Arctic/Amazon

When we acknowledge the Amazon, we acknowledge a territory that occupies nine countries: Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Perú, Suriname, Venezuela and Guyane Française.  Each State has its own history of colonization, its own laws to govern and contain Indigenous peoples. From the perspective of Brazil, since 1500, when the Portuguese invaded the land, Indigenous people were killed or enslaved, Christianized, displaced, and forbidden to express their culture. Throughout the colonial, Imperial and Republican periods, genocide and dispossession persisted, as well as ethnocide through the “assimilation” process. The legal status of Indigenous ranged from not being classified as a person to being under guardianship of the church, its patrons, or of government agencies. 

A group of Indigenous researchers from Acre, in the Brazilian Amazon, have created a historical timeline describing these periods of colonial and State development. They are: “Time of Malocas, Time of the Runs, Time of Captivity, Time of the Rights and Time of Indigenous Governance.” Of them, the “Time of the Rights” is notable because it is periodized to the 1980s, when Indigenous social movements consolidated and fought for the recognition of their rights to the land, to full citizenship, and to live according to their cultures. Their objective was to have these rights recognized within the new constitution, which was established in 1988 during the process of redemocratization. That is just a few years before the time you, Gerald, shared your conversation with Maria Thereza Alves. 

Sadly, regardless of laws that appear on paper, which are often not applied, conflict has been the result. This is due to continuing discrimination and the political and economic interests of the Brazilian State. Yet, Indigenous leaders have amplified their voices in relation to this discrimination and are fighting to ensure that their rights are enforced. Participation in different sectors of society is increasing, which is a victory in one sense, but it also means more people must live outside of their traditional home communities.

For an Indigenous person, the possibility of leaving a traditional village to study, learn about non-Indigenous culture and appropriate the newcomers’ tools in order to help defend their societies is empowering but also perceived as a burden. In the Amazon, there are many Indigenous peoples who live in partial or total isolation. Many of them wish to be left alone to live their lives in their own way. The urban Indigenous express an internal conflict: they must live in the city and conform to White institutions, only to feel displaced and suffer while defending their traditional communities.

Today, Brazilian politics further endorses the historical disrespect for Indigenous peoples and the environment, and even the constitutional rights gained during the 1980s are now endangered. The number of invasions on Indigenous lands is increasing, as is the violence. 

The situation is critical, but we must bolster the strength of Indigenous organizations and the alliances established with greater society to defend their survival and their rights. There is the experience of Indigenous governments, like in Bolivia, which, despite problems and local contestation, have created different policies from a uniquely Indigenized perspective. There is also an issue common to Peru and Bolivia where the Amazonian Indigenous are much less “visible” than Andean Indigenous people. As a result, they simultaneously struggle while making-up the national identity of these countries. Most Latin American countries also share a dark history of periods of dictatorship. In Peru, for example, Amazonian Indigenous communities were caught in the middle of the repression of the state and the guerrilla army of Sendero Luminoso, resulting in terrible massacres and persecution. Then came the neoliberal governments of the 1980s, then left wing and populist governments, then a recent and dramatic turn to the right and conservative governments. There is much to be said on the Amazon that is beyond the predicament of Brazil.