Naming, Blaming and the Smallness of Such Politicing--Maybe 2019 Could be Different

I am writing in response to Alan Holman’s Dec first, 2018 Guardian opinion piece questioning David Weale’s supposed naming and blaming over land ownership on PEI.

Mr Holman is trodding into naming and blaming territory himself when he says that most Islanders in his personal opinion are either content or disinterested in who owns the land. I am not sure what he bases this opinion on but it certainly is not a reliable refute to the passivity he accuses David of accusing Islander's of.

Rather, it is perhaps the perfect definition of passivity.

As per the Oxford dictionary, passivity is defined as: 
Acceptance of what happens, without active response or resistance.

And although David is a personal friend of mine, I feel no need to defend David Weale, the person. I know David can handle an unpleasant review or opinion on him or his personal choices. He is fully able to turn the other cheek or speak up for himself, need be. Or reflect, perhaps, on whether he might need to reconsider things. He is a grown up after all.

But the land and the waters of which we have a shared love and deep concern for; they need us to speak up for them.  I do not believe that Mr. Holman did a good job recognizing that the intent behind David's waxing poetic about 'them times" is to urgently call to attention how far we have strayed from the ideals of stewardship of the land our ancestors and the Mi'kmaq people's lived. After all they were the first to recognize and honour the land and waters which bestowed them with the basic necessities of life, nourishing their spirits as well as their bodies.

The land today bears silent witness to the unwholesome desires of large land holders and must be spoken for by those who love it deeply and see it being shown such little regard. I am speaking up not in defense of David, rather in defense of David’s defense of the land and waters here on PEI.

And while David might pine for a simpler time when seemingly those who farmed did so for the love of the occupation, he is not off the mark when he “rhapsodizes” for an era which saw a multitude of small sized, self sustainable rural land holdings doing well for themselves and their families while respecting the limits nature imposes.This is of course rather than the forced “go big or go home” mentality that capitalism's green revolution wrought on  small scale farmers and agriculture in the 1960’s and hence fore ward.

I hazard a guess that David harbour's no ill will toward either Mr. Irving or any of the orange robed GEBIS monks. I believe instead that he is deeply concerned about the larger forces at work behind  the Irving's and potentially GEBIS' land interests as well.

The PEI Lands Protection Act has been discussed at length regarding the spirit of the act and its intention towards discouraging the amassing of large tracts of land by any one land holder. Somehow the spirit of the act is being disregarded by these groups.  So too with the Irving’s imposition on the Water Act and implicit desire to see the moratorium on deep water wells lifted.

I agree with Mr Weale that the Irving’s don’t like potato farmers, they use them. The agricultural monopoly that the Irving’s have on rural PEI in their pursuit of what Holman describes as "long, flavorful french fries" for a North American fast food market is real and it falls under the term predatory capitalism (loosely defined as capitalism ignoring social and environmental concerns to attain its primary goals).

Even Holman admits that the Irving's, like an ill tempered child,  will take their ball and bat and go home if Island farmers and the governing elite do not want to play ball according to their rules. Capitalism, especially predatory capitalism, is not based on liking and being liked. It is based on winning at all costs. Profits are the measure of the win for the corporations and jobs (and therefore votes) are the measure in local politics. Hence the pandering by our gov't.

It is difficult for any thoughtful Islander to take a look at the soils and waters of this Island and not bear witness to what they are enduring in the name of corporate profits. Fish kills, topsoil degradation, and the increasing ownership of the land by off island enterprises such as the Irving’s and GEBIS (even if GEBIS is at least locally kind and better stewards of the land than the Irving's) are all troubling progressions.

I find no fault in David asking us to consider our role in the destruction of rural life on PEI and in the destruction of Island soils and waters too. We have become so accustomed to seeking comfort and avoiding discomfort that even when the evidence is clear we still want to avoid implicating ourselves in the equation.

Our collective failure to acknowledge ourselves as accomplices allows us to sit back and finger point rather than take the necessary, wise and compassionate action required to address the situation. If we fail to acknowledge what is going on then our passivity could be wrongfully perceived as contentment or disinterest by someone such as Alan Holman.

And so I am speaking out.

David knows Islanders well. We are a passive lot by and large. We don’t want to rock the boat because we know what sinking, even drowning feels like. And that sinking, drowning feeling began with the green revolution and the perception so many Islanders bought into that our rural way of life was not good enough. Big and shiny and new is better was the mentality underpinning it all.

The same mentality drives so much of  modern excessive consumption— that and the belief that there is something inherently wrong with how we are and that goods can make us better, even normal if we consume enough of them. These are widely shared and faulty beliefs but these beliefs are not our birthright; being an Islander is.

And so there is all the more reason for average Islanders to speak up about what is happening to the land and waters here in the name of progress, and profit. For not being willing to wade into the waters when they are becoming increasingly murky and abused is foolhardy.

In fact, we all need to be less afraid to wade out and let our voices and opinions be heard.  We were not always trapped in a culture of dependency. Our very survival in an era of climate change, increasingly right wing governing ideologies and the infringement on local culture by neo-liberal economics will depend on our ability to stand on our own two feet and create an economy based on scale like in Schumacher's Small is Beautiful rather than dependency on the export of mono culture agriculture or questionable farmed sea products. Or the export of young Islanders too for that matter. For the PNP immigration scandal here is tied in with this all as well.

Our parents generation taught us to "vote with our feet" when they saw how hard it was to raise us on two incomes in the suburbs.  Head for Ontario or the tar sands to feed your families they told a generation of Island youth. But you can only deal in rubber or tar or chemical pesticides for so long before it begins to eat at you.   

The refrain is all too common.

So who then is to blame for the mess we have found ourselves in?

In short, we all are.

But in reality it is all far more complicated than either David or Mr. Holman or myself have space or time to explicate. 

But the one thing I do know deep in my heart is that the blame game gets us no where fast and so I am betting hard on a future which can see beyond the smallness of such politicing. 

Personal or otherwise.

Sincerely,
Jill M. MacCormack 
devoted lover of Island soils and waters and kindness (let us not forget kindness)
A short list of Island Organizations run by very active amazing Islanders devoted to protecting Island soils and waters : 
https://www.facebook.com/ecopei/  
http://saveourseasandshores.ca/category/blog/pei-chapter-of-soss-blog/