RUDE FEMINIST

Ah this is interesting. A number of the sources I looked at while researching this case said there were mixed responses (e.g. BBCNews: Some residents were sceptical after Thursday's announcement."We don't know if new charges will be filed," LeeAnne Walters, who is credited with exposing the lead contamination, told Associated Press."It feels kind of degrading, like all that we went through doesn't matter. Our city was poisoned, my children have health issues and the people responsible just had all the charges dropped against them.")

On Friday, 14th June 2019, those responsible for the Flint Water Crisis, (which saw 100,000 residents of a Michigan town exposed to lead poisoning) had all charges against them dropped.

The decision received a mixed reaction from the city's residents. For some, it indicated that officials were beginning to take the crisis seriously, choosing to drop charges under the current administration, with promises that they would investigate and possibly re-charge further. But for others, it embodied a devastating blow, to a community who had suffered enough and had been repeatedly ignored. But why did the water poisoning of 98,000 people go unacknowledged for so long? In this piece, I will unpack exactly that. 

 But first, a little background:

‘The Flint Water Crisis’ refers to the health-related problems that occurred as a result of a change made to the water supply of the city of Flint, Michigan on the 25th of April 2014. The source was initially Lake Huron, and was changed to the cheaper Flint river, which exposed over 100,000 residents to lead poisoning and bacterial infections, including Legionnaires disease. Despite the unusual colour and flavour, Governor Rick Snyder, who was responsible for the switch, insisted the water was ‘safe to drink’. In June 2018, PBS reported that the death count had reached 12, with 90 seriously ill, and this number was growing.

Despite the water affecting every living resident of Flint who consumed it, Flint’s principal victims were its’ children. The contamination led to Flint’s kids, suffering cognitive impairment and developmental difficulties, which included “decreased IQ, ADHD behaviour and increased criminality”. The deterioration of the health of Flint children was so severe it even lead to the setting up of a special school which doubles as an observation room, in which teachers receive special training to identify “cognitive delays, speech and language, and developmental difficulties” in students. However, the extent of this has been largely under-reported by the mainstream media. As film-maker, Michael Moore comments: when media agencies report ‘9,000 children under 6 have been exposed,’ what they fail to tell you is that the population of people under the age of 6 in Flint is 9,000’. In Flint: Every. Single. Child. Has been affected.

Yet Flint was not front-page news until relatively recently. In the eyes of Black Lives Matter, this is because Flint, Michigan, is a predominantly black city. Therefore, the invisibility of Flint's citizens during a time of crisis merely acted as a continuation of a historical trend. One in which African Americans are denied basic human rights, as well as justice - privileges so readily provided to the USA’s wealthy, white elite. As a representative for Black Lives Matter stated:

“Black people in America – especially those living in rural and poor areas – have long been denied the same access to clean drinking and water for bathing and sanitation as everyone else. The crisis in Flint is not an isolated incident. State violence in the form of contaminated water or no access to water at all is pervasive in Black communities.”

Flint was also an easy crisis to ignore for an administration which, critics argue, has deep-rooted beliefs in “American Exceptionalism” (the implicit belief in American superiority and “special authority”). Despite being a recognised world leader in human rights, it is this American Exceptionalism which sees the US fail to ratify crucial treaties, such as the ‘International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights’, which would promise not just the people of Flint, but of the entire nation, physical health and the prevention of disease. American Exceptionalism maintained that Flint was not a human rights violation, despite the fact that it directly contravened the right to water and sanitation.American Exceptionalism would prefer to focus on its reputation as a champion of the right to arms, and free speech, to tamper with toxicity reports, manipulating public opinion, and criticise the human rights abuses in the Middle East, rather than combat those on its own soil.

In the words of President Obama, Flint is more than just an assault on people of colour, it is the result of ‘a corrosive attitude that exists in [US] politics’, that believes ‘environmental rules are optional’.

Under an administration which prizes American Exceptionalism and white innocence, the people of Flint were powerless, faced with a Governor who told them to 'just get over it'. At RUDEFEMINIST, we recognise that Flint was, (as the Michigan Civil Rights Commission asserted in their 2017 official report), a case of ‘deeply embedded institutional, systemic and historical racism’ being used to justify an illegitimate act of violence on a disadvantaged community as a cost-saving measure. It was (and continues to be) an act of environmental racism that categorically would not have taken place in a wealthy, white community, and certainly would not have required international media attention for the state to address the problem.

So until there is a retrial, here is what you can do about it:  

- Donate here to help local appeals source clean water and sanitation https://www.gofundme.com/search/us/flint-mi-fundraising (Just a friendly reminder that whilst Flint needs $75m, this year’s 4th July parade in D.C. will cost $93m)

- Keep updated on social media. Follow independent pages/media agencies that report on the crisis. Demand more coverage from your providers.

- Retweet & share updates.

- Protest! Petition! March!

- And importantly: talk about it. Teach your friends and spread the word. Make it difficult for politicians to stay quiet. Help to give a voice to a powerless city.

Over and out.

When we think of Somalia, one image usually springs to mind. But how much do we actually know about the piracy problem in Somalia? And how much of it might be the West’s fault?

A BRIEF HISTORY OF SOMALIA

The most important thing to understand about Somalia is that as long as it has existed, it has been fought over by foreign powers. 

This competition ‘displaced and divided the people, destroyed their traditional lifestyle and cultural balance with the land, and made a mockery of peaceful existence and development’

In the post-colonial era, Somalia was fought over by imperial powers due to its strategic location (the intersection between Africa and Asia), near the Suez Canal. Somalia’s port of Berbara is the gateway for 20% of the world's oil. In 1884, Somalia was divided between thirteen countries, which resulted in political instability and competition between the regions. In 1969, Somalia was taken over by a military dictatorship, leading insurgency groups to band together in an attempt to fight for liberation. During this time, Somalia was being used as a pawn in the Cold War by America to undermine Soviet power. When the government collapsed in 1991, there was no infrastructure to uphold Somalia and alongside the widespread famine which followed, Somalia was left as a ‘failed state’. As a result, terrorist group Al Shabaab tried to take control of Somali territory, which triggered a response from the UN. But, as we know, over the past three centuries, Somalia has been colonized by five foreign powers and repeatedly let down by the UN. So the UN’s presence in Somalia was met with resistance, on top of the fact that western support in the form of aid was inadequate - food was inedible, and 80% of it was sold off privately by three Somali businessmen, instead 2.5million starving Somalis it was intended for.

WHY PIRACY?

The droughts of 1974-1986 forced most of the Somali population were forced to resettle along the coastline. This is why the majority of Somalia’s economy depends on coastal trade of some sort (the port of Berbara brings in 70-80% of Somali trade). Shortly after the Government collapsed in 1991, a series of foreign transnational corporations began to use ungoverned Somali waters to drop off toxic waste, paying warlords around $3 per ton (instead of the £1000 a ton charge to properly dispose of waste in Europe). In 2004, a tsunami washed leaking containers of toxic waste ashore, which led to ‘abdominal bleeding, skin melting off and a lot of immediate cancer-like symptoms’, killing over 300 people. Allegedly, UN agencies were aware of this problem and did nothing. 

Furthermore, foreign ships began to appear on the coastline and illegally fish in “rich, uncontrolled, and unprotected Somali seas”. The Somalian economy heavily depends on fishing and illegal fishing takes $450m out of it annually[28]. As Diaz and Hubner claim, illegal fishing not only robs Somali fisherman of their keep, it ‘puts pressure on stocks, undermines labour standards and distorts markets’. The High Seas Task Force noted in that at one time in 2005, Somalia faced over 800 illegal fishing vessels in their waters because they simply could not control their own territory. With no government to enforce penalties, Somali fishermen took matters into their own hands and began boarding boats to persuade companies to go away. Foreign ships bribed fishermen to leave them alone, which led to the problem of piracy which today stands as Somalia’s primary source of income - generating upwards of $413m between 2005-2012.

MEDIA REPRESENTATION

Because the Somali conflict was so complex, Western television often had to simplify the crisis by framing it as two easily identifiable enemies with a simple progression of events. An example of this is the reporting of ‘Black Hawk Down’ in 1994, in which a UN-led humanitarian mission went wrong and two US helicopters were shot down by Somali rebels. This resulted in 19 US soldiers being killed in the Battle of Mogadishu. The infamous images of US soldiers’ bodies being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu would shape how Americans viewed the Somali crisis, and more importantly, Somalis themselves - as backward, barbaric savages, undeserving of help. As Aman Sium notes, the representation of Somalis as ‘rebel-pirates’ works to ‘reaffirm the stability of Western whiteness in the face of the Black Muslim threat inscribed onto Somali bodies’. 

This narrative was epitomised in 2013 blockbuster, “Captain Phillips”, a film which presented the threat of Somali piracy through the lens of not just failed development but through security. The images of a barbaric East being crushed by a technologically advanced West reinforced American exceptionalism in the face of danger, and in true Hollywood style, Captain Phillips’ BAFTA-winning eurocentric narrative made $107m in the box office.

The presentation of the problem of piracy in the West cleverly allows Western powers to avoid taking responsibility for their share in the failure of the Somali State. It allows them to avoid paying reparations to colonized states, and simultaneously present themselves as world leaders in freedom and justice. The problem of piracy stems from the Somali need for survival in a time of starvation. Pirates resorted to crime, and as Diaz and Dubner note, ‘for the sake of self-preservation, citizens in the weaker nation will sometimes act out of desperation, resorting to illegal activities to obtain basic necessities while disregarding the international response to their actions’. The Somali question is not one of morality, it is one of development. It is not that Somali pirates are inherently violent or barbaric, but rather that they are perhaps responding out of desperation.

THE REAL SOMALIA

BUT, contrary to the reports of the mainstream media, Somalia is a moderate success story, taking into account the factors working against it. Somalia does not exist as a state in the eyes of the international community, but ‘Somaliland’ certainly exists for the people who have built it. Somaliland is the new state that locals have created in the midst of the civil war, founded on principles of modern Somali nationalism, which aims to combine Islam and anti-imperialism and educate Somalis about their shared potential for unity. The vision of an independent Somaliland represents a subversion of the traditional ideas about political statehood and embodies Somalia’s real emancipation from the years of colonialism which enslaved it. Somaliland has a working navy, police force, government offices (with free and peaceful elections), and in some ways, is a more functioning society than many ‘states’ (it has a more successful mobile banking system than any country for miles around). Somalia has restructured its entire political system from a repressive, military dictatorship to civil war, to where it is now, with the beginnings of a stabilising independent state using bottom-up development alone. 

Whilst the government of Somalia has indeed ‘failed’, the Somali people have not, and Somaliland is a testament to this.

- rudefeminist

Amber had time