Editorial Tequio, March 29, 2010
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Posted by Gaspar Rivera-SalgadoFrente Indígena Oaxaqueno Bi-Nacional (FIOB)
Presently in the United States two great debates encumber the daily reality of we indigenous migrants communities. One is the debate
over immigration reform and the other is related to the crisis in the rural
communities of Mexico Profundo.*
As for the debate on immigration reform we once again
recently witnessed the tragic loss of the opportunity to push for reforms in public
policy that advance real justice for migrants in the United States and their
families in Mexico. In this debate what is most unfortunate is the lack of a
transnational vision that would redefine the context in which the phenomenon of
migration is no longer understood as a purely domestic problem but linked to
the now almost complete economic integration between Mexico and the United
States.
We must recognize on both sides of the border between Mexico
and the United States that migration is here to stay as it is the result of
economic and social processes reflecting the social integration between the two
countries that has occurred without any serious discussion of the social terms
under which the process unfolds.
The lack of debate on the social terms of this economic
integration and the resulting poverty that has been propagated among the
Indigenous and Mexican campesino communities has resulted in the invisibility
of thousands of people displaced by these same economic forces who resurface as
victims only when they become tagged as “illegal migrants” in the United
States.
Indeed the debate on
migration policies in the United States is but a discussion on the results and
the visible effects of deeper problems that have been developing and
intensifying over the past three decades - this is the growing economic
inequality suffered internally in Mexico and more specifically the lack of economic
alternatives for rural communities in Mexico.
It is commonplace to say that rural Mexico has lived in a
permanent economic crisis since the early eighties. However, very little is said about the human dimensions of
this crisis. When the elites of the
United States and Mexico decided to agree on a framework of economic
integration that would allow the free movement of capital and goods between
Mexico and the United States, while leaving the issue of labor migration
outside of the framework of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the
results were the foundations for the current situation of displacement of
campesino and indigenous rural Mexicans and the almost impossible task of
sustaining local economies in rural areas.
NAFTA, the international economic policy that has displaced
millions of rural Mexicans, has had more impact on the ongoing development of
the migration of Mexicans to the United States than any other contemporary
event.
And it is here precisely that the Indigenous Bi-national
Front of Oaxaca (FIOB) proposes that there is a need to expand and emphasize transnational
analysis in the immigration debate. We must bring to the table of discussion,
the simple fact that in the absence of real economic opportunities and a range
of public policies channeled positively to impact the opportunities and rights
of indigenous peoples and peasant communities in Mexico Profundo, there will be
no realistic possibility to contend with the issues of the short and long term flow
of undocumented workers.
Until we establish the Right Not To Migrate, the right to be
fully realized with self determination in our home communities as the
fundamental centerpiece of immigration policy we cannot expect to escape the tide of injustices sweeping our communities today on both sides of
the border.
Translation: TONATIERRA
Link:
Terracidia y La Ley De Excepciones
El TLC y La Declaracion sobre Derechos de Los Pueblos Indigenas de la ONU
Link:
Terracidia y La Ley De Excepciones
El TLC y La Declaracion sobre Derechos de Los Pueblos Indigenas de la ONU
###
* México Profundo: Reclaiming a Civilization
By Guillermo Bonfil Batalla
This translation of a major work in Mexican anthropology
argues that Mesoamerican civilization is an ongoing and undeniable force in
contemporary Mexican life.
For Guillermo Bonfil Batalla, the remaining Indian
communities, the "de-Indianized" rural mestizo communities, and vast
sectors of the poor urban population constitute the México profundo. Their
lives and ways of understanding the world continue to be rooted in Mesoamerican
civilization. An ancient agricultural complex provides their food supply, and
work is understood as a way of maintaining a harmonious relationship with the
natural world. Health is related to human conduct, and community service is
often part of each individual's life obligation. Time is circular, and humans
fulfill their own cycle in relation to other cycles of the universe.
Since the Conquest, Bonfil argues, the peoples of the México
profundo have been dominated by an "imaginary México" imposed by the
West. It is imaginary not because it does not exist, but because it denies the
cultural reality lived daily by most Mexicans.
Within the México profundo there exists an enormous body of
accumulated knowledge, as well as successful patterns for living together and
adapting to the natural world. To face the future successfully, argues Bonfil,
Mexico must build on these strengths of Mesoamerican civilization, "one of
the few original civilizations that humanity has created throughout all its history."
TONATIERRA
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