Challenging Capitalist Fire
first published 11 July 2018
Today, a capitalist organization of fire dominates the world. Biotic fires in the open -- which ordinary people have long used to nurture agriculture and forests -- tend to be denigrated, even criminalized. More intense fossil-fuelled fires in combustion chambers, boilers and turbines, meanwhile, are tacitly encouraged as a sign of progress and civilization.
What with climate change and worldwide struggles to defend livelihoods against fossil fuels, vernacular struggles against this perverse organization of fire are sure to intensify.
Versions of this article in Spanish, French and Portuguese are available above. For the full issue of the World Rainforest Movement Bulletin that contains this article, featuring other pieces on fire in Indonesia, Chile, Brazil, Ecuador and Portugal as well as an editorial, go to https://www.wrm.org.uy/bulletins/issue-238.