On 26th October, 2005, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran, gave a speech preceding the annual Qods (Jerusalem) rally in Tehran. This rally has been held since the 1979 revolu- tion when Ayatollah Khomeini declared that the last Friday of the Muslim month of Ramadan should be celebrated as a day of solidarity with the Palestinian people. In his speech Ahmadinejad was reported saying that Israel must be “wiped off the map.” CNN reported that thousands of Iranians “staged anti- Israel protests across the country, and repeated calls by their ultraconservative president demanding the Jewish state’s destruction.” Open Democracy (www.opendemocracy.com) said that “Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s new president, has called for the extinction of Israel,’ and the Federation of Zionist Youth website (www.fzy.org.uk) declared that ‘Ahmadinejad told an audience in Tehran that ‘Israel must be wiped off the map. There is only one problem; Ahmadinejad never made this statement. He was mistranslated. The Iranian president was STATE ‘Matters David Suzuki, David Suzuki ,. Foundation Most of us are all too aware of what it’s like to live in finan- cial debt, but what about ecological debt? On October 9th, according to the Global Footprint Network, humanity went into ecological debt for the year, where demand for resources and the production of waste out- paced the planet’s capacity to produce new resources and absorb those wastes. In other words, we ceased to live off the ecological services provided by the planet and started con- suming the ecosystems themselves. The date is merely symbolic, as in reality human con- sumption of resources and production of waste is highly var- ied across the planet. In some areas, we’re already going into debt at the stroke of midnight on New Yeat’s Day. Other areas, however, are far less exploited and we may never reach those particular ecosystems’ ecological limits during the year. So, ecological debt is more of a global average, based on the “ecological footprint” concept, conceived by Bill Rees and Mathis Wackernagel at the University of British Columbia. ‘The footprint concept is easy to visualize and helps us under- stand and compare our rate of resource consumption. Canadians’ ecological footprint, for example, is huge. If every- one on Earth consumed as many resources and generated as much waste as Canadians do, we’d need the equivalent of 6 THE OTHER PRESS OCTOBER 26 2006 Farsi Farce Julian Worker, OP Contributor quoting the late Ayatollah Khomeini who said that “this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time,” just as the Shah’s regime in Iran had vanished. This accurate translation was obtained from the website of Professor Juan Cole, Professor of History at the University of Michigan. Ahmadinejad was not making a military threat. He was calling for an end to the occupa- tion of Jerusalem at some time in the future. Of course, the propaganda damage was done. Some western . politicians even bracketed the Iranian president with Hitler. At the convention of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a powerful lobby group, huge screens switched between pictures of Ahmadinejad and a ranting Adolf. It was only in June 2006, after The Guardian newspaper in the UK gave prominence to the mistranslation, that the New York Times, one of the first papers to misquote Ahmadinejad, attempted to justify its reporter’s original “wiped off the map” translation. In the face of The Guardian’s continuing coverage of the mistranslation, the New York Times finally had to admit that a mistake had been made in its translation. The BBC monitoring service had their original version of the Ahmadinejad quote-as “eliminated from the map of the world”. When the BBC went back to the native Farsi-speakers who had translated the original speech from a voice recording made available by Iranian TV on October 29, 2005, those same translators, with more time to reflect, said that the trans- lation should be “eliminated from the page of history.” The version of Ahmadinejad’s speech put out by MEMRI, nearly five more planets! Ecological debt is similar, as it also helps us understand how human activities are affecting the planet and the services it provides to us. The concept requires us to look at these services as if they are sorts of paycheques. If we live off our income, we’re doing fine—that’s sustainability. But when we start living beyond our means, just.as we would with our finances, we go into debt and we may end up in trouble. Global warming is one example of that kind of trouble. The Global Footprint Network calculates that the first ecological debt day occurred in 1987, on approximately December 19. But every year since, it has been getting earlier and earlier, as our rate of consumption has increased. What happens if we break the bank? Well, it certainly would be problematic for our species, as the planet could simply no longer provide all the services we need and absorb all the wastes we create. Our population would then have to shrink down to a level that was sustainable with whatever functioning ecosystems we had left. Although we often talk as though we should reduce our impact on the planet to protect nature, it’s actually much more about protecting ourselves. As pointed out in an excellent recent article in New Scientist magazine (available free online), (Middle East Media Research Institute) based on the Farsi te released by the official Iranian Students News Agency says, “This regime that is occupying Qods (Jerusalem) must be eliminated from the pages of history.” MEMRI was foundec by Colonel Yigal Carmon, who spent 22 years in Israeli mili- tary intelligence. MEMRI’s intent is to find the worst possib! quotes from the Muslim world and disseminate them as wid ly as possible. On this occasion they provided an accurate translation. This is the most startling fact about the mistranslation affair. MEMRI, which has been criticized for distorting the meanings of Arabic and Farsi speeches, actually provided a cofrect translation, whereas the BBC, The New York Times, CNN, and a host of respected websites all mistranslated or used mistranslations of Ahmadinejad’s speech. Mistranslations like this one do matter. Within days of tl Ahmadinejad speech the then Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, was calling for Iran to be expelled from the United Nations. The United States piled pressure on its allies to be tough with Iran, particularly in relation to Iran’s nuclear amb tions; even though privately hawkish US politicians admit it will be years before Iran could acquire a bomb, let alone the means to deliver it. Don’t get the wrong impression though; Ahmadinejad is undeniably an opponent of the regime in Israel. His suppor' within Iran rests on his willingness to challenge Isreal and tk US. ’ His campaign promised some populist reforms, but attac on workers and a crackdown on political opponents sent his popularity plunging. This popularity only returned when he started talking critically about the US occupation of Iraq an Israel’s attempted invasion of Lebanon. Why mention all this? Well, Ramadan started on September 23rd, Soon, the Qods rally will take place in Tehran. Should any volatile quotations be attributed to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by the media, try to find an accurat translation before reacting to what he has said. nature would get along quite well without us. If humans we to go ecologically bankrupt and die off as a species, nature would no doubt spring back. Human beings may have permanently altered some ecosystems, but life on Earth is remarkably tenacious. With« people around, wooden structures in our cities would start 1 decay almost immediately, and plants pushing their way into cracks would gradually overtake concrete, turning sprawling suburbs into forests and prairies once again. Over-fished se; would rebound with life. Many species currently on the brir would flourish. Our oceans would gradually absorb the car- bon dioxide we’ve pumped into the atmosphere. Even nuck waste would gradually decay. As the author points out, alien visitors to Earth 100,000 years after our demise would see 1 obvious signs of what we once were. It’s sad to think that all we have created on Earth couk in evolutionary terms, disappear in the blink of an eye. Life would go on, but the remarkable story of a unique bipedal species would come to an end. A humbling thought, and a compelling reason to stay out of debt. Take the Nature Challenge and learn more at www.davidsuzuki.o