Power, People and Planet Kumi Naidoo

In a wide-ranging discussion on South Africa with veteran activist Vishwas Satgar, Kumi explores the country's political past, present and future.

With crucial elections taking place in 2024, what impact will they have for a country in crisis? What are the systemic issues that perpetuate these problems? And what can be learned from the historical victories and failures of South African political resistance?

Our Guest:

Vishwas Satgar is an associate professor of International Relations at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. He is the editor of the Democratic Marxism series, and is the principal investigator for the Emancipatory Futures Studies in the Anthropocene project and a democratic eco-socialist.

Follow Vishwas's work:
Emancipatory Futures website: https://emancipatoryfutures.co.za/
On X: https://x.com/VishwasSatgar

Learn more about Power, People & Planet on the website:
https://powerpeopleplanet.org

To watch full episodes of the podcast follow Kumi's YouTube channel
Follow Kumi on social media:
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Power, People and Planet is produced in association with the Green Economy Coalition, the world’s largest movement for a green and fair economy:
https://greeneconomycoalition.org

Additional support for the podcast was provided by the Robert Bosch Stiftung:
https://www.bosch-stiftung.de/en

In the early 1980s there was a slogan: think globally, act locally. Behind the slogan was the idea that, irrespective of the issue we were trying to address at the local or national level, we needed to better understand how global discourse, global processes and global power had the ability to impact what you could or could not achieve at the local or national level.

In the 1990s, a feminist organisation from the global South called Development Alternatives for Women in a New Era (DAWN) said that perhaps what we need to be doing is thinking locally and acting globally: to think in terms of what is needed at the local level and then advocate at the global level if that’s where real power resides. In reality, it’s not a question of choosing one or the other but about getting the right balance.

In this episode Kumi explores the different avenues of global engagement to understand the pitfalls and opportunities of such engagements.

Our Guests:

María Fernanda Espinosa is an Ecuadorian diplomat, politician, poet, linguist and academic with more than 30 years of experience in international organisations, the Ecuadorian government, NGOs and academia.

She served as President of the 73rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly (2018-2019). She has held no less than three different senior ministerial positions in Ecuador’s government. She has also served as ambassador and permanent representative of Ecuador to the United Nations in New York (2008-2009) and Geneva (2014-2017). As of January 2023, she sits on the board of trustees of the International Crisis Group.
Follow María’s work:
Twitter: @mfespinosaEC LinkedIn
Meena Raman is the President of Sahabat Alam Malaysia (Friends of the Earth Malaysia), an environmental NGO based in Penang, Malaysia. She is the Legal Advisor to the Consumers’ Association of Penang (CAP), a Malaysian NGO that has been advancing the rights and well-being of consumers. Since 2007 she has also been head of programmes of Third World Network

An expert on climate change, especially on the global negotiations including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Kyoto Protocol, the Paris Agreement and the Green Climate Fund (GCF), she monitors and reports on the negotiations and provides analysis and support both to developing country governments as well as to civil society participants.

Follow Meena’s work:
Sahabat Alam Malaysia website: https://foe-malaysia.org/
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Learn more about Power, People & Planet on the website:
https://powerpeopleplanet.org

To watch full episodes of the podcast follow Kumi's YouTube channel
Follow Kumi on social media:
LinkedInInstagramTwitterFacebook-----------------------
Power, People and Planet is produced in association with the Green Economy Coalition, the world’s largest movement for a green and fair economy:
https://greeneconomycoalition.org

Additional support for the podcast was provided by the Robert Bosch Stiftung:
https://www.bosch-stiftung.de/en

Unjust laws certainly should be broken. Mandela, Rosa Parks, and many other inspirational leaders had no hesitation in calling to break unjust laws. But laws that prevent the voices of ordinary people from being heard also need to be resisted, because right now, in more than 100 countries around the world, governments in the last decade have taken various actions to shrink the civic space by restricting freedom of association, freedom of assembly, and freedom of expression.

At a time when there is so much hate, violence, and aggravation, activism must be imbued by love, compassion, caring, and a sense of justice, peace, and dignity. How can we embolden creative, peaceful, civil disobedience on a significant scale to wake up our leaders before it is too late and dig in deep to have the stamina and perseverance to keep going until those injustices are removed?

Our guests:

Clare Farrell is an active citizen, devoting her creativity, her energy, and occasionally her personal liberty to fight against climate collapse and the wider environmental crisis. She is also a fashion designer and lecturer. She has been arrested numerous times for her climate activism and as one of the founders of Extinction Rebellion she helps coordinate a mass movement of people using non-violent civil disobedience.

Marta Benavides is a theologian, ordained minister, permaculturist, educator, and artist. A leader of an ecumenical revolution focused on bringing peace to her country El Salvador, she is an ordained pastor who chose “to live and not die for the revolution” and has been bringing people from all fields to defend human rights and develop a culture of peace. She worked closely with Archbishop Oscar Romero who was assassinated in 1980, which would see her go into exile in Mexico and the US, she returned to El Salvador in ‘92 following the peace accords.

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Learn more about Power, People & Planet on the website:
https://powerpeopleplanet.org

To watch full episodes of the podcast follow Kumi's YouTube channel
Follow Kumi on social media:
LinkedInInstagramTwitterFacebook-----------------------
Power, People and Planet is produced in association with the Green Economy Coalition, the world’s largest movement for a green and fair economy:
https://greeneconomycoalition.org

Additional support for the podcast was provided by the Robert Bosch Stiftung:
https://www.bosch-stiftung.de/en

The contribution of the legal community through innovative, strategic litigation and other legal efforts is going to be one of the most critical undertakings in the fight for climate justice. Currently, there are more than 1,400 climate lawsuits underway. These legal battles address the destruction of our ecosystems and the attempts of indigenous people to uphold their rights through a range of different struggles.

Litigation and legal strategy has been a critical part of ensuring the strength of the activist community. Indeed, the legal community has a critical role in defending the shrinking democratic space in multiple countries throughout the world. However, the challenge remains in determining how legal strategies intersect with other mobilising strategies. Another challenge is determining the proportionality of effort that should be afforded to litigation battles, especially given that the wheels of justice turn very slowly in many countries: the climate crisis cannot wait for deliverance from protracted litigation in new areas of environmental law, corporate law and elsewhere.

Our guests:

Markus N. Beeko was appointed Secretary General of the German section of Amnesty International in 2016. He has been active in leadership positions for Amnesty in Germany and the International Secretariat in London since 2004. He is the Chair of Amnesty’s international steering group on "Human Rights in the Digital Age". He chairs the board of trustees of Stiftung Menschenrechte, and he is also Vice Chair of the board of the German Institute for Human Rights.
Follow Markus’s work:
Twitter: @mnbeeko LinkedIn
Nani Jansen Reventlow is an internationally recognised human rights lawyer specialised in strategic litigation at the intersection of human rights, social justice, and technology. She is the Founder of Systemic Justice, the first Black-led, majority BPOC organisation in Europe working to radically transform how the law works for communities fighting for racial, social, and economic justice.

Follow Nani’s work:
Website: https://www.nanijansen.org/Twitter: @InterwebzNani -----------------------
Learn more about Power, People & Planet on the website:
https://powerpeopleplanet.org

To watch full episodes of the podcast follow Kumi's YouTube channel
Follow Kumi on social media:
LinkedInInstagramTwitterFacebook-----------------------
Power, People and Planet is produced in association with the Green Economy Coalition, the world’s largest movement for a green and fair economy:
https://greeneconomycoalition.org

Additional support for the podcast was provided by the Robert Bosch Stiftung:
https://www.bosch-stiftung.de/en

The challenge of activism today must include winning over those with whom we disagree, for example, those who have not yet embraced the agendas of climate and economic justice. In a country like the US where about 40% of people have been misled by the falsehoods of right-wing media, democracy is under great threat if activists for justice are not able to win over a significant number of those who support antidemocratic ideas. This episode explores the questions of why this is so difficult and what strategies we may employ to build much-needed bridges of dialogue, engagement, and possibly conversion. Can we build narratives and messages that help people break out of ideological silos? How do we win over people who occupy positions vastly different from those promoting economic, gender, and climate justice?

Our guests:

Sharan Burrow is the general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and a former president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. Sharan is a passionate advocate and campaigner for social justice, women’s rights, the environment, and labour law reforms, and has led union negotiations on major economic reforms and labour rights campaigns in her home country of Australia and globally. 

She has also served as a member of the Governing Body of the International Labour Organisation and is represented on a number of international commissions concerning climate action, industrial transition, and economic reform.

Follow Sharan’s work:
The International Trade Union Confederation website: https://www.ituc-csi.orgTwitter: @SharanBurrow 
Alnoor Ladha is a political strategist, writer, and activist. Alnoor’s work focuses on the intersection of political organising, storytelling, and technology. He was the co-founder and Executive Director of The Rules, a global network of activists, coders, researchers, writers, and others focused on changing the rules that create inequality, poverty, and climate change. The Rules started in 2012 as a time-bound project and an experiment in anarchist organisational design, exploring new ways of how to work, play, and make trouble together.
He is a co-founder of Tierra Valiente, an alternative community and healing centre in the jungle of northern Costa Rica. He is a board member of Culture Hack Labs and The Emergence Network.

Follow Alnoor’s work:
Culture Hack Labs website: https://www.culturehack.ioTwitter: @alnoorladha -----------------------
Learn more about Power, People & Planet on the website:
https://powerpeopleplanet.org

To watch full episodes of the podcast follow Kumi's YouTube channel
Follow Kumi on social media:
LinkedInInstagramTwitterFacebook-----------------------
Power, People and Planet is produced in association with the Green Economy Coalition, the world’s largest movement for a green and fair economy:
https://greeneconomycoalition.org

Additional support for the podcast was provided by the Robert Bosch Stiftung:
https://www.bosch-stiftung.de/en

With the crises in front of us so complex, are their solutions to be found at the global or local level? Will our technologies emerge fast enough to avert the greatest threats and, if not, how do we prepare for that unknown future? And how can even the boldest of activist movements hope to have an impact against overwhelming economic and cultural power? In this episode Kumi discusses ways to reimagine and reinvent the ways we live with one of Britain’s leading figures in the fight for a better world.

Our guest:

George Monbiot is a trained zoologist and scientist but is most commonly noted for his journalism, writing and his political and environmental activism, in which he has been engaged for over 30 years. He is a columnist for the Guardian and was awarded the 2022 Orwell Prize for Journalism. His latest book Regenesis: Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet explores a new future for food production, one of the most climate-devastating industries humanity currently engages in. 
Follow George's work:
George’s website: https://www.monbiot.com/Twitter: @GeorgeMonbiot -----------------------
Click here to watch a full video version of this episode.

Learn more about Power, People & Planet on the website:
https://powerpeopleplanet.org

To watch full episodes of the podcast follow Kumi's YouTube channel
Follow Kumi on social media:
LinkedInInstagramTwitterFacebook-----------------------
Power, People and Planet is produced in association with the Green Economy Coalition, the world’s largest movement for a green and fair economy:
https://greeneconomycoalition.org

Additional support for the podcast was provided by the Robert Bosch Stiftung:
https://www.bosch-stiftung.de/en