September 15 was independence day for our
adopted country. In the tiny plaza above our house the music and fireworks
continued until midnight that night as our poor dog, Ita, cowered under the
kitchen table. The independence Mexico achieved in 1810, though, did not
benefit the indigenous people so much as those of the class of Spanish and
mixed descent. These last, following a European mindset, ushered in a “liberal” attack on indigenous lands,
culture, and languages in the name of progress and nation-building.
“Independence” has become a chimera for us all in our days as the “new liberalism” (neoliberalism) has chained us to binding free trade and
austerity policies that have set us on the freeway to planetary and societal
catastrophe with no exit signs in sight. Modern globalization has meant
commitment to an impossible growth in consumption and contamination, while
austerity policies enforce our domination by the super wealthy.
And here in the indigenous communities of
Oaxaca, the assault by these forces has become critical. As Naomi Klein points out in her newly published
book, This Changes Everything, “ many of the biggest pools of
untapped carbon are on lands controlled by some of the poorest people on the
planet,” i.e.
indigenous peoples. And so the newly “liberal”
Mexican
government has found a way to open those lands to the international petroleum
cabal. Under pressure from its
previous commitments with NAFTA, (and no doubt from Barak Obama who has
convinced Mexican private and public leaders to warmly embrace fracking, the
conservative Mexican president and congress have ramrodded through “Energy Reforms” written in the U.S. under the
Alliance for Prosperity and Security. The reforms proclaim that the priority
use of any Mexican lands is the extraction of petroleum and natural gas.
Applicable to previously protected indigenous communal and ejido farmlands,
these unconstitutional laws give
national and international petroleum and gas conglomerates the right to require
indigenous communities to negotiate terms for the use of any land where
petroleum or gas are likely to be found.
If the communities decide not to accept the terms of negotiation, the “reforms” give the federal government the
right to expropriate those lands in the name of the private industries.
The fight has begun, and it is the same fight as
the tar sands in Canada and the XL pipeline and anti-fracking fight in the U.S.
And as Naomi Klein points out,
this gives us the opportunity to unite the struggle for a sustainable
planet with the fight for a democracy that is more inclusive of
the poor and open to alternative indigenous
visions for our future world.
Our years in this small indigenous village have
taught us a great deal. We have begun to feel at home in a different culture, a
different civilization. And we have come to enjoy and value a different sense
of what life is about. Life here
is a “convivio”, a living together while striving for harmony
with the life-forms that surround us. We are learning how to live in community
in a new way, and we hope to share what we learn and defend the culture that we
are learning, in the small ways that are possible for us. But because of this,
defending this civilization from
the violent attacks of an international financial and business community
bent on extracting wealth at whatever cost, has become personal for us.
It may well turn out to be that it is the vision
of civilization of this small, indigenous community and the indigenous
communities around the world, striking in their similarities,that will save the
human family from the deviate civilization of greed and growth.
Our new book, Milpa! From Seed to Salsa: Ancient Ingredients for a Sustainable Future from the Center for Integral
Campesino Development of the Mixteca (CEDICAM) with whom we work tries to tell a bit of this civilizational story from within. It
represents one of the very little things we can do to defend what we have come
to love.
If you would like to
reserve a copy for when it comes out in December or January, send us a note and
a check for $30.00 to cover the book and shipping (Instituto Paz, 2645 Mountain
View Rd., Silver City, NM, 88061). Many thanks to those of you who donated
toward the printing of the book! Of course we’ll
send your free copy as soon as it comes out.
© Phil and Kathy Dahl-Bredine 2014
Photography © Judith Cooper Haden
