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Profile of Eliane Potiguara
Man and Woman are beings that have been put [...]
Eliane Potiguara: Man and Woman are beings that have been put on this planet to make life dynamic. Life consists of animals, plants, beings, air, water, light, all these elements belong to life. Mankind is not more important than all the other beings, the living beings. Nonetheless, man and woman are thinking beings, so they can choose every other natural life form as their companions. But even as a thinking being he should not consider himself of being more important than – let's say – a cascade. We indigenous people, we consider nature as our siblings, sister stone, sister water, brother sky, brother wind, all are our siblings. For us, the indigenous people, all the livings beings are members of our family. The river is a member, God is a member, he is our father, the plants are our members, the birds are our cousins. So if the world starts to understand this family relations, we all will understand that we are all the same since we all are living beings and we all have the ability to think.
After capitalism comes the capitalists' [...]
Eliane Potiguara: After capitalism comes the capitalists' despair. The time will come when the poor people will have the opportunity. This is because we, the oppressed people, lack the opportunity to work, study, participate, to speak up, to live. Then we will be happy. After capitalism and when the capitalists can't fit themselves into the new situation then they will be desperate. Then it is time for capacity, for a qualification such that the capitalists are prepared and have the opportunity to be happy. He must understand in order to switch sides, he must listen in order to be happy. If not, the people in this capitalistic world will suffer severely, they will feel ill since they lost all their possessions. Or maybe not, I don't know how it will be. I believe that they have to prepare themselves to fit into this new world. One day this must happen since it cannot be that the oppressed people live on in the way they do now. The world must change. The world must hear the opressed, must hear the children, the elders.
Globalization should be seen from the view [...]
Eliane Potiguara: Globalization should be seen from the view of the oppressed rather than of the opressor. Globalization was not made for classes in disadvantage who are given the possibility to say what they need. We observed that all concepts are made of already presupposed concepts which are in relation to the conventional. Globalization, for example, for indigenous people – to whom I belong - this globalization does not meet the necessities of those indigenous people. It’s a globalization for people who already have, who already possess something. For those who do not have, we do not believe that it is going to be a democratic process but one of dictatorship, because it imposes a world without knowing what’s best for indigenous people, for example.
Black Americans are undesirable in the [...]
Eliane Potiguara: Black Americans are undesirable in the United States just as the indigenous are undesirable in the Americas, just as oppressed, poor people are wherever undesirable. One just have to be poor, excluded or a person of color to that. The skin, the race… Until this discrimination of skin or race exist we will always be discriminated wherever on planet Earth. There’s no color hegemony, we are all equal, let’s stop it. Come on, it’s time, that’s enough, I beg it, I’m asking as an indigenous woman from Brazil, from planet Earth, daughter of creator, I beg you all in the world to stop the racial discrimination. I ask you, do you want me to ask on my knees? I can ask you on my knees to stop the racial discrimination against blacks, indigenous, Jewishes, people of color or people who don’t have white skin and blue eyes. It’s so beautiful to be white and have blue eyes. We indigenous, blacks, people of color, find beautiful white people with blue eyes. Why can’t you, white people with blue eyes, find us beautiful? Let’s finish this! You are roses and we are carnations, we are equal. Start realizing where beauty is. See the beauty in a black African child or in a black American child. Start observing a line, start realizing a different design, a shape of hair, a way of being. Stop with this hegemony. This is racism, there’s no more time for this.
The basic dignity of the human being is to [...]
Eliane Potiguara: The basic dignity of the human being is to become respected on the surface of this planet. It is necessary that we put ourselves in the position of the other one since when you swap positions you will know what's best for the other one. From that other position we will see that the others lack a quality of life, they lack nutrition, lack freedom of speech, lack almost everything. Then we will start to respect the other one and after putting ourselves in that other position we will know what the other really is in need of. As long as we don't undergo that experience and remain in "our little universe" we cannot grow. And that's the reason why the world is like it is. Everybody wants to stay in his little universe, in his little flat, with his little car and all their other stuff, the world is divided in its compartments. We indigenous people, we work differently, in our community we always understand what the needs of the other one are. It's an ethical thing when people put themselves in the position of another one, it's the highest form of respect and of having ethics. This is the highest value of the human being.
We really have a lot of food in the world. [...]
Eliane Potiguara: We really have a lot of food in the world. Nevertheless, making profits has been the most important factor in the globalizing, capitalist society. When food is produced, they don’t think about feeding the starving, they think about making more and more and more profits. The human being has never been the target, the oppressed one has never been questioned. Profit and what we can do with profit is the most important. Then, until the governments don’t decide whom they should help, and with whom they should solidarize, we will never have politics of feeding poor people in the world and mainly for our indigenous people. We have a lot of food, but many times this food can’t reach, for instance, a community. We have lots of seeds, but we don’t have how to keep them safe from insects, for example, so that these seeds can preserve their room temperature. Then, there are no mechanisms of deployment and feeding production, because there’s no interest in people and consumers themselves to produce their own food. And the poor population of the world must submit itself to the industrial food, to the food imposed by the government. That’s why we can’t create our own food nor get a healthy one. And we observe that all this food which is put in the world is not healthy. This food is full of agrotoxin, full of poison, full of hormones, full of disinfectants, which is not healthy for us. Us, indigenous people. We want healthy food.
The economic system as it has been for the [...]
Eliane Potiguara: The economic system as it has been for the ones who have the power, which typically is the government, is a unilateral system. By being unilateral the governments brawl with the people. They struggle and fight, it’s an individual form of living, competitive, egoistic and in the end they become corrupt. This is why we see governments all over the world which are 90% corrupt. On top of this corruption there a discussions about to build up a public policy for the people, for the working men, the opressed people for example. Well, this kind of policy doesn’t exist anymore, it is dismantled, it’s broken. The people themselves have to change this political system and to be motivated so that they would have the will to participate more in this governmental politics. The people should partecipate in governmental politics and not just observate that the government dominates. Honestly, in my opinion, the dictatorship goes on, it just changed clothes, it puts on new colors, new musics, new goods but it continues, it just changed clothes. The dictatorship continues, just that nowadays we know that to kill people is to violate human rights and this is not the right track but they keep violating human rights in another form.
Economic Systems are... Even the mere word [...]
Eliane Potiguara: Economic Systems are... Even the mere word “economic system” has the connotation of power in it. The power of money, the power of the one who has the money to buy himself whatever he needs. We, indigineous, don’t have this view, we have the view of an economic system where everything is shared. Whenever we produce flour in our indigenous community, flour that is made by all women, that flour in the end becomes distributed in the whole community, so everyone produces, everyone consumes the same. This is not the case within the capitalistic system, one produces, pushes the production and forces and enslaves his workers since those people don’t get as much as they deserve for their labor. Therefore, one produces, others enslave themselves for this production, this economic system produces luxuries but not for the people, for the community but only for the one who invested in the first place. It is different again in the indigenous system, as all of us produce and all of us earn, all of us nourish ourselves the same way, even if we face, within our community, poverty. Everything we make is thought for sharing, hence, the keywords in our society are “sharing” and “cooperation”. In a capitalistic system, however, the keywords are “investing” and “making profits”. Therefore all other economic systems fail to meet the bare necessities of human beings, which is the dignity of life.
It is the responsibility of everybody, as I [...]
Eliane Potiguara: It is the responsibility of everybody, as I put it before every kind of unilateral responsibility will not work out. We all have to participate in the social processes here on this planet. Referring to our natural resources we all have to make clear what is important for us. The governments need to understand that they need to govern with the people. When governments start with their political campaigns and to distribute the positions to the gouvernor, the president, the deputies, the senators, they understand that they need the people. But in real then when they start with their policy the people, the voice of the people is no longer interesting matter for them anymore. How is it possible to create, to generate and to govern if it takes responsibility even in a bad way? So, the corporate responsibility is the responsibility of all of us, of the people as well as of the government.
The word of the indigenious woman is sacred [...]
Eliane Potiguara: The word of the indigenious woman is sacred like earth. And if the word of the woman is sacred then it must be heard. The earth is the woman, the earth, the planet is our space. The earth is sacred as well as nature but nature isn't respected. There is no balance. We talk so much about the balance between nature and society, at the United Nations conference in 1992 one spoke about human relations. Today we have consciousness of preserving the environment but I don't see preservation of man and woman. I recognize that the preservation of man is way behind and that of woman even more behind. Women hold a very, very, very low position within society. They stand below the first step degree of society since they are mothers and give birth. I don't know why men don't respect women even if they give birth. Is it possible that men in a sexual relationship when a man possess a woman that he still lives the concept of domination since he has the big phallus and he is the forceful one. In my opinion, the sexual act which is sublime and full of love should be the same for both. In the own sexual relationship the man doesn't treat the woman equally, he dominates her. He still has a feeling of savagery who just takes love instead of sharing it.For the majority of men the sexual relationship is a savage act towards the women. For the majority of women when they make love they do it out of the feeling of love whereas men don't do it that way. This is the root of the differences. On top of that the man oppresses the woman and therefore women have always been in a worse situatuon, always devaluated concerning job matters.
I think the reason is that the colonists [...]
Eliane Potiguara: I think the reason is that the colonists recognized that the indigenous people had – be it Americans, be it Africans – something they themselves did not have. This is the most decent principles of human ethics, which comprises appreciating peace, appreciating family and human relationships. The capitalistic world, the colonists, recognized be it in America, in Africa or in the Middle East, that they didn’t have the same principles like the people they met, so what the colonists fear most is ethics. What they fear most is to look somebody in the eyes. The colonists found ways to opress the people that had no weapons. But indeed they do have weapons, the biggest weapon of those peoples was and is the decency of humanity, the soul, the essence, life. Mankind has become very hard. But even if African people have to go hungry they still have their happiness, still have their joy of life, still have a smile to give to their children. This fear the colonists and the capitalistic world and even after centuries and centuries the colonists did not change their attitude, all because of power, money and luxuries... They fear ethical people, pure people, people who have a soul: in short, people who do have the highest essence of humanity. The world is losing this essence but still doesn’t want to learn from the traditional people, the tradition of our indigenous ancestors. The world should revise its values and listen to the people of the so called “Third World”.
Eliane Potiguara:
Break the law, what law are you talking [...]
Eliane Potiguara: Break the law, what law are you talking about? Because you, the powerful capitalist governments, break our laws all the time. Every time you break our laws. And if we break the laws you impose us, we go to jail. There are so many broken, silent black and indigenous people in jails. So, what is this law you are talking about? A law for one? A law for just one side? We need to change, it’s time for a change. Let’s change this? The law is for everyone.
Religious values themselves are in conflict. [...]
Eliane Potiguara: Religious values themselves are in conflict. You can see that Muslims don’t accept Hindus, Hindus don’t accept Buddhists, Buddhists don’t accept Christians, Christians don’t accept Spiritists, Shamans… We have to find a religious tolerance, in first place, so the religions really respect themselves. It’s no use to say it in books, in words, this is about action. The world is used to talk, talk and talk. The world doesn’t set these words and philosophies in motion, for real. We see these religious wars and all those modern wars nowadays, all because of religious philosophy. So, as we can see, if the religions themselves are in war, how are we supposed to have respect for traditions? How, if the most ethic people are fighting too? So, we need to review all those concepts. A tolerance must me established so that people can respect themselves in practice. We have had too many words. We had enough of words. We had enough of this “blah, blah, blah” and just hearing, but having no concrete actions. Christianism needs to respect more other religions. There are very important religions, all of them are important. So, until there won’t be this respect, this tolerance, in practice, there won’t be respect among human beings. And the exercise of human rights won’t be accomplished.
It’s being like this because brands already [...]
Eliane Potiguara: It’s being like this because brands already come with a capitalist connotation which is therefore exploratory.
I’ve also been watching it and asking [...]
Eliane Potiguara: I’ve also been watching it and asking myself. I don’t know much of commercial politics in China. I’m not really aware of this, but I observed that China produces many products for the world and we can have access to them in a cheaper way. I think that there’s no respectful way so that China could commercialize its products. Because when this country gets in the market and has to compete with other products which have been put by capitalists or by the big capital, and as China has cheaper materials, these other countries block them, boycott them and even say these products are not good. For example, in my country, Brazil, we use a lot of things from China because it’s really cheap. But I’m not really aware of these processes. I know that we can buy things in a cheaper way, and also that when we can’t buy something, or have no conditions, no access to it, sometimes we have conditions through China. I don’t know, I’m speaking as a user, not as an adept at this market.
The imposed educational system just as [...]
Eliane Potiguara: The imposed educational system just as philosopies and concepts that are not typically anchored in the cosmovision of the indigenous are no good. This concepts belittle the cosmovision, the intelectual capacity as well as the creativity of indigenous children. For that reason we have been working a lot on the education of our indigenous children moving towards the indigenous language thus a bilingual education, a formal and informal education which is based on the indigenous cosmovision, its ideology. It is an education that brings up instead of destructing a children’s head. Therefore an education that is inclined to concepts that do not belong to the reality, to the life of a child is a dangerous concept, that can even destroy a whole life and a whole generation. Our indigenous people are educated within the concepts of our ancestors, educated with our traditions. In our indigenous tradition stories and legends play a very important role -even if some anthropologists claim that these are only myths-, this are the true stories of our people, informative stories of the indigenous ethics. The imposed education instead, the education of the capitalistic world sticks way too much to TV, it’s a kind of education which destroys ethics and therefore the basic principles of mankind. In my opinion we should think about an educational system that is turned towards a children’s needs. And what a child really needs is to be a child and to hear things that makes him to grow up in a healthy way, with health, with decency and with its own spirituality.
The world, the third world, oppressed, [...]
Eliane Potiguara: The world, the third world, oppressed, suffocated, slaved, explored people. Their lives and their essences are being taken to the detriment of world richness. Already in the period of Portuguese, Dutch, French, German, in short, European colonization, everyone started first by taking the gold away. Gold, that for indigenous people had not the same value as for capitalists. Gold was used for adornment, to make us more beautiful, to decorate us for the parties. Nevertheless, for the government gold has already meant money, surplus value, capital. Then, our richness is our stories, our traditions and our festivities where we used all natural and mineral resources to make this culture more beautiful. In the other hand, the capitalist world, powerful, uses our richness to decorate and to give more conditions and more richness to the capitalist world itself. So, the world survives under the poverty of the weakest, but the weak ones are going to be strong one day. And we are going to be the oppressed people who have a way to change this History.
Many people don't have the conditions to [...]
Eliane Potiguara: Many people don't have the conditions to survive on this planet. They don't have water, food, land and even air to breathe. These are people who really do not possess anything. This planet Earth is divided into people who have and people who do not have at all. That's it, there is no other categorization, this is the way it goes and we have to recognize it. And after recognizing we can put ourselves in the position of the others and then we maybe start to understand the basic needs of others. Some people understand that there are people who do not have and so they start to fight for the rights of that people. This is why there are non-governmental organizations, this is why there are leaders, pacifists, to fight for the rights of those who don't possess anything., not even freedom. The lives of the some people are not better than others, this doesn't exist, we are all the same. Like the flowers are all the same, the pink one, the yellow, the green... daisy, rose, crysanthemum – all of them have the same beauty, they're all the same. There is not going to be a sunflower that says:"This is more worth than the other one". This is the system of values imposed by the society. One states: "I'm better than person A or B, my life is better than his". No, all life has the same value, we are all the same before God. We, the indigenous people, learned from our elders that all the people are the same whether whites, blacks, hindies, yellow ones, we're all the same. If we would turn our inside out we all would be of the same color, we all would have a stomach. The only thing that's different is just the color of our skin.
I think in this matter the voice of the [...]
Eliane Potiguara: I think in this matter the voice of the people, the groups, the persons who do have a common objective must be heard. Let’s say if in a community the biggest environmental richness is fruits, prawns or fish one should invest in those local projects, ideas and see what’s best for each individual. But it is not like that. The investor arrives and decides because he’s got the machines, he’s got the money, he’s got the funds. And he goes on patronizing and deciding like “I’m going to make”, “I’m going to build” and so on. He’s not interested in a cooperation and collaboration, he takes the land of the people who lives there and adopts it as its own. Now, this is no economical system but a system of opression. In my opinion it’s the micro-projects and the micro-financing that are more important, because those would be more under control of the people, of the own community.
Since the European colonization indigenous [...]
Eliane Potiguara: Since the European colonization indigenous women have been put by their own people into the last row of history and culture; put there by their men to protect them. Until today those women live in that farthest corner, in that farthest corner of culture. As indigenous women we have to make ourselves visible and tell the world that we do have a voice and that people do pay tribute to us as it was in ancient times, when we directed wars and spoke the final word in determined situations of conflict or of peace, for example. For centuries indigenuous women had the final word. Nowadays who has the final word are the people in power, it is the word of dictatorship, the word of the oppressor. The word of those women is still part of the indigenous principle and for me, as a person who learned of the voice of my ancestors, for me our voice is the voice that echoes the principle of life. This voice should be heard all over the world, as it contains the word which is the principle of truth, the principle of ethics, the principle of peace. We, the indigenous people, are people who were always concerned about the construction of peace and therefore the world should hear us. The word of a woman is sacred like the earth and this word is sill unheard because the women still continue in the farthest cultural corner. We do have to work on our visiblity, for being able to tell the world that we exist and that there is something we have to tell. We have to tell that the earth is the mother of the indigenous people and the world has to hear that.
Indigenous people use certain drugs, like [...]
Eliane Potiguara: Indigenous people use certain drugs, like for example the [...] for spiritual ceremonies, other ones, like the Latin-American peoples use the coca plant for those ceremonies. We use these drugs to get –during the ceremonies- in contact with the spirits, with the invisible world, the spiritual world, with our ancestors. So, we don't consider drugs being a solution to psychological problems, loneliness or problems of effectivity. The capitalistic world uses drugs to substitute the lack of certain necessities. The lacking of a mother, the lacking of a father – it's sad, it's so incredibly sad to see people taking drugs for the reason of not having a mother, because she has been imprisoned or something like that or because of not having a father, who may have died in a war. It is so sad, the world, the capitalistic society, the children, the adolescents use drugs to substitute a pacifier, a comforter. The children from the favelas, the black children from the favelas in the big urban centers sniff cocaine. They sniff cocaine, they sniff deliriants as if it were a pacifier or a comforter.
The problem with AIDS is a very complex one [...]
Eliane Potiguara: The problem with AIDS is a very complex one and now that AIDS is also spreading to indigenous people...like all those other infectuos diseases...I’m concerned, I’m genuinely concerned. In my opinion AIDS is an imposed disease, like many diseases have been imposed on the human being. This virus has been imposed to opress the people, in a certain form to suffocate the people and in a certain form to eradicate the people. Power is a very bad thing and it has a very perverse malignity behind it. Honestly, I think that there once has been a desire, in Brazil and in the whole world, to eradicate indigenous people. So I think that a policy that eradicates its peoples by AIDS, by violence, by wars or by whatsoever, by overthrowing the structure and even by negating the identity of its peoples, a policy that eradicates is the worse policy of all. It is the responsibility of the government and the responsibility of every people to combat, to combat those eradicating systems of which form they may be. So in my opinion AIDS should be everybody’s responsibility in relation to Africa and in relation to every country in this world.
Question #36 I also got confused. In the [...]
Eliane Potiguara: Question #36 I also got confused. In the last question I answered this one, when I talked about closing my eyes and how whe should to face violence, rage and hate. Then, I was talking about tolerance, this one I’ve already answered. Forgive me please. I also ask not to get my answers wrong and please help me to find the right way so I could be able to have answered to all questions, I insist on answering all questions. And if you could help me to separate what I said and put it in the right place, I would be really thankful.
I wonder how to be happy in this confusion, [...]
Eliane Potiguara: I wonder how to be happy in this confusion, this violence, hatred, this rage? How to tackle all this, how to help people to stay happy, because we only have one life to live? I keep asking myself: "Oh my creator, oh mighty cosmic power, oh my ancestors, oh my family members birds, oh my family members stone, forrest, animal. How can we stand this violence? How can we maintain our spirit, our light, our spirituality?" We have a mission on this planet, we have a road to follow, we are people who should contribute to society. So, how to maintain this tranquility, this peace, this internal harmony so that we do not become ill, even physical ill? How to spare us this feeling of hatred, of rage for nothing and nobody? Do not even hate your enemy. In my vision, as a being of light as I'm considering myself, a person that has the ability to transform society, that's how I see myself and I feel that I have to find a way to bring peace, love and light for that people who can't feel that strength and not let flow negative energy to humanity. We all have an individual social responsibility in the first place to pass on that strength and the light tothe people with whom we work. I feel myself very responsible, my creator gave me this mission on Earth to help the society, the community, to help those who don't know that feelings. I see that those countries are being discriminated, so they take their arms and they shoot, they want to dominate, we have to help this people for that they don't become terrorists, because terrorism is a very bad thing. If wars are being fought with wars, the war will remain. We cannot fight violence with violence.
All new forms of colonization I call [...]
Eliane Potiguara: All new forms of colonization I call neo-colonization, modern colonization which –in reality- has the same face as before. It's just this new form of domination, which has changed its colors, which comes along with food aid, with Internet...So for me the colonization has been the same all the time. This new form of colonization smiles and at the same time makes us bleed. It smiles but it sucks out the life of the people, it violates the human rights. This neo-colonization is really the worst. In times of the colonization, when the flags of the colonist entered our country, 1500 and onwards, those colonists used weapons against the indigenous people and against the Africans that had come from Africa to help and to settle the process of colonization and to form the administrative divisions and hereditary fiefs like for example of King John VI, Peter II, Peter I and so on... Today it's just the same thing that occurs. Colonization in a new garment, but all the same for me – dictatorship. It's dictatorship, globalization but only for the government, for those who have power, for the big capitalists, opportunity for the entrepreneurs. Oportunity of work, opportunity for growth, opportunity for housing, health of the land, oppotunity for surviving, of cultural preservation, of cosmovision. Dictatorship, colonization, neo-colonization – all the same stuff! It's just the name that changes and the attitudes how they patronize us. They give us small alms in order to silence us – but the people sees everything!
As long as there are religious intolerances, [...]
Eliane Potiguara: As long as there are religious intolerances, economic interests, personal interests the wars will go on. As long as there is capitalism, the exploration of certain commercial products, that enriches A or B, the wars will go on. So, as long as there is this intolerance, this disputes all wars will go on. The autonomy and the decision made of every state and every country must be respected. Why do the United States have to be in every mind and dominate everybody, this is just power and this is the point. As long as the US will remain in this situation everybody will go on with their wars, to defend their countries. They want to defend their houses and their people, we all defend ourselves. If I have, for instance, a production of beans in my house which has been planted for my people, for the community, I, of course defend those beans. Why should I take my beans and hand them out to Ronald Reagan voluntarily? Reagan for me is a person that can be compared to Hitler. Hitler died but he has left his heirs, one of them regrettably is Ronald Reagan, who is a son of Nazism, Fascism and of the hegemony between states. This has to stop.
When a government wants to go to war, it [...]
Eliane Potiguara: When a government wants to go to war, it goes to war no matter if the people want it or not. In case the people doesn’t want a war it has the possibility to gather together in masses on places or even in the whole town. But we, the people, don’t have weapons, so how to avert if it’s the government who has arms? We can [rinvescar], have public manifestations, scream, struggle, shout and ask other countries for solidarity but we cannot avert a government from going to war. Take the United States for example, the people was against a war in Vietnam but nonetheless it was not possible to avert the government from doing so. The government killed thousands of people, thousands of soldiers, thousands of Vietnamese, of Asians. And what happened? Maybe that the people will have the strength one day to build up –step by step- a national and international policy of prohibition. There should be a higher tribunal to avert those types of violence. The governments must be made more sensitive for what the citizen wants. So if our country goes to war against another country - it’s also our responsibility, we still have the social power as well as the power to chose. Otherwise we also are being violated.
This global government, I think that this [...]
Eliane Potiguara: This global government, I think that this kind of government would act in an insensitive way towards local matters. It will be very difficult to arrive at that point. I put the things the other way round, I stated that micro-governments, local communitarian auto-governments should be supported since it is where their lifes are concentrated, their visions, their cosmovisions, it should be those small governments that need our support. But nonetheless, this big government, this global government will come one day. This person, Ronald Reagan, even if he has really good intentions about democracy, about liberty; sometimes I listen to his discourses and if I didn't know what he really does, I would think that he has the correct attitudes. The problem is how he shows his concepts of oppressed people. What he does concerning people, concerning people of the Third World, for example. So, what's good for him has not to be necessarily good for people, for other people, people of the so-called Third World, for indigenous people, for persons who live in the favelas, for example. For those who don't have land, it's a big movement these days in Brazil. So again, what's good for one is not good for others. It is not good for this total global government. It would be good to listen to every people, every community should know about its reality, about its self-administration.
As I stated in some questions before: during [...]
Eliane Potiguara: As I stated in some questions before: during the period of colonization the indigenous women have been put into the last cultural row. They have been put there by their men and by the Elders. This is why it was possible for us to preserve our indigenous culture and traditions until today. If we would have put those women in the front line of wars our history and our culture as well would have been destroyed. We survived five centuries of the so called European colonization and still we maintain our culture. Why is that so? Why are there peoples that have to suffer so much from wars, from colonial invasions and still keep their resistance and have the strength? Like for example the Potiguara people -in the Brazilian coastal strip to whom I belong - who still maintains its indigenous culture, the language, some traditional aspects, dances, the spirituality, [toré] – and keeps its indigenous culture alife. This is only because there has been defence. But when this people defended itself it was defined as rebellion. Rebels, people who don’t have culture, the women were considered prostitutes because they didn’t wear clothes. The catholic church called them pagan souls and the women were seen by the Jesuits as shameless and so they defended themselves. And this is what happens still today, when people start to defend themselves in their own country they are the worst, considered as terrorists and belonging to the unlucky sorts and incomprehensible. The dominators living with their concepts of dominating are always correct and are always right. They’re right because they obtain the money, they have the possibility for progress. I don’t know, but is it really this progress we want? I think it’s not what we want. Indigenous people are never asked what they want. But one thing for sure: We don’t want this progress that’s imposed by the colonists and we don’t even want the colonist. Enough!
The best form to invest this financial [...]
Eliane Potiguara: The best form to invest this financial resources would be educational programs, educational programs for the people, for ethnicities, for different countries. Programs of qualification, classes and projects where to learn how to make money to pay the rents There should be more investment into small communitary groups or into cities for that people could have a better access to occupation, one form of occupation to earn the money for the rents. An auto-sustainable project would be the best to turn this money into millions which could be re-invested again into similar projects and so to help other peoples who also don't have any access. I say the right track would be to invest into education and health. But regrettably money is being invested in a very bad way.
Security. We do not only live within local [...]
Eliane Potiguara: Security. We do not only live within local powers, local drug trafficking or local violence. It’s also a worldwide power with, for instance, terrorists and the impact on war. Thus it is parallel powers, parallel powers and the community is in the center of it and the community suffers from the security problem. There is no more security, they cannot leave their houses with their children because they run into danger to be hit by a bullet or by a stray bullet as it happens in big urban centers like, for instance, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo or Recife. In this big urban centers there’s a lot of violence caused by those parallel powers which in turn are dominated by the worldwide drug trafficking. Many people and amongst them some indigenous live in the slums -the so-called favelas- because this is the place where they can live, they can afford and there they live after leaving their homes in which they were dominated by the great land owner. They leave and head for another type of community, so they go to the favelas and there again they suffer. So I keep wondering how can those people cope with the fact that they are not only berefted once, but twice, three times or even four times...There is no resistency to this deprivation, so diseases, new diseases which are contracted by new violence, more pressure, by the lack of liberty arise. So what happens next? People get feared and by this fear are hushed and this silence in turn causes pain, pain which will transform itself into a big cancer, and I’m talking about the real physical cancer. Thus, the problem with violence is a very big one, like the problem of lacking liberty and the opression. The opression is coming from everywhere...
I will not give an answer, which is related [...]
Eliane Potiguara: I will not give an answer, which is related to the indigenous people but rather to the people living in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, where one can observe aggressiveness within the last few years. Those people get more and more violent since they don't have any access to school, work, responsibility, they don't have access to anything at all. Those are people who are highly destitute but at the same time enter the world of drugs and of drug trafficking. And by living this world of violence they turn their backs on society. Those people get more rebellious, aggressive and more frightening and society in turn fears them. Interestingly, the oppressed will become the local oppressor; he gets himself weapons and becomes the local terrorist. What we see is that the economical power suffocates us and creates a focus on violence, a focus on power, a power of weapons, drug trafficking and so on. All these people I'm referring to are mere teenager, children between 12 and 15 years of age. These children die, even as we speak – it's absurd. They are children, which should go to school but end up as drug addicts or drug trafficking. They are victims, which turn into oppressors of the local community. This means that we don't know what to do when we fear those people who, honestly, have become the local power, the parallel power. It is a very serious problem.
I made part – and I still do philosophically [...]
Eliane Potiguara: I made part – and I still do philosophically – of the program to combat racism of the World Council of Churches in Geneva. And by a certain time, like 15 years ago, I was visiting the inmates in a jail with some participants of this program, and we were talking to them. And I was talking to an inmate, commenting and chatting about freedom and the world ethic aspects. He seemed to be such an honest, correct person, and he was talking with a lot of determination. He showed so much interest for knowledge and he was saying that as if he had no reason to be there. When we finished the conversation he said to me: “Don’t you remember me, madam?” I said “no”, and he said “Well, one day I was driving you in my taxi and I was about to kidnap you and rape you but you started saying so many things about life, about oppression and the situation of the country that you really touched me. And in that day I didn’t commit a crime, because I always raped women and that’s why I’m in jail.” And then I thought, and have been thinking all these years: when I talk to people, to drug dealers, to people who lost their ethics and have their moral values disfigured, when we talk to that person, as I’m a teacher I use to talk to adolescents and I see that if you look to that child, to that adult, to that person, you will say : “It’s impossible that this person killed someone.” Because they show their human side, and this is really interesting. Thinking about the governments and governors, if you look to a governor and talk to him or her, they are also going to show his human side. Because in reality all people are the same. They all feel honest, they all feel pure, they show it : “oh, how I’m suffering such injustice…how this, how that…”. People don’t come with subtitles saying : “I am a rapist”, “I am corrupt”, “I am violent”. No, when they are in their normal state, they show this side of theirs, do you know what I mean? It’s very complicated. So, it’s difficult to know on who we should count. It’s really difficult to know whether that human being is talking the truth or not. And when they’re in groups, in these governments, in the government for example, they are going to defeat their interests. Until the question of the corruption comes up. And that’s why we are in a world like this. Because everyone thinks they’re good and wonderful. The speech of the president of the republic, if you hear it, they are going to talk in the name of family, women and motherhood. When he finishes you will be convinced of that, but you will be wrong.
Actually no one ever asks to born: “I want [...]
Eliane Potiguara: Actually no one ever asks to born: “I want to be born into the Smith family”, “I want to be born into the Stewart family”, “I want to be born into a family of people with blue eyes”, “I want to be born into a family of black or indigenous people”. We are just born. We are born somewhere on planet Earth and if we don’t want to stay there, we go somewhere else. But also, when we go somewhere else, we are discriminated for being an immigrant. We suffer all kinds of discrimination. If you are indigenous and go to the urban world, you suffer because you are indigenous and nobody understands you and you start suffering every sort of consequences for being considered a social stigma or a folklorical. So, we don’t have opportunities to choose it, because we are not the creator. Only the creator chooses where we are going to be born. And people, all of them, need to have more respect with human beings, with different races, different ethnic groups, different languages, different ways of being, of viewing and facing God, of facing spirituality. We human beings are too complex and have many identities, so these identities need to be respected by other identities. As I said, this hegemony of one over the other needs to end. We need to be free, and have freedom, real freedom, toward this question of power.
Well, for example, in the Americas, [...]
Eliane Potiguara: Well, for example, in the Americas, indigenous people were slaved. And even though these people didn’t accept it and ran away in the forests, they were catched and their lands were taken, their culture was broken, their women were raped and lots of their lives were slaughtered. We had millions and millions of indigenous people in the Americas and this number has been violently reduced. The slaves came from Africa, the same happened, lives were slaughtered and then started this miscegenation in the countries. And I’m telling you that even if the blacks didn’t come, the Indians, Pakistanis or any people of color would have come. Because the white world has always thought that people of color would be good for being slaves. So, if the world didn’t slave the Africans, other people would have certainly been discriminated, as they still are until nowadays. It was just a bad luck of the Africans.
My opinion is that the world and all people [...]
Eliane Potiguara: My opinion is that the world and all people think and consider too much this word “better”. They always talk about “what is better for this” or “what is better for that”. First of all, this is a concept that should be over. Because what is better for one is not better for the other. So this question itself is tendentious for me. In second place, we need to consider the micro-populations. For example, the indigenous people. I always talk about the indigenous, because this is my area, the indigenous rights. Even inside the situation of indigenous populations we have the ethnic groups. These are small groups that have their own administrations, their own language, culture, world view and keep united according to established rules. Other governments want to impose them against the ideology of a micro ethnic group, of a small region. This is wrong. Because each group, each ethnic group has his way of living. I don’t want to use this term “better”, but a way of acting, of respecting people’s sovereignty or to the self-administration of these people is respecting each ethnic group, each identity, each culture, each world view, each micro-community. Then this self-governments they should have expression. This is actually about diversity. Finding unity in diversity. Populations, ethnic groups, with their governments, with their own social political and economic administration must be respected and considered by these big governments. And a representative of a micro population should be as important as one of a government, for instance, from Germany. And this is not what we see, we actually see the contrary. So, from my point of view, I don’t know if this system for populations would be a better democracy. But respecting people in their individualities needs to happen now. Because this disrespect with the differences is the reason of the conflicts. People from these micro or bigger groups are unsatisfied and unhappy with this government that imposes so much.
Humanitarian intervention. The mere word of [...]
Eliane Potiguara: Humanitarian intervention. The mere word of it says it all. Humanitarianism, help for things that human beings want. Humanitarian aid from the viewpoint of the people instead of humanitarian aid from the viewpoint of the other side of the one who needs, there I do not agree with. Humanitarian aid must always refer to the one who is in need so it has to be clearly identified what kind of humanitarian aid is given and to whom. Self-defense, it’s like I stated in some answers before: we have to defend our cultures, our land, our territory, our natural products, defend from looters, from those who want to take away our autonomy. The world has been created for all of us, so I believe that humanitarian aid is right. But it shouldn’t be a humanitarian aid which looks after the interests of neo-colonists. This at least is my opinion. We should have a really neutral field to identify humanitarianism, the United Nations should define this humanitarian aid better and define what this aid is going to be for the peoples.
The government of the United States suffers [...]
Eliane Potiguara: The government of the United States suffers from a big disease, the disease only to see things only from their own viewpoint. As I said in my earlier answers, as long as there is such a government of such unilateral form which has only its own viewpoint and doesn't see the diversity, other people, other nations, other governments and doesn't consider itself as part of this diversity; a government that imposes, dominates, commands. As long as we are in such a situation we won't have a real vision of the world. Thus, people will still be victims and the US will continue to disrupt the entire planet. Therefore the US should give away this power and instead fan out more possibilities and respect other countries. If we remain on this path we only will end up in wars. The first war was in Vietnam, now it's in Iraq and sooner or later the United States will invade Brazil and we will have to show an attitude, we will have to defend our people. The indigenous people must defend themselves and, hence, we have to change this policy.
Who is profiting from terrorism is the [...]
Eliane Potiguara: Who is profiting from terrorism is the media. It’s the media, it’s the government who imposed the terrorism. It's the economic system who imposed the terrorism. Who imposed, not who practiced the terrorism. Regrettably, everything is news nowadays. Everything is the media, everything passes through the media. So, terrorism? Who makes the terrorism is the disgraced, the miserable, the unorganized one. But who caused terrorism? Who caused terrorism is actually the disorganized one. It’s the one who wants to unsettle the diplomatic relations, who wants to unsettle the relations between governments, between people, between human beings. The one who causes the terrorism isn’t the one who makes it, but the one who makes war, who wants the hegemony in the world and who wants the power. For me, the United States are still, more than anyone else, the worst terrorist who has ever happened in the whole History. But watch out! Watch out because who does it, gets it still here on Earth. Our ancestrals used to say it. And so our elderly men and women. We must have a relation of equality toward everyone. This is the way the relations between governments and countries should be. This way no terrorism or conflict will be caused. Dialog is the best way. And there’s no dialog. There’s imposition of opinions. There’s imposition of economic system. There’s imposition of mercantile system, of productivity system, of economy, of social economy. There’s imposition. There’s no possibility that we can keep our equality if there’s so much imposition. The United Nations are not being able to solve this problem. Why? Why can they go to the tables and an enemy can seat on the same table with another enemy and then they talk and everything seems all right? Afterwards they go home and the powerful one can drop his bombs.
Having courage nowadays means to be able to [...]
Eliane Potiguara: Having courage nowadays means to be able to be sincere and say what you think. In defense of what you believe in, according to your identity, your world view, it’s about being honest with yourself. Being courageous is to face the machine, the media, the government, in a coherent, correct, honest and true way, using the ethics to say what you really think and believe in. Being courageous is to be the example, the witness of a time, a fact, a story. Being courageous is to show what it is to be a father, a mother, a son, according to your beliefs, your ethic values, male and female values, by performing this primary feeling of man and woman and the primary human essence.
Well, I’m answering this with the same [...]
Eliane Potiguara: Well, I’m answering this with the same question: Why is the so-called Iranian terrorism more dangerous than the attack of the United States? Because when someone stands up against something, it will be considered terrorist but when someone attacks, as big powers do, it will be considered defense. It would be the same thing for us, indigenous people. If we are in our lands, defending ourselves, we are the terrorists, we go to jail, we suffer all consequences of a person who could be transgressing the laws. But the powerful ones can invade our homes. Imagine what it is to have a person invading your home, entering your living room, eating in your kitchen. If you complain, you are considered dangerous. If you use a knife against this person, this knife will be more dangerous than the revolver or the gun this invader uses to threat your daughter, to rape your daughters. Then we need to see who is who, in what side we are and what this law that we should obey is.
In the first time I visited the work group [...]
Eliane Potiguara: In the first time I visited the work group about indigenous people at the United Nations, where we discussed the universal declarations of indigenous rights, more than 15 years ago, I was very happy to see those laws we were working on were an international declaration to protect indigenous rights. Afterwards, when I used to come back home, or come back to my indigenous community -and by this time I was working on a developing project in the “Potiguara” Community- I told the people that there was a universal declaration of indigenous rights, I felt it was quite a distant subject for them and they didn’t want to hear about it. And I was sad about this, because I was coming from a place to try to explain something and people just couldn’t understand because things are very immediate: the bread, the flour, the crab, the fish, the transportation, the woman who wants to give birth, the lady who needed a car to pick her up because she was having a heart attack and had to go to the city but didn’t have any transport. So the problems were immediate in this way, and my mind got lost, I mean, my mind couldn’t find a connection for that. And I talked the same thing to the local leaders. And today, after 15 years, we are still working on that declaration, today we have the permanent forum for indigenous people. And things still have the same needs. Because they don’t come from inside to outside, but from outside to inside. People make laws and we don’t really solve the problems in such an immediate way. It can be really worth it, because as an international right, an international law, it can benefit local people. Not that I'm underestimating the universal declaration of indigenous rights.
I’m going to answer this question with this [...]
Eliane Potiguara: I’m going to answer this question with this prayer for the libertation of indigenous people : “Stop pruning my leafs and taking out my hoe. Enough of sinking with my beliefs and breaking my roots. Stop taking out my lungs and suffocating my reason, stop killing my songs and silencing my voice. We don’t cut the roots of whom has seeds, and are spread in the land to grow. We don’t erase the rich memories of the grandparents, our ancestrals, nor a ritual to remember. We don’t mow the big wings, because heaven is freedom and the faith to find it. Pray for us, my father Shaman, so that the evil spirit of the forest don’t cause weakness, misery and starvation. Pray for us, Earth, our mother, so that those ripped clothes and those bad men be over through the sound of the Maracás(sort of indigenous rattle). Keep us away from disgraces, alcohol and discord. Help us with the unity between the nations. Light up the men, women and children. Extinguish envy and ingratitude from the strong ones. Give us light, faith, life in the Pajé’s actions. Avoid, oh Tupã(God), violence and murder in a holy place near the Igarapé. In the nights of full moon, oh Marçal(God), call the spirits of the rocks so we could dance the Toré(a holy indigenous dance). Bring us in the parties of manioc and pajés(outstanding person in a tribe often considered the preacher and/or the healer) for a resistance of life. After drinking our chicha(a holy indigenous beverage made of corn) with faith. Pray for us, birds of the sky, so that leopards, peccaries, rheas and capybaras approach to the rivers São Francisco, Jurema, Paraná, approach to the seas of the Atlantic, because we are pacific nevertheless. Show us our way like a dolphin, illuminate our star to the future. Help us to play the magic flutes so we can sing you an offering song or dance in an Iamaká ritual(a holy indigenous ritual). Pray for us, ave Shaman, in the north-east, in the south, every morning. In The Amazons, in the agreste(narrow zone in the states of Paraíba, Pernambuco, Alagoas, Sergipe and Bahia) or in the heart of cunhã(woman). Pray for us, macaws, pintados or armadillos. Come and meet us, my God, Nhendiru. Make happy our mintã(child), because they are going to be reborn from indigenous bellies. Give us each day hope, because we only ask for land and peace for our poor and rich children.” I’ve read this text as a way to protest against this situation of violence.
I think I got it wrong with my questions [...]
Eliane Potiguara: I think I got it wrong with my questions here, I can’t understand anything, I think I misunderstood it. I don’t know in which question I am. Where is my translator? ... Look, unfortunately I got lost with my question, I wish I was answering this properly, but I couldn’t. I think I’ve already answered this in the previous question, when I talked about the modern version of colonialism. I’ve already answered this one. Please take a look at what I answered. Because I don’t want to damage my speech because of this confusion I made here. My language is Portuguese and I didn’t understand well what question I was supposed to answer. (…) I think I skipped the 34th. (…)
Freedom is to be able to live. In a country, [...]
Eliane Potiguara: Freedom is to be able to live. In a country, in the world, on planet Earth. Freedom is to be able to breath. Freedom is to be able to think and say what you think. Freedom is to be able to live together with human beings. This is freedom. And we don’t have it, because when you get out of your community, of an indigenous community for example, and go living in a urban society, your are going to be a joke, and a reason for laughing and discrimination. Even for the children at school, as I was, for example. My grandmother used to wait for me out of the school and all children laughed at her. My grandma used to sell bananas right in front of the school, and that was one of our ways to survive, but everyone mocked us and I suffered too much with that. I said: “So, this is studying? This is going to school??” Studying in this context is a very big suffering. And then, that wasn’t freedom for me, while it was for the other children, to able to study and learn in the context they were inserted in. But not for me, for me that was suffering. It was a prison. So, I’m not saying that freedom depends on the place, but on the minds and on what people think about the others. All questions, as I can observe, are centered on this relation of power, of who has more and who has less. Of who has a more hegemonic culture and who doesn’t have this hegemonic culture. Of who is from a white society and who is from a socially discriminated society. Of who has a more powerful language and who hasn’t. So, there’s no possibility of living together in freedom in this context.
Eliane Potiguara:
I'm very much in favor of resistance, in my [...]
Eliane Potiguara: I'm very much in favor of resistance, in my opinion we should fight those things we do not want, but I believe in the philosophical way, in a pacifist resistance. I believe in it though I saw what kind of impact pacifist resistance has. But still, it is my way I stick to because the armed wars...we've had our experiences during dictatorships and saw in the last 50, 60 years what armed war caused to the peoples. Always destruction, always brainwashing programs, traumas, so I do not agree with armed wars, I'm a pacifist person. I love peace and that's why I have been working in this project “1000 PeaceWomen across the globe”, which has been also on the nomination list for the Nobel Prize for Peace. My mind is very much in favor of these things. We also would need the media to be in favor of this, that the media would work more in this biodiversity of resistance. This biodiversity of resistance will happen one day, I'm quite sure of it and I think it would work even better if the media would be our companion in this matter, but in fact – what we've been seeing is that the media has been always in favor of those who dominate.
I have some heroes in different ranges. In [...]
Eliane Potiguara: I have some heroes in different ranges. In my personal familiar range my greatest hero is my grandmother. My grandmother who taught me to be who I am; who defined my way of being; who transmitted me these lessons I didn’t learn in any school, but from my own ears, by the stories told by her. That’s why today I’m a story teller, that’s why I tell also the children, young people, adolescents, adults, you here, I tell through my feminine literature the essence of the woman, of the indigenous woman, what we indigenous women can do to help in the construction of our beings. So, I learned with my grandmother, who learned with her grandmother, who learned with her ancestral women. So, I have to consider a lot this woman as my hero. My second hero I know from the society is a person called Gandhi, who worked on the world peace and on all these conflicts but who unfortunately died murdered by a person of his own people, and this made me sad. That’s why I esteem him and fight and have him as an example to explain that all people should get united in diversity. We can have all religions, all of them being respected, not one over the other – as I said at the beginning of my speech and my questions – one hegemony over the other, one country over the other, no, we have to finish with this power relations. And therefore we need to pay attention and work with our children once more on that.
In the case of indigenous people, we’ve been [...]
Eliane Potiguara: In the case of indigenous people, we’ve been discussing a lot about this point of creativity, about our elderly knowledge, the indigenous designs, the music, the literature and all indigenous artistic works, we worry because in the last years our legacy and cultural and artistic patrimony, our songs, they’ve been taken out of communities by historicists, scientists, anthropologists, artists and this legacy is being sold to third parties without sharing properly the profits and benefits. So, the indigenous organization Brazilian Indigenous Institute for Intellectual Property (INBRAPI) where I work as director of public relations – by the way I’ve learned a lot with my director the indigenous Doctor Fernanda Kaingang who is one of the first Brazilian indigenous doctor, she’s been showing me that we have lost a lot of our legacy and patrimony. Two years ago a pajé’s meeting took place and they complained that medicine herbs were being patented by non-indigenous people. So, there’s preoccupation toward our legacy and patrimony.
We are living in an economical system that [...]
Eliane Potiguara: We are living in an economical system that accumulates money and goods. And in reality this is our economy, independent of society. So all good things that we do our children will receive as well. When we destroy things we also destroy our planet. The economical growth has to be proportional to the level of the preservation of the planet, of the water and of all things of nature. Everything that passes the limits destroys also. The economical growth should be equilibrated to ecological aspects and to the ecology itself, to the environment and the human beings. The human being should have a balance between the economical growth and the environment by leading himself and participating on the economical growth without destruction of his environment. An economical growth, for example of an industry of petroleum, is not rentable if it destroyes at the same time the environment or the life of people. So it is necessary to have a blanance and no contradictions.
Well, when we use internet, of course, we [...]
Eliane Potiguara: Well, when we use internet, of course, we get vulnerable to millions and millions of areas, intimidations and whatever it is there, there’s a whole virtual world. I can say then that everything, in all levels, like acquisitions, everything touches ethics. In order to have internet or distance learning programs for indigenous and low-income communities, or even for the people in general, I think all of this touches the ethic question and also education programs which could make stronger what we expect as educators. So, we need to have in a certain way a control of our students, about the program. And regarding our own homes, we need to have a control about our children, about what they see. I think there must be a control; we can’t just let them at the mercy of this situation. Because if we do, then internet can be both harmful and favorable, just as television, we must take care of what our children are watching.
I see that human beings are getting lazier [...]
Eliane Potiguara: I see that human beings are getting lazier and more accommodated while technology should be used to make men’s life easier. And also technology is taking the worker’s place. We have a very high unemployment rate due to the use of technology. I don’t agree with this. We have unemployed young people and the government should incentive some jobs or these young people should use and handle some technologies, but there’s no interest in this sense. The interest is that the machines slowly replace human’s jobs therefore the humans are more and more accommodated and lazy.
Sustainable communities are communities that [...]
Eliane Potiguara: Sustainable communities are communities that strongly sustain themselves. If they search for a strongly sustainable project then they have already asked their communities and their inhabitants. Those participate on the idea in order to know steps that need to be taken or not. For it there have already been made some steps and evaluations because only thus you can know when and how to proceed. When a community works together with a sustainable community then questions like how to manage things, how to waste, how to economize, how to invest or reinvest in materials and ressources like for example in raw materials, how to reduce luxury, those questions have already been discussed and pre-evaluated. Then it is already known what can be used and what can’t be used. And when people use those communities and this mecanism and have no sucess, then this evaluation is very important because it can be used for another action of how to stop wasting and how to substitute things.
...to have the honour of drinking a glass of [...]
Eliane Potiguara: ...to have the honour of drinking a glass of water. What does it mean to drink a glass of water? After knowing that the water is clear we have to ask us why it is so. Thirdly we need to have education but our countries are not educated in order to know the value of water. People don’t economize water, they waste it in an arbitrary way, they leave water taps open and don’t have education concerning the conservation of water and air. I think that there is a lack of education and of educational programs of governments in the countries thus they know how to treat water and air. Then they will know why there is such a waste of water and such a contamination of water and why it leads to conflicts. It leads to conflicts because there is a lack of water. As a consequence everybody has to search for it. But we shouldn’t fight for water. Water is for everybody to use. But we have to use it with a certain economy.
In the detriment of new technologies, we [...]
Eliane Potiguara: In the detriment of new technologies, we can’t get out of human ethics, mainly to create future technologies. Never kill nor destruct in the name of technologies which could benefit millions and millions of people in the future. I am a person who esteems ethics and life.
I would like to answear this question [...]
Eliane Potiguara: I would like to answear this question individually as an indigenous woman that participates on a life of domestical economy and as a person in relation to my children, my grandchilds and to my community because I don’t know much about this subject. But first I would make my people be conscient of the situation and I would try to search for ways of a proper economy. And we would search for highly sustainable forms of production. If we had seeds to plant then we would make a partition of these seeds with a certain economy and we would search for a place where we could have an agricultural productivity. If we had problems with polluted water then we would make our local politics responsable for it and tell them that our children really need this water to survive. So we would protest against this situation, for example concerning polluted water. Concerning food, in some regions there is no salt. So we would action in order to have those products and ressources for the future in a way...
Regrettably, media is tendentious, as I [...]
Eliane Potiguara: Regrettably, media is tendentious, as I previously said. And consequently, so will be television. Television creates their programs to attend to the specificities of the public. It needs to create a soccer program, a program for the kids, and a program for housewives. So, television is always aimed at different kinds of watchers. Then we can realize that television is not very well used, as we could learn so much through it. Television could be an instrument of liberation, of culture or of social transformation. Television is massive; it attends to everything and can attend from murderers to priests and Carmelites. Television is kind of aimless. Regretfully, our television, mainly in Brazil, is not attending to the expectations of most critical people.
In the name of science we are taking [...]
Eliane Potiguara: In the name of science we are taking incalculable risks from these experiments by allowing ourselves to be experience objects. So, we have to protest, say that we don’t want it and that we don’t allow it. I think there’s being not much mobilization in this sense. I think people are still not very informed about what is genetically modified, how good or bad it can be for society. I think people are not very informed about it and there is no mobilization for protesting.
Science is objective as long as it solve [...]
Eliane Potiguara: Science is objective as long as it solve human beings’ problems without abuses or disrespects
In my opinion things like the global [...]
Eliane Potiguara: In my opinion things like the global warming, the disturbances of earth, the diseases and the imbalances are all produced by the human being. This situation has already been debated and questioned in the whole world and every one should be responsable concerning water, waste, wastage, environment and the place where he lifes. We should not pollute rivers and air and also not minds. There should be ways of life and filosofies of life that help creating a good balance of nature, respecting the environment and the human beings that are next to us. I think that if men are holistic and respect nature they can fight against global growth and against any disease. So I think that it is sufficient that the human beings are conscient of this and turn into a stimulator concerning this subject. People at public places like in supermarkets or at bus stations should always be aware that they are only renting those places in the sense that they have to be careful with them because they are parts of the planet and because we need health. And we only get this health from our planet if we treat it well like for example the environment in which we live.
The big management should be the first [...]
Eliane Potiguara: The big management should be the first person to know that their ressources of energy should be distributed in an equal way to the population. There should be equity of production and use because a disproportionality is not interesting if the populations does not benefit from it. And sometimes there are interests which are accumulated beyond and accumulations of goods and ressources are used for other things. And this is disproportional to the population. The population could use those things more unanimous if the prices accorded to the reality of each city and community. The quality of productivity is raised but the population does not have access to the services of the production and the production is not used for the good of the community but for other objects. Thus the management produced abundantly but not for the wealth of the community. It wants to earn money and not to add new jobs. The management wants to have benefit that can be used for other investments that will bring more benefits and so on. The communitiy will always be not provided. The big management should be the first person to know that their ressources of energy should be distributed in an equal way to the population. There should be equity of production and use because a disproportionality is not interesting if the populations does not benefit from it. And sometimes there are interests which are accumulated beyond and accumulations of goods and ressources are used for other things. And this is disproportional to the population. The population could use those things more unanimous if the prices accorded to the reality of each city and community. The quality of productivity is raised but the population does not have access to the services of the production and the production is not used for the good of the community but for other objects. Thus the management produced abundantly but not for the wealth of the community. It wants to earn money and not to add new jobs. The management wants to have benefit that can be used for other investments that will bring more benefits and so on. The communitiy will always be not provided. [].
I’m sorry, but I also got difficulties in [...]
Eliane Potiguara: I’m sorry, but I also got difficulties in answering this question. But, according to my knowledge and personal experience, any science can attend to social and economic preoccupations as long as it truly attends to human being’s needs and be made or constructed to attend to the reality of a country. I think that every sciences must accomplish this requirement.
Have you ever seen a life being naturally [...]
Eliane Potiguara: Have you ever seen a life being naturally lived? Children playing, being fed, their parents, mother and father living in a tranquility, love and respect way? Have you ever seen families making parties, hosting familiars who are coming from abroad? Have you ever seen nature or life being celebrated? Have you ever realized how interesting the human relations of people who face life as it should be lived are, for example? So, this is the message we want to send : “how should life be lived?”: with joy, love, peace, maturity, reflexion, safety, determination, respect, with a critical view of the society, respecting the world views and spiritualities. So, the future world had to be like this: everyone should have the right of being fed, the right of having life quality, freedom, the right to say what they think, everyone should have the right to practice their spiritualities the way they want to, to be a free human being. Freedom with responsibility, freedom where everyone could be respected in their differences; so a free, diversifying world but with responsibility. This is the message I would have to say to the world, and mainly, according to human ethics, traditional values of our elderly men and women, respecting and hearing more what they have to tell us.
The media should play a role of [...]
Eliane Potiguara: The media should play a role of democratization of information concerning the majority of people. But in some parts of society we perceive that the media is tendencious and that it wants to make popular some aspects of our culture or of any facts or events. We had an event, a general assembly of the indigenous women of Brazil and the media wanted us to tell some facts. But we were assembled for the interests of the indigenous people and for their rights and projects of handling with income and projects of high sustentability. And this wasn’t of any fact and did not make a story. So the media came to me and said: “this is not of any fact. You have to search for anything that calls the attention of the public because people are not interested in your kind of information.” Thus I thought: “What is the media good for?” We have to tell serious facts of our communities and cities. Sometimes the media is a chance for you to be introduced in this context of information. But sometimes you get into the media in a popular or in a comical way. So the media sometimes can also cause problems.
I think that if some day the human minds [...]
Eliane Potiguara: I think that if some day the human minds will be connected to a computer, then we are not going to be humans anymore. We are not going to be able to express our smiles, our joys and although we live in a third world society where everything is missing like food, water, air, in short, everything is missing. But we still have a very beautiful thing which are the so preserved familiar human relations and we have such a huge joy of living, when we just observe on the television, on the movies, how originary, third-world people are going through extreme poverty and so much difficult situations but they keep smiling, joyful, dancing barefoot, live and happy. It’s the wish of living. I think that if we connect it all to a computer or machine, we are going to lose it too. Human being is walking to a sort of perfection that doesn’t exist. It doesn’t exist. This perfection, why do we want this technological perfection?
First of all, having an appropriated [...]
Eliane Potiguara: First of all, having an appropriated familiar education, because no one can get healthy education in a conflict environment. So, in order to have a healthy education, the environment where the child is raised – and his parents – has conditions to survive. Regrettably, in the third-world countries the families don’t have conditions to guarantee feeding, education, clothing, and all other things necessary. And regrettably, there starts the conflict. So, a child who is born in such poor conditions has already weak informal education inside their own homes. On the other hand, the governments should guarantee educational programs. And schools must demand from the governments to perfect more and more these public politics to attend different ways of education. And third, the governments must guarantee to the next generations this way of education.
When people have in mind solidarity toward [...]
Eliane Potiguara: When people have in mind solidarity toward the other human being, when people observe, when people evidence, when they share pain with the others, the suffering, the kindness, when they are observing beings, when they look something and say: “I’m not the center of the world” and evidence: “I’m part of the world”, then, if you are part of the world and a good observer, solidary to your friend, to your neighbor, to your friends, to your neighboring countries, you are never going to feel lonely. You will always be worried about the other. If you are a very individualistic person, if you are a person who only thinks about yourself, then yes, you will feel lonely. But if you have the other in your mind, if you are thinking always about that child who did not have food, in that dog that does not have food, if you are thinking about that child who needs education, if you keep your mind busy all the time thinking in the other, you will never feel alone, you will be a person followed by the solidarity feeling. And when the solidarity feeling comes, the cooperation feeling comes together. You feel like cooperating. Because these two feelings can’t be separated, they are together. Then, solidarity and cooperation are our closest friends.
Well, in first place, the operational and [...]
Eliane Potiguara: Well, in first place, the operational and technological systems must achieve the communities. In the case of indigenous people, for example, we need to make these technologies to achieve communities and also see in fact how they can develop these communities. In Brazil, we’ve seen that these technologies do not get to indigenous villages and schools. First of all, because low-income communities don’t have resources to purchase it. And second, in the other hand, there are one thousand basic needs which are more important than acquiring a computer, a solar energy system or regular energy implantation, or else telephone line connection. We have so many basic problems inside indigenous areas, although we have such a rich culture, when we talk about indigenous people, it’s necessary to create or define better public politics. For example, now during Lula’s government, the environment minister Marina Silva, has approved a technology project of implanting internet through satellite signal from telephonic lines. But the intern politics block the good progress of this situation, because there are so many other political interests involved, government campaigns – now it’s elections time – so we evolve in some aspects, but politics itself block it. So, regarding indigenous people, we are seeing a very complex situation. And we can achieve and stimulate this development through schools and indigenous teachers.
If I were a tree, I’d like to be a bamboo, [...]
Eliane Potiguara: If I were a tree, I’d like to be a bamboo, because I’ve been told that bamboo takes years and years to take its roots, to get strong, and it grows down getting stronger, it turns red and then, after long years the leafs and flowers show up. So, the human being needs to be like this. In my opinion, when we talk about ancestrality, I think as the indigenous woman I am that we women come from this process of root construction. We go through this; we’ve been constructing these roots through our grandmothers, this way of viewing, existing, growing and educating; and we believe a dignified future will come for us as indigenous people, because this is certainly the right way. I believe in the miracle, the miracle is going to happen; we will have this dignity of being able to walk and be respected. So, that’s why a bamboo is for me the most adequate image to my way of thinking because we’ve been constructing this strength since centuries and centuries. Therefore we are so resistant as indigenous people we are, because since centuries ago we’ve been constructing our underground roots, and we are starting to flower.
We are living in a capitalist society. It’s [...]
Eliane Potiguara: We are living in a capitalist society. It’s always something under the other. The oppressions are declinable. One oppresses the other, the other oppresses another one, and so on. These are the degrees of oppression. People need to survive and for this they can even “step over their own mothers’ head”, which is a very common saying in Brazil. So, we see that this mass culture is influenced by consumption society. Consumption nowadays is one of the worst strategies for the people, because the people cannot follow the consumption society, which changes all the time the cell phone type, the pen type, nowadays they change even pencils ore toothpaste, a new kind of a medicine or a new kind of food. So, the poor ones, the poor society, can’t follow this consumption society. Everybody says “now you must have a plasma TV!”. How are people supposed to buy a plasma TV? How are people supposed to buy the most modern refrigerator? There’s no way to follow this, do you understand? So, people stay in front of television admiring it as if it was God, do you understand? Then, all these products of the consumption society are something distant and random, which stays in the mind of the children and keeps existing in the mind of the people becoming something unreal, an unreal society. I mean, a society which can only create myths. Then we are talking about myths as a lie. Our indigenous stories cannot be considered as myths, as anthropologists usually do. We have stories. But the consumption society has myths. These myths are created in the mind of the children, who scream and cry out of spite, demanding something that their parents can’t give them. This is regrettable. School, in this case, can also contribute for this awareness process, but they are sometimes so bourgeois and don’t attend to the reality of the children.
When people have power and think very high [...]
Eliane Potiguara: When people have power and think very high of themselves, they don't feel like being a part of this planet and they don't feel like being a part of nature. And when they are in this sphere they forget who they in fact are. They should remember that before everything they are the primitive being. When I say primitive I do not mean primitivity in the historical sense but in the sense of the human being, the first man who came on earth, in the sense of him being the first one for in a certain way he is a part of history. And when people are in a context of power they forget being similar and as a consequence they forget themselves.
In the world of drugs, in the world of the [...]
Eliane Potiguara: In the world of drugs, in the world of the sick society, in the superficial world it is easier to get a glass of beer or alcool than a plate with food. If people tried to order a plate with typical food, they wouldn’t get it. If they were out at night in the streets they would get easier some drugs than a plate with food or a glass of water. This is why it is easier to get a cold Coke than a glass of fresh water. There is a psychological problem of people and some people of this society, in the universities, in the streets and cities are too much attracted by those things and by this world of Coca Cola and of the media which tells them and their children that it is good to drink Coke. Thus water is the last thing you would drink. We are living in this world of the media and if you don’t participate in it you are not part of the society. If you liked to drink milk people would laugh about you because milk is not in the media. The management knows how to influence people and they know what they like most and they know how to touch them. The management knows it, it is trained for this. But people should be trained against it.
From Africa we can learn the same things as [...]
Eliane Potiguara: From Africa we can learn the same things as from our indigenous mother earth where people from all over the world can say something. I am telling what we can learn not only from Africa, but in general from all those countries that keep ethical principles of qualities, of traditions, of human relationships, of love, of ancestries and spirituality. Africa is like many other countries a poor country that keeps the joy of living and the gratitude for existing. The indigenous Maya of Guatemala know how to be grateful for the creator. So we have to learn a lot from the original societies of the planet earth. That’s why we can also learn a lot from traditional countries like Africa, but also Brazil, Central America, South America, [] that are original people. The societies are losing a lot of qualities about the preservation of men and women. This is what we can learn from the original countries. The quality of gratitude for the creator and for us being alive and having the opportunity to live. Life is an opportunity to be on the planet earth and we have to use this opportunitiy as a mission and with ethics and social, economical and participative responsability. We have to be people that change the world and that multiply good actions and good ethics.
To preserve a local culture – whatever if [...]
Eliane Potiguara: To preserve a local culture – whatever if it’s originary, urbane or anything else – is to hear this community. It’s to make this community participative, active and integrating. The preservation and development of global community can only be healthy if it pays attention to local, traditional communities – in the case of indigenous people, originary communities. So, in order to have a balance in society, we have to hear everyone. Regarding urban society, there is an unbalance because of this, because of the people and the government who don’t listen to local communities. In the case, for example, of slums – I always talk about slums because it’s also related to this. The city grows, people go to the cities, there’s a rural exodus because of starvation in the countryside, they go to the cities and create the big slums, without proper conditions for living, without water, without any resource for surviving, without local economy, without sanitation, in a pollute way and people live in that crowd causing many infirmities. How can a society or a urban, touristical and famous city like New York or Rio de Janeiro say “my city is developed” while their outskirts is completely full of micro-populations or slums or even poor communities, which became poor because of exodus? So it is only like a visit card. And also the contrary, this city will never be able to say it has grown, because it has tendentiously grown, only for the bourgeoisie.
Well, after 100 questions, it is important [...]
Eliane Potiguara: Well, after 100 questions, it is important that the world not only knows my answers, but the answers of all the people who are here, and we have a lot to learn. Regarding my person, as a human being, I will be spreading out the information and telling people what has happened here. Regarding my professional side, I’d say that we can spread out some aspects of this work in the Grumin Indigenous Communication Net, through our online net, where we have our bulletins and where we can also speak about our conferences, our assemblies, we can spread out, telling about this rich experience that we had here. So, I place at your disposal the Grumin Indigenous Communication Net – Grumin Online – which is an indigenous women net. Thank you very much.
I think that the most important story of our [...]
Eliane Potiguara: I think that the most important story of our world today is the story of our grandparents and of our ancestors who teached us traditional qualities, ethical qualities and qualities that we learned with our family about the formation of the human being. How can we form a human being with ethics in order that he can play a correct, a solidarian and a cooperating role in society. I think this is important to report even if I had to push this subject in my area of action in life because we indigenous people are forgotten in the world. We are marginalized and socially and racially discriminated and our history is not regarded with sincerity. The history which is told by the indigenous people in Brasil is being collected by the anthropologists and the scientist of literature but they are regarded as untrue myths that are unreal. But for us it is our true history of the formation of the human being concerning his character and his children in relation to other human relationships and in relation to communities of the earth. We were teached about how to act in certain moments of danger and about what the true history of the indigenous people is. I have to do with it. I naturally would have a lot of more answers concerning other events, for example even any fact that should be reported but which the media does not care about. The media would never publish facts that talk about those social transformations.
Depending on the point of view of each side, [...]
Eliane Potiguara: Depending on the point of view of each side, what it is certain for the United States, for example, is wrong for the people of the third world. What it is democracy for them is antidemocratic for the oppressed people. Then, there are two answers you can give, two points of view. But if you ask one group, they will say they’re correct; if you ask the other group, they will also be correct, because every one has their own view. So, when people have a vision about themselves but not about the other group, when they don’t put themselves in the other’s place, they will always think to be correct, and their points of view are contradictory.
My grandmother used to say that if giving [...]
Eliane Potiguara: My grandmother used to say that if giving advices were good, people wouldn’t give it; they would sell it, wouldn´t they? But, as we are in an event and we have here a very big responsibility toward our indigenous people – and this is the reason why I’m here, as an indigenous thinker in the fight for the preservation of the life, of the identity, of the strength of our people and in the guarantee of the indigenous rights, of the basic rights of the indigenous peoples – I would give one advice to the world. And also as a person who has witnessed the tears of an illiterate woman that had no opportunity to study or to do anything else, but had an incredible traditional knowledge, I say to the world: Take a plunge inside yourselves, search the elderly men and women inside you, search these traditional stories, search these internal and ancestral conferences of our grandparents. Try to remember what they said to us, because there are many things there to be informed to the world. World needs to listen more to the elderly people, and to listen to this inner voice which is inside us. I think that people need to stop saying what they want to, we have to find what is inside us already. What we have inside us and needs to be rescued and taken out.
In my opinion we waste too much time by [...]
Eliane Potiguara: In my opinion we waste too much time by learning these engineerings that the equipment in fact could help us doing something we could do with our own hands or with such equipment. I really remember when for example we want to see some program on TV and we end up by getting totally confused with the equipments in our hands, it doesn’t work, so I think we waste too much time on this. Of course I’m not underestimating technology, because it’s been created to make our lives easier. But I also think that these technologies should also be easier mainly for the elderly people. Because children can easily handle it, but the elderly ones can’t, they have difficulties even with a remote control.
Unfortunately, even with new technologies, [...]
Eliane Potiguara: Unfortunately, even with new technologies, we have been seeing them once more being used by the powerful colonizing ones, by the “new colonists”. People can’t properly use any kind of technology; they always end up by using it the bad way. You can see how the progress of nuclear weapons, belicism and this warlike bellicose products have been used always for the evil side. We don’t see any kind of defense of our patrimony, our planet Earth, our environment and also we don’t see any resources for the defense of our culture. All this technology, the most of it is being used for the other side, the evil side. I don’t see it properly used, otherwise we wouldn’t have so much bad food, bad air, bad water, all this pollution, bad life, bad life quality. So, we are human beings who have the science and technology in our hands, but it’s not being used for the human side, the side of humanity, but for the side of competition, of who is coming next, who is getting somewhere first, who is invading first, who is attacking first. So, this whole thing is very sad. People are really losing poetry in their lives. There is no poetry, there is no humanity. I think nationalism is being preserved against this greater feeling, which are the ethics.
If we had projects of managing ressourses, [...]
Eliane Potiguara: If we had projects of managing ressourses, if we had projects of a highly sustainable economy and of managing rents then the profiting community would be responsable for those ressources. As we don’t have these projects and public politics, the ressources on the market like the human, financial and mineral ressources are concentrated in the hands of dominant people. And this is what we are debating here. We want to share those ressources in order that everyone has access to them and can manage them. Therefore we need courses of qualification in order to manage those ressources and to know how to apply them so that we could have a better quality of life for all human beings on earth. It should not be concentrated in one hand or in the hand of a minority.
To be a native. In any century it’s [...]
Eliane Potiguara: To be a native. In any century it’s possible to be a native, since we have the awareness of who we are. Every one of us is a native. Not only originary or indigenous people. We are all native from somewhere. When the human being lives in an equalitarian, environmentally balanced society they will be peaceful there. He will be feeling like a native. He will only stop being a native in the primitive, primary sense, like the first human of planet Earth. It is this beautiful human feeling like loving the Earth and loving our children. I think we can all be natives. And the world society as well as the Brazilian and other societies in general, can learn in fact with originary people. As I said, the first people on the planet Earth were indigenous. Indigenous people who learned with their ancestrals, with our great-grandparents, deep stories told with a lot of contents, with a lot of human values which are being lost in urban society. So, that’s why native people can live together both in the rural and in the urban society.
Well, I don’t really know much about genetic [...]
Eliane Potiguara: Well, I don’t really know much about genetic engineering, I don’t know this theme, not for disinterest but because I was short of time to research it. And I also had no time to read these questions, then I’m answering this here, I’ve just knew about it here and I really couldn’t know about this kind of genetic engineering. But intuitively speaking, according to my own experience as a human, I think that genetic engineering is never supposed to harm human beings, nor destruct, kill or keep making those experiences the way it’s been made with animals, they should never damage the human being.
I have difficulties in answearing this [...]
Eliane Potiguara: I have difficulties in answearing this question. But I think that it depends on the head of the editor and his interests and conscience. If he is an ethical person then he will tell the truth. If he wants to be popular and sell journals then I think he will give tendencious informations.
What a difficult question! Ethics, love, [...]
Eliane Potiguara: What a difficult question! Ethics, love, solidarity, collaboration, cooperation, the brotherhood feeling, love indeed and all this ethical world of the truth, of affection, of responsibility, in my opinion, are essential and we should transmit them. These essences need to be transmitted in the practice. It’s no use to say to the child: “child, you have to be like this or like that”. No, this must happen since they’re little. We and the children use to observe. So, we are the examples for our kids. We are the first educators. We, parents – fathers and mothers – are the first educators of our kids.
I think there are a lot of kinds of art, but [...]
Eliane Potiguara: I think there are a lot of kinds of art, but I’d like to report about two here. Dance – because I also dance. Dancing is the biggest expression of indigenous spirituality. When we dance, we manifest our insides, cosmology and world view. It’s through the dance that we let flow our essence, it flows and then it happens a magical moment, and then we make art, the art of dancing – and I say dance in every senses here. Literature is the other, because I work with literature, I write, I’m an indigenous writer and I see that literature is also a way of expression, a way of bringing out your being. It’s a way of transmit it to generations and generations, to the world a way of saying: “hey, people, we exist, we are here”. Literature allows it; it allows perpetuating your voice. It allows perpetuating an essence or a world view. It allows the communication between the centuries through literary art.
What moves me in a good way is to be able to [...]
Eliane Potiguara: What moves me in a good way is to be able to observe the good feelings, observe human inner beauty, what they have of most graceful, which is the truth. What this human being has to express as something to contribute to society. What moves me is the beauty of being – it’s not the physical beauty – it’s the inner beauty, what our insides have to say as humans. But what moves me in the evil is the lack of truth. When someone lies that makes me irritated, angry, troubled and I really don’t like it. And I also don’t like competition, competition leads to war. I don’t like any kind of competition. I like to feel in a space where we can be equal people, where we can share our experiences and ideas, do you know? I like a peaceful, calm, tranquil ambiance; I don’t like wars or confusions. I esteem love, peace, spirituality and tranquility – all this inserted in the way we teach our children.
To be a native. In any century it’s [...]
Eliane Potiguara: To be a native. In any century it’s possible to be a native, since we have the awareness of who we are. Every one of us is a native. Not only originary or indigenous people. We are all native from somewhere. When the human being lives in an equalitarian, environmentally balanced society they will be peaceful there. He will be feeling like a native. He will only stop being a native in the primitive, primary sense, like the first human of planet Earth. It is this beautiful human feeling like loving the Earth and loving our children. I think we can all be natives. And the world society as well as the Brazilian and other societies in general, can learn in fact with originary people. As I said, the first people on the planet Earth were indigenous. Indigenous people who learned with their ancestrals, with our great-grandparents, deep stories told with a lot of contents, with a lot of human values which are being lost in urban society. So, that’s why native people can live together both in the rural and in the urban society.
Yes. They always produce more than they [...]
Eliane Potiguara: Yes. They always produce more than they consume. They always produce more to get more money and ressources and the population does not benefit from it. The inhabitants don’t care because they don’t participate on anything. They are completely [] to this productivity and to this consume.
In reality we are all human and equal. The [...]
Eliane Potiguara: In reality we are all human and equal. The truth is that the world or the powerful people created limits, limits of colour, of nationality, of language, of traditions and feelings. The power created those limits while humanity, feelings and the evaluation of man should be considered as the most important. We perceive this in our own cities where we live. There is a local patriotism. There exists the question of who is from which community. There are cultural, geographical and linguistic limits, but also financial limits and questions about who has got more money and this is the biggest limit which produces this division. Thus nationality is more important and has been more important then qualities of humanity, qualities like love, ethics, comprehension and solidarity. People talk about those qualities but they don’t use them. They use them until a moment in which someone invades in their area. This is deplorable but we will see if people in future can change this concept.
Our food is full of pesticides, of [...]
Eliane Potiguara: Our food is full of pesticides, of hormons, of dyestuffs and various components that destroy the nature of the human individual, that cause diseases and physical transgressions. Thus our food is really bad. If we could have mecanisms of work, construction and planning of our food like many people do have because the majority of people life in the country, if there would be implementations of human and financial ressourses in order to give people the possibility to work for the productivity of their food. But there is this wish of profit, of having each time more and this is what causes bad things. People want to grow faster and to have more than it is possible. The time of the capitalism is faster than nature. But this is just not possible because nature has its own time, what we know. Since everything has to go fastly, there are hormons and yeast which destroy our food. The consequences are many diseases. And this is all for the profit. This is why our food is very bad. It is really better to eat our grandmothers’ food.
God is inside us. We are god in action. If I [...]
Eliane Potiguara: God is inside us. We are god in action. If I am god in action and if I’m a diversified human being who understands all diversity of religions, then I belong to all religions. God wants us all to belong to all religions. God doesn’t have a specific religion. God is multifaced in this sense. God doesn’t like religious intolerance which causes wars and conflicts. God wants peace, I want peace. I belong to peace, love, universe, I’m god in action. So, I have all religions of the world in my heart. And I love all the religions. I love all the Christs, all the Buddhas, all the saints, I love them all, to all. The day where the human beings will understand this, they will have given an important step in the construction of the society and the planet Earth. All we are God in action. There’s no one seating in a throne up there in the sky. It’s us who are seated in the throne, we are God in action. I am Christian, I am Buddhist, I am Muslim, I am all the religions. I am God in action.
We are all distinct people. But as human [...]
Eliane Potiguara: We are all distinct people. But as human beings we are all equal. Nevertheless as I previously said, the boundaries have been imposed by the power, by the colonization. So, we need to have self-assertion as indigenous, as black, as African, as Pakistani, as Indian, as German, etc. So, when we define it, when we assert ourselves saying “this is my city”, “this is my community”, “this is my language” first of all this is a way of preserving this world view, as it is in the case of indigenous people. So, how can we protect cities from sameness? In my opinion, we are all human beings, of course, but there is much individuality. So, each community, each city must have their own identity, must preserve their culture, their traditions, their festivities, their religiosities, their moments of glory, their problems. So, it’s a complicated question, but I think every people must actually preserve themselves, so their languages and cultures can be more defined, but at the same time, they must be open for relationships. Because if communities are too close for this, then there won’t be exchange, and what is beautiful on planet Earth is really this exchange. There are some people against miscegenation; they think it can dilute us somehow. Nevertheless, one of the most beautiful steps of mankind is cultural and racial miscegenation, new races and new languages being created. I think diversity is the most beautiful thing, boundaries are never interesting, they are interesting when people fight for their own preservation.
I think that in reality we are all from the [...]
Eliane Potiguara: I think that in reality we are all from the planet earth. These divisions of identity, nationality, ethnical origins, cities, communities, quarters were created by the sovereign. He was branding each person of the community. So we have to reinforce our identity to show him that we exist. If we tell him who we are then we reaffirm our identity. And we reaffirm our identity because we are disrespected and disregarded. Thus the reaffirmation of our origins like for example of black or indigenous people are a way of reinforcing the interior of oneself by reason of a disregard of this ethnic people in a discriminating society. Many people tell me to be wrong by reaffirming the indigenous identity. And sometimes I write emails to people of society through our journal that comes to everybody and sometimes I get the answer that I should not talk about this. But how can we not talk about it if we are being disrespected and disregarded concerning our identity? We indigenous people always were considered to be Indians, to be immature and to be incapable. The Civil Code of Brazil also told that the indigenous people were incapable. This law has changed in 1988 in the Constitution. And we are not incapable. That’s why we need to reaffirm our indigenous identity.
In my opinion... change the world... In my [...]
Eliane Potiguara: In my opinion... change the world... In my opinion it’s to be witness of the suffering of your people, to be witness of your grandparents’ tears, witness of the exodus, of the suffering and pain your family has suffered. It’s to be a historic witness of an oppression process and of unpleasant situations and, as a child or a young person, to realize this and see the injustice. I think all that you can realize in this sense is a way of protesting and feeling like change the world. It’s the will of taking out suffocation and strangling inside you, realizing the social injustices and fighting for better conditions to contribute in the balance of the Earth. I think that the witness being, the one who suffers is a first way for this. Other people could also read books, watch movies or go through other experiences, but the witness are closer of the transformation of planet Earth.
If internet is used in our communities for [...]
Eliane Potiguara: If internet is used in our communities for their own benefit, to break barriers, to learn, for the apprenticeship; if it’s directed by the own people of the community – in the case of indigenous people; if internet is going through a process of development, empowerment and qualification of the people; if it’s going through a program of bilingual education, of diffusing culture, of organization and help with the management of indigenous organizations; if internet touches all these questions, then it’s good. But, if an internet program gets to a community without an objective, without programming or without a direction, then its use will be extremely bad.
We have many cities in Brazil. The future of [...]
Eliane Potiguara: We have many cities in Brazil. The future of those cities depend basically on the nations and on what happens day after day in those cities. If in cities reigns the traffic of drugs, violence and arms then its future will be the worst. The future for those children who have these arms will be the worst. Thus how to fight against this situation? It is very complicated and I don’t know how to do it. Cities and indigenous areas that are nearby would also be suffering from it. So it should be thought about the future of the cities in order to not have mental and psychological destruction of people in the cities. Thus if we had equilibrated cities, cities that treat their environment, nature and people well, then we would have sane societies. That’s why we need environmental education in order to make those cities be a model for the future.
This is exactly why all Chinese people don’t [...]
Eliane Potiguara: This is exactly why all Chinese people don’t have cars but bikes. I have been in China for the conference of the woman and I learned some things about Chinese people. I observed that they ride a bike, they ride for free and have a system that transports people on a bike and the person at the front keeps pushing it like an animal. So those are forms of surviving and transport. If they all wished to have a car, they would be conscient that the number of Chinese cars can’t be the same of Chinese people in a city because a city is already a very tight and closed location and there is no possibilty for all Chinese people to have a car. Even if they would like to have a car, they would be conscient of the consequences because the Chinese people are very sage. I believe in the Chinese philosophy.
Yes, egoism is the reason for human failure. [...]
Eliane Potiguara: Yes, egoism is the reason for human failure. Since the first days of our civilization people preserved this behaviour within themselves. In my opinion men, women, mankind are in need to criticize themselves and to educate themselves in this way. Sometimes we can observe children playing and suddenly one wants to order around the others, one of the children says: "This is mine, this is mine!" Even children have assimilated this behaviour. Human beings need to revaliate this emotion, an emotion, which always was and still is within mankind. It is a very big challenge, but we all are so thankful to our creator for being able to talk, for having a voice. But still we all have this big fault called egoism and this ervery one of us has to revise in its inner self. It’s the same with racism. People are racists, even without knowing it, because they have it inside of them. So society should revise itself, reinvent human relations and reinvent a new form of life.
