Remember the Raelians? They're back, pushing GM crops
Back at the end of 2002, the Raelians – a religious cult that believes human beings were created by alien cloners – made worldwide headlines when they announced the birth of a cloned baby named (of course) Eve. Their leader Rael, formerly a race car test driver, had previously testified in favor of human reproductive cloning at a US Congressional hearing bedecked in robes and a top-knot hairdo.
The Raelians have long believed, as they put it on their website, that "[t]oday’s new cloning technology is the first step in the quest for immortality or eternal life." Now they are arguing that genetically modified crops are the solution to world hunger. In a January 26 press release, Rael argues that genetically modified food is “the only means to end starvation.”
The Raelians weighed in to laud a report on “global food and farming futures” by a UK government agency that is headed by a former biotech lobbyist. According to GM Watch, the British non-profit GM agriculture watchdog, the report
advocates an intensification of the existing failed agribiz system. It carefully leaves the door open to GM and other high-tech `solutions’ to world hunger, while also putting in some faint praise for agroecology/organics.
GM Watch’s account of the government's Foresight Report provides political background and identifies other supporters of intensified agribusiness. But why do the Raelians, formerly known as enthusiasts of cloning humans, now embrace GM crops? Their press release answers this question explicitly:
As a science-based religion, the Raelian Movement teaches that science should not be restricted and that it should always used [sic] to help humanity.
The support of a religion based on belief in extraterrestrial cloners, whose official symbol is a swastika inside a Star of David, helped to discredit reproductive cloning. It will be interesting to see if the Raelians' fervor for genetically modified crops has any similar effect.
Previously on Biopolitical Times
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