Call me crazy, but I spent the last evening sitting in my garden and telling the first toad I met this year what I do and why. I told her about Deep Green Resistance, about the destruction of the natural world by our culture, and I asked her to tell me how she and her kind perceive all this.
I don’t know if I understood her correctly, but what I heard was: “Well, too many of us are dying. We know that some of you are trying to help us. That’s not enough. It has to stop.“
It doesn‘t matter if I‘m projecting or not. The toad is right.
She wasn’t shy, she sat quietly right next to me, moved a little bit every now and then and looked at me with beautiful red, serious eyes.
I do this regularly, I go to the wildest places that still exist here and listen to nature. I see different kinds of insects, wild bees, bumblebees, mosquitos, beetles, a few dragonflies. I see – mostly hear – birds, but I can only distinguish about five or six species. I love the call of the codger when it gets dark.
I know that the stag beetles come out of the ground at the beginning of June, where they have lived for three years as increasingly fattening grubs, to fly with a huge hum into the summer forest, where they will live exclusively from the sap of the rare old oaks their females prepare, since the males cannot bite the bark because of their huge antlers. Every June, I wait in my garden to welcome them. Towards the end of the summer they carry out their ecstatic fights and mating rituals, until after spending only three months as Europe‘s most giant beetles, they die and serve hungry birds as autumn delicacy.
I see squirrels, bats, toads, grass frogs and spotted salamanders. Sometimes I meet bigger animals: Wild boars, badgers, foxes, deer, but these are still scared of me and usually flee quickly.
The European bison, or wisent, that used to inhabit this forest, I only know from the zoo. But even the ones that are forced to live in captivity are gigantic, beautiful, trusting and kind. They look at me with loving eyes, each of them asking the same question:
Why?
Twice in my life I‘ve seen a snake. The first encounter was a European adder, many years ago in a village in the Odenwald (the forest where I live), when I was a school kid. The second one was a giant garter snake in my garden a few months ago. She (or he) was enjoying the sun, lying on a large oak tree that recently had been killed by a storm.
After this encounter, I wanted to learn more about them. I read that garter snakes used to be treated as house snakes and were considered holy animals that bring happiness and blessing. The garter snake was worshipped by numerous European peoples until the late Middle Ages, and appears in many myths. People fed garter snakes milk, just as the Indian villagers do in Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book with their holy village cobra.
Today, you are very lucky if you see a garter snake once in your life.
It’s getting dark. I look at the stars and the full moon. I speak to them and all the animals, plants and living beings that surround me. I tell them what I do and why, and I say prayers. I declare my loyalty. I tell them that I am one of them, and that I will do everything in my power to help them. They’re my relatives.
I’m asking them to tell me the most important things I can do for them. I tell them that I love them.
The toad is still sitting next to me. She (or he) looks at me, lets me take a foto and politely waits until I’m done talking to her. Then she slowly trots towards the pond I have build for her kind to inhabit.
Like thousands of times before, I walk the way from my garden to my small apartment in the city. Like thousands of times before, I look down over the Neckar River to see Babylon. I fear Babylon. I’m terrified of Babylon.
The Neckar River once was called Germany’s wildest river, but it has been raped for at least 2000 years, since the Roman invaders drained parts of it to build the old bridge that is still in place today. Nowadays, the River essentially serves as a road for the many freighters that are desperately trying to satisfy the insatiable hunger of Babylon. Like the Rhine, it had been full of salmon in the past, but this was so long ago that no human people can remember. I’m sure the trees still know.
During the last two years beavers return, after being absent for about 150 years. There are supposed to be about three thousand of them again in Baden-Württemberg. The state government is considering to kill about half of them because they are allegedly damaging trees.
The natural world is full of wisdom. So often I‘ve sat here or there, listening, speaking, praying. The river, the forest and all the creatures who still live here spreak different languages and have different messages. They have taught me a lot, and I have a lot more to learn. But in one thing they all agree:
Across everything that divides societies, we share in common that men’s violence against women is normalised, tolerated, justified – and hidden in plain sight.
Since 25 November last year, at least 118 women and girls in the UK aged over 13 have been killed by men, or a man has been the primary suspect.
An average of one woman dead at the hands of a man every 3 days.
I’ve been recording women’s names and details of how they were killed since January 2012 when Counting Dead Women was launched.
Today we commemorate 653 women.
Men’s fatal violence against women in the UK crosses boundaries of class, race, nationality and age. Over the last year, the oldest woman killed was 85, 18 were over 60, and 21 were aged 25 and under. They included hairdressers, writers, shop assistants, prostituted women, a politician, lawyers, students and school girls; women born in Eritrea, Poland, China, Italy and other countries, and of course women born in the UK with a range of ethnic backgrounds. Most, but not all, were killed by current or former partners, others were killed by burglars, rapists, neighbours, brothers, sons, men they saw as friends or men who paid for sex.
Many think of intimate partner violence, or, more broadly, domestic violence, if they think about women killed by men at all. This focus is reflected and reinforced by official statistics. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) publishes an annual report on violent crime, including homicide. For the year ending March 2015, the Home Office Homicide Index recorded 518 homicides. There were 186 female victims, 331 male victims, and one victim whose sex is unknown/undeclared.
The proportion of female victims was the highest recorded for 20 years. 19 men and 81 women were killed in circumstances described as partner/ex-partner homicides. 31 were killed by other family members (domestic/family violence).
But what about the remaining 74 women? Is it important to have a sex-specific analysis of their deaths?
51-year-old Majella Lynch died in hospital after the a removal of a 400ml shampoo bottle from her abdominal cavity. William Mousley QC, prosecuting, said “The bottle could not have been self-inserted because of the extreme pain such an act would have caused.” Mousley said her attacker, Daniel McBride, 43, an habitual user of hardcore pornography “had an interest in violent sexual activity and was in the mood for sex that night having had an argument with his girlfriend and being rejected by another female.” Yvette Hallsworth, 36, was selected by Mateusz Kosecki because she was “slightly built.” At 18 he was already a predator targeting women in prostitution. He had attacked at least three women who sold sex before he killed Yvette Hallsworth, stabbing her 18 times. Judge Michael Stokes QC described him has having a “fascination, if not an obsession” with prostituted women.
How can a feminist perspective of men’s violence against women disregard some women when patriarchal misogyny, violent sexualisation and objectification are so clear in their murders?
The prevalence of intimate partner violence (IPV) is globally uneven. Corradi and Stockl, 2014, looked at the relationship between men’s fatal violence against women, feminist activism and government policy in European countries since the 1970s. They found no clear link between rates of IPV and government policies, rather that feminist activism was a crucial catalyst of change – and was most effective when it was independent of government.
“Since the late 1960s, organized women’s activism played a fundamental role in rallying the state to tackle VAW.” (Corradi & Stockl, 2014: 605).
It is estimated that across the world around 66,000 women and girls are violently killed every year. Comparing country-by-country data is challenging, partly because there isn’t a cross-national approach to collecting and disaggregating murder statistics by the sex of both victim and killer, but globally women are at greater risk than men of intimate-partner homicides and are overwhelmingly killed by males. Across everything that divides societies, we share in common that men’s violence against women is normalised, tolerated, justified – and hidden in plain sight, and that there is a lack of truly proactive and deeply rooted state action to protect women’s right to life.
Of course it is essential to look at domestic and intimate partner violence, including homicide; but to focus only on this context not only obscures the full extent of men’s fatal violence against women, it also misses the sex differences within these crimes. In the UK, women are more than 7 times more likely to be killed by a man than men are by a women in the context of intimate partner homicide. Men are more likely than women to be killed by a same-sex partner, and histories of violence before the homicide are different – with men tending to have inflicted months or years of violence and abuse on the women they go on to kill, while women tend to have suffered months or years of violence and abuse from the man they go on to kill.
Responses to men’s violence against women which focus almost exclusively on “healthy relationships,” supporting victim-survivors and reforming the criminal justice system simply do not go far enough. Men’s violence against women is a cause and consequence of sex inequality between women and men. The objectification of women, the sex trade, socially constructed gender, unequal pay, unequal distribution of caring responsibility are all simultaneously symptomatic of structural inequality whilst maintaining a conducive context for men’s violence against women. Feminists know this and have been telling us for decades.
One of feminism’s important achievements is getting men’s violence against women into the mainstream and onto policy agendas. One of the threats to these achievements is that those with power take the concepts, and under the auspices of dealing with the problem shake some of the most basic elements of feminist understanding right out of them. State initiatives which are not nested within policies on equality between women and men will fail to reduce men’s violence against women. Failing to even name the agent – men’s use of violence – is failure at the first hurdle.
Working in partnership, Counting Dead Women and Women’s Aid Federation England, supported by Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Deloitte, have developed The Femicide Census, a relativity database that allows data to be collated and disaggregated for analysis. It currently contains information regarding over 1000 women who were killed by men between 2009 and 2015. Our intention is to build a research resource than can be used as a tool to influence understanding and policy development. We’ll soon be releasing our first report. In September, our work was cited as an example of good practice in a report by the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women.
Women across the world are finding ways to protest the murders of our sisters.
By recording women’s names, and where possible their photographs, we want to create a reminder that women are not reducible to statistics.
653 women dead in the UK in 5 years at the hands of men cannot be 653 isolated incidents. Action is needed and action can be taken to reduce these killings.
On Monday, 6th of June at 03:15 AM, the security company Valina stormed into the Rog Factory, which is formally owned by the Municipality of Ljubljana, Slovenia. The plan was to secure the place and turn it into a building ground, all according to the gentrification vision of the mayor of Ljubljana, Zoran Janković. Despite the violent and brutal approach of the security, the community of the Rog Factory won that war, managed to defend the place and around noon, the demoralized security forces had to leave the premises. Within the hour, barricades were erected around the area, heavily protecting the main entrance, as it is expected there will be another attempts of eviction in the coming days, possibly with the help of police forces.
After the decades of neglect of the old factory premises – by the state and then municipality – artists, activists, philosophers, as well as members of various collectives and groups have been active here for more than 10 years. Since the government structures care more about fulfilling the Neoliberal wet dreams and obeying the directives coming from Brussels, the Autonomous Centre Rog, within years, also took over some of the social functions which should be, by the Constitution, provided by the state. Rog stands and works where the state failed. All the activities and services in Rog are based on voluntary approach, and supported by donations.
The Rog Factory is a complex of five smaller buildings plus the main building and all of these constantly house various activities. People have invested their time in repairing the building, so now the whole area is filled with culture, music, sport, social, permacultural and other activities. Since we are in the middle of the exam period for the students, a study room with a library was also established recently. Everything is based on autonomy, solidarity and mutual help.
There were attempts to achieve a compromise, but the Municipality of Ljubljana constantly ignores the activities already taking place in the factory. Their goal is to stop these, since they oppose the capitalist ideas of gentrification of the centre of Ljubljana. The mayor wants a clean space, he wants tourists and established-art scene. In other words: he certainly wants to keep the economy going. Hence, his goal is eviction of the current users and demolition of all the buildings except the central one, which would, supposedly, be renewed. The City’s PR succeeded in portraying the community of Rog as outlaws to the general public, meaning the Mayor has some lay-support behind him, which presents a good example of horizontal hostility at work.
Right now, there is a constant, 24/7 presence of approximately one hundred people on the premises ― with a couple of hundred more on a constant stand-by ― willing to defend the cause. There are two dozen various daily activities in Rog, from exercise, language courses and radio station to music, theatre, art exhibitions and lectures. People, institutions and various collectives from Slovenia and abroad are sending their statements of support to the struggle of the Autonomous Rog Factory. Some of the well-established artists are preparing a big art exhibition within Rog premises. People are also travelling to Ljubljana to join the fight for Rog.
The community in Rog keeps emphasizing that the question of the Rog Factory is a political question. It certainly is. It is a prime example of the struggle for a better, anti-capitalist society, so it is very likely a growing precedent, opening a path to future struggles.
The happening in Rog can be followed through the very active Facebook page Ohranimo Tovarno Rog (Let’s protect the Rog Factory).
Editor’s note: At publication, we received word that the entrance of the Autonomous Centre was attacked by neo-Nazis on June 10. A short description and call for support is posted here. If you’re involved in the Rog Factory occupation please feel free to post comments below, or contact us at newsservice@deepgreenresistance.org.
Featured image: Sámi and reindeer. Photo by Dutchbaby @flickr (some rights reserved).
An unprecedented land grab will threaten the last old growth forests of Finnish Lapland and the homeland of the indigenous Sámi Peoples if a new Forestry Act is approved by the Finnish Parliament this week. 130,000 people have already petitioned the parliament to stop the Forestry Act, which Sámi indigenous groups say would lead to the end of Sámi reindeer herding in its current form.
A State-driven land grab
This crisis arrives in a context in which the previous Finnish Government failed to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, leaving the Sámi vulnerable. Now the current government in Finland is moving fast to completely wreck the existing rights of the only Indigenous Peoples living in the European Union. If the new Forestry Act is passed, Sámi areas in Upper Lapland, including large tracts of boreal old growth forests, will be opened up to a range of economic uses.
The new Act would affect 2.2 million hectares of water systems and 360,000 hectares of land, mostly in the Sub-Arctic and North Boreal areas of Finland, the Sámi’s Home Area. This area constitutes the last preserved wilderness of Europe. The Act would transfer power over this region further into the hands of state authorities, opening up the Sámi Home Area and sub-Arctic ecosystems to railway construction, and with that, potential expansion of mining, forestry and other infrastructure projects.
The new Forestry Act would no longer require Metsähallitus, the Finnish state-run enterprise which already controls 90% of the Sámi Home Area, to liase with the Sámi Parliament and the Skolt Sámi Village Council on issues of land management and their potential impacts on indigenous people’s lives. The preparation of this Act has not been conducted with the Free, Prior and Informed Consent of the Sámi People.
Sámi Culture Under Threat
There is an urgent need to ensure that Metsähallitus and others are prevented from undermining present or future opportunities for the Sámi to practice and foster their culture. The new Act needs to include clauses that provide a protective zone and mechanisms for the Sámi to safeguard their cultural practices. These are missing from the existing legal proposal leaving both Indigenous Sámi leaders and Arctic scientists concerned about the proposed new reforms.
“Sámi reindeer herding and the Sámi way of life are in danger of disappearing if the new Forestry Act legislation passes in the Finnish Parliament. In this case we will have few opportunities to influence the decision making over our lands. Rather, our territories will be controlled by market economy values,” says Jouni Lukkari, President of the Finnish Section of the Sámi Council.
Tero Mustonen, a scientist from the Snowchange Cooperative, and one of the Lead Authors of the Arctic Council’s Arctic Biodiversity Assessment (ABA), adds: “Arctic peoples have thrived in a harsh environment for millennia, in no small part because they have acquired a great depth of knowledge about the land and waters of their homelands and the species that live there, which provide food, clothing and meaning to Arctic cultures. This traditional ecological knowledge is increasingly recognized as an important source of information for, among other things, understanding Arctic biodiversity and developing effective strategies to conserve that biodiversity, including indigenous ways of life.”
Furthermore, Mustonen says that “In this period of rapid climate change in the Arctic it is imperative that these northern ecosystems are preserved intact – they are central to the Indigenous peoples’ survival and a source of their knowledge in this new reality. The Forestry Act in its current form would cause severe negative impacts to Sámi society as we know it.”
Concerned about the threat to their culture and homelands, all of the Sámi reindeer herding cooperatives, the economic units through which reindeer herding is organized in Finland, are opposing the new Act. Despite decades of industrial forestry and road construction in Southern and Middle Lapland, the Sámi’s traditional trade has been able to cope and maintain its iconic socio-ecological complex. But the new Act threatens to change all of this.
Since details of the new Forestry Act emerged, the reindeer herding cooperatives, as well as the national Sámi Parliament and the international Sámi Council, have taken strongly-worded letters to Finland’s Prime Minister Juha Sipilä asking him to stop the Act in its current form.
The Act must be stopped
Considering both the historical damage they have sustained and the difficulties of adapting to rapidly-proceeding Arctic climate change, Sámi reindeer herding practices cannot cope with the imposition of the sudden industrial changes promised under the new Forestry Act, Mustonen explains. “There is an urgent need to stop the current form of the Forestry Act from proceeding further”.
Should the Act manage to pass in the Finnish Parliament this week, the Sámi will demand a full Moratorium on all state forestry and infrastructure actions inside the Sámi Home Area until such a time that the Indigenous rights over the area can be jointly agreed on.
Mustonen also suggests that a mapping of the Sámi Land Use, in accordance with international standards, should be enacted to document the historical and contemporary land and water rights of the Sámi. “This could then serve as a basis of a neutral re-start to Sámi – State relations in Finland; a re-start much needed and awaited by all parties,” he concludes.
