ENVIRONMENT: Top Writer Does His Bit to Save the Trees

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

MEXICO CITY, Sep 7 1999 (IPS) - Homero Aridjis, one of Mexico’s top literary figures, is a regular visitor to Zitacuaroi, a hilly area covered with forest which lies about a two-hour drive from here.

His journeys are not associated with his regular vocation of writing, but rather to get an update on the number of trees that had been logged illegally.

On his current trip, as he has done in the past, 59-year-old Aridjis keeps a very low profile as he does not want any loggers to spot him talking to local villagers.

“I am public enemy number one (with the loggers),” he says. “Twice they have tried to threaten me.”

Such a watch on tree-felling can be understood given the importance of the forests around Zitacuaroi for a regular winter visitor to this Latin American nation – the Monarch butterfly. Every year thousands of them migrate from the chills of Canada to the warmth of Mexico, a journey spanning 5,000 miles, to transform such eastern regions as Michoacan into a kaleidoscope of colour.

“In February ’92,” says the balding Aridjis, “almost 80 percent of them died.” He blames logging for destroying the micro climate of the forest “so essential for the butterflies.”

Aridjis is an award-winning writer, poet and novelist who spends at least six hours a day on his literary output. To date, he has published 26 books, some of which have been translated into other languages. Among them are “Memorias del Nuevo Mundo” and “1492: The Life and Times of Juan Cabezon Castile.”

In demonstrating a passion to protect the butterflies, he has revealed his capacity to fuse his literary side with the environmental activist – a campaigner determined to shape his countries ecological policies.

Aridjis is no exception when it comes to this role. Other writers and artists around the globe have become involved with environmental activists to influence various governments.

In Mexico, prominent “creative” artists have formed the “Group of 100.”

Formed in 1985, the organisation includes the likes of Ocatavio Paz and Gabriel Garcia Marquez and, in attempting to raise awareness about Mexico City’s frightening levels of air pollution, has been involved in a number of public campaigns.

Their efforts resulted in then Mexican President Carlos Salinas declaring a total ban on the killing of marine turtles in May 1990.

Across the world in India, Arundathi Roy best demonstrates this willingness to fuse literature and activism.

Since her award-winning debut as a novelist, when her book, “The God of Small Things,” bagged Britain’s Booker Prize, she has moved on to bigger things in the public realm.

Today, Roy is at the vanguard of a protest movement against the damming the Narmada River. In an impassioned essay – “The Greater Common Good” – which appeared in the May editions of two Indian magazines, Roy wrote:

“The war for the Narmada valley is not just some exotic tribal war or remote rural water or even an exclusively Indian war. It’s a war for the rivers and the mountains and the forests of the world.”

Thereafter, she turned crusader by speaking at public meetings and convening rallies. In late June she addressed a gathering in New Delhi, the Indian capital, and in early August she led a “Rally in the Valley,” which attracted a number of prominent individuals from across India in solidarity with the anti-dam movement.

Her efforts won applause from the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) – literally the save the Narmada movement).

Soon after Roy took to the streets, and followed that with her donation of the entire prize money from her Booker award – estimated at 37,000 dollars – the NBA declared: “This gesture is in a long tradition of intellectuals and artists…to make common cause with the struggles of the common people all over India, and specially of the Narmada Valley.”

The International Rivers Network, a US-based organization that monitors the work of dams around the world, also welcomed Roy’s campaign.

“Her involvement has helped recharge the movement against the destructive dam project in India,” a spokeswoman for the organisation said. “Arundathi Roy has brought new energy to people who have been fighting dams on the Narmada for over 10 years. More and more people around the world are learning about the struggle in the valley.”

The project that has riled Roy, the Sardar Sarovar, is described as “only one of 30 big dams and several thousand small and medium dams being planned on the 1,400 km west-to-east Narmada River.”

According to NBA calculations, close to 500,000 people will be evicted if the 450 million dollar dam is allowed to be completed.

The environment, however, has not been the only concern that has provoked writers to leave the solitude of their creative endeavours. During the course of this century, other issues, too, have seen many take to the road of political activism.

There were those like Chilean Poet Pablo Neruda who were driven to political engagement to oppose the Fascism in Spain. Albert Camus was an active social reformer during his days in French colonial Algeria and thereafter.

And Nigerian Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, currently living in the United States, is a vociferous advocate of native culture – in his case, the Yoruba. According to US academics Soyinka is a champion of “the humane social order it embodies.”

Not all writers like Aridjis have been swept up by activism.

He says many prefer to be full-time careerists. And he makes that observation on the authority of another hat he wears – that of the current president of Pen International, the world body of writers formed in 1921.

“I know of a number in Mexico, and in America and Europe, who have no time for issues. They want to build their reputation. They don’t give a damn,” says Aridjis. But of those who do, he says, the public takes notice.

“When writers in Mexico and in Latin America agitate for change, they influence other people. They have a reputation, they are well- known figures, and they are seen as the conscience of their countries.”