Latin American Solidarity

This weekend's Latin American Solidarity Conference (LASC) was a very interesting event... Tied in with the support of the victory of the Coalition of Imokalee Workers who won their campaign against McDonald's. I didn't get a chance to go to any of the protest-turned-victory celebration actions and it was kind of interesting to be on the outside of it all. They were originally going to have a rally in support of their campaign in Chicago's federal plaza on Saturday- a big carnaval with lots of well-liked and well-known musicians playing and speakers in support of the farmworkers, but for some reason (some say fear of rain?) it was moved into the House of Blues. You had to pre-sign up for tickets, because the capacity of House of Blues is specific and lots of folks couldn't get in (although I heard eventually everyone who stuck around outside did get in for a few minutes when folks would leave). It was more of a party than a rally and in my opinion it's too bad they didn't keep it in the public eye, and I'm so curious to know why House of Blues of all places. It's such a corporate place.... in any case folks who did go said the vibe was excellent and it is exciting that they win their campaigns against such huge targets.

There was some slightly controversial analysis of their win by a speaker during the opening plenary of LASC, to which there was some strong response... it's interesting to me when folks get scared of critical analysis of groups they hold dear- myself included. Can you be critical of a grassroots organization's way they organize themselves? If they choose to align with faith groups or Big Labor or State representatives and you don't support those institutions can you still support orgs that campaign using their support? I'm still in the honeymoon stage with the Zapatistas- that they do no wrong because I have this idea that they are in constant self-analysis, caminar preguntando, and such- but to be critical is important.

In some photos of the CIW actions you see a lot of young folks and the Student Farmworker Alliance does a lot of organizing alongside the CIW such that they appear to be really integral to one another, which is excellent, but it makes me curious to know to what extent other farmworkers and immigrant workers in general in the U.S. know of the CIW, its work, its victories and if there are alliances and connections that have been made in that regard too? It is interesting to note the media response to the deal only the left Mexican newspaper La Jornada centers the victory around the farmworkes, all the US media calls it McDonald's deal. No surprise there, eh? I'm proud of CIW and see them as an amazing example of grassroots organizing, in the long run making deals with McDonald's isn't enough- eliminating McDonalds, eliminating the need for folks to leave their homeland to work as migrant farmworkers in the U.S. is the future dream....

Which leads neatly into the conversations/sessions and workshops at LASC. It seems like every conversation was too short, a lot of the conference felt really rushed, but some provocative doors were open. A plenary talk about not being afraid to label ourselves as anti-capitalists, lead to coversation both about fear of using the words 'anti-capitalist' because it might scare the general public who we are trying to mobilize as well as discussion of if the groups present were indeed anti-capitalist. I'm still kind of amazed that anyone who belives in any kind of anti-oppressive work, doesn't see the connections between all of the crap (militarization, privitization, racism, patriarchy, media domination, etc. etc.) and capitalism. There was also that ubiquitous conversation again about not being anti something but being pro something. That fear again to be negative. And to that I say Basta! and No! and all that good stuff. A point was made that the Zapatistas are clearly anti-capitalist while being pro-humanity. Imagine it's not simply either/or!!! Love that multidemensionality!

Other interesting points that came up were conversations during a presentation by Root Force about the nature of grassroots work. A member of CISPES made a point that it's important to center local struggles as the base for international solidarity work, while the presenters suggested that not every community has organized struggles and their job was to do what was asked of them by the community members they spoke with- to share their words and what was happening in the community. The Root Force presenters let us know that they weren't organizing per se, they were presenting information and letting us do the rest- it seemed to me to be an argument not only about being careful with int'l solidarity but also about how we look at organizing. It had the feeling of the anarchist kids vs. the NGO players, a conversation I wish had played out more. I'm still not sure what I think.

CISPES was out in full force and it made me notice once again how regionalized struggles can be. How the int'l solidarity work in Chicago is done largely with Mexican immigrants because that's who lives here, while the East Coast has a long history of solidarity with El Salvador... it was great hearing different tactics organizations had used and sparked me to investigate history a bit more... the CISPES folks talked about shutting down the Pentagon in the 80's to protest U.S. military intervention/support in El Salvador among other really creative strategies. Root Force mentioned messing with survey stakes for planned roads that would be part of Plan Puebla Panama...

I was also really invigorated by the project of folks who live along the proposed I-69 road, the NAFTA Superhighway, in Indiana (roadblockef@yahoo.com). Since the creation of NAFTA there have been huge road projects to create a corridor running from Canada through the U.S. down through Mexico and Central America (hence the name Plan Puebla- Mexico- Panama) to more easily move products $$$$ for the corporate mofos. Supposedly the PPP was canceled, but it was actually just renamed and is made up of thousands of small road development projects most of which -in Mesoamerica-cut through indigenous farmland, like that of the Zapatistas for example. Road construction is beginning on the U.S. portion of the plan, a road through the 'heartland', extending a preexisting stretch between Port Huron, Michigan (which sees a huge portion of NAFTA traffic across the Canadian border) to Indianapolis, IN. Construction is starting to develop the Indiana section so it connects with Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arakansas, Lousisana (because construction there is going so well...) and Texas into Matamoros, Mexico. The Indiana section is displacing farmlands (sound familiar?) and there has been a lot of resistance for a while and is building. It seems like such a very clear example of real solidarity connections between communities affected along the whole route, as well as an example of NAFTA's direct affect on communities. Currently the new sections have only been begun to be built in IN and TX, let's hope they shut that shit down!

It was interesting to me to read the crowd at the conference. A really good age mix (although I have been doing some theorizing about the lack of folks my age involved in things in comparison to the over 50's and the under 25 crowd...thinking about the history of social movements, the strength of capitalism's appeal during the Regan years, the boom of NGO's in the 90's... I'm going to have to think about that some more, but it is wierd how it's hard to find folks in their 30's who are not involved in the machine in one way or another) and of course a lot of white folks, heavy on the male version. There was strong representation from Venezuela (people love them some Hugo- again he seemed something too precious for the left to criticize- but to me he's a pretty military happy dude... would he give the power up to his people? Would he 'mandar obedeciendo'?) and representation from people of Haiti, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Mexico, Cuba, Colombia and some Afro-latino folks from across regions. Representation from former Black Panthers and current All African Peoples Revolutionary Party was educational for me (Pan-Africanism is fascinating to me, Africa is just so damn diverse and huge- as is Latin America, does it benefit grassroots autonomy to be one giant nation in that way?).

For the folks who recognized the anti-capitalist, anti-globaliztion stance (and I'm going to be ever so slightly inflammatory and say that for the most part they were the young folks) the importance of fighting the struggles right here in the U.S. was one of the most important forms of solidarity. There was less talk about immigrant rights and immigrant connections than I would have thought, but there was a kind of controversial ending plenary where the representative from Pueblo Sin Fronteras seemed to be pusing the Flake/Gutierrez 'Stive Act' as "better than nothing' and rousing support for it. That confounded me because the bill stinks, even though it calls for a moratorium on the raids it adds on a whole host of oppressive restrictions for immigrants. We need to figure out a way to stop the raids, for sure, and that seems slow going and I'm still wondering where the solidarity from folks who have papers are, but we need everyone to have the chance to be legal not just the select few under oppressive conditions which is what the bill suggests. Fuck bills. Fuck waiting on the government. It's on the people and the people need to force the lead by obeying and I'm not doing a very good job of investing myself in that enough.

Whew. That's a lot of info. But Beres Hammond is playing as I write and we can thank him for making the sweetest music. And I tried to be really open hearted at the conference and it served me well. Even though a lot of the white folks looked at me cross eyed when I said "hello and good morning" to them a lot of people also responded really well and I made some nice connections. I didn't feel that "who's a better activist?" vibe that I've felt other places and I really appreciated that lack of ego.

And that's all for now... off to think some more about my future and how to make stencils- ICE here I come...