My Woman of the Day is also one of the people I most respect and admire on this planet - Vandana Shiva. This remarkable eco-feminist is one of the most well-known and respected voices in the fight against the 'biopiracy' of indigenous rights and peoples in their knowledge and ways of doing traditional agriculture. She is a passionate advocate against the industrialization of farming, of huge 'seed companies' that make seeds, the very essence of agriculture, their 'property' by patenting, and any worthwhile environmental cause.
The most heinous of these seed companies is, of course, the notorious and much-reviled Monsanto. And at the forefront of the growing voices against the likes of Monsanto, the very notion of patenting seeds (i.e. the patenting of life itself), a cry against the demise of traditional farming methods, as well as the large-scale destruction of biodiversity worldwide - at the forefront of it all is Vandana Shiva.
I first had the privilege of hearing and seeing Ms. Shiva at a session of top speakers prior to the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) here in Johannesburg. It was a meeting of protesters and social and environmental activists who were united against the WSSD being usurped by big coporations and fast-asleep (or complicit?) governments (which it was). It was a quasi-religious experience for me, in all truth - she was mesmerising in her eloquence, her sharp intelligence and in the passion with which she spoke. I tell you, I came close to just ditching it all and following her right back to India just to be one of her 'assistants' and be able to work with her in any way or form!
I already knew of her brilliant mind with her seminal book "Monocultures of the Mind", which I read as part of my thesis for my LL.M I was doing at the time in Calgary. I only wish I had been able to better infuse my entire thesis with what she was so impassioned about - namely, that you simply cannot patent life in any way. Nature is nature and the very diversity thereof is what makes it so rich and so life-giving.
I then went on to read her equally brilliant and though-provoking analysis of how Western companies have plundered the ecology and ages-old knowledge of, for example, agriculture and medicinal plants, in her book "Biopiracy". It shook me to the core - and, unfortunately, by the time I had read it, my thesis, which was on such similar themes, had already been written. Her book was so at the core of what my entire thesis was, it was unnerving. I felt I somehow cheated you, Ms. Shiva. I should have done better. We live and learn with time. Thank goodness.
So it was with great expectation that I finally got to see her in all her magnificent fury in that big hall at Wits University on that day in 2002. And she did not let me down nor any of the other thousands of people gathered there that day. The applause when she finally finished was thunderous. She was the star of the day, no doubt about it. And even Naomi Klein was there. I think it's because Vandana speaks with such honesty and such compassion and such articulate fury (but smiling, always smiling somehow, even when angry).
She's a lady and a force of nature and the environmental and social and indigenous rights movements can count themselves lucky for having her in their midst - front, forward and ever-ready.
Please read more about this wonderful woman, click on her name in my list of sites and go to her Indian organization's website, read her books if you can and, if anything, try to see clips and videos of her online. There are so many. Trust me, her engaging and passionate voice and manner will no doubt enthrall you and capture your attention, just as it has me for so many years now.
Oh, and did I mention that Ms. Shiva is a physicist with a PhD in physics?
Long live, Vandana Shiva!
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