Art of shredding Pachauri's 'sexual harassment as climate revenge' self-defence
That the disgraced former TERI honcho RK Pachauri would stoop to any level to extricate himself is no breaking news, but a "respectable broadsheet" like the Guardian publishing a hoary fanboy report by none less than its "environment editor" John Vidal to effectively say that the sexual harassment case against Pachauri is a cooked up charge by climate change deniers is a fresh low in international political reportage.
This article by The Guardian's John Vidal once again proves the tentacular reach of the former chief of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and his fan club of "white, male greenie dudebros", who see no problem perpetuating the patrirachal and racist power structures while claiming to be fighting for Planet Earth.
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Furore on Twitter notwithstanding this thread by Amba Azaad (@AmbaAzaad) exposes every bit of discriminatory prejudice perpetuated in the name of climate activism. Pachauri and his fanclub seems to be not just content but hellbent on ensuring a climate controlled with planetary exclusions absolutely intact. Read the thread till the end for a brilliant perspective on what exactly Pachauri, Vidal and Guardian's decision to publish the piece entails.
Yes does the @guardian routinely make a point of giving sexual harassers a platform or is it only exotic brown ones? @vinayaravind @dpanjana
— Amba Azaad (@AmbaAzaad) March 27, 2016
Hey UK friends, @john_vidal is the @guardian Environment editor who thinks giving a chargesheeted sexual harasser a fawning platform is news
— Amba Azaad (@AmbaAzaad) March 27, 2016
Perhaps @WritersofColour could take a look at ethics in journalism going on with @john_vidal & @guardian? cc @samirasawlani @sunnysingh_nw3
— Amba Azaad (@AmbaAzaad) March 27, 2016
ok, it's a Sunday, so let's break down just exactly what @john_vidal is doing in this disgusting @guardian fanboying of Pachauri.
— Amba Azaad (@AmbaAzaad) March 27, 2016
He starts of framing his story with all the good things Pachauri has done, as though they have any relevance to a sexual harassment case.
— Amba Azaad (@AmbaAzaad) March 27, 2016
(This is like swooning over the dialogues in Woody Allen's films or the craft of Tejpal's writing while reporting on their sexual assaults.)
— Amba Azaad (@AmbaAzaad) March 27, 2016
The first misreporting starts with "Pachauri has resigned from the IPCC and stepped back from Teri" when in fact Pachauri clung to power.
— Amba Azaad (@AmbaAzaad) March 27, 2016
Vidal erases the months where TERI violated Vishaka guidelines to support Pachauri and it took students protesting to get him out.
— Amba Azaad (@AmbaAzaad) March 27, 2016
The only named source Vidal uses to bolster Pachauri's claims is a former UKIP member and journalist Richard North (https://t.co/YsSSX2xopC)
— Amba Azaad (@AmbaAzaad) March 27, 2016
"Obviously she was leaned on. It’s about ‘rat-fucking’" says North in the time-honoured tradition of Men on Battlefields talking about women
— Amba Azaad (@AmbaAzaad) March 27, 2016
(The implication being - see! Even Pachauri's bitter political opponent, this rightwing climatechangedenying white dude says he's framed)
— Amba Azaad (@AmbaAzaad) March 27, 2016
The one woman quoted chooses to stay unnamed in her defence of TERI and is used to dismiss the second victim who publicly spoke against P.
— Amba Azaad (@AmbaAzaad) March 27, 2016
Does Vidal quote any women experts on how sexual harassment works in offices? Any women scientists on rape culture in their field and orgs?
— Amba Azaad (@AmbaAzaad) March 27, 2016
Vidal obscures the agency of not only the victims, but their support structure and defenders including TERI uni students, journos, activists
— Amba Azaad (@AmbaAzaad) March 27, 2016
And he does this without asking any of them the simple question - do you believe in climate change? Because it's a strawman argument.
— Amba Azaad (@AmbaAzaad) March 27, 2016
Undoubtedly, the employees and students of TERI are there because they care for the environment and the ravages of climate change.
— Amba Azaad (@AmbaAzaad) March 27, 2016
Vidal sets up the false binary of climate change believers vs deniers as though sexual assault in only a characteristic in the latter group.
— Amba Azaad (@AmbaAzaad) March 27, 2016
But I'd like to go beyond the immediate circumstances of this case (gross as it is) and look at the implications of this sort of reporting.
— Amba Azaad (@AmbaAzaad) March 27, 2016
Vidal displays the traits of what I call fuckboi greenies - privileged dudebro science types who benevolently save the rest of us.
— Amba Azaad (@AmbaAzaad) March 27, 2016
(An older more subtle example of this can be found in Amitav Ghosh https://t.co/EqkVyWeLI3)
— Amba Azaad (@AmbaAzaad) March 27, 2016
This top-down, patri-hierarchical notion of Save The Nobel Scientists or The World Will Drown ignores the reality of intersectionality.
— Amba Azaad (@AmbaAzaad) March 27, 2016
The truth is, to meaningfully talk about climate change, one must also talk about rape culture and sexual assault.
— Amba Azaad (@AmbaAzaad) March 27, 2016
Because the effects of climate change disproportionately affect women, who are made more vulnerable to sexual abuse by it in many ways.
— Amba Azaad (@AmbaAzaad) March 27, 2016
Women displaced from native homes rendered refugees, or beggars, or undertrials, or squatters, sexually abused by state actors.
— Amba Azaad (@AmbaAzaad) March 27, 2016
Women rendered destitute and so sexually exploited by the range of public and private systems of assault and coercion.
— Amba Azaad (@AmbaAzaad) March 27, 2016
Women whose support structures have been ruptured by the globalised capitalist forces that exploit labour and precipitate climate change.
— Amba Azaad (@AmbaAzaad) March 27, 2016
And women discouraged from joining scientific academia to talk intersections because of prevalent and tolerated cultures of sexual violence.
— Amba Azaad (@AmbaAzaad) March 27, 2016
There is no damage done to environmentalism when talking of sexual abuse just as secularism isn't hurt by punishing Mahmood Farooqi.
— Amba Azaad (@AmbaAzaad) March 27, 2016
Because an environmentalism that constructs its powerful, male leaders as more vulnerable than ordinary, resisting women, is toxic itself.
— Amba Azaad (@AmbaAzaad) March 27, 2016
And women - poor, rural, Dalit, Black, Brown, indigenous, adivasi, marginalised, disabled - are the strongest protectors of environment.
— Amba Azaad (@AmbaAzaad) March 27, 2016
A culture of protecting the sexual safety of women (and non-women) will only strengthen the energy we can use to defend environmental rights
— Amba Azaad (@AmbaAzaad) March 27, 2016
In conclusion, fuck Pachauri. The climate change movement is more vital, diverse and egalitarian than him and his fuckboi greenie stans.
— Amba Azaad (@AmbaAzaad) March 27, 2016
@AmbaAzaad Board of TERI made every conceivable route for his return to power easy.+intimidation of colleagues who supported the researcher
— Bhanupriya Rao (@bhanupriyarao) March 27, 2016