From extraordinary fasting to ordinary responsible consumption
03.09.13
We publish, sharing it, the intervention of Adriano Sella (missionary of Creation and coordinator of the Diocesan Commission for New Lifestyles) who, inspired by Don Albino Bizzotto's fast (see news on the web on the side), implements concrete actions that each of us can implement to safeguard the environment and the territory that surrounds us. Responsible, critical and supportive consumption is a very effective practice for undermining the logic of multinational profits! Have a good read.
The extraordinary choice of Don Albino of the Blessed Builders of Peace, to implement fasting to call the attention of the population and the authorities to the environmental issue of our territory, is a truly courageous choice with a beautiful testimony. We must thank him for his courage and for having aroused confrontation, debate and joining forces around the issue of the Veneto territory, which is at great risk due to various great works desired by the profit economy.
This action remains, however, extraordinary both because few can implement it and because fasting (hunger strike) is a tool to be used in case of urgency and emergency.
From this extraordinary form, it is necessary to move on to ordinary action: possible for all citizens and concrete in their daily lives. We can identify it in the commitment to responsible, critical and supportive consumption that can be implemented every day, when we buy, that is, when we go shopping.
Here is a daily proposal that answers the question that various people have asked me these days: “What can we do to protect our territory?” .
The first question to ask is: where are we going to do the shopping? The choice to go to large shopping centers, or to hypermarkets, is not the same thing as when you go shopping in stores or directly from producers, as do solidarity buying groups (G.A.S.). The first means supporting the economy of the giants and large multinationals that are responsible for the great works that we want to carry out today, destroying the entire socio-cultural and human fabric of a territory. The second choice means promoting an alternative economy, supporting all small and medium-sized stores that are able to employ many more people at a working level and that are the fabric of social and human relations in our countries, or by organizing themselves and going directly to the producers to support their work and their commitment to produce with full respect for the environment.
Vandana Shiva, Indian scientist, economist and environmentalist, strongly denounced how the great Coca-Cola giant had appropriated water from a region of India, draining the aquifers in the area in just two years, forcing thousands of women to travel hundreds of kilometers to get water. It is good to become aware that this destructive action of the multinational is supported by those who use its products and do not have the courage to make an alternative choice.
The second question to ask is: whose products do we buy? Buying products from large companies that are responsible for polluting the environment is not the same thing as buying products from the supply chain that pays great attention to natural and organic agriculture. The first production chain is highly destructive of the environment because it uses many herbicides, pesticides and agro-toxins; while the second is very attentive to respect nature and the territory. The choice of an ethical production chain is very important: in order to respect the environment, to pay a fair price to producers and to respect the rights of workers, just as fair trade does.
As the economist Leonardo Becchetti wrote, we citizens as consumers have the 'vote in our wallets'. It's true, every time we buy we vote with our wallet. This is enormous power in the hands of citizens. Do we know how to use it? And it is a daily tool that puts us at a crossroads: to continue to support the current profit economy, in the hands of multinationals (let's think of the global food business that is managed by a handful of transnational corporations); or to promote an alternative economy, the ethical one, which focuses on humanity and the earth, with great attention to the environment, also offering us quality products that are good for our health.
Here lies the daily action that allows us to weaken, undermining from below, the power of the great economic giants that today want to use the Veneto territory, consolidating it enormously and carrying out a long list of great works. We must remember that behind these large groups there is speculative finance, as well as, often, also corruption.
To better understand this power of the citizen as a consumer, I would like to remind you that the reduction in consumption of just 3 or 4% was sufficient to bring large multinationals, such as Coca-Cola, to their knees, and then prove themselves willing to discuss. Recently, the action of a small percentage of citizens of our territory who made the choice not to go shopping on Sundays in large shopping centers, in order to live the Sunday of the Third Earth (relationships, rest and Risen), has infected the large supermarket chain Famila, of the giant GDO, making the choice not to open on Sundays, driven by economic convenience but also rediscovering ethics in respecting the right to Sunday rest of its workers and in respect of the environment.
This daily action, possible for everyone, must be experienced at three levels: personal through fair, ethical and supportive spending; community in organizing itself as citizens, as do solidarity buying groups or solidarity economy districts; institutional with political commitment and putting pressure on local, regional and national institutions, as do the many committees and principals for the defense of the territory.
I increasingly believe that this is the powerful, non-violent and everyday tool that everyone can and must use to protect their territory: responsible consumption and ethical finance.
Tramonte (Padua) 27/08/2013
Adriano Sella
(missionary of Creation and coordinator of the Diocesan Commission for New Lifestyles)
e-mail: adrianosella@virgilio.it; blog-site: www.contemplzionemissione.wordpress.com
The extraordinary choice of Don Albino of the Blessed Builders of Peace, to implement fasting to call the attention of the population and the authorities to the environmental issue of our territory, is a truly courageous choice with a beautiful testimony. We must thank him for his courage and for having aroused confrontation, debate and joining forces around the issue of the Veneto territory, which is at great risk due to various great works desired by the profit economy.
This action remains, however, extraordinary both because few can implement it and because fasting (hunger strike) is a tool to be used in case of urgency and emergency.
From this extraordinary form, it is necessary to move on to ordinary action: possible for all citizens and concrete in their daily lives. We can identify it in the commitment to responsible, critical and supportive consumption that can be implemented every day, when we buy, that is, when we go shopping.
Here is a daily proposal that answers the question that various people have asked me these days: “What can we do to protect our territory?” .
The first question to ask is: where are we going to do the shopping? The choice to go to large shopping centers, or to hypermarkets, is not the same thing as when you go shopping in stores or directly from producers, as do solidarity buying groups (G.A.S.). The first means supporting the economy of the giants and large multinationals that are responsible for the great works that we want to carry out today, destroying the entire socio-cultural and human fabric of a territory. The second choice means promoting an alternative economy, supporting all small and medium-sized stores that are able to employ many more people at a working level and that are the fabric of social and human relations in our countries, or by organizing themselves and going directly to the producers to support their work and their commitment to produce with full respect for the environment.
Vandana Shiva, Indian scientist, economist and environmentalist, strongly denounced how the great Coca-Cola giant had appropriated water from a region of India, draining the aquifers in the area in just two years, forcing thousands of women to travel hundreds of kilometers to get water. It is good to become aware that this destructive action of the multinational is supported by those who use its products and do not have the courage to make an alternative choice.
The second question to ask is: whose products do we buy? Buying products from large companies that are responsible for polluting the environment is not the same thing as buying products from the supply chain that pays great attention to natural and organic agriculture. The first production chain is highly destructive of the environment because it uses many herbicides, pesticides and agro-toxins; while the second is very attentive to respect nature and the territory. The choice of an ethical production chain is very important: in order to respect the environment, to pay a fair price to producers and to respect the rights of workers, just as fair trade does.
As the economist Leonardo Becchetti wrote, we citizens as consumers have the 'vote in our wallets'. It's true, every time we buy we vote with our wallet. This is enormous power in the hands of citizens. Do we know how to use it? And it is a daily tool that puts us at a crossroads: to continue to support the current profit economy, in the hands of multinationals (let's think of the global food business that is managed by a handful of transnational corporations); or to promote an alternative economy, the ethical one, which focuses on humanity and the earth, with great attention to the environment, also offering us quality products that are good for our health.
Here lies the daily action that allows us to weaken, undermining from below, the power of the great economic giants that today want to use the Veneto territory, consolidating it enormously and carrying out a long list of great works. We must remember that behind these large groups there is speculative finance, as well as, often, also corruption.
To better understand this power of the citizen as a consumer, I would like to remind you that the reduction in consumption of just 3 or 4% was sufficient to bring large multinationals, such as Coca-Cola, to their knees, and then prove themselves willing to discuss. Recently, the action of a small percentage of citizens of our territory who made the choice not to go shopping on Sundays in large shopping centers, in order to live the Sunday of the Third Earth (relationships, rest and Risen), has infected the large supermarket chain Famila, of the giant GDO, making the choice not to open on Sundays, driven by economic convenience but also rediscovering ethics in respecting the right to Sunday rest of its workers and in respect of the environment.
This daily action, possible for everyone, must be experienced at three levels: personal through fair, ethical and supportive spending; community in organizing itself as citizens, as do solidarity buying groups or solidarity economy districts; institutional with political commitment and putting pressure on local, regional and national institutions, as do the many committees and principals for the defense of the territory.
I increasingly believe that this is the powerful, non-violent and everyday tool that everyone can and must use to protect their territory: responsible consumption and ethical finance.
Tramonte (Padua) 27/08/2013
Adriano Sella
(missionary of Creation and coordinator of the Diocesan Commission for New Lifestyles)
e-mail: adrianosella@virgilio.it; blog-site: www.contemplzionemissione.wordpress.com
PREVIOUS ARTICLE
03. 09. 13
03.09.13
Solidarity with Don Albino Bizzotto: fasting for the environment.
The founder of the Blessed Peacebuilders launched - on August 16 - an indefinite hunger strike to protest against the environmental devastation of his Veneto, destroyed by the Great Works, a...
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