Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Peace. Bread. Land

The struggle for social justice is deeply tied to the struggle for land reform around the world.  At a conference in Islamabad Monday, participants echoed the rallying cry of the Bolshevik revolutionaries: Peace. Bread. Land.
The Express Tribune is reporting today that participants in a conference had "underlined the need for equal distribution of land rather than land reforms and ensuring food sovereignty, rather food security in the country.
They pointed out that due to corporatisasion of farming and giving land to foreigners, not only food security, but due food sovereignty is largely at the stake."
The call for countries to be food sovereign is pretty much worldwide, at this point. Participants in the Pakistan conference pointed to a " military-bureaucracy-feudal troika" standing in the way of land reform. According to the Express Times, "It was also highlighted that lands are given to generals, bureaucrats, cricketers and actors, but not to peasants, who are the real owners."
Increasingly, we are also seeing members of the national business press seeing problems with the continuing commodifying of everything threatening nation-states. The article closes with "Pakistan Business Review Chief Editor Dr Shahida Wazarat also advocated land reforms. “There will be adverse affects on food security if corporate farming continues in future,” she opined."

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