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BREAKTHROUGH! SUPER TRAWLER BANNED!
Another victory for the environment! Margiris, the worlds second largest super trawler that was en route to ravage the oceans outside Tasmania has been banned from Australian waters for two years!
Greenpeace Australia says «It was the united action of community members, environmentalists and fishing groups that convinced the government to protect Australia’s fish stocks, marine wildlife and fishing communities.»
Still, there is work to do. Keep on supporting the ongoing campaigns to ban these trawlers for good. Everywhere.
Check out your local Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Fish Fight or other environmentalist group to see how you can actively participate in saving the oceans.
Done it? Share it! Disagree? Discuss it!
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The use of palm oil was just sliced by 64% by the major food companies in Norway, after a campaign was launched by Rainforest Foundation Norway!
You can read more about the breakthrough here.
Keep supporting campaigns and causes you believe in!
Done it? Share it! Disagree? Discuss it!
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Bring it on! Just click on submit acts! to the left and send your actions and ideas. You can also send questions, thoughts and reflections on question solidarity.
Bex wrote:
#STOPKONYI’m asking all of my followers on my Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/BexLife) to “like”, tweet, or repost my link for the Kony 2012 video. For each “share”, I’ll donate $1 to the cause. Please help me drain my bank account ;) xo - Bex
Ranja wrote:
I write.
Most people in Norway, or Europe or the Western world, don’t know much about Africa, they don’t really care. And most of us are, sadly, misinformed on important matters. This bothers me and it bothers me deeply. So deeply, in fact, that I spend a lot of energy trying to spread different stories about Africa. I try to spread things I know through reading countless books and things I know through having lived in Tanzania for a few years.
For the most part I write.
I write blog posts and I put them out there in the world. You can’t force anyone to care, or to listen to or read your words. All you can do is put it out there and hope for the best.
Why is this so important to me?
In order for anyone to understand the world we are living in, we need to know what’s going on, and we need to know what has happened before, making things the way they are today. We need more knowledge to understand the world.
We need to respect other people. I strongly believe that all human beings are equal, but we are being fed a picture of Africans as somewhat less civilized than ourselves. This does not lead to respect.
There isn’t much I can do to correct all that is wrong in this picture, but I will do what little I can. If, say, one hundred people read a blog post where I talk about how tribes were, in large part, a colonial invention, maybe it can change the perspective of at least a few of them, at least a little bit, at least for a little while. It’s not much, but it’s something.
So I write.
Note: Please check out her blog Rotrock!
Shwan wrote:
I posted this map of Kurdistan on Facebook to protest their decision to sensor any support for the Kurdish people.
Dag wrote:
I used to work as a catering chef for film shoots, and whenever there was leftover food we would take home a big container, heat it and serve it to the homeless in my neighbourhood.
I also do graphic design, and designed the old website for Genser Uten Grenser, a project started by Leo who was in prison in India and experienced first hand what lack of warm clothing actually means. Friends, like myself, back in Norway collected 4 tons of second hand clothes and sent them to India where they were distributed. We all did this on a non-profit basis, naturally. This project has now grown, and is an active voluntary NGO.
Bertha-Cecilie wrote:
I signed this petition for the release of Nasrin Sotoudeh, imprisoned for defending women’s rights activists in Iran.
Karinella (yep, that’s me) wrote:
My simple act of solidarity was to shave my head when a friend of mine started chemotherapy and lost her hair. You can read the whole story under the post a simple act.
“Solidarity does not assume that our struggles are the same struggles, or that our pain is the same pain, or that our hope is for the same future. Solidarity involves commitment, and work, as well as the recognition that even if we do not have the same feelings, or the same lives, or the same bodies, we do live on common ground.” - Sara Ahmed
I believe that we are all connected. We are made out of the same stuff (dust if you’re poetic, particles if you’re scientific) and we live on the same planet. And even the planet itself is made out of the same primeval stuff. It’s really that simple. Maybe this is a childish view in its simplicity. That does not make it less valid. I sometimes wish our governments and leaders would think a bit more like children.
I also believe that what goes around, comes around. Violence tends to foster more violence. Luckily the same can be said for acts of kindness, of love and of empathy. My goal is to inspire acts of solidarity, that in turn will inspire more.
Historically, the word solidarity comes from French solidarité.
In 1840, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, declared:
“Equality of conditions is the law of society, and universal solidarity [solidarité] is the ratification of this law.“
It came into the English language in 1848.
Dictionary.com describes it thus:
Union or fellowship arising from common responsibilities and interests, as between members of a group or between classes, peoples etc.
I personally believe it is time to look beyond groups, classes and nationalities. Don’t get me wrong, as cultures, classes and peoples are continuing to be oppressed by their governments, it is highly necessary to extend solidarity to whole groups. And it is natural to feel solidarity with those you can identify with. But solidarity ventures even further than that. It involves giving support to strangers on their own terms.
What do you believe? What are your thoughts on solidarity? Please feel free to share in the comments below.
