Moving Mountains: Communities Confront Mining & Globalisation

Capital & Class, Spring 2005 by Bergene, Ann Cecilie

Geoff Evans, James Goodman and Nina Lansbury (eds.) Moving Mountains: Communities Confront Mining & Globalisation Zed Books, London, 2002, xxiii 284 pp. ISBN: 1-8427-7199-X (pbk) £15.95

Moving Mountains is a collection of fourteen essays dealing, in their different ways, with the imperialism of the mining industry. In the book, monopolistic mining companies from core countries are characterised as ruthlessly exploiting global peripheral economies. On the other hand, much emphasis is placed on resistance, especially that of indigenous communities. The mining companies are portrayed as predatory beasts, huge and with an unprecedented geographical scope, reaching into the most remote areas of both developed and underdeveloped countries. They form close relationships with repressive and corrupt regimes, pay no heed to human rights, destroy the environment, negatively affect indigenous cultures and exploit countries, while contributing little of value and extracting super-profits. The underdeveloped countries are like Doctor Faustus, selling their souls to the devil in return for much-wanted export revenues and foreign exchange. The global mining industry thereby makes national development under global capitalism extremely difficult for underdeveloped countries. There is private absentee ownership, with little or no contact or common interests with the affected peoples; a rapid rate of production, the consequences of which can barely be measured, let alone mitigated; and the need to resort to the use of force in order to keep the wheels turning.

The main objective of the book is to challenge this predatory industry, represented particularly by the transnational corporations that dominate it, by using a bottom-up and civilsociety perspective. Given this, the book paints a bleak picture in which the race to the bottom is central, alongside resource exhaustion, asset-stripping, displacement, dependency, exploitation, disruption of local communities, and the inverted Robin Hood policy of robbing the poor to give to the rich that is characteristic of global capitalism.

However, a key aspect of the book is that it contains success stories of communities resisting the powerful corporations and their allies. Perhaps most inspirational in this regard is Havini and Johns's essay on the struggle for self-determination on the island of Bougainville. What started as resistance to the mining giant RioTinto, and to the Papua New Guinean government, culminated in a civil war for independence. The introduction to the book concludes with the development of a framework that will provide a tool for others fighting similar struggles. Indeed, this is the book's most important contribution, given that social movement activists are often considered 'anti-theory'.

Activists will also find hope in the empirical examples that provide inspiration for developing tactics and strategies of struggle, as well as help in avoiding the potential pitfalls of campaigns. The stories presented of community struggles throughout the world depict hope and show, as in Colley's contribution on the political economy of mining, that the beasts have a soft underbelly. Technological change, advances in productivity and declining market prices for minerals have turned the tide on the once highly-profitable and all-powerful mining industry. There is, therefore, an opportunity to put global corporate power, imperialism and environmental issues on the agenda, and to replace the current system with one that is environmentally and socially sustainable, without exploitation and global inequalities.

The editors and contributors are part of a broad-based network, including trade-union leaders, researchers, members of the ravaged communities, academics and campaigners. Indigenous people affected by mining describe their first-hand experiences of the predatory nature of transnational mining corporations.

Campaigners discuss ways of regulating mining, and the use of financial power to ensure environmental and social protection. Other topics include corporate public relations and 'green-wash', and how campaigns from labour, national liberation, indigenous, human rights and environmental organisations can force corporate accountability. Mirroring this broadness, there is an emphasis on the need to besiege the industry, and to simultaneously pursue a localised and a globalised strategy, organising stake-holders locally, targeting shareholders and financial backers globally, and questioning the hegemonic discourse by proposing alternatives to the status quo.

All the contributions share a common purpose of questioning the current workings of the world economy, and generating alternatives to corporate power. However, their writing is uneven, and not all the chapters sit well together.

Each chapter addresses a particular aspect of the global mining industry, ranging from reflections on the authors' own experiences, through case studies, to theoretical debates about key issues concerning global capitalism as it is manifested in the mining industry. On the other hand, in spite of this diversity and unevenness, the objective of giving voice to and listening to a multiplicity of the formerly muted is achieved, and we hear how these issues affect a variety of people with different backgrounds at different levels.