Against Biotechnology!
Arm The Spirit
Fiery Viruses Communique
In the night of 10/11 August 1992, a field of genetically
manipulated corn was destroyed in Rilland, Holland. At the same
time, an agricultural exhibition on bio-engineering at the
four-yearly Floriade was 'dismantled'. These actions were claimed
by the Vurige Virussen, the 'Fiery Viruses'. The following is a
reprint of their communique.
With the help of bio-engineering, a handful of multi-
nationals want to capture a monopoly on life and award their own
practices with oppression and exploitation both here and in the
Three Continents.
Four years after the first Dutch field experiments started
with genetically manipulated plants, the group called 'Ziedende
Bintjes' opened the weeding season in the summer of '89. A year
later, the 'Woendende Excorts' followed their example (at two
places in the same time), and in 1991 the 'Rasende Rooiers'
(Raging Diggers) dug up potatoes and corn plants at three
different locations. Next to the direct damage (of about a few
hundred-thousand guilders) the actions especially opened room in
the press for groups with arguments against bio-technology and
thereby got the issue on the 'political agenda' (something groups
hardly succeeded in before). One periodical of the bio-
engineering lobby wrote: "The ruining of the field experiments
(...) emphasizes the necessity of a much broader base of support:
therefore the establishement of a wide-ranging and publicly
working commission which goes into the more social questions is
desirable" (From "Biotechnologie in Nederland" 1990 - 4). The
bio-engineering lobby is really putting their back into it, at
the level of the E.C. as well as in Holland, to make bio-
engineering publicly acceptable and linked to adaptable
legislation. In Holland, for example, this [was shown] this year
at the Floriade. Bio-technology has to have a friendly image:
friendly to people and to the environment. And although the
resistance to bio-technology is slowly growing under
environmental, rural, food, and agricultural organizations, the
Dutch Greens (Groen Links) for example, has a cautious bio-
technological standpoint (it's OK if there is good legislation).
The weeding actions hit the industries directly and they
also made clear to ordinary people that food is being manipulated
in their own backgardens. That's why, for two years now, lists
are published in Holland which show where field experiments will
take place. So, take your spade in hand!
In the village of Rilland (Zealand), for the second
successive year, the plant improvement business 'Van der Have NV'
carried out a field experiment with genetically manipulated corn
(breed HE 89). The purpose of this experiment was the same as
last year: the determination of the characteristics of the
genetically manipulated corn under field circumstances. A
PTC-resistance is built into the cornplants against the
weed-killer 'Basta' (of the chemical concern 'Hoechst'). Again,
this year, the experiment had been brought to a premature end.
Van der Have NV belongs to the most prominent bio-engineering
concerns of Europe. This year, Van der Have received three
licences for field experiments with genetically manipulated
crops: corn, beets, and rapeseed. All three crops were
continuations of experiments from previous years. Van der Have
therfore asked for a dispensation of a few safety measures like
those prescribed by the Provisional Commission on Genetic
Modification (VCOGEM). R. van der Meyden of the 'Rijksherbarium'
research institute of the University of Leiden chose to do the
dirty work for the sake of economic interests. He gave the
'arguments' to take away the fear of the (results of) field
experiments. Van der Meyden, as the Dutch pioneer of bio-
technology, said: "Van der Have already wants to modify sugar
cane, grasses, sunflowers, lettuce, cucumber, and tomatoes".
(Parool, 3.8.91) Next year as well?
In Zoetermeer, we find the Dutch petty-bourgeoisie variant
of the Spanish Expo: a gleaming and prestigious (and creepy) view
of the history, the present, and the future. In the World Wonder
Garden, as the Floriade is promoted, is the exhibition "Plant
Improvement and Bio-technology". The exhibition is exemplary of
the symbiosis of business, science, and the government (including
Van der Have). The industries promise that, in time, there will
finally be enough food, produced in an environmentally-friendly
way with the help of bio-technology. Science is saying that bio-
engineering is based on no more than just the newest plant
improving techniques, and the government lets us know that
they'll see to it that everything is kept under control by means
of their procedures and a commission of experts. This bio-
technology propaganda is cloaked in a serious problem: the
surplus of population and food-shortages of the world. The
exhibition can't be visited anymore. The World Wonder Garden has
lost a myth.
"What's the problem? The large number of poor people, or the
23 percent of the world which uses 80 percent of the natural
resources?" -Vandana Shiva, during the shadow conference of UNCED
Among the many blessings which have been bestowed upon
mankind thanks to bio-engineering is the banishment of hunger in
the world, this is, at least, one of the most penetrating sounds
which are produced by the bio-technological drum roll. The
reasoning is simple: "In the near future, there will be an
enormous growth in population. All these people have to be fed
and it is noticeable already that the world food production
doesn't keep pace. Rice is the most popular food for many people,
so it is of great importance that there be many varieties which
are resistent against diseases and plagues." (Prof. Schilperoot
in "Transfer-nieuws", June 1992). The world food problem is thus
reduced to a technical problem to which an answer is already
being crammed down our throats. The hereby-propagated idea that
bio-technology is the solution to world hunger is a denial of the
structures and historical relations which produce hunger.
Moreover, it proclaims that bio-technology is a neutral and
values-free technology. It is developed because of charitable
motives and with the best intentions. Bio-technology as the Good.
This is a vision that just conceals the truth. The development of
bio-engineering takes place behind the closed doors of the C-3
and C-4 laboratories of the companies and universities, during
the private meetings and working consultations between the
technological lobby and the state, envisaged by the experts of
advisory committees and patent bureaus. Developing technology is
an extensive program, one that is based on specific interests and
perspectives. It's based on balances of power and it's an
important factor of power itself as well. It has the power in and
of itself to (re)define what is the nature of the problems in
question: what is the solution and what isn't; what is superior
and and what isn't. Technologies carry, to a high degree, the
codes of the balance of relations in which they have developed
and produced. A capital-intensive technology, for example, forces
an entrance into dependency relations with banks and financers.
So this application leads to the reproduction of exactly those
relations that "built in" the matter of technology.
Bio-engineering is not a technology which is free of values,
nor is it at all a solution to hunger. It clears the way for a
sharpening of the relations of exploitation, which has already
characterized the relation between the North and the South for
ages. It is in these social structures that bio-technology is
developed, and in these structures it will do its work.
Hunger
In 1887, Italian priests bnrought a ship with Italian cows
and bulls to Eastern Africa. With that, they imported a form of
hoof-and-mouth disease which eradicated 90 percent of the East
African cattle stocks. At once, all of Eastern Africa was
threatened by starvation. The myth of natural disasters as the
reason for hunger and poverty was born.
If this had been only an isolated case, it would have maybe
turned out better than expected. But everywhere where the whites
passed by, they took their supposedly superior cattle and food-
crops with them. Raw materials from the colonized countries
filled the holds of their ships on their way back. After
centuries of intensive Western interference with the countries of
the Third World, millions are now facing starvation.
Images of swollen bellies, dry fields, and dried-up acres
fill our TV screens regularly. The striking structures of
exploitation, however, have simply been 'zapped' from the screen.
Poverty and hunger are apparently uprooted, their causes reduced
to too little rain, too many children, and stupid farmers. "The
African agriculture is backward", stated Aart de Zeeuw, the Dutch
chariman of the agricultural commission of the General Agreements
on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). (Onze Wereld, December, 1987). It is
exactly this racist notion of superiority that paved the way for
centuries of exploitation and oppression.
Farmers of the Third World knew agricultural structures that
were based on a knowledge about plant species and varieties, and
agricultural methods that were acquired and passed on throughout
the centuries. Several kinds of grains and seeds existed which
could be used for the dryer or wetter periods. The agriculture
was self-sufficient, aimed at the local food-production, adapted
to the local circumstances and social structures.
Almost all crops people feed themselves with come from the
tropical and subtropical regions of the world. The "original"
Dutch potato was not a discovery of Vincent van Gogh, but comes
from the Andes. Nowadays, there is not much left of these wealthy
and self-sufficient structures. The European rulers didn't only
take away the peoples' own crops and methods, but negligently
pushed out the local customs and habits. They stole plants and
began to plant them at home. They imposed an agricultural model
which was adapted to Western needs. It is these structures which
cause hunger. In the whole, there is more than enough food
production to feed the population. 80 percent of all these raw
materials are eaten by 20 percent of mankind, those living in the
rich North. Hunger is the result of the economic war of the North
against the South.
The Green Counter-Revolution
The example of what is optimistically called the 'Green
Revolution' in the history books shows, in a nutshell, how such
processes work. In the 1960s, many countries set up large
agricultural programs. The ones who took the intiative were
private instituions like the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford
Foundation, and institues like the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) and the World Bank. This 'Green Revolution' meant
large-scale intevention in the agricultural structures of the
Third World. Local breeding methods had to leave the field. The
use of varities with high yields and mono-cultures, large-scale
and intensive use of fertilizers, and the introduction of modern
agricultural machines had to lead to an important extension of
the yields. And in the first instance this also happened. But
after a period of time, the winners and the losers became known.
The losers are the local farmers. Because of the introduction of
mono-cultures, plant diseases increased and it became necessary
to use more weed killers. To do this, high investments were
needed, so small farmers dropped out of the race. Acres with
artifical fertilizer need more water, so irrigation projects had
to follow, but there were no draining systems. Large areas were
permanently flooded or changed into deserts. A few years later,
the farmers are left with the results: a destroyed agriculture,
spoiled soil and water, genetical erosion, high debts, crops with
an over-sensitivity to all kinds of diseases, and an increasing
use of all kinds of expensive Western inputs like artificial
fertilizers and weed killers. A vicious circle of misery and
hunger. The winners were the major chemical concerns and the seed
industry and the Brabant farmers. Due to the overproduction of
corn, the food for pigs is almost free. A new class of poor,
landless slum inhabitants came into existence.
In agriculture, two-thirds of the work is done by women. In
statistics and official reports, this is usually concealed by
qualifying it as domestic work, or it is not worth mentioning
because these jobs are unpaid. The engineers followed this
patriarchally beaten-path and denied the importance of the
knowledge and work of women. The large scale intervention in the
social structure, under the pretext of 'modernizing', was
exclusively directed to male farmers. Thus, the germ for her
failure was already laid. The consequences of these actions
mostly affected women. Men left and went to the cities or to the
large plantations as agricultural labourers. Women, who did most
of the work already, had to work even more. They lost their land
to big companies, the burden of providing their own food rested
only on their own shoulders.
Agricultural Policy
Swimming in a milk lake and sitting on top of a butter
mountain and speaking about food shortages is Orwellian. Hunger
is not a problem of too little food, rather it is a problem of
how the food production and distribution is organized. The
traditional self-supporting agriculture in the Third World
countries is systematically ruined in favour of a Western-
oriented agriculture. Who pushes one's way through the
dung-quota, export subsidies, angry French farmers and Brabant
pigs, discovers an agricultural policy in which money is made out
of hunger.
Enormous agricultural areas in the South are brought into
production for the Western market, for example, as raw materials
for cattle food. "To feed the 120 million animals in Holland,
enormous quantities of raw material have to be imported from the
South. In this way, 20 farmers in the South have to work for one
farmer in the North. The Dutch bio-industry uses 125 million
hectares elsewhere." (Regio Taal, 1992/1) The southern countries
are often forced to do so by the adaption-programmes which are
imposed by the IMF and the World Bank. The production has to be
aimed at export to get foreign values, which then have to be
given out again to pay off debts to Western banks. In Brazil, for
example, more and more land was put to use for the export
cultivation of soya beans. Small farmeres were expelled from the
most fertile land. The produciton of black beans, the daily food
of millions of Brazilians, has, as a result, gone down sharply
and has become unprofitable for the poor. This is the way hunger
comes into being. And in the GATT treaties it is recorded that
the countries of the South may only forbid the export of food if
there is an in-land famine.
Calling the southern agriculture into the world-economy
happens extremely selectively. Because of the fear of
competition, for example, there has always been a discouragement
of the production of wheat, vegetables, and fruits from
glass-houses. Western agricultural policy is protectionist, and
it prevents importing agricultural products from the Third World.
In the GATT treaties it is also recorded that there be high
tariff barriers for products coming out of the South if these
products can also be produced in the North. In the opposite case,
there may not be any import restrictions to products from the
North that are exported to the South. But still, all this isn't
enough. The West has totally laid hands on their markets also, by
dumping grain and meat supluses with high export subsudies. The
cheap export of Western food surpluses to the Third World hinders
the coming into existence of an independant agriculture there. On
the one hand, the West slows their import, on the other hand, the
West dumps on the world market. Every sack of grain which is sent
away will sooner or later take away the opportunity of a female
farmer in Africa to sell one, although she could keep herself and
her children alive from the proceeds of it for about a month.
This doesn't mean that it's is all peaches and cream for the
Western farmer. In fact, they experience the same mechanism of
the world-wide agricultural policies: scaling-up,
industrialization, and the increased loss of control over their
own products. In short: dependency. The introduction of bio-
technology also means that they'll continually have less control
over what they're growing. Over their heads, too, decisions are
made by the big chemeical concerns and the financial and
political institutions. Like when, for a while, the proposal of
the Scientific Council for Governmental Policy (WRR) to reduce
European agriculture by 80 percent. What kind of social
consequences such a restructuring will have doesn't make a
difference. As long as the money keeps rolling in...
Bio-technology
It's against this backdrop of inequal economic and political
relations that the introduction of bio-technology has to be seen.
And yet again the West waves one of her technologies and
proclaims the coming state of fortune and wealth for humanity. It
is promoted like some new brand of dish-detergent: the Second
Green Revolution, now without disadvantage! There ain't a word of
truth to it. Hunger is caused by the strangle-hold from the West
on the South. Bio-engineering will only strengthen this grip.
With the introduction of bio-technology, the relations
between agriculture and industry will be totally turned upside
down. Industry is no longer working up crops that are produced by
agriculture but will determine more and more which crop has to be
grown on which areas. This has to do with the mutual
interchangeability of the crops. With the help of bio-technology,
industry is increasingly able to split up agricultural products
into components such as carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. In
this way, there is a better possibility of putting together
agricultural products as raw material for industry. The food
industry is more and more beginning to look like a compound food
industry, but now for people. The direct producers and (female)
farmers around ther world are becoming pawns which can be played
off against each other however the food industry desires.
Substituion is another threatening application possibility of
bio-engineering. Many crops which grow much better in tropical
regions, like coffee, cocoa, sugar-cane, bananas, now threaten to
be produced in factories in the North. Not a grain of sugar is
used in the soft drink industry anymore. Also, the coca-bean has
become almost superfluous thanks to scientific diligence. Ghana,
the Ivory Coast, Cameroon, and Equatorial Guinea are dependent on
coca for a large part of their national income. This threatens to
strike away the vulnerable foundations under the economies of the
Third World. Because of the wave of automation and flexibile
work, the countries of the Third World have partly lost their
'advantage' of low salaries. Since the industries are partly
reverting back to the Western countries, the countries of the
Third World are extremely dependant on the export of their
agricultural products.
And now the introduction of bio-technology threatens to take
away that as well. The (female) farmers are also going to become
heavily dependant on sowing seed, because the sowing seed
industry has become dominant. The research in the agri-industry
is focussing on making plants resistant to weed killers. Farmers
who buy these seeds are then also forced to buy week killers,
produced by the same company. The plant improvers prefer to grow
hybrid breeds that produce useless seeds. In this way the
(female) farmers are forced to buy new seeds all the time. Prince
Claus remarked: "The sombre prospect seems to become reality that
many will be unemployed and many others will become dependant on
the ones who have the whole food-chain in their hands, from
manipulated seeds to manipulated end-products, by their knowledge
of bio-technological processes." (Onze Wereld, August 18987)
Genetic Colonialism
In 1985, Ciba Geigy (a Swiss chemical concern and one of the
major investors in agricultural bio-technology) offered the
government of Ethiopia a kind of hybrid sorghum, packed in three
chemicals. Two were to proctect the plant against certain
diseases and the third made the seeds immune against the
herbicide 'Dual', at the time the most important weed killers
produced by Ciba Geigy.
The progenitor from which Ciba grew this "Bica-Sorghum" came
from Ethiopia and was stolen from there. The countries of the
Third World from which the genetic material is stolen are forced
to buy back the "improved" variations at high prices. Precisely
this last aspect makes clear just how harrowing the developments
are; this is why Third World countries consider bio-engineering
as an ordinary form of economical and cultural imperialism and
not at all as a solution to hunger in the world. With the help of
the (women) farmers, a rich knowledge developed thoughout the
ages (especially in the Third World) of different sorts of plants
and animals. It is this genetic source which provides the world
with food and assures its bio-diversity. These kinds of natural
genetic structures belong to everyone and are not a money-winner
of only a few, whereas that is what's going on at the moment. The
changing of the Patents Act, which is at this moment the most
important political project of the bio-addicts, has to seal this
new development. Now that they've destroyed the largest part of
the natural inheritance, the rich countries want to dictate that
that what is still intact belongs to them as well. About 30 years
ago, farmers in Sri Lanka grew about 2000 different types of
rice. Now there are only five left. The remaining varieties have
been destroyed or are threatened with destruction.
The richest plant stock of the world existed in the Andes.
The territory has made an important contribution to world food
production. In the course of the centuries, the people of the
Andes created a wealth of knowledge and techniques, which
harmonized to a high degree with their social and climatic
circumstances. Now, agriculutrue for domestic application has
dissapeared because of the orientation on commercial agriculture
through the use of modern technology, and it has become almost
impossible to feed the domestic population. "These varities
haven't disappeared as a consequece of climatic circumstances,
but because a dominant minority wanted it to be that way. That
minority has imposed a model of development on these people".
(Roberto Haudry de Soucy, International Foundation for
Agricultural Development (IFAD), in "International Cooperation",
July 1988) The more the traditional communities are forced to
split up, the more their inheritance, which is preserved as a
collective historic memory, disappears. "With each old person who
is dying over there, a library which burns down". (Galeano, "El
tigre azul y otros articulos", 1987). Just as the Western world
claimed the right of ownership in former days, whether by
planting a royal flag or by decimating the local population,
nowadays no less than the right of ownership on life and nature
is demanded. Knowledge and practice are stolen from the
treasuries of the Third World. And then a gene is isolated in
Western laboratories and here we are! The superior Western
science can flaunt another new invention. Pat Nooney, a Canadian
agricultural activist: "The argument that intellectual ownership
can only be awarded when it's developed by white coats and
laboratories is a racist point of view on scientific
development". Racist, because of the simplicity of the denial of
the importance of this local knowledge. Racist, because of the
appropriation of this knowledge, meanwhile, adding shamelessly:
"Made in the Western world". Then it is applied at a patent
office where the stolen material can be cashed in. This means,
for example, that big money is made out of the anti-cancer
medicines Vincristine and Vinblastine. The base medicine consists
of pink periwinkle, a plant that is found in Madagascar. The
knowledge of the medicinal effects of this plant comes from the
inhabitants of the island, but they get nothing of the enormous
profits that are made on it. Or the Monsanto company (an american
chemical concern and one of the major investors in agricultural
bio-technology) which wants to apply for a patent on a part of
the genetic construction of the Tiki Uba plant that can be used
as an anti-coagulation remedy. The Ur-eu-wau-wau tribe, of which
there are only 120 members alive since they've been made partners
in the blessing of white civilization, discovered the healing
effects of the plant.
But the intellectual ownership isn't given to them.
UNCED
Attempts by the Third World to get back some of their
cultural inheritance are blocked by the rich countries. These are
the moments when the masks come off. And the sweet talk about
bio-technology can't conceal that this is the way to keep on
exploiting the Third World and making money from it. The
so-called bio-diversity treaty, which had to be signed during the
United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED)
show in Rio, is a clear example. The treaty, which was designed
to protect the world's bio-diversity, left the possibility open
that the Third World countires had to give permission for the use
of their genetic reserves for industrial purposes. And moreover,
the Third World countries want to claim a part of the yields, or
entrance to the processing technology. But this clearly isn't the
way that the world is put together, according to the Western
countries, with Japan and the U.S. in the lead. For centuries,
they came in uninvited and took everything that they needed, so
why ask for it now? And they were right in that. According to the
Human Development Report 1992 of the United Nations Development
Program (UNDAP), the gap between the rich and poor has become
larger. Although the inhabitants of the rich countries 30 times
better off in 1960, this had increased to 60 times in 1989. As
soon as the word "hunger" is mentioned, the rich countries see
the problem differently: It's the overpopulation of these
countries that causes the problems. And here is the solution:
population policy! Large-scale and enforced sterilizations and
contraceptives applied on the women of the Third World will bring
solutions to all problems. Here we see exactly the same
mechanisms as in the fariy-tales on bio-engineering and hunger: a
Western technological solution to all social problems, without
the necessity for social and political changes. Since it is also
hunger and poverty which causes the population growth, the fight
against poverty, the improvement of education, and public health
are ways to solve the problem. But the solution asks for
far-reaching changes and that's why it is not an option. Rosiska
Darcy de Oliveira put it like this during the shadow conference
of the UNCED: "There is something fundamentally wrong with a
world where the rich have the use of expensive genetic
manipulation to have a baby, whereas the poor are forced to
undergo sterililzation. The world is more and more dictated by
economic values. Everything revolves around the market instead of
around life. The poor don't count because they are not cunsumers.
We neglect Africans with AIDS because this does not bring enough,
economically speaking, and the blood of the poor doesn't give
ink." (De Volkskrant, July 11, 1992)
The New World Order
It's not really new, this New World Order of Bush, at least
not to the poor countries who just notice the tightening of its
grip. 500 years after Columbus, the Western world has its hands
free to cheerfully exploit the last bits of the world and of
life. The oppression is dressed up in a decent gray suit and is
meeting at illustrious clubs like the World Bank, IMF, GATT,
UNCTAD, Lome, the Club of Paris, etc. These institutions create
and formalize the preconditions for so-called 'free trade' and
'open markets', so desired by the multinationals. Because of the
fancied international representation of these clubs for
gentlemen, these agreements offer a legitimacy to free trade and
its consequences. That is, if you don't stumble over the small
bumps, like: he who brings in the most money also determines the
outcome of the game. Every year, in the mean time, there are 75
million people living as refugees, legally or illegally, workers,
homeless people, without any rights. In the wake of the
devestating marks which the West has left in their communities,
they look for something that can keep them alive. Most of the
refugees are in the Third World, few of them are able to reach
the North, where they walk up against the wall of Fortress
Europe. Built up by the same gentlemen who have worked their way
up by trampling on the peoples of the Third World and shipping
their wealth to the rich countries. But it's not a popular job
these days, to link up these connections. It only disturbs the
self-confident image of the Westerner as lord and master of the
globe, superior in his culture, economy, and knowledge. And the
native is looking up to him, with a beseeching look, asking
whether he can share in the technical wonders of the white man. A
mission instead of an ordinary success-story of plundering. Or is
it perhaps in the white genes? "Until now, genetic modification
was a science which promised uses without any bad sides", states
Prof. Schilperoort (Transferneiuws, June 1992). If you dare to
talk about nonsense like that, you've really understood that
whoever is in power to define the problem also has the patent to
the solution. That trade in hunger is a very lucrative business
is kept rather silent by the experts. The yields of the fertile
agricultural areas of the Third World are not often reserved for
the domestic population, but are necessarily exported to the
Western market. Dictated by, for example, the World Bank.
This same World Bank is storing a profit of 2.7 billion
guilders this year (about 1.7 billion U.S. dollars). This is the
disillusioning reality which has to be made clear time after
time, stripped from its racist mantle, which tries to show that
farmers in the Third World are too stupid to work land in a
proper way. Or that you're really asking for problems when you're
born in the Sahel.
One of the major threats of the discussions around bio-
technology is that the definitions of the protaganists are
sneaking in and are slowly taking over. That hunger is a
technical problem which can be solved if we only give a free hand
to the bio-engineers. In the book of the 1001 fairy tales, the
tale of hungers scores well. With tear-filled eyes we send a
cheque or a grain-mountain to one of the swollen bellies in the
Sudan while there is a white-coat standing around the corner
who's polishing his pair of tweezers once more, so as to be able
to refine hunger even better. One eye fixed on the stock market,
the other on the political agenda, the agents of hunger run from
discussion to progress to board meeting. Never too miserable to
stop in front of a microphone and state that the banning of
hunger is their only reason for living. Subsequently sitting down
to a large meal, thus putting their ideas into actiom. The only
hunger they know is hunger for more. The real art is tripping
them up in their hurdle race which invariably ends up at a Swiss
bank account. People from different quarters are already sticking
out their legs. People in the Third World, environmental groups,
critical scientists...and groups like ours. With concretely
demonstrable responsibilities and concretely demonstrable
political moments. With just the few means that we have at our
disposal we want to place matters in a political context, thus
unmasking social backgrounds, like bio-technology as a political
weapon, which is purposely brought into action to secure profits
and influence over the backs of millions of people. On the
question of how bio-engineering should be controlled, the CDA
(the Dutch Christian Democratic Party - trans.) spokesman Reitsma
answered: "Drawing boundaries is not in the first place a matter
of politics, but rather a matter of society." (Biotekst, March,
1992). These words have affected us deeply and we've done our
best to draw a small boundary.
Greetings,
Fiery Viruses
Arm The Spirit
Brian Foley
: AGAINST BIOTECHNOLOGY!
: Fiery Viruses Communique
: In the night of 10/11 August 1992, a field of genetically
: manipulated corn was destroyed in Rilland, Holland. At the same
:...[deletion to save space, read the original post.]
: Greetings,
: Fiery Viruses
I agree that the world is a nasty and unfair place and that there
is much room for improvement. However, to blame political problems on
technology is backwards. Greed is not good, but how are we to stop it?
Biotechnology itself is not bad or good, it is the USES to which
individuals and organisations put biotechnology that can be bad or good.
Biotechnology can be used by benovolent people as well as by greedy
people.
--
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* Brian Foley * If we knew what we were doing *
* Molecular Genetics Dept. * it wouldn't be called research *
* University of Vermont * *
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G T Clark
>Arm The Spirit (afo...@moose.uvm.edu) wrote:
>: AGAINST BIOTECHNOLOGY!
>: Fiery Viruses Communique
>: In the night of 10/11 August 1992, a field of genetically
>: manipulated corn was destroyed in Rilland, Holland. At the same
>:...[deletion to save space, read the original post.]
> Biotechnology itself is not bad or good, it is the USES to which
>individuals and organisations put biotechnology that can be bad or good.
>Biotechnology can be used by benovolent people as well as by greedy
>people.
A very important point. While I am very much against the way the
third world are treated, I don't think that that kind of action is at
all helpful. Biotechnology companies are very small players in this
game, and time and effort would be far better spent tackling banks and
multinationals. As far as I can tell, they are being used as an easy
target - as scapegoats, basically. Trashing a field of corn (wheat, I
assume?) is a lot easier than trying to achieve political change, and if
you're under the illusion that it helps, probably a lot more fun.
G.