Though little has been recorded in
history books, the resistance of the indigenous peoples in Latin America has been going on for 500 years. In Peru they say the resistance against the Spanish headed by the indigenous leader Túpac Amaru was the precursor of the struggle for independence eventually won by Simon Bolívar. But the struggle that Túpac Amaru began still continues.
More recently, the indigenous rebellion in Latin America has come to international attention. The struggle has intensified because capitalism is attacking the indigenous communities and their natural environments with ever greater ferocity.
All human beings depend on nature; but here in Europe many children grow up to believe that milk, cheese and potatoes are produced in supermarkets. Indigenous people are clear that it is nature that feeds us. Yet our communities benefit least from the advantages of civilisation because so-called progress brings us nothing but
People in communities all over the world have now woken up to the renewed struggle for the indigenous people's defence of Pachamama, the Quechua word for Mother Earth. While many ecosocialists identify with this fight, few realise that it is just a continuation of five centuries of struggle. That struggle also aims to build a new society, something we are all fighting for.
There are indigenous people and their communities in the Americas and all over the world. What Marx called primitive communism still exists as a form of political power, albeit much weakened by the central power of the state. Sometimes these indigenous communities come into conflict with the state, sometimes they peacefully co-exist with it.
In the mountains of Peru are federations of indigenous communities whose organisations see their role as not to govern but to struggle and to raise demands. Of course the best example of this kind is in a small part of the state of Chiapas, in the south of Mexico where for 16 years the indigenous communities have organised themselves under the protection of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN).
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The EZLN does not rule the area: rather the people run their communities through "good government" committees (in contrast with the "bad" central government of Mexico). Those serving on the collective bodies are unpaid, their functions rotate and they can be recalled at any time. Members of the EZLN are not allowed to serve on them unless they resign their military posts. Ferocious attacks Marx said that the working class had nothing to lose but its misery, and therefore that it would be the gravedig ger of capitalism. However, it was the capitalists who studied what Marx said most closely, which is why they attacked the working class so ferociously.
All over the world now, in Peru and elsewhere, subcontracting has been used by the capitalists so that many who work in a factory do not work for the company that owns it. This kind of practice has generated very many divisions within the working class.
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26 Ecology and resistance in Latin America
Also, with the advent of new forms of technology, the need for a large number of workers has been reduced, so now there are many unemployed. Workers know that if they lose their jobs, there are another three hundred people willing to take their place. In Peru many factories have closed and the amount of imported goods has increased. All of this means that the workers' movement is very much weakRecently I was in Argentina where the
although not as weak as in Peru, suffers the same problems. However, discontent can surface in many different ways. The 2001 rebellion in Argentina broke out not through the organised working class, but took other Survival at stake Now, in Peru, the indigenous movement Is at the forefront of the struggle because indigenous people are fighting for their very survival. The same applies in Bolivia and Ecuador, where indigenous movements overthrew the previous governments. In Colombia, despite the ongoing civil conflict, the indigenous movement is strong.
Argentina prides itself on being a white country, but in May this year a large march took place on Buenos Aires demanding that Argentina be constitutionally declared a "plurinational" state, like Bolivia and
In Honduras since the military coup of a few months ago indigenous people have
been a pillar in the struggle against the new regime. One indigenous leader declared that
since Honduras currently has no legitimate
government, it is for the indigenous people to
build one from the bottom up. She may not
know much about the Zapatistas, but she is
effectively repeating what they said. They
declared: 'It is not a question of seizing
power, but rather of building power'. This
power is being built right now in various parts
of Latin America.
I believe that such movements can be
called ecosocialist. They don't call
themselves ecologists - they simply
struggle for the defence of mother nature.
Much less do they call themselves
socialists. How could the Mapuche of Chile
call themselves socialists when they are
being repressed by the 'Socialist'
government of Michelle Bachelet? How
could Ecuadorian indigenous people call
themselves socialists when they are
confronting a government of so-called 21st
century socialism? Nevertheless, they are building a society organised horizontally, one which is growing in strength. Communal organisation be no problem of global warming because a few corporations would not be able to decide the fate of humanity as a whole.
The winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics last year, Eleanor Ostrom, said she was very grateful to the indigenous peoples of North America, because they had taught her to think in terms of the seventh generation. She had learned to take into account whether her choices now will help or harm that generation and to act accordingly. This approach has nothing in common with the neoliberal mentality which does not consider for a second what the consequences of today's actions will be for our children or grandchildren.
The Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano once asked: 'How were we able to survive as primitive societies, when we had no fur, claws, fangs or tusks, or anything else with which we cold protect ourselves? Wasn't it because we were together, and we shared our food and everything we had?" If those primitive societies had applied instead the morality of today, they would not have lasted 15 minutes. So it would seem that this was the original morality of all humanity, surviving today amongst indigenous peoples. If we do not recover that morality, humanity will not last another hundred years.
It is not a question of returning to primitive lifestyles but of thinking about what we can do now that will not harm future generations - substituting fossil fuels with renewable energy for example. Of course it is not indigenous peoples who will come up with those solutions, but technicians who no longer work at the service of multinational corporations, but at the service of humanity. • This is an edited version of the speech given by Hugo Blanco at the conference on Latin America and the Ecosocialist Alternative organised by Socialist Resistance and the Green Left in London on 18 September 2010.