Slumming it with Kevin McCloud - catch it!

If you have missed the past two evenings of Slumming It with Kevin McCloud in Dharavi in Mumbai (Channel 4) then I urge you to catch it on the internet. It's not easy television! I challenge you not to go through the entire rainbow of emotions and human angst and questioning with him and not to feel completely wrung out by it. But it raises the most important questions for the next few years.

On the last Friday of the Summit a representative from the Bolivian delegation came to Christiana (Bottom Summit) . He was pleased at the agreement that had been reached a short time previously at the Bella Centre on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD). Some young people asked him quite angrily for more detail and less rhetoric as this issue has extremely serious consequences for some indigenous peoples* and major implications for large-scale land re-use. He became quite angry briefly as well and challenged them to consider how much their ideas reflected white colonial thinking.

Dharavi is shocking in terms of sanitation, disease, health and safety and exploitation but the most heart-breaking thing is that sometime soon the whole square mile could be bulldozed. A proportion of the million or so people - those who live on the ground floor with proven 'tenancies' for 10 years, while there seem to be no plans for the remainder - will be rehoused in concrete boxes in densely packed high-rise flats. The contrast between the known problems of such estates over 5 decades and the colour, vibrancy, joy, resourcefulness and crime-free community of the many neighbourhoods, each with very unique characters that have evolved organically and that Kevin McCloud experienced first hand (complete with rats, industrial chemicals, syringes amongst hospital waste and chest infections) is poignant.

What is community? Who really understands civilised behaviour and co-existence? What leads to the greatest joys?

These are the challenges of the next 5 - 20 - 50 years, answering these questions together, listening to those who genuinely understand community and joy, learning from them and giving them small hands up in the basics of sanitation, clean water and to some extent but not too much our forms of education. But also taking taking taking from them what they know at every level about how to live this life, to be, to share, to care and then applying it in our own families, friendships and communities. Not to mention listening to our own older people.


* I have just discovered that the Forest Peoples' Programme is based 'down the road' in Moreton in the Marsh in Gloucester. Their newsletter does not contain updates from Copenhagen yet but the pre-Summit one is excellent:-

http://www.forestpeoples.org/documents/enews_dec09.shtml

The nights before leaving

The night before I left for Copenhagen, when everything I was taking was neatly packed in a tiny rucksack and everything I was leaving was ironed, folded and stored alphabetically in the freezer or the wardrobe, I was twiddling my thumbs wondering what on earth I could do to while away those last few hours (I may be mis-remembering one or two organisational details) when Mark calmly suggested I could spend a few minutes marking up the places I would arrive and where I was going to stay. Hah - that's just for sissies but I humoured him nonetheless and we printed out 3 overlapping sheets from google maps. I jigsawed them together with tape and annotated the key areas - the kitchens, the legal team, the warehouse accommodation...



Discovering fellow climate campers, I'd consulted it twice before we'd even left London Victoria Coach station and within the first couple of days it was rag-eared from frequent consultations to help others and myself because it turned out to cover a larger areas than most of the - otherwise very excellent - free maps. It was quite invaluable. Being always to hand and a good size, the back also got liberally scribbled on with addresses, emails, pieces of advice and recommendations ...


The night before I left Copenhagen for home I lost my map! I didn't discover this until part-way home and hoped I had put it into my packing but upon investigation realised it really had gone, along with all the emails so I was quite sad. But now it is on its way home!

Friend article by Sunniva Taylor

I contacted the Quaker non-violence project Turning the Tide ( http://www.turning-the-tide.org/ ) to find out about other Quakers who had gone to Copenhagen. I particularly hope to discuss their own experiences of and reactions to the non-violent direct actions including the actions of the police.

Many thanks to Sunniva Taylor who used to work as a researcher for Quaker Peace and Social Witness (QPSW) for giving me the details of her article for the Friend (the UK Quaker weekly paper) about her weekend in Copenhagen with Christian Aid (see link below).

During the march I had been very inspired when I ran into a small group of Christian Aid cyclists who had made much of the way to Copenhagen from Britain by bike. In the article she mentions that some of them were Quakers eg Gerald and Laura Conyngham from Exeter Meeting (see photo from Sunniva's article).

http://thefriend.org/article/a-view-from-copenhagen/

The silent call from the arctic on the Cathedral steps

On a plinth beside the steps of Copenhagen Cathedral was a lifesize ice sculture of a polar bear. It was translucent and really beautiful. It's sculptor, Olaf Storo, and the singer, Berit Meland, who wrote the accompanying song (see below) stood below the bear as everyone arrived for the service officiated by the Archbishop of Canterbury on Sunday 13th December. Berit sang out in a loud, clear voice while people waited to go in and it was haunting. I have typed the song below as personally I think the words are gorgeous. There are other ice bear projects too, one was in a square in the centre of Copenhagen by the WWF exhibitions and another melted in Trafalgar Square over the same period. I've put the links below, partly because I am getting clever enough now with blogging to know how to - !

The Silent Call from the Arctic

For the first time ....

For the first time my eye beholds Your creation's wonder

Teach us to amend our ways before it goes asunder

Open up your heart so that our eyes can truly see

That earth is where we live, our only destiny

I hope, I trust, that you and I can find a cure

The answer lies close by your side, my heart is sure,

Here, all alone, I find the time to sit and ponder

That earth is where we live our lives of woe and wonder

Now is the time to act! Come, join the cause my friends

Our chosen home, the earth, on our help depends!

http://www.icebearproject.org/expedition.htm http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/12/melting-bear-square.php

Chocolate, an arm, free soup, clothing and Samba ...

The Wednesday (16th) Reclaim Power march/demonstration and action was obviously smaller than the Saturday one and instead of sunshine it was dull and then snowed but there was a dynamic energy and cohesiveness throughout. Beginning at 8am at the subway station start right through to walking back together into Copenhagen at about 4.30 pm, it was irrepressible and inspiring. I'll write more later of the components: the crowd surge to 'reclaim power', the knock-back of pepper spray attacks, small successes to bridge the moat, the yellow block, the white group, the successful People's Assembly ... but for now it is the tiniest things that make me smile.

The man who for no reason turned to me near the end of the long day and said "chocolate?!" (his fingers should grow back). The dapper gentleman who had seen nothing of pepper spray, helicopters, dogs and mayhem but had joined us at the tail end of his university day, dressed superbly and with a jaunty walk. When we were told to 'chain up' (link arms) against police taking chosen people from the crowd (which had been happening) he offered his arm with a wonderful smile: "what a lovely day for a stroll" as we crossed one of the main bridges in gentle snow-fall. We caught up with eachother's days and after 15 or so minutes noticed no-one else was arm in arm any more but continued a while longer anyway.

The people I loved most of all were the ones who cycled round the crowd with large barrows on the front full of free warm clothing - hats, gloves, jumpers ... or huge turrines of free soup or tea which seemed to have a genuinely bottomless quality which suited the occasion. It was innovative, insightful and appreciated: God bless them.

And as for the Samba band, maybe they deserve their own blog later, I'll look up who they were and pass on the details but boy did they help us on that long trek back into town (could someone get the Mexico COP organised in the middle of the city please?!)

Did we reclaim power? No, obviously not. But then again, define 'we' 'reclaim' and 'power'. We: I doubt there was a person there who wasn't changed in some way and almost exclusively for the better by what they saw, experienced, did and felt, including many of the police. Reclaim, rediscover, redefine, internalise. Power: I certainly heard many people over the next few days talk of the powerful effect on them of the non-violent witness they had seen in those at the front who refused to retaliate. Also, representatives of poorer nations spoke of the impact of seeing so many people not only turn up but be willing to 'put themselves on the line' to support and care about their causes, to walk along side them, to give them a chance to speak and then to listen. I'll write soon about my friend from Ghana who was quite an extreme example, but I did pick up that many people ended the day feeling just a little more empowered: power embedded - wonderful.