Also media.
Hello and welcome to akab and Here. I am Andrew Sage. I run andrewsam Ova on YouTube. I'm joined by the one.
And only Garrison Davis. Hello.
Hello, Hello. You don't sound securely festive.
You know, it's a it's been a long week. This is the last workday of election week when we're recording this. I just returned from my cabin in the woods, which I which I got to kind of watch the election unfold. So now I am back in the real world, not just hiding up in the mountains of Georgia. So it feels slightly worse, but we we carry on.
M As you mentioned, a cabin in the woods, it actually reminds me of this movie that came out to Netflix a little while ago.
If you've seen it, Leave the World Behind.
Yes, I have seen that.
Yes, it's it's pretty aftitu in a cabin and all this is going on.
Yes, Yes, we actually talked about that movie earlier on this on this show and some conspiracy theories around it.
Yeah, Oh, the Obama connection.
That's right, that's right. You understand you're already receiving the messages. You already know.
Exactly, but we're not focused on the US for this episode, thank goodness. Instead, we're going to be going back into the past and the present as well, because the struggle really doesn't end, and taking a look at the struggle of the Mapuche in Chile and Argentina. I'd actually mentioned them in my exploration of Latin American anarchisms that you know they would need their own episode. So here we are taking a look at everything that they've been up to.
And it's really thanks to the work of fellow anarchists m good Hawk and John sev Reno and their research I've been able to put together this illucidation of indigenous anarchist history. So the lands that now bear the titles of Chile and Argentina have long held the Mapuche people, long before borders were drawn, long before the world learned to cage the wild. The land itself is considered while mapoo, and it's deeply entwined with the identity of the Mapuche people.
While mapoo is of course not just a geographical term, is also a spiritual one. It's a tapestry of their histories and their dreams and also their view of the will through a lens of reciprocity because the Mapuche do acknowledge their kinship with the land, the rivers, the mountains, and that worldview that they hold and have traditionally held. Rather champions balance and harmony and respect for all forms of life, which is what has been fuel in their
ongoing fight against occupation. So in a sense, the Mapuche struggle echoes an anarchist e those of autonomy and mutual aid. But I wouldn't cau as far as to call them anarchists, you know, I mean they have a very specific cultural and historical and spiritual context. It is distinct from anarchists thought. Despite these similarities and overlaps in there so s they will be exploring the history, people, and struggles of all Mapou that have shaped the Mapuche experience.
Now.
Ancient archaeological finds from tools to pottery have suggested that the Mapuche may have settled in present day southern Chile and Argentina as far back twenty five hundred to three thousand years ago. Genetic and linguistic research connects the Mapuche lineage to other indigenous groups across the Andes, meaning that their ancestors may have migrated down the western spin of South America in waves, adapting to the rainforests, coastlines and valleys of.
What's now one Mapu.
Historically and currently, the mapuch have spoken Mapudungun, and the language itself carries aspects of their cultural identity.
Other is to be expected.
Mapudung Gun is a polysynthetic language, meaning its words can be formed by combining smaller parts to reflect complex ideas. Mapuche itself combines Mapu meaning land and Cha meaning people. Shapouche lived on the border of the Incan Empire, meaning that they were in contact with centralized state organizations and hierarchical societies. I would have chosen to differentiate themselves and the societies from these datus peoples, So how do they
do so exactly? The Puchi way of life would have revolved around, as I said, a deep respective for kinship, communal responsibility, and spiritual stewardship of the land. The society itself was based around the loaf or family based communal unit, each love holding shared responsibility over a specific territory, ensuring the one's personal wealth doesn't override the interest and well
being of the environment in the community. The love wasn't just limited to the people of that family based community unit.
It also incorporated the ecosystem. That unit.
Incombust and occupied nature was in a sense part of the family. Rivers, mountains, forests, and other animals were treated as living relatives with the spirit and agency that disiled respect. In the Mapuche will view all beings and elements possess nuen, the life force, and so they have to be respected. And that police system also leads the mapootated practice the
sustainable use of resources and intergenerational land care. And it also compels there as I said, resistance to colonial resource extraction, deforestation, and industrial expansion. In Mapuche's spirituality, guenu Mapu, or the land of the ancestors, refers to the spiritual realm connected to the physical world. They've traditionally believed that the spirits of past generations inhabit this realm, offering guidance and protection. The machies or spiritual leaders so as the bridges.
Between these worlds. So they're supposed to.
Do things that conduct ceremonies, heal the sick, and connect with the ancestral spirits. They've sailed as the custodians in a sense of spiritual knowledge and medicine, and that makes them an essential component in each love. The socio political structure of the Mapuche has been a confederation of love groups known as the Alaraway system, where the different loves would come together to make communal decisions and joint actions,
particularly in times of conflict or threat. Each love will be represented in these confederations by alonco who would be bringing their communities voice and perspective to regional councils without
necessarily exercise and centralized authority. The decisions and these councils are based on consensus traditionally and cooperation, compromise, honoring the collective will as much as possible rather than imposing will from above, and contrary to popular belief, this lack of centralization has actually made them more resilient, not more fragile.
Rather than beckering and fighting at split in and splintering constantly, the mpouch have historically united and together resisted multiple attempts at subjugation, so they centralized alliances have empowered them to respond flexibly and quickly to the ever changing landscape of the threats that they're facing, and this resistance can use
to this day, but let me not skip ahead. Spanish first made their way to Mapouche territory in the mid fifteen hundreds, initially confident that they could conquer the area with the same ease they had subdued the InCor Empire to the north. But the Mapuche were not easily intimidated. Early encounters quickly tour into conflict, and the Spanish found themselves up against a serious resistance movement. From the start, the Spanish had underestimated the Impuche's ability to adapt when
the conquistadors introduced horses and new weaponry. The Apuche observed and leaned quickly, incorporating captured horses and arms into their own defense strategies. Rather than a simple series of skirmishes, this struggle would become a prolonged confrontation, one of the longest and most determined resistances to colonization throughout the Americas.
This was Lagira Tiraco or the Araco.
War, known for over one hundred years of protracted, brutal conflicts maintained by guerrilla warfare, and there would be no definitive battle or grand conclusion to this war. The Lapuce
recognized that they were facing vast resources. They knew they had to find ways to level that playing field, and so, using their familiarity with the forests, rivers and mountains of Albapo, they ambushed, evaded, and outflanked Spanish troops, cut off supply lines, and employed tactics that frustrated and exhausted their lost and equipped opponents. Depuch were fighting on two fronts, defending their territories from physical invasion and preserving their cultural practices from
Spanish influence. Those Mupuche are traditionally egalitarian. They did elect toki or war years during times of conflict. These figures were limited to their role in coordinating forces during these conflicts and had no other political power to wield above others. One of the more notable of these toki was a man named Lautaro. He was a young Mapuche who had been captured by the Spanish as a teenager and had worked for some time as a stable boy for Chief
Conquistado and governor of Gilet Pedro de Valdivia. While working as a stable boy, Lautaro managed to secretly observe many of the tactics the Spanish employed. He gained intimate knowledge of what made them tick in a sense, and he eventually escaped captivity and brought this knowledge back to his people, transforming a Putui resistance by effectively using captured horses and
new formations to confront the Spanish on ivan ground. Lautaro was a pro military strategists and by all accounts a charismatic young man that inspired his people through several major victories, including defeating a large Spanish force at the Battle of Tucapel in fifteen fifty three, which is a confrontation that
killed his former master and a good bit of Spanish morale. Unfortunately, the outbreak of a typhus plague, a drought, and a famine slowed the Mapouchier advance to expel the Spanish, as they had to spend some time recovering. But Lautero did try to push a band of Apoucha as far north as Santiago, Chile to liberate the country from Spanish rule. Unfortunately, before he could even turn thirty, he was killed in an ambush, and well his spirit continues to live on
as a symbol of Ampuche resilience. As the war evolved, they had cycles of conflict interspersed with uneasy pieces Spanish settlements the Mapucher frontier became isolated, vulnerable outposts subject to sudden raids, So in an attempt to hold the territory, the Spanish had to divert large amount of their resources to maintain a military presence, which was a very costly
strategy that didn't end up being sustainable long term. So finally, after decades of failed attempts to subdue the Mapucha by force, the Spanish had to adopt a different approach. Resulted in a series of peace treaties which will be unheard of
in the rest of Clonal Latin America. Among these was the Parliament of Killin in sixteen forty one, which established a formal boundary between Spanish controlled Chile and the autonomous Mapuche territories, granted the Mapuche legal recognition as an independent people.
With territorial rights.
This is ritually unheard of across the rest of the Americas, and that's to tell you how powerful their resistance was at the time. The Spanish crown recognized Mapuche control over lands south of the Bobio River and agreed to regular negotiations. And although this agreement was tenuous.
And at times violated.
It did also mark an era of semi autonnamy for the Mapuche, allowing them to maintain their land, language and traditions in the face of surrounding clunal expansion. The fact that they could even secure legal recognition of their autonomy from a state power as stubborn as a Spanish in a time like the seventeenth century, it's just remarkable. But unfortunately, as you could probably predict that recognition of the autonomy
would not last. In the eighteen hundreds, Chile and Argentina emerged as independent republics following Spanish cluinal rule, each driven by an appetite for territorial expansion and a nationalist vision. The excluded indigenous autonomy with new ambitions to civilize and consolidate the nations. Chilean and Argentine leaders saw the Mapuche held lands as resources to be exploited. Both governments justified their encroachment on Marpucha land under the guise of national progress.
To them, these indigenous lands were free real estate to be conquered and improved, not sovereign regions held by an indigenous population. They such way of life as a barrier as the economic development to your place with European style land holdings, set the colonies and extractive industries under new management. They would not respect the sixteen forty one Parliament kill in as far as they were concerned. They didn't sign that agreement, and they would never sign an agreement with savages.
I mean, yeah, we also saw that sort of thing throughout the Americas, where you would have these like alleged triaties that then either under future rule or even sometimes under the exact.
Same rule, would later just be completely disregarded.
Yeah, you didn't sign it with me, you know.
It's like a common colonial tactic to buy time.
As well exactly established and sure upper resources for a later attack. Yeah, and I could just say, well, I didn't sign that, you know, somebody else signed it, so I don't have to be behold onto it, pretty much.
And so Chileo.
Launched their campaign to annexed Mapuche land, known as the
Pacification of Arakanya, initiated in the eighteen sixties. Some have argued that this attempted annexation was triggered by the events surrounding the wreck of Hoven Daniel at the coast of Hrakania in eighteen forty nine, where erecked Chilean navy vessel was allegedly looted and its survivors allegedly attacked on Apoucha territory by members of Apouche society, despite the Mapuche arguing there had been no survivors, and despite them handing over some of the accused of Lutin to be tried by
Chilean authorities, even retiling in so of what was allegedly looted. The perception of the incident as a brutal loot and rape by the Mapuche fueled anti Mapouche sentiment within Chilean society. Although President Manuel Pulnaez of Chile dismissed the opposition's calls for a punitive expedition at the time, the conquest would
eventually counter past be getting in eighteen sixty one. If you dig into this story, by the way, you come to find out that a lot of the Lootenant and Mapouche were accused of was actually members of Chilean society and bazilin the resources from the wreck and then play into office.
If the Mapuche were wholly responsible for the loss of the resources, some of the.
Same people who were accusing the Wa Pouchier looters of stealing all the all the loot from the ship. Many of them had received some of that loot from the Mahuche themselves. Thempuche were trying to return the loot, and they decided to keep it for themselves instead of you know, retaining It's a Chilean government, so it's like the whole
trial was bunked. There was a whole bunch of corruption, and it was a real master And although the president did you know, dismiss the attempts to attack at the time, like I said, it would come to pass. The campaign was justified as every government does by necessity.
You know. The reality, however, was a.
Brutal invasion aimed up up roots Mapuche communities, displacing thousands, absorbing their lands into the Chilean state.
This whole strategy also just reflects this just general dehumanization. I mean, even the stuff with like the treaties and just like the going back on the treaties, denial of the legitimacy of treaties, that tactic would not be used the same way against like other colonial nations. And then
every subsequent development and every subsequent incursion onto land. All of it is just based on this underlying level of dehumanization that just sees land as resources and the people there as like acceptable casualties or just fierce obstacles to overcome in conquest of those lands.
Exactly, and obstacles they will, because Chile knew where they wanted to reach in terms of what they saw as their at full borders and will literally a wedge an obstacle between them and region where they wanted to reach. At the type of South America. It was almost like a race between Argentina and Chile to see who could reach the edge and claim it first, and Theuch will something that was keeping them from doing that. And additionally, Tapouch would not have been granted the same legitimacy of
a claim as Argentina. You know, Chile and Argentina would eventually comes in agreement about where their border would lie.
And their respected that agreement.
Same couldn't be said for the Mapuch And of course there were a lot of border disagreements of course in South America following the you know, evacuation of the Spanish, but of course those are treated on equal foot. In the natives are different matter, so Chilean forces would corner advance into Aracania forcibly, removed thousands of families from the ancestral territories and subject those that remain into the authority the Chilean government.
The traditional queen of land.
Holdings that remained were fragmented and redistributed off into Chilean settlers, and the government's imposed European style laws, education and religion. To attempt to assimilate the Mapuche and suppress the identity, military outposts and settlements was established in the newly annexed land, facily facing the region under martial law and making it difficult from Puccia communities to resist. Openly replace the words
Chilean government with Israeli government and Mapuche with Palestinian. And that's just to tell you how antiquated the current tactics of colonization are.
You know, very little has changed.
No, that's exactly what I've been thinking about.
Yeah, I mean, a lot of the former major conal powers have found more subtle means of continuing their exploitation and subjugation of people around the world. So it's very rare to see something so open and flagrant, you know, It's something that you expect to see in historical accounts such as this of landhole ends being chopped up and give unto settlers, and laws and education and being imposed and to a native population to suppress and to similate
their dentity. You know, military outpost being established on New Leanix Land, Marcia law being established for the native inhabitants, all those things. Hear about it, pushing of the American frontier, and you hear about it and throughout South America and Africa's cool o history. You don't really tend to think about that here now, and it's happening in four k.
No.
Like that's exactly what I was thinking about as you've been going through all this, like how it just sounds
exactly the same as what Israel is currently doing. And I think why people latch on to like Israel specifically so much is because of how like out of time their tactics of colonial expansion feel and like similarly, like it's just built on this base level of dehumanization exactly that a whole bit of other like imperial powers kind of try to like hide or like mask a little bit, and with Israel, it's just so mask off so I.
Think about all that time, they were like a century late pretty much. Yeah, if they had starts and this process like a sentry ilia, they would have actually probably have gotten away with it.
Unfortunately, well and they still might get away with it now to some degree. And that's like that is true.
That's that's kind of the super that's the super frightening thought is that even though it is this outdated like style, what if it like still works and if and if it's proven to still work in Palestine, where like where else can this be used? Like will we just see more countries feel like they can get away with it
because Israel did? And like that's kind of part of looking into the next four years and looking into just just how how the world is going in this general kind of far right power grab happening all like all over the globe. Will more and more countries be kind of willing to utilize these types of colonial tactics And it's scary and bad.
Yeah, I mean when you think about how the severity of the clumb situation, it's just going to worsen, and you think about the pressures had places on the most exploitive regions of the globe, How that might pressure, you know, migration, and how that might pressure sort of efforts to resist
the sort of tightening of the hold of expectation. Up until the call that was reading this called warned People's history of fashion, just thinking about the whole textile trade as a whole and how it impacts different parts of the globe and whatever, and it's talking about this now. I'm just thinking, like, if workers in those countries were to stand up, well, in all this time, you know, some of the most deadly struggles have taking place in
these regions, in these saturns. But if they were to stand up and resist now, I mean it might e get even more open and then blatant with the suppression of those people and those whites, and as they attempt to try and make their way out of those hot spots, those hot regions of instability and violence and climate catastrophe, you know, we have all this migrant raetoric to yes, make the struggle even worse.
That's like the fucoas boomerang idea of all of these colonial tactics also can eventually turned inward. And right now you see the same level of dehumanization being levied against, like millions of immigrants who are here both legally as refugees and are also here undocumented. But it's the same like rhetorical tactics that make people okay with this is that level of dehumanization. And you also see that, of course levied against like trans people. You still see that
livid against indigenous people. And it's just like a growing list of people that are no longer seen as like real humans.
Yeah, for some reason you're saying that, my mind fixates it on the fact that you said undocumented, and it's reminded me of the absurdity of all of this. The difference is literally some pieces of people. The difference is literally a rule of the dice spawn point from one side of the water or another. I do we allow this to like totally dominate our lives.
Yeah, it's like a it's like a deep spiritual evil. So many people don't even like realize the absurdity of it and how just like it takes away so much of like thought and empathy and people people just don't even know, like they don't even like process that that's what they've done to themselves by like constructing this system that they believe is like divine or like enshrined by God.
The right to exist defense.
Yeah, like it's it is. So much of it is a dice roll. So much of it is situations beyond anyone's conscious control.
Yeah, And to sort of pull us a bit back on to the track, you can also see the mirrors between the current past city and struggle and beyond Kurdmapuch struggle and even going back to this time that I have even discussing the Puschi struggle of the past, because despite all of this conal expansion, the Upuci resisted, not only militarily but culturally. They held on to their language, they held on to their customs, they held on to their spiritual practices, they held on to their identity in
defiance of assimilations policies and across the Andes. Meanwhile, Argentina was pursuing a similarly aggressive campaign just known as the Conquest of the Desert.
This was led by.
General Julio Argentino Rocca in the eighteen seventies and eighteen eighties, and this really sort of eradicate and displace all the indigenous groups through in the area, including the Mapuch who had lived on the fertile Pampus and Patagonian regions to secure valuable land for wait for it, cattle ranching, agriculture and European settled expansion. Cattle ranching as in Younoch, the.
Whole meat trade.
The are more important than the people.
Exactly, and the demand for the cows is more important than people. They see this violence of agricultural and expansion other places as well, as I said, I was reading one and one of the things she notes is that part of what pushed the American westward expansion was that they were growing cotton. And cotton is extremely intensive, and historically cotton was grown in a polyculture, was grown with other plants. Right with these cotton monocultures, it really quickly
strips the soil of its nutrients. And so they were pushing westward because they kept on having to find new land to grow the cotton on. And of course who was working that cotton, and who's working with plantations, just explotation all the way down and all that just to
feed this rapacious appetite of expansion. You know, we had thousands of years of sustainable growth and sustainable cyclical economies, but things that did that would last, and just in these last few centuries we've just completely lost that because above all the line has to go up well.
And like also part of that quest for agricultural domination in order to make that possible, there's the invention of the international slave trade, which is similarly built on this level of just base decumanization and the desire for agricultural production being way more important than the humanity of like everybody involved in that process.
Yep.
And then it's also tied to the petrochemical trade because to maintaining these soils and this unnatural form, you have to the basically pump the land with these artificial fertilizers which are typically derived from Patrick Amick.
Goals, and like that process of the soil basically becoming dead like started even as early as like the late eighteen hundreds. Like this this isn't even just like a modern problem in like the past, like fifty hundred years all of that land was like over you starting to get destroyed almost like two hundred years ago, but specifically like the late eighteen hundreds.
Yeah, and this is what we're looking at here, and this this particular historical narrative we're just watching. The fall of wild Mapoo of course, was looking at a more grandize sense, the fall of the remaining communities that actually were maintaining that connection land. They're being, in this process subjugated so that there is no resistance and no present alternative to the extractive model that was at least part.
Of the goal of this expansion.
As we see in Argentina, the few Mapuche who survived this massacre because they employed all sorts of tactics, rangers from scorch student policies to force relocations to like outright just you know, the few that survive were relocated to reservations, trip to their land, and reduced to liverers within this modern of rapidly modernized in Argentina and General Rocker's campaign was celebrated by the Argentine elite as a triumph of civilization over barbarism.
Where have I heard that before?
So in both Chile's passification of Aracanya and Argentina's conquest of the desert, he had this large scale dispossession of Apucha land. And while Ma Poo now being fully split by the border of Argentina and Chile, the vast majority of Pucha now live in Chile. There are only a
few times one thousands left in Argentina to this day. Initially, Mapucha leaders and communities launched uprisings and gorilla attacks against the Chilean and Argentine military forces, fighting to defend their territories, but as military suppression intensified, resistance also had to adapt. Puccia communities had to adopt more food forms of opposition, maintaining cultural practices, stories, and languages as an active resistance.
Some Puccer leaders petitioned for land rights and autonomy through legal channels, seeking to challenge dispossession through the courts.
Others continue to resist.
Through armed confrontation, often leading isolated uprisings when government forces overstepped or attempted to cease more land.
The future resistance that.
Follows this period is basically rooted in the traumas of this period, as the people were forcibly integrated into Chilean and Argentine societies, yet never fully accepted. As we move into the early twentieth century, the Pusche communities continue to be hit hard by policies that aim to dissolve the traditional ways of life. The Chilean and Argentine governments squeeze Onucha onto reservations, but surrounding lands were given to power
for landowners and settlers. Land's guesty was a significant issue, as from Puchet families often had thoughts too small to sustain their traditional agricultural practices, and the dispossession led to economic hardship and wide tread pop further marginalized them from national economies. The assimilation attempts to frame rendition as community identity as something to be erased in favor of European norms, pushed out the Mapundun language and cultural ties and aimed
to impose Spanish as the primary language. Thankfully today Mapundum still survives as the language and the Jucha people. At the time, Mapuchi were also forced into the wage labor on settler farms experienced and of course very harsh conditions are very little protection.
Many of them.
Mapuchi ended up migrating from rural areas to cities as the arable land twindled, and then found themselves in places like Santiago and Temuco beginning the nineteen thirty years and Animo. Puchier families ended up working as laborers and urban centers where their these new forms of discrimination. A lot of Mpuche women ended up going to work as servants within the houses of the Chilean elite, and during this period of hardship, Ili Mapoucha political movements began.
To take shape.
In the nineteen tens, Wabuchi leaders organized groups like Society dad Kapu Likan Defense Soa de la Arakanya, which advocated for land rights and civil protections aban to reclaim the dispossessed land and fight against the abuse of indigenous laborers. These early organizations marked a significant shift in Mapuche strategy represented a movement towards formal political approaches to resistance. The assaulntionment of political alliances that sympathetic groups also strengthened the
Mapuche cause. In the nineteen twenties nineteen thirties, indigious organizations began working with Literilean communists and socialist parties, focusing on indigenous labor issues and broader anti landlord campaigns. However, these alliances often prioritized national labor and Aukrainian reform over specific indition's rights, leaving Themapouche to continue to fight largely on
their own terms. But in spite of this limited political power, these iarly effort helped lay the groundwork for later land rights activism. From the mid twentieth century onward, rapid and gustrialization, extractive forestry operations and monoculture plantations began to dominate Mapucha land, and pollution increased. Rivers were contaminated. Forest part of diversity was replaced by non active species like pine and eucalyptus plantations,
and all of this leads, of course, soiled depletion. The remaining Mapuchia agriculture and local ecosystems were naturally threatened, which fully compel their resistance. At the same time, they were still, of course working to preserve their language, their cultural practices,
their music, their arts, the spiritual ceremonies. For a small moment, there was some hope as the government of Salvador Allende you know this is going passed an indigenous a law that recognized their distinctive culture and history and began to restore Mapuche commune lands.
But I think we all remember how that turned out.
Bam, you have a who are coop sponsored by the US and Pinochet is in Pola in power. Pinochet calls for the division of the reserves and the liquidation of the Indian communities. He initially sounds like a cartoon villain of everything I've read and learned about him, I mean, who speaks of the liquidation of a people?
Pinochet is extremely cartoon villain coded, except it was a real person. So I also have this tendency to not dismiss super evil people as like unhuman monsters, because I think that actually limits our understanding of how evil humans can be. Sure, and this isn't even just a pure principle, Like I don't like dehumanization in general, it's that I think it actually makes these people harder to beat if you view them as like some monstrous force instead of
something that's actually deeply human. And yeah, he is a cartoon villain, he's also like a person, and like that's actually kind of more scary than just viewing him as some monster. Very true, And I don't know, it's it's a frame of thought I've come back on specifically, and like thinking about like anti fascism.
Yeah, I mean that's something I always think about when I think of a lot of the most brutal world leaders.
Across human history.
I often think, you know, this person did not spawn out of the air. There was a time when this person was a newborn, when they were babbling, learning to speak, learning to walk, became a toddler, small child, pre teen, teenager, young adults.
So much.
Nature and nurture would have gone into the Polson they became, but they had the same spawn point as everybody else. They all started as a baby, and Pinochet was unfortunately no exception. After the pass and his Decree twenty five sixty eight to nineteen seventy nine, the number of additionous creaties was reduced by twenty five percent and several Mapuchia
leaders were murdered, threatened with imprisonment or excerpt. After the fall of Pinochet and returned to democracy, the Apuche had a resurgience and identity and political activism for the nineteen nineties. This revival gained homentum after the passage of Chile's Indigenous Law in nineteen ninety three, which acknowledged the Puche land right to advocate it for bilingual education, opening new paths
for cultural Reclamationia. That same year, Mapuchi representatives at the UN pushed for Chile to adopted Iolo Convention one sixty nine, a key indigious rights treaty, but Chile didn't actually ratify
the Convention until two thousand and eight. Despite the established run to the National Cooperation of Indigenous Development or KANNADI in nineteen ninety three to facilitate indigenous inclusion in policy making, Mapucha involvement in such state institutions has not guaranteed geruine representation. Several canadi leaders who openly advocated from Mapuche autonomy or pushed against corporate interests have been removed from their piss.
In twenty fifteen, Governor Francisco Juanchomia, a Promapuchi advocate in Aracanya, was removed from his position due to his support for legal reforms recognizing Mapucha rights. He can'tgo and change the system. System changes you will gets you out of the way. With the intensification of extractive industries encroach lands, a wave of activism emerged, specifically aimed the protecting secret territories and
the environment. Mapuchi activists frequently have set up against forestry companies, hydroelectric projects, and multinational corporations that have aimed to exploit their resources, e engaging land occupations and protests for land restitution and environmental protection. The Chilean stage reaction to Maputi activism is entirely.
Predictable harsh repression.
Under anti terrorism legislation, Mapoochi activists face heightened police surveillance, imprisonment, and accusations of terrorism, a tactic which is universally used to delegitimize resistance to injustice and violence, exportation, and destructure.
It is kind of one of those magic words that has been increasingly invoked in the past twenty years.
Yeah, terrorist is a magic wood. Illegal, isn't it a magic wood?
Yeah, they're all just like the humanization terms, right, Like you are not a person, you are not an ex you are not well whatever. You are a terrorist, and terrorists do not have the same rights as humans. It's not a war crime if you do it against a terrorist.
Luke Skywalker was not a terrorist. You are a terrorist, you know.
But no, like like whether you're like finding in like an actual resistance movement or you're just attending like a protest in a in an American city, both of those can now become quote unquote terrorists or.
Or some like the level clerk who just happens to be within has abu lah.
Yeah, or you're a daughter of a low level clerk who is picking up a pager and oops, I guess your dad shouldn't have been a terrorist and like Jesus Christ.
Yeah yeah.
And then, of course the media has a big part to play in all this. You know, terrorist as a term is associated with certain stereotypes about various groups of people. In the past few years, it's been the you know, machete and aka waven Islamist fightal but in other time periods it was another prominent stereotype, you know, the Black
seventies revolutionary or vikong. And in the Chilean situation, media portrayals have also reinforced stereotypes of Mapuche violence, which of course serves the role of obscure in the reality of their fight for justice and environmental stewardship. It hasn't all been for not the mapuch struggle, that is, have had a few legal triumphs rulans where the Inter American Court of Human Rights has held Chile accountable in air quotes as much as any state is actually held accountable for
viouating Mapuche rights. Grassroots groups and artist collectors with white have also supported Mapuche efforts.
But curly, these.
Small victories and triumps are really not much. They're not enough within the broader apuch movement, you do have the reformists and the simulationists, and you have groups like Quording their Daughter, Arauko Mayeko or Camp and they're splinter group,
which is why chan Alca Mapu. And they've adopted separatist stances advocating for direct actions such as land occupations and resistance against state forces because they view autonomy and territorial reclamation as essential to Mapuchia sovereignty and they have no interest in compromise with the extractive industries and government they're responsible for their suffering. Traditionally, these groups are focused on acts of economic sabotage against companies that are infringing on
their lands and their stewardship. Within wider Chilean society, there's still some prejudice against some Mapuche, particularly, but not exclusively from the right way, but she lays twenty nineteen uprising against inequality and government abuses found strong supports and ally ship between wider Chilean society and Upuche communities who had
seen echoes of their own grievances and national protests. The protests were initially sparked by a metro affair hike, but They quickly became a national movement, demanding systemic reform in both urban and rural spaces. Mapuche communities joined or supported protesters, were resistant continued to government policies that marginalized their communities
and undermined their cultural rights. Mapoocher symbols and flags emerged, prominently aligning aditional struggles with these word amounts of justice, and the government response can you predict was swift and severe. Military and police forces were deployed to use excessive violence.
Apuch ben knew about this, but some of the Chileans their experience in this for the first time, and this mutual experience of repression reinforced alliances between the Mapuche and the Chilean activists, as both faced the stature of enviolence,
of propaganda that portrayed them as radicals and terrorists and extremists. So, despite the crackdown, the uprising saw unprecedented support for the Mapuche cause, amplifying calls for restitution of indigious lands, formal recognition of Appouoche rights in a reformed constitution, and a declinal approach to governments the.
Respects indigenous autonomy.
The twenty nineteen protests laid the groundwork for a national constitutional reform was significant Mapucha involvement to public support the draft interview constitutions was the twenty one raised the potential for insurance indigenous rights from PUCCI representatives actively dissipate in the process and creating renewed optimism for meaningful legal reprotections
the respecting Puja culture, territory and autonomy. That somewhat progressive attempt at a constitution reform, which also included gender equality measures, was rejected. Said there was another attempt just last year, entered to twenty three, but it was a very conservative attempt shaped by the far right Republican Party, which trickter provisions and immigration, a ban and abortion and a free market focus that did not resonate with the majority of voters.
Fifty five point eight percent voted against the twenty twenty three draft and forty four point two percent in fever. Chile In President Gabriel Borek, whose administration had supported constitutional change, acknowledged that further attempts that constitutional reform were unlikely, So for now, Chile continues to be governed by the constitution
that dates back to the ditatorship of Pinochet. While its leaders looking at alternative PABs address and social, economic and environments of this suites in line with Chilean public opinion. If you know anything about me and my positions, you know that I'm not confident in the ability of states to meaningfully respect people's agency and autonomy. Have all but I wish them Pucha all the best we have of their struggle goals, and I've personally found their story very impactful.
It's one of resilience, adaptability and vase of centuries or avolicity.
They've had an unyielding.
Desire to maintain their connection to the land and cultural identity, and they aren't going fright. Is really just a testament to the power of solidarity, and that's it for me. This has been it could happen There, all power to all the.
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