Environmental Justice at Western

Liberté, égalité, fraternité: Differences between the idea and the reality

Each quarter, a group of students, faculty, and staff at WWU convene an environmental justice reading group to read and discuss recent texts. This quarter (Spring 2019) the group is reading Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower and adrienne maree brown’s Emergent Strategy. The following entry reflects the group’s discussion last week.

 

Liberté, égalité, fraternité: Differences between the idea and the reality

By: Kate Rayner Fried, Bianca Scott, and Caroline Erdmann

 

Throughout time, art, and literature we seem to find change to be the catalyst for the expression of humanity. Change affects us because it makes us uncomfortable; it makes us adhere to a new normal, and forces us to reckon with the past status quo.

In Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, the protagonist Lauren is surrounded by people clinging to the past in the wake of devastating environmental catastrophe and dystopic social upheaval. While many in her gated community cling to normalcy, believing that if they continue to live as if nothing has changed things will return to the way they were, Lauren instead questions the world around her, creating Earthseed, a new religion and way of thinking about the world that embraces change as a key principle.

In recent news, the Cathedral of Notre Dame, to many a symbol of Paris’s magnificence and beauty, has suffered a structurally devastating fire. The destruction of Notre dame threw Paris and people from all over the world into chaos and mourning, and even solicited a wave of donations from millionaires and billionaires dedicating huge amounts of money to restorating Notre Dame.

This outpouring of support is important, but many have drawn attention to the disproportionate amount grief and support in the wake of the loss of this particular historical and cultural artifact compared to other losses. On the same day that Notre Dame burned, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, one of the holiest sites for Muslims worldwide, was also on fire, but received little media attention. Recently three historically black churches in Louisiana were set ablaze in an act of white supremacist hatred. In the wake of the Notre Dame fire these churches have raised $1.3 million to rebuild, but this prompts the question: Why did the more prominent Notre Dame have to burn before most Americans took notice and lent support to the churches lost in Louisiana?

The differential sense of mourning is deeply tied to social structures, specifically the enduring nature of Colonialism and Western hegemony. While the world’s richest donated millions within hours to restore the iconic Paris cathedral, residents in Flint, Michigan are have waited 5 years for relief as the water crisis that exposed thousands of mainly black residents to unsafe lead levels and toxic water continues. As many Indigenous Americans have drawn attention to, Notre Dame has been widely and rightfully regarded as a valuable cultural artifact, but sacred Standing Rock Sioux land desecrated by the Dakota Access pipeline, and countless other sacred places to Indigenous people across the world are not treated with the same reverence.

In Parable of the Sower, Lauren lives within changing environmental and social conditions of her time, and refuses to continue with life as normal, instead acting upon her intention to survive. This week as an oil spill the size of Paris is being felt by Indonesians. We too must question whether we are willing to confront our changing social, environmental, and political climate, or if we will cling to the way things were, hoping that things will work out for the better. That starts with analyzing why we mourn what we mourn, and how we can engage more critically with the sacred sites as all around us, before they too are lost.

jessicaibes • April 29, 2019


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