Message to the Grass Roots

The global south needs to organize itself and form a push-back against those who intend, and continue to, exploit it - in light, especially, of what's going on in Copenhagen. The speech, Message to the Grass Roots, delivered by Malcolm X, comes to my mind.

His words on the importance of real action from the grass roots: "I'm telling you, you don't know what a revolution is. 'Cause when you find out what it is, you'll get back in the alley; you'll get out of the way. The Russian Revolution -- what was it based on? Land. The land-less against the landlord. How did they bring it about? Bloodshed. You haven't got a revolution that doesn't involve bloodshed. And you're afraid to bleed."

At the Bella Centre in Copenhagen, Naomi Klein made a similar point while discussing the call for reparations. She was talking about the reparations First Nations peoples deserved from the occupiers of their land and moved on to the topic of "climate debt" - what developed nations owe the developing world for all the environmental damage it's caused. Her words, again, on the importance of real action from the grass roots:

"And when we make these arguments, frankly, no one even bothers arguing with us, because it’s so obvious. The science is there. The legal treaties are there. But really what they’re saying is, “You and what army? How are you going to get this money out of us? You are not powerful enough to get the money out of us.” And this is where social movements come in, because, you know, we can talk as much as we want about debt, and we can talk as much as we want about reparations, but they’re going to laugh at us, until there is some movement muscle behind those concerns, behind those demands. And that’s our task."