Resist if you can

The fight to protect the environment is an old one, with brutal consequences [View this email in your browser]( December 14, 2021 [Mail & Guardian]( [Mail & Guardian]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Instagram]( [YouTube]( Hi there, Everything is about money. Everything. Ken Saro-Wiwa came of age as Nigeria gained independence, and became a [lifelong advocate for the importance of protecting the rights of marginalised people]( within a broader national identity. Saro-Wiwa, a member of the Ogoni ethnic group, was central to mobilising a popular movement that demanded accountability for companies like Shell that were extracting oil in the creeks of the Niger Delta. In 1990, Saro-Wiwa created Mosop — the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People — which mobilised the Ogonis’ resentment of oil exploration over its devastation of the region’s natural beauty and economic foundations, while bringing scant financial benefit to its 500 000 residents. Despite bearing the brunt of Big Oil’s adverse effects in the form of land dispossession, oil-slicked waters, polluted soil and gas flaring, the Ogoni could only watch as their homeland was being destroyed. For local residents, Nigeria’s oil reserves hadn’t brought affluence — just poverty and disease. People who had once made a livelihood from aquatic life were left with polluted water, teeming with dead and diseased fish. [Subscribe now]( The Ogoni took up non-violent agitation against Shell and, in 1993, the company abandoned Ogoniland and has not been back since. This triumph turned Saro-Wiwa and his colleagues into more than an irritant for general Sani Abacha’s military dictatorship. As Saro-Wiwa gained the attention of the UN and Western environmental groups, Mosop faced growing repression at the hands of the military government. A successful boycott of the 1993 elections demonstrated the potential for mass mobilisation of the Ogoni, but also brought rivalries within the movement to the fore. In 1994, four Ogoni elders who had taken a more conciliatory stance towards Shell were killed by a mob. Abacha used the killings as a pretext to arrest Saro-Wiwa and unleash punitive raids on villages in the area. On 10 November 1995, after a trial marked by irregularities and punctuated with allegations of torture and brutality against him and others, Saro-Wiwa was hanged, together with eight other activists. They would later be known as the Ogoni Nine. In his closing testimony at the trial Saro-Wiwa said: “I and my colleagues are not the only ones on trial. Shell is here on trial and it is as well that it is represented by counsel said to be holding a watching brief. The company has, indeed, ducked this particular trial, but its day will surely come and the lessons learnt here may prove useful to it, for there is no doubt in my mind that the ecological war that the company has waged in the Delta will be called to question sooner than later and the crimes of that war be duly punished. The crime of the company’s dirty wars against the Ogoni people will also be punished.” Since then Saro-Wiwa has become a symbol for environmental protection and the defence of human rights. Shell has faced criticism in Nigeria for decades, fielding accusations of employing a policy of divide and rule, essentially managing the country to win over some leaders to its side, while marginalising opponents. Saro-Wiwa’s corpse was [burned with acid and buried in an unmarked grave](. Ten years later, in 2005, the Obasanjo administration [finally released the remains to his family](. Shell paid out millions to improve its image and avoid trials. In 2009 it paid $15.5-million to Saro-Wiwa’s family and those of the other eight executed activists, maintaining that this was a gesture of goodwill, not an acknowledgement of culpability. In 2014, the people from the village of Bodo, where oil spills occured in 2004, received $84-million in compensation. This sordid saga is just[one of the many scandals Shell has been embroiled in]( over the years. Closer to home, the multinational has [found an ally in mineral resources and energy minister Gwede Mantashe]( who recently chided people protesting against the Wild Coast seismic survey as trying to [oppress economic development](. Mantashe was speaking on the failed court application to interdict Shell from blasting the Eastern Cape Wild Coast and called environmental activism “apartheid and colonialism of a special type”, because it deters investors and stalls job creation opportunities. For Mantashe to so blithely call environmental activists colonialists smacks of an astonishing lack of self-awareness. It is breathtakingly deranged, given how his party has deteriorated into cronyism and rampant theft without alleviating the poverty and inequality that communities on the Wild Coast, and South Africa at large, continue to grapple with. “South Africa’s economic development is oppressed in the name of environmental protection when we have an environmental framework that ensures that licensing is done with the utmost environmental care founded on section 24 of our Constitution. “We, therefore, appeal to all objectors to acknowledge this and allow South Africa to exploit its natural resources for the benefit of its citizens,” Mantashe told the media in a press conference last week. Recently, the Border Deep Sea Angling Association, Kei Mouth Ski Boat Club, human rights law agency Natural Justice, and environmental NGO Greenpeace lost their urgent interim interdict application to stop Shell from conducting a seismic survey on the Wild Coast when acting judge Avinash Govindjee dismissed their case. According to Govindjee, the applicants had failed to show how the survey would cause material long-term damage to aquatic life. The applicants said they had evidence of this, but were denied the opportunity to submit it. Mantashe claimed seismic survey applications across the globe were not met with the level of resistance seen in South Africa’s upstream petroleum space and that, in the past five years there had been at least 12 seismic surveys in the country, including a 3D survey by a different company in 2018 in the same area of the Wild Coast. “I cannot help but ask myself: Are these objections meant to ensure the status quo remains in Africa, in general, and South Africa, in particular? That is, the status quo with regards to energy poverty, high unemployment, high debt-to-GDP ratio at country level, and economies that are not growing and, in some cases, jobless economic growth,” the minister said. “We consider the objections to these developments as apartheid and colonialism of a special type, masqueraded as a great interest for environmental protection.” Mantashe said South Africa deserved the opportunity to capitalise on its natural resources, citing how oil and gas exploration in Norway, Saudi Arabia, Germany and several African countries had proven to be an economic boon and encouraged job creation. The esteemed minister has seemingly forgotten about his party’s sticky-fingered proclivities, which, in addition to neo-extractivism, will likely not give South Africa the benefits other countries have seen. We live in an era of predatory development that benefits very few, at the expense of many. The interplay between state and corporate power shapes the reality of our economic destiny. In a country that has witnessed the murders of environmental activists Sikhosiphi “Bazooka” Rhadebe and Fikile Ntshangane, we would caution against being lulled by promises of economic growth. Until Thursday, Kiri Rupiah & Luke Feltham Enjoy The Ampersand? Share it with your friends [Share]( [Share]( [Tweet]( [Tweet]( [Forward]( [Forward]( [Share]( [Share]( Copyright © 2021 Mail & Guardian Media LTD, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in to receive communications from the Mail & Guardian either at our website or by taking out a print subscription. Our mailing address is: Mail & Guardian Media LTD 25 Owl St BraamfonteinJohannesburg, Gauteng 2001 South Africa [Add us to your address book]( Want to change which mails you receive from Mail & Guardian? 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