Political Awareness
A new generation of political activists
Charlotte Eichhorn
from
Jorgelina Duarte and Gerónimo Ayala
are two of many young activists engaged in the five countries of the Guaraní Nation today. Both have had a Western education. To a reasonable degree, they can find their way in both worlds.
Some of these representatives are often invited to Europe for conferences by NGOs and other organisations.
In the beginning, the indigenous people were very glad to be able to raise their concerns in Europe. Today they are more skeptical. The invitations are not always altruistic, the content not always in the interests of the invitees, who feel commodified or paraded. Today, however, they self-confidently raise such concerns in advance.
Jorgelina Duarte, for example, was thrilled to be able to speak at the UN in Geneva or to discuss with a select London audience in the company of global indigenous representatives. But the trip also meant a lot of stress - a different climate, loneliness, language barriers and numerous small events with only a handful of listeners.
Jorgelina Duarte
- Jachuka Rete- is Mby'á-Guaraní,
and delegate of the Guaraní umbrella organisation CCNAGUA, which she also represented in Europe.
Until 2019, she was vice-cacique (chief) of her community Tamandua in Misiones, Argentina, a position she resigned from due to time constraints.
She earns her living as a teacher in a bilingual Mby'á-Guaraní school.
Her grandfather, who died recently, was one of the best known spiritual leaders of the Guarani people:
"We are not poor because we don't have what we don't need anyway.
She misses him very much.
Nevertheless, her presence was a chief reason why a single major benefactor jumped on board with an NGO to buy another piece of forest for a resettlement of some Mby'á-Guaraní communities. Yet this is not so easy in the corrupt jungle of the Argentine business world and its legislation and she is now being dragged into the mess against her will, which strengthens her critical attitudes towards such "begging tours". She prefers to demand her legally guaranteed indigenous rights and to network internationally with other indigenous peoples and young people.
Beginning in 2020, shortly before Argentina's Corona lockdown, she recounts her encounters with and in Europe, in her village Tamandua.
from Carlos Marinez Sarasola
Antropologist, Argentina
Thanks to the young Mby'á-Guaraní
LuzTamandua,
who shot some video sequences of her village Tamandua and made them freely available. She is studying "visual arts" at the University of Obera.
Meanwhile, many young Guaraní are speaking out in public. They want to be heard and noticed.Taking advantage of modern technology, they are sometimes supported internationally.Luz has made her first "video attempts" locally with Charlotte Eichhorn.
Gerónimo Ayala
is Mby'a-Guaraní, the first indigenous architect,
Founder of the first indigenous party in Paraguay,
In the elections in April 2018, he ran for the Senate but just missed the necessary 50,000 votes.
He also became a representative of a new indigenous activist generation in the Paraguayan
Forum GRAMO:
"View into the future".
Gerónimo narrowly lost his elections to the Paraguayan Senate, but more significantly, he founded the first indigenous party and gained political awareness and recognition from both sides - including white people.