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Converging with Micah White

[like url=http://www.baremethedetails.com/2011/01/converging-with-micah-white/]A little late in the offing for this but I thought I’d share as this is something I was very happy to see materialize last year. Those of you who know me and who read this blog will understand why.  These posts were originally posted on my Facebook feed which some of you would not have seen so we’re reposting here.

Micah White is a Berkeley based award winning writer and activist who contributes regularly to Adbusters magazine and The Guardian among others. Late in 2010 he chose my photographs to illustrate 2 blog posts he wrote for Adbusters magazine on their BlackSpot blog. For those of you not familiar with Adbusters, it is an anti consumerist activist magazine published in Canada and distributed internationally. Past contributors have included renowned writers and activists Christopher Hedges and Bill McKibben. Micah is a frequent contributor to Adbusters and someone who when I discovered his work a few years ago stirred and inspired me to once again up the ante and do more.

Both stories can be read in full by clicking on the image.

The first blog is a review on John Christophers’s ‘Death of Grass’ a novel on a post apocalyptic world, the death of nature and ecological collapse.

The second is a piece on technology and activism. In it he examines the parallels between digital activism technologies that are built upon the ideologies of consumerism, marketing and advertising and asks can we thus using these tools, successfully achieve real social change which discards the age old values upon which our consumerist societies are built.

Posted 20 January 2011 † McCarron § Activism § Authors § Culture § Editorial § Environment § Magazines § Photography ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , , ,

Something stirs in Paradise.

It was the week before Christmas and I’d done alright to make it to Saint Barthélemy in one piece, at least in my own mind. The tiny island situated in the middle of the Caribbean boasts one of the shortest runways in the world and a landing coyly described as ‘special’ by our pilot. I’d heard that the landing was considered one of the 8 most difficult in the world. As I sat in the back seat of our little 6 seat puddle jumper on our short flight from Saint Martin I unconsciously contemplated the numbers whilst admiring the sight of turquoise waters and islands strung out like pearls below. Then as we approached the tiny island it’s remarkable runway came into view. Yes it was about the length of the main street of my hometown in Ireland or so it seemed, and it ended in the ocean. We skimmed over the top of a hill a few feet above the cars below and I braced myself as our pilot cut the engine coming into land. Incredibly we coasted down like a beautiful bird catching some mid afternoon air currents. No doubt indeed this man at the controls was skilled and I had landed.

The island known as Ouanlao by the locals and part of the small group of islands that make up the French West Indies is only 8sq miles with a population of just over 8200 people. Once belonging to Sweden it’s now a collectivity of France. With town names like Lorient I could have been back in my college days in Brittany. Now firmly established as a playground for the super rich and famous it struck me as surprisingly relaxed. Later a resident remarked to me that St Barth was “the place where the rich came to pretend they were poor”. Whatever that meant.

The island is ringed by white sand beaches of the kind only associated with tropical paradises a title which St Barth can rightly claim .  It’s coves are dotted with yachts that would make Christopher Columbus jealous and even I spied one that reminded me of my resolve to learn how to sail. It’s  unbelievably clear waters are full of dolphins and whales from December to May. Swimming here is like lying in a warm bath but much better because it’s Mother Ocean.

But not all is well in St Barth and like anywhere that people find attractive the threat of development looms.  The place most at risk currently is the tiny corner of the island that is called Saline. The beach and the coastline of Saline are truly unspoiled and an incredible sense of wild and delicate beauty pervades.

It reminded me of Mawun Beach in Lombok, Indonesia, to this day the most beautiful I have ever set eyes on. The surrounding hills of Saline beach show no signs of development whatsoever to speak of and while exploring the dunes we almost tripped over a few turtles while trespassing on their territory. When you find a spot like this it is all the more remarkable because most places like Saline on an island as attractive to tourists as St Barth, sooner or later suffer at the hands of men who wish to exploit it’s natural beauty for commercial gain.  Invariably in their greed they destroy the very thing that made it special in the first place. I can never equate in my head how if someone truly loves a place like they say they do they show it by wanting to develop it and ultimately change forever it’s natural unspoiled majesty.  However this is exactly what American hotelier, André Balazs wants to do.

Balazs owner of LA’s Chateau Marmont and New York’s Standard and Mercer hotels wants to put a 40 cottage ‘eco resort’ right behind the dunes in an  area that is a designated ‘Green Zone’.  If the zoning laws are upheld like they’re supposed to be, a Green Zone here means no building is permitted.  I’m pretty sure that the term ‘Green Zone’ is universal in it’s translation and I’m almost positive that someone who has managed to build a business empire is intelligent enough to understand. However it looks like Balazs with his proposal is choosing to ignore the zoning regulations. The problem being he has the mayor and a few other powerful landowners on his side that stand to make a hefty profit out of any development at the undeniable detriment to the environment.

Yet not all locals are in favor of Balazs and Magras the mayor’s plans. In fact they’re facing formidable opposition from a group of environmental advocates led by the intensely passionate and dedicated efforts of Helene Bernier. Helene who runs a small business called ‘Easy Time’ taking visitors on guided hiking tours of the island, is part of a group of locals who are spearheading a campaign to put a stop to the proposal. It is the first time in Magras 15 years as Mayor that he has faced any sort of concerted opposition to his plans. Saint Barth Environment, Saint Barth Essentiel, and the Association for the Protection of Birds are staging a formidable fight. The issue of development at Saline has polarized opposing interests on the island. On the one hand is the generation that believes that development of this kind is the only way forward and a way to make capital that should be exploited , on the other those whose priorities lie in preserving natural beauty in a world overrun with development. In that sense there’s nothing unique about it. We could all probably tell a similar story, but this one is Saline’s.

A week later as I left the island I found myself once again with our highly skilled and charming pilot. As he welcomed me aboard in his musical West Indies accent I took my seat in the cockpit happily.  Before I knew it we were once again air bound over the turquoise Caribbean Sea. We were headed back to St Martin to catch a flight home to the US. Flying above St Martin I noticed huge ribbons of road foundations etched into the hillsides  in patterns akin to when ones peels an orange in a thin circular fashion.  To me they were just big scars in what was once a hillside of trees. Scars, ugly and massive on the landscape.

I wish this story was unique but it isn’t. This story is everywhere because we have allowed it to be. We’ve pillaged for centuries, for the most part destroying everything in our path never considering for a second whether we had the right to do so. Who, what, gave us this sense of dominion over the earth, it’s life and it’s resources that we assume? On who’s authority did we decide that we could treat our home with so much incredible disrespect?

It wasn’t long before that all too familiar feeling of sadness of leaving a place that some little part of you has come to love, swept over me.  The story of St Barth may not be unique but it’s environment is. I’m not very good with departures and goodbyes and as the plane began it’s descent in the early morning light, I hoped that when I got to see St Barth again that it would be just like I had left it. For once let it be just how I left it.

-For my friend Helene and all my friends on St Barth.

If you want to know more about this story Vanity Fair did a feature in the December 2010 edition.

Posted 13 January 2011 † McCarron § Activism § Culture § Environment § Nature § Personal Work § Photography § Travel ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , , , , ,

It’s beginning to feel a lot like China.

As a photographer, activist, sporadic blogger, frequent dreamer, lover of expression, relatively happy but lately it seems more often outraged citizen, of a supposed democracy, I sit down to write this. The recent developments  here in the US involving the singling out of activists and demands for their personal information currently underway by the Obama administration and the US Dept of Justice, I find deeply disturbing. The issues at stake being our individual freedom of expression, speech and access to information and the right to share that with a broader audience without fear of state recrimination. After all freedom of expression is one of the cornerstones of a democracy as well as our inherent right as citizens under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

We are witnessing a profound shift in how people and public organizations access and share information. The internet was bound to change how we interacted with one another. It was bound to bring the world into our homes. It was bound to make our world seem more of a global village and give us all easier access to a wealth of data never before possible. However it was not bound to threaten the foundations of the state. Or it was but that’s not what the state was planning on.

Wikileaks whether you support them or not has changed that. Julian Assange and his organization provided a place where individuals could leak information that could then be distributed to the public supposedly without trace back to it’s source. Journalists could then report on that information and depending on the degree to which that information affected the person in the street really determined how big and how wide the story reached. Well as it turned out most of the information that was leaked exposed the blatant lies, corruption, and conspiracies of covert government plans and actions across the world. Not like most of us didn’t know this already. The difference now being it was all out in the open and we hungered for access to it.

Of all those that have reacted none has matched the United States in intensity of vitriol and efforts to shut this process down. Probably because none has as much at stake and none is quite as corrupt, nor quite as guilty. The double standard and the non democracy and in fact totalitarian tendencies of the United States is finally revealing itself whether it likes it or not. Lately the state hasn’t had much choice in that matter and actually has seemed quite helpless in the face of a seemingly endless stream of leaked cables. In the same week that the US criticised Tunisia’s crackdown on social media outlets it has been revealed that the US justice department has issued subpoenas to seize the Twitter information of the accounts of a number of prominent supporters and advocates of freedom of information. One of these is Birgitta Jonsdottir who not only is a previous volunteer of Wikileaks but a member of the Icelandic parliament, an artist, writer, poet and one of the founders of the Icelandic Media Initiative a proposal to make Iceland a safe haven for investigative journalism. The reactions of certain governments to the Wikicables would suggest that a safe haven for this type of journalism is most definitely needed.  The case apparently being built by the US is one that seeks to accuse Assange and possibly others of espionage.  Bradley Manning the US army private that apparently leaked the video showing a US army helicopter killing innocents including 2 Reuters journalists in the streets of Bagdhad, is being held in solitary confinement in Virginia under increasingly questionable conditions and reports of torture. A new independent Swedish documentary gives some very interesting background to the short history of Wikileaks and the Bradley Manning case. In other words the real quest now it would seem is that the administration is trying to maintain that somebody else broke the law.

The revelations this week by Wikileaks that the US was negotiating with Japan on a proposal to revoke Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s tax exempt status was another good indication of the threat that governments and corporate entities feel (in this case the Japan whale meat industry) is being posed by activists to their interests. Sea Shepherd is currently trying to quash the illegal slaughter of whales by the Japanese in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary and so far this year has managed to prevent the killing of any whales. Each day they’re successful in preventing the slaughter of a whale costs the Japanese whaling industry thousands of dollars in lost revenue and negates the commercial viability of their illegal actions. More importantly it helps save yet another species annihilation at the hands of man. However the real point here is the fact that Sea Shepherd’s or any conservation group’s status as a viable entity is being debated at the highest level of government to protect corporate interest is cause for real concern.

Last month I canceled 2 accounts I had with PayPal over their withdrawal of their services to Wikileaks. This happened because the government put pressure on Paypal and they complied. The point here is not about whether I agree or not with what Wikileaks has done. The real issue for me was that I have the right to do whatever  I please with my own cash. Just as the republicans and democrats can harness contributions from Haliburton and any other corporate entity I too should be able to support what I feel are institutions that serve my best interests as an individual. More importantly I  have the right to read information, whether it be from Wikileaks, the NY Times ,the Economist, or Democracy Now. I also have the right to share it with others and I certainly have the right in a democracy to voice my dissent without fear of reprisal or censorship. The only entity in the US that I found where I can make a donation to Wikileaks is with XIPWIRE, a startup based in Pennsylvania. Most of the US banks (yes the same ones that received our taxpayer money in a bailout) have refused to process transactions going to Wikileaks. Fine I just take my business elsewhere. Corporate bullying and government malaise only fuels my desire for truth and my support in maintaining channels of information that allow me more of it.

One initiative that I have found promising and that is garnering a lot of attention is Openleaks.org, to be launched later this month and founded by some breakaway former volunteers of Wikileaks. How they differ from Wikileaks and how they see the future of information taking shape can be seen in a video here from a recent conference in Germany. Their  idea of maintaining a neutral status between receiving the information and releasing it is I think the key component that sets them apart from Wikileaks. Basically the person providing the information decides , at least initially which newspaper, NGO or other media outlet they want it to go to. If it doesn’t get picked up by that entity then it becomes available to all that might be interested.

We have entered a new phase in journalism and activism. Where it goes from here is anyone’s guess but one thing is certain going backwards is not an option no matter how hard the power structure of governments and corporations with obvious things to hide would like to steer us in that direction. The playing field is being leveled and finally we the citizens have a fair chance at the game. Meanwhile we the artists, writers, journalists, photographers, activists, readers, you and I, need to support and reclaim our right to freedom of expression and information.

Posted 09 January 2011 † McCarron § Activism § Politics ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged: , , , , , , , , , ,