Lack of Imagination regarding 21st Century Slavery

I had the good fortune to hear Gustavo Esteva talk live here in Toronto twice this week. Also, I saw a series of disturbing videos this week on Migrant Labour in Canada (here is a 53 minute National Film Board of Canada film from 2003, and sadly, things have gotten worse, not better, since then). I am also deep in the midst of setting up another Impossibly Single event with the theme of Prostitution so am introducing myself to a whole new lexicon and expanding my knowledge of feminist theory.

The perpetual learner in me is thrilled for the new content I am pouring into my brain but I also feel that I am drowning in the bleak reality of 21st century slavery. I'll do a future post on prostitution after becoming better informed and will just focus on the Migrant Worker issue in this post.

It struck me this week that technology and our world's increasing reliance on  it is managing to divide humanity in new and creative ways. The improvements in the technology of getting one human to another place and the cost of travel relative to income in the Global North have created a global marketplace for human trafficking that is unprecedented in scope and destruction. We are excelling in technological progress while regressing in morality.

Here are some facts I've amassed after absorbing lots of new info this week:

1. Migrant workers are not allowed to form a union. They work 7 days a week and well over 8 hours each day. Labour laws do not apply.
2. Recent immigration changes have  increased the number of migrant workers in Canada to 350,000. That's 1% of our population. The 1% that have no rights (see fact 1) as opposed to the 1% that own our corporations. The perverseness of this dichotomy is elegant to my mathematical mind.
3. If a migrant worker complains to their consulate they are told to behave better. Consulates are for corporations. When will we get that, finally?
4. If a migrant worker complains too much they will be refused a renewal by their 'owners'. Yes. That's what one of the farm operator's called them in that documentary I linked above. Some farm operator's call their workers "Little Donkeys". For every migrant worker that gets kicked out of the program there are many more people waiting behind them for a position. The politics of poverty and our food system is clearly evidenced by this sad reality.
5.  Migrant workers pay EI but claim no benefits. Instead of removing the requirement that they pay these benefits, why don't we work towards paying them during the off season like the fishery workers receive in Newfoundland?

One of the many powerful ideas Mr. Esteva discussed was regarding Corn (Maize) and it's relationship with people. Corn does not grow well on it's own. It needs cultivation by people to prosper. Humans, over millenia, have created a knowledge base around corn in Mexico.  This knowledge involves hundreds of varieties of maize and the best environment for their growth. The campesino movement, which is expanding globally, wants this knowledge base to be preserved. There is a deep understanding of people in the campesinos of the symbiotic relationship between maize and humans. The corn needs people and in turn the people need corn. If we do not preserve this symbiosis, our species will die.

Ironically, he also noted that scientific research is showing that North Americans contain more corn in their bodies than Mexicans. Corn additives are everywhere in the North American diet and many additives in our medications are derived from corn too. North Americans are, literally, people of the corn while the people of the Campesinos are more metaphorically people of the corn. More importantly, the people of the campesinos know that the need to fuel our bodies with pure healthy food trumps corporate interests. They have managed to survive the development binge of the late 20th century and defy chemical 'progress' when it comes to agri-business. This leaves the people of the campasinos, who grow 70% of the food consumed on this planet in non agri-business conditions, well suited to teaching the rest of us how to return to the land. Return to the maize.

Mr. Esteva also noted that the biggest crisis facing humanity is our collective lack of imagination.  We need new ways to solve big problems. In other words, we need some moral innovation. Less big business, more subsistence plus (way down on this page). Basically subsistence plus is "a new approach to ending hunger and impoverishment while protecting small-scale farmers and the environment" (from the link). It is a concept developed by prominent Canadian intellectuals and food activists Wayne Roberts and Michael Sacco (who is also the founder and owner of Chocosol). Their approach is truly imaginative and I'll be writing more about it on my Lettuce Connect blog in the coming weeks as part of my newly launched series on the Cupcake Economy.

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Aboriginal Irish Blood Memory

I have been searching for a word lately. The lack of this word has seriously impeded my ability to communicate on this blog.  The word, or rather the lack of the word, has been the metaphorical brick blocking my creativity.  My writer's block had become a word and the lack of it was preventing me from writing.

I was in northern Ontario, Kenora, recently.  My dear friend has lived there for nearly twenty years now and it is only the second time I've gone up to her.  Now that my own child is nearly grown up I can avail of the independence both of us now have.  I am enjoying being able to make the time for trips and people I deeply care about.  This friend in Kenora is a special connection that I hope continues for many many more years and with many more shared trips such as the one I had last month.

In the early 90s, this friend of mine got her teaching degree and obtained her first position at the school I first attended in Toronto.  I only attended this school for not quite two years (junior and senior kindergarten).  My parents moved to Brampton before I finished kindergarten.  My friend and I thought this was an interesting coincidence since she moved to the very area I spent my early youth exploring with wild abandon.  She was not long for the city though.  Whilst knocking herself out in her first years of teaching she embarked in Ojibwa lessons at night so that she could move north and teach on a reserve.  She has native blood and it was screaming at her during our early friendship so she honoured this and arranged her life to be more in touch with this calling.

It is fitting that during my trip up to see her that she introduced me to the native concept of blood memory.  I had been mentioning a research article I had recently read that announced the fact that yes, the cells of our maternal ancestors never leave us and as mothers, we carry the cells of the all the children we have ever borne.  That moment, when she connected the native blood memory legend to the scientific reality of it was like turning on a light bulb to me.  I have always been drawn to native lore.  I think most people can't help it. Everything they talk about resonates with clarity in my being.  I heard Clayton Thomas-Muller, the noted indigenous activist, talk last week and not only did that one lightbulb of blood memory awareness get brighter but an additional stadium of lighting got lit up in my mind.  [If you want to see Clayton in action yourself, check out this fantastic 25 minute video of him talking about the indigenous perspective on the Occupy movement.]

My people are pure Irish.  I am Canadian born but my Irish ancestors go back at least two hundred years and most likely for thousands.  The burning of nearly all Irish records hinders the ability of the Irish to prove this reality.  The practical ramifications of the pillaging of Irish culture by the British means that we can not go back more than seven generations or so.  During the live talk that I attended, Clayton mentioned the many native legends about the seven fires prophecy.  I started to tingle when he mentioned this.  You see, while I was in Winnipeg I had written the following quote, penned by Lois Riel, and transcribed by myself into my brand new travel journal gifted to me by my Kenora friend, on Manitoba's Lois Riel day 2012:  "My people will sleep for 100 years, and when they awake, it will be artists who give them back their spirit."

And yet another interesting thing has happened as of late.  My maternal grandmother has visited me recently in my dreams.  This has occurred in the past and I've always found comfort in these shadowy meetups.  She died when I was quite young so have very fleeting memories of the last trip I had to Ireland when she was alive.  I was four and I'm the only descendant of my generation to carry any memory of her since I am the oldest of my cousins.  My mother is working on a memoir of her life and I eagerly await it.  There have been other Irish-themed occurrences that have demanded  my attention as of late.  An Irish friend gave me a necklace crafted in the manner and form that my ancestors would have done and in the area where my maternal line descends from.  In this relatively new blog I've already written twice (here and here) about ancient Irish celebrations.  Orangemen Order references by high school mates.  I reconnected with an Irish acquaintance who had been not far from my thoughts.  Etc, etc.

And now we return to that metaphorical brick, the word I was seeking out.  I felt it was Irish even though I do not speak Irish.  And after talking to my mother today and trying to suss out the word I realized that perhaps it wasn't a 'word' at all.  Perhaps it was my aboriginal Irish blood memory screaming for a voice.  And so here it is.  For me, the prophecy of the seven fires now includes the Aboriginal Irish.  We too are awakening and joining indigenous people across Turtle island.  Our ancestors, the ones oppressed, starved, murdered and culturally nearly annihilated are screaming in my blood.  I am listening and writing, once more.

This quilt was made by Kim Ratuski and is one of seven exquisite quilts made by her and are
 hanging in the music room at a Kenora high school.