Friday, April 25, 2008

In Protest

I'm thinking about two stories today.
The first is from the BBC, with the headline:

Strike to Close Oil Pipeline.

The second from Forbes:

Nigerian Militants Report Another Pipeline Bombing.

They are both pretty straight forward stories. The strike in Scotland could cost BP and estimated 50M pounds a day. Because of the attacks in Nigeria Shell says they may not be able to fill some of their orders.

I guess I'm thinking about different parts of the world. Who has power and who becomes desperate. Employment. Exploitation.

Scotland:
"A Unite spokeswoman said: "Unite believes that it is legitimate to comment that Ineos are responsible for the current pension plan being valued about £40m below what the value would have been had the full value of the fund been transferred in 2005.""

Nigeria:
"The group says it is fighting to force the federal government to direct more oil industry revenues to the region, which remains deeply poor despite four decades of oil production in the area."

There's something in the juxtaposition of plight --
like language, protest can teach us about climate -- about circumstances and lives.

I'm thinking that it must be so desperate in Nigeria -- that people attack and pollute and destroy their own land and bodies in order to try to enact change. One of the things that they are fighting for is to be employed -- of course, once one is employed they can strike...
I'm thinking about the colors of the protesters, and access to power.

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