I work with the Global Water Justice Movement, which is fighting against the commodification, privatization, corporatization of the world’s water. We have been having great successes; we have been pushing back in many places. But still, when I look at the overall situation around the world’s water, I am not encouraged. Of course we know it is a critical issue. When we are talking about global warming, we are also talking about water. When were talking about the neo-liberal agenda, we are also talking about water. When we talk about needless death due to preventable disease, we are talking about water. When we talk about human dignity, we are talking about water. Peoples’ ability to feed their families, to bathe their children, women’s abilities to go to school instead of having to walk kilometres with kilos of water on their heads. These are all related to the struggle around water. As is our relationship to the planet, our environments, and our governing structures. All of this comes together in our water struggles.

The issue of putting the word “regain” in the title of this workshop is very profound for me, because it suggests we have lost something. It is ours, we have lost something that is very dear to us. We have lost control of our will, our democracies, our engagement with our governments to do the right things. We’ve lost control of life itself in a way, our ability to protect life both for nature and for the most vulnerable in our societies. This to me implies that we are in continuous struggle because the forces that are allied to try to take away these rights that we have, to take away our resources for their own profit will not stop until we can find models, and find the means to unequivocally say, this is the end of these types of raping and pillaging of our lands and the people.

I am pleased to be speaking in Africa. It is the continent of my birth, and it is also a part of the world that deserves to have more voice. We in the Water Justice Movement have seized the opportunity of being in Africa to launch what we hope will be a very strong African water network, that will stand along side the America’s water network of Red Vida and stand in solidarity with the global struggles that are going on right now and the networks that exist already. The backdrop for the idea of regaining control of our resources is twofold. On one hand, we have the ideological struggle around who makes decisions around water and other natural resources. We know that this is a struggle between the neo-liberal agenda, the corporations, those who would profit off of water, and the people who are struggling for their own dignity and control of their futures and livelihoods. We know the struggles in places like Cochabamba. You may have heard about the struggle of women in Plachamanda,(?) India against Coca-Cola and the victories that have happened there. We know, possibly, in Tanzania Biwater, a large UK company, was kicked out for not fulfilling their promises. These are all important struggles. South Africa is a very important struggle for us all.

In the backdrop of the struggle of the debate between the public and the private, the commons and the profit, we have an undeniable global water crisis. The scale of that crisis is overwhelming. If we think of a third of the population of the world living in water scarcity. If we think of every 8 seconds a child dying needlessly from preventable water born disease. If we think of, on this trajectory, by 2025, two thirds of the world will live in water scarcity. This is without even talking about sanitation and the implications of disease around not having proper sanitation. If we talk about the depletion of our groundwater, these ancient fossil aquifers, that are not being allowed to recharge, that are being drained by corporations and for bottled water, and look at the consequences of that. And then realize that also the surface water is eroded and polluted, and that can never be recovered. For example, the damage done to the lakes in Africa; of the 677 lakes in Africa, all of them are under threat of being turned into swampland by what’s going on. All of these are linked. We are all in this together.

These struggles, and the consequences to our environment from the rapacious capitalism, which, unfortunately, we all have a hand in, in one way or another, and have to use that to stop this plunge into the abyss are going to be long lasting, and we are at a critical moment. We have two paths. We have a path of economic, environmental and social justice, and we have a path of continued gaps and continued us and them, bottom and top conflicts, and have and have-nots. That path, the path we are on right now will inevitably lead to more desperation, more conflict, more death, more war, and a world that is in more chaos. The other path is there, it’s ours to develop and create. The path of another world is possible. It is the one that we must choose. We have no choice, ultimately, if we want survival not only for ourselves, but for all life on this planet. The debate around water really is a reflection of the larger debates that we must engage in. If we are able to be successful in the struggle around water, and I’m confident that we will, what it does is it changes the nature of our relationship to each other through democratization and participatory management systems, and it changes the nature of our relationship to the planet.

(small amount of missed material due to tape change)

The world economic forum is beginning in Davos today. The world social forum is being covered by CNN and every other major network is covering it. There are some people from the World Economic Forum are going to be here. Former head of Suez, representatives from Suez, and the World Bank will be talking about the issue of the right to water. The companies are using our language, and co-opting our concepts and they are beginning to say, yes there is a right to water, and we are agents in achieving that right and that we demand to have access to countries that cannot fulfil giving people water, and we will put in nice shiny pipes with public water dollars from World Bank and with the assistance of the United Nations and northern governments. They want to crack and open up more opportunities for their shareholders.

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The speeches from Regaining Control of the Commons: WSF 2007 are provided for information and educational purposes. The transcription has been undertaken on a volunteer basis. Due to resource limitations we are unable to provide a complete transcription. We apologise for the breaks in the text.

Disclaimer: The view in this and the other articles do not (neccessarily) represent the position or views of Friends of the Earth Australia nor Friends of the Earth International.