The March of Neocolonization Folly in the Amazon

Imagine this photo: An indigenous man pointing an arrow at the Brazilian congress building during the Demarcacao Ja protest of April 26, 2017.

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Where to start?

Do I start with the fifty arrows that hit the Brazilian national congress building on April 26, 2017?

Do I start with the police in riot gear firing bullets and teargas bombs at indigenous people armed with bows, arrows, and war paint?

Do I start with the political reasons that moved thousands of indigenous people from hundreds of tribes to travel to the Brazilian capital that week?

Imagine this photo: A police officer points a pistol toward an indigenous protester who in turn points an arrow back at the officer in front of the Brazilian congress on April 26, 2017.

I look at the image of bullets against arrows. Really? It is a face-off so unequal that I doubt the source at first. Yet it is so very symbolic of the ways indigenous peoples of the Amazon are treated that doubting is simply a defense mechanism on my part. Doubting gives me time to find a place to sit down and take in the images, the implications, the violence, the continuing violent colonization march into the Amazon, the ever-shifting excuses used in narratives of progress, democracy, economic development, land and resource management, and all the human and environmental suffering self-proclaimed Christians and conservative people continue to impose on the heart of biodiversity, on the hearts and lives of the remaining Amazonian indigenous peoples.

I don’t know who fired first. I wasn’t there. Some reports claim that the police fired first. Some reports claim that the protesters shot the first arrow. But does it really matter when the power differential in the capacity to hurt is so uneven? Wasn’t there another way to engage with protesters armed with bows and arrows, even if the first shot was an arrow and not a bullet? Wasn’t there a peaceful way? Wasn’t there a compassionate way? Wasn’t there an ethical way? Wasn’t there a humanist way?

Again, I don’t know who fired first that day. But I have no doubt that this story started a long time ago—when the first wave of colonizers arrived in the lands that we now call the Americas. Even the name of these lands, Americas, started with European colonization and is still invisibly yet directly connected to this clash between indigenous and police folk in front of the Brazilian National Congress building. America is named after Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian explorer who named the new world in his voyage letters for his European contemporaries, around 1500 AC, most of whom still thought that the new found lands across the Atlantic Ocean were the Eastern edges of the Asian continent (Arciniegas, 1955). The act of renaming indigenous lands after one of the very first colonizers, an explorer working for the Kings of Portugal and then Spain, was one of the most powerful acts of indigenous erasure, invisibility, and dehumanization, as it set the stage for a brand New History of the New World, without the need for acknowledgment of the millions of peoples with their thousands of tribes and infinite indigenous histories that had been living and laboring in those lands for thousands of years. But renaming the land and erasing the people, their histories—and thus erasing their rights to their own lands and traditions—was just the beginning of the colonizing violence.

Next came the narrative of justification for domination, genocide, robbery, and enslavement, and it came spelled out by a document called El Requerimiento, The Requirement/Demand, drafted in 1513 by Juan Lopez de Palacios Rubios (1513), an advisor to King Ferdinand of Spain (Galeano, 1998). King Ferdinand and his Council of Castile designed the document to be read in Spanish to each and every indigenous people the Spanish-sponsored explorers encountered in the Americas, often done from the bows of ships before landing and actual natives present. It went like this:

El Requerimiento 1513 (Translation by Encyclopedia Virginia, 2013)

“On the part of the King, Don Fernando, and of Doña Juana I, his daughter, Queen of Castille and León, subduers of the barbarous nations, we their servants notify and make known to you, as best we can, that the Lord our God, Living and Eternal, created the Heaven and the Earth, and one man and one woman, of whom you and we, all the men of the world at the time, were and are descendants, and all those who came after and before us. But, on account of the multitude which has sprung from this man and woman in the five thousand years since the world was created, it was necessary that some men should go one way and some another, and that they should be divided into many kingdoms and provinces, for in one alone they could not be sustained.

Of all these nations God our Lord gave charge to one man, called St. Peter, that he should be Lord and Superior of all the men in the world, that all should obey him, and that he should be the head of the whole Human Race, wherever men should live, and under whatever law, sect, or belief they should be; and he gave him the world for his kingdom and jurisdiction.

And he commanded him to place his seat in Rome, as the spot most fitting to rule the world from; but also he permitted him to have his seat in any other part of the world, and to judge and govern all Christians, Moors, Jews, Gentiles, and all other Sects. This man was called Pope, as if to say, Admirable Great Father and Governor of men. The men who lived in that time obeyed that St. Peter, and took him for Lord, King, and Superior of the universe; so also they have regarded the others who after him have been elected to the pontificate, and so has it been continued even till now, and will continue till the end of the world.

One of these Pontiffs, who succeeded that St. Peter as Lord of the world, in the dignity and seat which I have before mentioned, made donation of these isles and Tierra-firme to the aforesaid King and Queen and to their successors, our lords, with all that there are in these territories, as is contained in certain writings which passed upon the subject as aforesaid, which you can see if you wish.

So their Highnesses are kings and lords of these islands and land of Tierra-firme by virtue of this donation: and some islands, and indeed almost all those to whom this has been notified, have received and served their Highnesses, as lords and kings, in the way that subjects ought to do, with good will, without any resistance, immediately, without delay, when they were informed of the aforesaid facts. And also they received and obeyed the priests whom their Highnesses sent to preach to them and to teach them our Holy Faith; and all these, of their own free will, without any reward or condition, have become Christians, and are so, and their Highnesses have joyfully and benignantly received them, and also have commanded them to be treated as their subjects and vassals; and you too are held and obliged to do the same. Wherefore, as best we can, we ask and require you that you consider what we have said to you, and that you take the time that shall be necessary to understand and deliberate upon it, and that you acknowledge the Church as the Ruler and Superior of the whole world, and the high priest called Pope, and in his name the King and Queen Doña Juana our lords, in his place, as superiors and lords and kings of these islands and this Tierra-firme by virtue of the said donation, and that you consent and give place that these religious fathers should declare and preach to you the aforesaid.

If you do so, you will do well, and that which you are obliged to do to their Highnesses, and we in their name shall receive you in all love and charity, and shall leave you, your wives, and your children, and your lands, free without servitude, that you may do with them and with yourselves freely that which you like and think best, and they shall not compel you to turn Christians, unless you yourselves, when informed of the truth, should wish to be converted to our Holy Catholic Faith, as almost all the inhabitants of the rest of the islands have done. And, besides this, their Highnesses award you many privileges and exemptions and will grant you many benefits.

But, if you do not do this, and maliciously make delay in it, I certify to you that, with the help of God, we shall powerfully enter into your country, and shall make war against you in all ways and manners that we can, and shall subject you to the yoke and obedience of the Church and of their Highnesses; we shall take you and your wives and your children, and shall make slaves of them, and as such shall sell and dispose of them as their Highnesses may command; and we shall take away your goods, and shall do you all the mischief and damage that we can, as to vassals who do not obey, and refuse to receive their lord, and resist and contradict him; and we protest that the deaths and losses which shall accrue from this are your fault, and not that of their Highnesses, or ours, nor of these cavaliers who come with us. And that we have said this to you and made this Requisition, we request the notary here present to give us his testimony in writing, and we ask the rest who are present that they should be witnesses of this Requisition.”

Please imagine, again, the photo of an indigenous man pointing his arrow at the Brazilian congress building during a protest for the preservation of the Amazon and his tribal lands.

I look at the image of a man pointing an arrow toward the national congress building . . . and I think of the courage it takes to do just what he is doing, arching his bow to send an arrow against a conquering force that have had over 500 years of victory and merciless domination. I don’t know the man. I don’t share his indigenous lived experiences. I can’t know his personal motivation as he puts tension on the bow. But I resonate with this apparent act of irrationality and “the hell with it” attitude. Foda-se! Nao tenho mais nada a perder sem minhas terras e rios (Portuguese language). The hell with it! I have nothing else to lose without my land and rivers. I resonate with the thousands of indigenous peoples marching for the right to keep their own lands and rivers. I resonate with their traditional ways of coexisting with the environment in sustainable ways. I resonate with their cause because it is also my cause. Your cause. Everyone’s cause. I resonate with the cause because it is essential for decolonizing imaginations.

I resonate with the cause because it is essential for human rights. I resonate with the cause because it is essential for a sustainable existence in a planet that is already being exploited at a much faster pace than it can replenish itself. I resonate with the cause because it is essential for fresh water and biodiversity. I resonate with the cause because it is essential for peace. I say that not in exaggeration or hyperbole, but because the Amazon biome processes 20% of our fresh water and 20% of our oxygen.

Indigenous peoples of the Amazon know the essential importance of these scientific facts in their own traditional ways. Even from afar, we must stand in solidarity with indigenous peoples demanding the demarcation of their ancestral lands. From legal and democratic perspectives, demarcation of lands, and indigenous sovereignty are rights promised by the Brazilian constitution (Constitution of Brazil, 1988). More importantly, from a decolonizing perspective, one based on truth, reconciliation, and healing, it is not up to invaders and their offspring government to decide whether to give back what was not theirs to begin with.

Yet, a renewed neoliberal economic strategy is working fast to undermine protections in the constitution. The current proposals for deregulation of social and environmental protections are not new, but now such measures find sufficient support to move through the legislative process at a record speed via executive orders and fast-track legislative votes, all orchestrated by the agri-business lobby, which dominates Congress and the interim Executive administration. At the moment, in 2017, congress is discussing two amendments to the Brazilian constitution that would eliminate indigenous rights and environmental conservation: One would annul indigenous rights and sovereignty of their ancestral lands (PEC 215/2000 would dispense with indigenous territory demarcation). The other would provide the option of buyout packages of indigenous territory for the private sector (PEC 132/2015). And then there are also the simpler regulations passing through the legislative body, also with severe direct and indirect impact on indigenous peoples and the Amazon biome. Here are some measures of primary concern:

Weakening of environmental licensing (PL 3.729/2004—general licensing law)

Greater access for foreign investors to purchase land (PL 2289/2007—PL 4059/2012)

Reduction of conservation areas (MP 756/2016 and MP 758/2016 would specifically reduce conservation areas in the Amazon rainforest of Pará state)

Weakening of agro-toxins regulations (PL 6299/2002 reduces regulations on pesticides, and PL 34/2015 reduces regulations on genetically modified organisms [GMOs])

Exploitation of public lands with high environmental value

Weakening of the rights of riverine and quilombo communities—originated from escaped slaves (MP 759/2016, PL 3.729/2004)

Deregulation of mining rules (PL 37/2011 would change the Mining Code)

Speaking of mining in the Amazon basin, here are some of the effects of gold mining in the Amazonian highlands: The mercury and cyanide used in gold mining kill the rainforest soil, animals, and everything living in and off rivers. Hydropower plants, crude oil, gold mining, logging, cattle ranching, and corporate agriculture, together, will have a devastating impact on indigenous peoples and the Amazon biome if not stopped very soon. This is the conquest and destruction of another American West, this one in the Southern part of the Americas, the landmass lungs and fresh water maker of our planet, the ancestral home of more than 400 indigenous peoples, with the highest number of un-contacted tribes in the world (Instituto Socioambiental, 2017). We don’t need a time machine to know how this will end if we don’t join forces with the indigenous peoples, if we don’t realize this is also our cause.

Picture an indigenous woman with arms opened and eyes closed in front of a line of Brazilian federal riot police squad.

We all don’t need to fight bullets with arrows, or march on the capitals of South America, or stand with your open arms against police in riot gear. I confess that I no longer have the courage to put my body on the line of actual fire. But we can educate ourselves about that distant world, with a curious mind about how the result of this struggle will affect every living thing on the planet, with the wisdom to follow the indigenous peoples’ lead and knowledge of the land this time, with the question of “how can I be an ally?” instead of the typical expert-here-to-fix approach of the benevolent well-resourced folk.

We can talk about it with our families, friends, neighbors, and co-workers.

As academics, we can bring awareness of this struggle, and its importance to every life on the planet, to our classes and scholarship. We can work on ways of increasing global awareness and cooperation, even if the main focus of our scholarship and activism is rather distant from the Amazon.

There is no social justice without environmental justice. Indigenous peoples are not the only ones working to protect the Amazon. They have environmental science, artists, biologists, activists, and children on their side. But for indigenous peoples, the Amazon is home. Home. Memory. Life.

To me, pointing an arrow toward the Brazilian congress is not an irrational act by an uncivilized native. To me, this is a wise shot against the march of folly by someone who knows better.