"Militarized Neoliberalism" and the Canadian State in Latin America
"Militarized Neoliberalism" and the Canadian State in Latin America
Saturday, 19 November 2016 00:00
By Jen Moore, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives | Book Review
Stories of bloody, degrading violence associated with Canadian mining operations abroad sporadically land on Canadian news pages. HudBay Minerals, Goldcorp, Barrick Gold, Nevsun and Tahoe Resources are some of the bigger corporate names associated with this activity. Sometimes our attention is held for a moment, sometimes at a stretch. It usually depends on what solidarity networks and under-resourced support groups can sustain in their attempts to raise the issues and amplify the voices of those affected by one of Canada's most globalized industries. But even they only tell us part of the story, as Todd Gordon and Jeffery Webber make painfully clear in their new book, The Blood of Extraction: Canadian Imperialism in Latin America (Fernwood Publishing, November 2016).
"Rather than a series of isolated incidents carried out by a few bad apples," they write, "the extraordinary violence and social injustice accompanying the activities of Canadian capital in Latin America are systemic features of Canadian imperialism in the twenty-first century." While not completely focused on mining, The Blood of Extraction examines a considerable range of mining conflicts in Central America and the northern Andes. Together with a careful review of government documents obtained under access to information requests, Gorden and Webber manage to provide a clear account of Canadian foreign policy at work to "ensure the expansion and protection of Canadian capital at the expense of local populations."
Fortunately, the book is careful, as it must be in a region rich with creative community resistance and social movement organizing, not to present people as mere victims. Rather, by providing important context to the political economy in each country studied, and illustrating the truly vigorous social organization that this destructive development model has awoken, the authors are able to demonstrate the "dialectic of expansion and resistance." With care, they also show how Canadian tactics become differentiated to capitalize on relations with governing regimes considered friendly to Canadian interests or to try to contain changes taking place in countries where the model of "militarized neoliberalism" is in dispute.
The Spectacular Expansion of "Canadian Interests" in Latin America
We are frequently told Canadian mining investment is necessary to improve living standards in other countries. Gordon and Webber take a moment to spell out which "Canadian interests" are really at stake in Latin America -- the principal region for Canadian direct investment abroad (CDIA) in the mining sector -- and what it has looked like for at least two decades: "liberalization of capital flows, the rewriting of natural resource and financial sector rules, the privatization of public assets, and so on."
More:
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/38407-militarized-neoliberalism-and-the-canadian-state-in-latin-america
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