“A very faustian choice is upon us: whether to accept our corrosive and risky behaviour as the unavoidable price of population and economic growth, or to take stock of ourselves and search for a new environmental ethic.” E.O. Wilson
Image: from en.wikipedia.org Marcus Lincinius Crassus, the wealthiest man of Rome who met his death in Syria trying to gain a small conquest over land and capital, but which cost him his life. The opposing Parthian king had Crassus’ mouth filled with molten gold to show his lust for gold and power. Not much has changed since 1 B.C.E.
“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” James Baldwin
2016 Goldman Environmental Prize winner for Peru, Máxima Acuña (Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize)
“This isn’t a cause of fear for me – it’s not a motive for us to stop fighting, to stop defending.” Maxima Acuna(when asked if she was worried given Berta Caceres’ assassination)
Maxima Acuna is a wife, mother, farmer, weaver, environmental activist who has had her home destroyed (twice), has been beaten unconscious with her daughter, has been physically beaten with her husband, and has had false charges laid against her. I really admire her tenacity, strength, and sense of justice in the face of pure evil in both protecting her way of life, her rights and the environment.
Photo: from de ONU Medio Ambiente, the UN programme for the environment.
Note: Berta Caceres was an environmentalist in Honduras who was assassinated in 2016 for her successful work in protecting the Gualcarque River, among other projects and human rights activism. Her murder was initially covered up, but in 2021 the architect of her murder was sentenced to 22 years in prison, but the murderers are still at large. needless to say, these murderers are allegedly a product of the infamous Fort Benning and the former programme of the School of the Americas, which in my understanding is code for training thugs and right wing militants (think Chile, Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Panama ….). Berta was 44 years old and leaves four children and a husband, but also a great legacy of what can be achieved even under threat of death – she knew she was on a list.
“They are afraid of us because we are not afraid of them.” Berta Caceres
Berta Caceres
To say this is my home
is to say that I have a place,
somewhere to take sanctuary
from the pressures of the world,
a door to close against the dark hearts
who do not want me to me to have
this place or my voice, which speaks
loudly for my people, for our rivers
and trees, our homes, for the right to say
no to those who have no understanding of
our needs, our ways, our culture, but tonight,
although I do not know that it will be tonight,
you will read that they came to silence my voice,
I am not afraid of them, shooting me will not
silence me, my voice will continue to speak
parallax 