Day 6: Walking the word - decolonising solidarity

It is the end of the beginning. The last day of an exhausting but amazing week of mobilisations. The closing act of the Peoples Pre-congress takes place in the central park in Cali, after another two hour march. An afro-colombia leader from Choco is given a special place in the closure to make visible the presence of afro-colombian communities in the Minga. Choco is the poorest region in Colombia.

"The only way to travel in Choco easily is by plane and we all know who planes are for. We travelled on foot, in canoes and in buses for several days, sleeping in difficult conditions and going without food to get here, to participate in Minga".

He tells us how the population of Quibdo, the main town in the region, has doubled from 40,000 to 80,000. Choqueños, mainly afrodescendents, have been forced to abandon their territories due to the violent imposition of megaprojects such as mining and palm oil .

"We know that alone we are not able to change things, we need to unite with indigenous, with campesinos, because in the end we are all living with the same difficulties and problems. This is why seven hundred of us have made the huge effort to be here in the Peoples Pre-congress".
Tears trickle out of me as I make links between this declaration of the Peoples Pre-congress and a difficult conversation I had last night.

Last night a friend challenges me to reflect on something I did. He challenged me to look at how I controlled the way in which we discusses a difficult conversation, racism within the Minga. With the bitter taste of irony in my mouth, I, with my full set of colonial priviliges, british, privilige to move wherever I want in the world, white, privilige to walk down the street and for people not to think I am going to mug them, set the terms for how we discussed racism that suited my needs, and not his. As we talk, his anger manifests itself as he goes over and over the two words he has written on a scrap of paper, ego britanico.

“I have seen this before many times. The arrogance and preponencia of british people to have their own way, the result of being from a country that has repeatedly colonised and dispossed other peoples throughout history to get its own way”.

His words challenge rather than shock or suprise me. I am grateful to this rare person who critiqued me to my face. I wonder how many people I meet share similar criticisms about my way of doing things but do not tell me. I wonder what this says about ongoing patterns of colonial power within my everyday relationships here. I breathe deeply as I look at my challenge of how to achieve the balance between being myself and being conscious and accountable to how my self has been shaped by my cultural-political-historical context.

Back in the park, we listen to a song by Mercedes Sosa, recently passed away, as the Peoples Precongress in Cali draws to a close in Cali's central park. The thousands of participants stand intently, some listening, some quietly singing alone. The compañeros who sings it, dedicates it to those compañeros no longer with us, including Mateo. As I listen to the beautiful melody, I imagine what he could have taught me. Mateo, a Swiss revolutionary, worked for ten years as part of the Red de Hermandad. He was killed last December in a road accident. Incredibly missed and rememberd within the social movements in Cauca and Valle I wish I had the opportunity to know how he worked to de-colonise himself.
After the song, two compañeros read the final declaration.

"Minga is a collective expression that revives hope, that strengthens resistance and walks the word in defence of dignity and in commitment to collective life. We are conscious of how the neoliberal strategy is strengthened in our territories through the handing over resources and selling of mother earth to international capital, thorugh the recomposition of of corruption and the legalising of crimes against Colombia´s sovereigny, and through impunity and the militrisation of civilian life."

I seek a place to be alone with my emotions of rage and sadness. The weight of being British, of having benefited from so much violence, of being surrounded in the park by so many people who suffer from this violence, overwhelms me. The weight of knowing that the British ego is alive and kicking and that it continues to play a crucial role within the UK in the justification of the violent looting of other peoples natural resources is overwhelming.

I feel a hand on my shoulder and look up to see the caring eyes of an indigenous leader who I have shared words with during the week. He has 5 bullet wounds from attempted assassination attempts and had his farm burnt down. He is now displaced, living between cities. During this week, he was always accompanied by four indigenous guards. He tells me that when he goes back to his community, it is obligatory for him that he travels with thirty indigenous guard, armed with just their bastions of resistance. He listens to my emotions, as the words of the final declaration sound in the background.

"Mingueros and Mingueras, we have gathered in this spaces filled with dreams and ideals and we leave with thoughts on how to legalise with significant popular legitimacy, with proposals on the path to peace, whose route is the word that overflows with solidarity, generosity and resistence."

My solidarity must begin and end with me, a white british folk, learning to notice my colonial mentalities and then taking responsibility for them.

For more thoughs about this work of decolonising solidarity visit decolonizingsolidarity.blogspot.com, the blog a beautiful wise friend.

To read the full closing declaration and the notes from the 5 tulpas that discussed the five points of the Agenda of the Minga check out this blog (in spanish only)

Day 3: Building Popular Power in Minga

It is nearly 9pm on Tuesday night in the grounds of the Coliseo in the city of Cali. People have rested after the 3 day of walking 15km and young indigeneous are now dancing in large circles in front of the stage. The music fades and Feliciano Valencia, spokesperson for La Minga speaks to the thousands that have gathered to listen to the proposals for tomorrows activities;

• delegations to visit 5 places in the city to talk about what is Minga and to invite community organisations to walk the word


• a caravan in the 40 chivas through the streets of Cali to make the Minga visible,


• join teachers who are marching against labour conditions and have invited us to join.


• begin thinking collectively about what the Congress of the People, planned for July 2010, actually is with important questions for consideration such as how are we going to legislate and what are the mechanisms and strategies we need so that the peoples laws are put into practice?

With the sheer quanity of people I have been curious to watch how decisions are made at this scale, how different forms of power are working and and how popular power is being built. What I watched was these proposals being created through a serious of meetings. Firstly the political commision of the Minga, which includes representatives of each social organisation involved in the Minga, met and came up with a proposal with Feliciano playing the role of listening, gathering all the opinions and presenting a synthesized proposal. This was then discussed and adapted by some 40 governers of the different Indigenous reservations. This was then presented to everyone. During the night, each community will have discussed it and as I write, another meeting is taking place to finalise the plans for today.

The sheer presence of indigenous from Cauca, through their impressive organisational capacity, is a challenge to the proposal of Minga to be inclusive to all. Yesterday, there was some serious errors such as the idea to start the pre-congress before the second smaller march arrives , yet once this was flagged up the idea was inmediately dropped. There is much to be learnt, and to get wrong and do better the next time, in terms of thinking about how to make proposals that are not based in sectorial thinking, but thinking of all.

Much has already been learnt. The 5 point agenda includes indigenous based proposals around territory and cultural, while also going much beyond and is incredibly inclusive. And as a friend says over a beer last night, "i think there is a distortion of the reality abroad of Colombia. They either thing that all resistence follows the same logic as the insurgency or that the problems in Colombia are all about defending the profits from the drug-trafficing trade. Here, what I think is important to say to people in your country is that we are here saying clearly there is another reality in which many Colombians are living and from this harsh violent reality, we are building a resistance based in the grassroots, and it is a resistance that is building serious proposals collectively to create another country. And the government are worried, the moment the indigenous invited other social organisations to recognise the commonality, they see a threat to their dictatureship"

In Popayan, two hours further south, mainly campesinos organisations held a campesino and popular assembly on Monday in preparation for the precongress in Cali. They declare " In our territories, we, communities and organisations will not allows policies and laws to be applied that are harmful to us, that have not consulted with us, that do not take into account the wellbeing of all and that are not participatory, coordinated or integral. Handing over territory to private hands will not be accepted and we will assert our rights to sovereignty, autonomy and independence to maintain the integrity of our lands."
And in the north of the country, social organisacions write "With happiness and vitality typical of the communities, but also with the hope to change the hard conditions that characterise their lives, the habitants of the Sur de Bolivar and the south of Cesar are "navegating the word" down the river Magdalena towards Cartagena.

"The message that we want to spread nationally and internationally is clear, free mother earth and our territories from the proposals, policies and projects of death with proposals where life and happiness, are the foundations of the people as they build with dignity a free and self-determined future, it is the voice of the people in a country where death took control of the Great River Magdalena and the oblivion tried to occupy all the territory, leaving hope with none.

We are a people who have declared our resistance, faced with a violent and injust state, that acts through the dispossesion of land, natural resources, memoria and identity. Faced with this tough situation, the proposals of life of the communities are representes in the sound of the drums, the flute, the accordion, the bagpipes, and the maracas . This is the sound of the resistance which does not permit us to forget our numerous leaders who have been disappeared and murdered, such as Alejandro Uribe, Edgar Martínez and Edgar Quiroga; it is the rhythm through which victims of state crime, students, women, indigenous, workers miners, afro-colombians, small scale farmers, unions and many more Colombians continue to meet and see their own struggles in the struggle of their brothers and sisters. The proposal of the Minga of Social and COmmunity resistance is needed by all of us. "

Daughters of Slaves

“Colombia is built from the physical work of blacks, yet 150 years after the legal end of slavery we continue to work as slaves and live in the worst conditions.”

The Afro-colombian students and young people I met at their National Gathering are very aware that they are the luckier ones, able to get an education and leave poverty, while the vast majority continue live in terrible conditions. They want to change this. It was a full on, powerful, intense, priviliged, exciting experience to be in the presence of three hundred Colombian students as they conversed "how will we create a positive transformation in the lives of Colombia’s black population".

After being delayed twice due to threats from paramilitaries and guerilla groups, the event took place in Buenaventura. Four days of debates, analysis, heated discussion. Daily my mind got too full of new thoughts for me to think any more and my notebook crammed full of reflections. Dancing was a welcome respite at the end of long days where I quietly observed and pondered the debates.......

How to we break Eurocentric control over culture, education, economics? How do we decolonise our minds, our institutions? Is Afro-centrism a good response?

Should our political position reject both left and right wing positions as they are both Euro-centric concepts and have been historically racist? Or can we build alliances with the left, yet maintain our identity and challenge racism.

Is the indigenous struggle over land rights also our problem as Afro-Colombians? How is capitalism and racism connected? How can we demand reparation for the work our ancestors have done?

Is learning about pre-slavery african history important for us in our present situation? Does the term multiculturality mean we are respected but still not included? How about Interculturality?

Outside, taking a break, I met a group of young woman, whose dads’ have been on strike for over 7 weeks and I asked if they would share with me their perspectives. They told me their families’ stories, passing, tugging and sharing the words out between them. We sat all together on the concrete ground. I seated myself carefully so we can talk as equals. I don’t want to interview them, rather hope they take the space as their own, to tell their own story.

Lorenza, Liliana and Vanessa:

Our relationships with our dads are difficult. We rarely see them. They leave for the sugar cane plantations at 5am and get home between 8 and 10pm. At school we were sometimes asked to do projects about our dads but this was nearly impossible. It is only when they have accidents that we see them more. “My dad lost his sight in his right eye”, “my dad had an accident with his leg and couldn’t work for six months – he got sick pay for three months”, “my dad has problems with his lungs from the dust“.

Things are really hard at the moment and we are going hungry because our dads have been paid for over six weeks. But I think the strike is just. They work like slaves in the fields cutting the sugar cane all day under the heat of the sun. Also, they are given protective clothing and a machete twice a year, yet the clothing lasts a month and the machetes just two weeks before they have to change it.

“I work from 7.30am to 6pm, 5 days a week doing housework. I get paid $230000 a month (£70). On Saturday’s I go to college to study nursery education. This costs me $100 000 a month.”

“I don’t have a job. I help at home. Because of the strike I don’t any money to pay for transport, or to print applications so it is difficult to look for a job.

If they win the strike, I will go to college to study nursing. I really want to be a nurse.”

On Sunday’s we all take part in a group [which organised for them to take part in this event]. Here, among many things, we talk about how to improve the relationships with our dads. They are sometimes violent at home.

“If I have an opinion it doesn’t matter to him because I am a women. If I do something, it’s often wrong, yet for my brothers it’s all good. I confronted my dad recently telling him this. He accepted it and we are talking more about this now.”

Our dads worry that if we go out to dance, we will get pregnant, but we get sex education at school and have a higher-level education than them. They have to understand that they can learn from us, their daughters. If education was free there would’t be this violence in the home, nor this war happening. Some students miss sex education at school, as they have to go to work. If our dads received higher wages this wouldn’t happen. If they win the strike there will be less poverty and less women getting pregnant.

We want this, we want something better for ourselves, for our children.