September 21, 2020, by Colombia Plural , CAMPRUBÍ Berta
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Although this interview with Raul Zibechi for the independent media outlet Colombia Plural dates from 2020, we think it is useful to publish it on our site today because it clearly illustrates that the State has always been a colonial institution that has repressed and sought to destroy autonomous social organizations and steal their land. This is similar to the enclosures in England in the 16th century, dispossessing the peasants and allowing the breakthrough of patriarchal capitalism. It reveals the processes of resistance of the peoples, nations, collectives and popular sectors, more numerous than one thinks, who are fighting against hegemony in Latin America, disregarding the State and all the parties of the right or left that accompany it. Something to take note of. This shows us the way, especially in this period of collapse of the legitimacy of all political parties and the centrality of the state. Everything shows that this collapse will give way to a direct confrontation between the aspirations of all peoples to take their affairs into their own hands, through forms of self-organization in the territories and at the grassroots level, in the face of increasingly authoritarian logic imposed from above. These are merely the expression of a neoliberalism that has run out of steam and can only convince a few minorities who are clinging to their privileges and willing to do anything to keep them. Capitalism can now only survive in chaos and through fear, and it is demonstrating this in an increasingly immediate and brutal way. The Workshop
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For decades, Raúl Zibechi has been studying the processes of resistance, the peoples, nations, collectives and popular sectors that are fighting against hegemony in Latin America. A writer and activist, he has devoted himself to understanding the practices and strategies of those at the bottom. During a virtual exchange across the continent, from Uruguay to Colombia, we talked enthusiastically for just over an hour, looking at and analyzing the last 20 years of politics in Latin America. But not institutional politics as practiced by governments and states, which does not interest Zibechi much. We talked about the art of managing the life that the people have built on their territories, in constant resistance to an increasingly fierce neoliberal capitalist model.
Demonstration in Chile in 2011 during the student revolts. Photo credit: Sin.frontera (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
With the overthrow of Evo Morales, the main so-called progressive governments in Latin America have come to an end, with the exception of Venezuela. To what extent did these governments fight against or seek to transform colonial, capitalist and patriarchal logics?
I think that most of these governments never considered banning capitalism. None, I would say. Evo and Chávez, yes, in their discourse, but they mainly focused on improving the incomes of the working classes, the lower half of the population, through social policies of various types of aid, but they did not go any further. As for the speeches of Lula, the Kirchners, Mujica and Tabaré, they limited themselves to improving these conditions and in reality strengthened capitalism.
Regarding patriarchy, Evo’s government was openly patriarchal, even in its discourse. Some of these governments passed laws in favor of women, but they did not in any way facilitate the organization and empowerment of women. They placed some women in positions of power, in institutions, some in very important positions, but this has nothing to do with anti-patriarchy. The fact that the State is an institution that is part of the patriarchal and colonial logic has not even been debated.
The issue of colonialism is more complicated, because there are governments, such as that of Evo Morales, which have considered decolonization. In Bolivia, the measures that have been taken, whether one agrees with them or not, are interesting. The number of indigenous men and women in state positions has increased. Evo Morales even talked at one point about mixing community justice and state justice, and in many ways. However, I think that progress has been very limited because Evo’s government has severely repressed indigenous social organizations and in that sense has not played a good role. The fact is that the decolonization of the state cannot be done from within the state, because the state is also a colonial institution. The State in Latin America is a remnant of the colony, of the Creoles who succeeded the colony but did nothing to change colonial relations. This is internal colonialism, the coloniality of power mentioned by Aníbal Quijano. Indirectly, it has promoted the strength of the working classes and increased their self-esteem.
In the last 20 years, which social struggles or movements do you think have managed to continue to represent resistance to the hegemonic model, as opposed to those which, as you yourself say in your books, “no longer represent a risk because the political systems have learned to engage in dialogue with them”?
Well, in Cauca, Colombia, there are two dynamics: there is the CRIC [Cauca Regional Indigenous Council], with certain levels of bureaucratization and institutionalization, but there is also the Mother Earth liberation process or the CRIC bases, because the direction of the CRIC is not the same as that of the Guardia Indígena [Editor’s note: Indigenous Guard], or what the Coconuko people and other communities that take care of their territory are doing today, from fairs to bartering. I think that if we look at the “social movement-institution”, we see a certain reality, but people in their territories do other things at the local level, they fight against capitalism, patriarchy and colonialism. In Brazil, with the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST), the same thing happens as with the CRIC, but if you go to the MST’s assentamentos [occupied spaces], you will see women’s groups and LGBTI collectives at work, and you can see very interesting dynamics of food self-production development, etc.
We are dealing with emancipatory, anti-capitalist, anti-colonialist practices, which are by no means marginal. The Zapatista movement is perhaps the one that preserves these practices in the broadest and most generalized way, but they are also found among the Mapuche, although there are very institutionalized Mapuche, they are found in the Wampis autonomy, in northern Peru, where there is an autonomous government, they can be found among the Colombian peasant movements, who are growing their own vegetables during the pandemic. And then we have territorial assemblies, such as in Santiago de Chile or Valparaíso, or in some favelas.
What I think is that we can no longer say that “such and such a movement” is fighting for emancipation, no. Today, we have to look more closely because, as bureaucratization is a practice that reproduces patriarchy, capitalism, etc., in the movements there are other practices that reverse them, so it is very difficult to generalize, except for Zapatism, which seems to me to be quite homogeneous in this sense.
You have explained on several occasions that the two-stage strategy of “taking power and then changing the world” no longer works. In your opinion, what are the main current strategies of territorial struggles to combat the so-called “war against the people”, extractivism, development and the neoliberal model?
I believe that there is a first strategy that is essential, especially rural, but also urban, which is the recovery of territory. Territory is a fundamental first step, so that the indigenous people, the peasants and certain urban peripheries that have a certain territory are in a better situation. And, look how interesting it is, when we observe, even in cities, how sectors of the feminist movement are beginning to territorialize: in Santiago, there is a supply network for many feminist assemblies. This territorialization is a long-term strategy, which we see among the Zapatistas, among the Kurds, among the landless, and it is fundamental.
A second element, for me, is the work for autonomy. The search for autonomy in the areas of food, water and justice. Women need their own autonomous spaces: the Zapatistas, for example, have their own vegetable gardens, coffee plantations and chicken coops in each community, so they don’t have to ask the man, the husband, the authority. It is essential not to create a State and to depend on it as little as possible, if at all, and that the institutions that are created to resolve conflicts or to be able to move forward are not replicas of the State, which is why I am talking about building non-State powers. The Councils of Good Government in Chiapas and, initially, the cabildos in Colombia were powers that were not a copy of the logic of the State, but, in the case of Colombia, the 1991 Constitution arrived with a flood of resources and then the same vertical logic of the State tended to reproduce itself in the cabildos, and one of its key elements is bureaucracy. In the communities, it is easier to have a rotation to neutralize these hierarchical logics and it should be pointed out that in Latin America any hierarchy is colonial and patriarchal and opens the doors to the reproduction of capitalism instead of transforming it. Hierarchical practices, like the State, are the main entry point for capitalism.
In short, a territory, autonomy and community practices that prevent the crystallization of hierarchies.
Would mobilizations focusing on demands addressed to the State therefore be meaningless?
The demonstration began with a working-class parade, reproducing at their level the ecclesiastical liturgy or the military parade, in order to make certain demands of the state or the boss. But there are other types of demonstrations: the 2008 minga [translator’s note: an indigenous peasant demonstration-organization] in Colombia was not a classic demonstration; it had two parts. On the one hand, there is the minga that passes through the sugar refineries of Cauca, which joins forces with the students and other sectors and finally arrives in Bogotá in an alliance of those from below protected by the Guardia Indígena, this is one logic. The other logic is that, on the other hand, in this same minga, an alliance with the State is deployed, that is to say negotiations to demand an additional seat in parliament or for certain financial claims. So we can see that there are two directions in the mobilization and I am on the side of the minga that ended with the formation of the People’s Congress.
In your book, you state that “the poor of Latin America are victims of a genocide”. To what extent does the population of European countries, the white middle class, bear some responsibility for this genocide? And what should it do, what would be true international solidarity or global justice?
It can only do two things. The first is to show solidarity, which means asking “what do you need?”. This was seen a lot in Chiapas and there were some very serious conflicts because, as García Márquez said, “you get a shoe with a pink heel and only one foot, in the jungle”, with a little irony about the policy of NGOs that say “take this”. But true solidarity consists of asking “what do you need as a people?”; “we need to set up a community radio station” or “we need to expand a research center” and resources are gathered for that.
The other way to help is to start a revolution in Europe, but we are still a long way from that. But I think that since the 2008 crisis, there have been some changes. I always tell the Catalans, for example, that the best thing they could do for us is that instead of having one Can Masdeu or one Can Batlló – self-managed social centers in Catalonia – there should be 200, and then yes, independence would have a sense of autonomy, revolution, social change. But if there is only one Can Masdeu, and a cooperative society in the corner, it doesn’t work. If there were 1,000 spaces like that, the balance of power would be very different. I believe that we are in a position to move towards no longer Europe’s solidarity with Latin America, because solidarity is always a subject-object relationship, but rather to have meetings between equals, where everyone contributes from their own side. I believe that this is the way forward, and it is very important because as long as there are more and more Can Batllós, Can Masdeus and Comunals, more and more experiences in which we also talk about processes of territorialization, we will be somewhere else. I hope that we are moving in this direction.
You also state that “we are at the beginning of a profound break with Eurocentric thinking”. The latest mass mobilizations in Chile and Colombia have had something of this flavor, but in Bolivia, for example, the opposite has also happened. At the mass level, the shopping malls are full and most people have an Android cell phone, so where does this break come from?
I believe this break comes from several sides. First of all, to support non-capitalist practices: such as the barter fairs that the Coconukos organize in Cauca, the exchange of products from cold lands and warm lands, where they do not exchange equivalences, they do not exchange a kilo for a kilo, they exchange needs, not exchange values but use values. Among the Misak, for example, when the decision to hold an inward-looking minga is taken, many communities go to the lagoons, go to the mountains and develop a spirituality according to their worldview. Anti-colonial or decolonial thought is not an intellectual who writes about anti-colonialism, it is not a book that talks about decolonization and that preserves the same colonial logic of the centrality of writing. The tulpa – a sacred space for some indigenous peoples of Cauca –, fire, ritual in the lagoon, etc. and, in the case of Afro-descendants, drumming or dancing, are decolonial practices, which must have bodily integrity. Decolonial practice is multifaceted. Discourse is all very well, but what about the body, the rituals, the sacred? And where are dance and love or the relationship with Mother Earth?
Furthermore, there can be no decolonization without conflict, without a clash of cultures. One might think that patriarchy can be resolved by simply saying “the and the”, by changing the discourse, by de-patriarchalizing it. But no, it goes much deeper and involves a rescaling of the relationship between the individual body, the collective body and the environment.
Between 2000 and 2015, the trend was towards left-wing governments in Latin America. Since then, there seemed to be a trend towards (ultra)conservative populist governments (Bolsonaro, Piñera, Macri, Duque, Moreno…) but it has already reversed in Argentina and Mexico: what do you think the dynamics will be in the coming years in Latin American public institutions?
To put it briefly, the dynamic, for me, is that there is no longer any stability, there is no longer a stable right-wing government or a stable left-wing government. What currently predominates is ungovernability and there will be successive right-wing and left-wing governments, all with a very high degree of instability, as is the case for Bolsonaro in Brazil or for Duque [in Colombia] who have a fairly strong internal situation. We are no longer in a period of progressive or conservative governments; rather, we are in a period dominated by the crisis of governability.
The revolts of the era that you call the global revolution of 1968 were followed in Latin America by bloody dictatorships and Operation Condor. In your opinion, what will be the response to contemporary revolts, from the “Vem para rua” in Brazil in 2013 to the 2019 mobilizations in Chile or Colombia?
With the revolt of June 2013 in Brazil, the largest in the region because it is the most populous country and 20 million people were in the streets for a month in 353 cities, what happened was that the left, the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), did not understand what was happening. They thought it was against them and it was against them, but not only that, it was an uprising against inequality. Neither the PT, nor the Central Unitaria de Trabalhadores, nor the Landless Workers’ Movement understood and therefore reacted defensively, they did not take part in the marches and left the field open to the right. Remember that it started with the Movimiento Passe Livre.
With a rise in the price of public transport, as in Chile recently.
Exactly, it started from the bottom and by leaving the field open to the right, it took part in the movement and used it to its advantage. So the big problem is not the right; the responsibility lies with the left, which, instead of taking the lead in these mobilizations, has been afraid. And when social struggle emerges, which is what is happening in Chile and Colombia, the left plays no role; the left vanishes. So much so that we end up with a left that fears social mobilization because it does not control it, because it sets it aside.
The answer is therefore multiple: crisis of the left, advance of the right and above all increasingly strong repression.
Without forgetting the era in which we live, what lessons has the Latin American region learned from the coronavirus pandemic? What do you think will happen?
I believe that we are moving towards increasing social polarization, towards a society that is clearly operating at two speeds. The movements or processes of struggle are strengthening and at the same time the right is also strengthening. Polarization means that the right is becoming more extractive and more militarized, and it is doing so with significant social legitimacy, but the movements are also strong. The scenario we are heading towards is that of an increasingly dangerous clash. That is why I think that the movements must not only reclaim land as they are currently doing in Cauca, but they must also be aware that an earthquake is imminent, with more repression and more violence, and I think that this is the path we are going to be walking down for the next few years.
Now, the positive thing about the pandemic is that it shows that the nation state is useless, that it is an obstacle to emancipation and to movements, and that we cannot trust the institutions of the state. Moreover, the pandemic could definitively bury the electoral left (this is more a wish than a reality), and I am referring here to the PSOE and Podemos.
But that could mean a strengthening of the far right.
Yes, at the highest level, the far right could certainly be strengthened. But the fight will then be with the organized people.
Read the original article in Spanish on the Colombia Plural website
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This article, which originally appeared in Spanish on June 14 on the Colombia Plural (CC Copyleft) website, was translated into French by Charlène Brault, a volunteer translator for ritimo.
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Translated by TerKo with the help of a free translation tool.