World Food Day 2013

Three weeks ago I moved to London, UK to study Food Policy at City University. In the past few months I’ve been asked quite a few times what Food Policy was and why I was so interested in it. Today is World Food Day and I thought it would be a great occasion to write about my motivations for pursuing this field.

Five years ago, in my second year of university, I was introduced to the idea of “globalization” and commodity markets. For one of my assignments I had to study the global implications of a commodity which I used on a daily basis – I chose to look into sugar. This led to a domino effect of revelations about agricultural supply chains, the implications of international relations on trade, nutritional regulations, and the health outcomes of this web of processes which all affect consumer choice. I could not digest the idea that something as simple as our daily sugar intake was influenced by complex power relations, trade agreements, and national regulations (or lack thereof).

So what is food policy? Though I’ve had a thorough lecture on its history and current definition(s), my simple answer is that it’s a bit of everything. As my professor Tim Lang says, “It centres on decisions and actions which affect who eats, what, when, where and how”. While the field of Public Health might remove the pump handle in response to certain public health issues, I’m interested in more “upstream” policy solutions to these issues.

Last weekend I was lucky enough to attend a (quite intimate) three-hour workshop hosted by London Freedom Seed Bank with very special guest Vandana Shiva. She took us through the history and current status of the global fight against GMOs and efforts to preserve biodiversity (see her organization Navdanya’s report The GMO Emperor Has No Clothes), and talked about current threats to global food security. Vandana reminded us that no matter where we are in the world, it all comes down to freedom. Freedom to make autonomous choices about food, freedom from ignorance, and freedom from exploitation.

I'm here for food democracy: a fight to restore the freedom to be a responsible citizen and consumer. Think about it, how much power do you have over your daily food choices? 

As Karl Marx would remind us: formal freedom is the most subtle form of oppression ever created. 

Global citizens (of privilege)

My ears are always open to development discourse. I find it fascinating to listen to people from different academic and cultural backgrounds discuss development-related topics. Not necessarily to criticise but to try to understand why people think the way they do. I enjoyed every minute of the discourse sparked by the Kony 2012 campaign. And I have to admit I got involved in every related discussion and post I came across. What shapes the way we think, and most importantly, what shapes our perceptions of the world? That’s a question I’ve been asking myself for years in my quest for the true face of this concept we call ‘international development’.

My favourite critic of the Kony campaign was Teju Cole. He originally posted seven tweets about the White Saviour Industrial Complex and explained them in this article in The Atlantic. Invisible Children has posted a second video as a response to all the criticism they have been receiving. In this attempt at saving their campaign, one message stands out above all to me. Although indirectly stated, it is a message promoting ‘global citizenship’.

Does everybody in the world have the privilege of being a ‘global citizen’, though? Doesn’t this idea further advance the agenda of those taking advantage of global inequities to begin with? The Kony 2012 campaign reached a phenomenal number of people. Although flawed in its proposed solution to conflict, at least it has educated the masses on this issue… right? I find it problematic that such campaigns give people hope in their ability to ‘help’ others in less privileged areas of the world because in doing so, they are unknowingly supporting pillars which uphold strategic power structures. As Teju Cole says, the banality of sentimentality is dangerous.

The big unanswered question for me remains the following: can development-related discourse be redirected to the examination of our own governments’ national interests and foreign policies? A bit more support from the masses of do-gooders may be what is needed for a systemic change in global inequities. What would it take for this redirection to begin?

Occupy the World

Although I have only used this as a travel blog, my reference to borders was not intended to be limited to national or geographic ones. I want to start documenting my experiences and sharing my ideas as I try to make sense of this world and find my place in it. What has inspired me recently to begin to be more proactive in finding answers is a series of events in the past two weeks which all led me to one place: the Occupy Wall Street movement.

My Thanksgiving weekend was spent in the United States. I briefly stopped in New York City and Philadelphia where I had the chance to witness Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Philadelphia. The protests reminded me of the occupation of University of Vienna by students while I was on exchange there. The students were fighting for their right to free education as the government had been talking about imposing a fee on higher education in Austria. My perspective on the protests has drastically changed since then as I have become more aware of the issues surrounding post-secondary education here in Canada and of how apathetic and perhaps oppressed we actually are as a society. It was a breath of fresh air to see that something like this was gaining momentum in North America and that people were finally waking up and realizing they are not powerless.

Last Wednesday, I attended a talk with Judy Rebick which intended to focus on climate justice as social justice. Her conversation with Brigette DePape ended up touching on many issues pertaining to social and economic justice, including the Occupy Wall Street movement. Brigette brought up Judy's book Transforming Power and how relevant it is to this movement. Judy was delighted to see that somebody had picked up on that.

On Friday, I saw a documentary film called How to Start a Revolution at the One World Film Festival in Ottawa. It was the Canadian premiere of the film. It exposes Gene Sharp's writings on non-violent action against oppression and the use of his ideas in various resistance movements and revolutions around the world. A Q&A period with the director of the film followed. Again, the conversation in the end became about whether this was applicable to Occupy Wall Street. The answer was: very much so.

This all brought me here: on Saturday at noon I was at Confederation Park in Ottawa where the first general assembly of Occupy Ottawa was about to begin. The occupation became official by 3pm.

This movement is finally exposing people's frustrations with the social and economic inequalities they experience. I am deeply enthusiastic about it for its empowering and unifying nature and also because I am sick of living in an inherently unjust society where government and corporations do not represent the interests of the majority.

Jack, you were right.

Love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.

Wanderlust

Somebody told me a few weeks ago that coming back home only gets harder every time. It was at least reassuring to see I wasn't the only one having a hard time readjusting. The old is new again but still too familiar for comfort. I wonder whether having a new perspective will do me any good or will only further drive my dissatisfaction with the society in which I live.
The best way I can describe what my exchange abroad has given me is wanderlust, desire to wander or travel. That is what I hope to do with my studies and with my career, but for now I need to cope with the banality of routine. Paying more attention to my 'home' and noticing new aspects of it has kept me motivated, but that is not to say I can spend a day without reminiscing of my travels.

Deer in the Headlights

Prague. Is there anything authentic left about the major European capitals? It seems that most of the popular touristic cities have turned into museums for mass tourism. It's impossible to walk across the Charles Bridge without getting caught in a mob of tourists. A lot of the tourists in Prague come in couples or in big groups and take pictures at every step without really trying to understand what's around them. I've been hearing every language but Czech and sometimes I forget where I am. And as long as you're in the center no matter where you go, you're always caught in someone's picture like a deer in the headlights.

Spain

I miss Spain. I got so into my travels after Madrid that I didn't think of writing. My thoughts on the capital: more is less. Besides the art galleries and the huge Sunday market El Rastro, Madrid didn't impress me that much. Barcelona on the other hand was my favorite.

Partying every night in Barcelona, Gaudi, crazy Basques partying in the streets during carnaval all day and all night in San Sebastian, getting by with broken Spanish, the amazing sea and ocean views from castle ruins, world heritage sites like Segovia's old town, getting a burn from falling asleep under the Andalucian sun with a view of the Albayzin in Granada, all the people I met, the times we had, the stories we shared, and of course all the paellas, tapas and sangria...

Time of my life.

Spain, Chapter 1: Valencia

How am I going to leave this city? I started my backpacking trip two days ago in Alicante late at night. I woke up to an amazing view of a castle on a hill and to a narrow street with really cute houses. I took a 5 minute walk through the hilly centre onto the Mediterranean coast. Coming from Vienna it was unbelievable to be on the beach among palm trees and not having to wear a jacket in February. I got on the road right away and took an 11am train to Valencia. The third biggest city in Spain. It´s nothing like I imagined it to be. I walked through the whole city centre from the train station to my hostel and was on a natural high. It was a really sunny day, I had been been using nothing but Spanish, and the city was like nothing I had seen before. At first I had a strange feeling about it, like it wasn´t for me. But my mind has changed completely. Apart from the Valenciano dialect which I can´t understand (a dialect of Catalan, which is a dialect of Castellano or "standard Spanish"), I love everything about Valencia. Eating a traditional Valencian paella at an outdoor café in one of the many plazas, burning under the sun and wearing sunglasses in the middle of the winter, having tapas and sangría with other travellers in the middle of the day, getting fresh fruits for breakfast at the central market, taking a walk down the old river which is now a stretch of green space, being a part of the rhythm of the city, being pleasantly surprised by the juxtaposition of different architectural styles, getting lost among the narrow streets and stumbling upon cute shops... I´m not as excited as I should be for my next stop: Madrid.