Lecture given at the annual meeting of TuP publishers, AK-South-North and the Alliance Against War.
Again given for the grassroots movement in Basel
Updated and translated into English for the AIF summer camp
This lecture was published as an article in German language in the “Neue Rheinische Zeitung” : http://nrhz.de/flyer/beitrag.php?id=28914
From Eva Heizmann, Alliance against war, Basel, Vienna , Hamburg
security and genetic engineering
When it comes to natural seeds in general and to corn in particular, we see an incredible diversity of different varieties. There is white corn, yellow corn, black corn, orange corn, blue corn, different color gradations in between, different grain sizes – in one word: An limitless number of varieties. The cultivation and breeding of plants began around some 10,000 years ago. If we were to draw a line over the last 10,000 years, everything would remain more or less the same, but only in the last 100 years has everything been thrown out of balance. So if we compare how long this diversity has been working, then the phase of this very advanced destruction today is extremely short.
Talking about genetic engineering also means talking about violence. I also see an act of violence in the corporations that have occupied this field. This act of violence also means cutting themselves off from the basics, cutting themselves off from networked thinking. All that is seen is an assumed scientific result and, of course, financial profit. This also has a de facto history. I would like to cite a fairly well-known biologist in Switzerland by the name of Florianne Köchlin as a source. (1) I told her about my plans to speak about this topic and she kindly did sent me a manuscript she had written. She gave me permission to use this manuscript for this lecture. In it, she discusses a professor of molecular biology and microbiological ecology, Professor Ignacio Chapela (2) from Mexico.
Professor Chapela examined corn plants in Oaxaca, in the south of Mexico. In this region, corn is still grown in the old traditional way. The professor has published the results of his research in the scientific journal “Nature”. (3) He was able to prove that some of the corn plants he examined had been genetically modified. As a result, a real shitstorm broke out over him. In this day and age, something like that is perhaps comparable with to going and praising Russian politics or hanging out a Russian flag – you’re not allowed to do that either. Florianne Köchlin spoke to this microbiologist. In his work, he proves that genetically modified corn plants are appearing in these areas in Oaxaca, even though genetic engineering has never been used there. Ten years later, his research results were widely verified.
Genetically modified plants
What is that anyway? Clearly we are dealing with “genes”. Professor Chapela, however, tells us that there is no such thing as a “gene”. No one has ever looked into a microscope and seen a gene. The term “gene” doesn’t actually mean anything specific, we don’t actually know what we are dealing with. Above all, the gene is not only responsible for a biological process. Genetic research goes back to Johann Gregor Mendel and his famous experiments with peas. Some of us may remember this from school. Mendel crossed red and white peas with each other and discovered that certain attributes are inherited. Not really such a great discovery, because you can already see this in the family, so there must be certain hereditary factors.
In 1909, the term “gene” was created in this context. It was assumed that this was a biological substance, but nobody knew for sure. Later, attempts were made to detect these gene factors in the chromosomes of every cell core. It was not until 1953 that the researchers Francis Crick and James Watson (4) presented this now universally known double helix, which was met with great enthusiasm. The English biochemist Rosalind Franklin was also involved in the discovery of the double helix. (5) The fact that she is hardly mentioned as a woman is typical of the time, but has nothing to do with our actual topic.
Now something happened that we know from religion and politics. We call this phenomenon the “tunnel view”. Whatever people thought a gene was, they were convinced that it was something fixed, something material. So they thought they could pin the gene down, more then that, they imagined that the gene passed on information to the proteins. The proteins in turn pass on the information to the blueprint of an organism. The gene was therefore regarded as a fixed quantity. The already mentioned Florianne Köchlin describes this as a kind of dogmatic religion. This is the view of science. Stupid enough that this view has been refuted hundreds of times in the meantime. There is no linear transmission of inherited information. Rather, it is a network in which many different factors are involved. A gene can have a completely different function in a different environment. Communication takes place in all possible directions.
There are individual DNA rungs that inform each other. Despite this, people continue to stick to this dogma. I am not a specialist myself, but I will try to make it clear what it is all about: there are two schools of thought in this field of research: Those who see it as a simple and one-track mind and those who work on opening up and researching these networks that influence each other. For example, it was assumed as certain that a gene is always inherited and that you can therefore count on it. However, it is now the case that there is a higher-level control system, known as “epigenetics”. For example, an embryo develops from one and the same cell. Later, the skin cells, liver cells and all other cells develop. Why does this work and why does it sometimes not work? This is precisely what epigenetics deals with, including what we don’t understand about it. I don’t want to go into this in too much detail, partly because I’m not a specialist, but also because experts in the field say that there is a lot that is not, or not yet, understood.
On the other hand, there is the genetic engineering of corporations. Billions of dollars have now been invested in research into genetically modified corn, for example. This research has produced two aspects in all. One aspect and probably the main aspect – still related to corn – is the plant’s resistance to poisons. The Round-up herbicide poisons everything except the genetically modified corn plant, which has been made resistant to it. The other aspect is that the genetically modified corn plant produces the herbicide and the pesticide itself. So if a parasite like the European corn borer attacks such a plant, it falls dead from the plant stalk because the plant is poisonous to it. As far as I know, not a single study has proven what this does to us humans. The companies are conquering the world with these two results of their research. However, cotton, soy, rice and various vegetables are also affected, and more and more, because that is all that is supposed to be left.
Industrial agriculture cultivates the same plant on huge areas – mono cultures. Airplanes fly over these fields and spray them with pesticides. On the surrounding small farms, chickens drop dead, fish swim belly up in the rivers and lakes, children are born with strong damage. I think we all know these pictures. And despite to that it goes on. Insect mortality is also continuing. This doesn’t mean that there are just a few fewer bees here and there, no, the problem is global, there is an extreme decline in insects. It is well known that insects are essential for the cross-pollination of plants. Nothing less than our livelihood is at risk.
Seed companies
Let’s now take a look at the seed companies. Let’s also look at the mergers of these corporations. What percentage of global seed is already in the claws of the corporations? This is a difficult question and it is upsetting that there is hardly any reliable data available. Globally – published in a booklet by Sativa, (6) (a Swiss organic seed company) – the figure is 60 %. We know from other sources that 95 % of seeds in Argentina are in the hands of corporations. They show unleashed aggression when it comes to expanding this area. One way in which they are expanding their power is through fusions. There used to be a number of groups, but fusions have reduced them to a handful and they are all tied to each other. Fusions in Europe should in fact be reviewed by the EU Commission on Competition or by the competition commissions of the countries concerned. Let’s take the EU Competition Commission as an example: It is completely understaffed. Within just a few years, the number of fusion applications has skyrocketed from 150 to 700 per year. As a result, these applications can no longer be handeld seriously. Hardly any fusions are not approved; in the best case, a few mostly cosmetic conditions are imposed. I’ll mention a few fusions that you may have heard of:
Syngenta, a Swiss company, is merging with ChemChina, although ChemChina is also active in areas other than seeds. ChemChina had previously acquired the Israeli pesticide producer Adama.
DuPont and DowChemical have also merged. Both were already gigantic companies before the fusion, as were Bayer and Monsanto, which also merged. I have read that Bayer-Monsanto wants to sell again – tired of the many lawsuits and image problems – so it was clearly not a good investment – resistance sometimes works… In the USA, lawsuits by people with cancer against the producers of these pesticides are piling up.
It is interesting to note that these companies not only sell seeds, but also the poisons that go with them, such as Round-up. This stuff is just as much a part of the product portfolio as the fertilizers. So we see that a seed company covers all areas that have to do with seeds and this is where these monopolies come from. That’s why I think that we no longer live under capitalism, because there is no competition at all, the monopoly economy is based on pure force and violance. In fact, we are all living in what Lenin described as the highest stage of capitalism: Imperialism.
But who is in a position to control or influence the actions and policies of seed companies? This raises the question of who the main shareholders are. So we quickly end up with the major US financial managers. Blackrock and Vanguard are true giants and also important shareholders of the seed companies. The author F. William Engdahl (7) names other elite circles, which include: Wealthy foundations, the US State Department, the National Security Council, the US Department of Agriculture, the IMF (International Monetary Fund), the World Bank, WHO, FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of UN).
I note that the expansion of power over global seeds is progressing. This means that people’s autonomy over their own food is more and more disappearing. Everyone can think for themselves what the consequences are and moreover what the consequences could be…
Patenting
Patenting is another tool used by big corporations. There is a European Patent Office and it works – there is no other way to put it – extremely sloppy. For example, patents are granted on natural plants, which is forbidden. Plants, parts of plants, if they have not been genetically manipulated or modified, may not be patented, but they are patented anyway. Actually, we couldn’t care less if it didn’t have legal consequences. Those who produce their seeds naturally are now suddenly confronted with restrictions because the plants they grow are patented or plants contaminated with genetic engineering could violate the alleged patent rights of the corporations. For the garden plots, this may indeed be irrelevant, but for a farmer who works for the market, his existence is under threat.
Gene editing
Gene editing is now highly relevant. This is a method of genetic manipulation using the so-called gene scissors: CRISP/CAS. (8) As usual, this is backed up by impressive claims and promises. For example, there is talk of “pinpoint gene scissors”. It is also claimed that gene editing merely does what happens in nature, only a little faster and more exactly. These are lies.
The EU and Switzerland are now working to ensure that these new procedures are not subject to genetic engineering laws. At the moment, there is still a certain amount of control within Europe, which is certainly inadequate, when it comes to genetically manipulated organisms. This is to be undermined by the new CRISP/CAS procedure. This is extremely dangerous for all of us!
This brings us to another topic that has often been discussed in our circles, namely the mainstream media they whitewash the issue of gene editing and they praise this new technology, which is in fact just old wine in new wineskins. At best, they keep quiet about it.
In the USA in particular, genetic engineering is being used on a very large scale in agriculture. This involves huge areas of land that are cultivated with gigantic machines. As a result, there are very few jobs. Many poisons are used, cancer is widespread and lawsuits are filed.
In contrast, there are countries that still have a legal ban on the use of genetically modified crops. In Europe, we see a certain caution because there was massive resistance to the genetic engineering of life in the 1980s and 1990s. Resistance can be successful. In Switzerland and Austria, a moratorium is still in place, although it is strongly opposed by the companies and their lobby groups. Russia, for example, completely bans genetic engineering in the field. In Ukraine, the release of genetically modified organisms was also prohibited until before the coup in 2014.
But even before the coup in 2014, under Yanukovych, corporations were already putting out their tentacles into the Ukraine. With the puppet government installed by the USA and the EU, these genetic engineering companies entered Ukraine on a massive scale. It is remarkable that this is hardly ever discussed. However, there is a theory that the seed companies played an important role in the 2014 coup, because the removed government of Yanukovych put the brakes on this. This theory is also supported by the fact that the Ukraine has an incredibly fertile soil, a perfect feast for the seed companies. However, experts point out that this fertility of the soil will be destroyed in 50 years at the latest if the farming is done the way the corporations want it to be done. Personally, I think that 50 years is a very optimistic figure. The destruction of the soil, especially in the countries of South America, speaks for itself.
All of this has many impacts that are not evident at first sight. The cultivation of natural seeds requires a close relationship from the farmer to the soil. Whether we are aware of it or not, we are dealing with networked thinking. In contrast to this is the mindset of destroying everything that disturbs us. Such ruthlessness and willingness to use force destroys entire landscapes. Natural cultivation means taking a closer look and responding to the conditions of nature. If all this is now delegated to corporations, then this diversity will be gone in a foreseeable future.
The precious ability to deal with soil life and biodiversity is lost. For example, we have learned from Syrian farmers that some still have a relationship with the tree. When the tree and its fruit or wood become a simple tool of production, there can no longer be any talk of a relationship. I am not saying anything against production as such, but I am saying against this violent way of production. Cultivation in particular requires exact observation, relationship and attention. These are skills that have been developed over thousands of years and are now in danger to disappear. I have already mentioned it, but I must repeat: The promises made by the corporations are lies. For example, they say that this new method, gene editing, is needed to combat world starving. However, a study by ETH Zurich (9) comes to completely different conclusions: The world’s food supply could be changed over to organic farming! For example, what percentage of the grain grown goes into human nutrition? It is only 40 %! Then 36 % go into animal food.
In Germany, it is recommended that each person should not consume more than 30 kg of meat per year for healthy reasons. However, around twice as much is consumed. Meat eating should therefore be drastically reduced and the grain that is fed to the animals should be eaten by humans. Still, this requires a change in our mindset. Another issue is the waste of food. A third of the produced food is thrown away. This also has to do with the EU directives, for example on the bending of cucumbers and suchlike nonsense. A lot also ends up in industry and becomes so called “green energy”.
Another study says that we could feed up to 14 billion people without changing the way we produce food, if only we did it right.
One important source on the subject of nutrition and genetic engineering that I definitely want to mention is the above-mentioned author William Engdahl. He identifies a direct link to eugenics.
William Engdahl – “The Seeds of Destruction”a book tip
William Engdahl is the author of the book “The Seeds of Destruction”. In his book, he cites Iraq as an example. After the destruction and occupation of Iraq by the USA, Bush’s governor, Paul Bremer, by the name, issued a series of “laws”, one of which concerns Iraqi seeds. (10) Bremer forbids Iraqi farmers from owning, selling or exchanging their own seeds. In the beginning they received seeds from an organization called USAID, of course these seeds were hybrid and genetically modified. Now they are forced to buy these seeds. Since then, Iraqi farmers have been forced to grow grain for pasta.
And, it is important to remember that Iraqi farmers are forbidden to cultivate their own seeds under threat of punishment. Moreover, pasta is not really an Arab basic foodstuff. Therefore most of this grain is exported. There is no doubt that this is violence. There is no shooting, but I think that is also war. The basis for breeding new varieties is definitely being destroyed or reduced. It should be mentioned that the “Fertile Crescent” from Iraq via Anatolia to Syria is a so-called Vavilovian center of biological diversity (11), the diversity of grain varieties and many other cultivated plants has developed here and is still partly cultivated by the farmers – probably also in remote areas of Iraq. The occupying forces never had total control.
Another, no less prominent example is Argentina. Argentina had an extremely diverse agricultural sector, full of small and medium-sized farms with great diversity. By the way, it is wrong to say that large areas of land are needed to feed the world. These small and medium-sized farms in Argentina produced twice as much as the country needed, half of the production was exported. But under Carlos Menem, Argentina became a real Eldorado for genetic engineering companies. In just a few years, the face of Argentina’s agriculture has changed completely. Farmers who did not want to give up their land were forced out, threatened and even murdered by death squads.
Today, 90 % of the soy grown in Argentina is genetically modified. Here comes now the direct link to us: This soy is exported almost only to the imperialist states for animal mast. Please take note: The EU prohibits the cultivation of genetically manipulated plants, but the import of genetically manipulated animal feed is allowed. Except in the case of trustworthy organic farmers, we can therefore assume that the animals whose meat we consume has been fed with genetically modified animal feed.
Old grain varieties, for example spelt, have been bred in such a way that they can be processed mechanically. This means that they must have less gluten, otherwise the industrial pastry machines will stick together. This is just one example of technical breeding targets. An old fashioned baker told me that flour today is no longer the same as it used to be, it is simply different.
These changes are not made to make the grain more wholesome or healthier, they are made to make the grain more suitable for the machines. Another criterion is how easily the grain comes out of the hull when the harvest machine runs over it. These are the modern breeding goals, it’s all about profit.
Another misguided development is that our food is traded on the stock markets. In the end, this means that food is not produced so that we all have enough to eat, but for profits on the stock exchange.
Back to William Engdahl. I would like to quote a sentence from him that I would like to pass on to you all. Engdahl asks: “Can there be world peace with genetically modified food?” Regarding at the fact that power is being concentrated in fewer and fewer companies, we can give ourselves the answer right away. Added to this is the military use. Genetic modification of plants has a military component that should not be underestimated. The late Henry Kissinger, he died in 2023 at the age of 100 years, was already babbling about the overpopulation of the earth. He said: “He who controls the oil controls the states, he who controls the food controls the people”. So we can see that this is a very big issue. In 2001, the US biotech company Epicyte from San Diego announced that they had developed a corn variety with birth control properties. On September 9th 2001, The Guardian reported: “Scientists have developed the ultimate genetically modified crop: birth-control corn. The use of corn fields could one day save the world from overpopulation.” (12)
Pregnancy prevention plants are the product of San Diego-based biotechnology company Epicyte, where researchers have discovered a rare class of human antibodies that attack sperm.
We need to be aware of this scandal: If we want to do birth control, we do it with specific birth control, but definitely not with a food! Here we have to assume that this is being used, or at least could be used, for certain ” unwanted” ethnic groups. It is also interesting to note that the gene that was inserted into this contraceptive corn originally comes from humans. It comes from an extremely rare form of female infertility. Naturally, this case caused a great uproar. “Scientific” circles thought that this was a good way of solving the problem of overpopulation, and that is still the case. Naturally, this was widely condemned.
Kissinger and his kind are neither the first nor the only ones with such inhuman ideas. Even before the eugenics programs of the German Nazis, the Rockefeller Foundation was already conducting research in this field. Winston Churchill, whom Engdahl quite rightly calls “a terrible racist”, writes about diseases that are to be used specifically on humans and animals. He explicitly mentions anthrax to kill animals. If Churchill could have had his way, all of this should be used specifically for population control. We can already see the idea of fighting “enemy” peoples with diseases in the then still young USA, when they gave the indigenous peoples blankets contaminated with measles, smallpox and other diseases. The British gave the Irish seed potatoes contaminated with the potato beetle during the Great Famine. Such criminal ideas are by no means new. While the examples mentioned were still about the war against these peoples, the idea of overpopulation is buzzing around in some people’s heads in our days.
The powerful CNN founder Ted Turner – who invests millions of US dollars in campaigns aimed at population decline – is calling for “a population of 250 to 300 million people worldwide, a decline of around 95 %, which would be perfect”. This was reported by the Austrian newspaper “Standard” on February 5, 2018 (13).
Don’t ask me how he came up with this figure. In any case, Covid also comes to my mind immediately. I also remember something the late Libyan colonel Muammar al Gaddafi said, long before the imperialists murdered him. Quote: “They will spread epidemics and they will have the medicine for the epidemics ready even before the epidemic is there, and they will sell this medicine at a high price”. Let’s remember: the Covid vaccinations have flushed enormous sums of money into the pockets of the pharmaceutical companies, sums that we pay for with our tax money and our health insurance contributions. But that’s nothing new either.
Finally, the icing on that cake of horror: In the meantime, thanks to science, NATO military’s will soon be able to use genetic engineering to kill only those people with diseases who belong to a certain ethnic group. Not only since the discoveries of the Russian army in Ukraine have we known of laboratories researching viruses for military purposes.
A world in which a few corporations hold the power over our food and with it the power over our food independence is a world in which peace is not possible. This is what we are facing today.
But anyway, we should not fall into despair. We can still catch a glimpse of paradise. The indigenous peoples of Central and South America, for example, know Pacha Mama. Pacha Mama can be roughly translated as “Mother Earth”. But Pacha Mama is not some far-fetched esoteric fantasy, it is a concrete and lived utopia. We can learn from this and from many other life-oriented initiatives. “Buen Vivir” develops a social concept based on indigenous knowledge of how the relationship with Pacha Mama, people among themselves and the rest of the cosmos could be shaped in a meaningful way. (14) A promising project that includes all areas of life and is even being implemented by countries such as Bolivia and Ecuador.
Footnotes:
1 http://www.blauen-institut.ch/index.html (last accessed September 2023)
2 https://www.gen-ethisches-netzwerk.de/ich-werde-versuchen-so-weiter-zu-arbeiten (last accessed September 2023)
3 https://www.nature.com/articles/456149a (last accessed September 2023)
4 https://www.ardalpha.de/wissen/gesundheit/james-watson-dna-dns-francis-crick-genforschung-strickleiter-gene-100.html (last accessed September 2023)
5 https://www.simplyscience.ch/teens/wissen/rosalind-franklin-die-frau-hinter-der-aufklaerung-der-dna-struktur (Last accessed September 2023)
6 https://www.sativa.bio/de_ch/ (last accessed September 2023)
7 William F. Engdahl: The Seeds of Destruction, The Dark Side of Gene Manipulation, 2007, Jochen Kopp Verlag, Germany
8 https://gentechniken.de/wie-funktioniert-crispr-cas/ (Last accessed September 2023)
9 https://www.fibl.org/de/infothek/meldung/neue-studie-belegt-bio-kann-einen-wichtigen-beitrag-zur-welternaehrung-leisten10 See also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4evt_Fa4Lw (last accessed September 2023)
11 Virtually all food plants cultivated by humans originate from one of eleven regions of the world known as “Vavilov centers” after the Russian botanist Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov.
12 https://www.theguardian.com/science/2001/sep/09/gm.food (Last accessed September 2023)
13 https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000073556959/das-boot-ist-nicht-voll-sondern-ungleich-beladen (last accessed September 2023)
14 https://www.rosalux.de/fileadmin/rls_uploads/pdfs/Analysen/Analyse_buenvivir.pdf (last accessed September 2023)
