"ONENESS vs. the 1%": A Must Read for All WILPFers

Vandana Shiva, Indian activist, environmentalist, and one of the main leaders of the International Forum on Globalization (IFG), speaks at the conference “Terra Futura” in Florence, Italy, in May 2011. Photo credit: Giacomo Marini / Shutterstock.com.

By Jean Hays, Fresno Branch, and 
Nancy Price, Co-Chair, Earth Democracy

May 2021

Our local Fresno branch book discussion group, guided by Cheryl Caldera, is one of many branch book groups that are regularly discussing great, thought-provoking ideas. Zoom allows us to keep going, and, indeed, we did “keep going” for over two hours at our March meeting when WILPF Fresno talked about Vandana Shiva’s recent book, ONENESS vs. the 1%: Shattering Illusions, Seeding Freedom.

It was recommended by our Earth Democracy group and, after our joint discussion, we cannot praise this book enough. It makes one aware of what is happening to us as a society at the hands of the 1%, though too many still hardly notice. Not only is the book a wake-up call for our Earth Democracy group, but can also serve this purpose for all issue committees and WILPF in general. In fact, at the WILPF US 2011Triennial Congress in Chapel Hill, NC, when so many attending desired to expand the Save the Water Committee to cover more issues, we chose “Earth Democracy” from the title from Vandana Shiva’s early book titled Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace.

In Oneness vs. the 1%, Shiva points out that in 2010, 388 billionaires controlled as much wealth as the bottom half of humanity. By 2020 she predicted that the number of billionaires would just be 1 or 2. Can you guess who those 1 or 2, or even 3 are?? The BILL for passing through the GATES is very expensive.

The economy of the 1%, as Shiva writes, is modeled on colonization of land, people, and natural resources. Although the tools of extraction may change, the methods of colonization by the 1% do not. It’s the principle of grab and steal what belongs to others, make it yours, and then collect profits from its sale. It is the genetic manipulation of our seeds (GMOs) by the large Monsanto-like corporations, so farmers can’t save them in order to plant again. Instead, they are forced to buy them over and over!

Now, in the “digital data” age, data is being made into the new oil, so it can lubricate the money machine. According to Shiva, hidden inside the guise of being a green philanthropist, Bill Gates is “now using his economic power to expand his patent empire to the living world, to enclose the biological and knowledge commons through patenting and biopiracy.” Shiva has added an Epilogue to her 2020 edition about Bill Gates’s global agenda and how we can resist the billionaires’ war on life.

We in the Fresno Book Club loved Shiva’s closing remarks: “Seeding the future when possible extinction stares us in the face, seeding freedom when all freedoms of all beings are being closed for the limitless freedom of the 1% to exploit the earth and people, to manipulate life and our minds, calls for a quantum leap in our imaginations, our intelligence, our capacity for compassion and love, as well as our courage for creative nonviolent resistance and non-cooperation with a system that is driving us to extinction.”

Note: Vandana Shiva wrote this latest book with her son Kartikey Shiva, who is trained in computer science and professional photography. The Hindu deity Kartikey is one of Lord Shiva’s sons with the Goddess Parvati. Chelsea Green Publishing adds that Kartikey is a “shatterer of illusions, grower of freedom, and agent of light.”

What We Can Do

What can we do about all this?  First of all, we recommend that all branches read and discuss ONENESS VS. THE 1%. At just about 170 pages, Vandana Shiva writes clearly, concisely, and passionately from her years of speaking and writing. She lays out her discussion in four short chapters: The 1% vs. One Earth, One Humanity; The Money Machine of the 1%, The Technology Machine of the 1%, and How the 1% Subverts Democracy.

This is just the start. Better yet, go on to discuss questions such as: Who are the 1% in your area and what is their mission, what is their business?  What do they control?  How can we make people aware of this?  Brainstorm on how to take back the power of the people by reaching out to other local and regional groups with phone calls and zoom meetings and invite them to strategize with you about actions to take collectively to expose and challenge the environmental, economic, and social impact of the 1% in your city or region on the 99% and the most vulnerable in your communities.

Also explore two items that complement this book:

1. Read the current newsletter of Vandana Shiva’s Navdanya International Institute (you can also find a Newsletter Archive  at https://navdanyainternational.org/  and if you scroll down you can fill in your info to subscribe to the newsletter).
2. Watch the video from Earth Day 2021: Earth Rising: Ecological Actions for Earth Democracy & Rights of Mother Earth. This webinar with Shiva and other international speakers stresses that “Mother Earth’s rights are also human rights, and ecological actions grounded in both human and earth rights ensure the maintenance of the web of life.”

As her books and these other resources make clear, no one has been as passionate a defender, as prolific a writer, and as tireless a worker for human and earth rights as Vandana Shiva. At the same time, so many women and men earth defenders have lost their lives protecting their lands and communities from corporate exploitation and pollution, or they’ve been poisoned by agricultural chemicals.

About the Author

Vandana Shiva is a world-renowned environmental thinker and activist, a leader in the International Forum on Globalisation and of the Slow Food Movement. Director of Navdanya and of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, she is a tireless crusader for the rights of farmers, peasants, and women, She is the author and editor of a score of influential books, among them Making Peace with the Earth; Soil Not Oil; Globalization’s New Wars; Seed Sovereignty, Food Security: Women in the Vanguard; and Who Really Feeds the World?

Shiva is the recipient of over twenty international awards, including the Right Livelihood Award (1993); the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic (1998); the Horizon 3000 Award (Austria, 2001); the John Lennon-Yoko Ono Grant for Peace (2008); the Save the World Award (2009); the Sydney Peace Prize (2010); the Calgary Peace Prize (2011); and the Thomas Merton Award (2011). She was the Fukuoka Grand Prize Laureate in 2012.