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Making peace with Gaia — an ode to Earth Day

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Jay Naidoo is founding General Secretary of Cosatu, a former minister in the Nelson Mandela government and is a board member of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation.

The pursuit of a regenerative model of agriculture is one of the most important ways in which we can heal ourselves and heal our relationship with our Mother Earth.

In December 1854, Chief Seattle, of the Suquamish and Duwamish tribes, wrote a letter in which he said:

 “The President in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. But how can you buy or sell the sky? The land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them? Every part of the earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect. All are holy in the memory and experience of my people.”

Imagine if the first white settlers arriving in the “New World” on seeing the magnificence of everything had said in humility and respect: “We come in peace. We have come here to share our life with you. But we have also come to learn from you. Your belief systems. Your god. Your way of living.” 

What might the United States look like today? 

We would not have a deeply divided country today. But human arrogance prevailed. The outcome: Genocide. Slavery. Colonisation. Erasure of indigenous knowledge, language, beliefs and values. And bondage to the dominant Western culture. I have listened to the testimony of many friends in the Indigenous Elders in Canada. They talk of the slogan they grew up with, not unlike that of the US. Tens of thousands of young children in indigenous communities torn from their parents’ arms and forced into “residential schools.” The single-minded goal was to “Kill the Savage in order to save the Man.” 

How do we deal with the legacy of dispossession? Reconciliation is not a one-way street. Acknowledgment is important. So is an apology. But how do we heal the wound? Whether that is a wound of superiority or inferiority, it’s the same wound. And redress is not just material compensation and reparations either. Or even the right to vote. It’s about whether we see the other. Do I listen with my heart to the voices of the other? Do I try to understand the language, the culture, the ceremonies and belief system of the other?

Some years ago I joined a sweat lodge convened by an Algonquin elder and shaman from Quebec. We were 14 men. I was the only “darkie”. It was a profound experience. We learned the meaning of the peace-pipe ceremonies. The significance of white sage in communicating with the ancestors. The powerful role of tobacco in ceremony in indigenous cultures. It went beyond understanding. It was about feeling the other. Connecting to wisdom that restored our connection with each other and Mother Earth. 

Nelson Mandela’s life taught me that education must take us from the ego-centred mind besotted with cravings, desires and attachments, to the compassion, forgiveness and love of the heart, the seat of the soul. That’s what 27 years in prison, 18 of which were spent in a cell 4×2.5m, did for him. It took him on the most important and painful journey from the head to the heart. 

As a youngster of 15, I went to listen to a great hero, Steve Biko. In a crowded church hall, he declared, “You have nothing to lose but your chains.” He said, “The mind of the oppressed is the main weapon in the hands of the oppressor.” It coincided with the burgeoning civil rights protests led by Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, and the militant rhetoric of Malcolm X and Angela Davis, and the mass resistance on US campuses to the Vietnam War. 

And that metamorphosis ignited the Soweto uprisings, which mobilised millions of us. It was 1976. Victory was within our grasp. And then we were smashed. We went back to the drawing board. 

We needed to build a global solidarity of person-to-person action. And so we went back and organised for the next two decades, building a phalanx of grassroots movements. Here in the US, students rallied, demanding disinvestments from US companies in South Africa. Unionists, especially the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, defied their own leadership to support us. And the US government was forced to act and support sanctions. The powerful racial elite in South Africa was paralysed. And that created the space for a negotiated settlement that put President Nelson Mandela in power as the first democratically elected leader of South Africa. 

Today humanity stands at a crossroads. One path leads to despair, growing inequality, conflict and implosion. Another is the choice to rethink, reimagine, and reorganise everything. I know that change is inevitable. In fact, it is the only constant. It is the natural cycle of the universe. 

The question is, what is to be done? We live in a world that is more connected, binding people and planet into one global system with one destiny. The digital revolution heralded a new phase of civilisation, one that can weave a fabric of human values in which we evolve to a greater consciousness. To live in harmony. To build intelligent cooperation with each other. 

I see a Great Transition birthing. The green shoots are all around us. Young people are asking questions and searching for new answers. And thankfully they are not listening to the self-appointed gurus: the elites in government, politics, business, the 1% clubs of Davos, the aristocracy of civil society and academia. The system is broken. It cannot be fixed. There is no Band-Aid solution. And there is no script, worn-out ideology or messiah to follow. We are truly on our own. And that is the most wonderful opportunity that has opened up. If you really open your eyes, it will be the most exciting roller coaster adventure since our humble beginnings living in caves 200,000 years ago.

Mandela famously said, “No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” He was right.

Question everyone. Question everything

There is no room for melancholy. Biko did not give me a business plan. I thank God he didn’t have some PowerPoint presentation. Or money. So we didn’t spend the time filling in “log-frames” for some bean counter in some air-conditioned office in some Western capital. Biko inspired us to dare. To be bold. To be prepared to give our lives for our freedom. He gave us a direction. Not a road map. Our compass was our passion. Our invincibility was our youth. And we built an army of passionate volunteers. 

The fight against hunger

For more than a decade, I worked alongside leaders from across the governmental and UN multilateral systems, private and civil society sectors to address the malnutrition facing two billion people in the world. We were trying to find long-lasting and meaningful solutions to hunger through means such as fortification of industrialised processed foods. We did our best. But the wound of exclusion and poverty constantly repeated the cycle. We have to tackle the root causes. We have to heal the wounds caused by human greed and arrogance.

Our food system is certainly broken

The industrial chemical-driven agricultural model has its roots in chemical warfare coming out of World War Two. We have waged a war on soil for the last 70 years. Since the 1970s we have lost one-third of our Earth’s topsoil. How we deal with soil health will determine the future of all life on our Earth. Change the microclimate and you end up changing the macroclimate. The UN reports that all our remaining topsoil will be gone in 60 years. We know that poor land management leads to a deepening of poverty, a rise of hunger and social unrest. Any historian can trace major conflicts in our human journey to food shortages. 

In the US, 70% of cropland is used for animal feed, corn beans and soy, because of subsidies. Much of food aid, often disguised as humanitarian aid, is dumped in Africa and crushes our efforts to grow a sustainable smallholder farming base. 

Malnutrition is the single greatest threat to child survival. Every year, 3.1 million children die from hunger-related causes — a staggering 45% of all child deaths globally. But there are solutions to malnutrition.

Can Africa be the laboratory for a new model of regenerative agriculture?

Ninety percent of food in sub-Saharan Africa is grown by women. Yet we are the epicentre of world hunger. Nearly 240 million people here are undernourished. And nearly half live in poverty. And nearly 60% of the remaining cultivable and arable land is in Africa. 

When I talk to women smallholder farmers who grow our food in Africa, they know what has to be done. Unlock legal title in ownership to them. Invest in microfinance facilitation that helps them build their seed banks. Support fairer prices for their crops on the market. Hunger disappears and Africa will be the global hub of healthy food. Malnutrition evaporates because women and mothers will invest in the health and education of their children. “Invest in a man and you educate an individual. Invest in a woman and you educate a community and nation,” becomes the truth. 

The pursuit of a regenerative model of agriculture is one of the most important ways in which we can heal ourselves and heal our relationship with our Mother Earth. 

If agricultural uniformity and the “one size fits all” approach of chemical fertilisation and monocultures were the benchmark of 20th-century agriculture, then biodiversity, appreciation of distinct identities of soil and climate profiles will define 21st-century agriculture. 

I have worked alongside the Naandi Foundation in India which has co-created this at scale with thousands of tribal farmers in 700 villages in Araku Valley in northern Andhra Pradesh. I have seen the progression from a system where seeds have to be procured for each season; soil has to be prepared afresh for every season; overuse of external chemicals has destroyed natural microbial activity in the soil; where plants are stressed; where water is extracted continually to meet increasing irrigation needs. Where the farmer is disempowered. Having to purchase higher quantities of chemical inputs each season, at ever-increasing prices. Where profits are concentrated in the hands of a few powerful men. 

The regenerative model applied over the last decade has decreased external inputs dramatically. It repairs our relationships with other species. It nurtures water retention. It strengthens the nutrient health of the soil. It keeps the carbon in the ground. It restores our interconnection with the Earth. We give back to the Earth for the abundance she shares with us. And farmer families are at the centre of the food system. Their incomes have increased dramatically. So has their dignity. They have independence. And are partners with Nature. 

As Mandela often reminded us, “Everything seems impossible until it is done.” 

In Chief Seattle’s letter to President Franklin Pierce in 1854:

“The earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. … We ARE all brothers after all.”

What we need today is Justice. Fairness. Decency. Not Power. Not Hate. Not Fear. That is the struggle of your generation. So go out and build your voice, agency and tsunami of hope to overwhelm our despair and helplessness. Sekunjalo ke Nako! Now is the time. Now is the time for your generation. Elders, people like me, will stand behind you in our multitudes. Shoulder to shoulder. DM

This was Jay Naidoo’s 20th Annual Edward and Nancy Dodge Lecture, Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future delivered on April 15, 2021

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Comments - Please in order to comment.

  • Marianne McKay says:

    Thank you, Mr Naidoo. Inspiring.

  • Wendy Annecke says:

    Thank you, Jay. I especially like the ‘I see a Great Transition birthing’ paragraph.

  • Kanu Sukha says:

    A breathtaking ode..nay homily re some important notions and values. Crediting MLK & NRM for their defining roles in the way forward, it missed the one preceding & inspiring them – MKG …who has been ‘deposed’ my the power-hungry & finger wagging Modhi. Concerned re youth ‘revolution/co-option’?

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