And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1999 09:17:00 -0700 (PDT)
From: Chris <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Brazil: 500 years of Indigenous, Negro and Popular Resistance (fwd)
-- forwarded message --
From: SEJUP <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
Subject: News from Brazil, No. 353
Date: 4 Jun 1999 04:27:32 GMT
Message-ID: <7j7kjk$13gs$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
NEWS FROM BRAZIL supplied by SEJUP (Servio Brasileiro de Justia e Paz).
Number 353, June 3, 1999.
Visit our home page: http://www.oneworld.org/sejup/
[...]
The complete text of the campaign, Brazil: 500 years of Indigenous, Negro
and Popular Resistance:
BRAZIL: 500 YEARS
A CELEBRATION, YES, BUT DIFFERENT.
The date is approaching, April 22, 2000, when we will reflect on the day
500 years ago when an group of armed Portuguese soldiers came to these
lands, with the intention of making them colonial territory.
Here had lived, for more than 40,000 years, more than 5 million persons,
who belonged to about 970 different peoples. They were the legitimate
owners of these lands. To them belonged all except the antibodies against
the European sicknesses, the gunpowder and lead, and the impulse to
violence, exploration and plunder.
The privileged carriers of these were the ragged and sick men who landed
on the beach of Cabrlia (as it is known today) in the south of Bahia,
saying that they were "discovering a New World" and that they were
bringing
to it their ideas of civilization, progress and evangelization. That day
was the beginning of the expansion of the Old World, through lethal and
organized brutality, ready to put themselves against everything and
everybody in their path. The 22 of April 1500 was the beginning of a
violent and inhuman history which continues until today.
We, indigenous peoples, Negro movements, social movements and entities of
the Movement "Brazil: 500 years of Indigenous, Negro and Popular
Resistance", read our history from a place well defined: of those who
suffered and struggled against the colonial exploitation of class, of
those
condemned on the land, in the peripheries of the cities. We do not
believe
in a history written by the dominant classes, in which these put
themselves
as the only winners .... We intend, through our movement, to demystify
the
construction of official lies and reveal the true history lived by the
indigenous peoples, by the enslaved Negro people and by the popular
sectors
explored and excluded: the truth of the indigenous people who, all
through
these five centuries, suffer a continuous process of extermination and
abandonment, not withstanding their heroic struggle to preserve their
lands, their culture, their identity, their religion, their life's
projects; the truth of the African peoples who, imprisoned, were taken
violently and kidnapped from their homes and brought here. During almost
400 years they have lived in this country as part of a system of
production
which has been condemned by history. Protagonists of heroic gestures who
founded here free lands - the quilombos - living proof of the affirmation
of human dignity and of the struggles maintained up to the present day by
the Negro entities confronted by a notorious power; the truth of the
popular sectors who, during all of our history struggled to change its
course, in the search for a just and fraternal society. The popular
sectors
were the greatest protagonists of our recent struggle against a military
dictator and against the implantation amongst us of a neoliberal model.
Today the struggle for agrarian reform and the struggle against mass
unemployment are two of their struggles to establish a new society.
During the difficult establishment of a Brazilian society these past 500
years, there was always violence. In the same way, the examples of
generosity, creativity and the willingness to build a free and independent
land and a just and humane society always existed and were bequeathed to
us
by the indigenous peoples, the enslaved Negro peoples and the popular
sectors. It is they too, who today, continue to give examples of how it
is
possible to transform a society to benefit all.
We intend through our Movement to mark our disagreement clearly and
transparently in relation to the official commemorations. These will
commemorate the 500 years of the building of a nation supposedly united
and
harmonious , from their point of view, and with the 'voluntary
contribution' of the indigenous peoples, of the Africans brought here and
of the white Europeans. For the official commemorations there is no
notion
of conflict, which is as central to our history as it is to the present
day. The brutality of the indigenous genocide commanded by the colonial
enterprise which was responsible for the killing of whole peoples, the
barbarity of the slavery which plundered the African peoples sacrificing
families and communities and a merciless cruelty which victimized and is
victimizing daily the popular sectors, making it one of the most unequal
societies on the planet. All these historic facts cannot be understood
without the central notion of conflict - conflict between peoples,
classes,
ideologies, between perceptions of life, of the world, of humanity and of
our history.
Our Celebrations
Our movement Brazil: 500 years of Indigenous, Negro and Popular Resistance
intends to celebrate, but to celebrate the victories achieved during these
five centuries through joint struggles, through popular incentives, full
of
anonymous heroes who will never have their names written in the history
books. We will celebrate the victories which cost us so much blood and so
many martyrs, so much suffering and hope in the hearts of those who had
nothing with which to struggle if it was not their faith in a world less
inhuman.
We will celebrate the victories and losses of a struggle that was always
unequal: on one side the riches, the power, the arms, the disdain for
life
and arrogance; on the other hand, community life, human work, the
dispossessed, the class solidarity, the humility, the anonymous generosity
and the infinite hope.
We will also celebrate the future. Heirs of a past of resistance and
struggle, we are certain that, apart from all the injustices and
inequality
which exist, we will build a just and free society, marked by equality and
fraternity - a society dreamed of by so many of us and of those who went
before us.
Our Plans
To attain our objectives to reflect and celebrate the indigenous, negro
and popular resistance in these 500 years of Brazilian history we pledge
ourselves to the following acts: to provoke, in all the movements and
entities in which we participate, a process of reflection, cultural
activities and struggles which have as their reference the question of the
500 years; to launch during the week of 18th to the 24th of April 1999
throughout Brazil the movement Brazil: 500 year of Indigenous, Negro and
Popular Resistance; during the month of April 2000 to have several events
in the south of Bahia - a march, ecumenical and cultural events - to
stimulate the Brazilian society to reflect on these 500 years of history
from the point of view of the indigenous, negro and popular classes; and
to
join with the social struggles which exist locally, regionally and
nationally and launch them on the international agenda in Latin America
as
well as in Europe, particularly in Portugal.
December 98 CONEN, MNU, CMP, CIMI, CPT,GTME, , Committee 500 years of
Negro, Indigenous and Popular Restistance Salvador Bahia, Frum 500 anos de
Campinas, SP., CAPOIB, APOINME, Articulao de Mulheres negras Llia
Gonzales - Salvador Bahia, CEPIS, A.C.R., Equipe Palmares de Rio Claro,
SP,
Coletivo 500 anos de Araras,SP, SINPRO Comit de Solidaridade s
Comunidades Zapatistas -SP
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doctrine of international copyright law.
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Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/
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