Dismantle Civilisation

Here’s an interesting article, exploring the native american term ‘Sumac Kawsay’, or ‘Buen Vivir’:

(Portuguese to Spanish Translation by Blanca Diego.
Spanish to English Translation by Christopher Reid (Decolonial Translation Group)

NOTE: The original article “Sumac Kawsay” was published on the Web site of Foro Social Mundial on 6 February 2009. The Spanish translation by Blanca Diego, “Buen Vivir,” was published on the same site on the same day. English translation by Christopher Reid. The French translation by Angélica Montes, “‘Bien Vivre’, un concept de la pensée décoloniale indigène en Amérique latine,” is available at the Web site of le Mouvement des indigènes de la république (MIR). )

Perhaps because I am a Brazilian, the first time I heard the expression buen vivir I immediately thought of “buena vida (2),” a term which in our country is used pejoratively to refer to an easy and unconcerned life, one filled with little work, plenty of evening strolls and other luxuries, and zero political consciousness.

I was completely mistaken. Buen vivir means nothing of the sort. On the contrary, according to the indigenous peoples of the Andean region, and the Aymara people in particular (3), buen vivir is a solid principle which means life in harmony and equilibrium between men and women, between different communities and, above all, between human beings and the natural environment of which they are part. In practice, this concept implies knowing how to live in community with others while achieving a minimum degree of equality. It means eliminating prejudice and exploitation between people as well as respecting nature and preserving its equilibrium.

According to this definition, the culture in which we are submerged is utterly devoid of buen vivir. We are in complete disequilibrium with ourselves and with nature when we buy more than we actually need; when, without remorse, we exploit the land, water and even other human beings themselves; when we search for exorbitant profits which, the majority of the time, only benefit one person or a very small group of people.

Technologies continue to improve and every day the comforts and conveniences which these offer are increasing, but only for a few people. Meanwhile, for the majority of people what are increasing are poverty, exploitation, prejudice, competition and individualism. This is the logic of the system in which we live. There can be no doubt that we are not practicing buen vivir.

On the other hand, we hear in the news all the time about the spread of the world financial crisis, the dollar’s falling value, the risk associated with dwindling water resources….In sum, they are continuously reminding us of the failure of the system.

In the face of all of this, it seems ironic to hear indigenous people referred to as ‘savages’ whose way of life is backwards and primitive. How can this be, given that they have always known how to live in community with one another, to produce what is necessary for their survival and to live in harmony with nature and with other living beings; to nourish themselves on fruits, legumes and other vegetables, and to understand better than anyone else the secrets of nature and of natural medicine? Furthermore, they have lived in the Americas for thousands of years in a sustainable manner – though they may not have used precisely this same term – long before the so-called “discovery” of America. Is this really what a savage is?

Recently, at the ninth meeting of the World Social Forum which was held in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon, in the city of Belém do Pará, a defense of the concept of buen vivir was presented. For those who were there at the Forum, the participation of indigenous peoples was quite significant, and not just because of the rituals and music which they performed, or for the tattoos on their bodies or their colorful clothing. It was also significant because of the consistency of their discourse and the courage they demonstrated in defending what they believe in: ‘good living’ and ‘living well’.

Sumak kawsay, or buen vivir, is a concept which has already been incorporated into the debates of the Ecuadorean Constituent Assembly. Having recently been approved by voters in a popular referendum, buen vivir is guaranteed in Bolivia’s new constitution. Buen vivir was the hallmark of this World Social Forum. Perhaps it will also be the beginning of a possible new world.

ENDNOTES

1) TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: The literal English translation is “good living,” but it is important to observe that buen vivir is itself an imperfect Spanish approximation of the (indigenous Ecuadorean) Kichwa term, sumak kawsay. Meanwhile, in Bolivia, a similar concept stemming from the Aymara Indian cosmovision and language – suma qamaña – is customarily translated into Spanish as vivir bien, or “living well.” The author, a Brazilian thinking and writing in Portuguese, has opted to utilize the Ecuadorean Kichwa/Spanish terms throughout her article rather than attempt a concrete Portuguese translation of the concept.

2) TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: Literally, “(the) good life.”

3) TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: Again, to avoid confusion on the part of the lay reader it must be emphasized that sumak kawsay and buen vivir are specifically Ecuadorean Kichwa and Spanish terms, respectively; they are not the actual terms used by the Aymara and Spanish speakers of Bolivia (see translator’s note 1).

Sumac Kawsay is what we believe is key to building a new society, one which is built on interdependence and communities rather than hyperindividualism, one which views ourselves as part of nature rather then seperate, and one which strives for equality and not for individual power and selfishness.  Dismantling Civilisation is about building our lives and comminites around Sumac Kawsay as our central story, and not around the Civilisation’s story of greed, conquest and expansion.

No Comments »

One aspect of the destruction of civilization that is often overlooked is sexuality. We all know that society necessitates an ownership of our genitals. What we do, how we feel, and how express our desire is dictated by the culture that we live in. But is sexuality designed to be dictated by norms? More specifically, are we supposed to express our sexuality in the same way as our neighbors?

Dismantling civilzation means that we must find a way t0 exist in an equal and beautiful paradigm. We know that the way we live now lends itself to domination, patriarchy, and capitalism. We need to learn how to be explicitly free and unequivocally loving.  Everyone has a different method of loving, and the problem is that no one talks about it. The whole concept of a “norm” means that there is a right way, a wrong way, and everything in between.

What would happen if there was no norm? If we decided for ourselves how we would love each other and make love to each other? Of course we do what we want now, regardless of what others think, but it is very secretive and private. Perhaps there is a medium in which we could decide that no matter what someone chooses as sexuality, it is still wonderful and perfect. We are still very far away from that now. Those who support it are labeled “liberals” while those that oppose it are labeled “conservatives.” Why does there have to be a whole theology of thought behind these two views? And more importantly, why does there have to be only two views? Why can’t there be one thousand trickling into a digestible format known as a dichotomy?

2 Comments »

Obviously, to dismantle civilization we need to stage a revolution. Society cannot be replaced by an ‘un-society,’ that is, a state where humans digress to a lower stage of development and remain unaware of their environment. But what would revolution look like? And what would society be replaced by?

The biggest problem with revolution is that, in the mind of the public, it can often border on anarchy. Most imagine that the state is dismantled and then ruled by whoever has the brute strength and force to overtake the others. This is not the solution, as it is identical to our current state of affairs.

All of the problems with civilization seem to surround power. Someone has too much, someone has too little, and in the end no one is happy. Can we envision a culture constructed without power? How about something like a collective farm, where everyone has his or her own duty and plays an equal part in contributing to the product/society? In turn, they all receive equal shares of the profits/benefits. This type of arrangement is distinct from socialism or communism, as it does not hold one party in charge of harnessing the wealth and distributing it equally. It is simply a responsibility shared by everyone.

Even more productive than pushing the case to dismantle civilization may be brainstorming ways to replace it. What do you think? What would you like to see happen to civilization after it is dismantled?

2 Comments »

By JAMES COCKCROFT, at Thomas Paines Corner.

Indigenous peoples in Indo-Afro-Latin America, especially Bolivia and Ecuador, are rising up to take control of their own lives and act in solidarity with others to save the planet. They are calling for new, yet ancient, practices of plurinational, participatory, and intercultural democracy. They champion ecologically sustainable development; community-based autonomies; and solidarity with other peoples locally, regionally, and internationally – what they describe as “unity in diversity.” Their values are often different than those of the United States or Europe. One indigenous leader has stated: “We give what money we have not to banks to collect interest but to others – and their gratitude is the interest we receive.”

Fifty-five million indigenous persons, or 400 indigenous peoples, inhabit Indo-Afro-Latin America. Most reside in Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. They reject the Europe-imposed term “Indians.” They call themselves “the native peoples” (“Ios pueblos originarios” in Spanish). They constitute 67 percent of Bolivia’s population. In Ecuador they are 40 percent, mainly in the cold highland Sierra and sweltering Amazonian tropics. They often ally with Afro-Ecuadorians along the Pacific coast, who account for 10 percent of the populace.

Spokespersons for the native peoples realize that the differences between their cosmic visions and those of Europe and the United States are part of an ongoing set of class and ideological conflicts that must be resolved if world peace and ecological balance are to be achieved. They recognize too that they must overcome divisions in their own ranks and that their struggles necessitate solidarity with other oppressed peoples around the globe. They link up internationally, as in the case of the worldwide 87-nation “Via Campesina” so important in the World Social Forums of this century. Sensitive to the world ecological crisis, the native peoples’ movements conducted the 2008 First Interregional Summit of the Amazon, the region known as “the lungs of the planet.”

In Bolivia and Ecuador, the native peoples and their supporters are re-founding the State, “democratizing democracy,” and introducing juridical pluralism. They are playing a prominent role in popular campaigns against neo-liberal capitalist globalization and US-European interventionism. Recognized and honored in UN and ILO declarations on indigenous rights, they emphasize human and planetary rights, including the rights of Nature (“Pachamama,” or “Mother Nature,” literally “Mother Universe”).

The CIA has often characterized the social movements of the native peoples as a major challenge to US hegemony. Territories they occupy contain 80 percent of Latin America’s biodiversity, several important watersheds, and such valuable resources as petroleum.

Bolivia and Ecuador, historically wracked by poverty, military coups, and massacres of native peoples, peasants, students, and workers, exemplify many challenges. Both countries remain two of the poorest in the world and have experienced recent cholera epidemics. The average income of a Bolivian peasant is $50 a year. That is one reason why peasants, whenever possible, base their lives on the indigenous legacy of terraced irrigation works and the “ayllu,” or commune. Many try to emigrate. One of every four Bolivians works outside the nation. Their remittances account for 10 percent of Bolivia’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product).

Brazilian economic interests account for 20 percent of Bolivia’s GDP. Bolivia’s profitable energy and mining sectors sell gas to fuel 70 percent of the industry of São Paulo, Brazil, South America’s largest city. Control of Bolivia’s principal agricultural export, soybeans, is 35 percent Brazilian. Some of Brazil’s farmers, together with a hundred Bolivian families, control five-sixths of Bolivia’s farmlands.

Ecuador remains the largest banana producer in the world but now gets more money from oil, forestry products, and the remittances of its emigrants (more than 3 million persons, out of a population of 14 million). Ecuador is a significant source of petroleum. It has abundant cedar, ceibo, and mahogany, and several 250-year-old trees. It is the world’s largest producer of Balsa wood. In 2003, forestry interests from Colombia provoked genocide against the already reduced, small, nomadic Tagaeri and Taromenari native peoples.

Bolivia’s President Evo Morales, an Aymara elected in 2005 with a majority of votes in the initial round, an unprecedented event for Bolivia’s multi-party system, has often pointed out that “The fight of our people is an historic struggle against empire.” Native peoples throughout the Americas tend to see empire as an uninterrupted process of 516 years of genocidal subjection in the face of their proud resistance. They understand well the continuity of colonialism/imperialism: the routine use of kidnappings, disappearances, torture, and male violence against women; ecological destruction; and the creation and perpetuation of an un-payable external debt for economic blackmail.

Bolivian filmmaker Jorge Sanjinés once called Bolivia’s indigenous peasants and miners “the clandestine nation.” Now they and other peoples in Latin America and the Caribbean are changing history. Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa, a US-trained economist elected in a runoff in 2006, has declared: “We are living not in an epoch of changes, but in a change of epochs.”

Recently, Bolivia and Ecuador, like Venezuela, have experienced democratic elections, even popular referenda and, in the cases of Bolivia and Venezuela, recall votes. Their presidents have won these elections by impressive majorities. On behalf of the oppressed they have been implementing policies against neo-liberal capitalism’s practices of “free trade,” deregulation, and privatization. In various ways, they have advocated “a new socialism for the 21st century.” Evo Morales evokes an Aymara-type “communitarian socialism based on reciprocity and solidarity.”

In an address at the United Nations in September 2008, Evo, as he is popularly known, proposed “Ten Commandments” to save the planet, life and humanity:

• Put an end to the capitalist system
• Renounce wars (Evo says “I don’t believe there can be peace under capitalism”)
• Create a world without imperialism or colonialism
• Honor the right to water
• Develop clean energies
• Respect Nature (Pachamama)
• Recognize basic services as human rights
• Combat inequalities
• Promote diversity of cultures and economies
• Seek “Vivir bien” — living well (what is known in Ecuador as “sumak kawsay,” living fully), instead of living better at the expense of others

Evo pointed out that Bolivia’s recently drafted constitution “is to support a new pact with all humanity and Pachamama, from the heart of the Andes, from the South, for all the world.”

Revolutionary Processes Rooted in Indigenous and Social Movements

Revolutionary processes in Bolivia and Ecuador are rooted in the social movements of native peoples and others. In Bolivia, mass mobilizations against the privatization of water in 2000 and 2004 succeeded against the powerful US-based transnational corporation Bechtel. Similar mobilizations for nationalizing gas in 2003 toppled the government of President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, known as “el gringo” because of his speaking English better than Spanish. Sánchez de Lozada’s regime was responsible for the massacre of more than 60 citizens in El Alto, a new Andean city of more than a million poor people above La Paz, the world’s highest capital.

One of President Evo Morales’ first acts after taking office in 2006 was to nationalize oil and the production of gas. With proceeds from the nationalizations, he created a “dignity pension” for people over 60 years of age and a “family income supplement” to help keep children in school. He extended credit with zero percent interest to farmers of corn, wheat, rice and other basics. Under Morales, Bolivia has eliminated its fiscal debt, repaid half its foreign debt, and quadrupled employment in the mining and metallurgical sectors. Its GDP has almost doubled in three years, while its foreign reserves have almost quintupled to over $8 billion. Cuban teams of teachers and medical personnel have helped reduce illiteracy by 80 percent and extend free health care to half the populace. Cuba’s “Miracle Mission” has conducted free eye operations to restore the full vision of nearly 300,000 Bolivians.

Bolivian Vice President Álvaro García Linares often reassures foreign capitalists and says Bolivia’s economy will be “Andean/Amazonian capitalism,” featuring strong support for small and medium enterprises, including cooperatives and handicrafts. Despite these reassurances, the US Government has sought to undermine Bolivian democracy the way it so often has done in the past. It has lifted its restrictions on the CIA’s use of assassination against foreign leaders. Both Evo Morales and Ecuador’s Correa have denounced assassination plots on their lives.

Upon assuming the presidency, Evo ordered the CIA desk in the presidential palace removed. Later, in the face of US pressures on behalf of Bechtel and other transnational corporations, he pulled Bolivia out of the World Bank’s Disputes Resolution Court. During 2008, department-level Bolivian officials expelled various personnel of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which had established an “Office of Transition Initiatives” to fund the rightist opposition. Evo discovered that US Ambassador Philip Goldberg was promoting and financing extreme rightist leaders in the gas-rich eastern breakaway departments who, in the name of departmental autonomy, in effect separatism, were ordering massacres of native peoples and occupying federal offices. This was a thinly veiled attempt at a “civil” coup d’état, a coup in quest of military support.

Ambassador Golberg had served earlier in countries undergoing violent breakups, such as the former Yugoslavia. He served as ambassador to Kosovo, where the United States tolerated or supported paramilitary massacres of Serbs and other ethnic minorities. His superior is John Negroponte, Deputy Secretary of State and chief State Department official for Latin America. Negroponte is the former 1980s’ambassador to Honduras who oversaw the “contra” war against the democratically elected Sandinista government. He and the State Department’s embassy staffs help coordinate US efforts to undermine or topple today’s socialist oriented governments and social movements, like those in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador.

Goldberg’s Embassy began enlisting Peace Corps volunteers and Fulbright Scholars to “spy” on Cubans and Venezuelans in Bolivia. It also worked with a special intelligence unit of the Bolivian police. Goldberg was photographed meeting with coup-plotting leaders and a known Colombian paramilitary figure. In September 2008, at the height of the unsuccessful “civil” coup attempt, Evo expelled Goldberg. The United States responded by sending home the Bolivian ambassador.

Meeting in Chile in September, the newly created Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) unanimously condemned the ongoing attempted coup and its massacres. UNASUR unconditionally supported Evo’s democratic government and sent observers to government-proposed negotiations in which the opposition finally agreed to participate. When the negotiations later failed because of right-wing intransigence despite major concessions by Evo, the UNASUR observers again condemned the right for its anti-democratic and criminal conduct.

Meanwhile, a UNASUR investigating team of experts confirmed details of a September 11, 2008 massacre of peaceful protesters, mostly native peoples, in Pando Department, when 18 people were gunned down, 60 were wounded, and more than 100 persons “disappeared.” The rightist governor said to be responsible for the massacre, Leopoldo Fernández, an ally of the 1970s’ dictator Hugo Banzer, fled toward Brazil but was captured by the military and jailed.

On November 1, 2008, Bolivia’s government suspended indefinitely the operations of the US Drug Enforcement Agency because of the DEA’s financing fascistic opposition forces behind the coup attempt and “criminal groups” plotting to kill government authorities. President Evo Morales offered evidence of this and other DEA crimes, such as its involvement in narco-trafficking and its investigations ordered in 2003 of leftist leaders, including Evo himself. He said that Bolivia would continue to protect small-scale growers of coca to maintain the cultural use of the product by native peoples and would play a key role in a new unified South American effort against narco-trafficking to be backed by regional funding. Washington countered by suspending long-term trade preferences with Bolivia.

In Ecuador, occupations of government buildings and general strikes became an annual affair in the 1990s. Mass movements of the underclasses, students, workers, and native peoples began to link up. The native peoples launched five uprisings. From 1995 to 2005 the popular movements toppled seven presidents. In January 2000, the native peoples took over Ecuador’s parliament and actually “governed” the nation for 24 hours! The old State — led by a comprador bourgeoisie in the coastal region of Guayaquil, landed oligarchs there and in the Sierra, military officers and paramilitaries, and an ultra-reactionary Catholic Church — began to totter.

President Rafael Correa of Ecuador initially tried to reassure Washington. He maintained the US dollar as the nation’s currency. He simultaneously challenged the US Government by declaring he might not recognize the legality of Ecuador’s foreign debt. He expelled the World Bank’s permanent representative and said that in 2009 he would not renew the lease for the US military base in Manta.

Then, on March 1, 2008, the United States and Colombia mounted a military bombardment and invasion of Ecuador that used the Manta base and killed at least 24 people, including Raúl Reyes, a guerrilla commander of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), who at the time was meeting with Mexican university students in the northern Ecuadorian jungle. Afterwards, Correa denounced US control of high officials of Ecuador’s security and intelligence forces and dismissed leaders in the Armed Forces, Police, and his own Minister of Defense. The Organization of American States (OAS) showed its independence from traditional US control when it voted to denounce the military attack on Ecuador.

In November 2008, President Correa, contrary to economic integration plans already underway in South America, went along with the European Union’s call for bilateral trade negotiations. Colombia and Peru, but not Bolivia, already had agreed to accept bilateral negotiations. The Ecuadorian government also announced a partial privatization of the Nappo River. It planned to allow state development of mining in Yasuni Park, declared a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 1989. But at the same time, Correa accepted the report of an independent international commission of inquiry into Ecuador’s foreign debt from 1976 to 2006. The report found that many loan agreements involved corruption, illegalities, and “looting”; violated national sovereignty; contributed to greater poverty and inequality; and were “odious” because of their often being contracted in years of military dictatorships. Correa announced that the “illegitimate, corrupt, and illegal debt” would likely not be paid.

Meanwhile, Latin America’s indigenous and social movements called for “the recognition of the historical, social and environmental debt” that most of the “creditor” nations had incurred “during five centuries of the colonization of Abya Yala.” (“Abya Yala” means “Continent of Life” in the language of the Kuna peoples of Panama and Colombia.)

Re-founding the State, New Constitutions

Throughout Indo-Afro-Latin America vigorous movements to “democratize democracy” have taken root. The social movements that put an end to the worse period of US-supported “dirty wars” and toppled the military dictatorships of the 1964-1984 period did not settle for the limited democracies that replaced them. People had fought and died for human rights and not the amnesties that were granted the dictators and their henchmen as a condition for allowing the new “democracies.” To walk down the street and suddenly see one’s torturer coming out of the corner store was one more form of torture. Moreover, the newly introduced “representative democracies” typically served the interests of big money and economic neo-liberalism rather than those of the general populace.

As poverty spread, movements sparked by native peoples and other groups, especially women and youth, mobilized against the IMF and its defenders in the newly elected parliaments and presidencies. For many, to “democratize democracy” meant to introduce economic democracy and not just limited political democracy. People began demanding constituent assemblies. The elections of Morales and Correa paved the way for a re-founding of the State and an official rejection of neo-liberalism.

In elections for Bolivia’s constituent assembly the only requirement was that 30 percent of the delegates had to be women. Candidates from Evo Morales’ MAS (Movement to Socialism) won 137 of the 255 seats; 64 of the MAS delegates were women. Delegates finalized the new constitution of 411 articles in December 2007, only after being forced to move the location of the assembly’s meetings because of right-wing violence and sabotage of the process. This violence was part of the “civil” coup attempt that actually commenced the day Evo was elected president.

Ecuador’s voters elected their constituent assembly in September 2007. It included 80 members of Congress from Correa’s heterogeneous political coalition “Alianza País,” 40 from the conservative opposition, 10 from small leftist parties, and 5 from theCONAIE (Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, founded in 1986). Other organizations, such as the CONFENIAE (Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon) and the FENOCIN (National Federation of Peasants, Native Peoples, and Blacks), pressured the assembly to make constitutional changes in defense of their interests. On September 28, 2008, voters approved the 444-article Constitution by a 65 percent “Yes” vote. Concluded President Correa: “Neo-liberalism has been crushed and put in the dustbin of history.”

Both nations’ new constitutions distinguish between the old representative democracy and a new participatory and communitarian one. They call for plural nationhood; genuine interculturalism (instead of cosmetic multiculturalism); recognition of differences among cultures; and “unity in diversity.” As a result, the native peoples’ communities have constitutional rights to local self-governance and their own juridical procedures based on indigenous customs and traditions. Bolivia’s Constitution calls for juridical pluralism within a proposed “Plurinational Constitutional Court of Justice.”

Only when there is plural nationhood can there be real interculturalism. Plural nationhood entails re-founding the State. In the eyes of the native peoples, the old State was a colonial one, formed of select individuals. It championed individual freedoms solely for the elites. In no way did it represent collective societies like those of the Quechua, Aymara, Guaraní, Shuar, Siona and other native peoples. The new State is to be an independent, unitary, plurinational one that celebrates human diversity and true democracy. In indigenous terms, exit colonialism and enter all humanity.

Bolivia’s proposed new constitution contains the following provisions, presented here in a synthesized form and in no particular order:

• A unitary, plurinational, communitarian and democratic State.
• All 36 peoples to have equal rights and regional autonomies, that is, a democratic decentralization of power.
• Nationalization of natural resources and State control over forests and biodiversity.
• Three forms of economic ownership: public, private, and communitarian — in effect, a mixed economy compatible with the Vice President’s vision of an Andean/Amazonian capitalism.
• State involvement in strategic sectors of the economy, and foreign private investment to be subordinated to national development plans.
• Agrarian reform with expropriation of huge landed estates (latifundia).
• Re-election and removal of any elected official by popular mandate — already implemented on August 10, 2008, when the opposition’s demand for a referendum was granted and 67 percent of the votes favored keeping Evo Morales as president; Evo’s supporters also won several governorships while increasing their vote percentage in the few departments they lost to the rightist opposition.
• Election of the judiciary; recognition of communitarian and ancestral forms of conflict resolution.
• A plurinational Parliament with only one chamber (in effect, the elimination of the structurally elitist Senate).
• Free and equal health care and education; end of illiteracy.
• Sucre to replace La Paz as the capital (a concession to the rightist opposition).
• A ban on discrimination based on sex, color, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, culture, nationality, religion, ideology, disability, pregnancy.
• Prohibition of foreign military bases.
• Potable drinking water as a human right.

Most observers expect that Bolivian voters will approve the constitution in the referendum scheduled for January 25, 2009. The articles on land ownership will be submitted separately at the same time.

Ecuador’s Constitution contains the following provisions, also presented in a synthesized form and in no particular order:

• State to tighten control of strategic industries, such as oil, mining, and telecommunications, and to protect biodiversity.
• State to reduce monopolies.
• Some of foreign debt to be declared illegitimate.
• Agrarian reform; end of latifundia; prohibition of genetically modified seeds.
• Free health care; free education for all through college; State-assisted housing programs.
• A lay State; civil marriage for gay partners (measures opposed by one of the continent’s most reactionary Catholic Churches)
• Women’s rights, including valuation for work in the home.
• Free responsibility over one’s own sexuality and life; recognition of diverse types of family; yet, the right to life from the moment of conception (feminist activists generally welcomed their gains and said the clause on life at conception could be eliminated through future popular mobilizations).
• Equal rights for the disabled.
• Universal social security; pensions for stay-at-home mothers and informal sector workers.
• Presidential control over Central Bank; less autonomy for the Armed Forces.
• Consecration of Nature’s collective rights.
• Potable drinking water as a human right; prohibition of privatization of water.
• Food sovereignty and the right to have secure food sources.
• Right to have access to the mass media and to establish community media.
• Prohibition of foreign military bases.
• A solidarity-based and sustainable economic system; a “private, social and solidarity” economy, in effect a mixed economy.
• Integration into the rest of Latin America, especially via UNASUR
• Prohibition of State taking over private debts, in effect no bank bailouts
• Balanced living (sumak kawsay)

There are, to be sure, ambiguities and contradictions in both nations’ new constitutions. Ecuador’s, for example, includes loopholes for big capital and latifundistas, such as Article 323, a prohibition against all forms of confiscation. In Bolivia, some have criticized an overemphasis on local indigenous autonomies with inadequate attention given to the 70 percent of the population that is urban or to the important role women play in the creation and defense of “informal” economies key to human survival and advancement.

Also, one area of great concern to native peoples in Ecuador is the clause calling for their “previous informed consultation” on mining, oil, or other economic rights granted outsiders in territories where they reside. Consultation with native peoples does not mean their “consent.” There have already occurred killings and repression of protests against foreign petroleum firms. President Correa has gone so far as to characterize some of the protesters as “terrorists.” The UN and ILO declarations on indigenous peoples’ rights are generally interpreted as calling for “previous consent.” “Petroleum is the blood of the Earth,” goes a saying of the U’wa people resisting foreign oil interests in Colombia, “if you suck the blood you kill us.”

Clearly, new laws do not necessarily translate into new realities. The movements that gave birth to the new constitutions of Bolivia and Ecuador will have to be maintained and strengthened if the articles on environment, plurinationalism, and social rights are to be fulfilled or expanded in practice.

Right-wing Opposition in Historical Context

A long time ago, a Mayan said:

They destroyed our crops
They cut our branches
They burned our tree trunks
But they could not kill our roots.

In 1781, Tupak Katari, the leader of a widespread and nearly successful revolt by South America’s native peoples against Spanish colonialism, was captured and tortured. His body was torn apart, literally “quartered.” Before his death, he proudly announced to his captors: “I will return and I will be millions.”

Evo Morales, a strong advocate for world peace and non-violence, has said the right-wing opposition is attempting to “quarter” Bolivia but will not succeed. In a sense, Tupak Katari has returned and is millions. The Bolivian rightists, relatively strong in four departments rich in commerce, narco-trafficking, agriculture, gas, and other natural resources but unable to win national elections, seek to create a secessionist State centered around the economically powerful city of Santa Cruz. This would leave the rest of Bolivia impoverished.

Just as in Bolivia, there are anti-democracy rightists in Ecuador and Venezuela with links to US governmental agencies and paramilitary elements in Colombia. They too seek to topple the new democratically elected revolutionary governments by splitting off the richest areas into separate, new States: the industrial, oil, agricultural, and commercial region of Guayaquil in southwestern Ecuador and the oil-rich Zulia in northeastern Venezuela.

Bolivians have a long history of popular resistance to right-wing elements that have governed the nation on behalf of domestic and foreign elites. They have learned from their earlier struggles. In 1952 they achieved the continent’s first revolution since the Mexican Revolution of 1917. They introduced a short-lived agrarian reform and nationalization of tin mines, the main industry at the time. Many miners were Marxists. In 1946 the Miners’ Congress passed the “Pulacayo Thesis,” a program echoing the ideas of Bolshevik revolutionary thinker and military commander Leon Trotsky. This program called for workers’ control of the means of production, a genuine democracy, and internationalization of the revolutionary struggle. Armed miners turned the tide in 1952 just when it looked like the rightist military might crush the democratic revolutionary forces in a bloodbath.

However, the United States gradually reversed Bolivia’s 1952 Revolution by training the Armed Forces and sending in economic advisers favorable to free-market capitalism and foreign capital. By 1964, the Revolution was not only reversed. It was being replaced by a series of military dictatorships and occasional civilian governments that carried out several massacres of workers, peasants, and students, in a “dirty war.” Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, later extradited to France and convicted in 1987 of mass murder, helped set up Bolivian concentration camps. Poverty increased. Because of silicosis, overwork, and the decline of the mining sector, the lifespan of the average miner today is just 35 years.

A guerrilla struggle led by Ernesto “Che” Guevara in southeastern Bolivia failed when US-trained Bolivian Army forces captured Che on October 8, 1967, and, on US orders, killed him the next day. Crosses labeled “Saint Che” began appearing in several rural locations.

In 1971 a Peoples’ Assembly backed by the military government of General Juan José Torres approved a worker-peasant alliance and a program for socialism. Torres was overthrown by General Banzer, leading to a savage seven-year wave of repression known as “the Banzerato,” a prosperous period for Bolivia’s elites and foreign capital. The boom city of Santa Cruz began concentrating most of the nation’s wealth.

Popular protests by the poor majority and by the small economically squeezed middle classes continued. By 1980, strikes, revolts, and massacres reached another severe stage. The so-called “Cocaine Coup” of that year established a particularly brutal and corrupt dictatorship that lasted more than two years. In 1985, Harvard-educated economist Jeffrey Sachs introduced a “shock therapy” neo-liberal treatment of the economy that laid off thousands of miners, who had to migrate with their families to the countryside or cities to try to find work to survive. In the early 1990s, Sachs introduced the same economic approach in the former Soviet Union. In both cases the results were disastrous for the majority of the peoples.

During and after Sachs’ “shock therapy,” Bolivia’s resistance movements reached new levels of community-based organization. People perfected roadblocks and other acts of civil disobedience. Women’s committees, a traditional institution among miners, began running urban slums. A street vendors’ union grew each year to its present size of 800,000 members. Bolivia’s citizens conducted huge marches “For Life and Peace,” “For Life and Bread,” and for “People before Profits.”

Native peoples completed an historic 33-day “March for Territory and Dignity” (1990). A movement by coca growers led by Evo Morales gained strength and called itself the Movement to Socialism. Workers, steet vendors, ex-miners, desperate peasants, and heads of households in El Alto and other urban slums organized neighborhood defense-and-struggle committees. Women and youth played pivotal roles. Most of the time Bolivia was under a state of siege, with all opposition repressed. Nonetheless, the social movements kept reappearing and gaining strength, toppling government after government until Evo’s election in 2005.

Prefect Ruben Costas in Santa Cruz and several ex-Nazis and large landholders began to organize their ¨civil” coup. They referred to Evo with racist epitaphs and claimed no “Indian monkey” could possibly govern the nation. They sent fascist goon squads to attack, beat up, and kill native peoples. They took over national offices, including airports, making it impossible for the nation’s president to fly to important areas.

Several of the fascistic right-wing leaders of the opposition movement are anti-communist fanatics whose pro-Nazi families came to Bolivia from Eastern Europe after World War II, often protected or encouraged by the US government, as in the case of Klaus Barbie. One current leader, Branco Marinkovic, a Croatian-Bolivian, is widely believed to be in the pay of the man in the government of “el gringo” who ordered the El Alto massacre of 2003 and later fled to the United States with “el gringo” and other top government officials.

Over the years, the fascist leaders of the four breakaway departments routinely have hired Brazilian gunmen, some of whom joined Bolivian and Peruvian gunmen in the Pando massacre of September 11, 2008. Pando is the department that gave refuge to the murderers of Chico Mendes, the world-renowned trade-union and environmentalist leader of Brazilian rubber tappers assassinated in 1988. Ever since then, these assassins and their henchmen have been operating on behalf of Pando’s elites to help maintain labor discipline and political loyalty, but with decreasing success.

Even though momentarily defeated in their attempt to topple Bolivian democracy, right-wingers of all varieties have not stopped their pressures on Evo. The social movements and native peoples continue to mobilize in defense of Evo´s government.

In the middle of October 2008, some 50,000 to 200,000 people conducted an 8-day, 150-kilometer march that was joined on its last day by Evo himself. The marchers surrounded the national Congress in La Paz to demand approval of a future referendum on the new constitution. They succeeded in winning the required two-thirds majority of votes and then celebrated in the streets.

However, prior to the successful vote, centrist and rightist political parties in Congress modified more than 100 articles. Details of the changes are rather complex, but it is clear that greater though not complete autonomy is to be granted the breakaway departments. Also, Evo will not be allowed to run for re-election after the December 6, 2009 presidential and congressional elections. His potential years in the presidency thus would have to end in 2014.

In both Bolivia and Ecuador, as in Venezuela, the rightist opposition is increasingly divided. For example, Bolivia’s PODEMOS (Social Democratic Power in Spanish), the largest opposition group, now has at least four squabbling factions.

But the opposition is not just from the right. While leftists generally support Evo and Correa, even if critically at times, there are a few who feel that both nations’ presidents are moving too slowly and with too many compromises. Some even see the emergence of “a new neo-liberalism with a human face.” Also, there are people inside the governments of both nations who act as cliques that tend to undermine democratic processes and thus serve the rightist opposition’s claims that the presidents are “dictators.”

Cooptation and clientelism are occurring, more so in Ecuador than in Bolivia, but the social movements continue demanding genuine democracy and a new type of socialism that meets all human needs in harmony with ¨Pachamama.¨ The chances of either a civilian or a military coup seem slimmer each day but can never be ruled out. Both nations´ Armed Forces have sworn to uphold the constitutional processes underway. The Bolivian and Ecuadorian peoples are on the alert against possible traitorous officers or soldiers.

Decline of US Hegemony

Events in Bolivia and Ecuador reflect a growing defiance of the “big brother to the North.” Latin American nations are integrating into a larger “gran patria” independent of the United States, an idea originally advocated by “the Liberator” Simón Bolívar in the Wars of Independence against Spain when he attempted to unify the region against future US hegemony. Bolívar was unsuccessful, in part because of US opposition. He concluded in 1829: “The United States appear to be destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty.”

In addition to UNASUR, several new institutions have been created in this recent integrative process. Among them are the following:

Rio Group (created in 1986 by members of the Contadora Group active in seeking peace in Central America, today an organization of almost all Latin American and Caribbean states whose most recent new member is Cuba)

TeleSUR (a continent-wide television news and entertainment channel countering the slant and distortions of CNN and most US mass media)

RadioSUR

PetroSUR and PetroCARIBE (for energy integration with discount prices on Venezuelan oil, gas, and know-how)

Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas — ALBA, a socially responsible instead of profit-guided alternative to the now defeated US initiative Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)

MERCOSUR – Common Market of the South, an earlier alternative to the FTAA

Community of Andean Nations and Caricom (two more regional trade blocs)

Latin American Court of Justice

Banco del Sur (Bank of the South, a response to US-dominated, neo-liberal financial institutions like the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank).

Parliamentary Confederation of the Americas (a South American Parliament is to be built in San Benito, Bolivia)

Security Council of South America (a military alliance of 12 nations excluding the United States)

There are also plans for a single unified currency possibly to be called “pacha” and a Monetary Fund of the South (Fondo Monetario del Sur) as an alternative to the US dollar and the IMF (International Monetary Fund). There is talk of an economic Stabilization Fund as well.

In the past, the US Government and Latin American oligarchies would not have tolerated this for a second. They would have mounted bloody military coups and new dictatorships in the name of defending democracy. But those days of US hegemony are long gone. Spain’s capitalists now have more investments in the region than those of their US counterparts. The United States and the OAS have been largely absent from all major decisions about conflicts; new coalitions like UNASUR and the Rio Group make those decisions, without a single dissenting vote so far. Even the influential US policy-creating Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), in its May 2008 report, says the Monroe Doctrine is dead and should not be resurrected. Significantly, Washington has accepted the 12-nation Security Council of South America.

US military and diplomatic failures in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, together with the global financial crisis triggered by US bank failures in 2007-2008, have extended the United States’ loss of hegemony worldwide. The Euro and other currencies have long since weakened the dominance of the US dollar. The gigantic US economy has become dependent on investments and loans from China, Japan, the European Union, and sundry oil kingdoms. According to CNN reports, the two-trillion-dollar US bank rescue plan may cost each US citizen $40,000 by 2010. The three-decade economic reign of neo-liberalism is spiraling rapidly downward into the abyss of human suffering it has helped generate. Multiple Poles of Power and the rise of new economic and geopolitical alliances are replacing the 18-year-long dominance of a sole Super Power.

Conclusion

It is evident that Bolivia and Ecuador, like so many Latin American countries, are undergoing historic changes in the correlation of social and class forces and in relations with the United States. Only the rightists and the US Government oppose these two new popular and vigorous democracies. Others are trying to learn from them.

In July 2008, the 8,000-mile “Longest Walk 2 All Life is Sacred – Save Mother Earth” reached Washington, D.C. One of its leaders, Dennis Banks, cofounder of the American Indian Movement (AIM), summed up its goal as one of “environmental protection, an end to global warming, the protection of Indigenous cultural survival, and the empowerment of Native youth.” Most of the marchers expressed solidarity with Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela.

US policy on Latin America in 2008, however, continued down the anti-democratic path. The Pentagon sent the modernized Fourth Fleet to police the oceans and waterways of the region. More military bases were constructed in Colombia, bordering Ecuador and Venezuela. US support for the mega-project IIRSA (South American Regional Integration of the Infrastructure in Spanish) increased. It is a multi-billion dollar transcontinental transport and commercial development plan that will violate several indigenous territories. Despite widespread bank failures and skyrocketing unemployment rates at home and abroad, US aid programs continued to give short shrift to meeting human needs and instead contributed to the military repression of social and indigenous movements or renewed attempts at “civil” coups.

The world faces a profound ecological crisis. World hunger is rapidly increasing. In a relatively short time there will not be sufficient potable drinking water, food, or petroleum to maintain current standards of living even in the most industrialized nations. Neo-liberal capitalism faces both deepening economic crisis and loss of credibility on a world scale. The indigenous and popular movements of Bolivia and Ecuador, on the other hand, have achieved significant advances and now have a chance to push for even greater gains in the re-founding of their States and the introduction of new programs in defense of the environment and the peoples of the world.

In November 2008, some 400 academics of the prestigious Latin American Studies Association sent a letter to president-elect Barack Obama in which they expressed their hope that his presidency would convert the United States into “an ally instead of an adversary of the positive changes taking place in the Hemisphere.” It remains to be seen if Obama will maintain old policies; make mere cosmetic changes; or create new policies in the interests of all the peoples of Latin America – and the United States.

No Comments »

The time of the G20 summit in London approaches, where the leaders of the 22 nations that make up the vast majority of world GDP are meeting to discuss the economic crisis as well as free trade, climate change and other current crucial issues. As per usual, a series of counter-protests have been organised by various groupings, from liberal to anarchist. One of these groups calling itself ‘Put People First’ is a joint collaboration between many high profile charities, unions and environmental organisations, and is marching through London this Saturday to put their message of putting people and planet first in this crisis across. Sounds promising, but let’s take a look at their policy platform in more detail.

The global financial and economic system is in crisis.

Existing economic policies and institutions have overseen an economic system scarred by high levels of poverty and inequality, which is contributing to an environmental catastrophe.

…

There can be no return to business as usual. Fundamental change is needed.

We call on the UK government to show its commitment to putting people first by signalling an historic break with the failed policies of the past, and the start of a new system that seeks to make the economy work for people and the planet.

A good start – we agree that the current economic system is driving the environmental catastrophe and leads to unjust distributions of wealth. Business as usual must be eliminated and a new system built. But this is where we part ways – this grouping has unfortunately fallen prey to the Green Growth mantra which is now gaining currency in the mainstream environmental movement, which I’ve written about previously. Here are some of their specific demands:

Ensure a massive investment in a green new deal to build a green economy based on decent work and fair pay.

…

In addition to the green new deal (recommendation 4), introduce the robust regulatory requirements and financial incentives needed to deliver a green economy.

Nowhere do they mention the problems created by growth – a green economy is simply seen as one with some more investment in renewables and other green technologies with a nod to fair pay and greater equality. Out of the long list of groups supporting this manifesto, apparently not one has considered looking even slightly deeper at the links between the economy and environmental destruction. How can a finite planet support the infinite growth demanded by civilisation? Unless environmentalists can answer this satisfactorily, their support of green growth and a green new deal based on it is misplaced.

Push for a deal at Copenhagen to agree substantial, verifiable cuts in greenhouse gases, which will limit temperature increases to well below 2°C.

How do they think we can keep temperature increases below 2°C if they’re implicitly supporting continued economic growth that will inevitably produce more greenhouse gases? The claims that efficiency and technology will keep emissions down, and even reach zero-carbon levels, are hopelessly naïve – unless these receive massive investment (which looks unlikely in the status-quo) and ultimately break the laws of physics to keep up with the exponentially increasing rate of growth. As a result, if you want to keep temperature rises below 2°C, supporting the growth system is not tenable. Have these groups considered this? Unlikely.

Deliver 0.7% of national income as aid by 2013, deliver aid more effectively and push for the cancellation of all illegitimate and unpayable developing country debts.

Although the cancellation of debts is a must, this statement implicitly supports the status-quo of aid dependency, rather than changing the entire system in which developing countries have their natural resources extracted for the benefit of western nations. Aid for natural disasters is justified, but keeping nations dependent on aid allows this plunder to continue. The globalised economy has shackled these countries into poverty, and so must be destroyed to free them.

‘Put People First’, despite their promising message that the current economic system is flawed, are in fact promoting the same system repackaged with a big green stamp on the box. The message their putting out does not match their rhetoric on putting people and planet first in this crisis – they are in fact peddling the rhetoric of the growing movement to create a ‘Green Growth economy’, they’re helping to greenwash civilisation. This blog has and will continue to make clear how Green Growth is a nonsensical farce, and how the mainstream environmental movement in pursuing it will not help either people or planet.

We would very much advise against marching for this manifesto, and instead take some positive actual action this Saturday – start a vegetable garden, join local groups, form a co-op, subvertise the media, or anything else regularly suggested here. If you still have the protest bug, the climate campers are taking on the carbon trading scam and the growth system at the European Climate Exchange on Wednesday, whilst others are marching on the Bank of England. The symbolic nature and utility of these protests can be debated, but they’re closer to the mark than the misnamed ‘Put People First’ marchers. We propose that ultimately the only way to put people first is to stop the growth system and dismantle civilisation, and the best place to start is in your own life and backyard.

No Comments »

“King spoke Truth to Power, while Obama spoke Lies to get in Power.
One might say that other than that, and other than the fact that King stood up to end Black people’s suffering while Obama stood silent in the face of it, they’re just alike.”

An interview with Juan Santos, who is a member of the Aztlan Mexica Nation Harmony Keepers/American Indian Movement, and author of the essays Barack Obama and the “End” of Racism, and Obama’s Denial: The Fear of a Black Messiah. Juan is also a regular contributor to this blog.

Andrea Luchetta interviewed him for a feature piece on Obama’s inauguration for the Italian daily Il Manifesto. The following is the full text of that interview.

Luchetta: I‘ve interviewed Ms. Makeeba Lloyd, of the “Harlem4Obama Commitee”. According to her, racism is nowadays a minor problem. The main conflict, for her, is of a class nature, rather than racial in nature. The social dividing line, she says, is now between the rich and the poor, not between the white and the black. What do you think of this position?

Santos: This is nonsense, Lloyd’s claim is in line with Barack Obama’s utterly false claim that peoples of color are “90% of the way to equality” with whites in the US.

Ms. Lloyd is wrong. The poverty line is a race line. Race determines who is poor and who is not. Roughly a quarter of black and brown people in the US live in poverty, while less than 1/10th of Euro-Americans live in poverty. A black person in the US is 3 times more likely to be poor than a white person.

That’s 90% of the way to “equality”?

No. The very best thing I can say about the idea that peoples of color are approaching equality with whites in the US is that it is an example of extremely bad math, or of people promoting an illusion in hopes that it will come true.

Black unemployment in the US is currently at 11.1% – almost double the average for white people, whose rate of unemployment is 5.9%. Among the general population, – by which I mean those outside of the reservation system that imprisons Native Americans on the remnants of their lands – Blacks have the highest rate of unemployment in the US, followed by Latinos, at 8.8%. Among Black youth unemployment reaches a stunning 32.3 %. From 1976 through today, a new study shows, Latino unemployment rates typically exceeded that of the white population by some 65%. The absolute rate of unemployment for Native Americans on the reservations is, however, roughly SEVENTY PER CENT.

50% of Native American reservation homes have no phones and 1/5 of the homes lack complete kitchen facilities.

It might be interesting to show these figures to Ms. Lloyd to see if, reading them, she is still willing to claim a distinction between a race divide and a class divide in the US.

But economics is by no means the only measure of equality.

Race also determines who is imprisoned and who is not.

Black people in the US are 8.5 times more likely than whites to be imprisoned.

On any given day 1 in 9 young Black men are in prison.

Latinos are 4 times more likely to go to prison than white people.

68% of all U.S. prisoners are people of color, although Black, Latinos and officially recognized Native Americans together make up slightly less than 25% of the overall population of the U.S.

The US has the highest rate of imprisonment in the world. It is a system of mass imprisonment aimed at the control of people of color, who, the elites fear, have the potential to violently and politically rebel again as they did in the 1960s. People in other parts of the world simply cannot begin to imagine the conditions that exist here; the US holds 25% of the world’s prisoners – a Gulag comprised mostly of prisoners from the minority populations of African and Native American descent – Blacks and Latinos.

This is no “minor problem,” contrary to what Ms. Lloyd suggests. It is a form of mass social control of potentially dissident and rebellious populations based on race and class status. Ms. Lloyd has missed the point entirely.

It’s not a matter of race versus class – race and class are in many ways one thing here in the US.

Usually that kind of system is called a caste system. Despite a few exceptions, like Obama himself, that’s exactly what exists in the US: a caste system.

What the white ruling class did here was this: following the mass rebellions and the burning of major US cities in the 1960s, the white ruling class decided on a strategy of divide and conquer. They created a Black middle class almost overnight, largely using government employment to do so, while at the same time they found another way to deal with the millions of people of color who could not fit into the system; mass imprisonment. These developments are 2 sides of the same coin. Ms. Lloyd’s failure to see this is why she can make the kind of mistakes of analysis she’s making. See this link.

Luchetta: You wrote that the price for Obama’s election was silence about the racial question. Yet, don’t you think, as many participants to the “Great Harlem Debate” have suggested, that his silence was rather tactical?

Santos: Yes it was tactical, but the question is this; what strategy did the tactic serve?

And: Who did that strategy serve? And: Who did that strategy harm?

As someone put it, “Hope is not a strategy.” Hope is nothing but a slogan.

And here’s another question.

If, as Obama claimed, Blacks in the US are “90%” of the way to equality with whites, then why was the tactic of silence necessary in the first place?

If this claim were the truth and not a lie, anyone could talk openly about race and discrimination, openly celebrate the reality that there is only 1/10th of the way left to go, and put forward plans to quickly eliminate the remaining 10% of the problem. If this were true, such a campaign would draw millions upon millions forward as volunteers, people who would be thankful with all of their hearts, joyful to be part of the push to bring racism in this former Apartheid state to its complete end.

If racism were 90% eradicated in the US, if Blacks and other peoples of color were 90% of the way to equality, there would be absolutely no reason or need for silence.

If 9 out of 10 former racists were no longer racists, the tiny number which remained would already be isolated and powerless. There would be no need for a tactic of silence about racial oppression, because the racists who remained would be so small a group that they could not change the outcome of an election – not against a population that was 90% anti-racist or non-racist. But Obama’s claim was a conscious lie, as I demonstrated in answer 1. There I dealt with the quantifiable measures – the facts of social inequality which disprove Obama’s claim. The verifiable, statistical facts disprove Obama’s claim, and they are widely available for anyone to see who cares.

Obama’s silence showed one thing- that he knew his claim about equality was false, that he knew that to dare to talk openly about race and oppression would alienate the millions of white center-right voters whose support he needed to win the election.

So, Obama’s strategy was to give those voters what they wanted to hear, and to give them silence on what they didn’t want to hear. The tactic he used to give them what they wanted to hear was to offer the lie about “90% equality.” This erased any need on the part of his white audience, the white electorate, to deal honestly with the actual conditions of people of color here in the US. They could believe the lie of racial progress, and never have to think about the millions in poverty and the millions more in prison. That worked just fine for Obama.

Instead of blaming the system and white racism for the conditions of Black people, he could blame Black youth for a lack of “personal responsibility” – that’s exactly the tactic of white racists, and it looks like that is what Obama means by creating “unity” between peoples of color and white people – to unite with white racists in their tactic of blaming the victim of racism for the impacts of racism.

That’s the same kind of logic wife beaters use to justify their brutality.

In effect, Obama filled the silence about the actual conditions of peoples of color with the lie about an “equality” that clearly does not exist, and with a tactic of blaming the victim. So, looking back, it wasn’t really silence at all. It wasn’t wrong to say that this silence was the price of Obamas’ election, but more basically, the price of his election was a price now being paid by Gazans, and by the hungry, incarcerated and unemployed people of color in the US.

A lie filled the silence and took the place of the truths that demanded to be spoken and dealt with. Obama’s strategy and tactics served white racism and served to deeply harm peoples of color by erasing our conditions of life from the imagination of the majority here.

Claiming that Gazans have “almost achieved equality” with Israelis would not make it so, and remaining silent about the rain of bombs will not make them stop exploding. Obama has remained silent about the literal bombs in Gaza, and he has remained silent about the explosively unjust social conditions for people here. In both cases, the bombs keep falling, people keep going hungry, and here, the US Gulag continues to devour the lives of millions of imprisoned people of color.

Along with the wealthy Anglo ruling elite, that’s who his strategy served, and that’s who his strategy harmed.

Yes, Obama’s Black supporters you interviewed in Harlem were correct.

The silence was, in fact, a tactic.

Luchetta: Why don’t you seem to believe in the possibility of a change coming from within the institutional framework? What is then the possible alternative?

Santos: Change won’t come from within the system because the wealthy profit from the mass impoverishment of peoples of color here and around the world – wherever their money can penetrate to get the cheapest labor for the most work. Having a color- based caste who you can discriminate against increases the rate of profit. They also profit at the expense of the Earth; they profit from the Earth’s destruction – actually, and in practice, they profit at the expense of all life. They’re not going to give that up because someone votes for them to give it up. They have police and military power at their disposal, and the bullet always trumps the ballot.

Racism rewards the powerful. They have no reason to stop racism unless its continuance results in a level of resistance that endangers the system of profit itself.

To put it in plain words, the system rewards the rich for hurting people. So, from their emotionally deadened standpoint, and given their control of the bullet, why should anything change?
For me, the most important example of an alternative is the EZLN; the Zapatistas and the Mayan people of Chiapas in Mexico are a shining example. They have found a striking balance between autonomy and resistance, and between self determination and the nurturing of their culture and the Earth. The Mayan people have a profound sense of the meaning and potentials of our times. I’m an indigenist and associated with the American Indian Movement.
I’m also enamored of Evo Morales and his MAS party in Bolivia, and I have an intellectual and moral admiration for Hugo Chavez, for his willingness to confront the US and Israel, and to unite other oppressed nations in a bloc of opposition to imperial hegemony, but not for his personal style of management or emotional tone.

And at this juncture in history anyone with a heart has to admire Hamas; I do, even though I don’t view them as a viable alternative… but, then, I don’t have to; it’s not my place to make that determination. I’m not Palestinian.

But, finally, the all-but undeniable reality is that the Empire cultures like the US and the European powers are quickly heading toward “the trash bin of history.”

Their systems are completely irrational, and tend to eat themselves – and the Earth – and us – alive. They have no future.

Increasingly, it seems, the writing is on the wall, and in the hearts of people around the world. I think the alternative is to begin to build a new way and a new culture, establishing autonomy and independence and sustainability for ourselves as communities, even as these Empires collapse as flat as the two skyscrapers in New York a few years ago. One good collapse deserves another, I always say.

Luchetta: You seem quite skeptical toward Obama’s rhetoric. What is the “Change” that Harlem’s people would really need? Which actions would be needed to tackle the racial question?

Santos: Well, we’ve seen plenty of “change” since the 1960s. But what people forget right now is the common folk wisdom that “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

Really, the only thing the system can do for us is collapse, go away, and get out of our lives. I’m a big fan of the American Indian Movement slogan that says, “U.S. out of North America!”

Really, the system can’t do anything to change the caste system that it’s founded on and that it relies on for its continued profit and its continued existence.

As far as tackling the race question goes, they can never tackle it from our perspective and for our good. Just like in the 60s and 70s, they can only tackle the race problem – their race problem, not ours.

We are their race problem, and I’ve never been one to ask bullies to tackle me. It’s not a sound or productive strategy.

Luchetta: Don’t you think that, if compared with the situation of the Civil Rights Movement era, a lot of progress has been made on the racial question?

Santos: Again, the old folk saying; “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

My answer?

Sure, if you count a new Black middle class, on one hand, combined with the mass incarceration of peoples of color on the other, and a day to day war in our neighborhoods called the “War on Drugs” – which is really a “War on Us” – if you want to count that as “progress” …then yes, there’s been “progress.” But anyone who actually believes that that is “progress” is lying to themselves.

At the systemic level, there’s been no qualitative, fundamental “change” at all, really. But at the cultural level, yes, there’s been change, and that change – with all of its dramatic difference and all of its dramatic limits, is what Barack Obama represents at his best – as a cultural symbol, not as a champion of the People.

But, yes there has been a limited but very welcome change in people’s attitudes, ethics and their emotional and cultural open-ness. That much has changed. The system, though, hasn’t changed at all.

Luchetta: Why, in your opinion, is Barack Obama often compared with JFK?

Santos: It’s a kind of obvious comparison in terms of their charisma, their intelligence, and their ages. But, it’s not just their personalities or spirits. January 2009 is very much like the period of JFK’s reign. Then – looking back on it now, it’s plain to see that there were two major trajectories the world could take – toward Nuclear Holocaust or toward a Cultural Renaissance. As it turned out, the cultural Renaissance, an effort toward Cultural Revolution, was the path taken from the bottom-up.

The Ecological Holocaust we face today is very similar in it’s meaning to Nuclear Holocaust, and, according to Michael Oritz Hill, the author of a book called Dreaming the End of the World – which is focused on people’s dreams about Nuclear Holocaust and Ecological Holocaust, there are even deep correspondences and similarities between the symbols in these kinds of dreams. By the same token, the feeling is thick in the air today, at least here in California, that another cultural Renaissance is being primed; A Green Renaissance – no, not a “green economic stimulus” – something more profound, and from the bottom-up is coming; that’s how it feels now. I’m sure that if you were in San Francisco or Greenwich Village in the early 60’s, it felt pretty similar.

In the early 60s, Kennedy embodied both potentials, for renewal and destruction. Obama is like that, too – a mix of contradictory elements and psychological, cultural and political trends embodied in a single, charismatic leader. Neither of them brought any focus whatsoever on paths to liberation.

Kennedy was an imperialist and a Cold Warrior. Obama is the 21st century equivalent of Kennedy – a smart Hawk whose basic commitment is to the existence and furtherance of capitalist imperialism.

As a fine essay in Revolution points out, Kennedy sent the young and hopeful he’d inspired to die and carry out imperial genocide in Viet Nam.

Obama will do the same in Afghanistan, and, perhaps, Iran.

Beyond that; moving out of the Bush era is not unlike moving out of the 50’s and the McCarthy era here, out of a time of a deep grey repression into open air and sunlight. Just getting finished with the Bush years is enough to give people “hope.” Obama just stepped up and rode that wave; he didn’t inspire it; he was just the one to ride it –he was a “fit.”

There are lots of little correspondences; John McCain, Obama’s rival, was almost as stiff and bad on television as Richard Nixon, Kennedy’s rival.

History and Time run in circles and spirals and cycles, not in straight lines. Things come back around. The world is a complete circle. In fact, the Aztec (Mexica) name for the world was Cem Anahautl – “Complete Circle.”

Luchetta: Why did most black people vote for Obama? And why did the US choose a black president just now?

Santos: Because he’s Black. Because Black people are routinely and systematically excluded from full participation and any kind of empowerment in US society, Because they dared to “hope” he might actually turn out to be one of their own, to actually turn the tide for them, despite the political evidence to the contrary. It was largely a symbolic vote, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t truly important at the level of culture. In fact, symbols are, in many ways, the substance of culture.

Look, the guy’s smart, charismatic, and his game is really complex. There is no way that it would be right to “blame” most black people for not seeing through the complex political game, and there is no way that one could fail to love Black people when you take even a second to see it through their eyes; to so many the election of Barack Obama looked exactly like the fulfillment of the Dream – Martin Luther King’s Dream. In one way, in terms of what it said about the changing culture, it had an element of truth, at least in part. At the level of the system, it has no truth at all.

Nor is it the case that Obama represents anything like the values King held to his heart – quite the opposite.

King spoke Truth to Power, while Obama spoke Lies to get in Power.

One might say that other than that, and other than the fact that King stood up to end Black people’s suffering while Obama stood silent in the face of it, they’re just alike.
—–
Juan

Juan Rafael Santos is a Los Angeles based writer and editor. His essays can be found at: http://the-fourth-world.blogspot.com /. He can be reached at: Juan_Santos@Mexica.net.

Andrea

Andrea Luchetta is a dog-provided student in international history and politics, in Geneva. He comes from Trieste, which is for sure the most windy town in the world. He can be reached at: andrealuchetta@hotmail.it

No Comments »

The following article by International Journalist, Deena Guzder, suggests that we look at the underlying causes of ‘terrorism’. The ‘war on terror’ policies of declaring warfare on countries, and US foreign policy economic warfare is impoverishing and killing millions of people. Is it any wonder then that some take up arms against the people and the system that enslaves and oppresses?
Obviously violence such as this can never be condoned, but neither can the slow murder of starvation caused by the World Bank & IMF, or the direct oppression of an economic system that supports tyrants and dictators in the name of ‘business as usual’.

Most Americans were shocked to learn that coordinated terrorist attacks struck the heart of Mumbai, India’s commercial capital on Wednesday evening. After all, India is not Iraq or Afghanistan or even Pakistan. According to pundits such as Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, India is a shining capitalist success story and the next global superpower. In the pro-globalization narrative, India’s eager-beaver working class has benefited greatly from neoliberal economic policies. Intellectuals extol India as the world’s largest democracy and an example for the rest of the developing world to follow. Today, India is a popular tourist destination for everyone from backpackers on spiritual voyages to white-collar executives on business meetings.

Americans are largely shielded from the shocking reality of India. According to the World Bank’s own estimates on poverty, almost half of all Indians live below the new international poverty line of $1.25 (PPP) per day. The World Bank further estimates that 33% of the global poor now reside in India. Moreover, India also has 828 million people, or 75.6% of the population living below $2 a day, compared to 72.2% for Sub-Saharan Africa. A quarter of the nation’s population earns less than the government-specified poverty threshold of $0.40/day. Someone should tell the starving masses who have remained largely marginalized and subjugated that India is a “success story” because that’s not reflected in most Indian’s lives. Income inequality in India, as measured by the Gini coefficient, is increasing at a disturbingly destabilizing rate. In addition, India has a higher rate of malnutrition among children under the age of three than any other country in the world (46% in year 2007)., India is possibly the world’s largest democracy by some definitions; however, as Mahatma Gandhi, once asked, “What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?”

Pundits such as Friedman play golf with the global elite and then pontificate on perceived economic trends. In Friedman’s book, The World is Flat, he suggests that “Indians should celebrate Y2K as its second independence day.” Yet, by some estimates, the high-tech sector employs just 0.2 percent of India’s one billion people. Americans are largely unaware of the violent, systemic poverty plaguing India because the country is reduced to a caricature where everyone fielding Americans’ inquiries in call centers is prospering. Having lived in India for four years and visited the country every other year, I am painfully aware of the reality on the ground. India is a country where children are forcefully amputated by beggar-masters and sent to elicit money; where poor women sell their bodies to truck drivers and contract HIV at alarming rates; and, where American tourists nonchalantly spend enough money in one day to support a hungry family for months.

The recent attacks in India are morally repugnant, but the debate on how to curb terrorism needs to consider why people engage in such desperate acts in the first place. The perpetrators of yesterday’s violence targeted two of Mumbai’s most luxurious hotels: Taj Mahal and the Oberioi Trident. One night at either of these hotels costs, on average, Rupees 17,500 (US $ 355) in a country where the annual salary is Rupees 29,069 (US $590). The death of over a hundred people on Wednesday should deeply upset the world, but it should also lead us to question the death of the 18 million people who die annually from the systemic violence of endemic poverty. As Yale professor Thomas Pogge notes, the affects of poverty are felt exponentially more in certain parts of our “unflat” world: “If the developed Western countries had their proportional shares of [gratuitous] deaths, severe poverty would kill some 3,500 Britons and 16,500 Americans per week.”

Mahan Abedin, an insurgency analyst, told Al Jazeera after Wednesday nights attacks: “We have seen an increase in recent years in indigenous Indian Muslim organizations beginning to take a violent stance towards the Indian state and sections of the Indian society, particularly the commercial elite of places like Mumbai, in order to highlight, they would say, the sheer inequality of life in India.” Abedin continued, “there is a middle class of around 100 million who live very well but 800 million-plus people live in miserable conditions.” Even people who commit heinous acts of violence occasionally make a valid point. The latest attacks should not evoke a knee-jerk effort to ratchet up the so-called Global War on Terror but, instead, make us question how to avoid such attacks in the future. By showing genuine concern for the plight of the millions of people who are at risk of death from poverty and by honoring the sanctity of the lives of the most destitute, we have the best chance of defeating the ideologies of hate.

No Comments »

As the post ‘The Fallacy of Democracy’ discussed, the current form of government we call ‘democracy’ is deeply flawed to the point where it barely approaches meeting its own meaning – rule by the people. The Empire will always win, as no candidate proposing real change would ever be able to credibly run for any office or would be stopped by the elite. So how can we ever achieve a real democracy with people deciding their own futures, and how can this happen despite the overpowering nature of the current system? To answer this it’s necessary to analyse that current system and how it arose.

To put in the simplest manner possible, our governments only exist in order to stop the poor murdering the rich, the slaves killing their masters. If there was no government or official militia (police or armed forces), the huge number of exploited people would no doubt rise up and revolt and demand equality. To stop this from happening, from the very beginning the masters hired and formed militias with their stolen wealth, with which they kept the slaves orderly with the fear of these militias. This is how governments and nation-states start, as the militia and mediator between masters and slaves.

Eventually, as wealth became ever more concentrated by the rich, the governments make concessions to pacify the poor, such as social reforms, the welfare state, 8 hour days etc. Although seemingly revolutionary, these only serve to capture some of the crumbs from the table of rich to distribute to the poor. After a significant amount of time, the people even demand a say in how the government is run. This was a difficult crisis for the elite to manage, but one that was solved very cleverly – the people could vote for a few centralised ‘parties’, whose existence is only enabled with the permission and approval of the elite. This way it seems we have a democracy, yet in fact have very little say in the way things change. Candidate X may tend towards more concessions for the poor, candidate Y will favour concessions for the elite. The pendulum swings endlessly between the two, always ensuring in the long-term the middle ground where just enough wealth is sacrificed by the elite to pacify the poor but not too much so as to prevent the growth of their own fortunes.

With the odds so stacked against us in the current system, we have to create a new system in which to rewild in. But how do we avoid the mistakes of the past and lay to rest the hierarchical model of government?

It’s all a matter of scale. Beyond a certain number of people in a group (it’s been found to be around 200 people in many studies) it becomes impossible to know everyone in the group personally. As a result, in order for some sort of order to develop in decision making some sort of hierarchy forms to unify that large group. Unless this occurs on the basis of smaller sub-groups and delegation, this is the first step down a slippery road to domination and slavery based system of organising ourselves. An egalitarian society based on the unified group model will inevitably succumb to authoritarianism – every republic, however noble its first principles, will slip towards fascism as time passes.

The alternative is the tribe model, the model which has lasted for hundreds and thousands of years for many societies even today. In a tribe setting, each group will be below 200 people and so will contain very little hierarchy. A representative/facilitator character exists to co-ordinate the group in coming to communal decisions, and also in some areas acts as a delegate to a larger confederacy. In this ‘federation’ each group maintains its identity but could co-operate with neighbouring groups without being unified with them. This again serves to avoid hierarchy as much as possible. There is no core armed group acting as an enforcing militia – the entire group enforces decisions reached amongst itself. And most importantly there is equality, no persons become rich at the expense of others. This is the core principle to the continued existence of this system, and is why many tribes collapse when they come in contact with civilisation, as this foundation stone is infected and destroyed by our ego-based way of thinking.

How can we retribalise now though? It seems impossible to return to this way of living so far down the road of civilisation, and questions of population density and co-ordination of all these groups arise. Although forming a tribe seems like a difficult proposition, the same concept is at work when many people speak of recreating communities and community based living. However one might want to term it, small groups concerned with the local area they occupy are at the core of retribalising and rewilding. These communities can be as simple as a local residents association, a gardening group or similar. As long as it’s local and small, it is sowing the seeds for a new way of organising ourselves. As the economic, resource and ecological crisis begin to hit, it is our job to get these groups to take an ever increasing interest and duty in caring and caretaking for its local area. If many small communities do this, a network can form to take care of our own needs without relying on the current system and its government so much.

So here’s how to begin the implementation of real democracy: see governments for what they really are – mechanisms to keep us in our place; join and form small, local groups in your area with a concern for that area; create a group which for example takes turns to give a Permaculture makeover to each of your gardens and local area and swaps seeds, tools etc.; network with other similar groups and encourage their development; and finally consider alternative economies to support these new networks. This is a new and untested plan, but could eventually lead to the emergence of a completely different way for people to organise themselves outside of the hierarchical/slave system – a true democracy as practiced for hundreds of generations before civilisation.

3 Comments »