Consumption

Excessive consumption patterns, especially in the global North, and increasingly in urban centres in the global South, demand a constant extraction of minerals, energy and raw materials. Most of this extraction takes place in the global South, where companies take over community lands for industrial plantations, fossil fuel extraction and large-scale mining. Communities are losing their lands and forests so that consumers can continue to have cheap access to paper products, cars and mobile phones, etc – and companies continue to pocket their profits.

Bulletin articles 16 January 2023
Brazil and Indonesia share a particular similarity: at some point its rulers decided to build a new capital city. While rulers in Brazil built Brasilia some 60 years ago, construction of the new Indonesian capital is currently underway. Both projects reinforce a colonial State, in spite of their promoters claiming the opposite. Both stories however, also show the role of social struggles as a way to revert a history of colonialism. (Available also in Bahasa Indonesia)