“a cross-fire balance of winds”

the title for this post comes from a margaret gibson poem that i received in the mail from a good friend; it told me that my soul depends on the wind. in this way i s’pose last week on the isthmus of tehuantepec was all about my soul – wind that blows over tractor-trailers, the kind that generates power for super-stores and sweatshops, and the kind that comes from below to knock down steel turbines.

a week ago i left Oaxaca City for two reasons. to visit the monthly coordinating meeting for the red de radios comunitarias indigenas del sureste de Mexico (the indigenous community radio network of southeastern Mexico) and travel with fredy, a coordinator for the network, to his hometown of San Juan Guichicovi to check-out radio ayuuk (a future post will focus on some of the lessons learned from this trip). secondly, i was to meet up with elizabeth arnold, an npr corespondent, who needed an interpreter and some connections for a story she is doing on the wind-energy farms being built on the isthmus, migrating bird mortality due to the turbines, and the indigenous resistance that is stalling the plans of the mexican federal government, Iberdrola (the Spanish company behind the project), and Plan Puebla Panama. She promised a donation to community radio and CASA Chapulin, which she made, but i’ll say the future of my willingness to listen to national public radio depends on how this story turns out (should be out mid-nov. on morning edition or all things considered, i’ll let you know). my greatest fear is that the focus will be more on bird mortality and less on land-rights and corporate globalization.

we started by interviewing an organizer with Ucizoni, a union of over a hundred indigenous communities in the isthmus. he gave us the broad context behind the wind farms – the isthmus having been targeted as prime real estate for industrial (think sweatshops) and commercial (think walmart) expansion into central america, interstates are being financed to move products, and wind turbines are being built to keep the machines spinning. none of the electricity is being used for the people, who find their economic base in agriculture and fishing, currently living in the isthmus. in fact, their electric bills are going up at the same time that they’re losing their lands.

we moved on to San Dionisio del Mar, where another of the red de radios community stations is located, and where Iberdrola is planning on constructing hundreds of wind turbines in the very bay where people daily go out to fish. elizabeth had got her start, before npr, in community radio in alaska, so she was interested in the role the radios played in the resistance. we listened to a few promos put together by the red de radios, and learned of the community assemblies organized to fill the information void left by the company that sends out “coyotes” to knock door to door convincing people (many who don’t read Spanish -telling them they’ll never have to work again, and offering signing bonuses) to sign 30-year contracts to rent their land for 80 cents/month/hectare (which is next to free). of course they fail to mention that after signing the contract they lose access to the land they depend on, that there’s no beneficiary (so if the signer of the contract dies, the land goes directly to Iberdrola), and that the blades of the turbines require chemical cleaners that leech into surrounding land and water.

our last stop was in La Venta, where the wind is so strong, all year ’round, that toppled tractor-trailers dot the long flat road outside of town. we met a group of men at La Tienda Lolita, where they hang-out to chat and plan, to talk about their resistance to the wind farms, coming directly from small landowners and campesinos. we spent hours, and could have spent many more, listening to stories of company greed that reminded me of Appalachia at the turn of the century (and into present day), with coal companies buying/stealing and operating whole towns, all based on the inevitability of progress. this new, “clean” energy is based on a lot of the same bullshit – in this case on the lie shoved down our throats that large corporations can address global warming within an economic system of unchecked production and consumption, that within the cause we can find a cure. the men we met in La Venta told us about international forums being organized to strategize resistance, the inevitability of migration north if they get surrounded by sixty-foot blades spinning sardonically in their faces, and the fact that some of them are gonna stick around to defend their land with machetes if they have to. they told us that there’s no such thing as clean energy if it isn’t community controlled, if it privatizes the very land where we want to dig deeper roots.

sorry for the rushed post, but i’m off to check out Day of Dead back in the Mixteca, back to Oaxaca on Friday. there’ll be a lot to share, as these weeks have been filled with marches, commemoration and reflection on the movement last year, and planning for the wind that’ll push us further…

Patrick

seeds: elections, broadcasting, and maiz

["armando la radio" and raising an antenna - click on any of the photos in the post to see their full size]

the municipal president (mayoral) elections in the larger cities have concluded here in oaxaca. however, many small towns will hold their elections over the next month under the community assembly system, widely labeled usos y costumbres, which draws on traditional indigenous governance but varies widely in its implementation – in terms of gender involvement, political party influence, manipulation by a centralized authority, decision-making, flow and use of money, and base of support. in the arena of obvious and admitted political party elections (including Oaxaca City) the PRI has claimed the vast majority of the seats – with allegations of fraud and intimidation wide enough to surpass that term. here in the city, relatively few people voted, but many turned out to a march shortly after the results were announced, and according to an eye-witness account from a friend, the “movement candidate” Humberto Lopez-Lena decided to use his concellation speech to take the rage from the crowd and shape into something that would fit into another ballot-box probably stuffed, but “civil.” another march has been called for the end of the month to denounce the PRI win, so if i happen to find out about when and where i’ll check it out and let you know – the thing is, with fewer movement radio stations since last year’s repression (and now the feds have initiated a multi-state initiative to close unlicensed – the vast majority – community radio stations) spreading the word about upcoming actions is harder and mostly relies on the exclusivity of lips and thumbs – word of mouth and text messages.

the vote of a voice in the air:

last week we all piled into the back of a truck with gustavo, an engineering student and community radio activist, behind the wheel. one group headed to do election observation, and the other – we were headed up into the mountains with gustavo and elisa, a local teacher/organizer, to hook-up a much awaited transmitter and facilitate a training on community radio and programming. after leaving the main road, a few hours east of Oaxaca City, we climbed south into the mountains. i went from sunburn to sweater to huddling close to the truck bed to protect against cold wind chills, from dry air and dust to rushing rivers, all in the space of a few hours.

arriving at the school where we would be staying, perched above deep valleys below, the frozen air and dome of stars surrounding us on all sides convinced me that it was snowing. here, like the dead messages of these stars, the community radio would benefit from height in broadcasting the life of its reflections…

the community radio sits right in the center of town, in one of the municipal buildings used as a school. this helps in convincing the local state government installed authority that the radio is a class project, which to large degree it is – the radio team are mostly high school students. the determination and experience coming from their teacher elisa, and an energy all their own, is evidenced in their months of broadcasting from a roof with megaphones after their more “proper” transmitter failed. this was a supplement of news, music, and commentary in the local language of zapoteco, to add to the original purpose of the megaphones – announcing incoming phone calls, frequently rustling the corn and ears of the red-clay adobe houses tightly grouped around the town center.

the workshop started by looking for the collective definition of “community radio” hidden in the experiences we’d all had with radio, a media of gravity in Oaxaca – especially in towns where television signals seldom arrive and newspapers are stained with the biased print those of us from the world of rupert murdoch know all about. from sharing stories in pairs, a number of elements of our definition bobbed above the surface – the importance of being able to check the source and veracity of your news (what better way than stopping into the station down the street), the power of self-expression, especially in a language that gets little air-time in dominant media, and the necessity of involving an entire community: the elderly and their stories and knowledge of the land and transitions, children, men, and women looking for new ways to live as individuals, with their partners, and in the region.

the theory/programming piece benefited from the participation of gustavo and elisa tremendously, and the radio team hesitantly but resolutely offered their knowledge – i always remain in doubt however. evaluation doesn’t come easy, and my gringo-ness quite understandably shades perceptions…walking the line of learning with wide-eyes, facilitating a training that doesn’t use myself as a primary source, and acknowledging the affect of my presence and the tempting ability to invent experience…

…ultimately, moving onto the communion of a mixer, transmitter, and antenna were understandably on everyone’s mind. and as gustavo would remind us all during his piece of the training, programming and community inevitably enters the radio as its social circle extends beyond the involvement of an exclusive radio team.

after reviewing the function and care of the anatomy of a low-watt community radio, as simple as it is necessary, and the need to protect it from police and regulatory bodies that want to enforce the rule that it’s neither – we brought together wooden poles borrowed from neighbors, a little bit of calibrated copper tubing, electrical tape that didn’t want to stick, wiring that was much more comfortable with the height than i was, and the harmony of hammering, jokes, and steps on a ladder, to send a signal that will bounce around the mountain walls to hundreds and hundreds!!! the extra exclamation here is essential, as this was a process of months for some, and hours for us

gustavo didn’t make it back in time to vote in Oaxaca City, but we decided that setting up a community radio was much more an arm of democracy than any thousands of hands dropping votes into a box…

maiz, in the sierra mixteca:

i went to the sierra mixteca last weekend to attend The Festival of Mixtecan Corn in San Cristobal Amoltepec. This is a region where many of the Oaxacan immigrants to the Shenandoah Valley come from, and a region with extremely high migration rates in general. companies like Monsanto are doing their best to encourage this migration by attacking the history, culture, and land of indigenous corn varieties with genetically modified corn that feeds profits not families, not communities…

an altar representing the dozens of corn varieties found in the sierra mixteca was the center piece of the festival, and was frequently reviewed by the hundreds of campesinos who came out to the yearly festival and organizing conference put together by a local NGO, and farmer advocates.

the group discussions that i hesitantly joined, after chatting with event organizers who had to beware of seed-thieving gen-modified corn representatives in tourist-clothing, i listened to people talk about how corn makes a group of people living near one another into a collective – sharing seeds, mills, and masa. growing on communal lands, not requiring fertilizer and other chemical input, seeds saved from year to year rather than bought from patent holding agribusinesses – theses links between political autonomy and food production, land and freedom, were made apparent as participants reviewed questions such as – why is food security important? what can we do to protect indigenous corn? what cultural role has corn played in our communities? it was again shown that a strong movement, in this case to protect the life of corn and of a country (“sin maiz, no hay pais”), is grown not from the formal structures of organizations but from the everyday interactions of people in relationship with one another.

as the evening came and tortillas of many colors were served along with soup, the cultural programming began. i sat and saw children dancing, fiddle and guitar music playing, and the acting out of skits portraying communities deciding to run out government officials and landholders that had made deals to bring in gen-modified corn:

i spent my last days in the sierra mixteca in the town of san juan mixtepec. from the festival it was a good two hours over pine covered hills, fields of corn, and down into a valley holding a county-seat split by the unlikely sight of a rushing river.

i stayed with joel, an artist, indigenous theologian (click and find more background than you have time for, sorry, if you know of something better let me know), and community organizer who had just played a part in the opening of a new indigenous high school. while i stayed in his elaboratly decorated adobe and wood-framed house, i chatted with his brother, a documentary filmmaker, and talked long into the night about joel’s travels through latin america looking for a church that stands up for the people, and bends for the inclusion of traditions and cosmology which predate the Spanish Bibles and swords that brought genocide and were just celebrated in public schools throughout the U.S. as Columbus Day (celebrated here as 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance).

these two photos are of art that joel made, demonstrating what he, and others label syncretism – reconciling apparent contradictions (indigenous struggle/justice and catholicism), hope and pain – the need to freely express your identity and reality and the desire to survive under a church hierarchy that brutally represses believers that don’t believe correctly.

once again i benefited from the generosity and trust of oaxacan activists, and feel an ability to respond to that benefit with work of my own. as mixtecans risk border crossings to serve in unpaid posts in their community assemblies, or bring back a new truck, or send money home to vast networks of families and friends who’ve had their support-nets ripped out from under them due to trade deals, repression and unforgiving corporations and governments, i see the possibility for directions in our organizing that crosses borders as well, and i feel honored to have had this chance to learn.

my life feels like its spinning, i’m already nervous of coming home and processing this time, personal relationships seem both near and far, and i have an itch of uncertainty that comes with the excitement of so much newness. but as joel helped me recall (looking out over the church in san juan mixtepec), sometimes we have to distort the edges of our world to make it work for us:

 

 

 

a march, an interview with a child, and my mornings

a march:

for more information, and photos – el enemigo comun

tuesday was oct. 2nd, a day that tells a story from 1968 and Mexico City – a government containing a social movement with the tools typical of the colonizer, and a list of countries around the world wanting to enjoy the Mexico that shows its face on tourist brochures for the coming olympic games. hundreds of students were massacred that day, that year, but as the coming of Halloween (before candy, christianity, and the culture of capital) should remind us in the U.S. – there are moments when the border between the living and the dead is blurred. brutal, direct repression, a specter conjured by fragile governments holding onto their power over the living, has been felt with extra weight over the last year here in oaxaca. the march i observed didn’t remember a date almost forty years ago as much as it pointed to the truths hidden beneath a surface sheen, of new paint over only slightly older graffiti, found all over the streets of oaxaca; truths not contained in commemoration.

there were thousands of marchers. the teacher’s union, younger-folk with spray-paint and stencils, people who had been at the barricades, stalinists and anarchists battling over space for street art, among many others. internal movement dialogue – government pacts and autonmous struggle, how to interact with coming mayoral elections – played out through the medium available to a march, with paper, paint, and megaphones. some of the messages that made it to the walls – “say no to the dirty war of elections”, and “politial parties are part of the problem (coming from drawings of bart and lisa).” though many of the traditional movement leaders (from unions, directors of what is left of the APPO structure) are putting their weight behind various candidates…either from the PRD, or Convergencia (a relatively small party whose candidate is a business owner who has a commercial radio station, and was supposedly “in the streets with the people” last year), voices from the streets – coming from students, farmers, and teachers, remind us that while grand promises get made, the police, prisons and poverty rarely budge.

as the march ended in the city center, where a massive tapete (intricate sand-art memorial for the dead) had been constructed with the image of a crucified Christ and the words “No Mas” above the date Oct. 2nd, speakers took their turn, a helicopter flew above, and the marchers scattered. though we heard that later that day that a group of graffiti artists and activists from one of the most militant barricades last year, was grabbed off the street and beaten by government thugs. and the thousands of messages covering the street were “cleaned-up” over night, the state apparatus working again quite mechanically.

an interview with a child (which feels like an unnecessary label):

for our book of testimonials to be published in the next few months we interviewed the nine year-old son of a political prisoner tortured and held for various months last year, after being invited to Mexico City to negotiate with the federal government. he lives with his family in an old neighborhood hidden under the arm of mountains flush with clouds and green. a wood-framed house, simple, kept dry and loud during the rain by tin siding, decorated with paintings by his father while incarcerated, baby photos showing faces of sadness and joy, tart green apples dangling from a tree visible and framed outside the window, planted by his grandmother. while a bit shy dressed in the pressed white shirt and blue pants with few stains from school, he recounted the experience of losing his father to a jail far away, and how he decided to join the APPO marches, tell his story, and try to convince other kids his age to get active. he had been influenced by his family of activists in the best of ways – there are problems in our communities, they won’t be hidden from you, and look at all of these people organizing, worshipping, in rage and laughter, together. he had remembered the chants and songs from repetition, but his conviction and view of the world felt like it came straight from that piece of the heart reserved for enduring difficulty. i felt the tears in my eyes when he told us about the card he wrote to santa claus last year, “dear santa, i don’t want any presents this year, i just want you to bring my dad back to me.” i can’t deny the power of that cultural act that in one sense we shared, and in another, was so distant from my first nine years of life. his father, now back home and continuing to organize, told us that he has faith in fundamental change, a faith in the power of cycles – he had been politicized through his father’s organizing as well, and the first Mexican Revolution was breaking through the surface 100 years ago…

my mornings:

a number of friends and family (primary motivators for this blog) have asked me about my “day to day” here in Oaxaca. so i’ll start with a picture of my mornings…

can’t sleep. the barking dogs sound like they may be attempting to harmonize behind the tangled passionfruit vines outside my window…the light in my bedroom makes me feel young and empty, ready to make an effort to be filled like the cobblestone alleyways, and plazas of solitude, enjoying the company of skateboarders, soccer players, ice cream, prayer, and the heavy petting of eager couples…

i’m preparing for a trip tomorrow with a friend active here in setting up community radio stations in many of the small communities around the state…and soon, i really do promise a few photos (one the times i wish i had a damn camara)…

patrick

¨Oaxaca versus Burma¨ from the Women of Color Blog, and the significance of Oct. 2nd

i promise a posting of my own this week (with photos!) but for today i thought these two articles were important enough to repost.

Click on the title below to read the first article on the Women of Color Blog:

Oaxaca versus Burma

¨would people give a shit about Oaxaca if they were all a bunch of Buddhists instead of Catholics?

I think Westerners are fascinated with the idea that somewhere out there, somebody has “the answer”. The East is often presented (in racist harmful ways) as having “the answer.” Even more specifically, old wrinkly Asian men are presented (in racist and harmful ways) as having “the answers” (karate kid anyone?). But while all these old wrinkly Asian men are busy spreading The Answer to us Westerners, they’re families are being slaughtered, and they are being imprisoned in their own temples or carted off to god knows where by soldiers and mercenaries.

I think that all of us really need to question the willingness of so many of us (including the president and condi rice) to support the Burmese people–but not, say, the Jersey Seven, the people of Oaxaca, the people of Darfur, the people of Sudan, etc etc etc. What is going on here? How does our own racism make us want to ’save’ some people and not others?¨

- posted by brownfemipower

And on remembering Oct. 2nd, as a march here in Oaxaca is about to, Dave Zirin sounds off (again, click the title for the full article):

Remembering the Olympic Martyrs of 1968

¨1968. There was never a year when the worlds of sports and politics collided so breathlessly, without mercy or respite. It was the year Muhammad Ali, stripped of his heavyweight title for resisting the draft, spoke on 200 college campuses and askedthe question, “Can they take my title without me being whupped?” It was the year Bill Russell’s Boston Celtics became champions once again, yet the player-coach saw his house vandalized by bigots. This led Russell to call the city of Boston a “flea market of racism,” and say “I am a Celtic, not a BOSTON Celtic.” It was the year the Detroit Tigers won the World Series, playing in a city that carried the specter of insurrection with riots in the hood, snipers on the roofs, wildcat strikes in the auto plants, and Martha and the Vandellas’ “Dancing in the Streets” ringing throughout the projects.

And most famously, it was the year that Tommie Smith and John Carlos took the 200-meter medal stand at the Mexico City Olympics to raise their black gloved fists in a demonstration of pride, power, and politics. Smith and Carlos were part of the Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR) and they made their stand because of what was happening outside the stadium: the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King; the growth of the Black Panthers, the May strikes in France, and most recently in their thoughts, the slaughter of hundreds in the country where they were being feted with gold.¨

until later this week, thanks for reading,

patrick