My Blog
My Blog
Cherán
I have to tell you about Cherán. It happened quite suddenly. There was a chance meeting, a coffee, an invitation. I went away for the weekend and there was Cherán.
Of course I read the newspapers. There was the picture in La Jornada of Gabriel Garcia Márquez, fifteen years short of his hundred, in a theatre in Mexico City drinking wine with Carlos Slim – the richest person in the world. A man stepped off the plane in Veracruz during the primaries and they found a million pesos in his bag. Meanwhile El Proceso exposed Coahuila as a town where narco gangs have infiltrated the legislature, the judiciary and the political parties. There are Oscars and flossy smiles from further north. It’s just another day, the usual prose. But on the next page there was a picture of Cherán.
It is not easy to reach Cherán. This is a Purépecha ‘municipio’ of around 16,000 people where the indigenous language is widely spoken. Forests and lumpy hills surround the town. You could stack two mountains the size of Ben Nevis and not quite reach the top of the church in the central plaza: Cherán is 2,400 metres above sea level and it’s cold at night.
When we arrive the sign at the barricade reads: ‘Welcome to the indigenous community of Cherán.’ All traffic is stopped and checked by volunteers from the local community. No-one comes in or out without their permission. They have good reasons.
I met people here whose friends have been killed by illegal loggers. These criminal gangs desecrate the hills, steal timber for private profit and kill people who stand in their way. They carry brand new automatic weapons from the USA, bought over the counter, still under guarantee.
Many argue that for years there has been official connivance by parts of the government with loggers who have links to narco gangs.
The people of Cherán asked the government to protect their lives and their forests. In April 2011 they even captured five presumed illegal loggers. Nothing happened apart from further killings of villagers.
The sun has set by the time we are sitting around in the fogata – an improvised wooden shed built onto the road. Food is cooking over the open fire, smoke catches my eyes, I eat frijoles and tortillas. There are a dozen of us and some of the keris, the elected leaders from the barrio, talk to us and answer our questions. How is it organised? How has the federal or local government responded? What is the role of the political parties?
In April 2011, exasperated by the lack of security, the community set up blockades at the entrances to the towns, and by night, keep watch at the fogata vigilance posts, placed at strategic street corners. These have been staffed by shifts of volunteers all night, every night, for nearly 12 months. They also patrol the streets in open trucks. They carry sticks and knives and low quality guns.
Suddenly I am in a Ken Loach real time documentary, muddling my Spanish, unsure of my lines. I am in the middle of asking a question, standing on the edge of a chasm, looking down into the dark for words that don’t come. Some shuffles and smiles, extra logs on the fire. I’m offered more tortillas.
In June 2011 a caravan ‘for peace with justice and dignity’ set off for Mexico City to bring food to Cherán. Employment and normal life has been severely disrupted. Meanwhile, they have begun to organise their own local democracy based on indigenous traditions using national and international law. The second article of the Mexican constitution recognises the state as ‘pluricultural’ with indigenous people having rights to self-determination. The International Labour Organization’s Convention 169, passed in 1989, was a binding agreement that required governments to pursue indigenous policies centred on non-discrimination, cultural recognition and participatory democracy. Mexico has signed the convention although some of its constituent states have moved slowly in drafting their own local statues. In 2001, the COCOPA federal law was passed - a watered down compromise in response to Zapatista demands - which did propose some autonomy at a local level for indigenous people over land, natural resources, the judiciary and governance.
All the political parties - widely seen as a corrupt part of the municipal, state and federal government - have now been banned from Cherán although these have recently attempted to re-gain access. Instead, the communities have now elected, by Purépecha customs, 12 representatives from the four barrios, or districts. This structure has been recognised by the electoral commission as the legitimate authority which now runs the town’s affairs.
A truck slews round the corner. The conversation halts. Everyone watches carefully. Four young men are hanging on to the rails surrounding the open back. One smiles, another waves a rifle. They are the community patrol. Our conversations resume.
The local democracy is sometimes referred to as ‘uses and customs.’ This is not without dangers – women have ended up disenfranchised by such practices in other places – but for now the issue of security is a vital pre-condition for any future. I fall asleep in a wooden cabin surrounded by murmuring trees.
In the morning we divide into groups and set off to the four ‘barrios’ of Cherán. The communities are planning for the future in participative events. I am privileged to witness the all day sessions which take place in school buildings. I estimate over 300 people are involved. Each group is facilitated by one person from Cherán, one student, and a professor from the university. At times the sessions are split further to discuss the issues for men, or women, or young people or children. Everyone’s ideas are written up on wall charts. Freire’s breath ruffles the basketball net in the playground.
They are modest albeit determined people. The men scratch their noses, laugh a bit, push their caps back. Women look intently forward, pull blue scarves around their necks against the cold, and some make their points forcefully in the discussions. Children run around the playground and sing songs. It is devoid of slogans. It is concentrated on local issues and it is by turns sombre and passionate. Cherán – like other towns in this area - has played a central role for generations in initiatives to support the survival of indigenous life and the local environment.
They want to see their customs, values and traditions strengthened. They want to improve employment, health, education, and to make a better life for women, young people and children. They hope that the state government may now offer resources to support the new development plan. But this is no paradise. There are many social problems in Cherán. Around a third of the population migrate to the USA each spring for work. You can find the odd cynic who believes nothing will change. The local economy is fragile.
It is evening when we pack our bags. A burnt and rusted skeleton of a loggers’ truck sits outside the casa de cultura centre to remind the gangs what they can expect. The last bus winds its way up to the plaza. Two teenage lovers kiss on the stone bench. We buy maize drinks from a street stall before it closes.
Cherán faces an extreme situation. The forces of large scale private enterprise and organised crime are still trying to destroy the forest resources - and the Purépecha way of life - for their own profit. The organs of government have not been able to protect the citizens within this territory. In response the communities in Cherán have drawn on their own deep resources - their values, history and culture, and astounding organisation – and achieved incredible things. They have resisted the narco gangs, sought to protect the forests from illegal loggers, developed their own autonomous democracy and started to plan for a better future. In effect, the people in Cherán have had to establish their own governance, defence and local development in the face of war-like conditions. They are aiming to reinforce their own civil society based on ideas and values that pre-date the concept itself.
Our car passes through the barrier and out of Cherán and I suddenly feel less safe. There is still forest but in places the surrounding hills are bare and scrubby. I wonder how many of those stolen trees have been turned to newsprint to sell tales of corruption and media froth. There are no million peso bags in Cherán. No Oscars. Carlos Slim does not visit.
Do not make Cherán your sweetheart for the month. There is much to learn from this. But it does not need romance. Take inspiration. Give support. You might not read about it in the pages of your newspaper so I promised to write about what I saw and learnt in Cherán. This is a first take.
Monday, March 12, 2012