By Obiabin Onukwugha
Recently environmental and civil society organisations have recognised the role of exposing young activists to alternatives ways of sending their messages across through the use of arts and cultural messages.
The role of art in society and culture cannot be over-stated. Art plays a significant role in shaping and reflecting society and culture. It reflects the values, beliefs, and experiences of a particular time and place.
Art can serve as a means of communication, conveying messages, ideas, and emotions to the viewer. It can also be used as a form of activism, raising awareness about social and political issues, among others.
One of such, is the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), which recently exposed participants at its School of Ecology to the use of arts in conveying their message while seeking environmental justice.
During the three-days training, which held between the 7th to 9th of this month in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, participants were taught different ways of pushing for an end to environmental degradation, including poems, poetry, drama, using the works of late Ken Saro-Wiwa as example.
Speaking on the Topic, “Retooling Arts and Culture for People’s Power”, Project Lead, Community and Culture at HOMEF, Cadmus Atake Enade, highlighted the importance of communication through arts as a veritable tool for drawing government and society attention to the ills of oil companies towards the Niger Delta environment.
He regretted that modernisation has infiltrated the cultural beliefs and ways of life of the Niger Delta people since the advent of oil exploration and exploitation in the 50’s.
Enade told the participants that in pushing for environmental justice, they must recognise the three categories of power, which include; power over, power with and power within.
He said: “We all come from a community, there is nobody that is not from a community or village but we have become modernised people that we forget where we come from, we forget our culture.
“For the past years of exploitation and extraction, we have lost some of our values, some of our norms, the way we see things, the way we see ourselves as a people and this has actually impacted our ways of life; our dressing our food and even the way we feed.”
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“Conclusively, we must look at the importance of arts and culture when developing people’s power because in every community, there is always the existence of a day for community engagement and interactions. We must therefore utilize these spaces to tell and inspire people to take positive actions in the protection and conservative of their cultural beliefs and environment.
“However, when trying to organize people’s power, it is important to understand how leadership is distributed throughout the community in order to consolidate how the leadership affects community residents.
“Lastly, we must note that environmental/climate justice are not people’s issues but a system change issue, so we must mobilise and resist the extractive corporations who contribute largely to the release of emissions into the atmosphere that results in the environmental and climate crisis we face as a people.
Earlier in his address, Executive Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), Dr. Nnimmo Bassey, called for the need to build people’s power and resilience in challenging environmental exploitive systems in the Niger Delta region.
Bassey said host communities have been exposed to bear the brunt of oil exploration which over time has inflicted violence on them and their ecosystem, pointing out that it was expedient for members to the people to build sustainable resistance that must be non-violent.
He stated that by building resilience, members of communities should focus on clear objectives, insisting on key universal rights that anchor on, Right to Life, Right to a safe environment, food and water, adding that communities should not be swayed by seeking for adaptation and mitigation means.
The HOMEF boss further stated that anything that works against Mother Earth is crass, blind exploitation and must be overturned, and insisted that as an organisation its position is to terminate the barbaric exploitation of the earth and people by showing ingratitude to nature that nurture human.
He said: “While the system rapaciously inflicts violence on humans, other beings, and the ecosystems, it is clear to us that sustainable resistance must be non-violent. As we reflect on this it is expedient that we know that building resilience requires a clear objective and not should not be focused merely on erecting means of adaptation and mitigation that calms frayed nerves while the exploitation and abuse continue unchecked.”
He also called on the Nigerian government and other governments in Africa to have a clear position while going to the Conference of Parties(COP28) in Dubai and to make very good demands.
“I think Nigeria can not talk of climate change and climate justice, we have to practice it at home by stopping gas flaring because we can not be faring gas and demand climate justice.
“Nigerian government is in a difficult to show the world that they are serious about climate change.
“Nigeria has to step forward and begin to do things that will show that we are serious. This is because climate change is already washing away our communities but so far we are not convinced that the government understand the enormity of the problem”, he stated.
