Friday, June 3, 2005
Guadalupe, Peru
We're in Guadalupe, a small town in the north coast of Peru. I spent a few months here two years ago developing permaculture projects and learning spanish. We're on the last leg of our trip. We will be flying home very soon.
Saturday, May 21, 2005
The Rape of the Rainforest and the Man Behind it
I just read this article on www.CommonDreams.org about the deforestation of the Amazon for soy production. The situation is similar in Argentina. I thought the article would give people a general idea of the agricultural crisis in Latin America. The article does a good job describing the environmental impact but doesn't really go into the social and economic impacts of the soy boom.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0520-06.htm
A stream winds through a strip of once virgin Amazon rainforest destroyed by loggers, in Mato Grosso State, one of the Brazilian states of greatest deforestation, May 18, 2005. The Brazilian government announced the latest data on deforestation of the Amazon Basin, with a total of 26,130 square km (10,089 square miles) of rainforest destroyed, equivalent to more than nine football fields every minute, during the 12-month period ending in August, 2004. The total is the highest recorded during the government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, in spite of his administration's announced efforts to contain the destruction. REUTERS/Rickey Rogers
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0520-06.htm
A stream winds through a strip of once virgin Amazon rainforest destroyed by loggers, in Mato Grosso State, one of the Brazilian states of greatest deforestation, May 18, 2005. The Brazilian government announced the latest data on deforestation of the Amazon Basin, with a total of 26,130 square km (10,089 square miles) of rainforest destroyed, equivalent to more than nine football fields every minute, during the 12-month period ending in August, 2004. The total is the highest recorded during the government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, in spite of his administration's announced efforts to contain the destruction. REUTERS/Rickey Rogers
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Argentina, Iraq and the Global Dictatorship
Misiones, Argentina-- My partner Sarita and I have been in Argentina for almost four months now, visiting farmworker movements, organic producers and countless activist groups. As I begin to understand the history of the activist movement here I am becoming increasingly concerned about my country's involvement in foreign affairs. More importantly I'm concerned about what my responsibility is as a US citizen. My experiences here have helped me start to understand the connection between the US, the Argentina dictatorship and the Iraq war. It seems like a far fetched connection but let me explain.
Last week we visited the Agrarian Movement of Misiones (MAM). They have been organizing small scale farmers in the Misiones province of Argentina since 1971. When we arrived at their office the first thing they did was point to the pictures on their wall and explain, "that is our founder, he was assassinated, the lady next to him was disappeared and never found, this other picture is of a friend who was exiled for 8 years," and so on.
I'm getting used to hearing these kinds of stories as we visit activist groups. From the mid 70s to 1983 Argentina was under an oppressive military dictatorship. During this time over 30,000 people were killed or disappeared. It has left a deep scar in everyone who lived through the period. As MAM co-director Enrique Peczack explained it set the activist movements back 50 years.
Enrique's brother was the MAM founder who was assassinated. Enrique was disappeared for a year and jailed for eight. He wanted us to understand MAM's history so he brought us to his brothers grave. As we were driving out to MAM's organic mate cooperative we asked what the difference was between being jailed and disappeared. He stopped the truck in the middle of the road and let us know all the details. When he was disappeared he was in the jungle somewhere in a Nazi style concentration camp and no one knew where he was. Most of the time he was chained up with a bag over his head. He would go without human contact for weeks. Sometimes he was fed, sometimes not. He was beaten and tortured repeatedly. When he was jailed he was not treated much better but at least he knew where he was.
When I hear these gruesome stories first hand I can only think how glad I am this kind of thing doesn't happen in the US. But I know the US is far from being disconnected to torture and massacre. It is widely known that the US supported the Argentine dictatorship.
I would like to think that the dictatorship is over. However, I know the military dictatorship cleared the way for the globalized economic dictatorship. Had the activist community not been set back so far there might have been a stronger force to fight the privitizacion of the Menem years. And what was the largest public company sold off to the free market? YPF, Argentina's national oil company. It was the largest initial stock sell off in the history of the New York Stock Exchange. YPF was bought up by the Spanish company Repsol to become the second largest oil company in the world. Where there is oil, there is oppression. Now Argentina is a slave to the global free market economy.
I would also like to think that this is an isolated experience precipitated by random events. But I know that every country in Latin America has a similar story of oppression. Nor is this story limited to Latin America. The same thing is happening in Iraq right now. However, in Iraq US involvement is even more direct and the massacre even greater. The website www.iraqbodycount.org now says at least 21,000 civilians have been killed. I can only imagine the kind of scar that will leave in the people. And again this tactic of brutal destabilization will leave an oil rich country a slave to the free market economy.
Yet, what has been bothering me the most is that I am somehow implicated in all this. My friends in Argentina can't fight the US global empire. No matter how many times they blockade the highways, ransack the banks and oust presidents they still can't change their place in the global economy. Last week Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced that he will not visit the US again until its citizens liberate the country. I feel that challenge weighing heavily on my shoulders.
However, it seems unlikely that the US activist community will take the drastic actions necessary to overthrow a tyrannical government. We don't feel the direct effects of US domination even if we are opposed to it. We don't have bombs falling on our cities and our families aren't being disappeared. Even though we are opposed to global economic and military tyranny we are still the major beneficiaries. Since we aren't feeling the brunt of the suffering we aren't able to take the drastic actions that other oppressed people take.
In Argentina when YPF was privatized massive groups of unemployed people started using the tactic of blockading highways. When unemployment hit 40% the widespread direct action started having an effect. National strikes and protesters raiding banks effectively shut the country down. Then on December 19 and 20, 2001 massive protests in Buenos Aires succeeded in overthrowing the president...And the next four that followed.
How many people in the US are ready to shut down highways or organize national strikes? Who wants to risk their jobs, families and freedom? Who is ready to face down police with live ammunition? Organizing a national strike would require widespread cooperation between all the major activist organizations in the US. Yet major organizations fear public opinion too much to take such drastic actions. Bush's largest opponent MoveOn.org, with 3 million members, won't even issue a statement against the Iraq war. TrueMajority is a little more radical, they distributed a pen that shows how much money is being spent on the war. They even make activism easy for you, click "reply send" and your representatives recieve a form letter. Is that what activism has come to in the US? "Reply send" activism?
I'm not angry at the activist community. I'm not ready to blockade the highways either. That takes unity and confidence that we just don't have right now. It's just starting to feel like we've been put into checkmate.
Last week we visited the Agrarian Movement of Misiones (MAM). They have been organizing small scale farmers in the Misiones province of Argentina since 1971. When we arrived at their office the first thing they did was point to the pictures on their wall and explain, "that is our founder, he was assassinated, the lady next to him was disappeared and never found, this other picture is of a friend who was exiled for 8 years," and so on.
I'm getting used to hearing these kinds of stories as we visit activist groups. From the mid 70s to 1983 Argentina was under an oppressive military dictatorship. During this time over 30,000 people were killed or disappeared. It has left a deep scar in everyone who lived through the period. As MAM co-director Enrique Peczack explained it set the activist movements back 50 years.
Enrique's brother was the MAM founder who was assassinated. Enrique was disappeared for a year and jailed for eight. He wanted us to understand MAM's history so he brought us to his brothers grave. As we were driving out to MAM's organic mate cooperative we asked what the difference was between being jailed and disappeared. He stopped the truck in the middle of the road and let us know all the details. When he was disappeared he was in the jungle somewhere in a Nazi style concentration camp and no one knew where he was. Most of the time he was chained up with a bag over his head. He would go without human contact for weeks. Sometimes he was fed, sometimes not. He was beaten and tortured repeatedly. When he was jailed he was not treated much better but at least he knew where he was.
When I hear these gruesome stories first hand I can only think how glad I am this kind of thing doesn't happen in the US. But I know the US is far from being disconnected to torture and massacre. It is widely known that the US supported the Argentine dictatorship.
I would like to think that the dictatorship is over. However, I know the military dictatorship cleared the way for the globalized economic dictatorship. Had the activist community not been set back so far there might have been a stronger force to fight the privitizacion of the Menem years. And what was the largest public company sold off to the free market? YPF, Argentina's national oil company. It was the largest initial stock sell off in the history of the New York Stock Exchange. YPF was bought up by the Spanish company Repsol to become the second largest oil company in the world. Where there is oil, there is oppression. Now Argentina is a slave to the global free market economy.
I would also like to think that this is an isolated experience precipitated by random events. But I know that every country in Latin America has a similar story of oppression. Nor is this story limited to Latin America. The same thing is happening in Iraq right now. However, in Iraq US involvement is even more direct and the massacre even greater. The website www.iraqbodycount.org now says at least 21,000 civilians have been killed. I can only imagine the kind of scar that will leave in the people. And again this tactic of brutal destabilization will leave an oil rich country a slave to the free market economy.
Yet, what has been bothering me the most is that I am somehow implicated in all this. My friends in Argentina can't fight the US global empire. No matter how many times they blockade the highways, ransack the banks and oust presidents they still can't change their place in the global economy. Last week Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced that he will not visit the US again until its citizens liberate the country. I feel that challenge weighing heavily on my shoulders.
However, it seems unlikely that the US activist community will take the drastic actions necessary to overthrow a tyrannical government. We don't feel the direct effects of US domination even if we are opposed to it. We don't have bombs falling on our cities and our families aren't being disappeared. Even though we are opposed to global economic and military tyranny we are still the major beneficiaries. Since we aren't feeling the brunt of the suffering we aren't able to take the drastic actions that other oppressed people take.
In Argentina when YPF was privatized massive groups of unemployed people started using the tactic of blockading highways. When unemployment hit 40% the widespread direct action started having an effect. National strikes and protesters raiding banks effectively shut the country down. Then on December 19 and 20, 2001 massive protests in Buenos Aires succeeded in overthrowing the president...And the next four that followed.
How many people in the US are ready to shut down highways or organize national strikes? Who wants to risk their jobs, families and freedom? Who is ready to face down police with live ammunition? Organizing a national strike would require widespread cooperation between all the major activist organizations in the US. Yet major organizations fear public opinion too much to take such drastic actions. Bush's largest opponent MoveOn.org, with 3 million members, won't even issue a statement against the Iraq war. TrueMajority is a little more radical, they distributed a pen that shows how much money is being spent on the war. They even make activism easy for you, click "reply send" and your representatives recieve a form letter. Is that what activism has come to in the US? "Reply send" activism?
I'm not angry at the activist community. I'm not ready to blockade the highways either. That takes unity and confidence that we just don't have right now. It's just starting to feel like we've been put into checkmate.
Monday, May 2, 2005
Unedited Letter Home
Enrique Peczac at the grave of his assasinated brother, Pedro.
Queridos Viejitos,
Long day and it's still not over. Woke up at 6:45 to meditate before meeting Eugenio Peczack, president of MAM (Movimiento Agrario de Misiones). We chatted in MAM's headquarters then he took us on a quick tour.
Our first stop was the cemetery where the Peczack's brother, one founder of MAM is burried. He was assasinated by the dictatorship in the 70's. His gravestone was decorated with plaques, some commemorating his contribution to the agrarian movements of the province others naming disappeared colleagues. "To give you some idea of the context of our work," the president told us. We hopped back in the truck and drove down the red road - the soil in Misiones contains so much iron oxide they call it tierra colorado (colored earth). It stained everything- your shoes, the bottoms of your pant legs, your hands, anything it touches- and formed an intense and beautiful contrast against the lush, dense, green bush/jungle that covers the hills of the province.
As we drove Peczack painted a rough history of the land we passed through. The annihilation of the native people; the sugar, tobacco and tea plantations owned by Portuguese and worked by African slaves; the arrival of the Jesuits; the Jesuit Army’s (?!) victory over the Portuguese; the arrival of the German, Nordic, Ukranian, Italian, and other immigrants who formed small colonies on the land the army gave them…the arrival of powerful agribusiness in the 1930’s that set in motion the struggle between small farmers and wealthy proprietors that continues to this day. He also shared a bit of his family’s history: his father leaving Ukrania (which was a landless nation at the time, occupied by Austria-Hungary??) meeting his mother in Argentina and beginning a new life with nothing to his name but a machete and the clothes on his back. Peczack was the youngest of nine children, born when his dad was 73 (he died 5 years later). (I’m guessing the mother was many years younger; he didn’t say). His whole family was involved in the Agrarian Movement from the outset, work which as I mentioned before, cost his brother and many friends their lives and landed him in jail. “They hunted me for many years, during which I moved around constantly, living in the jungle, in basements…when they found me they jailed me. For 8 years they transferred me from jail to jail – I know the jails of every part of this country. It was a tactic for severing your relationship with your family and friends. If you were in one jail very long your people could find you. If they moved you around, it was impossible. For 8 years, I lived in the jails, being beat, d, everything. Then after my incarceration I spent one year disappeared.” At this point I interrupted him for clarification.
“Disappeared? Meaning you were released but had to go underground to avoid ending up back in jail? Or disappeared is part of jail?” Peczack stops the truck in the middle of the road.
“Disappeared means they take you out of the jail, to do things that they cannot do in jails. When you are in jail there are records of your existence. And you know more or less where you are- or at the very least, you know you are in a jail. To be disappeared meant that they took you someplace- you had no idea where- in the middle of nowhere, in the jungle, some building…you were usually blindfolded and chained. They left you alone, sometimes days without human contact and often without food. They only came back to beat you senseless or move you to another place. Prison, as horrific as it was, was preferable to being disappeared because at least it was a recognizable place with human contact.”
The truck was silent. I turned to the back seat to look at Ethan. He mouthed “wow” at me and turned to stare out the side window. Our tour guide re-started the truck, drove another 50 yards and pulled over. “This is one of our yerba plantations.” We hopped out of the truck and walked over to the row of mate trees closest to the road.
“No pesticides, no herbicides, no chemicals. There are two ways to keep the weeds down: whack them down by hand, using machetes or graze sheep between them. We use both methods but prefer the latter. The sheep are easier and, once they’ve done their job, we can eat them.” Peczack explained that MAM has practiced and promoted organic production since the organization's inception. “El veneno (‘poison’ literally) is expensive, it makes the farmer dependent upon the businesses that produce it, and more importantly, it kills the farmers, their families, and the land itself.” So much for the myth that the organic movement is a luxury campaign supported only by yuppies and other members of the burgouise, I thought to myself as we hopped back in the truck.
Our next stop was the Centro de Servicios , the warehouse where members of the cooperative mill, package, and store their yerba and process other farm-raised products including jams, pickles, sausages, cheese, milk, breads, and pastries. A small cluster of men gathered around the yerba mill. Light green powder dusted the floor around the mill and the ground outside. Peczack led us throught the facility, pointing out where different activities took place, appologizing that there wasn’t more going on that day. “It’s the dust. When the yerba is being milled, we have to suspend all the other activities because it gets into everything.” He showed us a room with a dentists chair and some medical equiptment. “One member of the cooperative- a young doctor- is in Cuba studying natural medicine. We plan to provide health services for all of our associates. Not the kind of health care an obra social provides [obra social is the medical plan employer are required to provide}- real health care. Prevention. Education. Access to the land and skills families need to produce every part of a balanced diet. The tobacco growers in Misiones all have obra sociales. They also work in incredibly toxic environments every day, applying illegal plagicides, drinking contaminated water, eating vegetables grown in polluted soil. We´ve opened a space upstairs where we'll dry medicinal plants; the earth here has so much to offer in the form of natural medicines." Listening to Peczack I thought of something Ernesto "Ché" Guevara once said: "We don't need more hospitals. We need fewer sick people."
From the Centro de Servicios we sped over, a few kilometers, to the Escuela Familiar Agricola (Family Agricultural School) a new insitution whose first 20 students gathered for their morning class in a brand new brick building. The young teacher invited us to the front of the classroom where we introduced ourselves, gave a brief summary of what we're doing in Argentina, and drew a map of the U.S. on the chalkboard to show what part of the states we're from. The kids were silent, either too shy or too bored to ask questions. Students live at the EFA for 15 days then return to their communities for 15 days to apply their education and help on their family farms. (To give an idea of how they apply their education: in San Pedro, at one farm we visited, a son enrolled at the local EFA had built a biodigestor that provided all the gas his mom needed for preserving foods for the family's consumption and for sale at the local farmer's market.) The teacher showed us the kitchen where the kids and parents took turns cooking, gave us a big jar of local honey, and thanked us for coming by.
Back in the truck, I asked Peczack if he was familiar with Paulo Freire and Pedagogy of the Oppressed. "Of course. Since the beginning. You're wondering why the EFA looked so traditional? We have to work slowly back to the level Freire worked at- they way we were working in the 70's. Intellectually speaking the movement was more advanced back then. Many in the commision were highly educated: doctors, psychologists, sociologists. Extremely critical thinkers. But you have to understand that the dictatorship pushed Argentina back about 50 years. It's frustrating...working with many of the local producers here today and seeing how uncapable, how un-conscious many of them- particularly the younger ones- are today. We have to be cautious with the parents of the EFA students. If we try to change to much too fast- by jumping full force into Freire style pedagogy for instance- we could scare all of them off."
A torrent of images blazed through my mind as Peczack continued talking about the dictatorship's anihilation of critical thought and action: rough, cigarette smoking women at Enero Autonomo (see earlier posts) complaining about their machista husbands; miles of Chè t-shirts for sale at the World Social Forum; the little kid who played war video games the whole time I checked my email then asked me for change as I boarded the bus; the restaurant full of Argentine men of every age, each sitting at his own table with a litre of coca-cola (or beer), with a coca-cola napkin dispenser, with their unblinking eyes frozen on the soccer game; the professor couple we met, sitting in their expensive living room, on thier designer furniture, sipping wine, saying "yes, we've have Ph.Ds in sociology...we study the Landless movements of Misiones."...
While I daydreamed about what it means to destroy a society's capacity to think critically, Peczack drove us to the park where the Festival Nacional del Inmigrante (National Inmigrant's Festival) takes place every September. We rolled slowly past the park's huge houses, each designed in the traditional architecture of one of the countries that contributed inmigrants to Misiones: Germany, Switzerland, Russia, Ukrania, Spain, Italy, France, Eygpt, Poland, and more. As we drove past the Ukrania house I told him that the Jewish side of my family inmigrated from Ukrania to the U.S. to escape the war. Eugenio pointed to a plaque. "That's where the House of Israel will be built. I almost traveled to Israel. To travel and get to know their system of kibutz. I even secured a visa. But then the Israeli embassy here was ed and it ruined everything. You know the Jewish people had it very bad here during the dictatorship. The whole regime was so t, racist. In one jail I was d because they thought that I was Jewish. Because of my last name. It's not Jewish, but it was strange to them and they didn't know the difference. They forced me to strip to see if I was circumcised. When they saw that I wasn't they beat me anyway, probably just because they d being wrong."
I was finding it harder and harder to imagine how this human being, seated two feet away from me, could have been so mistreated by other people and yet be the smiling, cheerful, friendly person that he had been all day. Or how he could continue doing the same work that "earned" him everything that happened to him during the dictatorship. So I asked him. "How did you regain your trust in people after the dicatorship? I mean, to do the work you do with MAM, with all the small farmers from the whole region, to work together with people all the time...it seems like hard enough interpersonal work for someone who never experienced what you have..." Eugenio thought for a while. "I have the good fortune of having a very strong character, and a strong mind. Partly I learned from my mother. Like I said, my dad died when I was 5 and we all had to make it, on nothing, with nothing. Even before the dictatorship, I knew hunger. I knew cold. And because of that I suppose I've always known that what I was fighting for what right and that it was worth it. After all, what I've fought for all along is for the people who work and live on this land to have good food to eat, to have a place to live, to see the fruits of their labor...to not be enslaved by someone who works them like animals and treats them worse - for money. There was never one second, not in jail, not when I was disappeared, not during any or starvation, in which I doubted that what I was doing to help organize and conscienciar the people, to help them have a better quality of life, was what I had to do. Even so, it made me hard. I had to be hard. If you weren't you crumbled. Hundreds of people committed rather than try to see it through to the end of the dictatorship." I asked Peczack how he reintegrated after jail and being disappeared, how he reconnected with his family. To the former he responded, "I went right back to work. Doing exactly what I was doing when they took me away. Trying to regain the ground we lost in those years. With joy- because I like my work. I love working on the land, working with people who work the land. I don't have any complex: so many people who suffered during the dictatorship have spent the rest of their lives seeking revenge, trying to find justice by hurting the peope who hurt them. I just went back to work putting MAM back together, trying to regain the confidence of the campesinos with whom we started the movement."
Back at MAM's office, I looked over their beautifully packaged yerba mate and read some literature they'd printed about fair trade and organic, small scale production for local consumption. MAM and Organic Volunteers could not have more different histories and yet they were working for the exact same objectives. Interesting isn't it?
Queridos Viejitos,
Long day and it's still not over. Woke up at 6:45 to meditate before meeting Eugenio Peczack, president of MAM (Movimiento Agrario de Misiones). We chatted in MAM's headquarters then he took us on a quick tour.
Our first stop was the cemetery where the Peczack's brother, one founder of MAM is burried. He was assasinated by the dictatorship in the 70's. His gravestone was decorated with plaques, some commemorating his contribution to the agrarian movements of the province others naming disappeared colleagues. "To give you some idea of the context of our work," the president told us. We hopped back in the truck and drove down the red road - the soil in Misiones contains so much iron oxide they call it tierra colorado (colored earth). It stained everything- your shoes, the bottoms of your pant legs, your hands, anything it touches- and formed an intense and beautiful contrast against the lush, dense, green bush/jungle that covers the hills of the province.
As we drove Peczack painted a rough history of the land we passed through. The annihilation of the native people; the sugar, tobacco and tea plantations owned by Portuguese and worked by African slaves; the arrival of the Jesuits; the Jesuit Army’s (?!) victory over the Portuguese; the arrival of the German, Nordic, Ukranian, Italian, and other immigrants who formed small colonies on the land the army gave them…the arrival of powerful agribusiness in the 1930’s that set in motion the struggle between small farmers and wealthy proprietors that continues to this day. He also shared a bit of his family’s history: his father leaving Ukrania (which was a landless nation at the time, occupied by Austria-Hungary??) meeting his mother in Argentina and beginning a new life with nothing to his name but a machete and the clothes on his back. Peczack was the youngest of nine children, born when his dad was 73 (he died 5 years later). (I’m guessing the mother was many years younger; he didn’t say). His whole family was involved in the Agrarian Movement from the outset, work which as I mentioned before, cost his brother and many friends their lives and landed him in jail. “They hunted me for many years, during which I moved around constantly, living in the jungle, in basements…when they found me they jailed me. For 8 years they transferred me from jail to jail – I know the jails of every part of this country. It was a tactic for severing your relationship with your family and friends. If you were in one jail very long your people could find you. If they moved you around, it was impossible. For 8 years, I lived in the jails, being beat, d, everything. Then after my incarceration I spent one year disappeared.” At this point I interrupted him for clarification.
“Disappeared? Meaning you were released but had to go underground to avoid ending up back in jail? Or disappeared is part of jail?” Peczack stops the truck in the middle of the road.
“Disappeared means they take you out of the jail, to do things that they cannot do in jails. When you are in jail there are records of your existence. And you know more or less where you are- or at the very least, you know you are in a jail. To be disappeared meant that they took you someplace- you had no idea where- in the middle of nowhere, in the jungle, some building…you were usually blindfolded and chained. They left you alone, sometimes days without human contact and often without food. They only came back to beat you senseless or move you to another place. Prison, as horrific as it was, was preferable to being disappeared because at least it was a recognizable place with human contact.”
The truck was silent. I turned to the back seat to look at Ethan. He mouthed “wow” at me and turned to stare out the side window. Our tour guide re-started the truck, drove another 50 yards and pulled over. “This is one of our yerba plantations.” We hopped out of the truck and walked over to the row of mate trees closest to the road.
“No pesticides, no herbicides, no chemicals. There are two ways to keep the weeds down: whack them down by hand, using machetes or graze sheep between them. We use both methods but prefer the latter. The sheep are easier and, once they’ve done their job, we can eat them.” Peczack explained that MAM has practiced and promoted organic production since the organization's inception. “El veneno (‘poison’ literally) is expensive, it makes the farmer dependent upon the businesses that produce it, and more importantly, it kills the farmers, their families, and the land itself.” So much for the myth that the organic movement is a luxury campaign supported only by yuppies and other members of the burgouise, I thought to myself as we hopped back in the truck.
Our next stop was the Centro de Servicios , the warehouse where members of the cooperative mill, package, and store their yerba and process other farm-raised products including jams, pickles, sausages, cheese, milk, breads, and pastries. A small cluster of men gathered around the yerba mill. Light green powder dusted the floor around the mill and the ground outside. Peczack led us throught the facility, pointing out where different activities took place, appologizing that there wasn’t more going on that day. “It’s the dust. When the yerba is being milled, we have to suspend all the other activities because it gets into everything.” He showed us a room with a dentists chair and some medical equiptment. “One member of the cooperative- a young doctor- is in Cuba studying natural medicine. We plan to provide health services for all of our associates. Not the kind of health care an obra social provides [obra social is the medical plan employer are required to provide}- real health care. Prevention. Education. Access to the land and skills families need to produce every part of a balanced diet. The tobacco growers in Misiones all have obra sociales. They also work in incredibly toxic environments every day, applying illegal plagicides, drinking contaminated water, eating vegetables grown in polluted soil. We´ve opened a space upstairs where we'll dry medicinal plants; the earth here has so much to offer in the form of natural medicines." Listening to Peczack I thought of something Ernesto "Ché" Guevara once said: "We don't need more hospitals. We need fewer sick people."
From the Centro de Servicios we sped over, a few kilometers, to the Escuela Familiar Agricola (Family Agricultural School) a new insitution whose first 20 students gathered for their morning class in a brand new brick building. The young teacher invited us to the front of the classroom where we introduced ourselves, gave a brief summary of what we're doing in Argentina, and drew a map of the U.S. on the chalkboard to show what part of the states we're from. The kids were silent, either too shy or too bored to ask questions. Students live at the EFA for 15 days then return to their communities for 15 days to apply their education and help on their family farms. (To give an idea of how they apply their education: in San Pedro, at one farm we visited, a son enrolled at the local EFA had built a biodigestor that provided all the gas his mom needed for preserving foods for the family's consumption and for sale at the local farmer's market.) The teacher showed us the kitchen where the kids and parents took turns cooking, gave us a big jar of local honey, and thanked us for coming by.
Back in the truck, I asked Peczack if he was familiar with Paulo Freire and Pedagogy of the Oppressed. "Of course. Since the beginning. You're wondering why the EFA looked so traditional? We have to work slowly back to the level Freire worked at- they way we were working in the 70's. Intellectually speaking the movement was more advanced back then. Many in the commision were highly educated: doctors, psychologists, sociologists. Extremely critical thinkers. But you have to understand that the dictatorship pushed Argentina back about 50 years. It's frustrating...working with many of the local producers here today and seeing how uncapable, how un-conscious many of them- particularly the younger ones- are today. We have to be cautious with the parents of the EFA students. If we try to change to much too fast- by jumping full force into Freire style pedagogy for instance- we could scare all of them off."
A torrent of images blazed through my mind as Peczack continued talking about the dictatorship's anihilation of critical thought and action: rough, cigarette smoking women at Enero Autonomo (see earlier posts) complaining about their machista husbands; miles of Chè t-shirts for sale at the World Social Forum; the little kid who played war video games the whole time I checked my email then asked me for change as I boarded the bus; the restaurant full of Argentine men of every age, each sitting at his own table with a litre of coca-cola (or beer), with a coca-cola napkin dispenser, with their unblinking eyes frozen on the soccer game; the professor couple we met, sitting in their expensive living room, on thier designer furniture, sipping wine, saying "yes, we've have Ph.Ds in sociology...we study the Landless movements of Misiones."...
While I daydreamed about what it means to destroy a society's capacity to think critically, Peczack drove us to the park where the Festival Nacional del Inmigrante (National Inmigrant's Festival) takes place every September. We rolled slowly past the park's huge houses, each designed in the traditional architecture of one of the countries that contributed inmigrants to Misiones: Germany, Switzerland, Russia, Ukrania, Spain, Italy, France, Eygpt, Poland, and more. As we drove past the Ukrania house I told him that the Jewish side of my family inmigrated from Ukrania to the U.S. to escape the war. Eugenio pointed to a plaque. "That's where the House of Israel will be built. I almost traveled to Israel. To travel and get to know their system of kibutz. I even secured a visa. But then the Israeli embassy here was ed and it ruined everything. You know the Jewish people had it very bad here during the dictatorship. The whole regime was so t, racist. In one jail I was d because they thought that I was Jewish. Because of my last name. It's not Jewish, but it was strange to them and they didn't know the difference. They forced me to strip to see if I was circumcised. When they saw that I wasn't they beat me anyway, probably just because they d being wrong."
I was finding it harder and harder to imagine how this human being, seated two feet away from me, could have been so mistreated by other people and yet be the smiling, cheerful, friendly person that he had been all day. Or how he could continue doing the same work that "earned" him everything that happened to him during the dictatorship. So I asked him. "How did you regain your trust in people after the dicatorship? I mean, to do the work you do with MAM, with all the small farmers from the whole region, to work together with people all the time...it seems like hard enough interpersonal work for someone who never experienced what you have..." Eugenio thought for a while. "I have the good fortune of having a very strong character, and a strong mind. Partly I learned from my mother. Like I said, my dad died when I was 5 and we all had to make it, on nothing, with nothing. Even before the dictatorship, I knew hunger. I knew cold. And because of that I suppose I've always known that what I was fighting for what right and that it was worth it. After all, what I've fought for all along is for the people who work and live on this land to have good food to eat, to have a place to live, to see the fruits of their labor...to not be enslaved by someone who works them like animals and treats them worse - for money. There was never one second, not in jail, not when I was disappeared, not during any or starvation, in which I doubted that what I was doing to help organize and conscienciar the people, to help them have a better quality of life, was what I had to do. Even so, it made me hard. I had to be hard. If you weren't you crumbled. Hundreds of people committed rather than try to see it through to the end of the dictatorship." I asked Peczack how he reintegrated after jail and being disappeared, how he reconnected with his family. To the former he responded, "I went right back to work. Doing exactly what I was doing when they took me away. Trying to regain the ground we lost in those years. With joy- because I like my work. I love working on the land, working with people who work the land. I don't have any complex: so many people who suffered during the dictatorship have spent the rest of their lives seeking revenge, trying to find justice by hurting the peope who hurt them. I just went back to work putting MAM back together, trying to regain the confidence of the campesinos with whom we started the movement."
Back at MAM's office, I looked over their beautifully packaged yerba mate and read some literature they'd printed about fair trade and organic, small scale production for local consumption. MAM and Organic Volunteers could not have more different histories and yet they were working for the exact same objectives. Interesting isn't it?
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
General Belgrano, Argentina-
General Belgrano, Argentina- It is hard to imagine that in the Argentine province of Formosa, on the boarder of Paraguay, the chemical and genetic agriculture movement has arrived. Formosa is one of the poorest and most secluded regions in the country. It is about as far as one can get from the Monsanto laboratories that developed the genetically modified soybean that is planted here. Yet in this Argentine frontier a new revolution is building, and it is rejecting the conventional agriculture model.
On April 19 the Movement of Campesinos of Formosa (MOCAFOR) convened over 2000 people to fight for agrarian reform and land rights. Campesino is hard to translate into English. It means literally “country person” but connotes poverty and struggle. Some people consider it a derogatory word but many social movements use it with pride. MOCAFOR has built a coalition of over 5000 campesino families to struggle for a higher quality of life.
A wide variety of groups sent speakers to the conference including Nora Cortiñas of Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, Heinz Dietrich of Participatory Democracy of Latin America and indigenous leaders. MOCAFOR is one of the few movements that has forged a union between indigenous and campesinos.
The conference took place in the grange of a cotton processing plant. The space was decorated like a high school dance: bright swaths of fabric draped across the ceiling and block letters cut from silver paper spelled out “PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY” across the main stage. The brick walls and metal roof turned the room into a brick oven in the 90 degree weather.
Benigno Lopez, a leader within MOCAFOR, criticized the conventional agriculture model as “criminal and paramount to genocide” and denounced the sale of public lands to foreign companies. He declared MOCAFOR would fight for “food sovereignty” and search for ecological models of agriculture. He also announced a march for land rights on July 26th from Paraguay to the capital city of Formosa. Lopez, with his wavy black hair, goatee, and olive drab clothing, auspiciously resembled the portrait of Argentine born revolutionary Che Guevara that hangs in the MOCAFOR office.
Heinz Dietrich invoked the revolutionary spirit of Emiliano Zapato and Pancho Villa. “Do not mistake the principle enemy,” he declared, referring to the “imperialist” forces of the USA the EU and other developed nations. He even went as far as to exclaim the need for armed revolution- not by directly taking up arms, he explained, but as Hugo Chavez did in Venezuela, by winning over the support of the military.
Nora Cortiñas spoke about her experiences traveling to Haiti and other Latin American countries and lamented the dire situation was the same wherever she went. She encouraged Latin American unity in the fight against oppressive forces. She also rallied support from the activist movements “to prepare to reject the visit of the biggest terrorist in the world: George Bush,” who will visit Argentina in November.
The Campesino Reality
The harsh revolutionary tone of the speakers is understandable if you take into account the harsh conditions they are trying to transcend. “The campesino and indigenous reality is suffering”, explained Aldo Benitez, the regional MOCAFOR contact, in an interview during the conference.
Formosa is a province rich in resources such as petroleum, forests and production agriculture. “All the resources and riches of the province are controlled by the state and a few companies,” Benitez said, holding his baby daughter on his lap.
However, Benitez claims the resources are improperly managed and the wealth is not making it to the people. “For example, the companies that cut trees are required to replant but they don’t do it,” he explained.
As for the petroleum, the only national Argentine oil company, YPF, was sold off during the rampant privatization of the Menem administration. Now foreign companies do all the drilling.
The campesinos also suffer from the low price of cotton, a major commodity in the region. The price fell from US$480 last year to US$225 per metric ton this year, a 53% drop. In March MOCAFOR blocked the highway for eight days demanding a fair price for cotton.
“Another big problem is that the state sells our land to foreign companies,” continued Benitez. The majority of the campesinos do not have titles to their land. They have been farming for generations on land owned by the state. “The state won’t sell to the producers or indigenous but will sell to the private companies,” he said.
Most of the land purchased is planted with soy genetically modified to resist the Monsanto made herbicide Round Up “The companies that plant soy would fumigate with airplanes. They would fumigate over the houses, contaminating the water, animals, and agriculture. Women were having miscarriages, children were sick and the plants were dying,” said Benitez. Two years ago the campesinos took the matter into their own hands. 100 people from MOCAFOR took over the fumigation plane and slashed its tires. They later reached an agreement with the companies to use land-based sprayers and plant soy farther from the towns.
The victory was pivotal for MOCAFOR. It gave them confidence and won them widespread support from the people in the province. “It proved to them that we could do good things.” Now they are looking to broaden their coalition support. That is why they convened the April 19th meeting. “We can change the reality of campesino life if we join together. We can distribute the resources in an equitable manner to the people of the province,” concluded Benitez before he rushed away to his next meeting.
On April 19 the Movement of Campesinos of Formosa (MOCAFOR) convened over 2000 people to fight for agrarian reform and land rights. Campesino is hard to translate into English. It means literally “country person” but connotes poverty and struggle. Some people consider it a derogatory word but many social movements use it with pride. MOCAFOR has built a coalition of over 5000 campesino families to struggle for a higher quality of life.
A wide variety of groups sent speakers to the conference including Nora Cortiñas of Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, Heinz Dietrich of Participatory Democracy of Latin America and indigenous leaders. MOCAFOR is one of the few movements that has forged a union between indigenous and campesinos.
The conference took place in the grange of a cotton processing plant. The space was decorated like a high school dance: bright swaths of fabric draped across the ceiling and block letters cut from silver paper spelled out “PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY” across the main stage. The brick walls and metal roof turned the room into a brick oven in the 90 degree weather.
Benigno Lopez, a leader within MOCAFOR, criticized the conventional agriculture model as “criminal and paramount to genocide” and denounced the sale of public lands to foreign companies. He declared MOCAFOR would fight for “food sovereignty” and search for ecological models of agriculture. He also announced a march for land rights on July 26th from Paraguay to the capital city of Formosa. Lopez, with his wavy black hair, goatee, and olive drab clothing, auspiciously resembled the portrait of Argentine born revolutionary Che Guevara that hangs in the MOCAFOR office.
Heinz Dietrich invoked the revolutionary spirit of Emiliano Zapato and Pancho Villa. “Do not mistake the principle enemy,” he declared, referring to the “imperialist” forces of the USA the EU and other developed nations. He even went as far as to exclaim the need for armed revolution- not by directly taking up arms, he explained, but as Hugo Chavez did in Venezuela, by winning over the support of the military.
Nora Cortiñas spoke about her experiences traveling to Haiti and other Latin American countries and lamented the dire situation was the same wherever she went. She encouraged Latin American unity in the fight against oppressive forces. She also rallied support from the activist movements “to prepare to reject the visit of the biggest terrorist in the world: George Bush,” who will visit Argentina in November.
The Campesino Reality
The harsh revolutionary tone of the speakers is understandable if you take into account the harsh conditions they are trying to transcend. “The campesino and indigenous reality is suffering”, explained Aldo Benitez, the regional MOCAFOR contact, in an interview during the conference.
Formosa is a province rich in resources such as petroleum, forests and production agriculture. “All the resources and riches of the province are controlled by the state and a few companies,” Benitez said, holding his baby daughter on his lap.
However, Benitez claims the resources are improperly managed and the wealth is not making it to the people. “For example, the companies that cut trees are required to replant but they don’t do it,” he explained.
As for the petroleum, the only national Argentine oil company, YPF, was sold off during the rampant privatization of the Menem administration. Now foreign companies do all the drilling.
The campesinos also suffer from the low price of cotton, a major commodity in the region. The price fell from US$480 last year to US$225 per metric ton this year, a 53% drop. In March MOCAFOR blocked the highway for eight days demanding a fair price for cotton.
“Another big problem is that the state sells our land to foreign companies,” continued Benitez. The majority of the campesinos do not have titles to their land. They have been farming for generations on land owned by the state. “The state won’t sell to the producers or indigenous but will sell to the private companies,” he said.
Most of the land purchased is planted with soy genetically modified to resist the Monsanto made herbicide Round Up “The companies that plant soy would fumigate with airplanes. They would fumigate over the houses, contaminating the water, animals, and agriculture. Women were having miscarriages, children were sick and the plants were dying,” said Benitez. Two years ago the campesinos took the matter into their own hands. 100 people from MOCAFOR took over the fumigation plane and slashed its tires. They later reached an agreement with the companies to use land-based sprayers and plant soy farther from the towns.
The victory was pivotal for MOCAFOR. It gave them confidence and won them widespread support from the people in the province. “It proved to them that we could do good things.” Now they are looking to broaden their coalition support. That is why they convened the April 19th meeting. “We can change the reality of campesino life if we join together. We can distribute the resources in an equitable manner to the people of the province,” concluded Benitez before he rushed away to his next meeting.
Monday, April 18, 2005
Formosa, Argentina
Sarita and I are at the bus station in Formosa, Argentina. Very close to the Paraguay border. We´re stuck here for the day until the next bus for General Belgrano leaves tonight. We´re on our way to a meeting of the campesino (peasant or low-income farm worker) movement organized by MOCAFOR (movements de Campesions de Formosa).
It has been awhile since I have posted anything on this forum. I wonder if anyone is reading it anymore. It has been really difficult to keep up with email let alone this blog on the road. We have been moving from one spot to the next with out much downtime. I have also been experiencing complete writers block. I find it very difficult to express an honest opinion in a public forum connected to Organic Volunteers. I´m learning so much about the environmental and social movement in South America. The entire trip is becoming a jumble of new friends, farms, activists groups, new climates and long bus rides. I haven´t been able to materialize a clear concise story to write about. Now I´ll just have to start rambling about what we´re doing.
After IPEP we went to Uruguay on our way to Buenos Aires. We stayed with a couple that had been trying to start an ecovillage that never took off for all the reasons most ecovillages don´t take off. They were wonderful people with a lot of insight into the ecovillage movement in South America.
We stopped in Buenos Aires for a few days. We visited a recuperated shoe factory called Cooperativa Unido por el Calzado. The workers have successfully taken over the factory and are now producing their own line of shoes, without the help of bosses. Eat your heart out Phil Knight.
I traveled to the outskirts of Buenos Aires to visit the Movimiento de Trabajadores Desocupados (MTD) de La Matanza, a hardcore group of activists from a very poor part of Buenos Aires, working together, horizontally and autogestionado (translation pls?) to solve their own problems. La Matanza looks like warzone on the frontlines of the battle to globalize the freemarket economy. It is where people who are forgotten by the capitalist system come to live. That is how my friend from the MTD defines the Desocupados.
The MTD has started a bakery, clothing design studio, neighborhood barter and artesian market, cultural center and free kindergarten. The day I arrived the MTD received a letter from the government declaring the school "clandestine" and ordered it to be closed. After many rounds of mate and jokes the MTD decided to keep the school open anyway.
I was at the MTD to offer one of their members a scholarship to a natural building course being put on by Kleiwerks. The accepted the scholarship and the next day we were on the bus to El Bolson in the northern edge of the Patagonia.
We spent almost a month in Bolson, a wonderful hippy town in the mountains with many organic producers.
Then we took the 24 hour bus back to Buenos Aires for a 10 day, silent vipassana meditation course.
We had meeting after meeting in Buenos Aires. We meet with MAPO and The Working World among others.
Then we went to Cordoba and stayed with family friends. I lived with them 10 years ago in Cordoba during my first trip to South America. This is number 4.
We traveled north 2 hours to Yacu Yura also known as Aguas Claras near Capilla del Monte. Aguas Claras was a community but broke up a few years ago. Now there are a few new people there trying to transform the project.
We visited farms around the area including the biodynamic farm Los Jardines de Yaya. There we were told about the 20th conference of Biodynamic producers in the Southern Cone.
We were at the conference the past 4 days. And if you look at the 9 new hosts in Argentina, very productive for Organic Volunteers.
Naturaleza Viva, the conference location, was an amazing example of production ecological agriculture. On 200 acres the produce excellent dairy products, four kinds of meat, vegetables, flaxseed, soybean oil, sunflower seed oil and much more. The also barter with growers all over the country to complement their products. Almost all the food for the conference was from the farm. They even have a bio gas digester that powers all the cooking and value added product processing.
The owners of the farm were persecuted under the dictorship for organizing the campesino movement. They abandoned their daughter with a campesino family, hid in the jungle for 4 years and then in Europe for 4 years.
We left their farm last night. Tomorrow we meet with MOCAFOR and other campesino organizations from around the region. We have been told that MOCAFOR is made up of 5,000 families or about 45,000 people. Big families. A major problem the campesinos face is that many of them have been farm on land for generations without official titles. The owners are mysteriously appearing and kicking them off the land to plant transgenic soy. China imports 2/3rds of its soy from Argentina.
There is a cute little street dog sleeping under my computer in the internet cafe. All is well.
It has been awhile since I have posted anything on this forum. I wonder if anyone is reading it anymore. It has been really difficult to keep up with email let alone this blog on the road. We have been moving from one spot to the next with out much downtime. I have also been experiencing complete writers block. I find it very difficult to express an honest opinion in a public forum connected to Organic Volunteers. I´m learning so much about the environmental and social movement in South America. The entire trip is becoming a jumble of new friends, farms, activists groups, new climates and long bus rides. I haven´t been able to materialize a clear concise story to write about. Now I´ll just have to start rambling about what we´re doing.
After IPEP we went to Uruguay on our way to Buenos Aires. We stayed with a couple that had been trying to start an ecovillage that never took off for all the reasons most ecovillages don´t take off. They were wonderful people with a lot of insight into the ecovillage movement in South America.
We stopped in Buenos Aires for a few days. We visited a recuperated shoe factory called Cooperativa Unido por el Calzado. The workers have successfully taken over the factory and are now producing their own line of shoes, without the help of bosses. Eat your heart out Phil Knight.
I traveled to the outskirts of Buenos Aires to visit the Movimiento de Trabajadores Desocupados (MTD) de La Matanza, a hardcore group of activists from a very poor part of Buenos Aires, working together, horizontally and autogestionado (translation pls?) to solve their own problems. La Matanza looks like warzone on the frontlines of the battle to globalize the freemarket economy. It is where people who are forgotten by the capitalist system come to live. That is how my friend from the MTD defines the Desocupados.
The MTD has started a bakery, clothing design studio, neighborhood barter and artesian market, cultural center and free kindergarten. The day I arrived the MTD received a letter from the government declaring the school "clandestine" and ordered it to be closed. After many rounds of mate and jokes the MTD decided to keep the school open anyway.
I was at the MTD to offer one of their members a scholarship to a natural building course being put on by Kleiwerks. The accepted the scholarship and the next day we were on the bus to El Bolson in the northern edge of the Patagonia.
We spent almost a month in Bolson, a wonderful hippy town in the mountains with many organic producers.
Then we took the 24 hour bus back to Buenos Aires for a 10 day, silent vipassana meditation course.
We had meeting after meeting in Buenos Aires. We meet with MAPO and The Working World among others.
Then we went to Cordoba and stayed with family friends. I lived with them 10 years ago in Cordoba during my first trip to South America. This is number 4.
We traveled north 2 hours to Yacu Yura also known as Aguas Claras near Capilla del Monte. Aguas Claras was a community but broke up a few years ago. Now there are a few new people there trying to transform the project.
We visited farms around the area including the biodynamic farm Los Jardines de Yaya. There we were told about the 20th conference of Biodynamic producers in the Southern Cone.
We were at the conference the past 4 days. And if you look at the 9 new hosts in Argentina, very productive for Organic Volunteers.
Naturaleza Viva, the conference location, was an amazing example of production ecological agriculture. On 200 acres the produce excellent dairy products, four kinds of meat, vegetables, flaxseed, soybean oil, sunflower seed oil and much more. The also barter with growers all over the country to complement their products. Almost all the food for the conference was from the farm. They even have a bio gas digester that powers all the cooking and value added product processing.
The owners of the farm were persecuted under the dictorship for organizing the campesino movement. They abandoned their daughter with a campesino family, hid in the jungle for 4 years and then in Europe for 4 years.
We left their farm last night. Tomorrow we meet with MOCAFOR and other campesino organizations from around the region. We have been told that MOCAFOR is made up of 5,000 families or about 45,000 people. Big families. A major problem the campesinos face is that many of them have been farm on land for generations without official titles. The owners are mysteriously appearing and kicking them off the land to plant transgenic soy. China imports 2/3rds of its soy from Argentina.
There is a cute little street dog sleeping under my computer in the internet cafe. All is well.
Monday, February 7, 2005
Permaculture Community Restores Hope After World Social Forum
The day the World Social Forum ends, a heavy rain falls on Porto Alegre. It is as if the city is cleansing itself of all the dust, sweat, commerce, and human drama it has endured. We say good-bye to our host and his family and friends and head to the Forum to meet up with the folks from IPEP (Institute of Permaculture and Ecovillages of the Pampas) who have invited us to their site.
We find the folks from IPEP huddled under their bamboo shelter, eating mangoes and starting a fire in a tiny cob oven. We approach them and ask for Guillerme, the person with whom we’ve had most contact. Bira, a wiry guy with blackened, calloused hands shoves two papayas and a knife at us and explains between spastic hand gestures and fits of laughter that the van is broken, we won’t leave until six , and we’d better eat something because we have a lot to do. We spend the rest of the day breaking down bamboo structures and stacking hay bales then race to the station to catch the bus to Bagé.
Six hours later we stumble into the open arms of Andreu and Cristiano, the IPEP residents who stayed home to care for the land. They welcome us with a warmth I’ve never experienced anywhere, showering us with hugs and kisses and babbling excitedly about how happy they are to receive us. Andreu leads us up two ladders to drop our packs in our loft, then insists we join everyone for tea and a midnight snack. When we finally crawl under our mosquito nets, we sleep like rocks.
In the morning, we awake and wander outside into a permaculture paradise. Though it's only three years old, IPEP has two completed earth houses and two more under construction; a lushous veggie and flower garden; composting toilets; a biodigester; an organic rice paddy that produces 800 kilos annually; fields of yucca, black beans, and other staple crops; and huge areas of regenerating native forest.
I spend the morning mulching a field with Joanna, a young woman from São Paulo who has come to visit her friend Jessica, who lives at IPEP and teaches yoga in Bagé. We exchange histories as we work and discover many similarities in our personal journeys and world views. As Joanna describes her academic migration from Economics to Psychology to wondering if any university program can teach her what she wants to learn, I nod continuously. Her eyes light up when in response to her intellectual journey I tell her it makes sense to me that studying economics would make her wonder how our brains could come up with a system that assigns a higher value to gold than the clean water and fresh air our lives depend on. She tells me most people are confused by her transition.
At lunch we gather around one long table, our plates heaped with rice, black beans, deep-fried polenta, arugula, cucumbers, carrots, beets and tomatoes – all grown on site, except for the tomatoes. Over our meal we discuss what we need to do to prepare for the week long, 100 person natural building course that begins in a few days. Some disagreements arise over how to prioritize chores and how many scoops of saw-dust should be tossed in the composting toilet after each use. But the arguments are more entertaining than divisive: Those in disagreement imitate one another, they make histerical facial expressions and bring up funny stories from the past to prove their points. In the end the room explodes into laughter, with everyone hooting and hugging and walking away shaking their heads. I try to imagine our world leaders resolving their differences this way- Bush cupping Hugo Chavez’s face in his hands and kissing his forehead between fits of giggles...
We have tons of work in very little time but our hosts insist that we find a nice place to relax after lunch. Andreu explains, “Now we rest. One hour. In Brazil we call this sesta. Then we work until
dinner”. We crawl into a hammock and nap until Joanna appears with a armful of burlap sacks and says (in English), “Come, we’re going to catch beans.”
We follow our hosts through the rice paddies, up the hill overlooking the earth houses. Along the way we stop to look at an area where they’ve planted avocados, sweet potatoes, and leafy greens beneath the native climax species. “We are showing that you don’t have to clear the forest to grow food,” explains Cristiano. “Most people here are too impatient to wait for this tree to grow fully and die back so they burn it down. It is uneccessary. If you wait for it to die back all the matter that it drops adds nutrients to the soil, helping the next cycle of life.”
Just past the forest garden Cristiano points out a gulch with hand-woven dams at 15 ft. intervals. “For erosion,” he tells us. “The previous owners mistreated this land. They cut down all the trees and grazed too many cows. So the rain causes a flood and it cuts this trench. We’ve planted species with strong root systems on both sides to prevent the banks from receeding further...and the corn in the gulch itself. The dams catch the soil, water, organic matter. And we eat the food.” Cristiano flashes us a smile that reaches from ear to ear. We respond with a thumbs up, a sign Brazilians use all the time to express both delight and gratitude.
We follow the property line to the upper fields. Hardly anthing grows on the neighbor’s side. There is only stubby grass and a shrinking, algae covered pond. Some cows stop grazing and stare at us. “They wish their owner did Permaculture,” someone says and everyone nods and laughs.
We harvest black beans until sunset. I do not think of what we are doing as work. We are amongst friends, sharing dreams of a sustainable future, exchanging stories, joking about Mayan calendar signs. At one point we ask one another’s ages. Everyone turns out to be between 22 and 24 years old. Andreu (who is somewhat easily excitable) raises his hands over his head and begins cheering, “Nossa generacion! Nossa generacion!” (our generation) His shouts make me feel ecstatic. They erase the saddness that the chaos and commercialism of the World Social Forum had left me feeling. Whereas the Social Forum made me doubt that another world is possible, watching my generation growing food, building earth houses, sharing meals, and resolving conflicts restored my hope.
We find the folks from IPEP huddled under their bamboo shelter, eating mangoes and starting a fire in a tiny cob oven. We approach them and ask for Guillerme, the person with whom we’ve had most contact. Bira, a wiry guy with blackened, calloused hands shoves two papayas and a knife at us and explains between spastic hand gestures and fits of laughter that the van is broken, we won’t leave until six , and we’d better eat something because we have a lot to do. We spend the rest of the day breaking down bamboo structures and stacking hay bales then race to the station to catch the bus to Bagé.
Six hours later we stumble into the open arms of Andreu and Cristiano, the IPEP residents who stayed home to care for the land. They welcome us with a warmth I’ve never experienced anywhere, showering us with hugs and kisses and babbling excitedly about how happy they are to receive us. Andreu leads us up two ladders to drop our packs in our loft, then insists we join everyone for tea and a midnight snack. When we finally crawl under our mosquito nets, we sleep like rocks.
In the morning, we awake and wander outside into a permaculture paradise. Though it's only three years old, IPEP has two completed earth houses and two more under construction; a lushous veggie and flower garden; composting toilets; a biodigester; an organic rice paddy that produces 800 kilos annually; fields of yucca, black beans, and other staple crops; and huge areas of regenerating native forest.
I spend the morning mulching a field with Joanna, a young woman from São Paulo who has come to visit her friend Jessica, who lives at IPEP and teaches yoga in Bagé. We exchange histories as we work and discover many similarities in our personal journeys and world views. As Joanna describes her academic migration from Economics to Psychology to wondering if any university program can teach her what she wants to learn, I nod continuously. Her eyes light up when in response to her intellectual journey I tell her it makes sense to me that studying economics would make her wonder how our brains could come up with a system that assigns a higher value to gold than the clean water and fresh air our lives depend on. She tells me most people are confused by her transition.
At lunch we gather around one long table, our plates heaped with rice, black beans, deep-fried polenta, arugula, cucumbers, carrots, beets and tomatoes – all grown on site, except for the tomatoes. Over our meal we discuss what we need to do to prepare for the week long, 100 person natural building course that begins in a few days. Some disagreements arise over how to prioritize chores and how many scoops of saw-dust should be tossed in the composting toilet after each use. But the arguments are more entertaining than divisive: Those in disagreement imitate one another, they make histerical facial expressions and bring up funny stories from the past to prove their points. In the end the room explodes into laughter, with everyone hooting and hugging and walking away shaking their heads. I try to imagine our world leaders resolving their differences this way- Bush cupping Hugo Chavez’s face in his hands and kissing his forehead between fits of giggles...
We have tons of work in very little time but our hosts insist that we find a nice place to relax after lunch. Andreu explains, “Now we rest. One hour. In Brazil we call this sesta. Then we work until
dinner”. We crawl into a hammock and nap until Joanna appears with a armful of burlap sacks and says (in English), “Come, we’re going to catch beans.”
We follow our hosts through the rice paddies, up the hill overlooking the earth houses. Along the way we stop to look at an area where they’ve planted avocados, sweet potatoes, and leafy greens beneath the native climax species. “We are showing that you don’t have to clear the forest to grow food,” explains Cristiano. “Most people here are too impatient to wait for this tree to grow fully and die back so they burn it down. It is uneccessary. If you wait for it to die back all the matter that it drops adds nutrients to the soil, helping the next cycle of life.”
Just past the forest garden Cristiano points out a gulch with hand-woven dams at 15 ft. intervals. “For erosion,” he tells us. “The previous owners mistreated this land. They cut down all the trees and grazed too many cows. So the rain causes a flood and it cuts this trench. We’ve planted species with strong root systems on both sides to prevent the banks from receeding further...and the corn in the gulch itself. The dams catch the soil, water, organic matter. And we eat the food.” Cristiano flashes us a smile that reaches from ear to ear. We respond with a thumbs up, a sign Brazilians use all the time to express both delight and gratitude.
We follow the property line to the upper fields. Hardly anthing grows on the neighbor’s side. There is only stubby grass and a shrinking, algae covered pond. Some cows stop grazing and stare at us. “They wish their owner did Permaculture,” someone says and everyone nods and laughs.
We harvest black beans until sunset. I do not think of what we are doing as work. We are amongst friends, sharing dreams of a sustainable future, exchanging stories, joking about Mayan calendar signs. At one point we ask one another’s ages. Everyone turns out to be between 22 and 24 years old. Andreu (who is somewhat easily excitable) raises his hands over his head and begins cheering, “Nossa generacion! Nossa generacion!” (our generation) His shouts make me feel ecstatic. They erase the saddness that the chaos and commercialism of the World Social Forum had left me feeling. Whereas the Social Forum made me doubt that another world is possible, watching my generation growing food, building earth houses, sharing meals, and resolving conflicts restored my hope.
Sunday, February 6, 2005
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez at the World Social Forum
Porto Alegre, Brazil- On January 29th Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, held a press conference at the World Social Forum. Sarita and I attended as reporters from the CPJ, the student paper of The Evergreen State College.
Chavez has intrigued me since I heard reports on Democracy Now! on the 2002 USA backed attempted coup. During the coup the military seized the presidential palace and Chavez was flown out of the country. However, the loyal palace guards and 1 million people in the streets took the palace back and returned Chavez to power. The entire episode was captured in the documentary olThe Revution will not be Televised.
Chavez supporters hail him as a president of the people, the most progressive in Latin America. His opposition considers him to be a communist dictator with too-close-for-comfort ties to Cuba. I jumped at the chance to hear him in person and decide for myself what kind of president he is.
The press conference was held at the hotel São Rafael in Porto Alegre. When we arrived the line for registering as press was already wrapped around the room three times. We waited in line for forty-five minutes until someone yelled, “That’s it, no more press”. The line of reporters exploded into chaos. Everyone ran for the room where Chavez would speak. The crowd pushed up against the door and demanded to be let in. They started chanting, “Somos jornalista, no somos terroistas.” We’re journalists, not terrorists. We could see through an open door that there was plenty of space in the pressroom.
Finally the organizers succumbed to the crowd and the mob of reporters flooded into the room. Sarita and I were surfed to the front of the room. We sat on the floor about ten feet from the podium.
I highly doubted that Chavez would speak at such an insecure event. No one went through any kind of security clearance and there were no armed guards in sight. Yet after fifteen minutes of chaos, Chavez walked into the room and the room exploded with blinding camera flashes.
Five names were of reporters who could ask one question each were picked from a hat. He was asked about the role of the military, how the Brazilian media covered the 2002 coup, Venezuela/Cuba relations, Venezuela’s international relations with the EU, US and Colombia and about the situation in Haiti.
Chavez was cheerful and witty as he answered the questions in true South American politician style, rambling into long speeches about topics he felt were more important than the questions asked. Here are some of the salient points that Chavez made:
- The role of the military should be that of “liberators”, an anti-imperial force that protects the people. He stressed the need for the people to be more involved in the defense of the country. In addition the military should be more involved in society through civic and education projects.
- The world is in the middle of a severe environmental crisis. He referred to the planet as a living body that has, “a pulse, temperature and equilibrium.” He said, “If we don’t transcend the capitalist, neoliberal model, the planet cannot resist anymore.” He stressed that is necessary to join with the people of the North the fight for a better world.
- The people of the USA are victims of a “media dictatorship”. The media is controlled by a few large corporations like CNN, FOX, etc.
- Chavez described his visit earlier that day to a settlement of the MST (Landless Workers Movement). He was pleased with their regard for the local ecology. He described their polyculture method of farming rice using organic fertilizer. Carp that swim in the rice paddies do the tilling by burrowing into the soil and eat parasitic insects. He was impressed with the MST seed saving program and signed a paper showing his intent to start a seed trade with Brazil. He spoke against genetically modified crops.
- Chavez defined the free market neoliberal thesis as, “Privatize everything, wait twenty years and when everyone is dying of hunger…the economy will magically begin to flourish.” He is opposed to free trade agreements like the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). He explained that his version of the FTAA would be neighboring countries trading resources they are rich in for resources they badly need. As an example he said Venezuela sells Cuba oil at a 20% discount. They pay the discount back by providing social services in Venezuela. Thousands of Cuban doctors are working in Venezuela and Cuba is helping them develop a sugar industry.
- In regards to the recent coup in Haiti, Chavez said there is only one president of Haiti and it is Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
- Chavez was very explicit when addressing US/Venezuela relations. He said, “We are anti-imperialist, they [the USA] are imperialists.” He responded to a recent comment that Condoleeza Rice made referring to Chavez as “a negative force in the region”. He said, “The biggest negative force in the world is the USA.” He also mentioned that Bush constantly talks about fighting for freedom and justice “but never speaks about equality.” He said Bush should take a lesson from some of the American heroes like Martin Luther King Jr.
After the press conference we rushed to the stadium where Chavez would speak to thousands of participants from the World Social Forum. However, that is a different story and Chavez didn’t cover anything new in his speech.
Friday, January 28, 2005
Anti-USentiment Prevalent as 5th World Social Forum Begins
Porto Alegre Brazil, 1/28/05-- Slogans and images opposing US economic and military policy clearly dominated the 50,000 person opening march of the World Social Forum (WSF) on Wednesday. Banners opposing Bush and the Iraq War were the most prevalent, although many addressed corporate domination and globalization. One gigantic banner summed up all the messages; a red X through the letters “USA”.
An anonymous protester explained, “I'm not opposed to the people of the USA, just the policies.”
While many protested the US policy others were happy to see many participants from the USA at the WSF. Felipe, a WSF volunteer, commented “I'm glad to see so many people from the US, especially the media. I didn't know people from the US supported this kind of social movement.”
However, the WSF covers hundreds of issues beyond action against US domination. Over 100,000 people will participate in over 2000 planned activities. The activities are proposed and managed independently by organizations around the world. Any organization can plan an activity.
The forum is laid out in 11 thematic villages along the riverbank of Rio Guaibe. The themes are:
1.Autonomous thought, reappropriation and socialization of knowledge and technologies.
2.Defending diversity, plurality and identities.
3.Arts and creation: weaving and building people's resistance culture.
4.Communication: counter-hegemonic practices, rights and alternatives.
5.Assuring and defending Earth and people's common goods- as alternative to commodification and transnational control.
6.Social struggles and democratic alternatives – against neoliberal domination.
7.Peace, demilitarisation and struggle against war, free trade and debt.
8.Towards construction of international democratic order and people's integration.
9.Sovereign economies for and of people- against neoliberal capitalism.
10.Human rights and dignity for a just and egalitarian world.
11.Ethics, cosmovisions and spiritualities- resistances and challenges for a new world.
At the center of the WSF is the gigantic Youth Camp, a festival within the festival. The campers partied until day break after Manu Chau played the final set of the opening ceremony of the WSF.
For more on the WSF visit:www.forumsocialmundial.org.br
An anonymous protester explained, “I'm not opposed to the people of the USA, just the policies.”
While many protested the US policy others were happy to see many participants from the USA at the WSF. Felipe, a WSF volunteer, commented “I'm glad to see so many people from the US, especially the media. I didn't know people from the US supported this kind of social movement.”
However, the WSF covers hundreds of issues beyond action against US domination. Over 100,000 people will participate in over 2000 planned activities. The activities are proposed and managed independently by organizations around the world. Any organization can plan an activity.
The forum is laid out in 11 thematic villages along the riverbank of Rio Guaibe. The themes are:
1.Autonomous thought, reappropriation and socialization of knowledge and technologies.
2.Defending diversity, plurality and identities.
3.Arts and creation: weaving and building people's resistance culture.
4.Communication: counter-hegemonic practices, rights and alternatives.
5.Assuring and defending Earth and people's common goods- as alternative to commodification and transnational control.
6.Social struggles and democratic alternatives – against neoliberal domination.
7.Peace, demilitarisation and struggle against war, free trade and debt.
8.Towards construction of international democratic order and people's integration.
9.Sovereign economies for and of people- against neoliberal capitalism.
10.Human rights and dignity for a just and egalitarian world.
11.Ethics, cosmovisions and spiritualities- resistances and challenges for a new world.
At the center of the WSF is the gigantic Youth Camp, a festival within the festival. The campers partied until day break after Manu Chau played the final set of the opening ceremony of the WSF.
For more on the WSF visit:www.forumsocialmundial.org.br
Friday, January 21, 2005
Gaia Ecovillage
Navarro, Argentina, 1/21/2005-- A bumpy three hour, stop and go bus ride out of the metropolis of Buenos Aires lays the small agricultural town of Navarro. Just outside town Gaia Ecovillage sits on 20 hectares, nestled amongst thousands of hectares of estancias, large land holdings. Most of the estancias are for dairy production but the latest agricultural rave is transgenic soybeans. Argentina is one of the largest exporters of soybeans in the world.
Gaia is a tiny David amongst an army of Goliaths. However, their pioneering work to establish a sustainability movement in Argentina is starting to capture the attention of the country. A few months ago Gaia was featured on national television and last week they were interviewed by a reporter from La Nacion, the largest newspaper in the country.
Since 1996 their small group of 8-12 people has established an important model of sustainable living. The goal of the project is to live spiritually satisfying lives in community and in harmony with the natural ecology. The land has been designed using the concepts of permaculture, a methodology for developing sustainable human settlements. One-hundred percent of their electricity comes from three wind turbines. All of their cooking is done on parabolic solar cookers and an efficient wood fired, earth and metal oven. The showers are solar heated. They have completed two hand sculpted earth houses that look more like works of art than habitations. The smooth, poured-earth floors and thick earth walls stay cool under the blazing sun. A huge thatched roof earth common house is under construction.
Gaia Ecovillage is also one of the few places in Argentina where you can get an almost entirely organic and homegrown meal. Although they don’t yet produce many staple crops and their fruit trees are still immature, their vegetable garden is abundant. They even save their own seed.
In addition to practicing sustainable living the residents at Gaia also teach others to do the same. They regularly teach courses in permaculture, natural building and community living. Some of the courses are geared towards foreigners but the most are taught completely in Spanish for the local population.
Life certainly isn’t perfect at Gaia. Community dynamics can be tumultuous and economic resources scarce. However, in comparison to the poor neighborhoods outside Buenos Aires life is comfortable and healthy. The simple and natural approach to living practiced at Gaia has great potential to improve the lives of many Argentineans.
For more information, workshop schedules and internship opportunities visit,
www.gaia.org.ar
Gaia is a tiny David amongst an army of Goliaths. However, their pioneering work to establish a sustainability movement in Argentina is starting to capture the attention of the country. A few months ago Gaia was featured on national television and last week they were interviewed by a reporter from La Nacion, the largest newspaper in the country.
Since 1996 their small group of 8-12 people has established an important model of sustainable living. The goal of the project is to live spiritually satisfying lives in community and in harmony with the natural ecology. The land has been designed using the concepts of permaculture, a methodology for developing sustainable human settlements. One-hundred percent of their electricity comes from three wind turbines. All of their cooking is done on parabolic solar cookers and an efficient wood fired, earth and metal oven. The showers are solar heated. They have completed two hand sculpted earth houses that look more like works of art than habitations. The smooth, poured-earth floors and thick earth walls stay cool under the blazing sun. A huge thatched roof earth common house is under construction.
Gaia Ecovillage is also one of the few places in Argentina where you can get an almost entirely organic and homegrown meal. Although they don’t yet produce many staple crops and their fruit trees are still immature, their vegetable garden is abundant. They even save their own seed.
In addition to practicing sustainable living the residents at Gaia also teach others to do the same. They regularly teach courses in permaculture, natural building and community living. Some of the courses are geared towards foreigners but the most are taught completely in Spanish for the local population.
Life certainly isn’t perfect at Gaia. Community dynamics can be tumultuous and economic resources scarce. However, in comparison to the poor neighborhoods outside Buenos Aires life is comfortable and healthy. The simple and natural approach to living practiced at Gaia has great potential to improve the lives of many Argentineans.
For more information, workshop schedules and internship opportunities visit,
www.gaia.org.ar
Report from Enero Autonomo
La Matanza, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Crouched on the factory’s cement floor, amidst dust and cigarette butts, I watch Enero Autonomo (Autonomous January) participants mingle and interact. Barefoot kids of every size and color dart between the adults and practice murga (a resistance dance created by African slaves) in the open spaces. People from each collective stand beneath their respective banner, selling homemade sandals, leather pouches, pastries, picture frames, wild-crafted herbs, and self-published literature. Of all the participants, those from the Movement of Unemployed Workers (MTD) have the greatest presence here. They are the most numerous, the most vocal, and the most at ease in this environment. Their ease makes sense: Tucuypaj is an abandoned factory, the MTD abandoned people.
Enero Autonomo is a four day “gathering of autonomous thought” that takes place in the outskirts of Buenos Aires. Unemployed people, neighborhood assemblies, indigenous groups, and national and international activists come here to reflect upon their actions, share experiences, and brainstorm new strategies for social change. Participants host and attend workshops, discussions, performances, and video screenings. They share meals and sleep beside one another in tents or on the factory floor. Like the World Social Forum, Enero Autonomo is intended to transcend the event itself, as participants incorporate the lessons they learn and the relationships they form here into their daily lives.
Throughout the first two days of Enero Autonomo, I’ve heard activists speak of autonomy the way we speak of sustainability in the United States: as a concept that is difficult to describe and even harder to embody. Since what is non-autonomous and unsustainable relies on hierarchy, oppression, and dependence, we speak of “horizontality”, “freedom”, and “self-reliance”. But we realize these are abstract notions, words that mean little until translated into food, shelter, and healthy relationships.
Crouched on the factory’s cement floor, amidst dust and cigarette butts, I watch Enero Autonomo (Autonomous January) participants mingle and interact. Barefoot kids of every size and color dart between the adults and practice murga (a resistance dance created by African slaves) in the open spaces. People from each collective stand beneath their respective banner, selling homemade sandals, leather pouches, pastries, picture frames, wild-crafted herbs, and self-published literature. Of all the participants, those from the Movement of Unemployed Workers (MTD) have the greatest presence here. They are the most numerous, the most vocal, and the most at ease in this environment. Their ease makes sense: Tucuypaj is an abandoned factory, the MTD abandoned people.
Enero Autonomo is a four day “gathering of autonomous thought” that takes place in the outskirts of Buenos Aires. Unemployed people, neighborhood assemblies, indigenous groups, and national and international activists come here to reflect upon their actions, share experiences, and brainstorm new strategies for social change. Participants host and attend workshops, discussions, performances, and video screenings. They share meals and sleep beside one another in tents or on the factory floor. Like the World Social Forum, Enero Autonomo is intended to transcend the event itself, as participants incorporate the lessons they learn and the relationships they form here into their daily lives.
Throughout the first two days of Enero Autonomo, I’ve heard activists speak of autonomy the way we speak of sustainability in the United States: as a concept that is difficult to describe and even harder to embody. Since what is non-autonomous and unsustainable relies on hierarchy, oppression, and dependence, we speak of “horizontality”, “freedom”, and “self-reliance”. But we realize these are abstract notions, words that mean little until translated into food, shelter, and healthy relationships.
Friday, January 14, 2005
In Buenos Aires, the Crisis Fades from Sight but not from People’s Minds
Buenos Aires, Argentina
In the Plaza de Mayo, just opposite the Presidential Palace, vendors watch their Argentine flags, pins and mate cups from a distance, resting against the iron police barricades that have become permanent fixtures in the park. Tourists photograph from strange angles to avoid political graffiti. The clanging of pots and pans and the chorus of thousands chanting “Que se vayan todos” (They all [the government] must go), heard throughout the “the week of the five presidents”, have subsided. The banks have replaced their broken windows and ATMs, and the cover story of a major newspaper assures readers that a new strategy for repaying foreign debt will soon “restore normality”.
“You can´t see the crisis the way you could two years ago,” comments Paula, owner of Hostal Don Sancho, recalling what Buenos Aires was like in 2002. “There was no money. There were only vouchers- little pieces of paper printed by provincial governments that said ‘this bill is worth so many pesos’. The biggest denomination they came in was 20 pesos and they had expiration dates. In the absence of currency, people bartered for most goods and services- including people who until then had been members of the middle class, a class that has all but disappeared…Those who could afford to left the country. Lines of people, most of them younger than 40 years old, stretched for blocks from the Spanish and Italian embassies…supermarkets stocked their shelves with generic brands of everything, and restaurants reduced the size of all their portions – without reducing the price…Repairmen came out of the woodwork to fix T.V.´s, shoes, appliances – all the things that people had grown accustomed to throwing away and replacing with new ones…international travel (for all but the wealthiest) was unheard of…”
For those of us born long after the Great Depression, it is difficult, if not impossible to comprehend the loss that Argentines have experienced. My friend Hugo explained, “I had 10,000 pesos – an amount equal to US$10,000- in savings. When the peso was devalued, I had $3,000.” To give an idea what such a change might mean for a young person in the United States: imagine you live in Olympia, Washington, and pay around US$300 per month for rent. If what happened to the peso happened to the dollar, the $300 you’d put aside for rent would suddenly be worth less than $100. To put it another way, it would be equivalent to your landlord raising your rent from $300 to $900. Not only that, your landlord would probably do what many Argentine landlords did to cover their own losses – raise the rent.
Needless to say, a country needs more than three years to recooperate from a crisis of this magnitude. The relative calm I encountered this afternoon in the Plaza de Mayo signified neither recovery nor the end of resistance to “el modelo” – the neoliberal model based on “free trade” and privatization, but the beginning of a new phase of resistance. The Plaza was empty because the piqueteros (protesters, activists) are now busy working on long term projects, like starting schools and cooperative factories. The resistance is not dwindling; it is taking new form. Though the words “Sovereignty or IMF”, scrawled across one city wall, are fading, Argentines desire for a new economic system based on social justice and sustainability is not.
In the Plaza de Mayo, just opposite the Presidential Palace, vendors watch their Argentine flags, pins and mate cups from a distance, resting against the iron police barricades that have become permanent fixtures in the park. Tourists photograph from strange angles to avoid political graffiti. The clanging of pots and pans and the chorus of thousands chanting “Que se vayan todos” (They all [the government] must go), heard throughout the “the week of the five presidents”, have subsided. The banks have replaced their broken windows and ATMs, and the cover story of a major newspaper assures readers that a new strategy for repaying foreign debt will soon “restore normality”.
“You can´t see the crisis the way you could two years ago,” comments Paula, owner of Hostal Don Sancho, recalling what Buenos Aires was like in 2002. “There was no money. There were only vouchers- little pieces of paper printed by provincial governments that said ‘this bill is worth so many pesos’. The biggest denomination they came in was 20 pesos and they had expiration dates. In the absence of currency, people bartered for most goods and services- including people who until then had been members of the middle class, a class that has all but disappeared…Those who could afford to left the country. Lines of people, most of them younger than 40 years old, stretched for blocks from the Spanish and Italian embassies…supermarkets stocked their shelves with generic brands of everything, and restaurants reduced the size of all their portions – without reducing the price…Repairmen came out of the woodwork to fix T.V.´s, shoes, appliances – all the things that people had grown accustomed to throwing away and replacing with new ones…international travel (for all but the wealthiest) was unheard of…”
For those of us born long after the Great Depression, it is difficult, if not impossible to comprehend the loss that Argentines have experienced. My friend Hugo explained, “I had 10,000 pesos – an amount equal to US$10,000- in savings. When the peso was devalued, I had $3,000.” To give an idea what such a change might mean for a young person in the United States: imagine you live in Olympia, Washington, and pay around US$300 per month for rent. If what happened to the peso happened to the dollar, the $300 you’d put aside for rent would suddenly be worth less than $100. To put it another way, it would be equivalent to your landlord raising your rent from $300 to $900. Not only that, your landlord would probably do what many Argentine landlords did to cover their own losses – raise the rent.
Needless to say, a country needs more than three years to recooperate from a crisis of this magnitude. The relative calm I encountered this afternoon in the Plaza de Mayo signified neither recovery nor the end of resistance to “el modelo” – the neoliberal model based on “free trade” and privatization, but the beginning of a new phase of resistance. The Plaza was empty because the piqueteros (protesters, activists) are now busy working on long term projects, like starting schools and cooperative factories. The resistance is not dwindling; it is taking new form. Though the words “Sovereignty or IMF”, scrawled across one city wall, are fading, Argentines desire for a new economic system based on social justice and sustainability is not.
World Social Forum: an act of International Solidarity
Buenos Aires, Argentina-- From January 26th-30th, Sarita and I will represent Organic Volunteers at this year´s World Social Forum. We will be among hundreds of organizations and individuals from the US who are attending to show the world the social movement in the US is still strong. In a time when many have lost hope in the US this forum will be an important act of solidarity. We are especially excited to be representing the organic and sustainable agriculture movement in the US. The role of agriculture subsidies in globalization and postive solutions like organic farming will be central to the conference. This article from Common Dreams provides a good description of the forum: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0112-08.htm
Monday, January 10, 2005
Networking Organic Argentina
On Monday, January 10th, Sarita and I fly to Buenos Aires. For the next five months we will travel through Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Peru for our non profit organization, Organic Volunteers. Our website, www.GrowFood.org, lists more than 750 internships, jobs, workshops and volunteer opportunities in organic farming and sustainability in the USA. This winter we will collaborate with Latin American organizations to create an intercontinental network.
In the age of eBay our little website doesn’t sound like much. However, we’re talking about more than online sales. We make real connections between real people. We use a decentralized network, rather than a hierarchical organization to revolutionize education. Over 9000 members use Organic Volunteers to get their hands dirty experiencing sustainability, instead of paying large sums of money to read about it at a university. The farmer is the professor; the farm, the classroom. We enroll as many students as my state university, The Evergreen State College.
During our trip we will report on current events and our adventures on this blog and in independant media. (Using a Linux based laptop supplied by FreeGeek Olympia!) Our itinerary is ever evolving but here are some exciting events we will cover:
• Enero Autonomo, an international meeting of autonomous organizations and human rights activists, to be held in an occupied factory in La Tablada, Gran Buenos Aires, Argentina. (www.autonomista.org)
• The World Social Forum, one of the largest meetings of international civic groups to set an alternative world agenda that puts peace, social justice and environmental sustainability before short-term profits. (www.forumsocialmundial.org.br)
• Permaculture in Patagonia, a twelve week practicum where participants learn to design sustainable human settlements that regenerate, rather than destroy, the Earth. (www.kleiwerks.com)
In the age of eBay our little website doesn’t sound like much. However, we’re talking about more than online sales. We make real connections between real people. We use a decentralized network, rather than a hierarchical organization to revolutionize education. Over 9000 members use Organic Volunteers to get their hands dirty experiencing sustainability, instead of paying large sums of money to read about it at a university. The farmer is the professor; the farm, the classroom. We enroll as many students as my state university, The Evergreen State College.
During our trip we will report on current events and our adventures on this blog and in independant media. (Using a Linux based laptop supplied by FreeGeek Olympia!) Our itinerary is ever evolving but here are some exciting events we will cover:
• Enero Autonomo, an international meeting of autonomous organizations and human rights activists, to be held in an occupied factory in La Tablada, Gran Buenos Aires, Argentina. (www.autonomista.org)
• The World Social Forum, one of the largest meetings of international civic groups to set an alternative world agenda that puts peace, social justice and environmental sustainability before short-term profits. (www.forumsocialmundial.org.br)
• Permaculture in Patagonia, a twelve week practicum where participants learn to design sustainable human settlements that regenerate, rather than destroy, the Earth. (www.kleiwerks.com)
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