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 HELENA
NORBERG-HODGE

LOCA.L
IS OUR
FUTURE
Steps to an
Economics of Happiness

ie
rie,
LOCAL FUTURES
Local Futures works to renew ecological, social and spiritual
well-being by helping to show the way towards a genuinely sus­
tainable future —one of interconnected, localized economies. Our
flagshipEconomics of Happiness program provides a range of
educational and practical tools for communities and concerned
citizens, and links a broad array of initiatives, alternative insti­
tutes and networks worldwide.

Copyright © 2019 Helena Norberg-Hodge

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproducedin any form or
by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and
retrieval systems, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published by Local Futures

USA, UK, Australia, Mexico
www.localfutures.org

Design: Robert MacDonald, Information Outfitter

Front cover concept: Laura Tyley
Cover photo: Catarina Belova / Shutterstock
Author photo: John Page

Library of Congress Control Number:

CIP data available from the publisher upon request.
ISBN 978-1-7329804-0-2

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper.

1098765432]
 CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
... 8

1. Reclaiming the Future... 9

2. Globalization —Creating a Lose-Lose World ... 21
3, Counting the Costs ... 27
4. The Rise of Extremism ... 37

5. Localization —Getting from Here to There ... 45

6. Grassroots Inspiration ... 59
7. Local Food for Our Future ... 75

8. Countering the Objections ... 85

9. Globalization Revisited ... 91

10. Rethinking the Past ... 107

11. Big Picture Activism ... 113
12. The Economics of Happiness ... 121

CODA:A Conversation with Wendell Berry... 127

REFERENCES... 146

ABOUT THE AUTHOR ... 157

LOCAL FUTURES MATERIALS ... 158

ABOUT LOCAL FUTURES ... 160

 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I have been promoting economiclocalization for more than four

decades now, so the framing and core ideas of this book are
mine. However, the processof getting those ideas on paper has
been a collaborative effort. Iam privileged to have working with
me at Local Futures a truly remarkable team of bright, caring
and capable people. For this book I am particularly grateful to
four of them. My long-term friend and colleague Steve Gorelick
played a central role. Hispatience and superb editing skills,com­
bined with help in structuring and laying out the basic argu­
ments, were of vital importance. I was also supported by Henry
Coleman’s drafting and creative writing skills. Carly Gayle pro­
vided invaluable help in research and editing, while my ever­
present assistant of fifteen years, Marjana Kos, not only super­
vised the whole project but provided much-appreciated feed­
back. Finally, my partner in all things, John Page, constantly
encouraged meto produce something not just valuable, but read­
able. I hope we succeeded.
 I
RECLAIMING
THE FUTURE

For our species to have a future, it must be local.

The good newsis that the path to such a futureis already
being forged. Away from the screens of the mainstream media,
the crude ‘bigger is better’ narrative that has dominated eco­
nomic thinking for centuries is being challenged by a much gen­
tler, more ‘feminine’, inclusive perspective that places human
and ecological well-being front and center. People are coming
to recognize that connection,both to others and to Nature her­
self, is the wellspring of human happiness. And every day new,
inspiring initiatives are springing up that offer the potential for
genuine prosperity.
At the same time there is a growing awareness —from the
grassroots to academia —that the real economyis the natural
world, on which weultimately dependfor all of our needs. Only
when we embrace a structural shift in the current economy —
away from dependence on a corporate-run global marketplace,
towards diversified local systems —will we be able to live in a
waythat reflects this understanding.
Tragically,our political and business leaders remain blind to
these and other realities. They are taking us down a different
path, one where biotechnology will feed the world, the internet
will enable global cooperation, and robots will free people from
the drudgery of physical and mental effort. They believe that
life was brutish and hard before the modernera of global trade
and mega-technology, and that only through ever more eco­
nomic growth can our most pressing problems be solved.
 HELENA NORBERG-HODGE

A companion belief is that another technology —money —

can somehow generate wealth out of thin air. This fantasy is
embedded deep within the global economic system, a system
built upontrillions of dollars of debt backed by nothing but more
debt. We also have leaders who are convinced that enriching
the 1% will somehow ‘trickle down’ to benefit the poor. They
point to arbitrary measures —GDP,per capita income, the avail­
ability of consumer goods —whoserise ‘proves’ that their poli­
cies are working. But the reality is that the rich have gotten
richer than ever, while the majority must work harder and faster
just to provide their families with shelter, education and medi­
cal care.
The path of progress through technology that was supposed
to save us time has, ironically, succeeded in robbing us of our
time: we all must workat the speed of the available technology.
This is leaving people ever more stressed, and taking a tremen­
dous toll on our connection to others, to the natural world and
even to ourselves.
But instead of questioning the role of the economic system
in severing these connections, people tend to blame themselves
for not managing their lives well enough, for not spending
enough time with family and friends. In addition to feeling guilty,
we often end up feeling isolated because the ever morefleeting
and shallow nature of our social encounters with others fuels a
show-off culture in which love and affirmation are sought
through such superficial means as plastic surgery, designer
clothes and Facebook likes. These are poorsubstitutes for genu­
ine connection, and only heighten feelings of depression, lone­
liness and anxiety.
The dominant narrative of ‘progress’ fails to capture these
psychological costs. Just as importantly, it also omits the loom­
ing threats of climate chaos, species extinction and the collapse
of ecosystems worldwide. The truth is that, in fundamentally
important ways, conditions have actually worsened, yearby year,
for several decades now.
Whyhas this happened? In the last 40 years the world has
undergone a process that has been more momentous than the

10
 LOCAL IS OUR FUTURE

industrial revolution —and yet most of us have been only dimly

aware of it. That process is knownas economicglobalization. Built
largely through ‘free trade’ treaties that free up or deregulate
global banks and businesses, it has exponentially increased the
exploitation ofboth human and natural resources, with impacts
that no techno-fix can hopeto alleviate.
Consider what has happenedin thepolitical sphere. Even
nominally democratic countries have been subjected to what
amountsto a series of coup d’états that systematically siphoned
power away from elected governments into the hands of
deregulated global business and finance. International bodies
like the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, the Inter­
national Monetary Fund and even the COP climate negotia­
tions have become centers of power for a de-facto global gov­
ernment of multinational corporations and banks —one thatis
wholly unaccountable to citizens or communities. Every step of
the way, this path has taken us further and further from the
natural world and from real democracy;it is leading to the dis­
integration of the social fabric, and to epidemicsof divisiveness,
fear, addiction and violence.
In most quarters, the enormoussignificance of systematic
deregulation remains poorly understood. At neither the gov­
ernmental nor the grassroots level has this process been exam­
ined from a global perspective. Even climateactivists have largely
overlooked the fact that globalization has led to a massive in­
crease in CO, emissions from global trade —emissions that do
not appear in any nation’s carbon accounting.
Ourcollective ignorance has led many to blame human na­
ture or overpopulation, rather than the economy, for all the
destruction we see in our world. I hear people ask, “What is
wrong with humans —why are we so greedy andselfish?!” They
often conclude, “The human race has become a cancer. Maybe
we don’t deserve to survive.”
Asthe global economic system has grown bigger and bigger,
it has become extremely difficult for us to see what is actually
happening. Many of our basicneeds havecriss-crossed the planet
several times before we purchase them: how can we know

Vl
 HELENA NORBERG-HODGE

whether they were produced underfair and humanelabor con­

ditions, or what impact their production had on the environ­
ment? Even within academia, knowledge has become so spe­
cialized that ‘experts’ know little beyond the narrow focus of
their single discipline. Corporate funding, meanwhile, helps push
students into business administration or STEM subjects —sci­
ence, technology, engineering and math —while interdiscipli­
nary approaches, ecology, the humanities and experiential
knowledge are pushed to the margins.
With giant corporations and media conglomerates gaining
so much wealth and power, they have been able to shape not
only government and academic policy, but also public opinion
and intellectual discourse. Targeted corporate funding has even
influenced the environmental movement: as we'll explore in
greater depth in Chapter 11, corporations have set the agenda
for the global environmental movement, encouraging NGOsand
nation-states to shift their focus away from fundamentalpoliti­
cal change, towards marketsolutions like green consumerism,
ethical investment, and carbon trading —pseudo-solutions that
ensure corporate power remains unchallenged.
In the era of fully-fledged globalization, what is ‘economic’
has become absurd. Fish from Europe are flown to Asia to be
deboned, then flown back to Europe to be sold. Hundreds of
thousands of tons of hay grown on irrigated land in drought­
stricken southern California are shipped to China.' England and
Australia recently exchanged 20 tons of bottled water, just with
each other.”These examples of insanetrade are no longeroutliers:
they are now typical of how the global economy operates.
Andyet very few people are aware of this. Instead, narrow
reductionism,linked to ever larger-scale structures, has enabled
a global techno-optimist narrative to dominate discussions of
humanity’s future. From Netflix to TED talks, from Washing­
ton, DC to Silicon Valley,the cliché of a high-tech,totally global
—even interplanetary —society continues to be trumpeted as
the singular destiny of our species.
Whatdoes this future look like? Google’sRay Kurzweil in­
forms us that our food will come from “AlI-controlled vertical

12
 LOCAL IS OUR FUTURE

buildings” and include “in-vitro cloned meat”. According to

Tesla’sElon Musk, building a city on Marsis “the critical thing
for maximizing thelife of humanity”, while “30 layers of tun­
nels” will relieve congestion in Earth’s high-density cities.
Goldman Sachs explains that the digitization of everyday ob­
jects will “establish networks between machines, humans, and
the internet, leading to the creation of new ecosystems that
enable higher productivity, better energy efficiency,and higher
profitability”.
These ideas are laudedas visionary and bold, but what they
promise is simply the escalation of dominant trends —neo-colo­
nial expansion, urbanization and commodification —turbo­
charged with fancy gadgets. What they don’t tell us is that, at
every level, the system is dumping the most abundant natural
resource of all —human energy and labor —on the waste heap.
At the same time, our taxes are subsidizing a dramatic increase
in the use of energy and scarce natural resources. We have a
system that is simultaneously creating mass unemployment,
poverty and pollution.
This system is not the expression of the will of the majority:
on the contrary, we have been actively excluded from having a
say. But I do not believe that a ‘good guys vs. bad guys’ narra­
tive is accurate either. It is true that the people consciously push­
ing corporate monoculture represent only a tiny fraction of the
global population —perhapsless than 10,000 individuals world­
wide —but even they are so mesmerized by abstract economic
models and indicators that they are often blind to the real-world
effects of their decisions.
In a sense, the system has entrapped us all. Even the CEOs
of large corporations and banksare driven by speculative mar­
kets to meet short-term profit and growth targets —they are
under intense pressure to stay on top for fear of losing their
own jobs and letting down their shareholders. So it is the sys­
tem itself that must be called to account and changed —not the
interchangeable individuals who wield powerwithinit.
But as I said at the outset, this is not the only direction in
which the world is being taken. People around the globe are

13
 HELENA NORBERG-HODGE

yearning for the deep bonds of community and connection to

nature that we evolved with for most of our existence. And
from the bottom up they are pushing for a fundamental shift in
direction. Theirs is not a vision built upon a few billionaires’
fetish for high-tech gimmicks and knack for money-accumula­
tion: instead it emerges from a deep experience of whatit means
to be human.
At the grassroots on every continent, people in their diverse
cultures are coming together to reweavethe socialfabric and to
reconnect with the Earth and her ecosystems. They are building
prosperouslocal economies and intergenerational communities
that provide more meaningful, productive work. From commu­
nity gardensto farmers markets, from alternative learning spaces
to local business alliances and co-ops —whatall these have in
common is a renewal of place-based relationships that reflect
an enduring and innately human desire for love and connec­
tion.
These localization initiatives emphatically demonstrate that
human nature is not the problem —on the contrary, it is the
inhumanscale of a techno-economic monoculture that has in­
filtrated and manipulated our desires and our needs. This un­
derstanding is reinforced by observingwhat happens whenpeo­
ple come back into contact with human-scale structures; I have
seen prisoners transformed, delinquent teenagers given mean­
ing and purpose, depression healed, and social, ethnic and
intergenerationalrifts bridged.
In many cases, these initiatives stem more from common
sense than any intention to ‘change the world’. But together
they nevertheless present a powerful challenge to the corporate
order, and articulate a very different vision of the future.
Myorganization and I are in the fortunate andall-too-rare
position of receiving news of new localization projects every
week, from all corners of the globe. But just as most people are
ill-informed about globalization, most are also largely ignorant
of the rapid proliferation of localization projects. Even those di­
rectly involved in these efforts can feel isolated and that they
are swimming against the current. But stepping back and look­

14
 LOCAL IS OUR FUTURE

ing at the bigger picture can leave one amazed at what people
poweris accomplishing. Given the huge systemic supports for
the big and the global, from lavish government subsidies and
tax breaks to corporate-owned media and heavybiases in fund­
ing for academia, the continued flourishing of these alterna­
tives is a testimony to the power of community —to the motiva­
tion, perseverance and strength that emerges when people come
togetherto create positive change. What’smore, many individu­
als and groups are uniting to form larger networks —particu­
larly around the ‘new economy’ —that focus on loosening the
corporate stranglehold on ourinstitutions so that we may begin
to shift systemic supports to favor decentralized economic sys­
tems. Such shifts would help cultivate more empowered, more
diverse and more vital communities and democracies world­
wide.
This emerging movement transcends the conventionalleft­
right dichotomy. It is about enabling diverse human values and
dreamsto flourish, while simultaneously re-embedding culture
in nature. It means societies can move towards withdrawing
their dependence on distant, unaccountable monopolies that
produce our basicneedsin high-input, mechanized monocultural
systems on the other side of the world, in favor of local and
artisanal production for local needs. The emphasis here is on
realneeds, notthe artificial wants created by marketers and ad­
vertisers in an effort to stoke the furnaces of consumerism and
endless growth.
Localization meansgetting out of the highly unstable and
exploitative bubbles of speculation and debt, and back to the
real economy —our interface with other people and the natural
world. Rather than demanding countless tonsof perfectly straight
carrots and discarding the ones that do notfit the bill (as super­
market chains do), local markets require a diversity of products,
and therefore create incentives for more diversified and eco­
logical production. This means more food with far less machin­
ery and chemicals, more hands on the land and therefore more
meaningful employment. It means dramatically reduced CO,
emissions, no need for plastic packaging, more space for wild

15
 HELENA NORBERG-HODGE

biodiversity, more circulation of wealth within local communi­

ties, more face-to-face conversations between producers and
consumers and more flourishing cultures founded on genuine
interdependence.
This is whatI call the ‘solution-multiplier’ effect of localiza­
tion, and the pattern extends beyond our food systems. In the
blind, disconnected and over-specialized system of global
monoculture, I have seen housing developments built with im­
ported steel, plastic and concrete while the oak trees on-site are
razed and turned into woodchips.In contrast, the shortening of
distances structurally means more eyes per acre and morein­
novative use of available resources. It may sound utopian, but
as we withdraw dependence on highly centralized, automated
systemsin fieldslike healthcare and education, we can rebalance
the ratios between doctor and patient, between teacher and stu­
dent, and thereby makespace for individual needs and capabili­
ties.
It is entirely reasonable to envisage a world without unem­
ployment; as is true of every price-tag on a supermarket shelf,
unemploymentis a political decision that, at the moment, is
being made according to the mantra of ‘efficiency’in central­
ized profit-making. As both political left and right have bought
into the dogmaof ‘bigger is better’, citizens have been left with
no real alternative.
When westrengthen the human-scale economy, decision­
makingitself is transformed. Not only do we create systemsthat
are small enough for us to influence, but we also embed our­
selves within a web of relationships that informs our actions
and perspectives at a deep level. The increasedvisibility of our
impacts on community and local ecosystemsleads to experien­
tial awareness, enabling us to become both more empoweredto
make change and more humbled by the complexity of lifearound
us.
At a fundamentallevel, localization allows us to appreciate
the constantly evolving, changing nature of the universe. In­
stead of living by labels —seeing the world through words,fixed
concepts and numbers —we become aware that every person,

16
 LOCAL IS OUR FUTURE

animal and plant is unique and changing from moment to mo­

ment. Localization lends us the intimacy and pace required to
feel this fullness, and to feel the joy of being an integral part of
a living web ofrelationships.
Mydirect experience of a localized way of life, and my sub­
sequent motivation to raise the alarm about globalization, came
about quite by chance. In 1975, I went to Ladakh, or ‘Little
Tibet’,as part of a film team,just as the region was thrown open
to the global economy. As a linguist, I quickly becamefluent in
the Ladakhi language, enabling me to experience this ancient
culture almost from the inside. WhenI arrived, Ladakh’s com­
munity- and nature-based economy still provided people with
a sense of self-esteem and control over their own lives; I soon
came to realize that the Ladakhis were among the freest, most
peaceful and joyous people I had ever met. What’s more, their
happiness translated into a remarkable tolerance —an accept­
ance of difference and of adversity.
Over the next decade I wasa first-hand witnessto the dev­
astating impact of economic development. I came to see how
the modern economic system centralizes power and creates in­
tense competition for artificially scarce educational opportuni­
ties and jobs, while at the same time reaching deep into the
psyches of young children, perverting a universal needfor love
and acceptance into a need to consume. In Ladakh, this proved
a deadly combination, leading within a decade to depression
and suicide, violent conflict, and the ravaging of nature.
Motivated to get the word out, I gave public talks around
the world, and, with newfoundclarity, saw the many waysin
which globalization was affecting the industrialized world too.
Returning to my native country of Sweden, I was shocked that
an American company— Phillip Morris —held extensive control
over the Swedish food system, and that most people had no
idea this was the case. Nor could most Swedes imagine that
massive subsidies for large-scale production and long-distance
transport —already underway in the 1970s —had madeit eco­
nomically ‘efficient’to truck potatoesto Italy to be washed be­
fore packaging them in plastic and sending them back to besold.
 HELENA NORBERG-HODGE

After several years of meeting with various organizations

and community leaders around the world, I became aware that
the lack of genuine dialogue between global North and global
South —so-called ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ countries —sustained a false
narrative about ‘progress’.
In the global South, people fallprey to propaganda that shows
the North American and Europeanlifestyle to be leisurely, glam­
orous and trouble-free —a false narrative that is immensely de­
structive to cultural and individualself-esteem. At the sametime,
many people in the global North fall for the illusion that corpo­
rations and governments have cleaned up their act on environ­
mental fronts. In the late 1980s and early 90s, for example, en­
vironmental groups celebrated the improving water quality of
rivers like the Thames in London and the Hudson in New York,
not realizing that the newfound freedom of capital to comb the
world for the most investor-friendly environments meant that
most of the North’s dirty industry had moved to where labor
was cheapest and environmental standards were lowest. We
weren't really cleaning up the environment; we were merely
outsourcing the pollution. Far from reducing ecological harm,
there was a seismic increasein pollution and emissions, notleast
because the distances goods now hadto travel from producerto
consumerincreased immensely.
A similar deception was going on with jobs. While the aban­
doned workforces in the North were told that their jobs had
gone to benefit the poor on the other side of the world, it was
mainly the elite in the South that benefited from corporate ex­
pansion, while the majority saw their land-based economies
undermined. Millionswere pushed into urban slums where they
competed with one anotherfor jobs producing goods for North­
ern consumers —often in slavery-like conditions.
I have found that people with a foot in both parts of the
world can see more clearly the destructive impact of globaliza­
tion. But weall have an obligation to inform ourselves about
the realities on the ground, andto criticallyquestion the narra­
tives about global growth and technological progress that wash
overus daily.

18
 LOCAL IS OUR FUTURE

There are two diametrically opposing paths before us. One

is leading us relentlessly towards fast-paced, large-scale,
monocultural, techno-development. It’s a path that separates
us from each other and the natural world, and accelerates our
downward social and ecologicaldecline. The other path is about
slowing down, scaling back and fostering deep connection, in
order to restore the social and economicstructures essential for
meeting our material and deeper human needs in ways that
nurture the only planet we have.
 2
GLOBALIZATION
Creating a
Lose-Lose World

economic globalization. noun. 1. thederegulationoftradeand finance

in order to enable businesses and banks to operate globally; 2. the emergence
of a single world market dominated by transnational companies (often con­
fused with international collaboration, interdependence,global community.)

In order to understand why localization is such a strategic way

forward, we need to better understand the process of globaliza­
tion, to which localizing is a fundamental alternative.
For some, ‘globalization’connotes a borderless world, where
new technologies facilitate the free flow of ideas and innova­
tion. Toothers, it means an interconnected planet in which webs
of trade relationships make every nation interdependent with
every other nation,for the good of all. For still others it means a
‘global village’ —a peaceful, cooperative planet shrunk to hu­
manscale.
It these high-minded images sound overly rosy about glo­
balization,it’s because they originated in corporate-friendly think
tanks. If they seem familiar, it’s because they’ve been dissemi­
nated widely by corporate-controlled media.
A more objective view is that globalization, at its core, is an
economic process.It’s about deregulating trade and investment
—primarily through trade treaties that free up big businesses
and banksto enter and extract wealth from localmarkets world­
wide. Aswe'll see in the following chapters, handing more power
to global corporations and banksis not fostering better commu­

2)
 HELENA NORBERG-HODGE

nication and leading to an interdependent global village: it is

leading instead to conflict, violence and right-wing hyper-na­
tionalism, to an erosion of diversity and an unraveling of the
natural world.
Whenthe first modern ‘free trade’ treaties were proposed,
globalization was described as inevitable: opposing it, the public
was told, made no more sense than opposing continental drift.
Awareness has grown over the years of the many problems
globalization has spawned, but we are now told that “there’sno
going back” —that the same process that created these problems
is the only way to solve them.
Since this book advocates for an alternative to the suppos­
edly unstoppable process of globalization, I want to remind the
reader that the globalized system is, in fact, man-made, and
therefore can be changed. The course that has beenset for usis
neither inevitable nor fixed, and we can choose to shift direc­
tion.
The fact is, the road to corporate monoculture has been care­
fully designed: rules and regulations have been altered to make
it possible, and subsidies and tax incentives enacted to drive it
forward. Even today, rules are being rewritten in order to en­
able global banks and businessesto enterstill more local mar­
kets, to enclose still more of the public commons,to strip more
powerfrom democratic institutions, and to exploit still more of
the natural world.

500 years of globalization

It’s often thought that globalization began relatively recently.
Some point to the creation of the World Bank, the IME,and the
GATT(precursor to the World Trade Organization) in the after­
math of World War II. Others look to the first ‘free trade’ trea­
ties, ratified in the 1990s. But globalization is essentially a con­
tinuation of the conquest and colonial exploitation that began
500 years ago —a process that relied upon genocide, slavery,
and the destruction of local economies and cultures.
Today,corporate deregulation gives multinational businesses

22
 LOCAL IS OUR FUTURE

and banks the freedom to movein and out of national econo­

mies in search of cheap labor and resources, low taxes, and lax
environmental and socialprotection measures. Although thisis
less overtly brutal than conquest and colonialism, the goal —the
extraction of wealth to benefit a small elite —is the same,as are
the impacts on local economies and cultures.
Why have governments acquiesced to this process? One
important reason is that as corporate power has grown, local
businesses and the jobs they provided have been decimated.
National, state and even municipal governments needjobs for
their citizens,andsee little option butto try to lure the jobs that
corporations promise. They do so byrolling out the red carpet
for multinationals in the form of tax breaks, subsidiesand skewed
regulations. Sinceother governments are competing for the same
corporate jobs, they are often willing to scale back labor, health,
and environmental regulations in an effort to make themselves
more attractive to big businesses. The economist Jeffrey Sachs,
an authority on economic development and poverty, explains
how this process works:
“When capital becomes internationally mobile, countries
begin to competefor it. They do this by offering improvedprof­
itability compared with other countries, for example, by cutting
corporate tax rates, easing regulations, tolerating pollution, or
ignoring labor standards. In the ensuing competition among
governments, capital benefits from a ‘race to the bottom,’ in
which governments engage in a downward spiral of taxation
and regulation in orderto try to keep one step ahead of other
countries. All countries lose in the end, since all end up losing
tax revenue and regulations needed to manage the economy.
The biggest loser ends up being internationally immobile
labor...”!
The subsidiesand tax incentives that governmentsoffer glo­
bal businesses can be huge. When Amazon, one of the world’s
richest corporations, dangled the prospect of an estimated 50,000
jobs in front of cities all over North America, more than 230
state and municipal governments submitted bids. These included
New Jersey ($7 billion in tax breaks), Montgomery County,

23
 HELENA NORBERG-HODGE

Maryland ($6.5 billion in tax breaks plus $2 billion in infra­

structure improvements), and Atlanta ($2 billion in incentives,
including an Amazon-only executive lounge at the city’s air­
port). The winning bids, from New York City and Arlington,
Virginia,promised the corporation nearly $5 billion in tax breaks
(though New York has since removeditself as a candidate).
A New YorkTimesinvestigative report found that state and
local governments in the US provide over $80 billion per year
in tax incentives, free public land, infrastructure assistance, low­
cost financing and other subsidies to attract and retain large,
non-local businesses. These subsidy programs are administered
“almost exclusively to the benefit of big corporations (aided by
highly paid lobbyists) at the expense of small businesses.”?
Bidding wars for the favors of a particular corporation rep­
resent just one small part of the way global businesses are sub­
sidized —as we’|l see in Chapter 9, there are many indirect sub­
sidies as well, including fossil fuel subsidies that make global
transport artificially cheap. The net result is that the compo­
nents assembled into everyday products come from factories or
subcontractors in numerous countries thousands of miles apart.
It has been estimated, for example, that the components of a
single iPhone have traveled a combined 500,000 miles before
reaching the end user.’
Overall,deregulation hasled to an explosion in international
trade, which was over twenty-eight times greater in 2017 than
in 1950.*This has massively enriched multinational businesses
and banks, while criminally wasting resources, pumping out
pollution and CO, emissions, and imposing high-input,
monocultural production the world over.
Muchof this trade, especially in food, is redundant. In a
typical year, the US exports millions of tons of beef, potatoes,
and other foods, while importing nearly identical amounts of
each.’ This pattern of importing and exporting similar products
has been documented in many other countries as well. In some
cases, it is literally the same product that is both exported and
imported: the New YorkTimes reports that “Cod caught off Nor­
way is shipped to China to be turned into filets, then shipped

24
 LOCAL IS OUR FUTURE

back to Norwayfor sale.” That’sa 10,000-mile round-trip jour­

ney.°

Financial deregulation
In tandem and completely interlinked with the growth in glo­
bal trade, the deregulation of finance is allowing ever larger flows
of capital to enter and leave nations at the click of a button.
Between 1980 and 2007, cross-border flowsof capital rose from
$500 billion to a peak of $11.8 trillion.’
This hyper-mobile capital has turned currency and com­
modities markets into a global casino in which billions can be
made by investors, at great cost to national and local econo­
mies.
Most people remain unawarethat almost all the moneyin
circulation today is backed by nothing but debt.®Speculative
bets using borrowed money can yield profits that can be in­
vested in still larger bets. Despite increased awareness of this
madness after the 2008 global financial meltdown, all major
economies today havehigher levels ofborrowingrelative to GDP
than they did in 2007.’
All told, the enrichment of multinational businesses has
reached unprecedented extremes. Although they are unaccount­
able to any electorate, many of these corporations are now so
big that they wield more economic and political power than
national governments: of the 100largest economiesin the world
in 2016, 69 were corporations.’° In 2018, the revenueof a sin­
gle company, Shell, was larger than the GDP of 138 individual
countries.'!! Nonetheless, the United States government alone
provides between $10 billion and $52 billion per year in subsi­
dies and tax cuts to large oil companies —Shell included.’* Be­
tween cashed-up lobbyists, free trade treaties and the ‘revolv­
ing door’ between government and the highest echelonsof in­
dustry, corporate rule has become the norm, even in so-called
democracies.
Are corporationsreally becoming more powerful than elected
governments? Consider the Investor State Dispute Settlement

25
 HELENA NORBERG-HODGE

(ISDS)clauses that are now standardin ‘freetrade’ treaties. These

rules allow corporations to challenge any national policies —in­
cluding domestic labor laws that mandate humane working con­
ditions or rules that limit pollution of air and water —if they
might reduce the corporation’s expected profits. Tobacco giant
Philip Morris filed such a suit against the Australian govern­
ment, which had required changesto cigarette packagingin the
name of public health. (See “Trade deregulation”, Chapter 9.)
Because of international trade treaties signed and ratified over
the last several decades,most nations are now bound upin agree­
ments that force them to acquiesce to the demandsof big cor­
porations and banks, or to engage in costly legal battles that
take place in secretive, corporate-friendly arbitration tribunals
outside of their own domestic courts.
Like Frankenstein’s monster, globalization is an out-of-con­
trol man-madecreation —the product of systemic blindness and
narrow, specialized knowledge. It has enabled the biggest busi­
nesses and banks in the world to blindly pursue their own pri­
ority of narrow, extractive profit-maximization —and to grow
ever more powertul as a result.
If allowed to proceed, globalization will continue to have
wide-ranging negative impacts that point towards the collapse
of human communities and Earth’s living systems. The next
chapter will outline these consequences, drawing fundamental
links between the globaleconomy and the many formsof break­
down weare experiencing today.

26
 3

COUNTING
THE COSIS

The structural forces described in the previous chapter have led

to an increasingly globalized economythat, in the long term,
has no winners. Amongthe first losers have been small farmers,
the poor, and the disenfranchised. But as the economic, social
and environmental costs of globalization mount, not even the
wealthy few can escape its impact: they too must survive on an
ecologically degraded planet and suffer the consequences of a
social fabric ripped apart.
Here are just someof the costs of globalization:

&Lossof livelihoods
When corporations can roam the world looking for cheap labor,
no one’s job is safe. The impact of NAFTA
is a case in point. The
Economic Policy Institute estimates that by 2013, NAFTAhad
resulted in a net loss of 682,900 jobs in the US.' At the same
time, Mexican family farmers were also hit hard by the trade
agreement: as heavily-subsidized US corn flooded into Mexico,
the price received by Mexican farmers for their production fell
by over 60 percent from the 1990s to 2005.7 Nearly 5 million
jobs on family farms werelost, with a net loss of 2 million jobs
in the entire agricultural sector since NAFTA’sinception. The
supposed benefits of the trade agreement are hard to discern:
despite the new factory jobs on the US-Mexican border (where
people toil under sweatshop conditions, disconnected from com­
munity), the unemploymentrate in Mexicowashigher in 2014
than 1994.?
 HELENA NORBERG-HODGE

Even within national borders, jobs are lost when a global

corporation displaces local businesses. That’s because big busi­
nesses use far less labor than their smaller competitors for the
same amount of output. For example, studies have shown that
every new supermarket in the UK entails a net loss of 276 jobs.*
Online marketing —a major feature of the global economy —
also costsjobs. The internet retailer Amazon currently employs
about 23 people for every $10 million in retail sales, while inde­
pendentretailers employ 57people for the same amountof sales.’
According to a study by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance,
Amazon hasso far destroyed 150,000 more jobs than it has cre­
ated.°®
Advances in technology also cost jobs. The most obvious
example is in manufacturing, where robots have replaced a wide
range of skilled workers. But technology is having a similar im­
pact on agriculture: for decades, farmworkers have been dis­
placed by ever more sophisticated technology, but the latest
advances —GPS-guided and computer-connected tractors —are
making farmers themselves obsolete. Already in the US, the
Census Bureau considers farmers such a demographically insig­
nificant population that it no longer tracks their numbers.’
Any discussion about what’s happeningto livelihoodsis in­
complete unless we also ask whata ‘job’is in the modern world.
For example, the most important activity for human survival
and well-being —parenting —has been systematically
marginalized over many generations now, turning it into a type
of shadow workthat is rated at ‘zero’in the national accounts.
Much the same has happened to food production: unless cash
changes hands, the food produced —whetherin one’s backyard
or in reciprocal exchange with other members of the commu­
nity —also rates a ‘zero’.
In the global South, where reciprocal exchangeis still com­
mon, this faulty accounting is particularly devastating because
it justifies government policies that pull people out of rural vil­
lages —where they can produce their own food and havenet­
works of community support —into sprawling urban slums. They
may now beliving in real poverty, but if they earn even a dollar

28
 LOCAL IS OUR FUTURE

a day at a ‘job’,no matter how demeaning,it is seen as an im­

provement because what they had before was‘zero’. In the com­
mercialized global economy, in other words, jobs and livelihoods
without a price tag on them are not valuedat all, nor are the
people who dothose jobs.®

@Declining health
Globalization is contributing to a decline in our physical well­
being. Societiesin the West are experiencing unprecedented rates
of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer, with the elite in
developing countries fast catching up. Processed food —geneti­
cally modified, laden with pesticide residues, preservatives, ar­
tificial flavorings and processed fats, and nutritionally depleted
from long-term storage and long-distance transport —contrib­
utes significantly to these problems. So do pollution, sedentary
jobs and being cut off from a sense of support and community.
The corporate-controlled technologies that havearisen in
tandem with globalization also carry health costs. Many indus­
trial agricultural inputs are proven to be carcinogenic, while
others contain endocrine disruptors that are extremely toxic even
in minute amounts. Microwave radiation from the use of cell
phones and wireless devices has increased exponentially in re­
cent years, with potential health impacts that have yet to be
adequately studied.
The global economyalso relies on massive and ever-increas­
ing amounts of energy, with a wide range of associated health
impacts. The effects of fossil fuel dependence include elevated
rates of pollution-related respiratory diseases and ‘canceralleys’
near refineries. The health impacts of nuclear powerwill be felt
near Japan’s Fukushima plant for generations to come, and the
millions of tons of spent fuel and low-level radioactive material
piling up at other nuclear plants will remain hazardousfor thou­
sands of years.

#%Psychological costs
Every day, communities in the less-developedparts of the world
are bombarded with media images that present the modern,

29
 HELENA NORBERG-HODGE

Western consumer lifestyle as the ideal, while implicitly deni­

grating local traditions and land-based waysof life. Global ad­
vertising expenditures exceeded $500 billion in 2016, with the
highest rate of spending growth occurring in the less-industrial­
ized countries of the South.’ These images send the message
that the urban is sophisticated and the rural is backward; that
imports of processed food and manufactured goods are superior
to local products; that “imported is good, local is crap,” in the
words of an advertising executive in China.?°
People are not only being lured to abandon local foods for
McDonald’shamburgers and local dress for designer jeans; they
are being induced to remake their own identities to emulate the
glamorous blonde-haired, blue-eyed stars of Hollywood films
and American-style advertising. For the vast majority around
the world, living up to this artificial ideal will prove impossible.
Attempts to do so can result in a profoundsense of failure, infe­
riority and self-rejection.
Individuals in the West —the supposed epicenter of glamour
—are subjected to the same pressures. No matter who youare or
where you live, the global consumer monoculture imposes an
ideal that is impossible to attain, fueling feelings of insecurity
that makeit easier for corporate marketersto sellproducts prom­
ising to make you moreattractive, popular, and ‘cool’.
Children bear the brunt of this process, with drug abuse,
violence and suicide steadily rising in the under-18 age group in
many industrialized countries. Psychologicaldamage also mani­
fests itself in body image issues, self-harm or addiction, or out­
wardly expressed as anger and aggression. These behaviors can
be further exacerbated in adolescence by pervasive consumer
culture imagery that polarizes gender roles and portrays unre­
alistic standards of ‘success’.We have yet to fully comprehend
the damage that is being inflicted on younger generations as
these images and expectations embed themselves deeper into
children’s psyches through social media. Daily,children are made
keenly aware of how many‘likes’ and ‘follows’they are get­
ting, pulling them further into a competitive race in which lev­
els of fame and validation are relentlessly quantified.

30
 LOCAL IS OUR FUTURE

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO)has re­

ported that “Globally,more than 300 million people of all ages
suffer from depression,” which is now “the leading cause ofdis­
ability worldwide.”'! Perhaps most alarmingof all, in 2010 the
WHO found that global rates of suicide had increased by 60 per­
cent since World WarII.'? (
Rarely are the systemic pressures behind these psychologi­
cal costs recognized. Structural forces, for example, lead the
average person in the US to move more than 11 times in their
lives in pursuit of education and jobs. The continual cutting of
ties to community and place clearly stunts the developmentof
deep and lasting personal relationships —but since our hyper­
competitive economyis treated as thoughit is ‘normal’, its con­
sequences are largely ignored. Instead, there is a tendency to
blame emotional problems on the individual or their own im­
mediate circumstances.
At the sametime, people in the North are often told that as
privileged members of a ‘first world’ country they shouldn't
complain. This rhetoric has blinded hundreds of millions of peo­
ple in the wealthier countries to their deep spiritual impover­
ishment: modern life has stripped them of so manyof the sup­
ports and relationships that are needed to be fully human and
happy.

= Environmental breakdown
Globalization is intensifying the already serious ecological con­
sequences of industrialization by spreading a resource-inten­
sive, growth-based consumer economy to every corner of the
world.
Evidence of global environmental decline abounds. Topsoil
isbeing rapidly lost through nutrient depletion and erosion from
corporate agriculture. Whole tracts of irreplaceable forest are
being decimated by the global timber, oil, and mining indus­
tries. The planet’s diversity of plant and animal species is being
lost at 100 to 1,000 timesthe natural rate of extinction, ranking
the modern era as one of the planet’s great extinction waves.”
While terrestrial wildlife struggles to survive, the health of the

31
 HELENA NORBERG-HODGE

world’s oceansis also spiraling downwards dueto plastic waste

and other pollution, acidification and industrial fishing.
A 2014 study assessing the ecological footprint of nations
highlights the impossibility of creating a global consumer
economy in which everyonelives the American Dream:if eve­
ryone had the sameper capita ecologicalfootprint as an average
American, we would need 5 Earths.'*
Accelerating these trends through globalization is simply
incompatible with the needsof the living world: our finite planet
does not have the capacity to sustain an economic system based
on ever-expanding consumption. Yet the premise of globaliza­
tion is that more of the world’s people —all of them, in fact ­
should be encouraged to enlist in this destructive system.

@Increased CO, emissions

Oneof the clearest and most frightening effects of global eco­
nomic activity is climate change —an impact made much worse
by increased trade deregulation. Even the WTO admits that
“more open trade would be likely to increase CO, emissions.”””
Much ofthis trade is needless. Food, for example, is routinely
shipped halfway across the world to be processed, then shipped
back and sold right where it started. Mexican calves —fed im­
ported American corn —are exported to the United States to be
butchered, then re-exported back to Mexico forsale.'* Scottish
prawnsare sent to China to be shelled, while Canada’sare sent
to Iceland for the same reason.’”
Most countries are also involved in ‘redundant trade’ —the
simultaneous import and export of identical foods. In 2007, for
instance, Britain imported 15,000 tons of chocolate-covered
walfles, while exporting 14,000 tons.'®In 2017, the US imported
and exported nearly 1.5 million tons of beef, and nearly half a
million tons of potatoes.’’ This kind of redundanttrade is com­
monplace.It has nothing to do with meeting short-term short­
ages, and everything to do with maximizing profits.
Needless to say, unnecessary and wasteful transport adds
massive amounts of CO, into the atmosphere. But emissions
from the thousands of cargo-carrying ships and planes involved

32
 LOCAL IS OUR FUTURE

in global trade do not appear in any nation’s carbon accounting.It is

just another example of how trade and global growth are con­
sidered more important than anything else —even the climate.
The need for an ever-expanding energy supply for an ever­
rowing global economyis creating an extractive mega-machine,
with trillions of dollars spent on gas-fracking, mountaintopre­
moval, tar sands mining, deep seaoil wells, nuclear power, geo­
engineering, and more. With people in developing countries
encouraged to emulate a Western, consumerlifestyle, the situ­
ation is rapidly worsening. Already, India is the third largest
emitter of CO, in the world; its per capita emissions from en­
ergy use are projected to double from 2015 levels by 2030.”°

#@
Erosion of democracy
As decision-making becomescentralized into unelected, unac­
countable bodies like the WTO, the IMF,and the European Com­
mission, the influence of the individual steadily shrinks. This is
true even in nominally democratic countries: people maystill
have the right to vote for national and local leaders, but as po­
litical parties from both the left and right embrace the wishesof
corporate and bankinginterests, voting can becomeall but mean­
ingless. This is especially true when ISDSrules mean that demo­
cratically-enacted laws and regulations can be overturned if they
threaten corporate profits. And as corporate interests become
ever richer thanks to globalization, they are able to increase their
expenditures on lobbyists, campaign contributions, and politi­
cal advertising —giving them still more influence over govern­
ment decision-making. (See “Corporate rule”, Chapter 9.)

# Growing gap betweenthe ‘haves’and the ‘have-nots’

Contrary to the commonplace slogan “a risingtide lifts all boats,”
global growth is actually widening the gap between rich and
poor. The wealth of the eight richest people now equalsthat of
the poorest half of the world’s population —nearly 4 billion peo­
ple —and the inequality is worsening.*! Since the 1970s, income
inequality has risen in nearly every industrialized country, but
is particularly acute in the ‘developing’ world.’* In China, for

33
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 Juhlallinen oli hetki ennen lähtöä Bergöstä. Nousevan auringon
heitellessä viimeisiä säteitään yli äärettömän meren ulapan, mikä
hiljaa liikkuen, aamutuulen henkäyksessä, tuuditteli ahvenalaisten
aluksia, paljastivat kaikki päänsä ja veisasivat sydämen pohjasta
virren värsyn, joka tuulen siivillä kaikui kauvaksi yli ulapoiden
aukeiden.

Purjeita nostaessa ja lähtöön valmistaessa rientää neitonen

kallionrinnettä alas huutaen eräälle nuorukaiselle, joka rantaa lähellä
olevassa aluksessa korjailee purjetta: "Muista Anders Andersson
ett’et minun tähteni petä isänmaatasi ja kansaasi!"

Noita sanoja kuullessa tärisi monen harmaapartaisen miehen

leuka liikutuksesta ja kyynel herahti nuorukaisen poskelle
vastatessaan: "Älä pelkää Ulriika, enhän silloin voisi nähdä sinun
silmiäsi!"

Tämäkin kohtaus näkyi rohkaisevan miesten mieliä ja niin

purjehdittiin nyt päämäärää kohti.

*****

Merkillisin päivä Ahvenanmaan historiassa oli nyt koittanut. Päivä

oli tiistai, toukokuun 10:s, vuonna jona leikattiin 1808. Päivemmällä
laski Gummerus kansansoturineen Kumlingeen. Tänne oli jo ennen
saapunut muitakin ahvenalaisia, jotka toista reittiä olivat purjehtineet.
Kaikkiaan oli ahvenalaisten voima 450 miestä.

Kapfelman jakoi miehille kiväärejä ja ampumavaroja sen verran

kuin häneltä riitti sekä kehoitti Gummerusten kanssa kansaa
"uskollisesti täyttämään velvollisuuttaan kuningasta ja isänmaata
kohtaan eikä pelkäämään kuolon uhkaavia vaaroja, vaan rehellisinä
kristittyinä ja kansalaisina rohkeasti kohtaamaan sen kauhuja".

Päivä oli jo puolessa kun Gummerus alkoi asettaa väkensä

maihin. Ensimmäinen mies, joka hyppäsi kokkapuun nokalta maihin
oli Anders Andersson Grunsundasta. Hän haavoitettiin venäläisen
tuliluikusta ja kaatui paikalla. Nähdessään tuon verissään makaavan
nuorukaisen, kuolon kalpeus kasvoillaan, hämmästyivät toiset, mutta
päällikön voimallisesta kehoituksesta rohkaistuna, ryntäsivät he
uljaasti vihollista vastaan.

Mutta vieläkin vaati tämä maallenousu yhden uhrin lisäksi.

Muudan soturi Erik Nordström, joka myöskin tahtoi osoittaa
urheuttaan, kaatui vihollisen luodin lävistämänä.

Samalla kun kansan urootkin, asetettiin maihin myös 4

Kapfelmanin antamaa tykkiä, joita paitsi koko Kumlingen taistelu
tuskin olisi päättynytkään ahvenalaisten voitoksi.

Kun vihdoin tuo kansanjoukko oli astunut maihin, rukoili

Gummerus sille kaikkivaltiaan apua ja siunausta. Täten vuodatettiin
uutta rohkeutta ja voiton toivetta jokaiseen sydämeen.

Taistelu alkoi. Ahvenalaiset astuivat urhoollisesti eteenpäin

tykkiensä suojassa. Vihollinen vetääntyi takaperin vilkkaasti
ammuskellen. Mutta singahtelivatpa luodit talonpoikainkin luikuista
murhaavina venäläisten riviin. Tykkien jymähtelevät laukaukset
säestivät kiväärein paukkeita. Näin eteni taistelu rannasta alkain
Kumlingen kylään, mihinkä venäläiset nyt kätkeysivät, ampuen
huoneiden ikkunoista, nurkista ja raoista. Täältä olisi heitä ollut
vaikea karkoittaa ellei tykit olisi apuna olleet.
 *****

Ihmeellistä on nähdä millä huolettomuudella venäläiset katselivat

ahvenalaisten hyökkäystä. Että he eivät vastustaneet näiden
maallemenoansa, ei ollut ainoa huolettomuus heidän puoleltaan.
Vieläpä oli heille pahemmaksi turmioksi se, että ylipäällikkö Vuitsch
upseerineen ei edes huolinut lähemmin tarkastaa tilaa, vaan
kaikessa levossa aterioi pappilassa provasti Höckert’in luona.
Vaaran käydessä yhä uhkaavammaksi lausui tosin Vuitsch
Höckert'ille tahtovansa käydä "lähemmin tarkastamassa taistelua",
mutta rauhoittui kuin provasti ovelasti, ehkä totta puhuen, vastasi
että »siellä oli vaan talonpoikia nuijilla ja seipäillä varustettuina.

Edukseen osasivatkin talonpojat käyttää tätä vihollisen

huolettomuutta. Eräältä vuorelta alkoivat he nyt tykeillä ampua
pappilaa. Kuulat tekivät turmiota. Hämmästyneenä nousi Vuitsch
ylös ja luulossa, että vahva ruotsalainen sotajoukko oli kintereillä, otti
hän lakanan, sitoi sen seipääsen, riensi kylään ja komensi väkensä
antautumaan.

Mutta vielä suuremmaksi kävi hänen hämmästyksensä

huomatessaan, että hyökkääjät olivatkin vain sotataitoon
tottumattomia talonpoikia. Ensin luuli hän talonpoikien hakkaavan
hänet ja hänen väkensä kuoliaaksi Ensimmäiselle ateenalaiselle,
jonka hän kohtasi antoi hän miekkansa ja 4 hopearuplaa. Talonpojat
riisuivat nyt sotamiehiltä aseet. Vangittujen luku oli yli 400 venäläistä.
Sitäpaitsi saatiin varasto leipiä ja ryyniä.

Miehuullisesti olivat ahvenalaiset täyttäneet velvollisuutensa ja

erittäinkin heidän johtajansa, tuo yhtä valpas kuin väsymätön
Gummerus, jonka takki oli aivan riekaleiksi ammuttu.
 Vähäinen oli kuitenkin haavoitettujen ja kuolleitten luku molemmin
puolin. Eversti Vuitsch asetettiin, päästyään vankeudesta Ruotsista,
jonne kaikki venäläiset vietiin, sotaoikeuden alle vastaamaan
huolimattomuudestaan, mutta vapautettiin kuitenkin.

Provasti Höckert, jota ei voitu vähääkään epäillä mistään muusta

yhteydestä vihollisen kanssa, kuin minkä täytymys pakotti, oli
suurimmassa hengenvaarassa talonpoikien voiton jälkeen. Muudan
ahvenalainen tähtäsi jo häntä ampuakseen ja ainoastaan
pitäjäläistensä esirukouksista hän pelastui. Sitä ennen ahvenalaisten
astuessa maihin, oli Vuitsch vaatinut provastilta selvitystä siihen ja
kun ei hän luonnollisista syistä voinut sitä tehdä, uhkasi Vuitsch
tappaa hänen, mutta luopui aiheestaan provastin emännän
välityksestä.

Tuskin oli huhu levinnyt Brändön kallioisille saarille Kumlingen

taistelusta, kun sikäläinen kansa tarttui aseisiin karkoittaakseen
sielläkin majailevat venäläiset. Ja vihdoin se onnistuikin heille, sitten
kuin luutnantti Cronstedt Kumlingesta oli sinne saapunut laivalla,
josta hän tykillä ampuen peljästytti venäläisiä, että he pian
antautuivat. Heitä oli 95 miestä. Sitäpaitsi saivat Brändöläiset
venäläisten sotakassan ja paljon ampuma-aseita ja muita varoja.

Vaivoistaan väsyneenä oli tuo urhea Gummerus, kohta Kumlingen

taistelun jälkeen, palannut lepoon ja rauhaan viljelemään hengen
miekkaa.

Mutta pian näemme hänen taas liikkeellä.

Nyt on hän saattamassa Kumlingen ja Brändön venäläisiä

Ruotsiin.
 — Arén oli jo sitä ennen saattanut manner-Ahvenan venäläiset
Ruotsiin. —

Venäläisten seurassa saapui Gummerus Frebbenbyn mäelle

lähelle
Marsundia.

Hän pysähtyy.

Istuen hevosen seljässä paljastaa hän päänsä ja kiittäen

Korkeinta, joka oli voiton antanut ihmeellisellä tavalla. —

Riemuiten palasivat ahvenalaiset kotiinsa tuoden mukanaan

vapauden ja rauhan.

Kun Keisari Aleksander I:nen sai tiedon Ahvenalaisten urotyöstä,

oli hän jalomielisesti lausunut: "Niin he tekivät niinkuin miesten
tuleekin tehdä!"

Ettei nuo sanat olleet tyhjää korupuhetta vain, osoitti hän

myöhemmin, kuin hän, venäläisen armeijan, seuraamana vuonna
1809, valloittaessa Ahvenanmaan, käski kenraalinsa säästämään
tätä maata.

*****

Kuvauksemme tästä merkillisestä kansansodasta Ahvenanmaan

vapauttamiseksi ei olisi täydellinen, ellemme myöskin antaisi
muutamia elämäkerrallisia tietoja uroistamme.

Henrik Juhana Gummerus syntyi, vuonna 1774, Turun lääniä.

Hänen isänsä oli Henrik Gummerus, joka oli kappalaisena Koskella
vuodesta 1767 kuolemaansa saakka 1780: äidin nimi oli Johanna
Bäcksten. Ylioppilaaksi tuli urhomme v, 1795 ja vihittiin papiksi v.
1799, jolloin hän määrättiin papin toimiin Ahvenanmaalle. Vuodesta
1806 oli hän pastorinapulaisena Finströmissä. Uljuuttaan Kansan
sodassa kuvailimme äsken. Mutta monet olivat myöskin ne suosion
ja arvonosoitukset, joita hän sai nauttia Ruotsin kuninkaalta. Vuonna
1806 nimitettiin hän kuninkaalliseksi hovisaarnaajaksi ja sai
urhollisuuden merkin kullassa kannettavaksi Miekkatähdistön
nauhassa. Sotarovastiksi nimitettiin hän samana vuonna. Vuonna
1810 alkoi hän hovisaarnaajan tointaan kuninkaallisessa hovissa.
Vuonna 1812 sai hän kuninkaallisen valtakirjan Höybyn
seurakuntaan Olannissa, jossa hän kuoli 13 p. heinäk. 1836, 62
vuoden ijässä. Nainut oli hän sitten vuoden 1805 Maria Helena
Hultin, joka oli erään sukelluslaitokseen kuuluvan komissarion tytär,
Lapsia oli hänellä 2 poikaa, jotka kuolivat nuorina ja 6 tytärtä.

Gummerus säilytti vielä vanhuutensa päiviin saakka sotaisen

luonteensa ja jättiläisvoimansa sekä puhui usein ja mielellään
urostöistään. Tultuaan kertomuksessaan oikein intoihinsa, komenteli
hän tuolia ja pöytiä, antaakseen siten selvän kuvan omasta ja
vihollistensa asemasta, eikä hän silloin nähnyt muuta kuin itsensä ja
venäläisensä.

Erik Arén, Gummeruksen sotatoveri, syntyi talonpoikaisista

vanhemmista Finströmin pitäjässä v. 1772 Nuorena pääsi hän
kirjanpitäjäksi asessori Ahlmanin luo Hatanpäässä, jonka kuoltua
hän tuli samanlaiseen toimeen Laukon herran Kurk’in luona
Vesilahdella. Päästyään sittemmin Turun maaherranviraston
kansliaan, nimitettiin hän v. 1802 kruununnimismieheksi Finströmin
pitäjässä. Monta suosionosoitusta sai hänkin uljuudestaan. Kun hän
oli saapunut Tukholmaan, johtaen venäläisiä vankia, ripusti Kuningas
Kustaa Aatolfi itse juhlallisesti, linnan pihassa hänen rinnalleen
"urhoollisuusmerkin sodassa" miekkatähdistön nauhoissa ja lausui:
"Minä toivoisin, että kaikki alamaiset olisivat samaa mieltä kuin tämä
mies, niin olisipa kuormani melkoisesti keveämpi"… Muutama päivä
sen jälkeen oikeutettiin Arén hatussaan kantamaan keltaista ruusua,
minkä kuningas omakätisesti antoi hänelle. Kun kuningas suvella
1808 oleskeli Ahvenanmaalla, toimitti Arén muutaman ajan
kruununvoudin virkaa ja sai "toimitus-kruunun nimismiehen"
arvonimen sekä suotiin hänelle samalla kertaa 200 riikintaalerin
ansiopensiooni vuosittain. Vuonna 1809 pakeni hän, venäläisten
tullessa Ahvenanmaalle, Ruotsiin, ja tällä-matkalla oli hän pakoitettu
perheineen viettämään yön aavan meren päällä! Kuitenkin palasi
hän pian takaisin Ahvenanmaalle, varustettuna Kaarle XIII:nen
antamalla latinankielisellä suojeluskirjalla. Mutta täällä ollessaan
kuljettivat venäläiset häntä vartioittuna paikasta toiseen, kunnes
hänen sallittiin 1810 palata Ruotsiin, missä hän oli virkaatekevänä
nimismiehenä Tukholman läänissä. Koko tällä ajalla oli hänellä lupa
käydä vapaasti hovissa. Mutta vakuutuskirjan nojassa sai hän
myöhemmin muuttaa takaisin syntymä seutuunsa, rakkaasen
Ahvenanmaahan, missä hän sittemmin eli onnellisena kuoleman
päiviinsä saakka. Jos Gummerus oli ko’okas, niin oli sitävastoin Arén
lyhyt varreltaan, mutta erittäin vilkas ja tulinen luonnostaan. Innolla
kertoi hänkin usein vanhuutensa päivinä urotöistään.

Näiden molempain miesten, Gummeruksen ja Arén’in nimet, ovat

yhä vielä kiitollisessa ja kunnioitetussa muistossa Ahvenanmaan
vapauttaan rakastavan kansan seassa.

Lukijani, jos joskus satut matkoillasi Ahvenanmaan saaristoon, niin

tiedustele noista urhoista ja sinä saat nähdä kuinka takkavalkean
ääressä istuvan vanhuksen silmät loistavat, hänen kertoessaan
isänsä kuulemia ja näkemiä Gummeruksen ja Arén'in urostöistä.
Sydämensä sykähtelee ja sinä ajattelet, tuossa istuessasi ja
kunnioituksella kuunnellessasi vanhuksen tarinaa ei häviä se kansa,
joka tietää kiitollisessa muistossaan säilyttää jaloja miehiään!
 *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK
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