Why be afraid of student environmental activism?

Opinion  |  Azly Rahman

Published: Today 1:27 am  |  Modified: Today 1:27 am

   

COMMENT | "Found in everything from shampoo to donuts, palm oil is now the most common vegetable oil in the world - and also one of the world's leading deforestation drivers...

"Palm oil is extracted from the fruit of the oil palm tree, Elaeis guineensis, which thrives in humid climates.

"The large majority of palm oil production occurs in just two countries, Malaysia and Indonesia, where huge swathes of tropical forests and peatlands (carbon-rich swamps) are being cleared to make way for oil palm plantations, releasing carbon into the atmosphere to drive global warming, while shrinking habitats for a multitude of endangered species. " – Union of Concerned Scientists, USA

If the orangutans could protest, they'd take over the Parliament, like the Hong Kongers, and demand a stop to palm-oil-related deforestation. Their habitat has been destroyed for decades, out of our greed to profit from the global market-driven economy.

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From Perak to Johor, Sabah to Sarawak, and massive parts of Indonesia, oil palm is threateningly rooted for miles. Threatening the well-being forests, the lungs of the earth.

Why the anger?

A couple of days ago a minister was angry with an international school for hosting a play depicting the plight of the orang utan. I was puzzled at the lack of understanding of the relationship between economy and sustainability and the idea of what a nation ought to care about.

Isn’t this what education for critical and ecological consciousness is all about? One that needs to be made a foundation of Malaysian public schools? In that the young are taught to take ownership of the future they wish to have, after the adults have plundered and destroyed the world?

Isn't this the way forward, better than all those petty statements and concerns over black shoes, and whether all school sessions need to start with doa selamat?

This statement of anguish concerning what the international school did signifies the inability to understand what a school is and the ideology that needs to govern the educational process. I thought our ministers know better about "environmental education", if not Deweyian, Freirian and Montessorian perspectives in education.

Where is all the talk about critical thinking by these parties who were in the Opposition then? Now everybody wants to become apologists for destructive paradigms of progress. We wish to have our 18-year-olds vote, assuming they are wise enough not to vote for polluters, corrupters, and race and religious haters.

I was involved in writing an English language textbook in 1990 and one of the topics covered in the syllabus was environmentalism, getting students to be aware of the destruction of the rainforests, poisoned rivers, global warming, and the depletion of the ozone layer.

Schools were encouraged to not only celebrate Earth Day, but to do research on the extinction of species of plants and animals, flora and fauna, as a consequence of human activities leading to the destruction of the rainforests. That was what the Ministry of Education then, wanted children to learn. Environmental activism and how to save the planet. Because there is no Planet B.

So, isn’t it puzzling to read that the ministry of primary industries and, ironically, the ministry of education, are ignorant of what ought to be taught in schools? I suppose the children in schools could do a better job telling the ministries what the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDG) is all .

Amongst the 17 goals agreed upon by all nations, including Malaysia, is the goal of ameliorating climate change and deforestation.

I suggest the two ministries educate themselves on the UN-SDGs, and have a dialogue with the children they are angry with.

Palm oil and eco-destruction

Malaysia and Indonesia, through their oil palm plantations, are the world's great deforesters. Rethink paradigm of progress! Talk about economic progress and a high-income nation bores us to death.

Who owns, who benefits, at whose expense - are key questions we need to ask. People are addicted to the language of progress, failing to see the human and ecological consequences. Masking plunder.

One must consider this: meaningful development is one "of the people, by the people, for the people". Not for the greedy and brutal few. Weak local government, lack of critical analysis - these prevent activism against eco-destruction. Remedy this!

Johor has always been a location of massive pollution and destruction of the environment, because we are blinded by "progress". People of Pasir Gudang should be very angry with the lack of urgent attention and action in the cases of poisoned rivers and air poisoned. "Pasir Gudang" itself is a strange name. As if the place is only worth as a location for unchecked industrialization.

Instead of merely pushing 18-year-olds to vote, get them to care about the environment. Why not get schoolchildren in Pasir Gudang, Johor to do research on the ownership of the factories that pollute and poison.

Our universities need to start teaching how to analyze controlling interests and how politicians and businesspersons control the economy. Of the vast plantations that do not produce food. Of the trees cut down for the logging industry. These enrich politicians and capitalists. Who cares if the natives suffer and die, if the orangutans lose their habitat, and the country gets hotter and the air fouler?

The idea of "controlling interests" is applicable here, through the crafting of projects, the approving of contracts, leading to rent-seeking. The idea of developmental paradigm, as subscribed by those in political power, entails the inception of a project approved by the government, leading to family and dynastic interests taking shape, form, and root. Empires run by political leaders define the nature of control.

Learn from them

Learn from the schoolchildren who are trying to raise awareness of what is dear to us: the natural world. Reforestation is not the best way to slow down environmental destruction. Having the political will to preserve our rainforests – the lungs of our earth, the provider of oxygen, the habitat of the species we live with symbiotically – these are some of the major concerns we need to work on.

Strange things are happening in this new regime. Let us not promote ignorance and mistake children’s concern for the future as “propaganda”. In fact, the ideology of palm oil production can be considered a system of political-economic propaganda. Of progress that is not trickling down. A disease of corporate-crony capitalism.