Absinthia Returns, Part 2

Fair Trade products (photo by Andie Gilmour)

This is part of a continuing series of email letters exchanged with my Swedish friend, Absinthia. To see the whole series, start with Living a Simple Life.

Dear Absinthia,

Last night my husband and I were discussing the “throw-away” mindset that our culture has regarding many things that we purchase, including clothes. They are so cheap at the big box stores, that many people buy a few outfits, wear them for a season, and then get rid of them and buy more. What a waste! But I suppose it keeps millions of poor factory workers from starving.

- amanda

Hello :-)

This “buy-wear-throw” away culture… I heard a politician on the radio once defending it with “but we support the poor countries if we buy things.”  But, sad to say, that is not true. The only ones we support if we buy in the big brand stores, are the western multi-millionaires that sit comfortably on their big moneybags. The poor seamstresses make less than half a dollar a day. They have to borrow money from the black market money lenders to be able to buy food and pay the rent. The poor young girls that put the iphones together, they have such bad work-situations (too long days, no rests, too stressful etc.), that the factory owners have had to block the doors out to the roofs to stop them from commiting suicide.

I look for this kind of information in the newspapers. It never hits the headlines, but one finds it if one looks for it. And I do, because I refuse to live a good life on the back of my brother, and I refuse to eat from my sister’s plate.

Some years ago, more than ten years ago now I guess, a young boy child finally was able to run away from the debt slavery that his parents had sold him into. He started fighting the money lenders that organize this kind of thing, and he started fighting against the system that allows child labour.  I had the chance to hear him speak on these issues, and he said, “The only way to end this, is to not support them in any way. It is so easy. Just don´t support them. Don´t send your money in their direction.”  He was so dangerous for the factory owners, that he was murdered after just a few years. 

So, I don´t give them my money. I don´t buy any product made with child labour, or under other kinds of unfair conditions. I make the things I need myself, or I get it from a local producer (the local seamstress, the local fire wood seller, etc.), or from someone with a “clear” source, such as Fair Trade, from whom I buy cocoa and vanilla.

By not letting people fare ill, at the same time I’m not letting the earth fare ill. By not letting greedy people enslave others, I don´t support the polluting transports. So Fair Trade is both fair for people and for the planet’s eco-system. All of us must stick together, earth and people are one. It is very easy, if one lets it be easy :-)

- Absinthia

The conversation is continued here:
Absinthia Returns, Part 3

Absinthia Returns, Part 1

Shopping mall in Toronto, 2008  (photo by Benson Kua)

Living a Simple Life

My Swedish friend, Absinthia, has kindly agreed to have another conversation with me for this blog.  In 2011, we posted an 8-part series of emails, starting here.  The current series is about living a simple life, and I think you'll enjoy her perspective.

Dear Absinthia,

I have been thinking about you a lot, lately, and I hope we can have another conversation--this time about simple, basic living. As humans, we must start making the transition. Global warming is happening faster than we expected, and we’ve just got to take swift, major steps to correct the way we are living on this Earth.

- amanda

Hello!

I wanted to think if I have something to say and share about simple living, and I think I do :-) We have been living a small simple life for some years now so I have learned quite a lot, remembered lessons my granny and grandfather taught me, read some, heard some, realised some and thought some too ;-)

I am now a teacher fiber crafts, and I also do commission work.  It may sound strange, but I am much happier and feel physically much better now, even though we have approximately a third as much money as we did before.

I hear and read that many people think that Christmas is a very stressful time. I think that may be because they are focused on the material stuff “Buying, buying, buying!!!” instead of making an experience “let´s have a lovely holiday together: read, tumble around in the snow, and drink hot cocoa!”

And this is the core of the climate-disaster in the making, don´t you think? If we stop the “buying, buying, buying,” then the big businesses cannot enslave the poor countries into child labour, and then the international traders will no longer get rich from all those poisonous mass-producing industries that contaminate the water and the earth, and all the cheap stuff will no longer be transported hence and forth, bought by us and then hardly get any use before we exchange it with some new cheap bad-quality stuff, and then get thrown away at the junk heaps everywhere.

We have completely stopped buying Christmas gifts. We buy trees in an agroforestry-project and send their gift-cards as Christmas cards :-) It saves the earth and gives the growers and their families a way to support themselves. I am happy to have found such a nice project to support. We have supported them for more than 10 years now :-D

- Absinthia

The conversation is continued here:

  Absinthia Returns, Part 2.