The reality of what you are asking for, when you demand the UK govt do something about the price of oil, by Johann Hari in the Independent.
When you cry for cheaper oil, do you know what you are really asking for? Gordon Brown has just shown us. He has unwittingly exposed the pipeline that runs from your petrol station to the poisoned people of the Niger Delta. The more you howl for cheap oil, the more they will be Shell-shocked into submission.
To understand, you need to know the story of the Niger Delta, a once lush land of mangrove swamps at the base of Nigeria. In the late 1950s, in the final days of British imperial rule, Shell’s local subsidiary discovered it lay on top of vast pools of oil. Britain immediately became its number one user, with the US close behind. In the long decades since, more than $200bn worth of oil and gas has been pumped from beneath the Delta people’s feet.
So you would imagine the Niger Delta must now be an oasis of riches, with its 30m people bathing in wealth. But no: they live with nothing and die by the age of 40. While the lifeblood of twenty-first century techno-life is pumped from their land, they live in the Stone Age, with no schools, no hospitals and barely any electricity. They have felt three effects from the petrol. Their land has been poisoned by oil spills; the fish they lived off have been turned into stunted, toxic rarities; and when they ask for compensation, they are shot at.
Two hundred billion dollars, stolen from the people of Nigeria.
Enter Gordon Brown. Last week, he offered Britain’s help to achieve the second option. He offered British troops to “train” Nigeria’s “security forces” so they can “restore order” and get the oil flowing fast again.
Why did he choose this? Because compromise would take time and – if the people of the Delta really got to keep a share of the profits – it would cost. Oil prices here won’t come down. That’s no good: he is being screamed at by us to deliver cheap oil, whatever the human cost, today, tomorrow, and forever. He is reacting to pressure from you. Heroin addicts will rob grannies for their next fix; oil addicts like us will plunder Africa and the Middle East.
No doubt Brown will say the British soldiers would also provide human rights training to Nigerian soldiers. But the reason Nigerian soldiers are there is to suppress the local people so their oil can be seized. How do you slather human rights training on top of a mission like that?
An old woman from the Delta tries, in the new American documentary Sweet Crude, to talk directly to you. She says: “I’d like people all over the world to realise there’s a segment of humanity suffering as a result of oil production – ordinary men, women, children. They should think about them and not think simply of energy. Think of us as people. That’s more important than anything.”
But while we are unrepentant junkies, howling for cheap petrol, will we be able to hear her?
This is just one example of how our civilised lives have impoverished others lives. Think about where the resources you use comes from. As oil runs out, and prices increase, do we want to see the oppression and exploitation increase? Or could we live without our companies stealing resources from the rest of the world?
). Because the truth is that 2 weeks is nowhere near enough – 3 months really should be the minimum.
