ALSO BY VANDANA

Who RealjyFeedsthe World?(2016)

SeedSovereignty,
SHIVA

FoodSecurity:Womenin the Vanguard(2015)

o~&~&ss
MakingPeacewiththeEarth:BryondResource, I.AndandFoodWars(2012)
SoilNot Oil:ClimateChange,Peak Oil andFoodInsecurity(2009)
VSo fl-ii 1°/o
Globalization}New Wars:Seed,Water& Life Forms(2005)
SHATTERINGILLUSIONS,
WaterWars:Privatization,PollutionandProfit(2002)
StolenHarvest:TheHy'ackingof theGlobalFoodSupp/y(2000) SEEDINGFREEDOM
ThePlunderefNatureandKnoivledge
Biopirary: (1997)
Ecofeminism (co-authored with Maria Mies, 1993)
Monocultures ef theMind:Biodiversi(y,
Biotechnology
andAgriculture(1993)
The Violenceof the GreenRevolution:
Ecological Degradation
and Political
VANDANA
st-tivA
Conflictin Pur!J'ab
(1992)
StayingAlive: Women,EcologyandSurvivalin India(1988, 2010)
Wi11-I
"Altl'i"r{51-fiV
A

Chelsea Green Publishing

White River Junction, Vermont
London, UK
 Preface

What is it to live, to be alive? What is it to live well, to be well?

What is knowledge, what is intelligence?
What is ecology, what is economy?
What is freedom, what is democracy?
What is our future?

Weare compelled to return to these basic questions in our

times-ti.mes of the possible extinction of our species, as the
current dominant model of knowledge, of 'wealth' creation,
and of 'representative' democracy violates planetary boundaries,
the rights of the diverse species that share this planet, as well as
the human rights and freedoms of most people. Times when
the 1% controls the wealth and power to destroy our planet
and our common lives,with no responsibility or accountability
for their actions, because they have found clever ways to create
illusions-of the separation of humans from the earth, and
of the 1% from the rest of society, as if we share no common
wealth, and no common future.
Being well and the experience of wellbeing are timeless-
off the clock. 'Wealth' means a state of wellbeing. The market
has come between us and our wellbeing, severing us from
our potential and needs. The market has also allowed its own
consolidation, accompanied by the consolidation of global
power.
In 2010, 388 billionaires controlled as much wealth as the
bottom half of humanity; this number came down to 177 in
2011; to 159 in 2012; 92 in 2013; 80 in 2014; and 62 in 2016; it
Vii
 ONENESS VS. THE 1% Preface

shrivelled to a mere eight in 2017. By 2020, it seems, there will The diversity of cultures and languages, and with them, our
be only ONE. imagination, is being lost. Social violence and disintegration have
In 2008, during the global economic crash when people lost become the norm everywhere, as economic polarisation and
their homes and jobs, billionaires consolidated their ownership inequalities deepen. Every society is facing a crisis of democracy,
of industry across the world. Stock prices had bottomed out, as Big Money hijacks the process of representative democracy,
and the wealthiest billionaires bought out the economy at and elections are used to divide people through hate and fear;
bottom-dollar prices. It was too convenient to be a matter of they divert the public consciousness from the real roots of their
chance-this was the deployment of the money machine. insecurity, thus preventing them from organising and rising to
The money machine is programmed to bulldoze, destroy, protect the planet, to rebuild their societies, and to reclaim their
aggregate and accumulate, externalise and excavate. Like economies and democracies.
the cancer cell which does not know when to stop growing, Humanity stands at a precipice. There is an uncertainty
convergences, mergers and concentration are the only logic the regarding our potential for future evolution. Ecologically, the
money machine understands. And just as the cancer cell ends uncertainty arises because every aspect of the dominant model
up destroying the host organism, the money machine, too, will of thinking and living is destroying the earth's capacity to
destroy the planet and our societies from which it draws its support our lives. The erosion and extinction of our species, the
support. destruction of soils and water, and climate chaos, are wreaking
We must reclaim our intelligence and creativity to resist the havoc on the conditions necessary to continue as members
money machine and create non-violent alternatives. We must of the earth community. The extractive model of economic
reclaim the market from the money machine, and our lives from development and growth, of corporate control and the greed
billionaire dictators. We must reclaim our real freedoms, and not economy are not just destroying nature, they are destroying our
be seduced by the false freedoms of 'free trade', corporate rule, humanity which is the human capacity for solidarity,compassion,
algorithm-run democracy, and consumerism. We must stand and the ability to take care of each other.
firm and reclaim the meaning of wealth and the conditions for Through the illusions and abstractions that the powerful
being well. have created and imposed on the rest of humanity, especially
Will the 'end game' for humanity be the domination of the over the last two centuries of the rise of fossil fuel-based
ONE power of Big Money, or will we, in our Oneness-as industrialism and the mechanical, reductionist mind, we are
one earth community, one human community-shut down losing our capacity to not just sustain life ecologically but also to
the 'Operating System' of domination and extermination, to sustain life socially, as a community. Uprooting, dispossession,
allow our potential for self-organisation and creativity to seed the creation of refugees, is the shadow of the illusionary model
another future? of limitless growth, on a planet with ecological limits, as well

viii ix
 ONENESS VS. THE 1% Preface

as of the exercise of limitless power by the powerful, through logic of mastery and conquest is being applied now to colonise
constructed grids of categories and narratives. other planets.
But going off the precipice, towards extinction, is not Cecil Rhodes, who colonised Zitnbabwe (formerly Rhodesia),
inevitable. We can choose to walk away from the mechanistic stated frankly,
world of invented constructions, and free ourselves from the
We must find new lands from which we can easily obtain raw
forces and paradigms that have brought us to it. We can realise
materials and at the same time exploit the cheap slave labour that
that we are members of the earth community and that the earth is available from the natives of the colonies. The colonies would
has an amazing capacity and potential to rejuvenate and renew; also provide a dumping ground for the surplus goods produced
and since we are part of the earth, not separate from her, we in our factories.2
share that capacity and potential. A consciousness of our power
This is what the economy of the 1% is modelled on. The tools
to 'be the change we want to see', as Gandhi said, forms the
of extraction and the colonies might change, but the methods of
basis for cultivating hope, love, and compassion in these times
colonisation remain unchanged-grab and steal what belongs to
of despair, fear and hate.
others, make it your own property, collect rents from the otiginal
Within the crises that have brought us to the precipice lie the
owners, and convert the displaced into cheap slave labour to
seeds of hope and freedom, the seeds to renew our humanity and
provide raw material, as well as to become the market for your
our earth citizenship. The crisis of survival that we face today is industrial products.
a result of the domination of an extractive economy, imposed
This form of colonisation, of nature and people, however, is
by artificial separations constructed by the mechanical mind,
reaching its limits now. When there is no need for slaves,no need
and the false assumption that greed is a virtue to be rewarded
for exploited workers, who will buy the junk that the 1% has to
by society. In an interview in May 2017, Stephen Hawking said
offer-junk food and junk clothing, junk communications and
that humanity faces a survival crisis ... that it is so severe that
junk media; when the earth is exploited and polluted, rupturing
in the next hundred years, either humanity will be extinct or we
planetary limits; and when her life support systems are destroyed,
will have to escape from the earth and colonise other planets.1
there will be no production. No survival.
This idea of violating planetary limits for the next conquest,
But there are options beyond colonisation, beyond extinction.
the next escape, only furthers the illusionary idea of linear
There is a third option-that of staying alive by caring for
human progress, bereft of oneness with the earth and the
the earth and for each other, rejuvenating the planet and our
recognition that this is our home, the only one we have, and that common humanity.
the crisis we find ourselves in is, in fact, a consequence of the
Only as one earth community and one humanity, united in
colonisation of the earth, of diverse cultures, and of the absence
our diversities, can we hold ourselves together, step away from
of accountability for the destruction caused by colonisation.
the precipice and escape the destructive, ecocidal, genocidal
Escape is what led to colonisation in the past-and the same
X xi
 ONENESS VS. THE~%
Preface
rule of the 1%. We can turn around and walk to our freedom. Endnotes
To live free. Think free. Breathe free. Eat free. 1

This book is an expression of hope, rooted in oneness-the Chris McDermott, 'Stephen Hawking: We Have 100 Years to Find a
New Planet', EcoWatch. http://www.ecowatch.com/stephen-hawking-
philosophy of vasudhaivakutumbakam, one earth family. It is
bbc-2392439489.html. Published on May 4, 2017.
2
based on the hope that proceeds from our potential to transcend
Terry Gibbs, W0' theDalaiLa111ais a S ocia/ist:
Bt1ddhism
andtheCompassionate
separation and division-to think, act and live as one humanity Socie!J.London: Zed Books, 2017, p. 116.
3
on one planet with full consciousness of our interconnectedness, HH The Karma pa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, It1tercon11ected:
Embracing
Lfe in Our
as well as our responsibility to participate actively, every day, GlobalSo,iery.Massachusetts: Wisdom Publications, 2017.
every moment of our lives, to protect and rejuvenate the natural
and social web of life. His Holiness the Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley
Dorje, has called it compassionate courage, the courage to act
from compassion. 3
We have created freedom and liberation movements before.
We have decolonised our minds and our cultures from the stains
and chains of imperialism, and shed the artificially constructed
(but 'naturalised') categories of race, gender, class and colour.
We can, through our creativity and imagination, through our
solidarity and interconnectedness, create a planetary freedom
movement through which we break free of th~ chains and walls
constructed by the illusions of the mechanical mind, the money
machine and the delusion of democracy. We can reclaim and
create real knowledge through real intelligence. We can reclaim
and create real wealth with nature, through our creativity. We
can sow the seeds of real freedom and earth democracy.
N01v has always been our time. This is the Resurgence of the
Real. The real is our oneness and non-separability. The real is our
lived and living intelligence. The real is our self-organisation, our
creativity,our freedom. The real is our potential to sow the seeds
of diversity, of hope, of compassion, of interconnectedness,
of our common future.

xii
xiii
1 1°A,vs. One Earth,
One Humanity
 1% vs. One Earth, One Humanity

Diversityand our interconnectedfreedoms

We areoneearthJamify,onehumanity
We are connectedthrough our diversiry,intelligence,creativityand Onenessis the very sourceof our existence,our interconnectedness
compassion y,riththe universe, with all beings (including human beings),
•~d with our local co!Il!nunities. Oneness is woven through
FOR the first time in human history, our common future as a out diverse living intelligence and creativity. It represents the
species is no longer certain. In just 500 years of colonisation, confluence of our rich and vibrant diversities-biodiversity,
including 200 years of a fossil fuel age and 20 years of corporate cultural diversity, economic diversity, political diversity and
globalisation, humanity has done enough damage to the earth ktl_owledge diversity.It is based on the deep understanding that
to ensure its own extinction. The blindness of the 1% to the Ufeand freedom are one} that our freedom, as humans and
potential of life, to the rights of people, to the destructive as,.metnbersof the earth cotn1D.unity,is not separable from
impacts of their 'constructs', has ensured that going over the .the freedom of the earth. Trees and plants provide human
precipice is inevitible. They define their destructive, colonising beingswith o::-..-ygen, and humans and other anitnals provide
power as 'superior' while the creative, nonviolent forces of the necessary carbon dioxide in the living carbon cycle. Trees
nature, and of women, indigenous people, and farmers, is et~atethe conditions for our freedom. The mycorrhizal fungi
perceived as 'backwardness' or 'passivity'. In their constructed in.,thesoil provide nourishment to plants and de.rivetheir own
narrative of linear progress, there is only one way-forward. nutption from them. The freedom of plants is dependent on
But when you are already standing at a precipice, going forward the'freedomof the mycorrhizal fungi. And soil rich in otganic
means going hurtling down. matter has abundant beneficial fungi which are useful to plants
Our common and indivisiblefreedoms,through our diversities, and,ultimately,to humans and animals who consume them; ow
are being threatened by the freedoms that the 1% have created 'fteec1om to live and thrive are interconnected,
for themselves through free trade agreements, tools of mass Concern and care fot our seeds, our soil, our air, and our
manipulation, and the enclosure of the commons through waterare the teal test of our co!Il!nitment to our future. The
patents. They are consolidating further by enforcing uniformity pte\;essesthat are killing our soil, our biodiversity, our air, water
and monocultures, division and separation, monopolies and and clitnatebalance are also killing our humanity.
external control, centralisation and coercion, and imposing Cetqpassion arises naturally, from connectedness and
their paradigms and narratives undemocratically on the world. the c0ns~iousness of being interconnected. It is not the
The economically and politically powerful 1%, disconnected ~philaqth.rophy' of billionaires, because their billions are made
from the earth and humanity (including their own), are trying throughthe violent economies of extraction, and because they
to control every sphere of our lives. use'1:beitbillions in philanthropy to create more markets and
makemore money. Above all, 'philanthropy' is not compassion

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 ONENESS VS. THE 1%
1% vs. One Earth, One Humanity
because it assumes that money is the only human currency. This
lessons in democracy; of sharing space with others while drawing
is an emergency. And yet, our response does not address the
sustenance from the common web of life.
root causes of the crises we are facing.
Democracy is participation, and since participation is
We are at a critical juncture in the evolution of the planet,
embodied, not disembodied, participatory democracy is a lived
and in our evolution as a species. More than 90 per cent of crop
and living democracy. We must build a movement to recognise
varieties have disappeared; some 75 per cent of plant genetic
the Rights of Nature and Mother Earth, and the violations of
diversity has been pushed to extinction by the monocultures these rights as ecocide.2
of the mechanical mind. 1 We are living in the age of the sixth
extinction; this is the moment where we need to rejuvenate
biodiversity on our farms and in our fields, in our kitchens and Life is self-organised, life is intelligent
on our plates, to address the climate crisis, the health crisis, the
Every cell, every microbe, every being is autonomous and
crisis of corporate control over our food.
autopoietic, self-organised and free, dynamic and evolving,
According to poet and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore,
interconnected and non-separable. Scientists Humberto
the distinctiveness of Indian culture is in its having defined life
Maturana and Francisco Varela have identified living systems
in the forest as the highest form of cultural evolution. In his
as autopoietic-organised from within. 3 Machines, on the
essay, Tapovan,he writes,
other hand, are allopoietic systems-assembled and controlled
Contemporary western civilisation is built of brick and wood. It externally. One of the most dramatic ontological shifts of our
is rooted in the city. But Indian civilisation has been distinctive in time is redefining living organisms, especially seeds, as machines
locating its source of regeneration, matetial and intellectual, in 'invented' by corporations.
the forest, not the city. India's best ideas have come where man Over two centuries of the fossil fuel-driven industrial age,
was in communion with trees and rivers and lakes, away from
an intellectual architecture has been created which artificially
the ctowds. The peace of the fotest has helped the intellectual
separates us from the earth, and from each other. I have called
evolution of man. The cultute of the forest has fuelled the culture
it 'eco-apartheid', the imagined separation between humans and
of Indian society. The culture that has ad.sen from the forest has
nature. Bruno Latour calls it the 'partitioning, or deepening the
been influenced by the diverse processes of renewal of life which
imaginary gulf between nature and culture'. 4
are always at play in the forest, varying from species to species,
from season to season, in sight and sound and smell. The unifying In the dominant mechanistic paradigm, not only are humans
principle of life in diversity,of democratic pluralism, thus became separated from nature, nature is declared dead inert matter,
the principle of Indian civilisation. mere raw material for exploitation. The mechanistic worldview
was crafted to serve industrial capitalism which elevated an
Forests are the storehouse of biodiversity and can teach us inadequate, reductionist, mechanistic paradigm to the level of

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 ONENESS VS. THE 1%
1% vs. One Earth, One Humanity
science, while scientific thought, based on the awareness of a
different crops, trees and animals on a fartn. Diverse crops
living earth, was politically relegated to non-science, even anti-
produce diverse nutrients for the soil, and for animals as well
science. Ecological and social ignorance, combined with greed as hwnans.
and the urge to dominate and control, has given us the dominant
The law of return is based on giving back to nature and
economic, political, scientific, technological systems that the 1%
society what we receive from them. Howard applied his scientific
use to rule the world today.
training to understand the ecology of the soil, based on the
When our age is called Anthropocene, it refers to the power
practice of the law of return, and evolved the famous method
of man to disrupt the earth's ecological processes. It would be
of composting known as the 'Indore method'. The loss of
arrogant and irresponsible to claim that the power to destroy
biodiversity in our fields and from our diet, due to the spread
gives some humans the right to take over the earth's resources,
of the Green Revolution and industrial agriculture over the
processes and systems. If we are alive today it is because the
last fifty years is not just contributing to an ecological crisis, it
earth is alive and creates the conditions of our lives. To be alive is leading to a disease epidemic.
on this beautiful planet is to live in the Ecocene.
Plants are the very basis of life. The tradition of seeing trees
The arrogance of colonialism and industrialism lies in
and plants as alivewas continued in modern times by the eminent
assuming that only the coloniser has intelligence. Whereas
Indian scientist,J.C. Bose, who conducted detailed experiments
real intelligence is signified by evolutionary and ecological
to show that the impulse of men and animals for undisputed
intelligence, it has, like everything else, been been reduced
superiority over their hitherto 'vegetative brethren' did not bear
to mechanical and analytic intelligence, and is now further the test of close inspection. According to him,
outsourced as 'artificial intelligence'. Not only have we reduced
our intelligence to just one form, shaped by the mechanical These experiments bring the plant much closer to humans than
mind, the anthropocentric and mechanistic bias in science has we ever thought. We find that it is not a mere mass of vegetative
blinded us to the pervasiveness of living intelligence. growth, but that its every fibre is instinct with sensibility. We are
able to record the throbbing of its pulsating life, and find that
English botanist Sir Albert Howard, who came to India in
these wax and wane according to the life conditions of the plant,
1905 to introduce western systems of farming, instead found
and cease in the death of the organism. In these and many other
extremely sophisticated systems which had sustained Indian ways, the life reactions in plant and man are alike.5
agriculture over the millennia. He decided to make the local
peasants and pests his teachers on good farming practices. The Eating is an act of cotntnunication. In eating, we cotntnunicate
AgriettltureTestamentwas a synthesis of his learnings, and is now with the earth, the farmer, the che£ Our food cotntnunicates
referred to as the bible of modern organic farming. Among with the beneficial bacteria in our gut which enable us to
the key lessons he learnt were those of diversity and the law of maintain our health and increase our resistence to disease. Our
return. Sustainable agriculture is based on diversity-integrating gut is a rnicrobiotne which contains 100 trillion microbes and
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 ONENESS VS. THE 1% 1% vs. One Earth, One Humanity

1,000 bacterial species with more than 7 million genes. For as a machine, and knowledge based on separation as the
every human gene, there are 360 bacterial genes in our body. only knowledge that counts. Carl Woese called mechanistic
Only 10 per cent of the cells in the human body are human. reductionism a 'fundamentalist reductionism'. He says,
There are 100,000 times more microbes in our gut than people
We need to distinguish what can be called 'empirical reductionism'
on the planet. from 'fundamentalist reductionism'. Empirical reductionism is
And bacteria are intelligent. James Shapiro has called bacteria in essence methodological; it is simply a mode of analysis, the
sentient beings. According to him, dissection of a biological entity ot system into its constituent
... bacteria possess many cognitive,computational and evolutionary parts in order to better understand it. Empirical reductionism
capabilities ... Studies show that bacteria utilize sophisticated makes no assumptions about the fundamental nature, an ultimate
mechanisms for intercellular communication and even have the understanding, of living things. Fundamentalist reductionism
ability to commandeer the basic cell biology of "higher" plants (the reductionism of nineteenth century classical physics), on the
and animals to meet their basic needs .... This remarkable series other hand, is in essence metaphysical. It is ipso facto a statement
of observations requires us to revise basic ideas about biological about the nature of the world: living systems (like all else) can
information processing and recognise that even the smallest cells be completely understood in terms of the properties of their
constituent parts. 9
are sentient beings.6
The poisonous pesticides and herbicides we use on our food The knowledge we need for breeding, selecting, evolving
destroy the beneficial bacteria in our gut, leading to serious seeds and growing food is the knowledge of biodiversity and
diseases, from intestinal disorders to neurological problems living seed, of living soil and the soil-food web (of interaction
such as autism and Alzheimer's. Centers for Disease Control between different species in the agro-ecosystem, and of
(CDC) data show that on current trends one-in-two children different seasons). This complex knowledge, of interacting,
in the US will be found to be autistic in a few decades. It is not self-organising, self-maintaining, self-renewing and self-evolving
an intelligent species that destroys its own future because of a systems, that farmers have contributed to over 10,000 years of
distorted and manipulated definition of science.
7
the evolution of agriculture, is now being validated through
As systems thinker Yaneer Bar-Yam has written, agroecology, the truly scientific approach to food production.
Farmers have used available land and water to feed humanity
A complex system is formed out of many components whose
for millennia, constantly evolving tastier, more nourishing
behaviour is emergent. .. the behaviour of the system cannot be
varieties. Their success lies in their understanding of the earth,
simply inferred from the behaviour of its components •••emergent
nature and her ecosystems, human beings, and all other species
properties cannot be studied by physically taking a system apart
8 as autopoietic systems. A grandmother who knows how to
and looking at the parts (reductionism).
transform the crops from our fields into a delicious nutritious
Mechanistic reductionism is based on seeing the world meal, is a food scientist. An ayurvedic doctor is a scientist.
8 9
 1% vs. One Earth, One Humanity
ONENESS VS. THE 1%

obesity, diabetes, allergies, cancers, neurological disorders are

Indigenous people are scientists. Women are scientists. They
intrinsic to the design of a greed-driven, toxin-based food
have embodied, interactive and evolving knowledge.
system. 11
We need to recognise the diversity of epistemologies and
Colonisation transforms abundance into scarcity, driven by
knowledge systems that have helped us in protecting the planet
the greed of a few. The story of the 1% is the story of greed
and ensuring our well-being. We need to unleash our diverse,
without limits, without respect for the rights of others, without
interconnected intelligences to create another imagination, and
responsibility for the consequences of their actions. It is this
through it another world, beyond the illusions and control of
contest between sharing and greed, between interconnectedness
the 1%. and privatisation, between Oneness and the 1% that lies at the
crux of this volume.
The ecology and economics of interconnectedness In an economy dominated by the 1% consumerism rules, and
the 99% are denied even the most basic sustainability rights,
Both ecology and economics are derived from the ancient Greek
including the right to food, to water, and to work and livelihoods.
word 'oikos' which means 'home'. Ecology is the science of
the household, while economics is supposed to be about the
management of the household. When economics works against We are one earth family, we are interbeings
ecology,it results in the mismanagement of the earth, our home.
While pursuing my PhD, I became involved as a volunteer in
The prevailing climate crisis, water crisis, biodiversity crisis, food
the Chipko movement, a nonviolent, peaceful response to the
crisis are the different symptoms of this mismanagement. We
large-scale deforestation that was taking place in the Garhwal
mismanage the earth and destroy her ecological processes when
Himalaya by peasant women from the region, who came out
we do not recognise nature's capital as the real capital.
in defence of the forests. Chipko means 'to hug', 'to embrace'.
Food and agriculture are areas where we see clearly the
Women declared that they would hug the trees to protect
failure of the industrial agriculture models imposed by global
them-loggers would have to kill them before they felled the
corporations. The so-called 'modern' food and agriculture
trees.
system, based on chemicals and GMOs, may be presented as
Logging had led to landslides and floods, and to the scarcity
efficient and productive, but they use ten times more energy,
of wat~r, fodder and fuel. Since women service these basic needs,
have already destroyed 75 per cent of the planet's soil, water,
scarcity meant longer walks for collecting water and firewood,
and biodiversity, and are responsible for 50 per cent of the
10 and a heavier burden to bear. Women knew that the real value
greenhouse gas emissions which are driving climate change.
of forests was not the timber from a dead tree, but springs and
While industrial agriculture is promoted as a solution to hunger,
streams, food for their cattle and fuel for their hearths. The follr
it is responsible for 7 5 per cent of all ecological and health
songs of that period said,
problems prevealent at the global level. Hunger, malnutrition,
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 ONENESS VS. THE 1% 1% vs. One Earth, One Humanity

the observer 'creates' the observed. An interactive, interrelated

Thesebeauti/11/
oaks and rhododendrons,
world becomes possible.
Thrygiveits coolwate1:
While the mechanical view forms the basis of mastery and
Don'tcutthesetrees,
We haveto keepthemalive. conquest over nature, and hence is at the root of the ecological
crisis, quantum and ecological paradigms have the same
It took the 1978 Uttarkashi disaster, which created floods
underlying understanding of an interconnected universe.
all the way to Calcutta in Bengal, for the Indian government From the trees we learn unconditional love and unconditional
to recognise that the women were right because the
giving. From the dry leaves that fall we learn about the cycle
expenditure on flood relief far exceeded the revenues
of life, the law of return, as leaves become humus and soil,
they were generating through timber. In 19 81, in response
protecting the earth, recycling nuti-:itionand water, recharging
to the Chipko movement, logging was banned above sp1-:ings,wells and streams. Forests also teach us 'enoughness',
1,000 kms in the Garhwal Himalaya. Today, government policy
as the principle of equity, enjoying the gifts of nature without
recognises that in the fragile Himalayas conservation maximises exploitation and accumulation.
the ecological services of the forest. The diversity,harmony and self-sustaining nature of the forest
The women activists of Chipko became my professors in formed the organisational principles guiding Indian civilisation;
biodiversity and ecology. I have always said that I received the 'aranya samskriti' (roughly translatable as 'the culture of
one PhD on the Foundations of Quantum Theory from the the forest') was not a condition of primitiveness, but one of
University of Western Ontario in Canada, and a second one on conscious choice.
ecology from the forests of the Himalaya and women of the My own biological life and ecological journey started in the
Chipko movement. Both taught me about interconnectedness forests of the Himalaya. My father was a forest conservator,
and non-seperability. The women of Chipko taught me and my mother chose to be a farmer after becoming a refugee
about the relationship between forests, soil and water and following the tragic partition of India in 1947. It is through the
women's sustenance economies; quantum theory taught me Himalayan forests and ecosystems that most of my learning of
the four principles that have guided my thinking and my life's ecology took place.
work-everything is interconnected, everything is potential, The lessons I learnt about diversity in the Himalayan forests
everything is indeterminate, there is no excluded middle; we have been transferred to the protection of biodiversity on our
are interbeings. The quantum world is not made up of fixed farms. Navdanya, the movement for biodiversity conservation
particles, but of potential. A quanta can be a wave or a particle. and organic farming that I started in 1987, has saved seeds
It is indeterminate, therefore, uncertain. It is non-separable, through creating community seed banks, and has helped
non-local. Therefore, action at a distance becomes possible. And farmers make the transition from fossil fuel and chemical-based
contrary to the mechanistic ideal of nature-human separation,

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 ONENESS VS. THE 1% 1% vs. One Earth, One Humanity

monocultures to biodiverse ecological systems nourished by the tried to stop them, saying the cutting of green trees was against
her religion. She said she would .rather sacrifice her life than
sun and the soil. Biodiversity has been my teacher of abundance
sacrifice the tree. She offered her head, and the axeman cut off
and freedom, of cooperation and mutual giving.
But the Chipko movement of the 1970s was not India's first. her head. Her daughters followed; they too were beheaded. The
news spread like wildfire, and Bishnois from 84 villages gath.ered
In an earlier Chipko, in 1730, in Rajasthan, 363 people sacrificed
in.Kbej.rali to join the stream of volunteers to protect the trees;
their lives to protect their sacred khejri tree (.prosopzscineraria).
The
363 people sacrificed their lives, and the sacred khejri trees
khejri stands as a sentinel in the desert landscape of Rajasthan,
were saved.
as its poem. It is vital to sustainability in a desert ecosystem, as a
source of fuel, firewood and organic fertiliser. Its fruit, saangri, When the king of Jodhpur heard about this sacrifice, he
immediately issued a royal decree making the cutting of green
is rich in protein and is used to prepare pickles and vegetables.
trees and the hunting of animals within the revenue boundaries
The shade of the khejri conserves moisture in the soil, and
of Bishnoi villages, a crime. To this day,the Bishnois take people
offers protection from the scorching sun to humans and animals.
to court for killing their sacred species-the khejri, the black
The khejri was declared a sacred tree by Jambhoji, a saint,
buck, and the great Indian bustard. As Rajasthan is a fragiledesert,
who founded the Bishnoi faith. Bishnoi means 29, and the faith
ecologicalsurvival has been possible because of the conservation
is based on 29 rules of compassion and conservation. During
ethics built into everyday rules for the protection of life.
a discourse to one of his disciples, Jambhoji said,
The forest thus nurtured an ecological civilisation in the most
Do not fell a green tree, fundamental sense of harmony with nature. Such knowledge
This is a charter for everyone. that came fro.tn participation in the life of the forest was not
Be always ready to save (trees), just the substance of the Ara1ryakas,or forest texts, but also of
This is the duty of everyone. the everyday beliefs of tribal and peasant society. The ongoing
For over two centuries, people living in accordance with these struggle of the Dongria Kondh in Odisha to save their sacred
tenets created flourishing groves of trees and protected wildlife mountain, Niyamgiri, from mining for bauxite is part of this
in the Rajasthan desert. One such Bishnoi village was Khejarli, ancient tradition.
situated 20 kilometres south of Jodhpur. When the king's Today, as the ecological crisis deepens with forest fires in
palace was being built, a court official, Girdhar Das, was made the Arctic, floods in the desert of Ladakh, and in China and
responsible for procuring firewood to burn the limestone Pakistan, we can find renewed inspiration and a vision for the
required to make lime. A group arrived at the house of Amrita future from worldviews that see nature as alive and as the very
Devi, at home with her three young daughters, Asu Bai, Ratni basis of human life. We can thank Amrita Devi and the 363
Bai and Bhagni Bai. Amrita Devi had a giant khejri growing at Bishnois who sacrificed their lives so that the trees, the earth,
her doorstep. When the king's men started to cut the tree, she and we, may live.
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 ONENESS VS. THE 1% 1% vs. One Earth, One Humanity

The empire of the 1%: separation, violence, colonisation, from society. It separates the powerful from the consequences
of their actions, creating the possibility of zero liability, zero
extractivism, extinction
responsibility. Separation allows a handful of men to imagine
Separation is an illusion, is violence they are masters of the universe, who can conquer, own,
Oneness, as unity within the earth family and the human family, manipulate and control nature and society for accumulating
is very different from 'the status quo'-the rule of the 1% power and wealth without limits.
(or 0.01%, or 0.001%)-which uses the ideology of separation to Colonialism led to the violent separation of people from
extract, exterminate and push species, cultures and communities their land, resources and territories. It continues to this day, as
to extinction, while also dividing us as a society, and alienating us greed for land and water, and for timber and minerals feeds an
from our humanity. The rule of the 1% is based on separation-_ extractive economy, while globalisation's rules for deregulation
and the 'ease of doing business' make uprooting communities
from the earth and from society.
It is an illusion, a construct, an assumption built by the easy.12Old colonialism violently appropriated the wealth and
powerful, the dominant, to colonise, conquer, exploit, divide, resources of societies in Africa, Asia, and the Americas, and
rule over other beings and other humans. Separation is violence. transferred it to Europe. God and religion were invoked, through
Separation is a worldview, a paradigm, an ideology, a way of the narrative of the 'civilising mission', to transform these illegal
seeing and a way of shaping the world, both in our minds and acts and crimes against humanity into the tights of European
in nature and society, through violence. It moulds our ideas kings and queens, and bandits, invaders and traders under their
of knowledge, of science and technology, of the economy, protection.
production and consumption, of democracy and freedom, and If the British grabbed land and institionalised lagaan (tax) in
of who we are, our identities, our purpose, of why we are on India, the contemporary 1% are using 'intellectual property' to
create monopolies over our seeds and food, our communications,
the earth.
The three big separations that have brought us to the verge our financial transactions, and our friendships. The age of the
robber barons began with the age of oil, which was also the age
of extinction as a species are the separation of humans from
nature; the separation of humans from each other through of the rule of money. Standard Oil, set up by the Rockefellers,
shaped the economic, political, technological world of today.13
divisions of class, religion, race, and gender; and the separation
Today, the real owners of pirated wealth, derived from a
of the Self from our integral, interconnected being.
The first separation, of humans from nature, creates predatory economic system, have constructed legal forms to
protect themselves, and to escape liability. At the forefront of
eco-apartheid. It separates the soil and the earth from our
creating illusions for amassing wealth is the 'digital' world which
bodies and our minds. It separates the interconnected aspects
is mining 'data', mining social relations (through Facebook),
of nature, dividing it up into fragmented, separable parts to be
mining real economies, for profit. Digital money is replacing
exploited, owned, traded, destroyed, wasted. It separates the 1%
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 ONENESS VS. THE 1% 1% vs. One Earth, One Humanity

the teal wealth of people; e-commerce is displacing real to wars, often a consequence of the extraction of resources and
commerce. Goods are still p.toduced and distributed, albeit at of ecological degradation, is becoming the dominant condition
higher ecological and social costs. Meanwhile, local economies, of our times. Images of refugees from Mexico, Syria,Africa are
local businesses, and local commt:1-nities are slowly disappearing. a reflection of this brutal uprooting. According to the United
The money machine, facilitated by the mechanical .tnio.d, Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are
allows the 1% to extract wealth from nature and society, 65.6 million forcibly displaced people in the world today. And
defining their 'extractivism' as scientific, economic and human this number will grow as distorted economic 'development' and
'progress'. The denial of self-organisation, intelligence,creativity; wars over resources intensify.
freedom, potential, autopoietic evolution and non-separability in The second separation, of humans from each other, creates
nature and society is the basis of the domination, exploitation deliberate divisions within society, engineered along the lines
and colonisation, enslavement and extraction, of nature and of constructed inequality, based on gender, race, religion, and
diverse culru.r.es,of women and indigenous people, of farmers wealth, and the conscious implementation of a divide and rule
and workers through brute power and violence. The result is policy to maintan economic power. Our rich diversitiesare being
an ecological crisis; a human crisis of hunger and poverty, of turned into the basis of our conflicts. An economy of greed is
deepening inequality, of marginalisation and alienation, of spinning off a politics of hate and fear, threatening democracy
uprooting, dispossession, and the c.reation of refugees. Linear, and our humanity.
extractive systems based on violence are at the root of economic As the 2016 US election showed, the 1% controls electoral
inequality, and the polarisation of society into the 1% and the democracy, extracts our intelligence and our autonomy to
99%; they are the basis of new forms of enslavement, and an manipulate Big Data through artificial intelligence. Not only
unprecedented exercise of disposability and extermination. have the constructs that govern us and control our minds and
What we are witnessing is an intensification of the epistemic, our hearts separated us from nature, they have separated us
ontological, ecological, political, economic, social a:od cultural from each other, and even from our being.
violence of a dominant system based on the economic paradigm The third separation is from our sense of self, our false,
of the 1o/o.Economic polarisation is not just amplifying the engineered sense of being. For the powerful, it translates into
deep inequality between the 1% and the 99%, it is brutalising uncontrollable greed and the search for unlimited, unregulated
the excluded, and uprooting millions from their homes. power. For the oppressed, it creates insecurity, fear, hate-for
"Beinguprooted is considerd to be the road to progress. That the other and oneself. Violence becomes all-pervasive and
is why displacement is the most violent aspect of the current structural, replicated everyday in our ways of thinking, and in
model of 'development'. Every darn, every highway, every the economic and political systems.
e:-..'Panding
city is predicated on a violent land-grab which results The 1% essentially use separation to extract wealth and
in protracted conflict. Forced separation from our homes due then use integration among and within themselves to restrict

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 ONENESS VS. THE 1% 1% vs. One Earth, One Humanity

the concentration of the wealth. Different sectors of the and land use from atmospheric pollution and climate change.
economy are being merged for deeper and wider control and It separates knowledge and intelligence from the processes of
higher profits. Biotechnology, information technology (IT) life and living, and reduces knowledge to information and data.
and financial technology have merged and become one. Giant It separates genes from the self-organised living organisms,
corporations are merging to create bigger cartels. and falsely assigns creative power to those who manipulate
genes. It reduces life to 'intellectual property', to be owned
and monopolised, even if species are pushed to extinction and
Separation, the mechanical mind, and mechanical
farmers are driven to suicide.
intelligence
According to the Manifestoon the Ftttttreef Kno11J/edge
Systems
1vehavemated is aprod11ct
The J/lorld of ourthi11ki11g.
It cannotbechanged by the International Commission on the Future of Food and
1vithoutchanging
ourthinking. Agriculture, 14

-Albert Einstein Consciously or unconsciously, the world has been equated in our
minds to a huge machine, free to be improved and modified by
The mechanical mind measures, predicts, and approaches
humans. Just as machines are assembled through the manipulation
knowing, but cannot actually know because knowledge, by its
of their components, the same, we thought, can be done with
very nature, is pluralistic. Privileging one system over all others,
the whole world, both living ahd non-living. This has led to the
and elevating reductionism as the only legitimate model of disruption of fragile ecological processes vital for human survival.
knowledge, leads to violence against science itself. This epistemic It was assumed that complete knowledge of the whole could be
violence is now being combined with the violence of corporate attained simply by the knowledge of its individual parts. This
interests to viciously attack all scientific traditions, including method, reducing the whole to a composite of its parts, was
those that have evolved from within western science and have, elevated from a methodology with a practical scope, to a theory
through autopoietic epistemic evolution, transcended the and even an ideology, and the metaphor 'natural systems are like
limiting mechanistic worldview. Science as knowledge is being machines' progressively became the much more radical 'natural
systems aremachines'.
attacked so that Coroprate Science, based on 'alternative facts'
and 'post truth', and spun by the PR machine of Big Money Ernesto Guevera, a peasant leader from Mexico, has called a
and corrupted governments, can be used as a colonising tool. tnechanical ideology 'epistemic racism'; one could also call it
The creation of the mechanical mind is based on the 'epistemic sexism'.
construction of multiple separations. It separates soil from The urge to impose uniformity in agriculture as well as
plants, by defining soil as an empty container for receiving artificial, fixed, narrow, negative 'identities', in contest and
chemical fertilisers, and plants as machines that run on fertiliser conflict with each other, is an impulse of the mechanical mind.
fuel. It separates food from health. It separates land from air, It asswnes that there are 'experts' with 'objective' knowledge,
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 ONENESS VS. THE 1% 1% vs. One Earth, One Humanity

our studies show, an increase in the output of rice and wheat

who are separate from, and superior to, ordinary men, women,
can be accounted for by increasing the area under production,
peasants, workers, and experts of other knowledge traditions,
and improving irrigation. So landand watercontributed to higher
such as ayurveda and agroecology, for instance. This separation
production, but this was falsely associated with new seedsand
is a 'knowledge apartheid'.
The mechanical mind is also a militarised mind. It is based on chemicals.Linear causality when applied to complex systems
allows corporations producing harmful chemicals and GM Os to
violence and leads to violence. It is ontologically violent because
it declares nature as dead; it is epistemically violent because it deny the harmful impacts of their products. By falsely reducing
complex interactive living processes to 'one cause, one effect'
destroys our capacity to think and act as part of nature, to be
the mechanical mind creates a false causality.This is how 'safety'
co-creators and nonviolent; it is ecologically violent, because
issues are manipulated and hazards are denied. This is also how
through its ignorance, it disrupts processes that maintain
the life of organisms, ecosystems, and the earth herself; it is systems' effectiveness in paradigms based on systems science
are ignored and denied.
socially violent because it is blind to, and outlaws, the embodied
The mechanical mind conveniently externalises costs to
knowledge of women, peasants and indigenous cultures that the
society and nature through its linear constructed narrative of
world so desperately needs today to heal the planet and society.
The mechanical mind is a privatising mind, it contributes conquest, mastery, progress. It separates 'cause' as a system
of structural violence from the effect of violence and harm
to enclosures of nature's commons, social commons, and the
to nature and people. In the process, it creates a system where
knowledge commons, promoting biopiracy. While appropriating,
the powerful, who shape and use mechanistic tools for control,
pirating and patenting traditional knowledge, it simultaneously
appropriate absolute rights with absolute irresponsibility.
constructs an artificial wall or 'creation boundary'. Traditional
Ontological schizophrenia is another characteristic of the
knowledge is presented as 'innovation' and 'invention', and
mechanical mind. The knowledge of how to make a product
privatised via patenting.
The mechanical mind locks causality into the straitjacket or develop a technology is separated from awareness of the
impact of that product or technology on nature and society.
of linear, mechanical cause and effect, and action limited to
This translates into a separation of rights from responsibilities.
contact. However, in living systems, causality is systemic, and
GMOs represent ontological schizophrenia in the extreme.
properties and behaviours depend on context, on relationship,
When it comes to claiming intellectual property rights to seeds
on complexity. It is four dimensional causality, the integrated,
and lifeforms, the GMO is claimed to be novel, an invention;
non-separability of living processes in space and time. Linear
when it comes to taking responsibility for biosafety, the
causality, on the one hand, allows claims to be made linking
impact of the GMO on the environment and health becomes
specific tools to complex, multi-causal phenomena. In the Green
'substantially equivalent' to naturally occurring organisms and
Revolution narrative, Norman Borlaug's 'miracle' dwarf wheats,
existing seeds and organisms. The same entity is simultaneously
bred with chemicals, increased food production in India; but as
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 ONENESS VS. THE 1%
1% vs. One Earth, One Humanity
constructed as novel and as a totally new invention when it
comes to rights, ownership, and collection of royalties, and as that sustains a society as powaqgatsi.If cotporations have their
natural when it comes to avoiding responsibility for harm caused way out fragile web of life will be poisoned, the diversity
to nature and people. Furthermore, the rush to commodify and of species will be driven to extinction, people will lose all
fteedorns-to their seeds, to their food, their knowledge and
commercialise a product or technology is the manufacture of
decision-making-and all social relations will be ruphu:ed.
systemic ignorance. Ignorance is the absence of knowledge, it
is not science. True science requires a knowledge of systems. The deep crises of exclusion and extinction invite us to
We are witnessing not just the merger of the giant unleash the livingintelligence of all beings to heal andrejuvenate
corporations, which have their roots in the Toxic Cartel of the the planet and ourselves. This volUtne explores these processes
World Wars, but a convergence of sectors in one unbroken and the economic .model that is being imposed on the world,
cteating a 1% economy that has resulted in inhutnan inequalities
continuum and consolidation of destructive and violent
and a rapid and deep enclosure of the democratic space.
power-from biotechnology in agriculture, to information
Through what is happening to our planet, our resources, our
technology and financial technologies. The coercion used
money, our biodiversity,our food, we expose how these systems,
against the diversity of indigenous cultures and their knowledge
controlled by Big Money work, and describe the future they ate
throughout colonial history is now being directed at citizens
trying to engineer; based on their vision of One Science, One
worldwide. The intelligence of nature and people is being
Agriculture, One History, One per cent. It also addresses the
replaced by 'intelligence' as surveillance-whether surveillance
urgent need for cteating alternatives to the Big Money world so
by Monsanto over farmers to prevent them from saving seeds,
that the Jights of the earth, and of humanity, can be defended,
or surveillance by Facebook and Google over our everyday lives,
reclaimed, deepened and enlarged, and we can foresee a future
or the surveillance of the corporate state over citizens seeking based on freedo.rn and detnoctacy.
freedom.
The awareness of our real identity, as earth citizens and
The latest endeavour of the mechanical mind is to reduce
members of the earth family,is the beginning of the Resurgence
the world to fragments of information, broken down further
of Real Intelligence, Real Seed, Real Food, Real Wealth, Real
into data. Data are being treated as the new raw material and
Fteedom. It is the path of libetation frotn the rule of the 1%
simultaneously being given the status of 'intelligence'. However,
that cripples our itnaginatiou and enslaves us.
data is not knowledge, and data processing is not intelligence.
Breaking free of the mechanical mind has now become an Endnotes
ecological and political imperative. The duty to care, the courage 1

to stop the harm being caused by the 1% to the earth and its '\Vb.atis Happening to Agro biodiversity?'http://www.fao.org/ docrep / 007/
y5609e/y5609e02.hrm.
beings, is part of life and living. 2

The Hopi describe the phenomenon of destroying everything U11i11ena/Dedaratio11of Rig/Jt.r

of MotherEarth, http://therightsofnature.
org/un.ivetsal-declaxation/; Valerie Cabanes, R.ightJ'
far Pla11e/ Earth:En1 lo
24
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 ONENESS VS. THE 1%
1% vs. One Earth, One Humanity
CrimesAgainst Nature, http:/ /valeriecabanes.eu/rights-for-planet-earth- 12

book-release-in-india/. Charles Beebe, '2016 Deadliest Yet for Environmental Defei:lders',

3
The original definition can be found in Hwnberto Maturana and Francisco panthei!ll1.com.
https:/ / pantbeism,com/2016-deadliest-yet-eovironmental-
defeo.ders/. Published on July 13, 2017.
Varela, Autopoiesisa11dCognition:The &alization of the Living. First edition 13

published in 1973. Second edition, Robert Cohen and Marx Wartofsky (Eds.) Leonardo Maugeri, TbeAie of Oil.·TheMy!hologJI, Hisfof],\andFutureof the
BostonStudiesin thePhilosophy of Science.Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Co., World}ivfostCo11troumia/ &source,Connecticut: Globe I:Jequot,2007; Dale
1980. Allen Pfeiffer, Th, End of the OilAge. Napa: Lulu Press, 2004.
F1✓ture
14
4
Bruno Latour, 'On Interobjectivity', Mind, Culture, a11dActivity. 3, 4 Ma11ifesto011The Of K:J10w/edge
Syste111s:
K11owledge S1J11em'g11!J
For
(1996), pp. 228-45. http./ /www.bruno-latour.fr/ sites/ default/ files/ 63- A Hea/101Planet,Iutemationa1 Commission on the Future of Food and
INTEROBJECTS-GB.pdf. Agriculture, 2009, http://www.swaraj.org/manifesto_future.pdf
5
J.C. Bose. See, among others, Plant responseas a means of Physiological
investigation.
London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1906; Life Movementsin
Plants(Vol. I), first published in 1918 and reprinted in 1985; Life Movementsin
Plants(Vol. II), published in 1919; NervousMechamismsof Plants,published in
1926; and Grmvthand TropicMovementsof Plants.London: Longmans, Green
and Co., 1929.
6
J.A. Shapiro,'Bacteria are Small But Not Stupid: Cognition, Natural Genetic
Engineering and Socio-Bacteriology', Studies in History and Philosophyof
Biologicaland Biomedical Sciences.38, 4 (2007), pp. 807-19; Epub, November
19, 2007.
7
Andre Leu, Poisoning Our Children.Greeley: Acres, 2018; and Stafanie Seneff
in Vandana Shiva (Ed.) SeedS overeig11f)' andFoodS ecurif)':
Womenin theVanguard.
New Delhi: Women Unlimited, 2015.
8
Yaneer Bar-Yam, Dynamicsof ComplexSystems.Massachusetts: Addison
Wesley,1997. http:/ /fernandonogueiracosta.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/
yaneer-bar-yam-dynamics-of-complex-systems.pdf.
9
Carl R. Woese, 'A New Biology for a New Century', Microbiology And
MolecularBiology&views.68, 2 (2004), pp. 173-186. http://mmbr.asm.org/
content/68/2/173.full.
10
Vandana Shiva, Who &al/y Feedsthe World?New Delhi: Women Unlimited,
2017.
11
ANNAM: Foodas Health.New Delhi: Navdanya, 2017. See also, Daniel
Moss and Mark Bittman, 'Bringing Farming Back to Nature', TheNew York
Times. http:/ /www.nytimes.com/2018/06 /26 /opinion/farming-organic-
nature-movement.html. Published on June 26, 2018.

26
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 ONENESS VS. THE 1%

6 1\tilZGandhi, Hind Swarey',Ahmedabad: Navajivan, 1996, p. 58.

7 'Seed Satyagraha(CivilDisobedience To End Seed Slavery)',Seedsfreedom.infa.
Epilogue
https:/ /Seedfreedom.Info/Campaign/Seed-Satyagraha-Civil-Disobedience-
To-End-Seed-Slavery/. Published on September 8, 2015. In March 2015, Bill Gates showed an image of the coronavirus
8 'Govt to introduce edible oil in PDS channel from June', TheEconomic Times. during a TED Talk and told the audience that it was what the
https: / / economictimes.indiatimes.com/ news/ economy /policy/ govt-to- greatest catastrophe of our time would look like. The real
introduce-edible-oil-in-pds-channel-from-june / articleshow/ 2999261.cms. threat to life, he said, is 'not missiles, but microbes.' 1 When the
Published on April 30, 2008. See also, Ramesh Chand, 'Need to evaluate free
coronavirus pandemic swept over the earth like a tsunami five
edible oil import', BusinessStandard.https:/ /www.business-standard.com/
years later, he revived the war language, describing the pandemic
article/ opinion/ need-to-evaluate-free-edible-oil-import-118052900002_1.
html. Published on May 29, 2018; and Anindita Dey, 'Food ministry
as 'a world war'.
seeks pulses, edible oil subsidy extension', BusinessStandard.https:/ /www. 'The coronavirus pandemic pits all of humanity against the
business-standard.com/ article/ markets/ food-ministry-seeks-pulses-edible- virus,' he said.2
oil-subsidy-extension-111022500028_1.html.Published on January 20, 2013. In fact, the pandemic is not a war. The pandemic is a consequence
9 'Uttarakhand HC Declares Air,Glaciers, Forests, Springs, Waterfalls etc. as
of war. A war against life. The mechanical mind connected to
Legal Persons [ReadJudgment]', I.JvelawNe1vsNehvork.http:/ /www.livelaw.
the money machine of extraction has created the illusion of
in/uttarakhand-hc-declares-air-glaciers-forests-springs-waterfalls-etc-legal-
humans as separate from nature, and nature as dead, inert raw
persons/. Published on April 1, 2017,
1° Chris McDermott, 'Stephen Hawking: We Have 100 Years to Find a
material to be exploited. But, in fact, we are part of the biome.
New Planet', Eco lf/atcb. http://www.ecowatch.com/stephen-hawking- And we are part of the virome. The biome and the virome are
bbc-2392439489.html. Published on May 4, 2017; Sarah Knapton, us. When we wage war on the biodiversity of our forests, our
'Tomorrow's World Returns To BBC with Startling Warning from farms, and in our guts, we wage war on ourselves.
Stephen Hawking-We Must Leave Earth', The Telegraph.http:/ /www. The health emergency of the coronavirus is inseparable
telegraph.co.uk/ science/2017 /05 /02/ tomorrows-world-returns-bbc-
from the health emergency of extinction, the health emergency
startling-warning-stephen-hawking/. Published on May 2, 2017.
11 Hannah Osborne, 'Elon Musk Reveals Vision for a SpaceX City on Mars',
of biodiversity loss, and the health emergency of the climate
Newsiveek.http:/ /www.newsweek.com/ elon-musk-mars-spacex-martian- crisis. All of these emergencies are rooted in a mechanistic,
city-625994. Published on June 15, 2017. militaristic, anthropocentric worldview that considers humans
separate from-and superior to-other beings. Beings we can
own, manipulate, and control. All of these emergencies are
rooted in an economic model based on the illusion of limitless
growth and limitless greed, which violate planetary boundaries,
and destroy the integrity of ecosystems and individual species.
New diseases arise because a globalized, industrialized,
inefficient agriculture invades habitats, destroys ecosystems,
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 ONENESS VS. THE 1%
How the 1% Subverts Democracy

and manipulates animals, plants, and other organisms with no erasure of democracy and biodiversity, of nature and culture.
respect for theirmtegrity or their health. We are linked worldv.ri.de His 'philanthropy' is not just philanthrocapitalism. It is
through the spread of diseases like the coronavirus because we philanthroimperialism.
have invaded the homes of other species, manipttlated plants The coronavirus pandemic and lockdown have revealed
and animals for co:tnmercial profits and greed, and cultivated even more clearly how we are being reduced to objects to be
monocultures. As we clear-cut forests, as we turn farms into controlled, with our bodies and minds as the new colonies to be
industrial monocultures that produce toxic, nutritionally empty invaded. Empires create colonies, colonies enclose the commons
commodities, as our diets become degraded through industrial of the indigenous living communities and turn them into sources
processing with syuthetic chemicals and genetic engineering, and of raw material to be extracted for profits. This linear, extractive
as we perpetuate the illusion that earth and li.feare raw materials logic is unable to see the intimate relations that sustain life in the
to be exploited for profits, we are indeed connecting. But natural world. It is blind to diversity,cycles of renewal, values of
instead of connecting on a continuum of health by protecting giving and sharing, and the power and potential of self-organising
biodiversity, integrity, and self-organization of all living beings, and mutuality.It is blind to the waste it creates and to the violence
including humans, we are connected through disease. it unleashes. The extended coronavirus lockdown has been a lab
According to the .International Labour Organization, '1.6 experiment for a future without humanity.
billion informal econotny workers (representing the most On March 26, 2020, at a peak of the coronavirus pandemic
vulnerable in the labour market), out of a worldwide total of and in the midst of the lockdown, Microsoft was granted a patent
two billion and a global workforce of 3.3 billion.,have suffered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Patent
massive damage to their capacity to earn a living. This is due to WO 060606 declares that 'Human Body Activity associated with
lockdown measures and/ or because they work in the hardest-hit a task provided to a user may be used in a mining process of a
sectors.'3 According to the World Food Programtne, a quarter of cryptocurrency system.... '
a billion additional people will be pushed to hunger and 300,000 The 'body activity' that Microsoft wants to mine includes
could die every day.4 These, too, ate pandemics that ate killing radiation emitted from the human body, brain activities, body
people. Killing cannot be a prescription for saving lives. fluid flow, blood flow, organ activity, body movement such as
Health is about life and living systems. There is no 'life' in eye movement, facial movement, and muscle movement, as
the paradigm of health that Bill Gates and his ilk ate promoting well as any other activities that can be sensed and represented
and imposing on the entire world. Gates has created global by images, waves, signals, texts, numbers, degrees, or any other
alliances to impose top-down analysis and prescriptions for information or data.
health problems. He gives money to define the problems, and The patent is an intellectual property claim over our bodies
then he uses his influence and money to impose the solutions. and minds. In colonialism, colonisers assign themselves the right
And in the process, he gets richer. His_'funding' results in an to take the land and resources of indigenous people, extinguish
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 ONENESS VS. THE 1%
How the 1% Subverts Democracy
their cultures and sovereignty, and in extreme cases exterminate As I look to the future in a world of Gates and Tech Barons,
them. Patent WO 060606 is a declaration by Microsoft that our I see a humanity that is further polarized into large numbers
bodies and minds are its new colonies. We are mines of 'raw of 'throw away' people who have no place in the new Empire.
material'-the data extracted from our bodies. Rather than Those who are included in the new Empire will be little more
sovereign,spiritual,conscious, intelligent beings making decisions than digital slaves.
and choices with wisdom and ethical values about the impacts Or, we can resist. We can seed another future, deepen our
of our actions on the natural and social world of which we are democracies, reclaim our commons, regenerate the earth as
a part, and to which we are inextricably related, we are 'users.' A livingmembers of a One Earth Family,rich in our diversity and
'user' is a consumer without choice in the digital empire. freedom, one in our unity and intetconoectedness. It is a healthier
But that's not the totality of Gates' vision. In fact, it is even future. It is one we must fight for. It is one we must claim.
more sinister-to colonise the minds, bodies, and spirits of our We stand at a precipice of extinction. Will we allow our
children before they even have the opportunity to understand humanity as living, conscious, intelligent, autonomous beings to
what freedom and sovereignty look and feel like, beginning with be extinguished by a greed machine that does not know limits
the most vulnerable. and is unable to put a break on its colonisation and destruction?
In May 2020, Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York Or will we stop the machine and defend our humanity, freedom,
announced a partnership with the Gates Foundation to 'reinvent and autonomy to protect life on earth?
education.' Cuomo called Gates a visionary and argued that the
pandemic has created 'a moment in history when we can actually Endnotes
incorporate and advance [Gates1 ideas ... all these buildings, all 1
Bill Gates, 'The Next Outbreak? We're Not Ready,' filmed March 2015 in
these physicalclassrooms-why with all the technology you have?'
Vancouver, B.C., TED video, 8:33, https:/ /www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates
In fact, Gates has been trying to dismantle the public _the_next_outbreak_ we_re_not_ready.
education system of the United States for two decades. For 2
'"This Is Like a World War": Bill Gates on Coronavirus,' livemint,last updated
him students are mines for data. That is why the indicators he April 24, 2020, https:/ /www.livemint.com/news/world/bill-gates-compares
promotes are attendance, college enrollment, and scores on a -fight-against-coronavirus-to-another-world-war-11587706313499 .html.
3
math and reading test, because these can be easily quantified International Labour Organization News, 'ILO: As Job Losses Escalate,
Nearly Half of Global Workforce at Risk of Losing Livelihoods,'
and mined. In reimagining education, children willbe monitored
press release, April 29, 2020, https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo
through surveillance systems to check if they are attentive while
/newsroom/news/WCMS_743036/lang--en/index.htm.
they are forced to take classes remotely, alone at home. The 4
David M. Beasley, 'Covid-19 Could Detonate a "Hunger Pandemic." With
dystopia is one where children never return to schools, do not Millions at Risk, the World Must Act,' WashingtonPost,posted April 22, 2020,
have a chance to play, do not have friends. It is a world without https:/ /www.washingtonpost.com/ opinions/2020/04/22/ covid-19-could
society, without relationships, without love and friendship. -detonate-hunger-pandemic-with-millions-risk-world-must-act.

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