“Bolivia calza hoy como piecita pequeña, sirve de dato para confirmar el sabotaje malvado del sistema capitalista contra un indígena presidente. Bolivia sirve para decir frases celebres sobre los pueblos indígenas, o poner en una línea paralela de peligrosísima y delicadísima similitud Palestina, los Balcanes, Afganistán o cualquier otro punto del planeta.
…
Quiero decir que somos actoras y acotres socialise corresponsables y no simples victimas de un proceso neocolonial.”
- Extracto de Carta abierta a Naomi Klein, por Maria Galindo de Mujeres Creando, mayo 2008.
“Bolivia fits today like a little piece of pie, it serves to confirm the evil sabotage of the capitalist system against an indigenous president. Bolivia serves for the saying of celebratory words about indigenous peoples, or to place [oneself] on a parallel line of high danger and great delicacy similar to Palestine, the Balkans, Afghanistan or any other [such] point of the planet.
…
I want to say that we are corresponsible social actors [male and female] and not simple victims of a neocolonial process.”
- Extract from Open letter to Naomi Klein, by Maria Galindo of Mujeres Creando, May 2008.
(weak english translation brought to you by ana australiana).
I’m having an interesting time trawling virtual and dusty papers from that fun period of 2002 - 2006 when immigration detention activism was all the rage. Do any readers know of/have any critiques from that time (within loosely ‘anti-detention’ activism/debates) regarding the work of groups like ChilOut and the Circles of Friends?
PS Go, go, go RTBU!
“A national framework for child protection is necessary, we can do better and must do better for the protection of our little children.” - Kevin Rudd.
Having worked with the child protection system I am much less excited about this comment than I should be were I to take the above comment at face value. A national framework has been advocated for years as a very basic policy intervention, and always seems to end up being hijacked for other violently paternalistic ends (if it’s not how such Interventions start off in the first place).
“Little children” really are the ultimate signifier into which to empty out all sorts of misdirected rubbish.
Nunca vi cartão postal que se destaca uma favela
Só vejo paisagem muito linda e muito bela
I’ve never seen a postcard picturing a favela
I only see those with pretty scenes ….
- from ‘Rap da Felicidade‘, Katia/Julinho Rasta, qtd. in Donna M. Goldstein, Laughter Out of Place: Race, Class, Violence and Sexuality in a Rio Shantytown, University of California Press, 2003.