Articles on Ecosocialism
Articles on Ecosocialism
The Declaration of K’oari
December 4, 2018(translated from the original Spanish by Ecosocialist Horizons) (en castellano abajo) In the community of K’oari and the municipality of Tiraque, in the department of Cochabamba of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, from November 14-18 of 2018, we the people of the indigenous, original and campesino nations gathered: Mapuches from Chile, Mayas of the Committee of Campesino Development of Guatemala, Yaqui from Mexico, Kurds from Mesopotamia, Seneca and Mohawk of the Haudenosaunee Confederation from North America, Watershed Schools who Sow…
Reflections on the Founding of the First Ecosocialist International
September 5, 2018by Quincy Saul (A shorter version of this essay first appeared on Radical Ecological Democracy, edited by Pallav Das) In times of global nightmares, there is good news! Through the gauntlet of world war and mass extinction, the message arrives: in a maroon municipality in the mountains of the Venezuelan northwest, one hundred delegates from five continents came to consensus and made a covenant with Mother Earth, registered in a combined strategy and a 500 year plan of planetary action….
¡Somos Locos!
June 22, 2018By Kanya D’Almeida It’s quite impossible to tell the story of a place, or a moment, to those who have not been there, or might not want to go. For instance, I’d like to tell people that in November 2017, over a hundred people came together in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to launch a new International. From 19 countries representing 5 continents, from Kurdistan to Kenya, from 12 indigenous nations, from 3 quilombo/Maroon villages, from every corner of the…
Jackson Convergence Report: The First Ecosocialist International Takes Root and Makes Routes on Turtle Island
June 4, 2018“The First EcoSocialist International: What it is and why you should join” — video documentary introduction and initiation into the Jackson Convergence produced by Reel News. (Scroll down for more videos from the convergence!) The First Ecosocialist International Takes Root and Makes Routes on Turtle Island by Quincy Saul, June 2018 It began last year, when movements and organizations from around the world heard the Cry of Mother Earth. Answering this call, delegates from five continents gathered in a maroon…
JOEL KOVEL, IN MEMORIAM
June 1, 2018by Michael Löwy The passing away of Joel Kovel is a great loss not only for us, his friends and collaborators, but for the broad international ecosocialist movement, of which he was a towering pioneer. I first met Joel at an International Marxist Conference at the University of Nanterre (Paris) , convened in 2001 by my friends of the Journal Actuel Marx. We immediately sympathised, and found a common interest : the urgent need to bring together the “Red” and…
Remembering Comrade Joel Kovel
May 21, 2018REMEMBERING COMRADE JOEL KOVEL by Salvatore Engel-DiMauro Welcome to Golgonooza (1), Joel Stephen Kovel (27 August 1936 – 30 April 2018) Losing a dear friend is scarring and leaves an unfillable void. Joel was (or, rather, is, for he will live among us in other ways) an open, thorough, and independent thinker; an ecosocialist luminary; a fountain of practicable political ideas; a committed Marxist Christian revolutionary; an anti-Zionist activist; and among the most sensitive, understanding, perspicacious, and generous people I…
The Emergence of Ecosocialism
May 14, 2018Photo above: Joel Kovel in Durban, South Africa in 2011. The essay below was first written as a communique to introduce his book “The Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism or the End of the World?” (Zed Books, 2007) to ecosocialist comrades in Latin America. It is published here on the Ecosocialist Horizons website for the first time. by JOEL KOVEL New York City, March 2, 2017 The Enemy of Nature was first published in 2001, and reissued in…
The First Ecosocialist International: Combined Strategy and Plan of Action
December 19, 2017THE FIRST ECOSOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL: WEAVING OURSELVES TO MOTHER EARTH October 31 – November 3, 2017, Cumbe of Veroes, Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (Download the Combined Strategy and Plan of Action of the First Ecosocialist International here.) (Descarga la Estrategia y Plan de Accion Conjunto de la Primera Internacional Ecosocialista aqui.) It has been one year since “The Calling of the Spirits” in Monte Carmelo, Lara, when, with spirited minds and seeds in our hearts, we initiated a convocation titled “The…
The First Ecosocialist International is Born!
November 12, 2017THE FIRST ECOSOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL WEAVING OURSELVES TO MOTHER EARTH OCTOBER 31 – NOVEMBER 3, 2017 CUMBE OF VEROES, BOLIVARIAN REPUBLIC OF VENEZUELA En castellano aqui… Follow us on facebook here… It has been one year since “The Calling of the Spirits” in Monte Carmelo, Lara, when with spirited minds and seeds in our hearts, we launched a convocation titled “The Cry of Mother Earth.” Those who responded to this cry are now here: around 100 people from 17 countries and…
La Declaración De Arusha
July 18, 2017(¡Aqui por primera vez traducido a castellano! Click here to access this text in English.) Escrito por Julius Nyerere; para la Tanganyika African National Union, 5 Febrero 1967 La Declaración de Arusha y la política de TANU sobre Socialismo y Autosuficiencia PARTE UNO: El Credo de TANU La política de TANU es construir un estado socialista. Los Principios del Socialismo que establece la Constitución del TANU son los siguientes: POR CUANTO TANU cree: (a) Que todos los seres humanos son…
¿Sentimos? (Did we feel it?)
May 31, 2017from Kanya D’Almeida Did we feel it? The earth trembled. In the places where no one is looking or listening, something is moving. It moves quietly and without fuss. Lento Pero Avanzo — slowly it advances. Did we feel it? In those hidden places of the world a hundred thousand footsteps shook the earth and it trembled at its core. Did it go undetected? Did the rot of the West stifle the tremors? Did the cancerous music and the tumorous…
Liberating Life: Woman’s Revolution
February 14, 2017by ABDULLAH ÖCALAN (reposted with permission from The International Initiative) 1. Foreword The question of women’s freedom has intrigued me throughout my life. While at first I viewed the enslavement of women in the Middle East and in general as the result of feudal backwardness, after many years of revolutionary practice and research I came to the conclusion that the problem goes much deeper. The 5000-year-old history of civilisation is essentially the history of the enslavement of woman. Consequently, woman’s…
The Cry of Mother Earth: Call to the First Ecosocialist International
November 30, 2016(en castellano aqui) Scroll down to the bottom for Chinese translation! The Cry of Mother Earth! for the ancestors who, with their lives and struggles, plowed the spirit and the strength of what we now call ecosocialism … CALL TO THE FIRST ECOSOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL! REWEAVING PANGAEA (The spirits live, the magic continues) Sanare, Lara, The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela October 31 – November 3, 2017 The mourning of Mother Earth calls us. Her cry resounds within us. It is ours….
Resurgent Mexico
August 1, 2016originally published by Counterpunch on July 25, 2016 Now with photos by the author. by Quincy Saul “Did you hear it? It is the sound of their world collapsing. It is the sound of ours resurging.” – Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos, December 2012e Mexico is living and dying for the sins of the global economy. The price of cheap clothes, cheap drugs and cheap labor is paid by the hundreds of thousands dead and disappeared in the last decade alone. From…
Declaration of the Sixth Congress of Biological Diversity
January 11, 2016Seeds for Life and Food Sovereignty October 8-12, 2015, Carobobo, Venezuela (Translated by Quincy Saul, Ecosocialist Horizons) United and reunited in the Sixth Venezuelan Congress of Biological Diversity, in the state of Carobobo, hosted by the Aldea Heroes de Canaima 4F, from the 8th to the 12th of October, we discussed and debated the seed, as an essential element for the defense of life and food sovereignty. We took up the continuation of debates from previous congresses for the construction…
The Real Walking Dead
January 11, 2016by Russell Maroon Shoatz November 20, 2015 This article first appeared on the website of the International Campaign to Free Russell Maroon Shoatz, here. If you have not accepted that we are experiencing a mass extinction, like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs, then count yourself amongst The Real Walking Dead. Admittedly, this is a subject that is so mind-boggling, even those who are courageous enough to face the fact that there is an almost airtight scientific case leaving…
International Rights of Nature Tribunal Constituted in Paris
December 11, 2015PRESS RELEASE – 7 December 2015 Introduction In an extraordinary display of global solidarity, vision and determination, communities and organizations from all over the world took the initiative this past weekend by formally establishing the International Tribunal for the Rights of Nature. People flocked to the Maison des Metallos in Paris to listen to more than 65 people from 31 nationalities1 speaking in 7 languages2, who participated as judges, Earth Defenders, or witnesses during the two days of Tribunal hearings….
African Women Unite Against Destructive Resource Extraction
October 28, 2015OCTOBER 2015 DECLARATION WoMin African Gender and Extractives Alliance The WoMin African Gender and Extractives Alliance convened this gathering in partnership with Kebetkache Women’s Development and Resource Centre, Home of Mother Earth Foundation, Centre for Children’s Health Education, Orientation and Protection, and Environmental Rights Action. African Women Uniting for Energy, Food and Climate Justice! is a regional gathering of more than 60 women activists (and some men allies) from Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe. This…
Declaration of the Fifth Congress of Biological Diversity
September 4, 2015Maracaibo, July 21-26, 2014, Bolivarian University of Venezuela Translated and with footnotes by Quincy Saul, with Javier Sethness-Castro, Ecosocialist Horizons. (En español aqui) In defense of life, we are reunited at the Fifth Venezuelan Congress of Biological Diversity, in the Bolivarian University of Venezuela, in the city of Maracibo, in the state of Zulia, from July 21-26. We debate the territorial dimension of our struggle, as a continuation of the experiences from the Fourth Congress, in which we put forward…
The View from Mount Olympus
July 6, 2015(this interview originally appeared on Counterpunch, July 5, 2015) (view of Mt. Olympus from Christos Kakkalos, photo by Mikhalis Styllas) Interview with Mikhalis Styllas by QUINCY SAUL All eyes on Hellas! It seems that all the problems and solutions of the 21st century devolve today upon the people of Greece. Have the people who invented democracy been reduced to a choice between poverty and austerity? Or can the current crisis be an opportunity to reclaim lost visions and values? Some…
The Awakening of Economics
May 11, 2015(This article was first published by Telesur.) by Quincy Saul (1) We are living in the dark ages of economics. The origin of economics, as articulated in ancient Greece, was a vision of agrarian estate management, which revered the farmer and counseled care for the land. What a long strange trip it’s been! By the end of the year, the richest 1 percent will own more than the rest of the world combined. The sixth mass extinction is underway, and…
Call for Climate Satyagraha!
November 3, 2014(“Resisting the War on Mother Earth and Reclaiming Our Home” — Ecosocialist Horizons and War Resisters International in Cape Town.) Climate Satyagraha! The Crisis, The Calling, The Strategy and The Horizon This document emerged from an invitation to discussion put forward by Ecosocialist Horizons at the first PanAfrican conference on nonviolence in Cape Town, South Africa in July 2014, where delegates and representatives from 34 African countries and over 50 countries from every continent helped give birth to the PanAfrican…
Dehradun Declaration of Forest Peoples
October 31, 2014[This declaration emerged from a gathering in June 2009, where adivasis, forest workers and other forest peoples from 16 states of India came together to unite their common struggles and visions.] 12 June 2009 During the process of enactment of the Forests Right Act (in 2006), the National Forum for Forest People’s and Forest Workers (NFFPFW) passed two important resolutions in the second National Conference held at Ranchi: 1) Establishment of community governance over forest resources 2) To resist commodification…
Declaration of the Fourth Congress of Biological Diversity
October 30, 2014(The following document was drafted and revised in an assembly of hundreds of people on the last day of the Fourth Congress of Biological Diversity, Paraguana, Venezuela. Photo Quincy Saul/Ecosocialist Horizons) (Translated from Spanish to English by Quincy Saul) En español aqui: Declaratoria+final+IV+CVDB+-+Falcon+2013 IV Venezuelan Congress of Biological Diversity Falcon, June 23-28, 2013 In struggle for the defense of life, we are reunited at the Fourth Venezuelan Congress of Biological Diversity, on the Peninsula of Paraguana, in the state of…
“The Transition to Ecosocialism”
October 30, 2014Transcript of speech by Quincy Saul, June 26, 2013 IV Congress of Biological Diversity: “Dibujando Nuestro Ecosocialismo” (Drawing Our Ecosocialism) Paraguana, Falcon, Lara, Venezuela (scroll down for videos) Thank you so much for inviting and receiving me. It is a tremendous honor to be invited to this congress. It is an honor not only to be in Venezuela, but to be here in Paraguana, to be a small part of the noble history of struggle against imperialism which began here…
SANARE ECOSOCIALISTA!
October 29, 2014Today, on October 29th, in the mountain towns of Monte Carmelo and Sanare, Venezuela, people from around the world are coming together for the annual gathering of The Guardians of Seeds. Two years ago, this international gathering produced a document titled “The Declaration of Monte Carmelo,” a declaration which resonated around the world, sowing far-seeing vision and concrete practices throughout the global ecosocialist movement. When Ecosocialist Horizons translated this declaration into English, we were subsequently invited to Venezuela to attend…
The Lima Ecosocialist Declaration
October 6, 2014Declaration of the Ecosocialist International Network before COP20 in Lima, Peru (December 2014) (Translated by Quincy Saul for Ecosocialist Horizons, affiliate of the Ecosocialist International Network. In Spanish below. En espanol abajo. ) Our lives are worth more than their profits! The imminent climate crisis that we confront today is a grave threat to the preservation of life on the planet. Many academic and political works have confirmed the fragility of life on earth to temperature change. Only a few…
An Ecosocialist Horizon for Venezuela: A Solar Communist Horizon for the World
October 5, 2014By David Schwartzman and Quincy Saul The following paper was written for the “Moving Beyond Capitalism” Conference, which took place Jul. 29-Aug. 5, 2014 at the Center for Global Justice, San Miguel De Allende, Mexico. Read the full paper here. En español aqui:Horizonte Ecosocialista para Venezuela, Schwartzman y Saul 2015 Video from the presentation of this proposal at CELARG, Caracas, Venezuela, November 2016 Below, a brief introduction: PART I. INTRODUCTION: THE WORLD ON THE BRINK OF DOOM; GREAT BIFURCATION Humanity…
Truth and Dare: A Comic Book Curriculum for the End & the Beginning of the World
February 3, 2014“Truth and Dare: The world is ending, and the revolution has begun!” “Truth and Dare” is a comic book and a curriculum, a graphic novel and a gateway to further knowledge and action. With fifty pages of illustrations from nine different world-class artists, and a ten page curriculum and resource list, it is a crash course in world history, political economy, sociology, gender studies, ecology, climate change and the world-wide ecosocialist struggle for humanity and nature in the 21st century….
The Troy Declaration of Ecosocialist Vision and Theory
November 3, 2013The Troy Declaration of Ecosocialist Vision and Theory Troy, New York, March 2013 For three days in Troy, over a hundred people gathered for the third North American ecosocialist convergence, facilitated by Ecosocialist Horizons and hosted by The Sanctuary for Independent Media. A group of about twenty people, representing over a dozen organizations and from a handful of different countries, gathered for five hours in the loft of Troy Bike Rescue to share ideas and proposals with the goal of…
Declaration of Convergence
September 12, 2013Barton Vermont, 2012. By Quincy Saul In August of 2012, in the one of the most beautiful and most poor parts of the state of Vermont, a group of about forty dissidents, young and old, with the help of the Bread and Puppet Theater, gathered on a hilltop for three days and nights. From near (Vermont, New York, Maine) and quite far (New Orleans, Chicago, Toronto) they came together, in the gauntlet of the end of the world, to talk…
Ecosocialism as a Human Phenomenon
August 3, 2013~by Joel Kovel~ This was delivered as the Keynote Address at the International Ecosocialist Conference Quito, Ecuador, June 2013 (modified, July 2013) Dedicated to Chico Mendes We live in an epoch of radical crisis. From the economic side, we see intractable stagnation and vicious class polarization. And from another side, which I shall call the ecological, we find that the dominant system of production appears hell-bent on destroying the natural foundations of civilization as it thrashes about in response to…
Building an Ecosocialist Network in Quebec
July 2, 2013Introduction: The Genesis of Quebec’s Réseau écosocialiste, By Roger Rashi. Réseau écosocialiste, a Quebec-based network of ecosocialists, was founded at a meeting in Montreal on March 9th 2013. Initiated by three recognized socialist collectives in the left-wing party Québec solidaire (QS) -Masse critique, Gauche socialiste and International Socialists- the network has now over 150 members with regional committees established in Montreal and Quebec City. While the Réseau operates as an informal tendency in QS, a majority of its members are…
Foundations of an Ecosocialist Strategy
June 11, 2013~ by Daniel Tanuro (Translated by Richard Fidler) Contrary to the false but extremely popular Easter Island metaphor advanced by Jared Diamond,[1] the environmental deterioration we are now observing is not at all comparable to the damage that may have occurred in previous historical periods. The differences are not only quantitative (the seriousness and global scale of ecological problems) but also and above all qualitative. While all the environmental crises of the past stemmed from social tendencies to chronic under-production, hence…
The Movement of Homo Sapiens Against Homo Sapiens to Save Homo Sapiens
June 6, 2013~ by Ivan Marovic, 2012 ~ In the year that is behind us (2011), we have witnessed an unprecedented upheaval around the world: Arab Spring in the Middle East, the rise of Indignados in Spain, and protests in Wisconsin followed by Occupy Wall Street in the United States, just to name a few. In each of these cases, people took to the streets to express their grievances and protest the current order of things. Some of these uprisings made significant…
Prospects for Eco-Socialism
May 25, 2013~ by Saral Sarkar I. The Question In Beijing, one of the listeners of my lecture on Eco-Socialism said after hearing me that he was fully convinced, but, he asked, “When will eco-socialism come?” It was a very difficult question, a short answer to which was not possible. I only answered that I was not an astrologer. It was, however, an interesting question, though not exactly in this form. It is better to ask: what are the prospects for eco-socialism?…
The Monte Carmelo Declaration
May 5, 2013The First International Congress of the Guardians of Seeds, October 26-29, 2012 Monte Carmelo, Sanare, Lara, Venezuela [Translated from Spanish by Quincy Saul and Salvatore Engel-DiMauro of Ecosocialist Horizons at the request and on behalf of our Bolivarian comrades. We believe that this is a historic text and a beautiful articulation of ecosocialism, which will resonate globally in the years to come, and are thus very honored to present here its first translation into English.] More than 300 people, belonging…
Prison Abolition as an Ecosocialist Struggle
March 27, 2013~by Salvatore Engel-DiMauro. “With all our boasted reforms, our great social changes, and our far- reaching discoveries, human beings continue to be sent to the worst of hells, wherein they are outraged, degraded, and tortured, that society may be “protected” from the phantoms of its own making. Prison, a social protection? What monstrous mind ever conceived such an idea? Just as well say that health can be promoted by a widespread contagion.” (Emma Goldman 1917, 71-72) Opened in 1989, Pelican…
Ecosocialism and Spirituality
March 15, 2013(by Frei Betto and Michael Löwy) In Memoriam: They gave their lives for the Amazonian forest and the Peoples of the Forest: Chico Mendes and Dorothy Stang. We would like to start our conference here at the World Social Forum of Belem with a homage to two personalities of high human quality, which gave their lives for the defense of the Amazonian forest, and the Peoples of the Forest: Chico Mendes e Dorothy Stang. They are the best known, the…
Religion, Spirituality and Socialism
April 8, 2012By Joel Kovel [This essay is a revised version of a lecture at St. Mary's Church in Harlem, 2008] The United States was born in a storm of religious innovation. Each of the 13 original colonies had a distinct religious profile, generally a mix of Christian denominations and a wild degree of often-utopian experimentation. The Founding Fathers, fearful that one faction could take over and install a repressive established religion, built in the strong protection of the First Amendment against…
The Future Will Be Ecosocialist – Because Without Ecosocialism There Will Be No Future
November 27, 2011~by Joel Kovel~ Socialism was originally seen as victory in a struggle for justice. The proletarians, concluded the Communist Manifesto, “have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. WORKING MEN[sic] OF ALL COUNTRIES UNITE!” All this remains true. Working women and men continue to suffer exploitation, in the workplace and throughout a society ruled by capitalism’s money-power. Structural unemployment, along with increasing divisions of wealth and poverty, the curse of indebtedness and the militarism of…
Five Theses on Ecosocialism
November 25, 2011~by Joel Kovel ~ 1. Ecosocialism signifies a revolutionary response to an unprecedented crisis of world-historical proportion, though one with ancient roots. We live in times of extraordinary turbulence, marked by the intersection of two types of crisis. From one side, a persistent crisis of capital accumulation marked by declining rates of profit and a monstrous degree of financialization, adding layers of indebtedness, widespread insecurity, foreclosures and the inevitable bursting of bubbles. A fresh outbreak of class warfare has followed…
Joel Kovel at Occupy Wall Street
November 25, 2011Part I: Joel Kovel’s Remarks on Youtube Part II: Question & Answer on Youtube Transcript I am honored to be here this evening, because you are the light of the world. I’m not saying this to flatter, but because we have to understand it deeply. Your genius has been to seize upon the emerging hopes of humanity – and give them a form of realization. Now you are on the threshold of a world-transforming process, and you must decide whether…
What is Wall Street?
November 25, 2011~ by Quincy Saul and Joel Kovel ~ The question is both simple and complex. On every continent, in every city, even in the most remote rural villages, the power and influence of Wall Street are known and felt. But what is it exactly? Wall Street is a symbol and a system. But to fully understand what it is and what it represents, we have to learn its history… Wall Street was originally a wall, built by the first colony…
Marx and Ecology
November 25, 2011Ecology Joel Kovel I. Introduction The triumphalism generated by the collapse of the Soviet system in the late 1980s seemed to toss the figure of Karl Marx, capital’s prime nemesis, into the proverbial dustbin of history. Having beaten back the spectre of communism, the ideologues of capital even proclaimed that not just Marxism, but history itself had come to an end. A generation later, the tables appear to be reversed. We are now compelled to recognize the distinct possibility that…
An Ecosocialist Credo
November 1, 2011by Joel Kovel The capitalist system, ruler of the world for a half-millennium, is in profound crisis. It staggers toward oblivion, bringing both nature and society down with it. We must recognize that capitalism cannot be reformed in any meaningful sense, any more than cancer can be made to go away with diet, massage and aspirin. Indeed, capitalism is a cancer upon the earth and a monster within humanity. Its raison d’etre is the production and unlimited accumulation of value,…
Final Declaration of the World Conference of Peoples on Climate Change
April 22, 2010Final Declaration on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, Cochabamba, Bolivia Today, our Mother Earth is wounded and the future of humanity is in danger. If global warming increases by more than 2 degrees Celsius, a situation that the “Copenhagen Accord” could lead to, there is a 50% probability that the damages caused to our Mother Earth will be completely irreversible. Between 20% and 30% of species would be in danger of disappearing. Large extensions of forest would…
The Belem Ecosocialist Declaration
January 7, 2009by Joel Kovel and Michael Lowy Distributed at the World Social Forum in Belem, Brazil, January 2009 “The world is suffering from a fever due to climate change, and the disease is the capitalist development model.” — Evo Morales, president of Bolivia, September 2007 Humanity’s Choice Humanity today faces a stark choice: ecosocialism or barbarism. We need no more proof of the barbarity of capitalism, the parasitical system that exploits humanity and nature alike. Its sole motor is the imperative…
The Sixth Declaration of the Selva Lacondona
June 7, 2006Zapatista Army of National Liberation, Mexico, June 2005. This is our simple word which seeks to touch the hearts of humble and simple people like ourselves, but people who are also, like ourselves, dignified and rebel. This is our simple word for recounting what our path has been and where we are now, in order to explain how we see the world and our country, in order to say what we are thinking of doing and how we are thinking…
An Ecosocialist Manifesto
September 8, 2001The idea for this ecosocialist manifesto was jointly launched by Joel Kovel and Michael Lowy, at a September, 2001, workshop on ecology and socialism held at Vincennes, near Paris. We all suffer from a chronic case of Gramsci’s paradox, of living in a time whose old order is dying (and taking civilization with it) while the new one does not seem able to be born. But at least it can be announced. The deepest shadow that hangs over us is…
