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Choco: an Afro-Colombian blueprint for
living
Interview with Zulia Mena conducted by Kathryn Temple
and Willy Rosencrans
Asheville, North Carolina, Oct. 13 (AGR) — AGR has reported
frequently on Colombia’s 40-year civil war, which has killed and
displaced untold millions of the country’s population and made
the country the most violent place in the Western hemisphere.
Our regular readers will be well aware of the forces at work: fighting
between right-wing paramilitaries and guerrilla armies, with civilians
caught in the middle; Plan Colombia, developed by the US as part of
its “War on Drugs,” which has funneled most of its $3 billion
to the Colombian military (with the worst human rights in Latin America);
and the country’s natural resources – including oil reserves
second only to Venezuela’s – which have attracted the interest
of some of the world’s biggest corporate players.
Less well known is the country’s large and culturally distinct
Afro-Colombian population. Afro-Colombians comprise a quarter of Colombia’s
people but account for nearly half of the country’s displaced.
Almost all live in Choco, on the northern Pacific coast, where they
formed autonomous communities after the abolition of slavery.
Unfortunately Choco, one the most bio-diverse areas of the world, is
also choice real estate. African palm plantations, oil and gold mining,
water and hydroelectric resources, eco-tourism, and pharmaceutical research
are all surefire investments, and the Pan-American Highway, which would
link all the Americas, is slated to be built through the region. Each
of these projects adversely affects the balance struck between Choco’s
black comunities and the natural environment there.
Zulia Mena, born and raised in Choco, spoke in Asheville on Oct. 10
as part of a Witness for Peace tour through the US. Mena has been active
in the struggle for Afro-Colombian and women’s rights for nearly
her entire life. Trained as a social worker, Zulia came to the forefront
of the Afro-Colombian community through her role in the development
of changes to the country’s constitution in 1991, which allowed
Afro-Colombians to own title to their land. Subsequently, she was elected
to Congress in 1994.
Mena graciously gave time on Oct. 11 for an interview with Kathryn Temple
and Willy Rosencrans. What follows is an excerpt from that interview.
The interview will be aired in full on WPVM and will be available in
archived form on the station’s website (www.wpvm.org).
AGR: Could you describe the forces at work against
Afro-Colombians?
Mena: The first force at work is their complete abandonment on
the part of the state. This historic abandonment of the indigenous and
black communities has meant that there’s been the lowest level
of possibility of obtaining basic services.
Eighty percent of them do not have access to water or sewage systems.
Forty-three percent of the population doesn’t know how to read
or write. Of every 1,000 children that are being born each year, 193
die before they reach the age of five because of the quality and quantity
of the water that they consume. Sixty percent of this population, primarily
residing in urban areas, live on less than $1 a day; they primarily
eat carbohydrates – rice and plantains…
[And] there’s constant violence in the area... Because of the strategic
location of the region there’s a high level of trafficking of weapons
and drugs, something that many times ends up involving the civilian
population because frequently these weapons are in the hands of the
right-wing paramilitaries and the guerrillas.
The Afro-Colombian population took refuge in the jungle areas of the
region in order to protect themselves and reconstruct their culture
and themselves as a people. But after having lived through slavery we
now see new threats that come to the region in the form of big political
and economic interests...
The other elements are the policies of globalization in the region and
the new infrastructure projects that they’re pushing. For example
a highway which will run through an indigenous reserve, communally held
lands of Afro-Colombians, and a national park. This highway will be
a branch of what is known as the Pan-American Highway, which will unite
North America, Mexico, Central America and South America.
AGR: Can you describe the relationship between Afro-Colombian
communities and the land?
Mena: The vision of development that the indigenous and black
communities have in Colombia comes into direct conflict with the official
visions of how development should happen.
The official view of how development should work is a very capitalist
view that looks at how to use natural resources. The cost of this type
of development is to exploit this wealth without ever considering the
impact, the historical and irreparable harm that will be done to the
region. The mestizo culture then arrives in the area and does away with
all of the natural resources in the region in order to develop the economy.
The black and indigenous communities have an economy that has multiple
uses and is complementary, allowing them to take advantage of the natural
resources in the region, reproduce those natural resources, and take
only what is necessary from the land to survive.
This vision that we have of a relationship with the land combines using
resources in a sustainable way with the beliefs that the black and indigenous
communities have about the moon, and the natural cycles of the earth,
and always taking into account the effects on future generations. One
thing that we always say is that this land and the natural resources
that the land holds are on loan to us from our children, to use only
while we live...
The decisions that we make around development, then, are all related
to the equilibrium that needs to be struck betwen nature and humans.
AGR: How do you also sustain your resistance work? How are you
organized?
Mena: It’s very difficult sometimes to struggle against
the armed actors in the region. But the black and indigenous communities
are very clear that they will not be taken from their land. We have
certainly come through some difficult times, when there have been massacres
and the like in the region. People leave their land, perhaps, for a
short time, but always with the intention of coming back…
So with a base, then, in the land titles that we hold to our land, the
legal rights that we have to our land, the community councils have developed
a plan for land use where they address the management and use of the
land in the region.
There are particular zones, then, that are reserved specifically for
the permanent use of families in the communities. And there are others
that are natural reserves that are not to be touched; these are the
lands to be reserved for the future. And we rotate these zones. There
are also areas that have cultural regulations, because there are beliefs
around gods and different resources that should not be touched, so those
areas are left completely alone. But after thirty or forty or fifty
years then those will rotate into use.
The base of our resistance lies in the land, because the black and indigenous
communities without land are no one; they are people running around
without being connected to each other, or connected to anything.
So it’s one aspect of the struggle, then, to guarantee land rights,
but another aspect of our struggle is to work towards cultural autonomy
and to strengthen our identity as a people, and the organizational fabric
that’s in place.
AGR: How do community councils work? How are decisions
made?
Mena: In one community, if there’s a hundred and fifty families,
all of those families make up the general assembly of the community
council.
There are internal rules within the community councils where it’s
very clear that each family should make a symbolic donation to be a
part of the community council and to be a part of all of the different
projects that the community coucil supports. There’s a concept,
also, of what’s called minga, which are comunal projects that benefit
the entire community.
Within each community’s general assembly, those who don’t
pay this symbolic support — and those who don’t participate
in the work of the minga, when it’s time to make decisions on the
level of community — are not a part of that decision making process.
What I’m referring to now are community councils on a very local
level. There are also higher level community councils... For example,
the higher council in the Atrato region of Choco where there are a hundred
and twenty communities grouped into different zones. There are community
councils made up of nine communities, thirty communities, fifty communities,
depending on the region.
Decisions, then, within this group are made by consensus. There’s
always discussion around this consensus decision but all of those who
support the community council and who are in attendance at assembly
meetings are a part of the decisions made by consensus. The problem
with decisions made by majority is that they’re always made by
the people who talk the most.
AGR: You’ve talked about how the threat of violence
has been a galvanizing force for organizing…
Mena: Life exists in an equilibrium. And when you put too much
weight on one side or the other, that’s where problems begin to
come from.
When you look at this problem of historical injustice and talk about
a country where, today, more than 60 percent of the people live below
the poverty line, and you look at the fact that there’s no social
investment and there’s all of this investment in the state security
policies, and that in recent years there’ve been more than $3 billion
invested in those policies, and that 80 percent of that money is going
towards the military – it’s impossible then not to see how
this would generate an imbalance.
It’s precisely because of this violence, this unfortunate violence,
that we also see such an increase in massacres and displacement and
pain on the part of the civilian population. But this has [allowed]
the black and indigenous movement, the women’s movement, the small
farming movement… to really strengthen people who struggle for
justice and inclusion in the country. The violence has in fact strengthened
the social movement.
After the flood recedes, it time to...
Dry out the dreams
By Shawn Gaynor
Asheville, North Carolina, Oct. 13(AGR)— Last month brought
destruction to the River District when Hurricanes Frances and Ivan dropped
torrents of rain in Western North Carolina. Now with water restored
in Asheville most people let the giant storms slip into the past, a
minor moment away from the daily routine. But for the people who live
and work on the flood plain of Asheville’s River District the storms
were much more than a water outage, and the return to normalcy much
slower.
The historic River District has become home to an eclectic mix of small
businesses ranging from artists working in nearly every medium to doggie
daycare and furniture restoration. Glass blowers, painters, metal workers,
were all wiped out in the flood. City Bakery, whose operations in the
river district were flooded, lost upwards of a million dollars of equipment
alone. Many small operations lost less, but have been left without the
basic tools and equipment they need to operate.
A Buncombe County official has estimated damage totals to be about $200
million in this county alone.
When the waters receded an outpouring of community support helped to
clean the flood damage, but for different reasons most of them didn’t
have insurance.
Now the community has pulled together again to raise money for those
most effected by the flooding and to “dry out the dreams”
of the residents, artists, and craftspeople whose dreams were washed
away in the flooding.
Drying Out The Dreams is a two-part benefit series conceived to help
bring relief and support to the artists, businesses, and community of
the River District. The proceeds from these events will go directly
to those affected.
Financial contributions will be collected through The Jubilee Community
Compassion Fund and distributed for flood relief, by community organizations,
to insure that assistance gets to real people with real needs. The producers,
volunteers, and staff for the Drying Out The Dreams benefit series will
receive no compensation, nor will any administrative fees or percentage
of funds raised be deducted by the fundraisers.
Drying Out The Dreams’ first phase takes form as a fund raising
evening, on Friday Oct. 15 at the Orange Peel, located in downtown Asheville.
From African drumming to Middle Eastern techno trysts, rock, rhythm,
blues, and Gospel, the night will be filled with a multi ethnic potpourri
of regional and local musicians.
Artists from far and wide have donated their works for auction, local
restaurants will provide a bounteous buffet, and a 50/50 raffle will
be held to generate additional relief funds. Tickets are priced at $20.
The group plans a second flood recovery benefit to take place at the
Asheville Civic Center on Nov. 11, with acts to be announced.
So come out and show support your support for the artists and business
people in the River District who have contributed so much creativity
and vitality to our city.
Voices of a People’s History of
the United States
For Voices of a People’s History of the United
States, the long-awaited primary-source companion to A People’s
History of the United States, Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove have
selected testimonies — speeches, letters, poems, songs, memoirs,
and protests — from our rich history of resistance.
Here, in their own words, are Frederick Douglass, Bob Dylan, Fannie
Lou Hamer, Cesar Chavez, George Jackson, Helen Keller, Public Enemy,
Patti Smith, Tecumseh, Eugene Debs, Angela Davis, Rachel Corrie, Martin
Luther King Jr., and hundreds of others.
ZNet conducted an interview with Zinn and Arnove on Oct. 12.
Znet: What is your book Voices of a People’s
History of the United States? What is it trying to communicate?
Zinn and Arnove: Readers of A People’s History of the
United States have almost always pointed to the wealth of quoted
material in it — the words of fugitive slaves, Native Americans,
farmers and factory workers, dissenters and dissidents of all kinds.
They are drawn to the eloquent, often uncompromising, voices of resistance
that have mostly been shut out of the orthodox histories, the major
media, the standard textbooks, the controlled culture.
It is vital that such voices are more widely read, and contribute
to our understanding of history as seen by — and made by —
ordinary people.
The result of having our history dominated by presidents and generals
and other “important” people is to create a passive citizenry,
not knowing its own powers, always waiting for some savior on high
— God or the next president — to bring peace and justice.
History, looked at under the surface, in the streets and on the farms,
in GI barracks and trailer camps, in factories and offices, tells
a different story.
Whenever injustices have been remedied, wars halted, women and blacks
and Native Americans given their due, it has been because “unimportant”
people spoke up, organized, protested, and brought democracy alive.
In Voices of a People’s History of the United States,
our goal is to introduce readers to as many of these voices as we
can, testimonies to living history — speeches, letters, poems,
songs, manifestoes, proclamations, petitions, and memoirs — by
the people who make history happen but who usually are left out of
history books — women, workers, people of color, slaves, Native
Americans.
We have included the voices of Frederick Douglass, George Jackson,
Susan B. Anthony, Tecumseh, Martin Luther King Jr., Patti Smith, Mark
Twain, Angelina Grimke, Sojourner Truth, Malcolm X, Fannie Lou Hamer,
the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, Leonard Peltier, and numerous
others, some unknown, some less known or even anonymous, that have
truly made people’s history.
Znet: Can you tell us something about writing the
book? Where does the content come from? What went into making the
book what it is?
Z&A: The book parallels chapter by chapter A People’s
History of the United States in its historical and thematic scope,
from Columbus’s “discovery” of the America’s through
Bush II and the so-called war on terror.
The content comes from archives, libraries, books, newspapers, handbills,
leaflets, the many records of our history, assembled over several
years of editorial work, with advice, input, and support from activists,
historians, friends, and colleagues.
Many of the voices we have included can be found in much shorter form
in A People’s History of the United States, but we have
also included many voices from the social movements of our past that
could not be included in A People’s History.
Znet: What are your hopes for Voices of a People’s
History of the United States? What do you hope it will contribute
or achieve politically?
Given the effort and aspirations you have for the book, what will
you deem to be a success? What would leave you happy about the whole
undertaking? What would leave you wondering if it was worth all the
time and effort?
Z&A: Our goal is to raise consciousness — about class
conflict, racial injustice, sexual inequality, and national arrogance.
But more importantly it is to bring to light the hidden resistance
of the people against the power of the establishment: the refusal
of Native Americans to simply die and disappear; the rebellion of
black people in the anti-slavery movement and in the more recent movement
against racial segregation; the strikes carried out by working people
to improve their lives.
We want to give the voices of struggle, mostly absent in our history
books, the place they deserve.
To omit or to minimize these voices of resistance is to create the
idea that power only rests with those who have the guns, who possess
the wealth, who own the newspapers and the television stations.
We want to point out that people who seem to have no power, whether
working people, people of color, or women — once they organize
and protest and create movements — have a voice no government
can suppress.
Our goal is also for people to use this book in classrooms, in theatres,
in public meetings. To bring these voices to life in their own creative
ways, through readings, performances.
We dedicated Voices to “the rebel voices of the coming
generation.”
The efforts we have put into creating Voices will have been
well worth it if this book helps inspire those rebels — and others.
If it connects them to the rich past of resistance in this country,
and gives people a sense that we can chart a different future.
Source: ZNet
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