The fight for the environment is also a fight for survival. The environment gives and takes life. Oil only takes. We take it from the ground, from communities. We take clean air, water, and future with it. Yet still we fight for and over oil. We fight for oil because oil is money, and in a capitalistic society, money represents a “better” lifestyle. Oil makes the products we are sold and told we need. Growing up in a western society, it’s easy to forget that a quality of life requires a planet that supports life. Production and demand and GDP leave little space for the value of human health and a clean environment.
Oil on Water by Helon Habila illuminates the differences between wealth and richness of life. Chief Malabo refuses to sell his village to oilmen because he realizes the intrinsic value of the land exceeds the monetary value of the oil beneath it; “though they may not be rich, the land had been good to them, they never lacked for anything” (Hebila 43). Unlike the Nigerian government or the oil companies, The Chief thinks long term about the welfare of his community. Looking at other villages that sold their land for “cars (that) had broken down and cheap televisions… now worse off than before” (43), not only does the Chief reject short term gains for long term wellbeing, but he learns from other communities and avoids falling into the same trap.
Rejecting temporary wealth for the richness of life provided by the land fails to prevent orange flares from the lighting up the sky and the pervasive smell of petrol from seeping into the land and coating the water. Even if all the villages do not sell their land, the pollution permeates their lives – pollution does not discriminate, and oil companies fail to siphon any percent of their profits to clean it up. Shell gets 10% of its oil from the Niger Delta, and 10,000 barrels were spilt in the delta just last year.
Why aren’t we doing anything? Well the first step to acting is admitting we are driving the problem. Not driving in the sense that we are steering the wheel that rolls over villages in the Niger Delta, but driving in the sense that we are burning the oil that goes into this thirsty vehicle. It’s easy to blame the oil companies and the government, but it’s much harder to turn around realize we are part of the demand that drives the pipes into the ground. Even if we can admit we hold part of the guilt, our modern lives are inseparable from oil. Oil has become like water: it’s part of us, we run off it, always thirsty.
To do something, we must start building a future that can run off solar, and wind, and human power. Water and oil don’t mix. Oil sits on top, covering what is truly vital. Are we really inseparable from something that never wanted to mix in the first place?
Sources
Habila, Helon. Oil on Water. W.W. Norton and Company , 2011.
“In Pictures: Forest Destroyed.” BBC News, BBC, news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/04/africa_polluting_nigeria/html/8.stm.
