Tourism normally entails travel for relaxation or leisure, to some
scenic spot or a place celebrated for its cultural heritage - and
generates some splendid literature. But there are also contrarians who
go to the other extreme - visiting the world's most polluted areas, or
where fruits of globalisation have conspicuously turned sour - and
present vivid but disturbing accounts of what unbridled "development"
and rapacious commercial interests seeking to serve the global consumer
society's insatiable demand are doing to the planet and luckless
communities.
These unlikely tourists cover a wide spectrum - from journalists to a stand-up comic/political satirist.
Mark
Thomas, who teamed up his ability to make people laugh with making them
aware of things sought to be hidden such as loopholes in Western laws
which enable rogue states obtain arms in "As Used on the Famous Nelson
Mandela: Underground Adventures in the Arms and Torture Trade" (2006),
seeks to investigate stories the world's most well-known drink doesn't
mention in its iconic advertising campaigns in "Belching Out the Devil:
Global Adventures with Coca-Cola" (2008).
This venture takes him
to eight countries across four continents - beginning from its corporate
headquarters in Atlanta to Colombia, Turkey and Ireland to meet trade
union leaders alleging victimisation, El Salvador, to investigate issues
of child labour on sugar plantations which supply the company, India,
where the cola faced various charges including rampant ground water
depletion in Rajasthan, exposing workers (and communities around) to
toxic chemicals in Kerala and of harmful residues in the product and
Mexico to probe claims of unfair trade practices and pollution. And also
the nearly surrealistic experiences in seeking responses from company
officials.
Sweatshops in developing countries producing iconic
brands and other products for affluent - mainly western - societies had
evoked quite an outcry and led to "ethical consumerism". Named after
Britain' Ethical Consumer cooperative, this venture, which includes such
agencies as Fairtrade and Rainforest Alliance, seeks to enable buyers
with a social conscience choose products meeting standards concerning
treatment and earnings of the workers/raw material producers,
environmental impact and so on.
Does this make any difference on
the ground is what Conor Woodman seeks to find out. In "Unfair Trade:
The Shocking Truth Behind 'Ethical' Business" (2011), the former
financial analyst travels to a number of developing countries and his
seven case studies uncompromisingly reveal the inequity of the global
market regardless of certification.
In Nicaragua's Miskito coast,
Woodman meets lobster hunters who supply to the American market and
make hazardous deep dives to catch lobsters, instead of trapping them as
the US companies want - and claim - because of lack of resources. And
these people cannot afford to eat lobsters themselves.
Among
other places he visits are China's Pearl River Delta - the hub for
assembling electronic gadgets coveted by people worldwide - to see what
effect the mind-numbing, repetitive work has on young workers and their
desire for education, and over the border to Laos, where a large
province has been effectively handed over to the Chinese for sprawling
rubber plantations and the people moved out.
Then it's to
war-torn Congo, which produces minerals needed for mobile phones and
computers, to see the primitive way they are mined and the dodgy way
they are exported. The next is Afghanistan and its opium and Woodman
lucidly explains why the crop is chosen for farmers as well as a viable
solution.
Ethical certification is revealed to be mostly a
marketing tool for most big corporations costing them quite less as
commodity prices set are below global prices. There are also exceptions
where companies can be competitive and profitable and yet be fair to the
third world.
American journalist and film-maker Andrew
Blackwell's "Visit Sunny Chernobyl: And Other Adventures in the World's
Most Polluted Place" (2013) is self-obvious.
Apart from the
radioactive zone around the Soviet-era reactor in Ukraine, these include
Canada's Alberta province where oil extraction from tar sands has left
the terrain like a lunar landscape, the oil refineries of Port Arthur in
Texas, a permanently smog-shrouded Chinese town and one where old
computers and mobiles are broken down for components (including by
eight-year-olds), the former forests of Amazon basin where soya farming
is under way (and a Greenpeace deal with a MNC did not leave local
environmentalists satisfied), a garbage patch in the North Pacific and
finally, the Yamuna river in and around Delhi.
What makes
Blackwell's lighthearted account effective is compassionate, nuanced
portrayal of local residents while not treating their story as a mere
human vs nature battle but something more complex.
All these
writers make a credible case against the needless consumerism
characterising most modern societies, though most products are not
necessary for any extra quality of life. But it doesn't seem to have
bothered many people!
(22.02.2015 - Vikas Datta is an Associate
Editor at IANS. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at
[email protected])
