Kate Lappin: "We have to get to the heart of what is driving some of these authoritarian elected governments. One reason is the failure to provide an alternative. In the absence of any other alternative, they have capitalised on the sense of injustice that people have, and told them that the alternative is to hate other people. They have got elected through instilling hate and fear in the people. Trump capitalised on working people's distrust of globalisation, and used that plank to get elected. Yet, he is now actually fuelling globalisation. In India people felt that there was no genuine alternative party for the people. [Indian PM] Modi, I think, has capitalised on people's feeling of injustice, by directing those feelings towards other countries and/or minorities within the country. Both of them fear that men might be losing power to women; both believe in regaining power through patriarchy and through the use of threats and violence towards other people. They are fomenting hatred by trying to convince people that they (people) are losing power to other countries due to globalisation, or to other religions (such as the Hindutva plank).
Theirs is the patriarchal model. We as progressive movements need to show that there is another alternative. We can genuinely have elected people who are not there for their families' interests, or their personal capital interests, but for a new system that is going to be redistributive and just. I already see a readiness and willingness for genuinely alternative systems and genuine alternative shared leadership. What people want in their leaders is a genuine sense of responsibility and accountability towards the people."
CNS: Please share more on why a feminist fossil-fuel-free future gives hope?
Kate Lappin: "The whole idea of a feminist fossil-fuel-free future is to say that we need feminist democracies. That does not mean putting the current development model in the hands of women. It means having a different kind of democracy that is based on shared systems. Feminism is about solidarity. The opposite of patriarchy is not matriarchy but solidarity. Patriarchy is about using power and violence against other people in order to gain power. The opposite of that is feminism - using care and solidarity to change systems and share/ redistribute power. The current flawed system is forcing people to think that there could be changes for the better. For example, governments are now becoming concerned that citizens will take action against dangers of fossil fuel industry, because they can see its impact on their health.
But, if we are going for energy transformation (and renewable energy is a wonderful opportunity to do that), we need to transition towards energy democracies and not just energy monopolies. We will have to do away with centralised and extractive capital investments. One can have a dispersed way of managing energy where communities can take control of their own energy and own it. That is one exciting area for feminists, because that can be achieved through decisions made by women. We normally have a very male dominated and controlled energy industry. So a feminist fossil-fuel-free future is also about energy democracy."
CNS: Please share some moments that make you proud?
Kate Lappin: "We should be proud of this very moment because, as a global feminist movement, we have forced the narrative to change. We have succeeded in drawing global attention towards the harms of trade agreements. The Trans Pacific Partnership had to be abandoned. It is indeed a failure of our political systems, that instead of the governments, it was the people's movements that did it.
In case of the climate justice, we have brought a feminist perspective to mobilise more grassroots women around the climate and environment sustainable development movement. In Nepal we have been able to successfully support the growth of grassroots movements of women of most marginalised communities, who had never engaged with the government before, to talk about the impact of climate on them. That for me is a very proud achievement. We were able to support a minority group in Bangladesh, who had been born and living in makeshift refugee slums for decades, to create their own movement and show that they too have a voice. There have been many other similar wins.
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