21 minute read
If Not Us? The Indigneous Youth Homecoming Movement in Indonesia
IF Not Us . . . ?
Youth organized community garden.
Mina Susana Setra (Dayak Pompakng from West Kalimantan) is an Indigenous, environmental, a nd land rights activist. She is currently the deputy secretary general of the Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN), an Indigenous organization based in Indonesia. AMAN spans 33 provinces with 2,271 member communities serving 19,000,000 people via 21 regional and 119 local chapters. Their mission is to ensure that Indigenous Peoples are politically sovereign, economically independent, and culturally dignified. Cultural Survival recently spoke to Setra.
Cultural Survival: Tell us about AMAN ’s work on Indigenous food sovereignty.
Mina Setra: AMAN has been working on Indigenous issues since 1999, cross-checking issues on Indigenous rights. These days, the issue of food sovereignty is very, very important, especially during COVID-19. Everywhere now, governments are struggling to ensure food security for their nations. Food sovereignty is really important for Indigenous Peoples. We are trying to ensure the right to land for Indigenous people so they can manage their territories. There’s so much potential in Indigenous territories that have not been utilized or managed yet. It is really important for the communities to manage our territories, because if we don’t, then somebody else will. Governments or companies come to take away our land and exploit it for business.
During this pandemic, we can see clearly that in these t erritories where the land is already gone there is more crisis and hunger compared to the Indigenous communities who still have land and forests that they can manage for farming. We decided that we are not going to wait for the government to come to support us. Communities have established their own response teams. We have 118 teams working with the communities making sure that every community starts with planting so that they have crops in 3 months to harvest.
M ost of our communities are still doing their traditional farming and they are safe. Their food stock is full for the next two years. But not in communities whose territories are used for mining—they don’t have any surplus. We are trying to ensure that the communities keep planting so they can also deliver support to the communities in crisis. We really want to implement the principle of reciprocity.
CS: What is the Indigenous Youth Homecoming Movement?
MS: A few years back, Indigenous youth had a big gathering and they decided to start this movement, calling their colleagues from the cities to return back to their communities to help defend, protect, and manage their territories. They realized if everyone leaves the community to go to school in the cities and they don’t return back to their communities, who is going to manage their territories?
S ince the movement started, there is much progress. Th e first initiative was establishing Indigenous schools everywhere; now we have 55 Indigenous schools all over Indonesia. Many children attend the formal schools as well, but after school they have lessons from the elders. They learn traditional knowledge. They go to the forest with the elders, they practice traditional farming, learn about traditional medicines and dancing rituals, and learn their cultures. This is to ensure that the children are connected with their ancestors, with their elders, with their communities, ensuring they have strong ownership of their identity, especially now in modern times when the cell phone easily makes people forget everything. Many young people have lost their way because of that. Th e Indigenous schools help connect children with their communities and their territories.
The other initiative is establishing farming areas and herb gardens. The youth realized that traditional knowledge, especially related to traditional medicine, has slowly vanished because many forests are already gone. And elders who are knowledge keepers, they are less and less. The youth started to document this knowledge about different plants for medicines by interviewing the elders. They started their own gardens by working together with the elders. They went to the forests and collected seeds and planted and labeled them in the gardens.
I t’s amazing to see how this connection between the youth and elders really helped, especially now during the COVID-19 crisis. Many elder healers gathered and started making different kinds of ingredients to boost the immune system because we realized that if you have a strong immune system, maybe you can prevent COVID-19. We managed to prevent the virus from getting into the communities. And because no one is infected inside the communities they can still do their farming, and their daily activities. COVID-19 provided an opportunity to show that our way of life is the best choice we have. It’s been proven that we can rely on our agricultural systems during this crisis. We do not depend on anybody else.
Th e youth also realized they can earn income from fa rming. Groups in North Sulawesi and West Kalimantan managed to make $15,000–$25,000 USD from each harvest, which is much more than they can earn in the cities. After they see that this works for them, they don’t want to go back to the city. They just live in the community and start doing different kinds of things. They have the gardens, music, d ancing, making instruments, or handicrafts. I’m so proud to see how the youth are working in Indonesia.
Th e youth also developed a smartphone movement to document, interview, and make videos in the community. They train the other youth. They promote the gardens and farms on Facebook and different kinds of ways. We are also doing a global campaign with the global coalition, Guardians of the Forest to spread the word about the Homecoming Movement. Again, who will manage our territories if not us?
CS: What are the local foods that are key for food security?
MS: In Indonesia, our main food is rice. During the Suharto era, a campaign was promoted that if you don’t eat or harvest rice you are not “civilized.” In Indonesia, Indigenous Peoples have so many different kinds of food. We are trying to bring back varieties of food into our communities. We’ve tried to make different kinds of food to become a trend again. You know, people started eating cassava again, bananas are a main food.
W e need to ensure that varieties of food in Indonesia or in our communities are still available. Even for rice, we have so many different varieties. Two years ago the Indigenous youth did research on the Indigenous food system in Indonesia in seven different communities who have their land intact compared to communities with mining, urbanization, oil palm plantations, or other forestry plantations. Indigenous communities of the Dayak Iban of Sui Utik in West Kalimantan compared the food system in Sakai communities in Sumatra, whose communities are under threat because their territories are already gone due to palm oil plantations or mining for oil and gas. The Sakai communities only have five varieties of
Dayak Meratus youth in South Kalimantan after foraging in the forest.
food, while in Sui Utik, the Iban communities in West Kalimantan whose lands and forests are intact, have hundreds and hundreds of different kinds of food. Even only for rice, they have 69 ancestral varieties alone. Some of these varieties’ seeds are very old from their ancestors. They call it Padi Pon, and they usually plant this last after they have planted different varieties and do it with rituals.
I ndigenous communities’ identities are really tied to t heir agriculture systems. The whole livelihood system in communities is related to the agricultural system. From li stening to the sound of the birds that give them the sign of when they should plant, they clear the area, make it fertile, and start planting. In the middle of the year they have a harvest and then they have rituals for harvest ceremonies, like thanksgiving to the ancestors. Then in August, they will start clearing and planting. The whole system of the year is related to agriculture. If that’s gone, much of our culture will be gone as well. Each step for ladang (the Dayak Peoples’ traditional farming system), has their own rituals. If that is gone, all of our rituals will be gone as well.
CS: What does the future of Indigenous food sovereignty look like in Indonesia?
MS: We just met with the Minister of Agriculture to talk about Indigenous food sovereignty and how governments can protect Indigenous Peoples in doing our own farming system. Because of the recent forest fires, many Indigenous Peoples could not do their farming systems anymore and were accused of causing the fires. But the cause of the forest fires are mostly companies who burn huge areas for the palm oil plantations, whereas Indigenous Peoples only manage one or two hectares. Many people misunderstand the Indigenous farming system. We were accused of chopping the forest because we keep moving our farming areas. We have our own territorial management system where there are already allocations of land or areas for farming; we are allowed to farm only in that area. What Indigenous people do after they clear out the area, they wait until all the materials are really dry, and then they burn it to avoid a lot of smoke. Usually it’s out very quickly. They also put a barrier so the fire will not spread into the forest. Because of the fires in Indonesia, many Indigenous Peoples are afraid to do their farming again because they are afraid they will be criminalized. AMAN has our lawyers working to get them out. We are having many dialogues with the government to make sure that they do not criminalize Indigenous People for doing traditional farming.
Maize has been a main food staple that has sustained Indigenous cultures for millennia, and for that reason, Indigenous Peoples consider it a sacred plant that contains knowledge and history and should not be commodified. Maize grows in diverse conditions and altitudes, but Indigenous territories are threatened by megaprojects and policies that benefit corporations. Climate change is further affecting food systems, making crops more vulnerable and increasingly leading to Indigenous communities’ abandonment of the countryside. Genetically modified corn and the laws that promote its cultivation are one of the main factors undermining Indigenous knowledge about corn. The dispossession of land and water from communities to supply extractive megaprojects such a s mining, oil, and transport projects additionally puts communities at risk. In spite of these problems, various strategies are being carried out at local and international levels. At the local level, Indigenous communities are asserting and maintaining their traditional knowledge and forms of production, applying new, productive strategies to fertilize land and use natural methods of pest control. The daily work in the field is the most arduous; to conserve the corn you have to sow it, care for it, and harvest it. Indigenous and campesino communities carry out this work every day, despite low prices of corn and the loss of harvests due to climate change.
M exico-based Asamblea de los Pueblos Indígenas por la Soberanía Alimentaria (APISA) is an alliance of Indigenous Peoples and organizations who aim to promote and protect the rights of Indigenous Peoples and strengthen their capacities to achieve food sovereignty through agroecology, selfdetermination, and development rooted in culture and identity. APISA used a Keepers of the Earth Fund grant to host the 4th International Indigenous Corn Conference and 22nd Corn and Native Seeds Fair on March 7–8, 2019, in t he community of Vicente Guerrero, Tlaxcala, Mexico. Th e Conference brought together 120 Indigenous farmers, knowledge holders, food sovereignty activists, tribal leaders, youth, and older individuals from Guatemala, Panama, Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, Puerto Rico, the United States, and Canada. The participants shared information, seeds, traditional knowledge, and strategies to protect corn and other traditional foods. To strengthen all community work, at the international level organizations and individuals are advocating for international policies to protect maize, Indigenous rights, and lands. There has been much joint work and conferences such as this one held in Tlaxcala, to pay tribute to efforts to protect corn diversity. Cultural Survival recently spoke with Alicia Sarmiento Sánchez (Nahua), a campesina who is part of the board of directors of the APISA.
Alicia Sarmiento Sánchez:
For the past four years we have been working with Indigenous and campesino communities on agrobiodiversity and food sovereignty that is rooted in the planting of native corn. We are creating training modules for community leaders to multiply this knowledge. In these modules we teach soil and water conservation, selection, improvement, and protection of native seeds. We cover fertilization with agro-ecological products and the use and knowledge of medicinal plants. The milpa-based diet, the rescue of preHispanic food, is something we advocate for at APISA with Indigenous and campesino communities in the states of Quintana Roo, Oaxaca, the State of Mexico, Tlaxcala, and Sonora.
W e have been defending corn for many years. I am also part of the Vicente Guerrero group in Tlaxcala, and from there we began to protect the corn. Right now, we are focusing on the federal corn law with many organizations. The Federal Law for the Promotion and Protection of Native Corn is a law already approved by both the Senate and federal deputies. This law has three essential objectives: the first is to recognize native corn as national cultural heritage, declaring related activities associated with its cultivation as essential. This is part of the right recognized in Article 4 of the Mexican Constitution; this new law reaffirms parts of the articles of the Constitution. Another objective of this law is to recognize native corn as a national food heritage, declaring its protection and everything related to its production, marketing, a nd consumption.
Th e State has to guarantee the human right to sufficient, quality, and nutritious food; this is also established in Article 4 of the Constitution. This law gives us the right to healthy and nutritious food. It also establishes institutional mechanisms to facilitate the fulfillment of its objectives, and seeks to create a National Corn Council to monitor the implementation of this law. I believe it will allow our corn seeds, and especially native seeds, not to be modified. It had to start from the Indigenous and campesino base. We have to protect what is ours, because if we allow this law of plant varieties to be modified, imagine what we would face—we would lose a lot of things. It does not matter if the free trade agreement passes if you can say that there is this law already.
R ight now we are monitoring the implementation of the law and how the National Council of Native Corn will be a ppointed. It is very difficult for all of us to join this council, and we want to make sure that trusted and committed people are part of it. There are also proposals to create state and m unicipal councils so that they are protecting corn, too. W e do not want to leave it in the hands of a national council only—we have to have state, municipal, and if we can, some community councils.
On e of the things is to be aware of how the law is progressing and to seek this appreciation of corn as a food and cultural heritage, from our human rights to the right to culture and gastronomy. Indigenous Peoples and campesinos need to be aware because our corn really has ancestral value. Our food i s like a brother, a father, a mother to us, and we have to
Top: Diversity of corn cultivated (Garlic corn, Black, Yellow, and Blood of Christ corn). Middle: Corn fair organized by Asamblea de Pueblos Indígenas por la Soberanía Alimentaria in Tlaxcala, Mexico. Bottom: Tlacoyos made of purple corn by women from Maíz de Colores.
continue taking care and protecting it. The government has the obligation to comply with what this law says. It needs to support native seed funds, to support our campesino families and our sisters and brothers, so that our country has that value that it needs to have for many years.
It is of great importance that our ancestral knowledge and wisdom of our Peoples is protected. It is important to note that many colleagues do not agree with the law—not because they do not agree with the content, but because in Mexico we are full of laws that sometimes are only kept on the books and are not implemented. I think that it is the r esponsibility of each one of us to see and demand that these laws are complied with and that they really benefit our food sovereignty. In the face of this pandemic, we know that if we do not produce our own food, we will not survive this crisis that is still ahead.
Strengthening Quillasinga Peoples through Traditional Medicine
Juan Pablo Jojoa Coral
R uda plant (Ruta chalepensis) helps relieve coughs and respiratory problems. Elders use it to purify air.
The Indigenous Community Media Youth Fellowship, as part of the Community Media Grants Program, supports young Indigenous leaders between the ages of 16–26 who are eager to learn about technology, program development, journalism, community radio, media, and Indigenous Peoples’ rights advocacy. This is the third year of the Fellowship Program, which has awarded grants t o 22 youth to date. Juan Pablo Jojoa Coral (Quillasinga), age 19, is from the Pachawasi reserve of Colombia and is a member of Radio Quillasinga 106.1 FM.
My parents are Quillasinga. The Quillasingas live in the páramos of southern Colombia in the Andes. Its landscape and fresh air are our greatest wealth. We have created natural reserves to promote the message of reforestation t o share with children and youth so t hat the Andean worldview is not lost.
Th e Quillasingas are agricultural producers. This is a culture that allows us to live in harmony with our mother earth. The Quillasinga people cultivate and protect the plants for domestic use that are presented in the chagras (chagra comes from the word kichwa chakra, which is related to the land for cultivation) and are located near the house, where our grandparents use organic fertilizers to help our mother earth be fertile. The foods of chagras are also used for spiritual ceremonies, sharing with grandparents and youth so that our culture as Quillasingas is not lost.
Women have a very important role in the preservation of the chagra; they are the reproducers of new seeds and they know how to use them. They are sensitive to knowledge getting lost. Whenever a grandmother leaves, information that has not been collected goes away.
A ll plants are connected with our mind, body, and spirit. They have their own moving essence. In the era of my
Juan Pablo Joja Coral with his grandmother collecting information about local plants.
ancestors, in the Andes mountains, for millennia the only remedies my grandparents had to cure their ailments were of plant origin and came from nature, so they began to cultivate and learn more about the plant with its benefits and healing properties.
I am very interested in ancestral medicine because my grandparents heal my parents and my parents heal me. I want to share that knowledge so that we know our own medicine. Our mother earth is the most important thing we have, since our food comes from her and we have to cultivate and take care of it. If each one sows, no one would suffer from hunger.
I n 2019 I started working on my farm, Pachawasi (Pacha is time and space, earth and world; wasi is home), renovating places where you can contemplate the landscape and sow. I decided to deepen my knowledge about the land and applied to study a gricultural crops.
My fellowship project is to produce six radio programs that collect the wisdom and knowledge about management of medicine from each mother or father, as well as my experience with medicine and the experience of other youth. Medicine is important for our people because it is the medicine of o ur grandparents and it puts us in connection with the higher being that heals our body, mind, and spirit. The most important thing is that our natural medicine can be found in our territory.
Th e project contemplates the compilation of oral information of three plants for ceremonial use: ayahuasca, mother coca, and grandfather tobacco in the Siona, Cofán, and Huitoto regions where people have settled in the Amazon in the departments of Nariño and Putumayo.
My grandparents and their grandparents have transmitted the ancient medicines to us through oral tradition. This generation has to know that we are a tree; that our land is the roots, the trunk is the community, and the leaves are each one of us who is feeding and contributing to it every day. That the seed is your food and that the food is your medicine. The Quillasinga people will follow their means of subsistence cultivating their organic products while preserving their traditional cuisine. They will continue to strengthen the chagras.
Bazaar s potlight The Zienzele Foundation
Women Weaving a Safety Net for Orphans in Zimbabwe
Zienzele Foundation co-founder Prisca Nemapare grew up in rural Zimbabwe. From an early age she was a driven student, winning scholarship after scholarship a s she blazed her path towards a doctoral degree in n utrition, followed by a successful career as a university professor at Ohio University. Today, she co-leads an organization devoted to ensuring that the health, economic, and political cr ises in Zimbabwe do not prevent others from finding their own way forward.
I n the years since Nemapare’s childhood, a dictatorship overthrew Zimbabwe’s democratic government. For decades, social and economic tensions kept the country on the brink of civil war. The AIDS crisis devastated thousands of families, infecting over a quarter of the population. More than 1.3 million children were orphaned by the epidemic, left in the care of grandparents or in one of 50,000 child-headed households.
Y et the Zienzele Foundation—named with the Nbdele word for self-reliance—is devoted to empowerment, not charity. In the words of the organization’s other co-founder, Nancy Clark, the foundation works with “groups of women who knew how to garden, but didn’t have seeds.” Hailing from rural villages, these women could craft extraordinary baskets with strikingly inventive and intricate whirling designs, but they had no market at which to sell them. That is where Nempare and Clark could help.
For 20 years, the Zienzele Foundation has purchased baskets directly from women who care for AIDS orphans in Zimbabwe for resale in the United States. With the equitable prices paid to them in Zimbabwe, caregivers can buy food and other household necessities. Moreover, unlike many fair trade goods, the proceeds from international sales also benefit the makers’ communities. Every cent of Zienzele’s profits is reinvested in the Masvingo region, paying for AIDS-orphaned children’s school tuition, national exam fees, and other needs. The organization retains only one paid staff member; volunteer representatives in each school district take charge of the rest. In Zienzele’s first year of operation, their work sent 50 children to school. Today, 20 years later, the Foundation supports over 1,000 students a nd sends extra assistance to between 50 and 70 child-headed households every year.
Education in Zimbabwe is not free. Its rapidly inflating costs push even the highest achieving poor students out of school and block their entry to national universities and economic opportunity. But, as Zienzele has proven over and over again, with access to education, these students become teachers, economists,
Top: The Zienzele women of Mawadze village making their beautiful sisal baskets.
Above: The Zienzele students of Mupagamuri village. Left: Basket handmade from sisal fiber.
businesspeople, and future leaders. They are a future worth investing in. “I am actually one of the beneficiaries,” said Innocent Mpoki, who represented Zienzele at Cultural Survival’s first virtual Bazaar on July 25. “The Foundation has been helping me stay in school for the last 20 years, since I was in first grade. Currently I am a graduate student in New York City, where I am studying for a Master of International Affairs at Baruch College.”
I n his presentation, Mpoki highlighted the wealth of cultural knowledge woven into the baskets. Every basket is made from entirely natural materials: grass harvested from the savannah; sisal fibers used to bind each row; dyes derived from tree leaves and bark, which shine against the natural white of the untreated grass. Each design is unique to its weaver; some are monochrome and minimal, others are vibrant and sun-soaked. The baskets are strong enough for daily use, but light enough to hang on a wall li ke the works of art they are.
Led by the indefatigable initiative of the women on the ground, Zienzele’s programs have only grown and diversified over the past two decades. Through capacity-building microloans, the Foundation now supports women’s efforts to create gardens, cultivate livestock, sell textiles, and construct community centers that can serve as local markets. Their work provides spaces where women can teach the next generation to weave baskets and maintain communities, making their futures stronger by keeping their heritage alive.
