Taking action across the world

Eight hours before WDM activists braved the December cold to join the climate demonstration in London on Saturday, I marched in solidarity with campaigners from across the world in the searing heat of Bali. The local Indonesian NGOs did a great job of organising a march and then demonstration in a park in the town of Denpasar. And given the rather twitchy nature of the local police it all went off very well.

Most marchers were of course from Indonesia or the surrounding Asia-Pacific region but there were also Latin Americans, Africans, Europeans, and North Americans represented. I’m no great judge of these things but I would guess about a thousand people turned up.

What struck me most – aside from the almost debilitating heat - was the way that many campaigners are linking climate change up with a much broader range of, what some might consider, ‘traditional development issues’ like debt, trade, aid, World Bank/IMF, land rights, indigenous peoples’ rights and so on. They see these issues as intimately connected with climate injustice and also with the tendency for governments and businesses to pursue responses to climate change that just perpetuate injustice (e.g. biofuel plantations where workers are exposed to toxic pesticides, tree plantations that result in people being kicked off their land, or rich countries using ‘tackling climate change’ as another pretext for pushing open markets and so-called ‘free trade’).

On a slightly different note (no pun intended), another thing that struck me…

After the march, we congregated in a park next to an amazing looking monument. As I walked into the park there was a local band on a large stage playing music. Now when western development organisations put on events, we almost invariably lay on some music, and that music is almost invariably some sot of ‘world music’. I guess this is because we think that’s what people in the global south play and listen to and we want to please any guests from southern countries.

The trouble for me is, truth be told – and at the risk of getting lynched on my return home - I can’t stand ‘world music’ (or at least most of what I’ve heard). So it was a surprise, and a pleasant one for me at least, to hear this local band playing heads-down chugging heavy rock. Is it possible that they went to all the effort of buying the equipment and learning to play the tunes solely in order to please the very small proportion of westerners participating in the demo? Nah. I think they did it because they love it. Event organisers take note.