The
Battle for Paradise by Naomi Klein, 2018, Excerpts
Before Hurricane Maria, Puerto
Ricans were already in a state of shock and severe economic policies were
already being applied there. The government had already been whittled down. By
early 2017, parts of San Juan looked very much like they had been hit by a
hurricane – windows were broken, buildings were boarded up. But it wasn’t high
winds that did it, it was debt and austerity. The island had/has an extreme
dependence on imported fuel and food; had/has an unpayable and illegal debt
that has been used to impose wave after wave of austerity; and has a
130-year-old colonial relationship with a U.S. government that has always
discounted Puerto Rico.
Post-Hurricane Maria, Puerto
Rico finds itself locked in a battle of utopias. The Puertopians dream of a
radical withdrawal from society into their privatized enclaves. The other
group’s dreams is grounded in a desire for people to exercise collective
sovereignty over their land, energy, food, and water.
At the core of this battle is
a very simple question: Who is Puerto Rico for? Is it for Puerto Ricans, or is
it for outsiders? And after a collective trauma like Hurricane Maria, who has a
right to decide?
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