Our ecological unconscious
There is still a lot of brouhaha and political polemics in Bangladesh when it comes to the safekeeping of the environment. However, it seems like our government is finally catching up with the subject with some degree of sincerity. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Forests and Environment Ministry recently proposed the inclusion of a number of environment-related clauses in the Constitution. This one caught my attention: "The State shall protect, preserve, and improve the environment and safeguard natural resources, ecological diversity, biodiversity, wetlands, forests, and wildlife of the country for present and future generations." The proposed clause suggests that we, as a nation, are slowly maturing to fathom our tortured ecological unconscious, that deep-seated psychological attachment to the natural environment. Lately, we have been suffering from a peculiar distress, as our environment has become a mere commodity to be purchased, claimed, or exploited for material progress. This is not just happening to us. Environmentalists worldwide are increasingly grappling with ecopsychological duress, especially when the effects of global warming, climate change, and unusual natural calamities are looming large. Indeed, a neologism has been introduced to describe this feeling: "solastalgia," a combination of the Latin word solacium, meaning comfort, and the Greek root algia, meaning pain. In short, it is a simultaneous feeling of comfort (from the environment) and pain (because the environment is degrading). American filmmaker James Cameron's recent hit film Avatar uses an ancient tribe's solastalgia to bring attention to the environmental destruction wrought by the military- industrial complex. In Bangladesh, we are feeling solastalgic because the green Bengal pastoral -- which, for ages, both sustained and captivated our painters, poets and novelists, as well as ourselves -- is withering away. It is a painful lament for something we, as a people, historically hold dear. Therefore, the cultural and political significance of the environmental clause is enormous, especially when we take into consideration the brigade of real and abstract "villains" that are ravaging our environment: the thuggish culture of indiscriminate land grabbing; the financial muscle of real estate developers and their influence peddling; our general lack of environmental awareness; and, most important, our attitude toward development. Let me focus on the fourth villain for it has broad ramifications for the ongoing environmental debate in Bangladesh. When it comes to the question of economic development, two conflicting attitudes toward the environment emerge. First, humanity is only part of a larger ecosystem; therefore, it is humanity's moral responsibility to nurture the natural environment for the well being of all species. The proponents of this view are willing to moderate the scope of economic growth in such a way that Mother Nature is protected and preserved for present and future generations. For example, if offshore drilling for fossil fuel threatens marine biodiversity, then ban such a disruptive infrastructure, even if it promises vast riches. In Water Wars (2002), environmental activist Vandana Shiva made an international plea to curb the corporate privatization of water. This natural resource not only plays spiritual and traditional roles in communities, but it is central to the world's ecological balance, as well. In short, development and environmental stewardship should occur in concert. Second, there are those who believe that nature is an infinite resource that must be harnessed for human progress and material growth. The advocates of this anthropocentric viewpoint assume that human beings are at the centre of cosmos and that it is logical to exploit the environment for their betterment. For example, if mining coal can generate economic prosperity, then that activity is more important than some environmental costs. The premise is that nature has ways of adjusting itself. Pause for a minute to ponder why we can't get rid of the ship-breaking industry in Chittagong: Its economic appeal seems to outweigh, unfortunately, the cost of the environmental damage that it inflicts on the coastal belt. Former American vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's populist slogan "Drill, baby, drill" is based on the idea that if an unexplored oil reserve is found within America's borders, why not utilize it to reduce the country's dependence on foreign oil. These two attitudes are at the centre of the current environmental debate across the world. Both camps favour human progress, albeit with contrasting philosophies of development. Hungry for raw materials, western industrializing nations since the Industrial Revolution have embraced the second viewpoint as the only viable option, essentially, the bedrock of the progress doctrine. But all this began to change in the West with the "counterculture" of environmental movements in the 1960s and the Oil Crisis in the 1970s that compelled America and other industrialized nations to seek alternative and renewable sources of energy and articulate new policies of natural resource management. The idea that nature is, after all, a finite source of energy began to sink in, prompting new thinking about the balance of development and environment. The fledgling debates on ecological sustainability also helped revisit the fundamentals of the market-based development discourse. Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962), Meadows and Others' Limits to Growth (1972), E.F. Schumacher's Small Is Beautiful (1973), and Erich Fromm's To Have or to Be (1976) are seminal books that assailed the profit-driven growth initiatives and their tragic consequences on the environment. In his ominous The End of Nature (1989), Bill McKibben argued that through all kinds of biochemical and technological manipulations, humanity had practically replaced the natural nature of the world with an artificial one. Toward the end of the twentieth century, many developing countries caught up with the growth frenzy were on a fast track to modernization, propelled by new policies of financial management and demands of globalization. As a growing economy, Bangladesh, too, pushed the development agenda hard and fast. For many, "to have" (acquire the land, claim the property, and profit as much as possible) took precedence over "to be" (live harmoniously with the environment and maintain ecological balance for wholesome development). Unfortunately, in all of the haphazard modernization agendas in Bangladesh, neither the national dialogue nor educational curricula focused on the environment. When a Dhaka real estate tycoon, in a now-infamous encounter, defied a Bangladeshi state minister with the boastful claim that real estate developers had done more than the political community, it could not present a more hideous Faustian bargain: Real estate developers have provided housing options to the urban middle class, sure (actually, not quite sure), while the environment rotted, natural water drainage systems and wetlands disappeared because of greedy land reclamations, and environmentally insensitive concrete jungles destroyed urban biodiversity. Fortunately, things are beginning to change in Bangladesh, at least in the domain of policymaking. The Bangladesh Environment Network (BEN) and Bangladesh Poribesh Andolon (BAPA) have sensitized people about the hot-button environmental issues. The environment is becoming a top political priority, and rightly so because we are a land-starved nation of 160 million people. Every square inch of Bangladesh must matter. The proposed constitutional clause that "the State shall protect, preserve, and improve the environment for present and future generations" shows that we are finally getting it. We must rediscover our ecological unconscious that has a cherished literary history. Rabindranath grasped it, Jibonanondo felt it, and Jashim Uddin mined it.
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