KUMI NAIDOO
The Greenpeace director on standing up to Putin and why the only race that matters is green
KUMI Naidoo was recently hosed down with cold water while hanging from an oil rig in the Arctic. He was protesting against oil drilling in the sensitive region, a cause that saw 30 Greenpeace protestors arrested and imprisoned for two months in a Russian prison. All but one of the protestors was released on bail this week, and the “Arctic 30” still face charges of “hooliganism”.
If our activists are hooligans, then Mandela, Gandhi and Rosa Parks were all
hooligans. This was the longest time spent in prison by any Greenpeace activist. Conditions were tough. They spent 23 hours each day in solitary confinement and it is very, very cold in that part of the world. Notwithstanding, we believe it was the right thing to do. We acted peacefully. One good thing coming out of the situation is that people are finally talking about the Arctic.
I live in Amsterdam most of the year, but home is Unit 2, Chatsworth [the Indian township in Durban]. I don’t visit too often, but the first thing I do when I get to Durban
is have a bunny chow, one of the nicest South African inventions.
I have a daughter, Naomi, who is 20. She has just finished her studies and is in India, travelling and volunteering there.
After Madiba was elected president, I opted to stay out of government and
rebuild civic society. There was a joke then that NGO really stood for “next government official”. But it was important to me to help the country. I started out promoting basic education because, at the time, the worst legacy of apartheid was that it had left so many people unable to read and write.
When Greenpeace approached me four
years ago, I was in the middle of a hunger strike on the Zimbabwe issue [with Desmond Tutu and others]. It was the 19th day of the strike and I said: “The timing is bad, I can’t make a decision in this state.” My daughter said: “Dad, I won’t talk to you again if you don’t consider this seriously. This is about securing my generation’s future and Greenpeace doesn’t talk, talk, talk — they are willing to take action.” I was really moved by that, it was the first time she had been so explicit about a cause. She was 16 at the time. But it shows you, throughout the world, young people get it.
Young people know that they will pay the price for the failures of adult
leadership. It is why we are inundated with volunteers. To them, I constantly say, do not invest your faith in the current world leadership. They are the biggest bunch of losers. Their message is that inequality is acceptable. Some people can be very rich and others impoverished and that is acceptable? Stop seeing leaders as gods rather than the servants of the people that they are. Elected leaders do not have a right to drive flashy cars and live the high life. Resist the idea that you are leaders of tomorrow — you are leaders now. Fracking runs the risk of destroying what little water security there is in the Karoo. industry largely, and if our government is serious about taking people forward 20 years later, that is not the way to do it. They agree with us, saying they encourage the transition to geothermal, solar and other ways of sourcing electricity without harming the environment. But do they act on it? They agree that climate change is affecting us but, after we meet, it’s business as usual. Forget the arms race and space race. The only race that matters is the green race. Invest in developing technical skills that will allow SA to take solar into the future.
‘Don’t invest your faith in the current world leadership. They are
losers’
What is the point of getting jobs for 500 people for maybe three years, then Shell benefits and makes huge profits and the people of the Karoo are left with water resources threatened for decades? You can’t drink natural gas and oil. It’s a false argument that our government is committed to development. Fracking, Kusile and Medupi power plants, these will benefit
My mom died at 38. She was a working-class woman with little education but she taught me that those of us with the ability have a moral responsibility to do what we can, for as long as we can, or go down struggling.
It is hard to keep motivation and energy going, constantly climbing
this mountain every day. In my low moments, I remind myself of my best friend Lenny Naidu [who was murdered in detention]. We had a conversation when we were fleeing into exile. We were 22. He asked, “What is the biggest contribution we can make to humanity?” I answered that it was probably martyrdom, giving your life. He said: “No. It is giving the rest of your life.”