“Always Hopeful: Lessons from a Lifetime of Activism”
By Maude Barlow (ECW Press)

When I was teaching political science at Langara College in Vancouver, some of the most memorable events were the half-dozen teleconferences Noam Chomsky had with my students.

During one such discussion of international trade treaties in 2021, Chomsky singled out the work of Maude Barlow, then president of the Council of Canadians, as helping to derail the proposed “corporate bill of rights” known as the name of Multilateral Agreement on Investment.

It was just one of Barlow’s lifetime achievements, beginning with her work for women’s rights as an advisor to the CBC on affirmative action programs and later, in the early 1980s, she served as an advisor to Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau on women’s issues.

In 1985, Barlow helped found the Council of Canadians alongside progressive thinkers such as Mel Hurtig, Margaret Atwood and Pierre Berton. The council, then and now, focuses on issues such as promoting democracy and equality in Canada, as well as Canada’s role in international affairs.

Barlow won the Right Livelihood Award in 2005, but she was just getting started.

From 2008 to 2009, she served as Senior Water Advisor to then-President of the United Nations General Assembly Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann and was one of the leaders of the campaign for water to be recognized. as a human right by the UN. It will come as no surprise that this campaign has met with resistance from private water utilities and bottled water companies like Nestlé. However, even the Canadian government opposed this most fundamental right.

In Always full of hope (his 20th book), Barlow explains that Ottawa “knew that if the UN officially recognized water and sanitation as basic human rights, it would be held accountable for the appalling state of water services in First Nations communities”.

In 2010, the United Nations officially voted to make access to clean water a human right.

Despite these significant victories, however, Barlow acknowledges that desperation is not unreasonable in the face of the multiple existential crises humanity faces regarding democracy, our environment, growing inequality and poverty, and military conflict, to say the least. to name a few.

Not surprisingly, it is young people who are most affected by these threats to our collective well-being. It is above all their future that is in danger. Barlow asks what can be done to “inspire young people to see that the life of an activist is a good life…find joy in the struggle to create a better world…help them not be overwhelmed by the enormity of the task ahead of them?”

This concern was the main reason why she wrote Always full of hope.

Barlow’s writing is clear and concise, and she uses many personal examples to illuminate the lessons she has learned in her more than 40 years of fighting for social and environmental justice. One such idea is that it is not up to “leaders” to do the work of creating a better world, and it makes no sense to just sit back and “hope” that they will suddenly decide to do the good thing. In his view, coherent and visible community organization, both locally and nationally, has the best chance of leading to changes that will improve our ecological, political, social and economic realities.

Such movements need both “a vision of what we want” and “concrete goals and plans” that have a chance of making that vision a reality. She notes that all of the corporations’ achievements – such as workers’ rights, health insurance, steps toward Indigenous sovereignty, etc. – required years of community effort.

Barlow provides a host of inspiring examples from around the world where grassroots movements have managed to achieve dramatic victories, such as the Bolivian people’s 10-year struggle to overturn a government-World Bank deal to privatize the water system. water supply to its third largest city, Cochabamba.

In summary, in the aftermath of the pandemic, Barlow points out that:

“We now really understand the need to ensure public health globally and that means it cannot be profit driven. The struggle for human rights and racial, religious and gender equality has entered a new phase and is widely supported. Public appreciation for workers and their unions has never been higher as we also stand up for class justice… Never has there been a greater need for principled activism and informed – and hopeful.

And very often nothing will change until a tipping point is reached and then everything changes.

More than ever, let’s remember that, as The Rascals sang: “If we unite, everything will be fine!”

Peter G. Prontzos, professor emeritus at Langara College in Vancouver, has taught political science for more than 25 years. His courses included international political economy, Latin American studies, peace and conflict studies, developing countries, political ideologies, social movements, international relations, political psychology and political philosophy.