Dr. Derek Wall

Derek Wall is the Male Principal Speaker for the Green Party.

Dr. Derek Wall is an experienced Green political campaigner, published author and journalist.ent Male Principal Speaker of the Green Party of England and Wales, and writes a regular green blog.

Commenting on his re-election as Male Principal Speaker of The Green Party, Dr. Wall said: "I am both honoured and humbled to have been re- elected as Green Party Principal Speaker with such a decisive and increased vote.

"I am going to have another year of standing up for radical green politics, ecology, social justice, grassroots democracy and peace. My job is to trumpet the Green Party Manifesto for a Sustainable Society and I will do so with renewed energy and vigour.

"Green politics more than ever is vital, it's the politics quite literally of survival, we live in a world where another way of living is necessary and green politics is about making it real. Just look at the climbing temperatures and the spread of global warfare, the US drive towards global imperialism supported by Brown as usual, we Greens must renew our anti-war activism, Iraq must not be followed by the destruction of Iran."

Academic Career

Dr. Wall teaches political economy at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and is head of social science at a sixth form college. He has a PhD in 'The Politics of Earth First! UK'.

He has written a series of books on green politics since his first book Getting There: Steps Towards a Green Society was published in 1990, which looked at the strategies of green politics.

A Green Manifesto for the 1990s outlined the Green vision and the 1994 book Green History: A Reader in Environmental Literature, Philosophy, and Politics examined the roots of ecological politics. Also during 1994, he released Weaving a Bower Against Endless Night: An Illustrated History of the Green Party as a Green Party publication.

The result of Dr. Wall's PhD, a book entitled Earth First! and the Anti-Roads Movement: Radical Environmentalism and Comparative Social Movements, was published in 1999.

His most recent work, Babylon and Beyond: The Economics of Anti-Capitalist, Anti-Globalist and Radical Green Movements, looks at the history of eco-cocialism and anti-capitalism, including reformist capitalists like Joseph Stiglitz, anti-corporate critics such as Naomi Klein and David Korten, monetary reformers, eco-socialists (especially Joel Kovel), green localists that include Caroline Lucas, Mike Woodin and Vandana Shiva, and the members of the eco-anarchist movement like Michael Hardt and Toni Negri. It includes a foreword by Nandor Tanczos, the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand MP.

Dr. Wall is an associate editor of the monthly political magazine The Red Pepper. He also contributes to the periodicals Environmental Politics, Social Movement Studies and Capitalism Nature Socialism.

Political Career

Dr. Wall first became involved in the Green movement in 1979.

He joined the Ecology Party (later the Green Party of England and Wales) in 1980. By 1987, Wall was standing for the Ecology Party against Chris Patten in Bath.

At the time of the 1989 European Elections, Dr. Wall was one of three National Speakers in the Green Party. In the elections themselves, which saw the Green Party gain over 2 million votes (14.5% of the national poll), Dr. Wall received 15% of the vote in the Bristol constituency.

Dr. Wall has also been a Parish Councillor during his time at with The Green Party.

At the 2005 general election, Dr. Wall stood as a candidate for Windsor and received 2.5% of the vote.

In November 2006 he was narrowly elected as one of two Principal Speakers of the Green Party of England and Wales.

Beliefs

Dr. Wall describes himself as an eco-socialist, and Green politics as "the politics of survival", stressing that "unless we build a green economy based on meeting need rather than greed our children face a bleak future. A world dominated by the need for constant growth puts people and the rest nature behind a blind economic system of accumulation".

Non-Violent Direct Action (NVDA)

Dr. Wall stresses the importance of combining electoral politics and non-violent direct action (NVDA) to affect change. Babylon and Beyond focuses heavily on unique and creative expressions of anti-neo globalisation economics and protest, and Dr. Wall tells protesters "to keep making noise".

He has cultivated ties with African-American and Afro-Caribbean Green activists and takes a strong interest in the controversial Pennsylvania-based African-American organisation MOVE.

Zen

Dr. Wall practices Zazen and is influenced by spirituality through "pursuing a pagan appreciation of the living world in a variety of ways". In Babylon and Beyond, he argues that Zen acts as a guard against utopianism as it "is based on being in the world rather than escaping from it". He also links anti-capitalism and Zen, stating, based on the work of anthropologist and economist Marshall Sahlins, that "Zen minimises need and provides an alternative road to affluence".

Quotes

"How to be green? Many people have asked us this important question. It's really very simple and requires no expert knowledge or complex skills. Here's the answer. Consume less. Share more. Enjoy life."

"At present cats have more purchasing power and influence than the poor of this planet. Accidents of geography and colonial history should no longer determine who gets the fish.

"This will be a long fight and anti-capitalism may fail. Nevertheless, at the very worst, even in failure we might succeed in bearing witness to the pathological absurdities of a world where money makes human beings and the rest of nature a means rather than an end."

Bibliography

Getting There: Steps Towards a Green Society, 1990.

A Green Manifesto For The 1990's, with Penny Kemp, 1990.

Green History: A Reader in Environmental Literature, Philosophy, and Politics, 1994.

Weaving a Bower Against Endless Night: An Illustrated History of the Green Party, 1994.

Earth First! and the Anti-Roads Movement: Radical Environmentalism and Comparative Social Movements, 2002.

Babylon and Beyond: The Economics of Anti-Capitalist, Anti-Globalist and Radical Green Movements, 2005.

See also: www.another-green-world.blogspot.com

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