Manufactured Water Scarcity and Mental Colonization: A Conversation with Mazin Qumsiyeh.
In January 2023, four WILPF leaders spoke with the evolutionary biologist and geneticist Mazin Qumsiyeh, familiar to us from his US speaking tours and books Popular Resistance in Palestine and Sharing the Land of Canaan. Dr. Qumsiyeh teaches at Bethlehem University where he is the founder and director of the Palestine Institute for Biological Diversity and Sustainability and the Palestine Museum of Natural History. Tura Campanella Cook, Barb Taft, Regina Birchem (all from the Middle East Peace & Justice Action Committee), and Nancy Price (Earth Democracy) conversed with him on Zoom about what's driving the uneven impacts of climate change and why "decolonizing the mind" is so important.The Eastern Mediterranean and West Asia are warming twice as fast as the global average. Tell us more.
MQ: Humans have been messing up nature since the industrial revolution. Consumerist ideas and capitalism make people consume and destroy the earth. Climate change affects the whole earth but not evenly. The rich countries produce the most greenhouse gases but are the least affected. Here in the Eastern Mediterranean, we see desertification from the Sahara Desert spreading into the Fertile Crescent and coming here to Bethlehem. Agricultural production, based on predictable rainfall patterns, is impacted worldwide but more critically in the belt between the Tropics and our latitude. Today there are more refugees in the world caused by climate than by war.
You are quoted in "Palestine: Where Manufactured Water Scarcity Meets Climate Change" (1) How is water scarcity "manufactured"?
MQ: There is no water shortage in the Fertile Crescent where humans first developed agriculture. Ramallah has more annual rainfall than London. Historically we have had good rainfall and good storage of water in rivers and aquifers. What we experience is unequal distribution. Israel steals most of our water and uses it as leverage to drive us out. Since the 1930s the Zionist project has engineered water shortage for the native people. Settlers today have 7 or 8 times more water per capita than the indigenous people. The WHO recommends 100 liters per capita per day for personal and household use. Gazans on average receive less than 9 liters. The Zionist project brings immigrants from all over the world and has them live in semi-arid locations with lush vegetation and swimming pools. The settlements El David and Nokdim near Beit Sahour have a water park and swimming pools while we in the Bethlehem area get water sporadically and experience shortages.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights considers access to clean water and sanitation a basic human right. What is your water situation?
MQ: Our struggle for human rights includes the right to water. Israel has signed international treaties about the use of shared river basins, but acts otherwise. Israel takes 70% of the water from the Jordan River while Jordan, Syria and Lebanon combined receive 30%. Although Palestinian land borders the Jordan, we receive none. Israel began diverting water from the Jordan River in 1948. River flow of 1350 million cubic meters in the 1940s fell to 20 million cubic meters in the 1960s, in violation of treaties such as the Johnston Plan. Israel controls all the natural resources of Palestine, period. This includes the minerals of the Dead Sea and the gas fields off the coast of Gaza. The holy places and their tourism are also controlled. Israel transformed a country that was multiethnic, multicultural and multi-religious in which the natives controlled the resources into a Jewish state in which Jews control and benefit, especially if they are Zionist.
The UN Sustainable Development Goals call for access to clean water and sanitation by 2030. Is that possible?
MQ: All countries agree that the UNSD Goals are admirable. But the goals lack implementation systems to protect the most vulnerable communities. The powerful countries decide what gets implemented, according to their needs and not according to human rights or international agreements.
The UN climate conference process gives large fossil fuel, water, forest, and agricultural corporations stakeholder status. What has been the impact?
MQ: COP stands for Conference of Parties and is the gathering of signatories to various conventions and treaties. Politicians and other elites, including large corporations, are the ones that participate. This is true of delegations from countries in the developing world as well. The UAE appointed the head of an oil company to preside over COP28 in the UAE this November.
Do you hold out hope for a popular conference--truly of the people--such as the Earth Assemblies proposed by Pablo Solon? (2)
MQ: The problem is money. Money is power and determines things. The closest we have come to people power was in the 1960s. Those in power learned from the mistakes that caused them to withdraw from Vietnam and accede to civil rights legislation in the US. They learned how to manipulate the system better. The organizers in the US like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X were assassinated and the hippies became part of the system. I hate to be pessimistic intellectually. Was it Antonio Gramsci who said "pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will?" I remain optimistic to keep fighting but honestly, I feel there is a 70% chance that we will not save our planet. The 30% chance is reason to keep plugging.
Funding for climate-induced loss and damages was finally discussed at COP27. How can funding reach communities most in need?
MQ: I did not attend COP27 but did extensive lobbying online with academia and NGOs to insist there should be some money flowing from the developed world to the developing world. What we got was lip service. Rich countries control international funding through the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) and the US has veto power. For example, Palestine is a signatory to the Biodiversity Agreement but is not allowed even to apply for GEF funding for biodiversity projects.
Liberating minds from mental colonization, restructuring educational systems at all levels, and developing systems of caring, empathy, and collaboration are some of the broad social actions advocated by the Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability. Describe mental colonization and its impact on colonized people.
MQ: Colonizers and oppressors understand the power of the mind. Even if you have prisoners in jail, you want to make sure their minds are subservient so they do not rebel. Slavery was the same thing. You want to reduce the risk of slave revolt. So you colonize their minds. You want to make them feel hopeless, that they have no future as free men and women. So you set up systems such as elevating some slaves to 'house slaves' who would even whip the 'field slaves.' House slaves felt they had a stake in maintaining the system. Without a sense of homogeneity among the oppressed, most will accept the oppression.
Why restructure educational systems at all levels?
MQ: Civilization is mental and our minds are shaped by education, by our families educating us as children, and then education in the schools and universities. We need re-education to decolonize our minds.
Our issue committees seeks to educate WILPF members. Do you have suggestions for actions we can take to support the PIBS goals?
MQ: I don't say, "Educate people." I am not sure we can educate people. People who are interested in learning will learn. In the student-based learning that I use you don't "teach" or "give information." You create an environment in which students learn. The same applies for social transformation. If we are going to help our people around the earth care more, show empathy more, we need to create systems first and foremost in our own house and minds. The systems we create are the environment for a seed to grow. Seeds have a tendency to grow on their own. So the Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability tries to create a small oasis of hope and re-evaluation. I don't tell our students, or the foreigners who visit, to do certain things. I want them to see the environment we have and what we are doing. If they are convinced, they have the ability to transform. When I was young I wanted to change the world. Now I just want to do what I think is right and if that happens to influence other people that is great. If it doesn't that is also fine.
Black and brown communities in the US and elsewhere are looking at the psychological oppressions they have endured and recognizing that they can take back control. How can we work against the system?
MQ: The powers that be want us to feel helpless because it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. When we say we cannot do very much, we don't do very much. When we feel empowered even when we fail, we fail as empowered people. Self-respect empowers the young people I work with here and in the US. But I don't want them to become so immersed in activism that they have activist burnout and leave activism when they do not see the results they expected. I tell them to pace themselves. You do what you can. You enjoy your life. I think activism is enjoyable because you are working in a community and have teams around you. You are not isolated. Psychologists tell us that people who have a bigger cause are happier than people who have self interest only.
You have been arrested 12 times; a soldier standing on your chest broke your ribs. Many environmental defenders are threatened because of their "subversive" activity. What keeps you in the struggle, and what do you advise other activists?
MQ: I think humans by nature want to make a difference in society, but mental colonization prevents most people from speaking out. Jesus was a very good educator. He used parables and situational presentations that made people think. He did not come for the rich people, he came for the poor, to support and stand with the oppressed. This is the eternal wisdom found in many religions. Focus on this with humility. Water can carve the hardest rocks because it is not pretentious or trying to dominate. Be like water. (3)
Notes
(1) Anna Abraham, "Palestine: Where Manufactured Water Scarcity Meets Climate Change," Currently, currentlyhq.com. October 12, 2022.
(2) See "Earth Assemblies for Climate Justice," systemicalternatives.org, November 7, 2022.
(3) For another, related article that details the serious health impacts and accelerating environmental degradation in Iraq, see Zeinab Shuker "Water, Oil and Iraq's Climate Future," Middle East Report Online, March 29, 2023.
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| Publication: | Peace and Freedom |
|---|---|
| Article Type: | Interview |
| Geographic Code: | 7ISRA |
| Date: | Mar 22, 2023 |
| Words: | 1744 |
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