Dear friends and others:
November 10th is the second anniversary of the death of Ken Saro-Wiwa and I
hope that some efforts will be made to commemorate him on this day. Ken
Saro-Wiwa died because after observing the success of the environmental
movement in the US, he used environmental justice as the a paradigm for the
struggle of his Ogoni people in the Niger Delta. This linkage between the
rights of indigenous people and environmental justice was simply too
potent for the power structures of both Nigeria and international commerce
to ignore. There were others in Nigeria who have fought for justice and
fled in order to save their lives. Ken stayed and gave his life as a result.
In some ways, his sacrifice parallels that of Martin Luther King. King was
also involved in a paradigm shift at the time of his assassination. In his
case, he could no longer ignore the linkage between the struggle of the
African-Americans in the US and the totally disproportionate price they
were paying in Vietnam while middle class whites worked the system to avoid
service.
What as brought this home to me was one of the reactions to my song about
Ken. My daughter performed it with an interracial singing group two weeks
ago. That group has plans to record a song about MLK and wants to put my
song on the other side. They hope to play it widely on Martin Luther King Day.
I think the parallels between MLK and Ken are important. It gives the
environmental movement an avenue of reaching out to the African-American
community not only on November 10th and January 19th, but all year around.
JOHN KLOTZ
http://www.walrus.com/~jklotz/
885 Third Avenue, Suite 2900
New York, NY 10022
(212) 230-2162
(718) 601-2044