I had seen the flyers for “actividades” in San Cris and had been working up the nerve to go to one of these counter-culture events.  El Machete is a main venue, and hosts a bike workshop and salsa classes.  I have worked with bikes in a few contexts in the U.S. and generally consider myself a “bike person” of the D.I.Y. variety.  I have written some blog posts back in the day (last summer and the one before). I was really excited to see San Cris has a community bike shop.   Now I only needed the nerve to show up there and “arreglar” (kind of like “to wrench” or to work on your bike in non-mechanic speak).

The day before I left for Oventic I made it to the weekly bike workshop hours.  El Machete is a house not far from the center.  You push open a metal gate and the bike workshop is immediately evident in the open courtyard abutting bedrooms and a kitchen.

As in most bikeshop situations I’ve walked into I only saw dudes.  But inside there were two women and I timidly asked them about the “taller de bicicletas.”  Turned out they were just getting down to business for the day, and the main volunteer was a guy named Jeff from Winnipeg.  Thus I spent the next few hours helping Jeff build a more solid and useful workshop table.  We chatted about community bike shop politics (he knows some folks I worked with in St. Paul), traveling in Mexico and creating women and trans spaces in bike culture.  It was a relief to have someone I could talk with fluidly and also plenty of tasks to do I understood and felt capable of.  My worst bike experiences have involved wanting to do something, but having no understanding of what needs to be done.

Despite my apprehensions, everyone at El Machete turned out to be pretty nice.  It’s representative of counter-culture in San Cris in that the inhabitants/volunteers aren’t exclusively Mexican.  There are Frenchmen, Quebecoises and at the moment Jeff and his partner from Winnipeg. I did my best to talk a bit with the Mexican guys to make sure they got that I can speak some Spanish.  They were nice enough to invite me back later that night for a goodbye party for someone headed out on a bike tour to the Lacandon jungle. By the time I was leaving late that night I felt like a regular and knew I would be back.

The bike workshop has only been around since November and they’re still figuring some things out.  I went back this past Saturday.  It feels like a good time to “involucrarme” (get myself involved) because there are plenty of tasks to be taken up, and it’s fine I don’t feel particularly skillful building bikes.  Jeff brought down tools from Canada, and they have an impressive collection of bike machines (think blender, washing machine), but also are finding challenges moving forward. For example, people use parts a lot harder in Mexico than in the US, so finding used wheels in decent shape is a tall order. Also, anyone who has been to San Cris can imagine that the narrow stone roads are kind to neither bikes nor bikers.  The tools you can buy here also aren’t of the best quality.

I’m looking forward to spending more time there and building my own skills. I’m also interested how cultivating bike culture in San Cristobal correlates to efforts in the U.S. And Canada.  Some challenges seem similar, but there are a lot which haven’t occurred to me.  The bicimacis (bike machines) also seem very interesting and innovative approaches to various daily tasks, especially for rural life.  There’s plenty to learn, and it’s reassuring to encounter people here who are caught up in some of the same questions I struggle with at home, and are actively building alternative space in their community.

(this banner says “create the world that you want” and accompanies the bici-macis out on the town)

I arrived at the language school in Oventic via taxi from San Cristobal.  It was mid-afternoon on a Sunday and I was getting anxious about making it early enough in the day to get in.  You’re warned it may take quite a while to gain entry, so I was happy when my taxi left the city a little after 3.

I really like driving out of the city and taking in the “Periferio” which has a distinct feel from the rest of the city, more ramshackle and hectic.

Before you know it the city has disappeared from sight and small clusters of houses and farm land fill the view.  We passed San Juan Chamula, one of the biggest and most visited indigenous communities.  I noticed a billboard I hadn’t seen before.  It was a chest-shot of a man in traditional Chamula garb, a furry white overshirt, holding a bottle of Coke.  It said “Bienvenidos to San Juan Chamula.”  Cultural appropriation reaches new heights here.

With the advance of capitalism on my mind we headed further into the campo.  We passed out of the immediately farmed and inhabited area into much more dense forest and higher mountains.  Around this point the driver switched the radio over.  It was a voice I recognized.  I listened closer and identified it as one of the EZLN comandantes.  He was reading a piece about Mexican history.  It was an emotional moment, hearing words of the south eastern mountains of Mexico as I rode through those very mountains.  The road got progressively more twisty and curved back and forth precipitously.

Mist started to close in over the road.  Soon after we pulled over at a gate in the road, with a colorful building alongside.  We’d arrived.  I unloaded my bags and approached the woman waiting in the guard area.  She indicated she would fetch a member of the junta.  My documents were reviewed and within 20 minutes (lacking the long waits I’d been warned about) I was following two masked men down the steep road through the center of the community.

arriving in oventic i had an unnerving sensation of familiarity.  i was in the rainforest of chiapas, and yet my surroundings felt distinctly like the quaker camp i attended for years in virginia.  all the buildings were painted bright colors, there were tons of kids running around, you had to climb uphill or down to get most anywhere, and all my interactions were friendly.  sometimes my connections and associations here come from the most unexpected sources.  the sensation was amplified monday night when the language students gathered with students from the middle school to sing songs together.  except instead of old time songs or spirituals we sung about revolution, clandestino and over and over again, “la himna de los zapatistas.”  oventic isn’t some sort of summer camp.  it’s a community autonomous of the Zapatistas, which is gradually “luchando” to build a new reality in the mountains of southeastern mexico.

oventic is one of the five caracoles of the zapatistas.  since 2003 the caracoles have served as the “juntas de buen gobierno”, or centers of good government, for zapatista-affiliated communities, which number over 1,000.  oventic is considered the window of the zapatistas to the rest of the world, and the other way around.  for this reason, there is a language center in oventic, which teaches castellano (the formal name for spanish) and tsotsil, the primary indigenous language in the community.  or as they say in spanish, “corazon centrico de los zapatistas adelante del mundo.”

i arrived on sunday evening to start my week of classes. in addition to several other “regular” students, there was a group of 10 from norway and a group of 11 from the united states.  this meant by the time class started on monday morning, there were 25 of us.

Class starts at 9am each day, and I would shuffle into the upstairs classroom with the rest of group C right on time.  The classroom is on the second story of the school building, looking out over the mountains to the west and up the hill toward the road to the east.  When it’s clear the mountains are quite spectacular.  After 5pm or so they are typically covered in fog, or all day.

classes varied between reviewing grammatical forms, reading political texts and discussing our own communities and the Zapatistas.  one day of class my group read a zine that is called “Breve Historia de la llamada ‘Comunidad Lacandona’” put out by the organization Maderas del Pueblo del Sureste in 2002.  It tells the story of the creation of the Lacandon Community between the Spanish conquest and the current day.  The Reserva de la Biosfera Montes Azules (Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve) makes up much of the land which is attributed to the Lacandon tribe today.  However this tribe is not the traditional inhabitant of the region, and migrated from Campeche after the Spanish purged the indigenous population of the area, which the booklet refers to as the “Lacandones veraderos.”

The Spaniards came to favor the Caribe tribe which migrated from Campeche over the local tsotsiles, tseltales, ch’oles y tojobales, because they were fewer in number and less resistant to Spanish colonization.  This favor transitioned into the Mexican federal government, especially in the 20^th century when explorers Frans Blom and Gertrude Duby took on roles as “defenders” of the Lacandones.  The elijido system in Mexico is the basis of communal land ownership for indigenous communities and campesinos.  Elijidos were granted to the small Lancandon tribe, negating the land holdings of  tsotsiles, tseltales, ch’oles y tojobales in the same area.  The federal government began to forcibly remove these tribes, who were blamed with destruction of protected forests and other fabricated claims.  Many of these groups resisted resettlement, and several remain in defiance of government and military orders.  The entrance of the Zapatista movement in 1994 of course increased the political pressure to remove the settlements, many of which are Zapatista.  The Lacandones, recipients of frequent government aid, have never become part of the Zapatista movement.

it was interesting reading and discussing this history, which factors into the current REDD+ programs in Chiapas.

I found a course and enrolled, excited I had found what I was looking for so quickly.

Each day I was progressively more and more disappointed.

Allow me to summarize the content: The market has not effectively priced environmental benefits and burdens, these are known as “externalities”.  Therefore we are depleting natural resources, polluting all parts of our earth and creating climate change. This is due to political, social and scientific imperfections in the current operation of the market.  However, with complete information in an efficiently operating market, these resources will be priced appropriately and used in efficient amounts (and hence we will have the efficient amount of pollution). (I’ll let that phrase sink in:  “An efficient amount of pollution.” Or how about this: “An efficient amount of climate change.”).

At this point, environmental economics devolves into an endless game of pricing externalities. One of the major tenants is called the Coase Theorem, which essentially states, that pollution will reach an equilibrium through people paying each other not to pollute to the extent that they are willing.  I.e. my neighbor is dumping poop into the stream that runs by my house too.  I will pay him to stop doing this, whatever it is worth to me to not have poop in the water.  If he is still dumping that means it’s more worthwhile to him to dump poop than I am willing to pay for him to stop.

The classroom examples are always something micro like this (okay, maybe not with poop, but something like a smoky chimney).  I think that’s because the theory becomes tenuous as you zoom out.   Try it out on air pollution in, say, Mexico City.  Coase would have us think that if people really valued clean air more than polluting, they would have paid the polluters enough to convince them to stop polluting.

And so environmental economics continues, in a nice little village where you can knock on your neighbor’s door and strike a deal and call it a day.

Of course I’m simplifying things and there is some very interesting work in the field.  However the work which interests me most has a central concern with that which shouldn’t be put on the market.  I refuse to believe that pricing clean air will get us out of the problem of pollution.  Who benefits when we start saying the right to clean air is only for those who can pay, and who loses?

These questions are immensely relevant as global political representatives continue to stumble along in an attempt to reach an agreement on climate change.

Here in Chiapas I am in the heart of some of the greatest biodiversity remaining on earth.

I’ll let my guidebook do the talking: “Chiapas’s landscape ranges from rugged mountains to steamy coastal lowlands, and includes vast swaths of tropical rainforests, temperate woodland, estuaries, and mangrove forests and countless rivers and lakes… …With an ever-growing tourism infrastructure, Chiapas is a great place for active, eco-minded travelers.” (Moon Handbooks Chiapas p 17).  “Chiapas has approximately 10,000 plant species (including 1,650 considered to be medical), more than any other state in Mexico.” (201) The Lacandon Rainforest is also one of the largest north of the Amazon.  While the perils of eco-tourism deserve a separate blog post, you get the idea.

What’s is the role of this enormous natural bounty in global climate action plans?

A  nifty mechanism called REDD+ (Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation), which assigns a financial value to the carbon stored in forests.  Foreign entities can purchase this value to “off-set” their own carbon emissions, so long as local authorities prevent deforestation or degradation in this area.

For example, the British Embassy, working with Conservation International, is financing the Climate Change Action Programme for the State of Chiapas (PACCCH).  This will eventually allow Britain, having paid sufficiently, to “write off” so to speak an equal amount of carbon emissions as is sequestered in the trees of certain areas of Chiapas.

If it sounds like indulgences in the Catholic church, you’re getting the picture.

This might not seem like a bad idea to start off.  Rich countries pay so developing countries don’t deforest and add to the carbon burden already in the atmosphere.  Some propose this could be just a temporary measure, until rich countries can make the technological and infrastructural changes necessary to cut their own emissions significantly.  Britain has money, Chiapas has trees, why don’t we all put these resources to their most efficient use?

Here in Chiapas a major missing factor in the rosy picture painted by REDD+ and its proponents is the presence of indigenous peoples in the region.

Chiapas has the highest population density of indigenous people in Mexico.  Roughly a third of residents speak an indigenous language, namely Tzotzil, Tzeltal or Chol.  Outside of the few cities in the region, there are still countless traditional communities (many of which now make up the Zapatista movement).  These communities are often blamed for the deforestation in Chiapas, a pattern that can be observed around the world, because they clear land for settlements or farming. The social factors which create this situation, including the displacement of many communities for political reasons over centuries, are swept under the rug.

Now areas which these communities call home are being labeled “preserve” and development halted, perpetuating a conception which has its roots in the West, as nature as something separate from human.  What happens when a community’s land is labeled preserve?

One example is in the Amador Hernández region, where in April 2010 the government withdrew all medical personnel and suspended the supply of medical supplies and the aerial evacuation of the gravely ill. In a region which has historically fought against land dispossession, this was read as an effort to weaken resistance as the REDD+ project moves forward.

I will be researching the currents of REDD+ in Chiapas in the coming weeks, so look for part 2 at some point soon.

For example, I haven’t talked to the woman I am living with about my opinions of the effort of the Zapatistas to build  communities autonomous from the sovereignty of Mexico.  She has lived here her whole life; she was living here when the EZLN seized San Cristobal on Jan 1 1994.  I’m sure she has opinions about the movement and its supporters.  I want to get to know her on a personal basis, but that’s not to say I have explicitly hidden my political views. I’m also conscious of the fact that a lot of gringos come here looking to experience “la revolucion” and their impact can manifest in a lot of different ways. When I told her I study political science and economics I left out the “radical” and “critical theory” taglines.

However in Spanish class I have taken some more liberties to share about myself.  (When you’re practicing the conditional, “If I were a book, what would I be?” or “What famous person would you have dinner with?” it’s hard not to).  Explaining my plans I mentioned my next stop: the language school in Oventic, one of the Zapatista autonomous communities. I also have found myself describing Quakerism, and the Tea Party (and my opinions on it) and struggling to explain why hate crimes are necessarily based in feelings of supremacy.  Whew.

Anyway, having a cup of coffee with my Senora Wednesday afternoon was the first time I mentioned the “Z” word.  Maybe it was a coincidence but she then asked me if I wanted to go on some errands with her and David (the 3 year old).  She mentioned “la inglesia” but I guess it was lost in translation that what I took as “errands” actually meant “go to a church service.”

And that’s how I found myself at an Evangelical service in San Cristobal for more than two and a half hours Wednesday evening.

It was a little surreal, and I went back and forth between disengagement and vaguely following the motions (not to the point of swaying back and forth or crying, but for example clapping after a high point in a song). It was somewhere between a musical and demagoguery.   I also didn’t understand a lot of it, which made it both easier and harder to be dismissive of the messages. I didn’t try to suppress my thoughts on the centrality of Christianity in the colonization of Latin America or the social views of evangelical churches. I found myself gazing at the young kids in the crowd and wondering what impact this was having on their lives and worldviews.

Eventually it ended and we drove back to the house.  La Senora had mentioned uno amigo who is an economist.  Now he was coming over for dinner.  Turns out he had been working the sound board during the church service and we’d been sitting right behind him.  I assumed my politically conscious identity and started asking him about what sort of economics he had studied.  He rattled off the basics, including “Carlos Marx y la economia de labor.”  I then asked his thoughts on the Mexican economy and he gave an overview which focused in on migration and the instability of an economy reliant on remittances.  Then I realized he’d been trying to take a bite of his sandwich for about five minutes and I gave it a break.

Anyway the point I’m getting at is that my ideas about the culture here need some complicating.  It’s not two different worlds when I spend one night listening to a historian discuss memory and resistance, and the next night listening to an Evangelical service and following along with the words on a big screen TV.  It’s one world, with overlaps and contradictions, just like the life I experience in the United States.  In fact it’s all one world, with a socially constructed border in between.  No one is really one-dimensional on either end of a political spectrum.   There is no one form which political consciousness takes.  As Sup Marcos would say, “un mundo donde quepan todos los mundos” (one world where many worlds fit).   If I am seriously interested in learning, I need to have an open mind as to what social and political action might look like in different communities.  La inglesia y el economisto were a good lesson in that.

The first answer of why I’m here is to improve my Spanish.  I could have done that in a lot of places. I chose Mexico because of its close relation to the United States and a desire to counter the persistent misconceptions Americans hold about Mexicans and conditions within the country.  I chose San Cristobal because Chiapas has been a “point of reference” for Latin American social movements, at least since the Zapatista uprising in 1994, and continues to be marked by political and social activity.

That leads to reason number two to come to Mexico- to learn about social movements in Latin America from a more personal than academic perspective.

I didn’t come here with a methodology for reason 2.  Unless you can call “following your nose” a methodology.  I wouldn’t.

I got here Friday night.  The first two days the layout of the city, and the lack of street signs in the neighborhood I’m staying in, had me sufficiently tired and confused.  But since then I have gotten a handle on the geography and have started to explore the culture.

The “learning Spanish” part has been going well.  I am living with a family here, and the only English I have been speaking is in my head and to the two other Americans at the school.

I made my first break-through in the “social movements” part Tuesday.  My main strategies have been:

1. Following suggestions and leads of friends who have been here before.  This often involves finding a place based on its address, which (see above) does not yield immediate results.
2. Reading flyers and posters with detective-like precision.

Strategy 2 reveled a cultural space named “Kinoki” in the historic center.  Then I actually found the space on my first shot and read the events schedule.

Instead of the typical films, Tuesday there would be an event hosted by “FRAYBA”- Centro de Derechos Humanos Fray Bartolome de las Casas.

Of course, nothing is ever that simple in your first days in a new country.

I had to call my host mother to tell her I wouldn’t be home for dinner.

I found a payphone but apparently you need a card.

I bought a card.

I had to ask someone how to call a local number.  (You would think it would be self-explanatory).

I think I left message but there was so much ambient noise I had no idea what the recorded voice in the receiver was telling me.

Sufficiently stressed out by that experience I went back to Kinoki and found a seat in the make-shift rooftop theater.

A tent-like structure had been erected, which left the westward-facing view unobstructed.  The last rays of daylight were sinking behind the mountains, which rose ominously out of the murky glow of city lights.

The other attendees were all gorgeous and bohemian.  My color scheme, appropriate to New England, felt pedestrian.

I contained my excitement as the event started, pretending that blowing cigarette smoke off city rooftops was just an average Tuesday night for me (scratching my head over payphones is a much more accurate depiction).

Someone from FRAYBA opened the evening, which would focus on, “el puente entre memoria y resistencia” (the point between memory and resistance).  The lights were shut off and we watched “La Rebelion de los Colgados” (The Rebellion of the Hanged), a film about a revolt in a pueblo in Chiapas in 1910.  No subtitolos, solo Espanol.  I was able to follow along well, because most plot developments involved someone being killed or mutilated by the Spanish bosses at the labor camp.  It was hard to watch, but ends well, in a grim sort of way.

The lights went back up and a history professor, whose name I didn’t catch in my notes, gave some context to the film, which is based on a book of the same name.  He went on to stress the importance of learning the history here in Chiapas to be able to resist in the present day.  He argued that the conditions of indigenous people have not markedly improved.  The question he was pressing seemed to be how to move forward while staying conscious of this history of trauma.

Another theme was how to create a resistance that is consistent with one’s political views and philosophy.  The film ended with a bloody uprising, which was well-deserved in my opinion, but he pointed out most of us would probably want a less violent rebellion today.  (I did appreciate his point that the indigenous really weren’t the violent ones,  considering the actions of the government and its emissaries. Word to the state’s hegemony of violence!)  How do we create a rebellion aligned with our conscience in the presence of so much suffering?

Unfortunately many in the audience seemed a little timid to take up his questions (me included), and I was feeling some hambre, so I ended up leaving before things wrapped up.  Even the Q&A at picturesque political events in San Cris can become un poco aburrido!

Regardless I ended the night feeling accomplished and motivated to hit the Spanish books even harder, so I could progress to contributing to Q&A sessions and eventually conducting informal interviews.

I had a serious phase in elementary school of writing a detective series, and I ended each installment “Case Closed.”   I use the detective analogy because it amuses me, but also to check myself and think about my role as an outsider here.  More thoughts on that later.

My last night in the United States, before leaving for a month and a half to Chiapas, was spent at an event at the Rogers Park United Methodist Church, which hosted us during the Grand Aspirations gathering last week.

It was a celebration and awards ceremony for a neighborhood organization called “O.N.E.” The huge hall was filled with local organizers and youth.  I was a fly on the wall, not knowing much about the groups present, only accompanying my friends who work in the neighborhood.  It was hard not to be effected by the event though, as speakers one after another applauded the work being done in the community to prevent violence, maintain affordable housing and more, and stating what still needed to be done.  The night ended with a drumming group that filled the hall with humming vibrations and dance moves.  It was quite the send-off, before departing for San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, another hub of social action.

I had the opportunity this January to attend two of the three January Gatherings of Grand Aspirations, the organization which hosts Summer of Solutions, which I help run in the Pioneer Valley.  The first week of 2012 had me in Charleston, WV with the East Coast teams.  Mid-month was the Mid-West gathering on the North Side of Chicago.

In my time at the two GA gatherings I met leaders from SoS teams in:

Raleigh, Southern W. Virginia, Hartford Conn., Lexington Ken., N.E. Tennessee, Chicago, Middleton, Wis., Detroit , the Twin Cities, and Iowa City (and, of course chilled hard with my Pioneer Valley team).

In West Virginia I worked mostly with my co-leaders, Evan and Duncan, to plan for our program and also facilitated a few sessions. I was in Chicago in more of a support role, facilitating every day and also helping make meals and other logistical things happen.

The Chicago gathering was a reminder for me of what got me involved in Summer of Solutions in the first place.  A simple answer would be the Mid-West.  It might sound funny, but a romantic desire to live in the Mid-West was a major motivation to do the Twin Cities program in 2010.  I’ve lived my whole life on the East Coast but unlike most people there I find the Mid-West a really interesting place.  Meeting the Mid-West teams reinforced that notion, though now I feel pretty secure in New England.

What was most interesting to me is how each team has adopted and adapted the ideas of Summer of Solutions to their particular location.  With one exception, all the teams are entering their second, third or more summer.

The Twin Cities team, which I know well, has expanded greatly and still has for main project areas of green manufacturing, urban agriculture, bike access and energy efficiency.  From their home base in S. Minneapolis they are now a “Hub” of Grand Aspirations, meaning their projects run year-round.

The Chicago team, LET’S GO Chicago, is entering year two and has several new program leaders on board. Their model house, adjoining the Rogers Park United Methodist Church now has bees, a large garden, composting, energy efficiency retrofits and more.  They’re exploring options for a rain garden business and other ways to address needs in their community.

Iowa City is continuing their projects which have focused on local schools (10 of which will be getting solar panels soon), elected officials and community gardens.  It was interesting to hear their brainstorm on how to better connect with rural Iowa communities.  Almost all of them are Iowa City natives so there’s clearly a deep investment in the place.

Detroit runs the GELT program- Green Economy Leadership Training, and has the most extensive infrastructure of any of the programs.  Their property in Highland Park, Michigan now has a hoop house and can house all of their participants.  Training programs in permaculture, and solar installation prepare participants for green jobs, while their design business actually creates some of those jobs, for example in a design and construction contract at the near-by public school.

West Virginia was also in the house for this gathering, and it’s always interesting to learn more about their program, which travels throughout the summer between several small towns in Southern West Virginia.

Middleton, Wis. is just starting out but has a really strong vision for building gardens in their home town, starting out at the high school and middle school.

It was energizing to spend the week with these passionate leaders, especially because I have the chance to visit a few of the cities when I am back in the U.S. in March.

Reading yesterday some writings of the Zapatistas, I found some important advice as we continue working in the U.S.  While I enjoyed myself at the Gatherings, they also brought up many questions for me about our political stances as an organization that I want to help explore in the future.  There were lively conversations about capitalism and government and other topics that are dear to my psyche.  The Zapatistas talk about “leading by obeying” a lot and I’m thinking about how to embody that idea.  How do you actually build consensus from the bottom?  How do you foster political consciousness without leading from above?

A particular passage by El Subcommandante Marcos resonated with how I feel about my work right now,

“We are a symptom and think that our duty is to maintain ourselves as much as possible as a handle, a point of reference.  But not as a model to follow… …We like this alternative globalization movement in the sense that it doesn’t repeat the vertical model of top-down decision making, and that helps it not to have a central command or directives or something like that.  And because the movement has known how to respect the differences with it- the thoughts, the currents, the styles, the interests and the form of decision-making.”

(The Fire and the Word 305).

2012 actually feels different.  I am experiencing a significant change in my life as the new year starts.  I’ll be traveling for the next several months, mostly in Mexico, studying Spanish and community organizing.  I’ve already spent time in Charleston, WV this new year, and now am in Western Massachusetts before leaving the country (with a Chicago stop en route).

Beyond my personal transitions, this is the first time I have felt genuinely optimistic and curious about what will come to pass in the new year.  2012 feels poised and explosive. The worldwide revolutions that marked 2011 promise even greater changes this year, and my generation will be pivotal in shaping that future.  When we ring in 2013, the social order may be starkly changed.  That’s exciting.

Those global linkages are a major theme of the independent study I am undertaking in the coming months.  I will be on field study from Hampshire College and directing my own learning in both practical and theoretical skills.  A major part of my work will be written reflection for which this blog will be a frequent platform.

San Cristobal de las Casas-- I'll be here in under two weeks

My first four weeks in Mexico I am taking Spanish classes.  The rest of my time I’ll be studying Mexican social movements and exploring the area.  I fly back to Chicago March 7th and spend the rest of the month traveling in the U.S. I am planning stops in Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Detroit, and Cleveland.  I’ll be documenting grassroots community organizing in all these cities, through Summer of Solutions and other groups. I’ll head south for Mountain Justice Spring Break at the end of the month. April will have me back in Western Mass. I’ll be moving to Turners or Greenfield and putting down roots for year 2 of Summer of Solutions Pioneer Valley and beyond.

The general arc of this four month span occurred to me as I wrote my field study proposal.  I have the opportunity in these months to travel to a new country and learn about some of the most radical movements for self-determination in the Global South.  From there I will document efforts closer to home in a number of Rust Belt cities of the U.S.  I am most excited to return to Franklin County and bring connections to that community, of which I increasingly feel a part. The major query which is emerging is how to bridge my daily life and work in my community to global struggles for social transformation. I know setting out that this is one of those life-long questions, and I won’t unlock “the answer” to resolve all the contradictions of life in the Global North in just a few months.  This is a start.

San Cristobal de las Casas. I'll be here in just under 2 weeks.

(However since then it’s made the rounds to Common Dreams, It’s Getting Hot in Here, and WeArePowershift.org. Perhaps my most cross-posted blog yet. I’m gratified to see this under-reported aspect of the tar sands issue getting some attention.)

American environmentalists are declaring victory over the announcement that the United States will research alternate routes for the Keystone XL pipeline. While Obama’s announcement was an encouraging gesture, U.S.-based activists are in danger of missing the forest for the trees. We must look north, the source of tar sands oil, where First Nations people in Canada are directly confronting the accelerating fossil fuel expansion on their land, as we plan the next steps in our movement.

The Keystone XL pipeline is just one in a massive network of pipelines branching out from the oil fields of Alberta, illustrated by this map. The trade magazine Pipelines International reports on this extensive infrastructure of, as they call them, “energy lifelines.” While the tar sands (or oil sands) have received international attention since the protests against Keystone XL lit off this summer, pipeline expansion is occurring on many fronts in Canada: tar sands oil, conventional oil and natural gas which is being pumped out of Canadian soil. American activists have shown their mettle in facing down the importation of tar sands oil into the U.S., but where do they stand on the dozens of other pipelines that make up this spiderweb?

Traditional environmental leaders, Indigenous environmentalists and youth came together in unprecedented ways during the Keystone fight; now we must move forward with our eyes on the frontline. The untold story of fossil fuel expansion in Canada is its toll on Indigenous communities, or First Nations. First Nations in Canada in active resistance show paths forward, as fossil fuel companies only intensify their development efforts.
On the same weekend that 12,000 protesters encircled the White House, the 2nd Indigenous Assembly on Pipelines and Mining took place in Vancouver, Coast Salish Territories The Indigenous Assembly over the weekend of November 5th, issued this call to action:

Indigenous communities from across the province are gathering in Vancouver Unceded Coast Salish Territories to oppose this conference and those corporations who profit off the destruction of the land. No mining, no pipelines, no resource extraction on unceded native lands! Defend the people, protect the land!

The Assembly hosted No Mining on Native Land!, a march through downtown Vancouver on November 6th. The pipelines, notably the Enbridge oil pipeline and the Kimimat Summit Lake gas pipeline (or Pacific Trails), endanger the lands of Indigenous people who are dependent on trapping and hunting for survival.

The Pacific Trails pipeline would lead to a new liquefied natural gas (LNG) port at Bish Cove, an ecologically pristine beach, on the Western cost. The Enbridge and Pacific Trails pipelines would run alongside each other near the Morice River. The proximity of gas and oil pipelines to each other is particularly dangerous, though the companies have made no statement on this risk. Many tribal councils and governments have approved one or both pipelines, in large part due to promises of jobs, but among Indigenous residents on the land, resistance is fierce.

The same week, Likhts’amisyu and Unist’ot’en clans of the Wet’swet’en nation confronted officials from Pacific Trails pipeline (PTP), who were attempting to illegally enter their territory to move drilling equipment. This nation is one of many in Canada on land unceded to the Canadian government. The nation owns the land and PTP was not authorized to enter. Tribe members blockaded the access road, and formed an encampment until the company removed all equipment and vehicles several days later.

The Unist’hot’en clan has also built a cabin on Wet’suwet’en territory in the path of the Enbridge pipeline, PTP and one other pipeline, to prevent construction. They intend to defend the cabin and halt illegal construction on their land. Mel Bazil of the Lhe Lin Liyin (The Guardians), which support the Unist’hot’en Wet’suwet’en writes,

A delay could benefit their [Transcanada and other companies’] plans to assist in what we consider the systemic scope of the Tar Sands expansion activity. Tar sands may require offsets to operate, and proposed pipelines that acquire tenure through band chiefs and councils, and through treaty agencies … could make deals without the input or involvement of grassroots and indigenous peoples, who experience the environmental damage and pollution.

American activists must link to the struggle of First Nations people resisting Enbridge, PTP and other pipelines. The Keystone XL pipeline, once considered a no-brainer for approval by industry and legislators, now stands in limbo. That is a success for American activists. However, fossil fuels are an international industry, and NAFTA and other treaties have deeply linked the American and Canadian economies. The frontlines of fossil fuel in the U.S. are inherently connected to the struggle unfolding in Canada as part of a global supply chain.

As collaboration between major environmental NGOs and Indigenous environmental leaders deepens and expands, we must not allow Washington insiders to define the terms of victory. There is no victory until Indigenous communities, and all frontline communities, are safe from the indignities of fossil fuels.

Read Martha’s previous coverage of Tar Sands oil extraction, activism to stop the Keystone pipeline, and Indigenous organizing in the US and Canada in Resisting the Tar Sands: Bridging Communities & Struggles, published in October, 2011.

I was in North Carolina for the Grand Aspirations National Gathering as the storm worked its way up the East Coast.  The GA crew was fine, albeit delayed in our travel plans.  But when I got back to Franklin County, the home of program, I could see Irene had done serious damage.  Turners Falls and Greenfield, the hubs of activity for Summer of Solutions, were spared the worst of it, but near-by neighbors in Shelburne Falls, Conway and many other small towns lost roads, homes, electricity, farm crops, animals and more.  Seeing news footage of the main bridge being wiped out in Shelburne Falls was devastating.  We had helped partner Co-op Power to weatherize several homes in this beautiful and tight-knit community.

A big lesson of 2011 for me has been that unprecedented weather in our rural river valley and the surrounding mountain towns is incredibly devastating.  This lesson came in waves: first the tornado which struck Springfield and other towns south of us in June, causing massive damage, then the hurricane in August, and most recently with the surprise Halloween snowstorm, which dumped a foot of snow overnight and knocked out power for almost a week in many parts of the region.  Narrow mountain roads aren’t built to withhold major flooding; aging bridges across the Connecticut and Deerfield Rivers can’t handle 100 Year Floods every year.   In an area which depends on agriculture, many small farmers had their worst season in years and lost thousands of dollars in crops.

While it has been a sobering year to the realities of climate change, I feel hopeful for what we are building in the Pioneer Valley.  I also feel a new commitment to learning how to sustain ourselves and our communities in a changing climate. We will be at it again in 2012.

Pioneer Valley Summer of Solutions is based in Greenfield and Turners Falls, MA, two towns in western Massachusetts along the Connecticut River.  These towns were rooted in manufacturing industries and are traditional crossing points for the surrounding communities, as far back as when the Pocumtuc tribe lived on the land.

SoS in 2012 will continue our farming and community education projects from 2011 and expand in new directions.  In 2011 we helped start the Summer Workshop Series, hosted at the Brick House Community Resource Center in Turners, which was made up of dozens of free classes on topics from wood-working to self-defense to herbal medicine.  We will continue this partnership with the Brick House, including the Snack Garden, which we planted and tended with Spanish-speaking neighbors kids in the Kids Gardening Class.