This item is excerpted from Vince Zelazny's blog about CYM 2011, Wish you were here.
Elaine Bishop, Co-recording Clerk at CYM sessions, with Dave Grossman of Home Mission and Advancement Committee.
Elaine Bishop's Urban Peace Testimony developed around her neighbourhood and place of work, the North Point Douglas Womens Centre in Winnipeg. I asked Elaine to elaborate on what an urban peace testimony was. Peace testimony has been a movement to abolish war, and later, grew to incorporate a movement to create or cultivate peace. Elaine credits Meredith Egan with coining the term ‘urban peace testimony’, but found on reflection that it makes sense as a focus of inquiry.
We have a poor understanding of peace in relation to urban life. We understand land poorly in relation to urban areas and land ownership. To cultivate urban peace, people need food, water, adequate housing, safety from domestic and other forms of violence, friendship, spiritual nurture, and a whole host of things.
In Manitoba, there has been a huge influx of aboriginal people into the city of Winnipeg from the northern communities. This movement parallels depopulation of rural areas and rural influx of impoverished people happening in many countries of the global south. There are issues of safety that are emergent and pose a danger to new arrivals in the city, especially young women.
The Point Douglas Neighbourhood was recently in the news due to an unfortunate event where a person set fire to a rooming house in which four people died. This was publicised nationally by nearly all media. What was not reported was that the Womens centre immediately became involved by organizing prayers, memorials, and smudging ceremonies on the site where the incident took place. A similar thing was done a year earlier at a nearby bus stop where a person had died in a violent attack. Spiritual nurture and healing thus are central elements of an urban peace testimony. The centre also undertook environmental projects and a walking school bus, in an effort to promote normal, peaceful life. CFSC collaborated with the Womens Centre to present a level 1 AVP workshop, and a level 2 workshop is also planned. Step by step, the outlines of an urban peace testimony in north Winnipeg is emerging.
An international team of experts have just presented their findings, Fate of Mountain Glaciers in the Anthropocene (the era in which man-made changes affect the entire natural system), to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the Vatican's non-denominational scientific arm.
The Vatican's foreword emphasizes the moral implications: "We are committed to ensuring that all inhabitants of this planet receive their daily bread, fresh air to breathe and clean water to drink as we are aware that, if we want justice and peace, we must protect the habitat that sustains us."
The report warns of "serious and potentially irreversible impacts of global warming caused by the anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases, and by changes in forests, wetlands, grasslands, and other land uses," urging steep cuts in the world's output of air pollutants. Failure to do so will imperil vulnerable ecosystems and human societies that depend on glaciers for freshwater, it says, including a huge swath of Central Asia. It also warns of droughts, falling river flows, and danger to crops in North America and other parts of the world.
The danger is not limited to catastrophic events. Drastic fall in food production when population is still rising could cause widespread famine. (As we have seen this year, even a small drought-caused shortfall in Soviet wheat yields led to commodity speculation raising food prices as much as 50%, and adding 44 million to the world's undernourished.) The scale of climate disruption predicted by the report is many magnitudes greater. These changes would permanently affect our children's children.
Glacier changes constitute a key element for global climate-related monitoring.
On a century scale, glacier shrinking is global, fast and accelerating, with intermittent regional re-advances on a decadal scale.
Continued glacier melt could lead beyond historical/holocene variability and may lead to the deglaciation of many mountain regions within decades with severe impacts on human activities and welfare.
In central Asia, flood bursts from glacial lakes and sudden debris flows threaten dams, traditional food production, and lives of valley-dwellers: in July 1998, a glacier lake outburst flood in the Shahimardan Valley of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan killed over 100 people. In Peru, a 1962 avalanche travelled 16 km and destroyed the city of Ranrahirca, where 4000 people died; another in 1972 completely destroyed the city of Yungay, killing 18 000 (two of many reports in M Zemp and W Haeberli, Glaciers and Ice Caps, part 6B of Global Outlook for Ice and Snow (UNEP 2008).
Indigenous peoples throughout Asia and South America report livelihoods at risk due to climate disruption. Changes in seasonal dates upset ecosystems, in addition to more frequent storms, floods and drought. (See these eyewitness stories by elders)
Recent reports show the Greenland glacier melting much faster than predicted. Sea level may now rise 5 feet by the end of the century, dooming entire small nations, and causing billions of dollars of damage in coastal cities such as New York, London, and St Petersburg.
In Kenya, the snows of Kilimanjaro, famed as the title of a story by Ernest Hemingway, are disappearing at ever faster rates according to the US National Academy of Sciences.
British researchers state that rising temperatures on Mt Kenya put an extra 4 million people at risk from malaria in the Central Highlands and Nairobi. 20 years ago, the area was malaria-free; unlike other regions, the sole factor is climate change. The size, urgency and cost of the problem is typical of environmental impacts in the global South caused by emissions directly attributable to the North. These impacts, and the costs of remedying them, are what the poor countries refer to as “climate debt”. Ecological debt would also include the additional costs of the North's exclusive use of food, fish, and natural resources of all kinds, at rates far exceeding our fair share.
On UN Human Rights Day, 10 Dec 2010, Survival International released two videos highlighting the plight of the Guarani Indians in Brazil. In One must have courage they ask return of their lands, stolen for ranches, soya and sugarcane plantations. The Gunmen expresses their anger at landgrabbers and fear of hired pistoleros. Further north in Pará, Amazonian peoples protest huge hydro dams that destroy forest and river ecosystems, polluting their water and dispossessing them. In June and August, in the city of Altamira, hundreds demonstrated against the huge Belo Monte dam."The forest is our grocery, the river is our market. We want strangers to leave the rivers of the Xingu alone," say chiefs quoted by the church organization CIMI. 300 more dams are planned, say the protesters.
The NGO Amazonia has reported illegal pipeline construction, land grabs by ranchers, Indian children sold as slaves, vigilante murders, fullscale military attacks, corrupt state governments and judges -- all in the name of "development". Even REDD is "short-sighted and deadly" to indigenous peoples, the NGO adds.
There is blood on the organic soya (or hamburgers) you eat, the "green" biofuels you use. More than 1,400 rural poor in Pará have been killed by illegal logger-ranchers over the last 35 years, according to the Catholic Pastoral da Terra. Witnesses die mysteriously. This year, a long-standing court case marked by corrupt decisions ended; a rancher who ordered the assassination of a white Catholic human rights activist, Sister Dorothy Stang, was finally imprisoned after strong US diplomatic pressure. See the 2008 film They Killed Sister Dorothy and the 2009 opera Angel of the Amazon. Land grabs, deforestation, and near-slavery to big landowners continue. A fifth of Amazon forests have been clear-cut in 40 years, exceeding losses in the previous five centuries. Brazil has become one of the leading emitters of greenhouse gases.
The price of development? A Time article "Brazil's Land-Reform Murders" points out that Brazil has become the world's biggest producer of sugar, soy beans, coffee, orange juice, beef and chicken. Father Edilberto Senna, an activist priest, says clear-cuts, jobs, and cash are motivating factors behind the bloodshed. Despite free elections, "nothing changes," he says. "Brazil will soon be the fifth biggest economy in the world... But who pays for these ambitious goals? Amazonia, the home of the biggest reserves of minerals and timber." A geographer, Julio Jacobo Waiselfisz, has produced a map of the violence. Worst murder rates are in the frontier provinces, and cities where police death squads operate. See also National Geographic's eyewitness reports from the Amazon.
Thanks to Margaret Kidd's blogs on QEWnet for these references.
Making the world safe for investors can make it violently unsafe for the poor and powerless. (AP photo: CNS News)
On Tuesday, April 27th a peace caravan of 25 human rights observers, reporters and teachers was ambushed by an armed group of paramilitaries in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico. We agree with Latin America Working Group (LAWG) that violent attacks on aboriginal rights are an essential part of modern "resource wars".
"They started to spray us with fire," said one of the survivors (see video). "When we tried to back up, they shot out the tires. We threw ourselves on the floor. The vehicle was shaking from the bullets."
29 Apr CSN reported that 40 people were in the caravan to the Triqui Indian mountain town of San Juan Copala. At least three other foreign accompaniers, and an unknown number of Mexicans, are missing, presumed dead.
28 Apr Boston.com said that San Juan Copala was surrounded and cut off by paramilitaries. The Caravan was meant to be a peaceful way to break the blockade.
30 Apr Amy Goodman interview traced the violence to paramilitaries (set up by PRI governor Ulises Ruiz). Of the two shot in the head, Finnish human rights activist Jyri Jaakkola had come to Oaxaca to do environmental workshops; Betty Cariño was the director of CACTUS, an organization for indigenous rights.
30 Apr Christian Peacemaker Teams said the caravan was carrying food, water, and other basic necessities. San Juan Copala declared itself an autonomous community in January 2007 in a nonviolent effort to create a space for political participation.
Similar peace-town declarations have been made in Colombia. There too, paramilitaries have attacked with impunity. In both countries, the US War on Drugs/Terror has been a pipeline for military aid to paramilitaries.
4 May CDHAL reports that death squad threats continue in Chiapas.
Socialist Project tells the story of the "Oaxaca Commune" aka APPO, and violent attacks by PRI on it since 2006. The source of the conflict is not explained but is likely encroachment by mines, paper co's, ranchers and agribusiness connected to the corrupt government, on traditional native lands. Among US resource companies in Oaxaca are Arco Resources, Rio Tinto/Kennecott, Boise Cascade and others (for a full list see below).
The conflict stems from the NAFTA "road to resources" Plan Puebla-Panama, whose corridors go through Oaxaca -- part of the Security and Prosperity Partnership plans that include tarsands pipelines, rail, bridge and truck corridors from Canada and Latin America to serve US imperial interests and corporate profits.
1 Apr Mamaradio/Z magazine says a US military-funded mapping project is direct aid to corporate interests and Mexican opponents of indigenes. "Mapping and property rights are necessary tools to advance U.S. security strategies, such as Plan Colombia."
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Other references: 1 Feb interview with one of the murdered human rights accompaniers
Johan Maurer is an evangelical Friend who has travelled to many parts of the Quaker world: USA, UK, Canada, parts of Eastern Europe and Africa. He is currently living in Elektrostal, Russia, visiting Lithuania and Latvia. This 24 Aug 2006 Can you believe? post is reprinted with his permission.
When George Bush responded to the court decision declaring his war-on-terrorism wiretapping unconstitutional by saying, "Those who herald this decision simply do not understand the nature of the world in which we live," I thought about the spiritual implications of Bush's words, and that reminded me of McCarthy's booklet. [Canadians may wish to reflect on our government's similar refusal to obey our Charter of Rights and Supreme Court. - Ed.]
On a political level, it's easy to see the weakness in Bush's logic. If our courts begin making decisions based on trying to interpret "the nature of the world in which we live," rather than trying to interpret the Constitution, we're heading for anarchy, or more likely, a dictatorship of the politically cleverest. But Bush's warning may be much more effective at a deeper level. Over and over again in history, we've seen people being persuaded that safety requires compromising our ostensible values.
Many years ago, James Prothro and Charles Grigg (I'm reaching back into my distant memories of studying political science at Carleton University!) found a distinct difference between people's support of political tolerance in the abstract and their considerably lower tolerance in concrete situations. Every once in a while, political scientists tweak the rest of us by showing that Americans claim to cherish the Declaration of Independence, but when shown actual unlabeled text from that declaration, they declare it dangerous, communist, and the like. So it's not surprising that today's politicians try out yet again that old argument that during a "war" we cannot afford the luxury of our values. Or, rather, they propose another value, safety, that supposedly trumps civil liberties and due process.
However, to remain politically useful, "safety" as a value must remain abstract as well! When we begin studying safety in concrete terms, problems arise:
Somehow, the politicians must convince us, their audiences, that we will remain safe, while hoping that we don't think too much about the safety of others. For example, many innocent people have been severely inconvenienced or worse by being put on terrorist watch lists, arrested as material witnesses, or in a few (how many?) cases, kidnapped by U.S. or allied forces for interrogation and even torture. But we must believe that this won't happen to us, even though our protections are being compromised in the service of the war on terrorism, and the government argues that judicial due process would reveal too many secrets. Above all, we must not question the proposition that humans who are not U.S. citizens are to be completely disregarded in any offer of safety.
We must believe that the threat of terrorism is of a completely different order than the threat of natural disaster, crime, or any other danger whose probability increases as government resources are sucked away into this mislabeled "war." The government's unbelievably screwed-up response to Hurricane Katrina shows what the all-encompassing we-know-best claims of this war's leaders did for the actual safety of Gulf states' citizens.
We must believe in several lies at once: terrorism is a monolithic phenomenon, a new phenomenon, a manifestation of very clever subhumans who cannot be communicated with, an intractable and implacable reality that only our leaders can understand and manage, despite their disastrous record to date. We must want safety so badly that we overlook our leaders' actual performance in favor of their stern claims of authority and expertise.
The power of government to claim a monopoly on defining safety is ultimately a spiritual issue, and requires a spiritual confrontation, because in one sense, the politicians are right: we are not safe. Safety is not guaranteed, neither in terms of protection from physical harm, nor in terms of quality and scope of life.
Each of us, at this moment, faces multiple dangers, ranging at varying degrees of probability or absurdity from disease and accident, to violent crime, to a direct impact from a meteor. In an interesting paradox given George Bush's rhetoric of freedom, perhaps the more we actually claim and use freedom publicly and effectively in this world, the more we expose ourselves to danger. (Effective dissidents must count on the possibility that their activities will draw the attention of our "security" agencies.) This brings me to Charles McCarthy's main points on safety in The Stations of the Cross of Nonviolent Love. Addressing the pro-family claims of the Powers that Be in Station IV, he asks, "Can Christian family love and relationship find any lasting security in any source other than unconditional obedience to God’s will as revealed by Jesus Christ?" Addressing the hypnotic pseudo-security of our culture, he says, in Station VI,
It is easy to find hope, security and a future in the G.N.P., a national anthem, a football team, military technology, Disneyland, drugs, fashion and alcohol. It is nearly impossible in a capitalist society to find hope in the patient, secret commitment to the omnipotence of Christic love. Such a use of life is incontestable folly by all standards except one—Jesus’ teaching that the cross of nonviolent love is the power and the wisdom and the will of The Source of all Reality.
At a Friends World Committee regional conference shortly after the first Gulf War, T. Canby Jones warned us bluntly: We cannot understand Christian pacifism until we have confronted our own mortality.My corollary, in light of Bush's warning about the "world in which we live": The way we live in this world must not be dictated by fear. Otherwise, whatever safety we think we have, our death will come much too soon. If Jesus is our partner in shaping the way we live, and we have good friends listening and shaping and sharing our doubts and discoveries alongside us, fear and death will recede to their proper places—they're certainly not out of the picture, but whatever life we have, we don't live in their shadow.
One more excerpt from Charles McCarthy:
To those who do not believe in Christ’s cross of nonviolent love, its truth is folly, a scandal, an unrealistic waste of life’s time. To those who believe, it is nails, thorns, spears and suffering for others until the blind can see, until the lame can walk, until the imprisoned are freed, until the hungry are fed, until the oppressed are liberated, until the naked are clothed, until the sick are healed, until the rich are saved, until the homeless are at home, until the unlovable are loved, until all sins are forgiven. The believer in Christ’s nonviolent cross breathes in deeply the sufferings of humanity and breathes out freely his or her happiness in order to spread the healing power of nonviolent love as Divine Yeast in the dough of humanity.
If we advocate focusing on quality of life as a crucial dimension of safety, "nails, thorns, spears, and suffering for others" may seem to be unpromising lifestyle components. How can we breathe in "the sufferings of humanity" and breathe out "happiness"? For me, the crucial factor is the desire to have my eyes open, to be exposed to reality. I don't want happiness at the expense of ignorance, and it's too late to pretend not to know what I know. My mother survived Hiroshima, one of my sisters was murdered ... the Beast has come too close to my home.
My own experience is that, before my conversion, I never thought I'd be happy again, or able to trust. Jesus restored both joy and trust to me, but did not promise to keep me "safe" from reality. From my vantage point, reality includes both love and evil. My moment-by-moment task is to breathe love, and devote whatever power I have to its service, and let my God-given mind (and my faithful friends) help me stay alert to evil's attempts to divert my energy. That's why I want to deny politicians the right to put evil at the center of their definition of "the nature of the world in which we live." I can't live that way anymore.
Bill Samuel brought to my attention this article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, on the difficulties of leadership in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting's Quaker culture. He and I have both commented on the article in the related post on Martin Kelley's weblog.
Here's another writer, Pete Greig of Chichester, England and the 24-7 Prayer community, who recognizes the spiritual dimension of war and war language. It is so heartening to see a new generation of evangelical leaders grappling openly with the place of politics in their piety.
It is blatant to many of us (though few politicians will ever dare voice this particular truth) that the theatre of war is first and foremost a spiritual reality which requires a spiritual solution. You cannot bomb for peace. We all know that negotiation is better (and lets pray for Kofi Annan ... and the UN at this time) [how many American evangelicals say that?!], but even negotiation misses the root cause of contention. Here we have a series of conflicts that are deeply and ultimately spiritual, secondly ideological and thirdly territorial. You can bomb for territory. You can negotiate between ideologies. But the primary spiritual reality can only be engaged on earth as it is in heaven. This is why we intercede in prayer.
Articulo en español en bajo. All photos and English article by Brenda Baletti, an expert on on environmental politics in Brazil, are taken from Grist12 Jan 10. In theory, Brazil's Economic and Ecological Zoning plans (ZEE) protect indigenes, quilombolas (descendants of runaway slaves), traditional river people, landless peasants, and nature. But since 1990 over 500 people have been murdered by plantation bosses and land grabbers. The grileiros' violence and corruption of officials continue, making a mockery of "ecosystem management".
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indigenous protesters at Gleba Nova Olinda Early one morning in late November 2009, a group of 30 people set out by motorized canoes from the community of Santa Maria of Uruará, in the lower Brazilian Amazon to the junction of the Tamataí and Uruará Rivers, at the boundary of the Extractive Reserve Renascer.* The group set up a camp on the riverbank in order to do what the government has not — block illegal loggers who have been taking wood from inside the reserve.
In June of 2009, after more than a decade of conflict between the traditional riberinho (river dweller) communities of the region and loggers and commercial fishers, the Renascer Extractive Reserve was created, albeit at half of the size that the communities had requested. The size was limited in order to accommodate logging and mineral interests, according to government officials involved with the process.
But the creation of the reserve changed nothing—illegal loggers protected by armed gunman have continued to extract timber from inside the reserve’s boundaries. The state and federal government agencies (SEMA and IBAMA respectively) say they have no resources to monitor and enforce restrictions inside the reserve. In fact, after the creation of the reserve, the number of timber barges leaving the area actually increased; until the locals started blocking shipments of logs, up to five barges per day were floating down the river with a total of up to 5,000 cubic meters of wood illegally logged from the reserve.
The camp that started in late November quickly grew to hundreds of people, blocking passage of river barges and waiting for government agents to come and negotiate with them. What started as a few hammocks strung up in a muddy, mosquito-ridden forest has grown to a village. They cleared out the brush, and each family built a makeshift house from plastic and wood and dug a fire pit. They take turns fishing, and periodically one of them sacrifices a cow to feed the group.
Because the protesters prevented barges from floating down the river for more than a month, the thwarted loggers began to retaliate. Their planes periodically make threateningly low flyovers; loggers in passing boats yell threats. One night, five men set fire to brush next to the camp.
The Jaurú logging company attempted to bribe the community members to let wood pass down the river. When their offer was rejected, the company hired gunmen to accompany their barges to market. In the early morning of Jan. 3, five log-laden barges set forth, accompanied by 40 armed men. When they reached the encampment, they opened fire on the sleeping, unarmed protestors. Two people were shot. The victims were rushed to the hospital; they survived.
The demonstration at Renascer was in part inspired by action taken a month earlier and 100 miles to the west, in an area called Gleba Nova Olinda at the source of the Arapiuns River. On Nov. 12, people from over 40 indigenous and traditional communities—frustrated after more than a decade of failed negotiations with the state for territorial rights, and increasingly suffering threats and attacks against their leaders—closed the Arapiuns River to logging traffic and sequestered two barges full of timber. The protestors camped on the river’s edge for a month as they waited, to no avail, for state and federal governments to arrive and address the problem. Finally, they set fire to the 2,000 cubic meters of wood on the barges. The fires blazed on for three days. Over the last 10 years, logging has increased dramatically in the west of Pará, where both of these conflicts are located. Pará is a state in lower Brazilian Amazon that is larger than most countries and is notorious for violent land conflict. The incursion of logging into their territories there has resulted in traditional and indigenous people demanding land rights as a way to protect their communities. But the people have grown increasingly frustrated at the government’s unwillingness or inability to protect their homelands; often, land rights are not granted, reserves are not protected, and laws and management plans are not enforced.
In some cases, the government is asking for GPS coordinates and photos to prove that illegal logging is taking place—a totally unrealistic request of people who have on average studied to a fifth-grade level, live from subsistence and small-scale market agricultural production, and have only recently gotten gas-powered motors that provide electricity to their homes. Even when NGOs and outside researchers collect this data, it frequently comes to naught, because officials never follow up and because laws are written or circumvented in favor of logging interests.
So the river dwellers and other indigenous people are taking matters into their own hands, trying to stop the injustices committed against their communities. Ironically, they’re now the ones being branded as criminals.
In the case of the Renascer encampment, the loggers got a municipal judge to issue an order saying that the camp must be disbanded or the people imprisoned. Two weeks ago, the police began an action to put six of the leaders from the Arapiuns in “preventative prison,” which would lock them up indefinitely until they are exonerated of all charges. Such imprisonment is normally imposed on people who are at risk of fleeing or who lack physical addresses and jobs, neither of which applies to these leaders.
This sort of punitive action accomplishes two things — it robs the movement of its leadership, and it diverts the movement’s time and energy into a legal battle, distracting from its larger goal of fighting for land rights and curbing illegal logging.
Thus are the power relations in rapidly industrializing Brazil. For people in the United States, tussles over territorial rights and protest camps can seem provincial and distant — regrettable, yes, but in a world overflowing with injustice, not cause for excessive concern.
But the Amazon is not your average disputed territory. In recent decades, tropical forests have absorbed 20 percent of global fossil-fuel emissions, and the Amazon has been the biggest carbon sink of them all, absorbing nearly 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year. The river dwellers aren’t defending a vision of the rainforest as a pristine carbon sink, but rather as a homeland that can support a broad range of species and vegetation, including humans. That might not be what Western environmentalists what to hear, but it’s surely a more ecologically responsible vision than clear-cutting followed by vast soybean monocrops.
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See also *Renascer as failed ecosystem management, in New Statesman 28 Jun 07; John Frevalds on the origin of the word grileiros; Laura Molinari, "Land Conflicts between Grileiros and Peasants in Para, Brazil" American University, ICE 2005; "Battle in Amazonia" by Brenda Baletti, Gilson Rego and Antoni0 Sena in Counterpunch 13 Jan 10;" Local Battles to Save the Brazilian Amazon Pit Residents against Loggers and Government" by the same authors in Americas Program 6 Jan 10; photos of Uruará and Gleba Nova Olinda on Flickr.com; a 2006 report on illegal soy plantations in the region, linked to Cargill and other corporations. Oxfam video about climate change with Muriel Saragoussi of Brazil Ministry of Environment (Portugese with English subtitles).
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Las batallas locales por salvar la Amazonia brasileña enfrentan a los pobladores con las empresas taladoras y el gobierno
tirado de Programa de las Américas12 de enero de 2010. Brenda Baletti vive en Santarém y las investigaciones que realiza para su disertación doctoral versan sobre las luchas por los derechos territoriales en la parte oeste de Pará. Gilson Rego es licenciado en Sociología por la Universidad Federal de Pará y trabaja para la Comisión Pastoral de la Tierra o Comissao Pastoral da Terra en Santarém. Antonio Sena es estudiante de Derecho en la Universidad Federal del Amazonas y se especializa en investigaciones sobre derechos a la tierra.
Tras más de una década de denuncias ignoradas, negociaciones infructuosas con el gobierno e incontables amenazas a sus dirigentes de parte de las empresas taladoras y sus mercenarios, los pobladores de la región Arapiuns en la Amazonia brasileña realizaron una protesta pública contra la tala ilegal en sus tierras. Más de 500 miembros de 40 comunidades se unieron, usando sus rabetas (canoas con motor fuera de borda) para cerrar el Río Arapiuns a la actividad de la tala en la Gleba Nova Olinda. Los manifestantes tomaron dos barcazas de troncos.
La protesta se prolongó durante más de un mes, mientras funcionarios del gobierno estatal y federal alternativamente les ignoraban o respondían con evasivas. Al final los manifestantes, frustrados, decidieron volver más apremiante su mensaje. El 12 de noviembre, luego de una segunda reunión con funcionarios estatales y federales que de nuevo dejaron sin solución sus problemas, incendiaron las barcazas.
La llamada Gleba Nova Olinda comprende 172,900 hectáreas entre los ríos Maró y Aruá, en el nacimiento del Río Arapiuns, municipio de Santarém. Sus recursos naturales son vitales para la sobrevivencia del pueblo Arapiuns. La protesta une a 14 comunidades de todo ese territorio, en el "Movimiento en Defensa de la Vida y la Cultura de los Arapiuns."
Las comunidades indígenas y campesinas de la Gleba Nova Olinda han estado solicitando al gobierno el reconocimiento legal de sus derechos territoriales desde hace trece años, cuando se creó la vecina Reserva Extractiva Tapajós-Arapiuns. A lo largo de los últimos diez años, los programas de intercambio de tierras estatales y de incentivos para el desarrollo atrajeron a explotadoras forestales y agricultores potenciales de soya a la Gleba Nova Olinda. Su entrada despertó conflictos, que pronto se volvieron violentos, por los derechos a la tierra y a los recursos con los habitantes del área. La violencia efectiva y las amenazas de violencia son medios comunes para la resolución de conflictos en el estado de Pará, donde recursos valiosos como la madera conducen a conflictos donde mucho se arriesga y la coacción estatal es mínima.
Las explotadoras forestales han dividido a las comunidades de la región, expandiendo el conflicto más allá de la tradicional confrontación entre taladoras, especuladores de tierras y comunidades. Las empresas han comprado a bajo precio el apoyo de algunas comunidades proporcionándoles infraestructura que el gobierno nunca les entregó, como generadores y edificaciones comunitarias, o empleos que convierten a los pobladores del área en agentes de la deforestación. Sin embargo, casi toda la población continúa protestando contra la presencia de las compañías taladoras.
Las comunidades de la Gleba Nova Olinda, el sindicato de trabajadores rurales y la Comisión Pastoral de la Tierra colaboraron durante tres meses en un proyecto de plan de tenencia de la tierra que garantizaría los derechos de los pobladores. Este plan se basó en años de discusiones entre las comunidades de la Gleba Nova Linda y la región de Arapiuns, más amplia. Después de todos sus esfuerzos, el gobierno del estado escogió ignorar su propuesta en favor de otra presentada por las compañías madereras y las cooperativas que reclamaban ilegalmente tierras y recursos dentro del área.1
En los hechos, el gobierno estatal de Pará resolvió no expulsar a las taladoras y especuladores de tierra que operan en los territorios tradicionales e indígenas. Por el contrario, la propuesta autorizó once "planes de administración sostenible" y redujo el tamaño del Proyecto de Asentamientos de Reforma Agraria Agroextractivistas Vista Alegre, de 25,000 hectáreas a 5,000 hectáreas.
Entre tanto, el proceso legal llevado por la Fundación Nacional del Indio (FUNAI) para que se reconozca y se demarque el área, ha permanecido estancado por años.2 La renuencia del FUNAI a demarcar el área ha permitido a las taladoras de la región y al gobierno estatal seguir ignorando los derechos del pueblo indígena Borari-Arapiuns construyendo caminos para el transporte de troncos, otorgando licencias para planes administrativos y negándose a hacer cumplir las normas para la tala y transporte de madera y tenencia de la tierra dentro del territorio indígena.
El Traslado de las Tierras y los Recursos al Mercado
En el estado de Pará, la vasta existencia de recursos naturales ha desembocado en corrupción incrustada en las instituciones. En una combinación tanto de manipulación legal como de violación de leyes con la impunidad, el gobierno frecuentemente facilita y encubre los delitos ambientales en la región. Como lo explica el especialista sobre la Amazonia Leal Aluzio, "a fin de cuentas, quienes tienen el poder de impedir o permitir la ilegalidad son las autoridades; ésta es la autoridad investida de poder institucional. Así la ilegalidad, cuando es 'liberada', se expresa en diversas formas de transgresión, desde lo claramente ilegal a lo presuntamente 'legal', que se encuentran 'protegidos' por la ley."3
Los cambios recientes en el uso del suelo y distribución territorial en la Amazonia brasileña siguen en general dos vertientes: Ha habido un ímpetu hacia el reconocimiento de derechos étnica y culturalmente fundamentados a tierras/territorio para los pueblos indígenas y nativos a consecuencia de movimientos populares de base más fuertes y convenciones internacionales. A los pobladores indígenas, quilombolas (descendientes de comunidades de esclavos fugitivos), pueblo "tradicional", campesinos sin tierra y a la naturaleza se les ha asignado sus propios polígonos en los "mapas de zonificación Económica y Ecológica", los planos territoriales de la región amazónica creados por la iniciativa del Banco Mundial para poner en práctica el "desarrollo sostenible participativo."4
La rezonificación inspirada por el Banco Mundial tiene por objeto facilitar otra meta de redistribución territorial del desarrollo económico, a saber, el desarrollo de mega-infraestructura y la apertura de áreas nuevas a la extracción maderera y minera, agroindustria y operación de ranchos. Los planos para la Zonificación Económica y Ecológica (ZEE por sus siglas en portugués), pretenden integrar los intereses ambientales y sociales al desarrollo económico en la Amazonia, pero se han convertido en un medio para "disfrazar de verde" el desarrollo económico de Brasil. El último plan de desarrollo económico brasileño, el Programa para el Crecimiento Acelerado (PAC - Programa de Aceleração do Crescimento), tiene destinados 95 mil millones de dólares de E.U. a la construcción de carreteras, vías fluviales y presas en la Amazonia en un período de cuatro años. La Zonificación Económico-Ecológica para el Oeste de Pará (ZEE – Oeste do Pará) fue creada en respuesta a preocupaciones ecológicas en torno al proyecto PAC para pavimentar la Carretera Santarém-Cuiaba (BR 163). Esta carretera es la única que cruza la Amazonia de sur a norte, y es potencialmente la vía más veloz para transportar cosechas de soya desde el sur de Brasil al Río Amazonas para su exportación. La Zonificación Ecológico-Económica divide a la región en áreas con diferentes clasificaciones según su uso.
En 2009, los gobiernos estatal y federal aprobaron rápidamente una serie de leyes y políticas que facilitan los cambios de usos del suelo contenidos en los planos ZEE. Estas leyes reorganizan las funciones territoriales y estatales para agilizar el desarrollo económico regional, e incluyen la creación de nuevas clasificaciones de tierras que relajan los reglamentos que permiten concesionar la agricultura y la extracción maderera y mineral. Algunas leyes crean también nuevos títulos de tierras o concesiones para uso colectivo.
Otras leyes atacan el código forestal brasileño. La misma ZEE reduce efectivamente la extensión de tierra que los tenedores deben conservar como bosque en su propiedad, del 80% al 50% en muchos casos.5 Actualmente se discute una medida para permitir que rancheros compren áreas de reserva fuera (y lejos) de su propiedad para dejarlos deforestar una mayor porción de su propia tierra, aun en áreas que están protegidas.6
Presuntamente las tierras indígenas y áreas de conservación están protegidas contra el desarrollo, mientras todas las demás áreas se dedican a "consolidar" o "expandir" actividades productivas para los mercados internos y externos, tales como operación de ranchos, agroindustria, y explotación forestal.7 Una vez delimitadas dichas áreas, leyes y políticas diversas obligan a que cada área funcione de acuerdo con su clasificación en los ZEE. La Gleba Nova Olinda está clasificada como zona de expansión, es decir que da prioridad al desarrollo por encima de la conservación, y permite a los desarrolladores obtener licencias para dichas actividades productivas.
La ambigüedad en la situación de la tenencia de la tierra es considerada un obstáculo para el desarrollo en el estado de Pará. Muy pocas personas tienen seguros sus derechos de propiedad en la forma de títulos sin gravámenes y gran parte del estado es terra devoluta, es decir, tierra de propiedad federal no clasificada, pero a menudo ocupada. En Pará, alrededor de 30 millones de hectáreas de esta tierra la tienen personas que la han ocupado ilegalmente 8 Existen programas de expedición de títulos de propiedad, asentamientos de reforma agraria, y áreas de preservación para resolver este problema.
Leyes como la de "terra legal", promulgada en 2009 [B1] legalizarán todas las reclamaciones de títulos de tierras en la Amazonia brasileña que constituyan tierra federal, hasta por 1,500 hectáreas. Pará promulgó una ley similar a nivel estatal. Estas leyes modernizan el traslado de las tierras, de propiedad pública, a propiedad privada.
Movimientos sociales, políticos de izquierda y algunos científicos han criticado estas leyes por abrir la puerta a la legalización de tierras obtenidas mediante invasiones ilícitas. También se han criticado estas leyes por promover la mercantilización de las tierras a gran escala, tergiversando la legalidad en beneficio de grandes terratenientes y de invasores de tierras, más conocidos como grileiros.9 El presidente Luiz Inácio da Silva trajo al profesor de Harvard Mangabeira Unger y lo nombró Secretario Especial de Asuntos Estratégicos para que presentara toda la argumentación política necesaria para lograr la aprobación de estas leyes: convencer legisladores, hacer tratos e infundir al proyecto el prestigio de Harvard. Unger renunció y regresó a Estados Unidos dos días después de que esta ley (federal) fue aprobada.
Frecuentemente se trata a los territorios indígenas y áreas de conservación como si estuvieran "fuera del mercado", pero los conflictos por el uso de la tierra en estas áreas demuestra que mientras contengan recursos viables, es improbable que se libren de la explotación. Las demoras extremas en la clasificación legal de áreas protegidas abren grandes oportunidades para la extracción rápida de los recursos antes de que dicha protección entre en vigor. Esto es práctica común.10 Cada vez más, los asentamientos de reforma agraria y las nuevas áreas de preservación son reducidas a una fracción de las dimensiones originalmente solicitadas, en favor de los intereses madereros y mineros.
El Caso de la Reserva Extractiva Renascer
La Reserva Extractiva Renascer fue creada como área de preservación dentro de la ZEE el 5 de junio de 2009 tras diez años de lucha. Las comunidades de la región comenzaron a cabildear para la creación de una reserva cuando grandes compañías de explotación forestal como Madenorte se mudaron a la región a finales de los 1990s, ocuparon el territorio y aseguraron sus límites mediante amenazas y violencia. Los organismos regulatorios federales se desentendieron de innumerables pedidos de sacar a las taladoras de la región. En 2006, el pueblo de Santa Maria do Uruará realizó una serie de acciones en el curso de tres meses, cerrando el camino al puerto, apoderándose de barcazas de troncos, y quemando finalmente una que transportaba 1,000 metros cuadrados de madera.
Fue sólo tras el incendio de las barcazas que el gobierno, por fin, respondió. En diciembre de 2006, el gobierno federal puso en práctica el "Operativo Renascer" contra la tala ilegal, que produjo nueve arrestos y eliminó la tala ilegal en la región, durante algún tiempo. Sin embargo, tres años después, todavía no se ha establecido la reserva y han regresado las mismas taladoras. Las empresas en sí no cambian: su personal e infraestructura siguen siendo los mismos. Solamente cambian su denominación y conservan las mismas prácticas. Madenorte, por ejemplo, funciona ahora como Jaurú, empleando los mismos aserraderos e instalaciones portuarias dentro de la reserva.
Después de negociaciones entre el estado, el gobierno federal, el WWF, y los miembros del sindicato de trabajadores rurales y el sindicato de pescadores, se creó la reserva Extractiva Renascer en junio pasado con la mitad de la extensión originalmente propuesta. La porción de la reserva con recursos minerales potenciales, la vasta mayoría de los bosques primarios, y las fuentes de los tres ríos de la zona quedaron excluidas, de acuerdo con altos funcionarios del Instituto Chico Mendes para la Conservación de la Biodiversidad (ICMBio), que administra las unidades de preservación en Brasil, a menudo a favor de los intereses madereros y mineros. Con la creación de la Reserva en el papel, la velocidad a la que se está extrayendo ilegalmente la madera ha crecido exponencialmente. Los habitantes informan que diariamente abandonan el área hasta cinco barcazas que transportan entre 1,000 y 2,000 metros cúbicos de madera.
En respuesta a las denuncias reiteradas de miembros de la comunidad, el Instituto Chico Mendes y la SEMA, Secretaría Estatal del Medio Ambiente, responsable de hacer cumplir las reglas de la tala en las tierras estatales y federales dentro de Pará, declararon que no pueden hacer nada sin tener que agotar largos procesos burocráticos. Afirman necesitar más información específica como datos y fotos obtenidos por geolocalización satelital (GPS), lo que rebasa la capacidad de las comunidades, siendo también su obtención un peligro para ellas. Así, las acciones y omisiones gubernamentales mandan las tierras y los recursos, teóricamente protegidos, directamente al mercado.
El pasado 27 de noviembre, los habitantes de Renascer y de Santa Maria de Uruará, en los límites de la reserva, decidieron que ya no podían esperar que el gobierno resolviera. Establecieron un campamento junto al límite de la Reserva en la confluencia de los ríos Tamataí y Uruará. Avisaron a las taladoras y a los gobiernos municipal, estatal y federal que ya no permitirían el paso de una sola barcaza maderera más. Una barcaza que iba en camino río abajo regresó de inmediato a su puerto y ninguna otra traspuso el bloqueo durante más de un mes.
Después de varias semanas de que las comunidades acamparon al lado del río (Tamataí), el Instituto Chico Mendes emitió la orden de cerrar el puerto. Un juez municipal también ordenó que se cerrara el puerto hasta que se ejercitaran las leyes contra la tala ilegal dentro de la Reserva. Con todo, la tala dentro de la Reserva no se detuvo, y los gobiernos estatal y federal siguieron asegurando que la falta de recursos hacía prohibitivo el cumplimiento de la ley ordenado por el juez. Los miembros de la comunidad siguen recibiendo amenazas diarias, tanto verbales como de los barcos y aviones que pasan cerca. Más de 200 personas siguen acampadas en la boca del Tamataí, impidiendo la salida de barcazas y exigiendo la respuesta gubernamental.
Después de intentar vanamente sobornar a los miembros de la comunidad para que permitieran la tala ilegal, el 3 de enero de 2010 las compañías taladoras contrataron a pistoleros para que transportaran su madera al mercado. Al llegar al campamento, y al cerrar los miembros de la comunidad el río con sus canoas, los mercenarios abrieron fuego hiriendo a dos pobladores, y las barcazas de troncos siguieron su camino hacia el mercado. Intervenciones
Los actos de desobediencia civil de los movimientos sociales para llamar la atención hacia las violaciones de sus derechos son criminalizados en la prensa, descalificados por ONGs internacionales que afirman haberlos apoyado, y se les abren procesos legales con mayor frecuencia.11 Los líderes de los movimientos tanto de Arapiuns como de Renascer han sido citados por la policía y amenazados con la cárcel mientras las taladoras siguen actuando impunemente. Empero tales actos parecen las únicas opciones para arrancar una respuesta al gobierno y hacer retroceder a quienes han delinquido contra ellos.
Los gobiernos del G-20, la prensa, la mayoría de las ONGs ecológicas internacionales importantes, y muchos científicos, han celebrado esta preservación orientada al desarrollo, y obtenida por medio de acciones oficiales basadas en el mercado, como la mejor forma de salvar la Amazonia. Sin embargo estas políticas ya están demostrando ser insuficientes, conflictivas y contraproducentes, tal como se ha visto en los casos de la Gleba Nova Olinda y la Reserva Renascer. Los costos sociales y ecológicos de "disfrazar de verde" este tipo de desarrollo inherentemente destructivo son enormes. Los graves problemas de los debates posteriores al protocolo de Kyoto, la actual crisis económica global y las múltiples crisis del paradigma de los mercados libres crean un contexto de explotación acelerada justo cuando los líderes mundiales honran la conservación ambiental de dientes para afuera.
Si los países y organizaciones del hemisferio norte realmente quieren detener la destrucción de los bosques y los pueblos de las regiones tropicales, deben reconocer, valorar y poner en práctica las innumerables propuestas para la conservación ambiental no basadas en el mercado. Los habitantes de estos bosques son quienes pueden garantizar su supervivencia a través de sus conocimientos y prácticas diversos [B1].
Los burócratas del G-20 harían bien en aprender de esta gente. Un paradigma más humano y considerado comienza por reconocer que nuestros modelos de consumo y de gobierno internacional son directamente responsables de gran parte de la destrucción.
La comunidad internacional puede ayudar más a la conservación de la Región Amazónica prestando la atención debida a los temas que surgen en los debates de la localidad, en lugar de recurrir al discurso generalizado de "buen gobierno" y de soluciones basadas en el mercado a los problemas planteados por los patrones mundiales de consumo. Un enfoque más razonable es el de presionar a los gobiernos en los niveles estatal y nacional para que reconozcan y respeten los derechos de la población a gobernar sus propios territorios y recursos en la práctica y no sólo en la retórica.
Éste no es un llamado romántico al localismo; es una cuestión trascendental de soberanía política. Los pueblos de la Gleba Nova Olinda y la Reserva Renascer ¿no tienen el derecho de determinar su identidad, demarcar sus territorios y decidir cómo administrar las tierras y los recursos dentro de ellos? Notas
1. Treccani, G.D. 2009. Regularizacao Fundiaria da Regiao Mamuru Arapiuns. Presentación en Power Point. Seminario Ideflor. Santarém. 2. El proceso de reconocimiento de derechos indígenas a la tierra se inicia con una investigación antropológica de la historia y la cultura de los pueblos aunada a una investigación geográfica de las dimensiones de su territorio. Se publica un informe sumario en el Diario de la Federación, y se abre un proceso de 90 días durante el cual las partes interesadas pueden contender por los derechos al área. Toda la documentación se envía al Ministerio de Justicia, el cual anuncia oficialmente la demarcación. La demarcación física de los límites es realizada por un tercero contratado por el gobierno. La investigación antropológica y geográfica respecto a la Gleba Nova Olinda se completó en 2007. El informe sumario todavía no se publica. 3. Leal, Aluizio. Trabalho Escravo Os porquês da questão? Texto inédito en portugués. 4. ACSELRAD, Henri. O Zoneamento Ecológico-Econômico da Amazônia e o panoptismo imperfeito. P&A Editora: Rio de Janeiro, 2002. 5. Véase la ley Nº 7,243, del 9 de enero de 2009. Mientras que el código forestal ordena una reserva de 80%, estipulando que si un individuo posee tierra que está deforestada en más de 80%, esa tierra debe reforestarse, la ZEE cambió este requisito. Los tenedores de tierra ya deforestada pueden utilizar hasta el 50% de esa propiedad en lugar de reforestarla. 6. Véase http://www.socioambiental.org/noticias/nsa/detalhe?id=. 7. Véase la ley Nº 7,243 del 9 de enero de 2009. 8. Benatti 2007. 9. Como ejemplo, véase la carta abierta de Marina Silva sobre esta medida: http://www.socioambiental.org/nsa/detalhe?id=2896. 10. Benatti, J.H. 2007. Internacalizacão da Amazônia e a questão ambiental: o direito das populações tradicionais e indígenas a terra. Revista Amazônia Legal de estudos sócio-jurídico-ambientais. 1(1): 23-39. 11. Como ejemplo véase "Moradores incendeiam balsas com Madeira no Pará http://www.greenblog.org.br/?cat=202.
Ver también estas noticias de Greenpeace Brasil en portugues: uno, dos.
Excerpts with the author's permission, from blog A Russia of My Own. Josefina Lundblad is a 22 year old Swede who teaches Swedish at Ural State University while working on her MA in Russian literature.
Feb 2009 -- Ulitsa Chapaeva where I live.
There’s about half a meter of snow here in Yekaterinburg, and when I went on my run this evening it snowed even more. On Saturday it was minus 34! Now it’s only minus 10....
How can I be sure that I am actually back in Russia, and not somewhere else? Today when I paid with my card at the grocery store, the cashier wasn’t pleased with the way I signed the receipt, so she said to me: “No, no, that won’t do, you have to write like it’s written here, on the back of your card. Can’t you see? Do it again!” No suspicion of fraud, no frown of lip nor brow, just the usual Russian way of dealing with things when correcting the mistakes of sloppy foreigners. I signed it a second time, making it look just like my signature on the card, below my first slapdash signature, and she was pleased.
March -- Last night I called my mom, and then my dad, and spoke with both of them for some forty minutes each, which led my brain to dream in Swedish during the night...
Ksenia and I went to the hospital to visit Marina after her operation.... The hospital is located in the outskirts of Yekat, and because they’re doing ‘remont’ (they’re always doing ‘remont’ in Russia, especially here for some reason) on one of the main roads, we had to drive around it and the bus got stuck in traffic. Only in Russia can one get stuck in traffic on a Sunday! The whole day I kept repeating what I read in my favorite weekly dose of news – Russian Reporter – on Saturday night: «не страна, а анекдот!» (not a country, but an anecdote! or joke). I wasn’t the first to say it, but I have been wanting to say it for a long time. It’s true, the more you think about it, the more you come to realize that you’re not really living in a country, but in an anecdote. And since everybody loves a good anecdote, and Russia is indeed the best one, everybody loves Russia. We brought Marina fruit and juice and chocolate and she looked good... We lingered there for an hour or two, trying to solve Swedish crosswords, but only in the end did we manage to finish one – the one for kids.
July --Tomorrow I’m heading out into the Urals, the Pilorama Festivale at the former GULAG camp “Perm-36”. It will be a weekend full of all the things I love most in life – Ural nature, Soviet concentration camp and poetry slams!In 1931 Varlam Shalamov stood and looked out over the river Вишера (the Vishera) and thought to himself: Мне уже 24 года и я еще ничего не делал для бессмертия (I am already 24 years old and I haven’t done anything for immortality yet : from his Антироман Вишера, The Vishera Antinovel). In 2009 Josefina stood and looked out over the same river and thought to herself that the first step towards immortality had been taken already some time ago – when I was baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
Varlam began his trip to the GULAG in 1929. On my 24th birthday I had made it, two hours by bus, to Krasnovishersk, a road that took Shalamov five days on foot.
В этой могиле мы умирали 3 суток и всё же не умерли. Крепитесь, товарищи! -- “In this grave we were dying for three days and yet we did not die. Stay strong, comrades!” These famous words on the wall of the cellar of the monastery in Solikamsk, where – possibly – Shalamov spent a night in April 1929, are from his short story “The First Tooth”... in the story he looks up at the wall and sees these words. Not the real graffito, though, this is by Shalamov fans who have written the quote – twice! – there in his honor.
After the museum excursion we tried to have some dinner at the ‘food court’, as I nicknamed the tents which served different kinds of very Russian dishes (buckwheat, anyone?), and were almost successful. We looked at the many different people gathered at the festival and marveled at the amount of tents already in place... Everywhere people were drinking beer – despite the fact that the museum’s website clearly said ‘alcohol forbidden’ – we concluded that Russians do not count beer as alcohol....
I cannot stop reading Evgeniya Ginzburg. I am in love with her. Now she was a real woman. In prison, in labor camps, on Kolyma – she was first and foremost a woman. She makes me proud not only of my sex, but my profession. Who knew being a philologist could be a secret weapon?
November - Memorabilia - oпыт феноменологического рассказа
I remember a late, warm evening one summer somewhere in a small Russian village. He’s waiting for me with hot, black tea in glasses – not cups – and dry cookies in the almost empty kitchen of his little summer house. The sun is far from setting, though it is already late, and I look around as I step out of the tiny building which is his banya [= sauna] that he has built with his own two hands. I am warm and wet and clean and smell of strawberry soap and birch trees… Everything around me is full of stillness, stillness of the coming night, stillness remaining after another lazy summer day in the countryside; the trees are bending down heavy over the small garden and the blue, cloudy sky seems lower and lower by the hour, but it is not going to rain; no, tonight it will not rain. I wrap the towel around my wet hair, leaving a couple of strands to fall down my damp back…
The front door is open and he’s standing there, smoking his BelamorKanal [the White Sea Canal, one of Stalin's GULAG megaprojects], watching me as I step down the little stone path leading from the banya up to the house. The house is almost empty now. We’re the only ones here now. His wife is in the hospital. He has been alone for three weeks and now I’m here to clean off the dirt of dusty Russian summer roads that I’ve walked, walked, walked barefoot while picking berries in the fields and looking around me in the woods and thinking that after all, despite of everything: this must be it.
I remember how he cared for me that evening; I remember how he turned out to be something of a country gentleman... from another time very long ago. I remember his heavy grey eyebrows and his long, straight forehead, and his hair that lay like curly silver on top of his large head, and those big, blue eyes as he placed the glass in front of me on the table. I sit down on the chair by the table; he places himself on the bed behind the table as to be closer to me. We talked of old times and of his wife and he told me of his grand children and I listened to his soft voice echoing in such a poor room… There was nothing on the walls. Not even a single picture. Except for the icon over the stove. There was only one single, lonely light bulb hanging from the ceiling. It was the only light. The cookies placed on the wooden table without anything underneath them. The glass was old and steaming with hot tea. I sip and he sips as he watches me and I remember how I liked the way his blue eyes kept looking at me. I remember his large hands, I remember how they lay so still placed on his knees and how we discussed old times and how I couldn’t help but not to forget that we belong to different generations; of this we also talked and he sat so close to me and kept filling my glass with more tea and never tired of caring for me. He didn’t let a single glance of mine pass unseen. His name is Anatoly, but he insist I call him Tolya. Uncle Tolya. I do not object; I call him uncle Tolya and he smiles. Sitting there in that kitchen in a Russian summer house that evening made me remember another kitchen in another Russian summer house two summers before this…. I remember waking up in the double bed next to ___, on white, wet sheets; I remember stretching out my arms to touch the yellow sunrays coming in through the open window; his body was sweaty and young next to mine and I was wearing a purple silk nightgown and we had the entire house to ourselves. We had the entire day to ourselves. We had the entire world to ourselves. There was nothing outside our window but blue sky and green trees and deep Russian woods and somewhere, further down the road, a river running through from somewhere, and all of this belonged to us. We were young and we had never promised each other anything, and in the mornings I would make him breakfast while he walked the dog – yes, there was a dog, we had a dog – I fried eggs, made a salad from fresh vegetables that I picked in the garden, brewed black coffee and cleaned the table from what had been left there the night before: an empty wine bottle, a torn copy of some Murakami book in a poor Russian translation, a half-empty package of condoms… And then we sat there and ate together, playing with each other laughing about something, drinking our coffee slowly and looking out over the garden, expecting nothing but another hot day filled with sunshine. I remember we took long walks together with the dog. I remember how we sat together in the dark in the evenings and read Murakami together, how we discussed everything and nothing and then it really seemed to me that there would be no end to this summer. That there would be no end to our youth, that we would always be this young and that this summer house would forever stand in sunshine and warmth and that the fall would never come, that our arguments would never begin, we would never fight, we would never have any worries every again but stay like this. Right there. I remember running through the wet grass in the evenings down to the lake after sitting in the banya for an hour, sweating and beating each other’s naked bodies with birch trees… I remember jumping into the water, I remember swimming side by side with him; I can’t forget the way the grass felt against my bare feet, how the water felt to my naked body, how free we were that summer. It was as if everything in the whole world was just us: the house, the dog, he, I.
This and following photo: Tanya Emshanova's Ural series on Flickr.com
I remember standing outside in the small garden with uncle Tolya, we’re standing barefoot in together the grass and he’s smoking BelamorKanal and I’m smoking what he calls ‘women’s cigarettes’; it is dark outside now. The sun has set, the moon has come out. We’re watching our shadows on the grass in front of us, the light coming from the kitchen is behind us and falls before us on the grass. His shade is bigger than mine; his shoulders are broad, the smoke coming from his cigarette is thicker, fuller than the smoke coming from mine. My hair has almost dried now and I remember letting it out of the towel as we stand there looking at our two shadows – so different and yet almost the same – on the ground before us and in silence we contemplate. Somehow both of us know that life must go on, that life always goes on, that I will have to take my things and walk back from where I came, that his wife will come back from the hospital, and that we’ll never have an evening together like this again. We want to tell each other what’s important, what matters, and I remember thinking that even in silence, even when we’re not saying anything, we’re still staying within the territory of what matters the most, what is truly important in this world. “I don’t think I’ve ever loved anyone,” I say and he nods. “What makes you think that?” “All of this is so new to me…” He smiles: “It is new to all of us, my dear.” “Can you love more than once in your life?” “You can love a million times,” he answers. “But will it ever be like the first time?” “Every time is special, every time is a universe in itself,” he says and continues: “Every relationship is a world of its own, and you will never know that world if you don’t close your eyes and let go and fall into it with your back first… keeping your arms stretched out as if you wanted to fly, as if you not only could fly, but knew that this is the time that you’ll really soar.” “I think I’m scared,” I say. I remember how uncle Tolya looked at me, how his stern face of an old man who’s served over thirty years in the Russian army broke into the kindest, the warmest glow and how his one hand took a hold of mine. “I don’t know what it is like for you young people these days…” “I think it is nothing new, I think it is the same as it was for you, just…” “Just?” “Just nothing.” He smiles again and again and again. “I want to love another man now, and I want to give him everything, but I’ve already given everything once and that…” “We’re not in this for eternity, we’re in it for the moment,” says uncle Tolya. “It is not about forever?” I ask. He shakes his head. “No, my dear, it is all about now.”
Tebtebbavideo from Indonesian Borneo (Kalimantan)- see more here See also Wikipedia on Dayak peoples and their Kaharingan religion.
A Philippines-based NGO has opened a new Indigenous Climate Portal to bring the voices of native peoples to public attention during COP-15 and REDD negotiations.
Tebtebbta.org says, "The last remaining tropical forests in the developing countries are those which indigenous peoples control or own." They have often had to fight against greedy multinationals, lumber pirates, mining companies, poorly conceived conservation and park projects, corrupt governments, military, police, and private death squads to displace them from their territories. Their strength is not in weaponry, but in "deeply rooted historic, cultural, and spiritual relationships."
"The lands, forests and resources which indigenous peoples' traditionally owned and used are the very basis of their livelihoods, social organization, identities and cultures. Thus, it is to their own interest that these forests are conserved and protected. If REDD is done properly, which means indigenous peoples are involved in designing, implementing and monitoring this and they will equitably share in the rewards and benefits from REDD projects and programmes, then [it will be] a win-win situation for the environment and for development."
Ngaju Dayak see the goddess of the earth and the god of heaven as separate but interdependent beings: in prayer they say, 'the snake befriends the hornbill' (tambon haruei bungai). Divine unity is shown by the sacrificial pole (sanggaran) erected at mortuary festivities (tiwah) in the centre of the village. It shows a snake with lances and above it a hornbill, symbolizing the fusion of underworld and upperworld in total divinity. -- A.H.Klokke. Picture of the tiwah inscribed on a bamboo tube:the sanggaran is at centre right under an upside-down tree of life - click to see clearly
For many years my Lenten season reading has included 
