Reykjavík Grapevine - 13.07.2007, Page 5
08_REYKJAVÍK_GRAPEVINE_ISSUE 10_007_INTERVIEW/ENVIRONMENT
Attilah Springer is a journalist and an activ-
ist. She is a part of the Rights Action Group
in Trinidad and Tobago, which has fought
a long battle against Alcoa over aluminium
smelters in Trinidad and Tobago. She recently
spoke at a conference for Saving Iceland where
she documented the progress of the struggle
against the aluminium industry in her country.
She is currently staying at the International
Summer of Dissent protest camp, organised
by Saving Iceland. A Grapevine journalist sat
down to speak with Atillah at their beautiful
campsite in Mosfellsdalur, joined by Lerato
Maria Maregele, an activist from South Africa
who has been organising protests against Alcan
in her own country.
What brought you to Iceland?
Springer: Well for the past two years, several
communities in Trinidad and Tobago have been
in confrontation with the state and corpora-
tions against the introduction of aluminium
smelting in Trinidad and I have been working
quite closely with those communities, as an ac-
tivist and as a journalist, and just documenting
their struggle. Just because we weren’t given
any information about smelting, we had to find
it out ourselves and we saw it on the Internet
and discovered, “hey the same thing is hap-
pening in Iceland, the same thing is going on in
South Africa.” From there we started building
links, e-mailing, texting, just constant contact,
exchanging information about our struggles,
and the similarities of what was happening
over here and in Trinidad and other parts of the
world. When we were approached by Saving
Iceland to be a part of this year’s international
summer of dissent, we said: yes, absolutely.
We had a couple of victories and a couple of
losses in the past year, so we thought it was
very important to come here and share those
things, and re-energise ourselves. Connect in
a personal way, not just over the Internet. Just
to see the place in 3-dimensions makes what
is happening even more resonant.
Maregele: As Attilah has said, this issue of
globalisation, I think that is something that
has linked us together, and also this monster
that is the aluminium smelters and is tearing
up our countries and getting so much benefits
and cheap electricity. When I heard about this
conference I thought it was a good cause, and
maybe I should come here and hear what other
people have to say and see what is happening
here in Iceland. So far, I have found out that
things are just the same. What is happening
in South Africa is also happening in Trinidad,
and that is why we are here.
Tell me a bit about the struggle in Trinidad
and Tobago.
Springer: Basically, what happened was that
there were plans for two smelters in Trinidad.
One of them was in a place called Union Vil-
lage, on an industrial site that had been cleared
two years ago. That land was cleared with the
knowledge or consent of the villagers who
surrounded it. Around the same time, there
was talk about another smelter in Chatham,
which is ten miles south of Union Village. The
people of Chatham decided that this was not
the way that they wanted to go. The struggle
was initiated by elder women of the village,
mothers and housewives, with the support of
the younger men in the village. They started
a petition, a call for help to the rest of the
country. From there it grew, there were pro-
tests, there were demonstrations, marches,
carnival bands, calypsos, anything that was
possible. Whether it was Labour Day or the
Environmental Day, we were there, involved in
everything. And having such presence, really
just getting people interested in the debate,
because Trinidad is so small, we just kept pres-
suring and pressuring and pressuring. Until
in September, when the Prime Minister said
they would not go ahead with the smelter in
Chatham anymore. The first smelter recently
got environmental clearance, but that is being
challenged in court. The EIA (environmental
impact assessment) was a joke. It was done
in such a way that you never get the whole
picture of the real impact of the smelter. They
are now going to do EIA for the port through
which they will have to export the aluminium.
In midst of an industrial state, in a peninsula
that is sinking because all of the intense heavy
industry in that area, there has been no ac-
cumulative assessment of the impact of all
of those things on that community and its
surroundings. For those reasons we continue
to fight it.
What do you see as some of the similarities
between what is happening here and in
Trinidad and Tobago?
Springer: Certainly the lack of consultation
with the communities, the absolute dishonesty
of the companies carrying out their plans. They
come in with a lot of lies, talking about: ‘Yes,
we will give you jobs, and we will give you this,
and we will give you that,’ and when you really
break it down, the benefits that the country,
or the benefits that the communities are sup-
posed to be getting, are minute in comparison
to what the companies are getting. And the
other thing that is going on with companies
like Alcoa is that they can’t build smelters in
the US anymore because, for one, it takes too
long for them to get environmental clearance,
because the have done so much damage in
their own land, and two, the amount of liberal
guilt in these countries does not match the
level of consumption. So they feel guilty about
smelting, but they do not feel guilty enough
to stop consuming all the goods they want to
consume. So basically, what Alcoa is doing is
that they are moving those plants out of their
own backyard and taking them to countries
where the environmental laws are lax, where
they have cheap natural gas, like in the case
of Trinidad, where natural gas is very cheap,
on top of which, they are getting it at such
sweet deals that the government of Trinidad
and Tobago cannot tell the citizens for how
much the are getting it.
So all of those things seem to be similar
things to what is happening here. Speaking
to the farmers, you hear about the same kind
of lies, the same kind of deceit, the same kind
of massaging of the truth that happened in
Trinidad and Tobago and we continue to fight
against. All we are saying is ‘just tell us the
truth,’ and I think that is what the people
of Iceland want to know as well, what is the
real story? Stop trying to convince us that it
is anything other than profits you are after.
You are not after a greener form of energy,
you are after profits, so let’s just say that.
And of course, the major concern is that the
aluminium that is being used as means to, not
just to the excessive consumption of states in
the so called first world, but also to fuel the
American war machine. It does not sit well
with me that we will be contributing to that.
I have no interest in being a part of that any
further, because already our oil and natural gas
goes to fuel the American war machine. I don’t
want to have more blood on my hands.
Is it different in South Africa?
Maregele: In South Africa, the power for the
smelters will be produced from coals, and they
will be getting it very cheaply. Thirty percent
of the poor communities of South Africa don’t
have electricity, and now that will be going
straight to Alcan.
Springer: But the differences are the similari-
ties. People in Iceland don’t need extra elec-
tricity, people in South Africa need electricity,
but in both places the concern is that the
source of electricity is renewable and green,
and not damaging to the environment. At the
bottom of all this struggle is clean sustainable
development, that includes communities, that
empowers communities, and that does not
destroy what is inherently ours. Those are the
important things.
You mentioned communities without
power in South Africa and the excessive
power here in Iceland. Is it not better then,
to build smelters here, as opposed to in
South Africa?
Maregele: Firstly, why is it that Iceland has
to have more power than the people need?
Is it to satisfy companies like Alcan at the end
of the day? I don’t see the need. That is why
I am saying that in Iceland you don’t need
the smelter.
Springer: In Iceland, the environmental impact
far outweighs the economic value this could
have for the country. Just look around here. I
can’t imagine how anyone in their right mind
could see this beauty and want to put a smelter
here. It just doesn’t make any sense to me. I
guess I am trying to understand that whole evil
global capitalistic swine to see how they see
this, and I really can’t get my head around it. I
guess in the same way, they cannot understand
how I cannot see the potential of this. They
see every waterfall as wasted energy. But I
see every waterfall as a waterfall, as beauty,
as something that is there to energise me,
but in a different way. I guess this is a kind of
a conquistador, testosterone… I don’t mean
to bash men, but this is a very masculine way
of looking at the world. The world is the do-
minion of man, and there to do with it what
we want. I would rather take my ancestors’
view, that we take from it what we need, and
give back in ways that we can. In Trinidad we
have a saying: don’t shit where you eat. That
is essentially what we are doing. We are shit-
ting where we are eating. All over the planet.
I guess in the end, they will take some kind
of aluminium space ship, and take them to
another planet and leave all the poor people
behind here, but at this point I only have one
planet. This is the only planet I know.
Maregele: Yes, and good planets are hard
to find.
Springer: Exactly, have you people never seen
Star Trek?
This camp here is a part of that then?
International Summer of Dissent, is this a
way of globalising the opposition to the
multinational corporations or what?
Springer: Absolutely. I think that is the lesson
for the activists, especially when you are com-
ing from a point of disadvantage, to take the
tools that are being used to oppress you and
turn them on their head. What else are you
going to do? That is the lesson of my history.
I think at this point, I have no other alternative
other than to use these tools to fight back. If
globalisation is what is destroying the world,
globalisation is what has to save it as well.
Maregele: I think what Atillah is saying is
that if globalisation has planned to divide us,
eventually, globalisation will unite us.
Springer: Exactly
The Age of Global Protest
Text by Sveinn Birkir Björnsson Photo by Gulli
“We had a couple of vic-
tories and a couple of
losses in the past year, so
we thought it was very im-
portant to come here and
share those things, and re-
energise ourselves.”
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