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Amazon, Where Are Your Bodyguards?
by Alexandra Pereira
2009-01-31 10:27:15

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The rebel bishop can not stand having to obey to his two bodyguards even during the Catholic prayer services. "Having to deal with two armed men even here?" - he says annoyed and filled with indignation, in spite of the fact that the two men are there to protect him. The bishop is D. Erwin Krautler. He is the head of the Xingu bishopric, in Pará state, Brazil, South America. This means that he prays in the heart of the Amazon. As a matter of fact, Erwin Krautler is one of the three Pará bishops facing death threats for years now.

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These represent a price paid by anybody (social researchers, biologists and illiterates alike, community leaders, locals as well as foreigners, journalists, government and natural reservation workers, indians, politicians, farmers, teachers, fishermen, activists, businessmen, simple travelers, etc. - a democratic threat, I think you can say that...) who opposes the devastation of the forest by international and corporate interests and their profits' blindness. The Amazon and Brazil are suffering an international, transcultural and natural pillage - the subsoil of the Amazon alone has reserves of gold, diamonds, oil and natural gas, aluminium, iron, tin, niobium, potassium, limestone, manganese, chromium, lignite and uranium.

Krautler states that Lula's government "has taken important steps" forward, but he thinks that the President could have been more firm and strict in defending the global environmental interests. My belief is that the national authorities need not only courage, but also a very strong and definitive international support/incentive in order to take the most extreme and firm natural defense measures. Not only that: Brazil needs to be acknowledged as the 190 million people country that it is, and its social problems need to be addressed very directly too. If the interest of defending the Amazon is global, the naked truth is that the responsibility for its destruction couldn't be more global than it is/has been.

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On one hand, when you are worried, on a national level, about constant jail riots, violent large-scale criminality, deep social fractures, drug traffic (to supply the Western and Eastern civilized clients, let's not forget that...) and dangerous drug dealers, a kind of silent civil war that has been going on for years, shameless corruption, extreme poverty, unemployment and your own people's starvation, you hardly have any energy or means left to defend the lungs of the globe - I think that most people would understand that.

This doesn't mean, of course, that Lula is a saint - far from that. But the truth is that most South-American countries continue to be destroyed and exploited by developed eastern and western countries and their international corporations - this needs to be denounced very clearly. Erwin Krautler has lived in the Amazon region since 1965. If the rhythm of destruction remains as fast as it is nowadays, he estimates that in twenty to thirty years the wild forest will be completely lost. Who is responsible? Are Brazilian companies the most responsible entities? Of course not - far from that.

The truth is that very powerful Asian, American and European corporations are responsible for it. All the wealthiness and protected species of the Amazon are going to their pockets, to the paradise holiday islands and ski resorts of their top executives, and sadly also to the monthly salaries of their employees and their bank loans to pay the suburban family flat by the end of the month - which become tainted too. The wood, the lands, the native cultures, the exuberant fauna and flora, the precious minerals, the rubber, the waters, the fishes, the fruits and skies of the Amazon - they are all going there. Where? On the path to destruction. Or "down the sink", as bishop Krautler says, with a sad gaze of hopelessness.

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Who is accountable and who judges these people? Why don't the countries where the headquarters of these companies are located and the international authorities make these people accountable? Why has the Brazilian government (whichever it is) to work alone? How much more blood of innocent people is needed, coloring the waters of the Amazon's rivers, how many more years of burned wood, total destruction of a country's richness and culture, forest fires and gun powder smell in the forest are needed, how many more assassinations do the "important people" need? How many more Chico Mendes' shot down?

The above statements mean that when I am fifty the Amazon will likely not exist - it will be nothing but a dream, a past mirage, a dusty memory of our planet as the natural paradise pearl it used to be, a deep breath which is passé (pretty much as human dignity and sensibility seem to be passé), reduced, destroyed and squeezed inside civilized urban botanical gardens. By then, the Amazon natives will be exhibited inside Natural History and Anthropology museums, together with the skeletons of dinosaurs, their cultures and tribes will be death, the local villages burned down with the ashes transformed into yens, euros or dollars for lobbyist executives to have a toast with.

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And civilized eastern and western families eating popcorns and cotton candy will appreciate interactive exhibitions of those primitive peoples on Sunday afternoons, taking pictures with their latest generation of mobile phones - that will be a pretty sad development. My children and grandchildren will never see nor feel the Amazon and its preciousness - they won't even know that it once existed. I don't want that to happen. This is the simple reason why I am writing this article.

According to Krautler, the creation of more indigenous and extractivist reservations is absolutely fundamental and urgent to the future preservation of the region, because such areas despond the destruction hooligans and the power pets. However, 90% of the original wild forest in most municipalities of the Xingu region is already gone (these were the exact news by Erwin Krautler). This morning I read the newspaper's headlines and the classifieds section screamed at me: "Urgently needed - Amazon Bodyguards. Please Contact: Our Collective Future.". My morning toast fell down and my milk mug spilled. I wasn't hungry anyway.

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* * * *

World Social Forum 2009 Parades, Belém do Pará, Amazon region, Brazil (27 January 2009):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OMngU32vFA&feature=related
"Tens of thousands of Brazilians and social activists from around the world opened the World Social Forum, marching, chanting, and dancing through the streets amidst a torrential downpour that lasted several hours. There is a renewed significance to the WSF, the worlds largest anti-neoliberalism event, at a time when the neoliberal economic model itself is in extreme crisis amidst ongoing financial institutional failures."

Voices From the World Social Forum 2009:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HziuBw9yUWo&feature=related

Greenpeace Brazil, January 2009, Amazon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evZEHeKCNk8&feature=related

Amazon In Need For An Angel - Greenpeace Brazil:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfUo-Qo5PTo

Ecuador's Texaco Case:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8610FdQbXWM

Amazon Brazil

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AP	2009-01-31 14:49:29
This is Mahogany, a type of tree very soon (and forever) extinct if deforestation isn't stopped and worldwide consumers don't buy exclusively products with the certification stamp by the FSC: http://www.greenpeace.org/brasil/photosvideos/photos/arvore-de-mogno Gallery of Photos by Greenpeace Brazil: http://www.greenpeace.org/brasil/amazonia/moratoria-da-soja/galeria-de-fotos (the problems of soya plantations, intentional forest fires, drought, agricultural use of chemicals and pesticides, the road network illegal expansion, the problem of pastures, oil refineries, deforestation, illegal mineral extraction, etc., etc., etc.)


AP	2009-01-31 14:56:25
Furthermore, the use of slave work has been identified by the Brazilian government, specially during the initial deforestation proccess which leads to new illegal farms, plantations, estates, factories and refineries.


Emanuel Paparella	2009-01-31 15:35:33
The reason why bishop D. Erwin Krautler needs protection from the police is that for some forty years now he has been decrying the abuses of exploiters of the Amazon forest and of the poor and preaching to the people of his parish that they are not slaves and have a right to protest and oppose the oppression. He subscribes to a theology called “liberation theology” which asserts that the archetype of the exodus from Egypt and the journey to freedom while addressing primarily spiritual slavery also applies to the oppression of people hic and nunc and that in fact the concept of inalienable rights can only make sense within a Christian framework which postulates a loving caring Father who cares for his creation. Antiquity did not have it. (continued below)


Emanuel Paparella	2009-01-31 15:37:52
To be sure that particular theology has been frowned and even condemned by John Paul II and the present Pope for its social activism which seems to deemphasize the spiritual aspects of freedom from slavery, but bishop Krautler while ostensibly a rebel in that respect has not seceded from the Church and continues to be in communion with Rome. Not so bishop Lafebre who created a schism over Vatican II, started his own church and ordained some four bishops who have recently been reinstated. One of them believes that the Holocaust never happened. Now, that’s quite a spectrum from liberation theology on the far left, to Nazi theology on the far right. Some solve the problem by satire and caricature and trivialize the whole issue which is this: why does this institution called the Church (which means congregation of people open to all people hence Catholic) invariably gets attacked from both the right and the left throughout its long history? G. K. Chesterton had it on target when he wrote that when one gets attacked from both right and left one can be fairly sure that he may be doing something right and may be in the right place. Ultimately, it turns out that the intricacies of the connection between exploitation of people and exploitation of the ecosystem cannot be sorted out by mere social activism. That's like putting the cart before the horse. A theory is required first, for praxis without theory is blind while it is also true that theory without praxis is usually sterile.


AP	2009-01-31 15:43:39
Hey, Christian or not, as long as you defend it... that's fine for me!! (I'm sure the natives would agree)


Emanuel Paparella	2009-01-31 15:45:02
P.S. Ultimately it is the problem of modern nihilism which begs an answer to this question: why get so upset about the disappearance of one of the lungs of the earth, if everything in the universe is pretty meaningless. when there is no logos, no purpose and point to it all, and the universe will come to an end eventually in a great catastropy? Wouldn't epicurianism and even hedonism be a more sane response? As a matter of fact hedonism is rampant in our Western culture.


AP	2009-01-31 15:45:40
We may not have any second left for theories in this case, Mr. Paparella.


AP	2009-01-31 15:46:57
I thought that was obvious. It is, in fact, the sad case.


Emanuel Paparella	2009-01-31 15:48:51
Errata above: catastrophy.


Emanuel Paparella	2009-01-31 15:56:05
When praxis without theory is in vogue it usually ushers in ideological fanaticism which bizarrely proclaims the striving for utopia while denying that the universe has a purpose and a meaning. At that point, people become less important than the ideology and the ideologues begin to look more and more like the people they allegedly are fighting: the exploiters of people; which is to say, they become part of the problem rather than part of the solution. Gandhi may still have to teach us a thing or two on that.


AP	2009-01-31 16:26:25
Are you accusing Greenpeace, community leaders, social and environmental activists of ideological fanaticism, denying that the universe has a purpose and a meaning and praxis without theory? Decide yourself: either there is no theory or there are ideologues (I wonder of which ideology?). It is important to underline (and that's what I tried to do with the article) that this is a critical moment for the Amazon, and this can be consubstanciated by both theory and practice.


AP	2009-01-31 16:35:15
Maybe you can agree with me on that one?


AP	2009-01-31 16:40:15
And this can be, of course, very directly related with our global economic model (the irresponsibility and impunity which reign inside it) as well as the present global financial crisis.


AP	2009-01-31 16:43:30
And THAT is where it gets interesting.


Emanuel Paparella	2009-01-31 17:12:24
I am not accusing or impugning anybody’s intentions which are often inscrutable. I am simply speaking in general terms which often is all that can be done in the comment section of an on-line magazine without descending to the ad hominem. Again, speaking in general terms, the ideologues are known by their external fruits: they care for the ideology, which has become their idol, more than they care for the people; the ideology may even turn out to be an idealistic utopia but that does not excuse the fact that it is primary in their mind and primary in their praxis; here in America we call them “limousine liberals.” I do agree though that the ideologue is in fact more consistent than the mere activist because he rationalizes his praxis while the mindless activist simply acts for the sake of action or simply because it is the “politically correct” thing to do, and is often a nihilist to boot; to be a nihilist and to pretend that one is acting purposefully in the world is a contradiction of the first order. On the other hand, being consistent does not necessarily mean being right; often in the name of the ideology what ought never be rationalized is in fact rationalized. Here too examples abound in history.


Emanuel Paparella	2009-01-31 17:32:19
Here is a more concrete and existential example by way of a personal anecdote: during my 12 year tenure at the University of Puerto Rico several years ago I befriended a colleague who taught in the Department of English, an atheist Jew, since passed on. He had been an aviator during World War II. He saw the whole of reality with his Marxist ideological lenses. Everything was reducible to class warfare. Marxism had substituted his Judaism, so to speak and skewed any and all phenomena that he perceived. Once we went to see a Brazilian movie together whose title escapes me and whose plot was about a family who decides to leave the urban environment of Sao Paolo to go and live in the Amazon jungle. While there, the son, a boy of 6 or so gets bitten by a poisonous snake and the father has to run many miles with the son on his back to reach a hospital; the boy dies nonetheless. At the end of the movie my friend Bernie burst forth: “it is all the fault of those filthy capitalists.” I could not contain a burst of laughter and told him that in my opinion the movie had nothing whatsoever to do with class warfare. That started a rather heated argument which almost ended with the demise of our friendship. We remained friends nonetheless. I still think of him from time to time and pray for him. I keep wondering tough if even in the beyond he keeps wearing his lenses or is their shedding part of his soul's purgation. Perhaps Plato and Dante have an inkling of an answer.


AP	2009-01-31 19:06:11
Capitalists did not invent snakes, but in movies anything can happen.