The rebellious women of our times

"Africa is poor because its investors and its creditors are unspeakably rich"–

Once commented by Naomi Klein, a Canadian journalist, who had depicted so blatantly the routine conspiracy and the day-to-day hypocrisy of global economics.

The Charismatic Canadian with years of research and investigation finally exposed the precise plot behind the Iraq war in 2007, and stunned the world by publishing the exact facts and figures of the draconian profit made by the reconstruction companies like Halliburton and Bechtel out of Iraq's ruin.She also displayed in public, again with precise facts and figures, the crooked financial connection between Donald Ramsfeld and John Ashcroft with the War industry.

Ms. Klein in each of her contemporary writings exposed the acidic truth over and over: More war means more business for America. More terrorism means blossoming of the homeland security industry of U.S., skyrocketing of NYSE stocks, and ultimately Carnival in Wall Street.

Ms Klein has warned us repeatedly about the illicit love affair between the oil companies and the big banks, and how disgracefully the Washington senators are jumping into bed with the Walls Street operators, and how systematically they have been pointing their guns at the elected governments of the poor nations, who dares to say NO to Washington's darling economic policies — cut back from vaccines, textbooks and hospital beds, so that you can pay us back with climbing interest rate.

In her words, "When it comes to paying contractors, the sky is the limit; when it comes to financing the basic functions of the state, (health and education) the coffers are empty."

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Dr. Vandana Shiva, the ever-green "seed" lady, a farmer, a scientist and a eco-feminist, with a huge red dot on her forehead and with an everlasting smile on her face, once told, she would rather have her faith in a pile of raw cow dung than the indexes of Dow Jones.

Who else in our time has described so beautifully the evolutionary bond between the soil and the weeds, the rice and the rivers, the moth and the seeds, the farmlands and the women? Who else but Dr. Shiva would explain us better the magnificent history and evolution of thousand years of farming, and how it is being taken over and ripped apart by giant agro-food corporations like, Monsanto, Dupont and Cargill.

Who else but her has been fighting so indefatigably against Monsanto's genetically modified cotton, which systematically trapped millions of farmers throughout the world in a fierce cycle of pesticides, herbicides and debt.

Vandana Shiva has been warning us again and again, how carelessly Coca Cola mines and contaminates thousands of hectors of ground water each year, how the lethal greed of Wall Street manufactures trillion-dollar electronic money merely by gambling and speculating on people's staple food and farmers' seeds, and how shrewdly the war torn Iraqi farmers are forced to give away their own seeds and pushed to buy seeds from American companies.

Who else to explain us better, the horrifying connection between the hiking price of our staple food and the climbing hype in the Wall Street?

Who else in our time, would tell us so bluntly that the Indian double-digit economic growth has in fact delivered an overall eight million displaced farmers, accompanied by an extra two hundred thousand dead ones!

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Arundhati Roy, a rebel writer and a reckless passionate of our time, walked along with her people for long, against the State, and fought adamantly to save the mountains and the rivers of Orissa and Chhattisgarh, and the valleys and the farm lands of Narmada.

In her words, "If the flat-topped hills are destroyed (for bauxite), the forests that clothe them will be destroyed too. So will the rivers and streams that flow out of them and irrigate the plains below. So will the hundreds of thousands of tribal people who live in the forested heart of India".

In each passionate piece of her she reminded us about the destruction of titanic dams and dangerous mines, about the endless hunger of giant companies and their 'poor-smashing' special economic zones, and over the worldwide deception of electoral democracy and the persistent lies of 'free media'.

Who else in our time had the impossible guts to challenge the supremacy of the state and its Supreme Court and had stood by the Maoists, with dignity.

Who else but Ms. Roy would say it so beautifully, "There's really no such thing as the 'voiceless'. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard".

Or who else could spit it out so sarcastically, "you take from the poor and subsidize the rich, and call it free market"

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These three rebellious women of our time have been both emblematic peacemakers and deliberate troublemakers.  Trouble for those who have been systematically trashing truth, destructing data, plotting wars, toppling regimes, spreading propaganda, and making billions out of bombs and battleships, tanks and tear gas, terrorism and tomahawks, and last but not least, the poor.

Trouble for those, who clap for freedom and democracy, but eye for free market. (And by free market mean, competition for you, but bail-out-for-me)

Trouble for those who own and control the missiles, the money, and the media.

These three fine women have relentlessly warned us about the well-groomed liaison between G20 and the global corporations, and their earth-shattering adventure of taking over mother earth at a ridiculously discounted price; the oil, the gas, the coal, the seeds, the timbers, the water flowing in the rivers, the species roaming in the forests and the bauxite lying inside the mountains.

They have been dangerously investigative, got their facts and documents accurate, and yet managed to remain desperately humanist.

They have indeed unlocked the Pandora's Box.

These three incredible women of our time, through their words and acts, have given enormous hopes and strengths to countless women and men throughout the planet, who have been for long, been used, manipulated, lied, battered and wronged.

We crave for justice because you've opened our eyes. Thank you.

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Maha Mirza is a researcher and activist. She is a graduate in economics and international political economy.