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"From time to time / I walk backwards: / it's my way of remembering / If I only walked forward, / I could tell you / what oblivion is like".
The poetry of Humberto Ak'abal, one of Guatemala's most renowned writers, is always sharp.
This author of the Mayan K'iche ethnic group wrote some verses a few years ago that this Tuesday, the International Day of Indigenous Peoples, resounds with more force.
“Walking backwards”, as the enhancement of origins, is the flag of hundreds of leaders in Latin America and the Caribbean who work to have the representativeness they deserve, far from racism and condescension.
“Enough of speaking for us”, claims Chirley Pankará, Pankará activist and candidate for governor of São Paulo (Brazil).
Indigenous communities protect 80% of the world's biodiversity but occupy only 10% of the land.
They are the most affected by climate change and yet they are hardly part of the decision-making groups to combat it.
“On the contrary,” Fiore Longo, director of Survival International, lamented over the phone, “environmental conservation is based on a Eurocentric and colonialist model in which it is understood that human beings destroy ecosystems and that the only way to protect the environment is by expelling those who inhabit it.
What this model does not understand is that if we have what we have today it is because these peoples guard it;
because they have known how to do it for millennia.”
From the Hadza hunters of Tanzania, to the Awá of Brazil, the Sami in Finland, or the Kazakhs of western Mongolia, the more than 400 million indigenous people in the world take care of most of the planet, despite the fact that very few policies They recognize their rights and their lands.
In Chile, one of the most conservative Latin American countries in this area, there is not a single article in the current Constitution (1980) that contemplates them as “subjects of rights”.
Alihuen Antileo, president of the Political Mapuche platform in Chile, is trying to change it.
Juana, a Mayan woman from the village of Tuilelen, in Comitancillo (Guatemala), rests in her home.Nayeli Cruz
Chief Kadjyre, of the Kayapó ethnic group, looks at a path opened by loggers, in August 2019.
Members of various indigenous organizations such as the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, (EZLN), the National Indigenous Congress during a rally to commemorate 500 years of indigenous resistance. Nayeli Cruz
Salvador, 10 years old, is at home on May 2, 2022, in the village of Tuilelen, in Comitancillo, Guatemala.
The rate of chronic malnutrition in Guatemala is the highest in Latin America and the sixth in the world.
Nayeli Cruz
Soledad Secca, a Quechua indigenous woman better known as "Solischa" walks with peasants in Cusco, Peru.
solischa
In the new constitutional project, which will be put to a vote on September 4, 55 articles were proposed that contemplate the rights of these peoples.
They represent 13% of the Chilean population, mainly Mapuche.
“If it is approved, it will be the beginning of a great fight.
It is as if, from the constitutional point of view, we began to exist.
From there, it's time to keep writing”, he says.
The articles related to these communities go through recognizing the country as a "plurinational" state, increasing indigenous participation and embracing education, medicine and ancestral justice.
"The need for binding consultations on issues that affect us is also exposed," he settles.
Although Antileo is optimistic, he knows that it will be the first of many bricks in the construction of a plural and just country.
“We have to be in the decision making.
If not, who is going to defend our rights?
This same question is asked by Pankara, who does not hide his rage and boredom with the racist discourse in Brazil.
“Where are your feathers”;
Why do you have an iPhone, if you are Indian?;
Go back to the jungle!;
Are there indigenous people in São Paulo too?
You don't look like it."
Racist attacks are difficult for the activist to erase.
In the 21st century we should not be justifying why we deserve certain rights.
We should be getting organized
Chirley Pankara, Pankara activist
"We have gone from being colonized to being protected and anti-indigenous policies with hate speech like that of the president [Jair Bolsonaro]," he criticizes.
“We need to react to all the injustices we experience, but sometimes it is exhausting.
In the 21st century we should not be justifying why we deserve certain rights.
We should be organizing ourselves,” says the doctoral student in Social Anthropology.
Fear is another constant of these peoples.
The defenders of the land not only face racism and invisibility in public life, they are also killed for protecting the territory.
Between 2015 and 2019, there were 232 homicides of indigenous activists on the continent, according to a UN report.
An average of four murders a month in the region.
The first Meeting of Knowledge of the Original Peoples for the "Kawsak Sacha" (Living Jungle), in July of this year, in the Ecuadorian Amazon.Jose Jacome (EFE)
The Tzeltal woman, Doña Antonia Sántiz López, works on her backstrap loom at her home in the municipality of Tenejapa, in Chiapas (Mexico). Gladys Serrano
Si Pih Ko, also known as Trina Francois, sings an old Cree song called "Our Village" during Pope Francis' visit to Maskwacis, the site of one of the Catholic church's boarding schools where indigenous children were abused, in July of this year. ADAM SCOTTI/PMO (REUTERS)
The Guarani indigenous chief, María Helena Jaxuka, in the Kyringue Arandua indigenous lands, in the State of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil).ANDRE BORGES (AFP)
Salvador, 10, at his home in the Mayan village of Tuilelen, in Comitancillo, Guatemala, this year. Nayeli Cruz
For Teresa Zapeta, Guatemalan leader and executive director of the International Forum of Indigenous Women, violence is one among many pending tasks.
“The situation of poverty, the lack of access to education or health… A lot of progress has been made but we continue to feel rejection and a very big void”, she narrates.
In the Central American country, according to official figures, the indigenous population corresponds to more than 43%.
Although Zapeta believes that they are more than half.
These 24 peoples, who speak 22 different languages, are far from being the pride of the nation.
Quite the contrary, they continue to be marginalized and seen as "little advanced" societies.
"Our challenge is to overcome the use and commodification of poverty to which indigenous peoples have been plunged."
An exciting Latin America
The coming to power of left-wing leaders in various Latin American countries —Chile, with Gabriel Boric, Colombia with Gustavo Petro and Francia Márquez, and a possible victory for Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil— are the hope of many of these ecologists of native peoples. .
Although they remain critical and vigilant.
"We are hopeful but the structure is made so that goodwill is not enough," adds Zapeta.
“If it is not accompanied by a real intention to include our voices from the collective, deep reforms to the legislation and measures that go to the heart of the economy, they will barely remain in a handful of good intentions.
We need much more than that."
In addition to the need for profound changes, the leaders agree that the new generations have a great weight in their hands.
With the rural exodus and the strong impact of globalization, many fear that the loss of identity is imminent.
Pankará, however, is optimistic: “I think that a discourse of pride of one's own is rising in networks that is penetrating very deeply among the youngest.
We are opening the way.
And they are the hope.
Aymara women climb Nevado Sajama, Bolivia's highest mountain, in Oruro Department, in 2021.Anadolu Agency (Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
In Santiago, Chile, in 2020, a Mapuche man carries a traditional drum during clashes with the police caused by an indigenous demonstration on the anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas, on October 12. Anadolu Agency (Anadolu Agency via Getty Images) )
A group of Emberá indigenous women meet to talk in secret, in a camp located in the National Park of Bogotá, Colombia, in April this year.Iván Valencia
Romeyno Gutiérrez, of the Rarámuri ethnic group, the first indigenous pianist in Latin America, pictured before his concert at the MUNAL National Art Museum, in Mexico City.
Gladys Serrano (The Country)
Indigenous people from the Ngöbe Buglé region and teachers demonstrate in Panama City, in July of this year, over the cost of medicine and food. Welcome Velasco (EFE)