Naomi Klein on Activism, Journalism, Barack Obama, and the Shock Doctrine (2009-3)

November 20, 2009 http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww....

Watch the full interview: http://thefilmarchived.blogspot.com/2010/07/naomi-klein-on-shock-doctrine-200...

In the 1990s tensions arose between the native Ogoni people of the Niger Delta and Shell. The concerns of the locals were that very little of the money earned from oil on their land was getting to the people who live there, and the environmental damages caused by Shell's practices. In 1993 the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) organised large protests against Shell and the government, often occupying the refineries. Shell withdrew its operations from the Ogoni areas. The Nigerian government raided their villages and arrested some of the protest leaders. Some of these arrested protesters, Ken Saro-Wiwa being the most prominent, were later executed, against widespread international opposition from the Commonwealth of Nations and human rights organisations.

Shell maintained that it asked the Nigerian government for clemency towards those found guilty but that its request was refused. A 2001 Greenpeace report claimed that "two witnesses that accused them later admitted that Shell and the military had bribed them with promises of money and jobs at Shell. Shell admitted having given money to the Nigerian military..." Shell denied these accusations and claimed that MOSOP was an extortionary movement that advocated violence and secession.

In December 2003, Shell Nigeria acknowledged that the conflict in the Niger Delta makes it difficult to operate safely and with integrity and that "we sometimes feed conflict by the way we award contracts, gain access to land, and deal with community representatives," and that it intends to improve on its practices. In 2009, Shell offered to settle the Ken Saro-Wiwa case with US$15.5 million while denying any wrongdoings and calling the settlement a humanitarian gesture. According to the New York Times and the journalist Michael D. Goldhaber the settlement came days before the start of a trial in New York that was expected to reveal extensive details of Shell's and MOSOP's activities in the Niger Delta.

Protest activity surrounding the WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999, which was to be the launch of a new millennial round of trade negotiations, occurred on November 30, 1999 (nicknamed "N30" on similar lines to J18 and similar mobilizations), when the World Trade Organization (WTO) convened at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center in Seattle, Washington, United States. The negotiations were quickly overshadowed by massive and controversial street protests outside the hotels and the Washington State Convention and Trade Center, in what became the second phase of the anti-globalization movement in the United States. The scale of the demonstrations—even the lowest estimates put the crowd at over 40,000—dwarfed any previous demonstration in the United States against a world meeting of any of the organizations generally associated with economic globalization (such as the WTO, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), or the World Bank). The events are sometimes referred to as the Battle of Seattle or the Battle in Seattle.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• Naomi
• Klein
• no
• logo
• corporations
• employers
• brand
• consumers
• loyalty
• anti-corporate
• activism
• nike
• sweatshops
• shell
• environment
• nigeria
• dotcom
• bubble
• free
• market
• economy
• wto
• seattle
• university
• toronto
• activist
• canadian
• barack
• obama
• starbucks
• apple
• gandhi
• feminism
• women's
• empowerment
• anti-racism
• revolution
• betrayal
• marketing
• peace
• anti-war
• news
• health
• discussion
• video log
• politics
• hot topics
• vlog
• warfare
• commentary
• music
• spirituality
• talking
• interview

[theatreunderpressure]

Brilliant and sexy. Wow.

[nowUhave]

Sundrumify is anti-Israel pretending to be neutral and German.

[nowUhave]

Sundrumify is anti-Israel pretending to be neutral and German.