Ecologist Cemil Aksu: We Bear Direct Consequences of Our Destruction of Nature

* Photos: Yeşil Öfke website

Click to read the article in Turkish

Most of us must have watched at least one of these Hollywood movies with disaster scenarios. At the end of the movie, the US saves the world from destruction in one way or another.

First, climate crisis, then, drought and abnormal weather conditions... Now, we have also found ourselves struggling against a global outbreak, namely novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. And, this time, unlike these movies, the world seems to be faced with a deadlock.

But, what are the sources of ecological crises? What motivations underlie the governments' destruction of the ecology?

Peoples' Democratic Congress (HDK) Executive Board member and Polen Ecology activist Cemil Aksu has commented on the relationship between ecology and capitalism in a video interview to bianet.

Here are some highlights from the interview with Aksu:

Can we say that capitalism is the reason for the ecological crisis?

We can say that, but by adding a dissenting opinion. Ecological crisis is a factor that goes beyond capitalism itself, it is one of the factors that have led to the capitalism's own crisis. We cannot explain the developments in nature only by referring to capitalism.

Considering the current state of the ecological crisis, I can say that it has gone beyond the factors that have triggered it.

The last 200 years of the humankind is an issue agreed by 80 percent of scientists... I mean, they say that humans have now come to a position to determine the development of the nature. Yes, ecological crisis is the product of humankind's two-hundred-year development.

All these developments do not happen at the will of the nature or due to providence. It is a result of capitalism. I can say that solving ecological problems depends on our liberation from capitalism.

'Governments don't make efforts for public health'

Health policies, food problems... Are they all associated with capitalism?

We are trying to cope with the coronavirus outbreak on a global scale. All people are trying to cope with it, but I cannot say that the governments are trying to cope with the pandemic. The ecological crisis is directly associated with the health crisis. We can draw this association from several aspects.

We know that neoliberal policies have spread all around the world. In that period, Prime Minister of Britain Margaret Hilda Thatcher said, "There is no society." If there is no society, then, it also means that that there are no policies protecting public health, either.

Is health entrusted to companies?

Society has turned into a market where profit can be made with neoliberal policies. After that stage, several social policy tools such as a regular and healthy nutrition of the society or social insurance system have been inactivated. Therefore, we must look at the crisis that we are going through today in the light of these questions:

"Why does a simple virus cost the lives of so many people and why don't governments take measures despite so much wealth?"

Because governments do not have any vision, information or problems about protecting public health. On the contrary, they are more concerned with people getting sick and buying medicine.

Is there a collapse in healthcare? Is it caused by neoliberal policies?

Yes. Wuhan has become a world city in the last 10 years. It is also the production center of multinational companies in the automotive sector. It is the place where 80 percent of China's wild trade is undertaken.

If you meddle in the affairs of other life forms in nature for your own interests, if you take these animals and try to do their trade, if you destroy the forests, etc... Then, you come into contact with animals in one way or another.

The capital makes investments in those places where the rights of the nature and those of the labor are not safeguarded. We bear the direct consequences of our destruction of nature.

(EMK/SD)

* This interview is a summary of the video interview in Turkish