carbon trading program. The local government would make millions, and it might make a slight dent in global warming, but as what cost to the local people? The October 2004 Durban Conference declaration trenchantly criticised the underlying capitalist logic of pollution trading: ‘History has seen attempts to commodify land, food, labour, forests, water, genes and ideas. Carbon trading follows in the footsteps of this history. Through this process … the Earth’s abillity and capacity to support a climate conducive to life and human societies is now passing into the same corporate hands that are destroying the climate.’

So we’re talking about capitalism and imperialism, in which case Karl Marx may have something to offer.

 

Marx’s Ecology

The San people of the Kalahari have no trouble whatever understanding the value of biodiversity. Until fairly recently … all their food, their clothing, their shelter, their medicines, their cosmetics, their playthings, their musical instruments, their hunting weapons, everything came from the productivity of their surroundings, the plants and animals on which they completely depended for a living. Why, then, is it so difficult for most of us in the industrialised nations … to grasp the significance of biodiversity?    (Niles Eldridge)

The answer that we’re estranged from nature. A simple yet profound insight, and more central to Karl Marx’s thought than most Marxists have realised. Reading the Communist Manifesto we pass casually over its call for ‘abolition of the distinction between town and country’. John Bellamy Foster explains its importance. He focuses on the issue of alienation, a concept that emerged in Marx’s early polemics. The rising capitalist order denied the poor their traditional right to firewood, an aspect of the wider ‘privatisation’ of common land into the hands of the rich. This was part of turning the working people into a wage-earning proletariat, but at the same time it destroyed all their relationships with nature not mediated by private property. The labourers were estranged from the products of their labour and their environment, with everything commodified, as the Durban Declaration notes.

Just as we lose control over capital (the fruits of our own past labour) which returns as an alien power to exploit us, so we are cut adrift from our relation with nature; the ‘subjection of nature’s forces to man’ becomes the seizure of land by an exploitative minority.

Capitalism drives millions into cities where they labour for capitalist employers; while those who remain on the land are likewise forced to work for capitalist farmers. Either way, people who used to gather and grow their own food, and the materials for their own clothing, begin to purchase these things through intermediaries. Today we buy things in supermarkets, seldom asking whence they came. This threatens a crisis for humanity, because: ‘Man lives from nature, i.e. nature is his body, and he must maintain a continuing dialogue with it if he is not to die.’ (p. 72) The emancipation of labour on the economic, political and social fronts becomes inseparable from restoring workers’ organic connection to the earth.

One consequence was a drastic disruption of the cycle of nutrients. In traditional society, these had returned directly to the soil as human excrement. In Marx’s time, harvested food began to be sold to the cities on a massive scale, after which vast amounts of excrement went into urban sewers, leading to one of the great environmental crises of the age. The land, for its part, became increasingly impoverished, to the point where people plundered old battlefields looking for bones to fertilise it.

Marx learned about this from Scottish economist James Anderson, and German agricultural chemist Justus von Liebig – two ‘environmental gurus’ of the age. This breakdown had already begun to take on global proportions. Marx discussed how England exploited its neighbours’ land: ‘England has indirectly exported the soil of Ireland, without even allowing its cultivators the means for replacing the constituents of the soil.’ (p. 164). Britain went on to plunder the globe. The search for fertiliser likewise became global: in a bizarre scramble foreshadowing today’s imperialist race for oil, the United States seized 94 guano-rich islands, rocks, and cays around the world between 1856 and 1903. It was natural, therefore, for Marx to combine his concern for the environment not only with support for workers’ struggles, but also with those against imperialism and national oppression.

From his study of environmental and social questions, Marx arrived at what today we call ‘sustainability’:

Even an entire society, a nation, or all simultaneously existing societies taken together, are not owners of the earth. They are simply its possessors, its beneficiaries, and have to bequeath it to succeeding generations as boni patres familias [good heads of the household]. (p. 164)

A sustainable revolution?

Marx wanted a social revolution, which seems a long way from the concerns of Limits for Growth. Or is it? The latter’s authors call for a ‘sustainability revolution’, and they mean truly radical change.
Their sustainable society would be ‘interested in qualitative development, not physical expansion’ (p. 253) with radically negative growth for some:

‘Some games that amuse and consume people today, such as arms races or the accumulation of unlimited wealth, would probably no longer be feasible, respected or interesting. But there would still be games, challenges, problems to solve, ways for people to prove themselves [and live] perhaps more satisfying lives than any possible today.’ (p. 256)

So we need ‘new feedback loops, new behaviour, new knowledge, and new technology, but also new institutions, new physical structures and new powers within human beings ... Visioning meaning imagining … what you really want.

That is, what you really want, not what someone has taught you to want, and not what you have learned to be willing to settle for.’ (p. 270)

This seems a good starting point for dialogue between green and red revolutionaries.

Tom O'Lincoln has been active on the left since 1966, in the German SDS, at Berkeley and for many years in Australia. He is the author of Into the Mainstream: The Decline of Australian Communism, Years of Rage: Social Conflicts in the Fraser Era, and United We Stand: Class Struggle in Colonial Australia. He maintains the Marxist Interventions website: http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/interventions/

Capital Accumulation, Sustainability and Hamilton, Ontario: How Technology and Capitalism can Misappropriate the Idea of Sustainability

Original URL

Erin Balser

One response to the environmental crisis--to climate change, natural resource depletion, species extinction, deforestation and a myriad of other ecological problems--is the idea of ‘sustainability’. Sustainability is often defined as inter- and intra- generational equity in the social, environmental, economic, moral and political spheres of society (Meadows 7). Ideologically, sustainability is a communal concept. However, in practice, the attempt to engage in sustainable lifestyles and make environmentally conscious decisions has largely fallen to the individual and through technology. As a result, the environmental crisis isolates and ostracizes various populations who cannot afford to become sustainable. By engaging in an analysis of the environmental crisis, the intersection between sustainability and capitalization, I will demonstrate how this intersection between sustainability and capitalism is potentially causing harms to communities, by examining how the emergence of environmental technologies has further oppressed the poor. This phenomenon is occurring globally and locally. The BIOX bio-diesel production plant that was recently built in Hamilton, Ontario demonstrates and its impact on the surrounding community demonstrates this.

Karl Marx developed the idea of capital accumulation in his work Capital. Capital accumulation is the constant conversion of products into means of production (715). Originating in both trade and expropriation, it arises from the constant need to realize surplus value. According to Marx and more recently, Rosa Luxemburg, this cycle perpetuates social inequality and instability. Marx scholars David Harvey declares that “market liberalization- the credo of the liberals and the neo-liberals- will not produce a harmonious state in which everyone will be better off. It will instead produce ever greater levels of social inequality” (144) and “produce serious and growing instabilities cumulating in chronic crises of overaccumulation” (144). This process begins at the point called private accumulation. For Marx, this was the initial divorce of labourers from the means of production (716). It was not the start of capital accumulation, but an external point which mechanized it. Every new market or commodity that capital accumulation subsumes can be traced back to this point of primitive accumulation.

Capitalism is constantly looking for new things to commodify. Either by subsuming not-capital markets or by intensifying internal markets, capitalism thrives on creating, then subsuming the other. Capitalism is constantly expanding, capital accumulating is never-ending. Marx states “a precondition of production based on capital is therefore the production of a constantly widening sphere of circulation, whether the sphere is directly expanded or whether more points within it are created as points of production” (407). Capitalism is not a simplistic linear system in which subsumes singular items. Rather it’s a diverse web that is continuously expanding and trapping things. These crises can vary in size, expression and materialization.

This supposition insinuates the notion of crisis. In Empire, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri declare that “crisis indicate[s] a passage, which is the turning point in every systematic cycle of accumulation, from a first phase of material expansion (investment in production) to a second phase of financial expansion (including speculation)” (238). With every crisis, it appears as if this cycle of capitalization reaches its limit. Yet, the reinvention of capitalization ensures that this is not the case. The environmental crisis is no different, it exists at a threshold in which constant new technologies, policies or ideas push it past these limitations, and deferring the apocalypse for yet another day. This construction of crisis only further perpetuates the cycle of capitalization. Hardt & Negri recognize this inherent contradiction when they declare “it is logical to assume that there would come a time when these two moments of the cycle of accumulation, realization and capitalization, come into direct conflict and undermine each other” (227). They do feel however, that “this contradictory tension is present throughout the development of capital, but it is revealed in full view only at the limit, at the point of crisis- when capital is faced with the finitude of the humanity and the earth” (228; my emphasis). Thus, the only crisis which might destroy this cycle is one of environmental origin, when the social constructions of humanity finally reared head against the limitations of the earth’s natural resources. While this has been the threat for decades, the environmental crisis has continually evaded this and reinvented itself along the lines of the cycle of capitalization and commodification. Instead of ending this cycle, it has only perpetuated it.

While sustainable practices existed for centuries in indigenous cultures and traditional agriculture (Hawken 22), sustainability as an environmental buzzword is relatively new. The most common definition of sustainability is from Brundtland Commission’s Our Common Future: “sustainable development is the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (9). The Commission developed two key concepts: “the concept of ‘needs’, in particular the essential needs of the world’s poor, to which the overriding priority should be given” and “the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment’s ability to meet present and future needs” (11). While these concepts supposedly establish sustainable practices, they remain dependant on defining these ‘limitations’, which are determined by ‘technology and social organization’. Thus, sustainability is the interrelationship between ‘human needs’ and ‘human productive capacities’ (Norton 21). Where does the environment fit into this definition? Are there any limitations on these ‘human productive capacities’? Is technological innovation the only limitation? The environment is a passive element; it seemingly imposes no limitations that cannot be overcome by ‘technology and social organization’. What the Brundtland Commission resulted in a vague, human centered definition that does not recognize the external limits on the human systems. To return to Hardt & Negri for a moment, crisis occurs at the moment such limitations are realized. Yet these crises are a natural component to the process of capitalization. They declare that “capital does not function within the confines of a fixed territory and population, but always overflows and internalizes new spaces” (Hardt & Negri 221). By reinventing sustainability as a technological issue, internalizing these new spaces becomes a simple process of technological innovation, through which human needs are met.

Donella Meadows attempts to address the Bruntland Commission’s limitations in her book, Limits to Growth: “a sustainable society is one that can persist over generations, one that is far- seeing enough, flexible enough, and wise enough not to undermine either its physical or social systems of support” (Meadows 8). This definition, too, recognizes the importance of intergenerational equity. The inherent difference between Meadows and the Bruntland Report is that one recognizes how external systems- namely the finite nature of environmental resources- influence human’s capacity to build technology, infrastructure and bolster the current economic system. However, recognizing these physical limitations has not hindered the technological reinvention of sustainability.

Paul Hawken wrote The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability and Natural Capital in an attempt to respond to these issues. Both of these works adamantly claim that we cannot escape capitalism. Hawken declares

No ‘plan’ to reverse environmental degradation can be enacted if it requires a wholeseale change in the dynamics of the market. We have to work with who we are- which includes our strong instinct to shop the market and buy products of comparable quality at the lowest price (Hawken, Ecology xv).

Hawken’s interpretation of the environmental crisis and of sustainability can be interpreted as a practical and realistic approach. It attempts to work within the systems at hand in order to create change as opposed to constantly fighting them. However, by not recognizing the problems and limitations of capitalism for the environment, and for the human population, he is merely validating the system and all the solutions found within it. In Natural Capital, Hawken “explore[s] the lucrative opportunities for businesses in an era of approaching environmental limits” (7). This book repackages environmentalist ideals and the concept of sustainability directly into capital rhetoric. It outlines four points businesses need to follow in order to become environmentally responsible:

-Radically increase the productivity of resource use.
-Shift to biologically inspired production with closed loops, no waste, and no toxicity.
-Shift the business model away from the making and selling of "things" to providing the service that the "thing" delivers.
-Reinvest in natural and human capital (11).

This validation of capitalism by such influential environmentalist writers, only further perpetuates the cycle of capitalism and belief in it. The most recent manifestation of this discourse is Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. He, too, finds the answers in technology, in democracy and in capitalism. These works encourage seeking answers to sustainability in technology and resource efficiency and effectiveness. Sustainability is a process about “coming to terms with sustainability in all its deeply rich ecological, social, ethical and economic dimensions” (O’Riordan & Voisey 32; my emphasis). Sustainability is no longer about the salvation of nature, but the prolonging of human life and human social and economic systems, namely capitalism. And this is done, not only through technological advancement and the capitalization of environmental solutions, but the perpetuation of the sustainability discourse that supports these processes, the individualization of sustainability.

Bio-diesel is an alternative ‘clean’ fuel that is becoming an increasing popular alternative to regular diesel fuel. It is designed to work effectively in traditional diesel engines. Bio-diesel is the conversion of vegetable and animal fat into usable fuel (Pahl 13). Bio-diesel is considered sustainable because it is reusing vegetable and animal residue often found the in food production industry. It is also considered renewable because of the short life cycle of corn plants, which is the primary source for bio-diesel. Use of bio-diesel results in lower emissions and a longer engine life, due to the lower restraint bio-diesel puts on engines. Mass production of bio-diesel must adhere to strict policies and regulations put in place by the various levels of government and the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) guidelines (Pahl 32). While the creation of such regulations are designed to preserve personal health and safety, it has mechanized a big business bio-diesel industry, the building of large bio-diesel plants and the large scale sales and shipment of mass quantities of bio-diesel. What began as a small time, agricultural project, which hoped to maximize the efficiency of agricultural practices, has become a huge environmental business, designed to save the environment and help consumers feel good about the types of products they are purchasing (Pahl 47).

Mass produced bio-diesel is more expensive than traditional diesel fuel, due to the limited production and shipment of the product (Pahl 51). While the price of bio-diesel is expected to decline with time, it is currently a difficult to access product for most consumers, unless it is self-made. One of the largest proponents of bio-diesel is the multi-national company BIOX Corporation. BIOX was incorporated in Canada in 2000, and has grown rapidly ever since. BIOX was incorporated to create high quality, accessible and affordable bio-diesel for environmentally concerned consumers. In September 2004, BIOX announced that they were going to build the first commercial scale bio-diesel production plant in Canada in Hamilton, Ontario. Specifically, this project was to be built in the North End of Hamilton (BIOX).

Hamilton has one of the highest incidents of low income per household in Ontario (StatsCan), most of which is concentrated in the North End of Hamilton (Neufeld 17). The North End of Hamilton borders Lake Ontario and is where most of Hamilton’s major industries, including the steel mills of StelCo and DofasCo exist (Neufeld 19). While Hugo Neufeld paints a vibrant picture of the North End community in his book The North End Lives- he joyfully notes a Hamilton Spectator caption that read- “the North End of Hamilton is a complex mix of grit and gritty characters, tough problems, and big hearted neighbours” (Spectator as quoted in Neufeld 17), his stories are laced with the themes of poverty and helplessness. The North End is where the poor and the oppressed reside, where joblessness and homelessness are fairly common problems (Neufeld 22).

The proposed site for the BIOX plant in the North End of Hamilton was directly across from residential homes. The proposed location of this plant was only a few hundred feet from several homes in the area. The BIOX plant negatively impacted the community from the moment it was proposed. First, the site selected was community green space. Second, the constant tremors resulted in severe damage to several homes in the area, including near- collapsing chimneys, jammed doors and windows, cracked walls and ceilings, and splintered foundations. Third, making bio-diesel involves the storing of highly flammable chemicals, sulphuric acid and ‘BIOX blend’. BIOX’s storage facility for the Oliver Street site was within one hundred feet of residents’ homes, which violates many health and safety regulations, within the municipal, provincial and federal governments. Finally, with the completion of the site, it is now a constant source of noise, light and air pollution. This constant exposure has the potential to impact the health and safety of the entire community.

While the BIOX plant represents the ecological integrity and economic prosperity that is deemed so important for sustainability, it is certainly at the sacrifice of social equality. The introduction of the plant in the community has diminished the quality of life of the residents, exposed them to harsh and potentially harmful chemicals, and to a variety of constant pollutants. This exploitation was done for the sake of sustainability, in order to promote a more environmentally friendly fuel, and to appease the consumers of bio-diesel. They can rest easy because their consumer choices are more environmentally conscious and more sustainable. Yet it was done at the sacrifice of the poor. When sustainability is reinvented as technology and as individual choices, it creates a divide in the population along the lines of class. Not only is the wealthy engaging in sustainable solutions, their decisions to do so impact the lives of those who cannot afford such luxuries. The BIOX plant is large, unattractive and potentially dangerous. Even if it adheres to the most stringent governmental and industrial regulations, it has taken away some of the quality of life in the North End. Neufeld was so proud of the community and liveliness he found here, despite the rampant poverty (27). How can that dynamic remain unchanged if it is the prime development location for industry? Who is going to tell these people why?

These issues are laced with contradictions and complications. Sustainability claims to be a communal concept which requires new and innovative ways to look at the world. Yet, in practice it has the potential to become about individual decisions and technological innovations to delay and reinvent the ecological limitations imposed on our current lifestyle. Sustainability discourse simultaneously blames capitalism for the current environmental problems and looks to it for solutions. Sustainability also claims to promote social equality and economic prosperity, yet, again in practice, it oppresses and ostracizes specific populations in order to attain its goal. Sustainability can demonstrate how Marx’s idea of capital accumulation can manipulate the end result and how it subsumes even the most unlikely ideologies and practices. The situation in the North End is not, and never was, the intention of promoting sustainable practices and technologies. Rather, it became a tangential and necessary victim to ensure that bio-diesel production was efficient and the product was affordable. This phenomenon is not unique. There are several local, national and international circumstances which mirror the situation in Hamilton. However, this creates a moral conflict: is it right to save the environment, or to save the poor? How do we decide? Who gets to decide? Until we can reinvent the practice of sustainability so it mirrors its ideological construct of community, morality, equality and prosperity instead of technology-driven innovation, capitalist-oriented motives this situation will only become more and more frequent as we constantly look for the answers to the environmental problems within technology.

Works Cited
Brundtland Commission. Our Common Future: The World Commission on Environment and Development. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
Gore, Al. An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It. New York: Rodale Press, Incorporated, 2006.
Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. Empire. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000.
Harvey, David. The New Imperialism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Hawken, Paul, Amory Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins. Natural Capital: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution. London: EarthScan, 1999.
Hawken, Paul. Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability. New York: Harpers Collins Publishers, 1994.
Marx, Karl and Frederick Engels. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1981.
Meadows, Donella. Beyond the Limits. Post Mills, Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 1992.
Neufeld, Hugo. The North End Lives: A Journey Through Poverty Terrain. Herald Press: Waterloo, Ontario, 2006.
Norton, Bryan G. Searching for Sustainability: Interdisciplinary Essays in the Philosophy of Conservation Biology. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
O’Riordan, T. and Henry Voisey. The Politics of Agenda 21 in Europe. London: EarthScan, 1998
Pahl, Greg. Biodiesel: Growing a New Energy Economy. Chelsea Green Pub: White River Junction, 2005.
Rutherford, Paul. “The Entry of Life into History.” Discourses of the Enviroment. Ed. Eric Darier. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1999.
Alternative Energy. Accessed at: http://store.altenergystore.com/Solar-Electric-Panels/Roofing-Solar-Panels/c680/. Accessed on: 2006-12-06.
BIOX Corporation. Accessed at: http://www.bioxcorp.com/. Accessed on: 2006-12-06.
Saskatchewan Organic Directorate. Accessed at: http://www.saskorganic.com/about_organic_food/why_organic_food_costs_more.hml. Accessed on: 2006-12-06.
Statistics Canada. “Incidence of low income among the population living in private households, by census metropolitan area (1996 and 2001 Censuses).” Date modified: 2005-01-10. Accessed at: http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/famil60g.htm Accessed on: 2006-12-06.