I only wish I had thought of this before wasting four years of my life at university. Nah I’m just joshin’ ya, it’s been great, just a shame I checked out several months ago.
Amazon Watch reports that two hundred indigenous people have begun a new occupation of the construction site of the Belo Monte dam in the Brazilian Amazon. Below is a letter explaining the action and laying out some modest demands.
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We are the people who live in the rivers where you want to build dams. We are the Munduruku, Juruna, Kayapo, Xipaya, Kuruaya, Asurini, Parakanã, Arara, fishermen and peoples who live in riverine communities. We are Amazonian peoples and we want the forest to stand. We are Brazilians. The river and the forest are our supermarket. Our ancestors are older than Jesus Christ.
You are pointing guns at our heads. You raid our territories with war trucks and soldiers. You have made the fish disappear and you are robbing the bones of our ancestors who are buried on our lands.
You do this because you are afraid to listen to us. You are afraid to hear that we don’t want dams on our rivers, and afraid to understand why we don’t want them.
You invent stories that we are violent and that we want war. Who are the ones killing our relatives? How many white people have died in comparison to how many Indigenous people have died? You are the ones killing us, quickly or slowly. We’re dying and with each dam that is built, more of us will die. When we try to talk with you, you bring tanks, helicopters, soldiers, machineguns and stun weapons.
What we want is simple: You need to uphold the law and promote enacting legislation on free, prior and informed consent for indigenous peoples. Until that happens you need to stop all construction, studies, and police operations in the Xingu, Tapajos and Teles Pires rivers. And then you need to consult us.
We want dialogue, but you are not letting us speak. This is why we are occupying your dam-building site. You need to stop everything and simply listen to us.
Source: http://amazonwatch.org/assets/files/2013-letter-from-indigenous-peoples-of-the-xingu-and-tapajos.pdf
I have always struggled to answer the quetion “what’s your fave movie?” but if pushed, I would have to say it was Werner Herzog’s Stroszek (1976), the story of a down-and-out German ex-con who goes in search of the American Dream in Railroad Flats, WI. A real gem of a dark comedy. You can now watch it on Youtube, with subtitles on all! (You have to switch he subtitles on at the bottom of the screen.)
Big Sur, California. It’s alright, so long as a mouse doesn’t come along and chew on your water bottle.
“They practiced. They practiced in Ireland, they practiced in Brixton and Toxteth and when it was our turn they perfected their techniques.”
Brilliant speech in favour of gay marriage from New Zealand. Would that our parliamentarians had half the wit.
Sir,
I am [etc]
Geo Coldham Town Clerk
Nottm
14th May 1812
P.S.
