In order to better understand the impact of colonialist nations on indigenous populations, it is important to evaluate the perspectives of all individuals involved. Currently we have evaluated colonialism purely the perspectives of only the indigenous populations from Nigeria to America. Their side of the story is one of pain and loss of culture. In Oil on Water, we saw the impact that the oil industry had on the local villages and how badly it affected their livelihood and their ecosystem. Just the images of dead birds and animals as Zaq and Rufus made their way down the river created a sense of dread and foreboding. However who in this case is the villain? Surely not the innocent villagers affected by the actions of the oil companies? Is it the government of the economically colonized countries? Is it the oil companies?

Through the story, we clearly see that the oil companies are the villains coldheartedly stealing the livelihood of the villagers, yet realistically, they are not purely to blame for the villagers’ suffering. In fact, the blame falls on both the actions of the government as well as the oil companies who are taking advantage of the government’s inaptitude in order to meet the high demands of oil in the western countries. The lack of a strong centralized colonial government due to war or tyranny is also reason for the environmental pollution and the exploitation and economic colonization of these countries. Yet sometimes, in order to grow the country and reach future independence, it is necessary to first go through this phase of economic colonialism. Therefore, unless one first understands the perspectives of the different factions involved in the issue it is hard to fully label one group the villain.

I absolutely loved Helon Habila’s Oil on Water. I think it was my favorite reading we have had thus far in the course. My favorite thing about this book was its vivid imagery. I think this greatly added to the appeal and activism of the novel, making it more engaging and enjoyable but also calling attention to the issues that Habila is advocating for. I think this was likely due to a mix of my reading it all in a couple of days and Habila’s beautiful, detailed descriptions, but I don’t think I’ve ever felt so immersed in a book (except maybe the Harry Potter series, but I actively convinced myself I was a witch while reading those!!) as I did while reading Oil on Water. I read half of the book on Thursday, went to bed, and dreamed of the book — that’s how engaged I was! I think that Habila’s vivid descriptions and use of sensory details made the activism aspects of her novel more effective because by throwing readers into the dying environment of the Nigerian Delta, she made readers so much more aware of the situation. By including horrific details like dead birds draped over trees while making the reader feel like they are there, Habila almost forces us to care more about the issue and (hopefully) feel compelled to do something to change this upsetting fate. I think the vivid imagery is the top reason that I am glad that Habila chose to make this a fictional story rather than a nonfiction account.

Something that really stood out to me during our class discussion was the idea that oil is an issue for everyone, and that it pollutes more than just the landscape. We discussed the idea that if it weren’t for oil, there would be no story of fighting and death and corruption. Oil is what pollutes the land, what poisons the water that we drink, what kills the fish that we eat. This is why the people are so angered. One of the militant groups said this when they are talking to Rufus and Zaq. — they were defending the planet, they were the people of Earth. This part reminded me of Bidder 70, when they talk about the various defenses that Tim DeChristopher could have used (the greater of two evils, defending his right to a healthy planet/future). I think that the fact that every single group of characters were negatively affected by oil demonstrates that idea that oil is everyone’s issue. Even the local villagers, who are healers that live in an indigenous type of environment, suffer greatly because of oil. Even Zaq and Rufus, who are supposed to be the “neutral” characters of the novel, suffer greatly, with Zaq dying at the end of the book due to a disease (I believe the book said it was an unknown strain of dengue fever) that was most likely mosquito-borne. I think this is an indirect allusion to climate change because climate change is causing an increase in mosquito-borne diseases. As we said in class, none of Habila’s decisions were unintentional! Also, I believe that the story of the doctor telling the dangers that the “orange flare” (the introduction of oil companies) bring to villages and the increasing levels of toxins that he found was included to emphasize the destructive nature of oil. Finally, I think that oil pollutes people in a non-physical way as well. It makes wealthy people who have ties to these companies corrupt, greedy, and malevolent. The government and the rich, white people in the book were connected to the oil companies, and they were put in a very negative light in this novel. I think that there are many people today who are tied to the oil industry (CEOs, politicians, etc) that make poor decisions that have devastating effects on the lives of many. I do not think that all of these people are malevolent by nature necessarily, but the oil has polluted their morals.

Helon Habila’s novel Oil on Water gives a unique perspective on the oil exploitation in the Niger Delta. In particular, it highlights the devastation that the oil companies have had on the indigenous people and how it has removed them from their native lands and the destruction of the natural resources.

However, the one part of the novel that really struck me was the reoccurring theme of water throughout the entire piece. The two main characters travel down the river and are consistently around the water. I thought this was intentional because Habila wanted to illustrate the carnage that the oil companies had inflicted upon the lifeline of the villagers in the area. While I think that was one of the goals of the author, I thought about the title as well. When an oil company drills a well, it uses water to be drill down into the ground. Water is the resource that is used in hydraulic fracking to be able to extract the oil out from under the ground. Colorado State recently conducted a study looking at wells in El Paso, Texas and they discovered that drilling and hydraulic fracking a vertical well takes roughly 387,000 gallons of water. The title is fitting because the water was the resource that the indigenous people centered their lives around and where they caught their food. I found the title to be ironic because not only were the oil companies taking the land of the native people, but they were also removing the pure clean water out of the river, drilling with it and then proceeding to put the disgusting polluted water back into the river. It was also symbolic of what happens when the oil company goes into a new area. The initial money is never enough to overcome the damages that is inflicted upon the area for years to come.

One other aspect of the book that intrigued me was a short dialogue that the doctor has with Rufus and Zaq. In that section, Habila depicts the doctor as grotesque and it appears this is in purpose because the doctor divulges that he discovered the dangers in the water and gave those results to the oil companies. Unfortunately, he is paid by the oil companies to stay quiet and not publish his findings. I thought this was indicative of the way that the people in power were viewed as selling out for their own benefit. Habila’s intention behind this was to show that the people in power in Nigeria are not looking out for the benefit of the people but rather their wallets. I think by describing the doctor in such an unappealing way it is a reflection of the decisions that he has made.

Helon Habila’s novel Oil on Water added many nuanced layers to our growing definition of what is activism and who are activists. While there were many people and groups in this novel who I would consider environmental activists, the role of the journalist played most central. The journalists are presented as environmental activists and human rights activists through their ability to witness and write about the damage they see being inflicted on the environment and subsequently the people that live within that environment. While I do without a doubt say that journalists can be activists through their use of journalism, and the access they are granted by virtue of being journalists is vital to the acquisition and spread of knowledge, it was hard to read about the journalists, Zaq and Rufus, often standing by as witnesses when they could take direct action, such as when the soldier was pouring gasoline on the old man and Michael. It is tempting to want to call activism direct action, while journalism can often be very passive, especially as journalists merely witness and later write, instead of stopping an action to the best of their abilities.

The role of activism as both an active and a passive action is an interesting one to consider. At the beginning of the course when defining activism, it was tempting to only define it as active actions, where goals and results are clear things to reach for. As my definition of activism grows and changes the role and importance of a passive type of activism becomes more clear, but also seems more important in the long run of creating change. For journalism especially, the ability to pass on information, to witness as activists and write about what is going on in the world is the first and fundamental step to creating a movement that could gather and create change. Without knowledge and information, people can’t know that there is an issue to take action against.

Habila, H. (2010). Oil on Water New York, USA: W.W. Norton & Company.

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.

After reading Oil On Water and the short story, Spider the Artist,  one main theme has arisen from both: far-away political decisions can affect/kill others. More specifically, far-away decisions involving oil extraction can wreak huge tolls on not only the environment, but the local community members as well. At the end of Spider the Artist, author Nnendi Okorafor ends with the line “You should pray that these zombies don’t build themselves some fins and travel across the ocean.” This is ironic because her and I both know that these so called “zombies” have already done such. In the book Oil On Water, the harsh, sometimes lethal effects of oil drilling is portrayed through intense imagery and descriptive writing. We learn how the people of the Nigerian Delta have suffered for years because of corporate greed and irresponsibility. While one would like to think that we, the Westerners, would stop such evil doings once we discovered how we are ruining the lives of local people, we have actually done the opposite.

A report has just been released claiming that SDX Energy, a United Kingdom oil and gas company, is planning on opening up new drill sites and pipelines in both Morocco and Egypt. http://www.ogj.com/articles/2018/02/sdx-energy-pursues-egypt-morocco-development-in-2018.html  Once this plans go through, the lives of thousands of Egyptians and Moroccans will be affected for the worse. Similar to Rufus and Zaq, these people are going to experience and see things that no human should have to suffer, let alone because of an outside intruder. If these rich capitalists don’t get their heads out of their own little bubbles and begin to start treating other cultures and the environment with care and respect, we won’t be fighting over oil for long, we’ll be fighting for our lives.

Helon Habila’s novel Oil on Water invites readers on the journey of two news reporters visiting the Niger Delta. Allowing us to  see the devastating environmental impacts of rich-oil companies and the suffering of the innocent villagers.

When considering why this work of fiction was weaved into the class curriculum, at the onset of the novel I presumed that we would focus on the reporters’ voluntary adventure into the Niger Delta as a form of activism. By observing the situation there and reporting the story to a broader audience across the Globe, I thought we would evaluate the relationship between journalism and activism.

Though this is one way to look at the novel, in our class discussion we evaluated who was innocent and who was guilty. After ruling out the government as guilty for accepting money from the British oil companies, the soldiers for killing innocent people, and the rich white people for investing in the big oil companies, the only people considered to be innocent were the reporters, the worshippers, the villagers, and the militants. The worshippers and villagers were innocent people forced to choose between becoming a soldier or wanderers after selling their land to the oil companies. While the militants seem guilty at face value, their act of kidnapping, tapping oil pipes, and using violence was an attempt to stand up for their environment and the Nigerian people. They like the villagers did not have a choice. They were neglected by their government and taking any action possible to save themselves.

Recognizing who is innocent and guilty helps us appreciate this novel’s contribution to our understanding of  activism. The story enlightens us to the villagers’ cause. When we, liberal westerners, think about big oil companies, our major concern is barring these industries to protect our environment and ourselves against climate change. We assume scientific reasoning and tell ourselves that increased burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil increase the concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere. We are quick to worry about the affects of CO2 on global temperatures, oceans, the arctic, and the list goes on.

However, this novel opens us up to the other side of the argument – where is this oil coming from. It sheds light on the exploitation of vulnerable populations by wealthy foreign oil companies, as seen similarly in Spider the Artist. The fact that the novel does not mention climate change forces us to consider that this is also a human rights abuse. We begin to consider how these peoples’ daily lives have been entirely altered. They are fighting for resources that were once abound and now contaminated by oil pollution. The farmers have lost their land. The fishermen have lost their catch. And they have all lost their water, shelter, and clean air. Overall, this novel adds to our study by helping us realize that environmental activism is not just a story about the environmental sciences but something much larger. A story about external greedy powers destroying villages, disrupting culture, and shifting power/social dynamics.

Oil on Water’s overarching message is a powerful and realistic one, portraying the oil exploitation of foreign companies in developing countries such as Nigeria. These companies enter the African market with one goal in mind: profits. Thus, the welfare of the Nigerian citizens and the environment suffer the consequences, which Oil on Water paints a vivid and powerful picture of.

It is critical to keep the African oil drilling situation in mind, especially as other nations look to expand their oil excavation projects. For instance, back home in Norway, the debate of opening for oil drilling in Lofoten, a group of islands known for its breathtaking nature, midnight sun, and northern lights, dominated politics last year in the wake of the Norwegian election. Lofoten heavily depends on tourism and fishing, and the latter might take a hit if oil drilling takes place off the coast of the islands. Furthermore, an oil spill would have a devastating effect on the community, with fish, birds, and humans in harms way. And this is not even mentioning the fact that Norway will export the oil worldwide, contributing to climate change.

Lofoten. Link: https://honeythatsok.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/moskenes_lofoten_northern_norway.jpg

But once again, profits are the motive behind the proposed project. Norway has experienced a huge success and economic boom following oil discoveries in the 1960s and 70s, prompting the nation to become one of the largest oil exporters in the world. And it has transformed Norway into one of the wealthiest and economically stable countries in the world. In fact, the government has a money reserve intended for the Norwegian citizens in case of an economic crisis; and the entire reserve is generated by oil export profits. Thus, expanding oil drilling projects to Lofoten makes sense for politicians wanting to protect the nation’s economic future.

The debate boils down to an important question; do we as a nation want to protect ourselves economically on the expense of the environment and potentially the rest of the world? It is a polarizing topic, but it is critical that we consider cases such as Oil on Water effectively portrays when finalizing a decision.

Something that really struck me in our discussion this week was discussing the author’s decision to make this book fiction. It is entirely possible that he could have told the same story, but done it in nonfiction form. He could have written it journalistically, or an anthropology piece about the cultures of the island and the effects that oil companies have had. However, he made the choice to write a fictional account, and I think this choice gave the entire piece a lot of power.

It’s hard to get people to change their minds. It’s hard to get people to listen to an opinion or an idea that they don’t share. This article goes into depth about just how impossible it is to get people to change their minds when presented with factual information. And that’s a problem that America is coming to face with in a spectacular way right now. We have two sides of society who hear entirely different stories, who consume different ‘facts,’ and who live in different realities. If we are going to continue as a society, it’s absolutely paramount that we somehow join these two worlds, that we start recognizing that we do in fact live in one world, with one set of facts. But how do we do that if it’s impossible to reason with people? I would argue that storytelling is our most powerful tool.

The article talks about how after we have our formed beliefs, we don’t want to change them, that in fact we often refuse to consider evidence that would refute our own beliefs. What it doesn’t mention is how those beliefs are formed in the first place. I would argue that our beliefs are built upon the foundation of our experiences. I know the way my world works, I know because I’ve seen it. But what about people who don’t see the whole world? What about people who live in only one place, and don’t have the ability or opportunity to leave that place and understand other ways of living? How do those people get the opportunity to expand their knowledge of the world, and in doing so expand their beliefs and understandings of the way the world works? I argue that storytelling is a powerful tool for exploring those possibilities.

And storytelling can be fictional or nonfictional, but it has to be truthful. It has to truly open your mind and your understanding to things that you would never have the opportunity to experience first hand. And that can be through reading a novel about a place on the other side of the globe, or reading a magazine article about a community across the city from you. And I think that the choice to make the novel “Oil on Water” fictional allowed Helon Habila to tell a true story in a way that deeply impacted his readers. They not only saw what was happening, the way an article allows for, but they understood the feelings and emotions that those events induced. In doing so, Habila opens up a whole new world to his audience. A whole new world they never would have experienced otherwise.