Freedom Land

Quilombos are Brazil’s version of Maroon communities, consisting predominantly of the descendants of escaped African slaves, who define themselves in terms of their relationship to the land, family ties, territory, ancestry, traditions, and cultural practices.  Over 3.5 million Africans were imported to be slaves in Brazil beginning in the mid-1500s. Today, the largest number of African descended people outside of Africa live in Brazil.  As of 2007, the Brazilian federal government mapped over 3,500 Quilombo communities still in existence nationwide.

Kalungas are small Quilombos located in northeastern Goiás. Kalungas existed in complete isolation until about 1970. The expansive Kalunga territories, now protected by the state decree “Kalunga Historical Site,” cover 250,000 hectacres (almost 1,000 square miles), which is approximately 90 percent of their original land mass in the Chapada dos Veadeiros.  Kalunga settlements are nestled mostly in the valley regions near Cavalcante, about an hour north of Alto Paraíso de Goiás by car.  The founders of these communities escaped the harsh conditions of bondage in the gold mines of Arraias, Monte Alegre, and Cavalcante.  It is also said that some of the founders were part of a royal African entourage who saved themselves upon disembarking from the Middle Passage ships and were never actually enslaved.  Kalunga communities situated along the Paranã river include: Contenda, Vão das Almas, Vão do Moleque, Vão do Kalunga and Ribeirão dos Bois (also known as Ribeirão dos Negros).  Today, their resident populations total approximately 5,000 citizens.

Considered one of the last isolated communities of the modern world, the ethnic and cultural wealth of the Kalungas were preserved intact thanks to their extreme geographic isolation, protected by mountain cliffs, canyons, rivers, and waterfalls.  But despite their inaccessibility, since the last 30 years of contact the Kalunga communities (spread throughout the rural municipalities of Teresina de Goiás, Cavalcante, and Monte Alegre) have suffered major challenges preserving their cultural integrity, harmony with the environment, and communal way of life.

Cavalcante, a gold-rush town founded in 1736, is one of the oldest settlements in Goiás, with a current population of about 10,000.  Its municipality includes the largest number of Kalungas.  In the year 2000, Cavalcante ranked near the bottom (241 out of 242 municipalities) in the state on the Human Development Index, the standard measure of life expectancy, literacy, education, standard of living, GDP per capita, well-being and child welfare.  In 2003, Brazil’s Special Secretariat for Policy and Promotion of Racial Equality (SEPPIR) began a development program targeting Kalungas for inclusion and quality of life improvements.

The Palmares Cultural Foundation (an entity created by the 1988 Brazilian Constitution under the Brazilian Ministry of Culture) defines “quilombo” as a “space of freedom, of refuge.”  It then clarifies, “Currently, the historiography redefines the concept, not to cling to only the flights and escapes but the autonomous forms of living, with the pattern and model of common use.”

Kalungas have existed nearly 300 years in Goiás. Considering their incredible longevity, Kalungas have much to teach CEC about the cooperation, community, and solidarity required for renegade intentional communities to survive.

As in: This is “it.”

What I know about Alto Paraíso de Goiás after a week:

About 8,000 inhabitants municipality wide.  Settled by slave-holding colonizers in the 1750s, officially declared a city in 1953.  Just over 2 hours (220 kilometers) outside of the capital Brasilia.  Situated in the Chapada dos Veadeiros (Dear Hound’s Plateau), which sits on one of the most luminous regions on the planet, seen from space, thanks to the extensive conglomerates of quartz crystals, created from the fusion of two tectonic plates over a billion years ago.  About 3,900 feet above sea level.  Highest plateau region in Brazil.  An ecological sanctuary that borders  an extensive national park of approximately 160,000 acres. The headwaters of the Amazon and São Francisco rivers.  Rivers and springs fed by subterranean aqueducts.  On the 14th parallel – the same latitude as the Machu Picchu ruins in Peru.

Crystals from this region were exploited intensively by German and American interests in the 1920s and 30s for use by the military machine in wartime communication. Mystics began settling in the area in the 1950s and 60s.  In the 1970s a well-known spiritualist, Saint Germain, located here, drawing caravans of hundreds of followers seeking consultations.  This exposure, along with the abundance of crystals intensified the creation of intentional and spiritual communities in the area, drawing an estimated 40 different esoteric groups to the town/region over the years.  Just out of town is a UFO airport nearby constructed by wealthy former resident. Had its share of mystics, hippies and charlatans over the years.  “Alternative” communities that grew over the 80s and 90s began decline though, when the world didn’t end as expected in 1998 or the year 2000.

Too many mangos falling from the trees to eat, so the birds and the bugs get more than their share… pity.  Several restaurants (in a town of 8,000 mind you) offering organic vegetarian fare.  Farmer’s market Tuesdays and Saturdays held beside town hall offers organic milk, cheese, eggs, and local produce as well as natural medicines, jellies, jams, and baked goods.

Wild parrots hang out and swoop around above you on your way back in the rain after you go swimming in the waterfall drop pools outside of town.  Monkeys take the bananas you leave on the stone wall in the garden. Toucans live in the tree next door. Dogs here are friendly, even the guard dogs lick you.

Somebody blasts Sertanejo (Brazilian country) music until what seems like 3 am on Saturdays for what’s probably a good dance party.  A faint reggae beat steadies most of the days.

Eco-tourism’s the biggest industry here now.  Movement is slow but steady.  Benefits mostly a handful of transplants who bought up land for adventure tours and built pousadas (small hotels/guest houses).   They hope to see this industry take off in the near future so they can make good on their investments. Not much seems to change for the locals.  Local kids leave town seeking better prospects in the cities. Three local families controlled the local politics back in the day, but their hold eroded in past decades. Outlying region is farmland and “cow country” where cattle are raised for slaughter. “Kalungas” are local descendants of wheat plantation slaves, maroons, crystal prospectors, and cowboys. Though some live in and around town, a main settlement is the nearby town of Moinho, about 13 kilometers away.

The dry season lasts about six months (eight months in bad years), the height of which is May – September, considered the best time to trek.  “High Season” though, follows the typical nationwide pattern that corresponds to the vacation periods of mid-December thru February (summer) and June thru July (winter).

On an electrical grid that covers 200 square kilometers, subject to frequent surges and outages especially now during the rainy season (a domino effect of any incident on the grid), further complicated by the intense conductivity of the immediate area due to its juxtaposition over crystal (surge protectors a must here – independent energy supply even better).

This small town of 8,000 sustains health food stores and an Indian import-export shoppe, and it’s not primarily tourist trade.  Cooky mix of eclectic class and culture cross-sections somehow cohabitate harmoniously, even affectionately.  Nobody bats an eye or cocks a head at the nothing-new-comers, foreigners, lone women, goofy hippies in Indian clothes, or me.  I am treated with kindness and respect just like everyone.

This is “it.”

Find on map

(a little background reading)

The following are some great excerpts that help provide the context for our interest in this region. The author, Thomas Isaac, has had a long career as an organizer and internationally known expert on cooperatives, paticipatory government, and decentralization. He is currently the Kerala State Minisiter of Finance.

From Chapter One, Democracy at Work in an Indian Industrial Cooperative, by T.M. Thomas Isaac, et al., Cornell University Press, 1998.

“With 306,242 cooperatives and 146 million members in 1991, India has one of the largest cooperativenetworks in the world. Industrial cooperatives amount to nearly 15 percent of the workforce in India’s manufacturing sector… “Kerala’s exemplary workers’ cooperatives offer inspiration to the international movement for workers’ cooperatives through their combination of formal, structural features and their high level of worker consciousness and activism, both of which have contributed to remarkable success in overcoming the problems commonly faced by cooperatives worldwide… “Since the 1950s, both development theorists and policy makers have assigned cooperative institutions a vital role in supplying credit and essential goods and services to the many farmers and petty producers who lack sufficient market entitlements, and in revitalizing traditional cottage industries. As a result, governments became active promoters of cooperatives in the third world. Even the colonial governments that were normally indifferent toward the cooperative movement in their home countries often actively encouraged cooperative movements in selected sectors of their colonies.” With the attainment of independence, state intervention to accelerate economic development became the hallmark of third world government policies. In Asia and Africa especially, cooperatives rapidly expanded as development devices. Cooperatives provided important policy avenues for third world states to intervene in the product and credit markets, influence income distribution, and protect and encourage local production and employment… Cooperatives were seen to be the ideal framework for India’s initial development after independence…”Despite one of the world’s lowest per capita incomes, Kerala has achieved levels of literacy, life expectancy, infant mortality, and birth rates nearly as high as those in developed countries. So unusual are the state’s material quality-of-life indicators that in recent years academics have come to speak of the “Kerala Model” of development…”Indeed, much of the fascination with the Kerala Model results precisely from the combination of economic underdevelopment with advanced quality-of-life indicators. The state has one of the lowest rates of industrial growth in all of India, and it remains economically and technologically more backward than the developed nations and many parts of India itself… Kerala in 1993 had a literacy rate of nearly 100 percent versus the all-India average of 52 percent (World Bank 1995: 162-63). Kerala’s infant mortality in 1993 dropped to just thirteen per one thousand live births while India’s overall rate was eighty. The birth rate in Kerala was seventeen per thousand females of child-bearing age compared with twenty-nine for all-India. Kerala’s child tuberculosis, polio, and DPT (diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus) vaccination rates in 1992 were 100 percent. For measles the rate was 92 percent. (These figures are all above the Indian average).”Beyond these indicators that have attracted so much academic interest, Kerala is characterized by extensive roads, hospitals, educational institutions, and public food distribution shops, which tend to redistribute services to the poorest groups, who are ordinarily cut off from the benefits of the market, owing to their lack of purchasing power. In the absence of industrialization, these institutional supports appear to be wise policies for the general population…”To see the Kerala Model as an outgrowth only of “wise policies,” however, is to miss its most significant feature: the organization, mobilization, and active participation of millions of the state’s ordinary people in struggles to bring about those policies… Powerful social movements acted as pressure groups on the successive governments right or left, to maintain and expand the social infrastructure and social security schemes. These movements were instrumental in redistributing rural wealth through the 1971 land reform abolishing tenancy, the most successful land reform in India. The trade unions were successful in improving the wages of workers in the small-scale and cottage industrial sectors that, in the rest of India, are largely unorganized.”Above all, these social movements gave ordinary people a sense of dignity, self-respect, and consciousness unparalleled in most parts of India. Part of the apparent success of the Kerala Model results from comparison with the dismal failure of so many third world countries to raise the standard of living for the majority of their populations despite impressive statistical growth of their economies.”

Seema has just taken off (with Osho’s The Book of Woman in hand) to join her family in the central Kerala city of Ernakulam, and left me here in Thiruvananthapuram at CDS for 5 days of researching and interviews. I’m being encouraged to visit in another part of India (Anand, Gujarat)

Week 1: Seema and Egypt Interview Each Other on the Road in Kerala

Seema and I met up at the Kerala airport one week ago today, after a plane-ride worth of schmoozing on my smooth, conversation-filled day and a half’s journey (New York, London, New Delhi, Mumbai, Kochi).

Seema: So, what have we learned about Kerala cooperatives after our first week here together?

Egypt: Well, the biggie is that most all of them are controlled by the government. That was news to me. I suppose once you get a successful model of anything up and running it runs the risk of being co-opted by those in power, which always saddens me. On the other hand, at least the government recognizes their value, and “buys-in” rather than destroying them. Another thing I didn’t realize is that India started the concept of cooperatives back in the 17th and 18th centuries. I’d also forgotten how crucial cooperatives were to Gandhi’s liberation plan for India. It’s really inspiring to be in the place where it all began, and to see the word “cooperative” everywhere with as much frequency as we see the word “corporation” in the States.

S: Has anything piqued your interest for CEC?

E: Well, I’m excited to talk to Thomas Issac, the Kerala Minister of Finance, and the other contacts from the milk cooperatives that Mr. Soman Nair mentioned in our conversation with him today. Mr. Nair gave us such phenomenal background on cooperatives and their relationship here in Kerala and historically in India. I’m also really glad that Dr. Rajan at CDS (the Center for Development Studies) gave us such great support in terms of local co-op leads, and authorizing my use of the CDS library during our stay. I can’t wait to go in there and delve into what the library’s got on the subject of worker-controlled entities and worker self-management. I’m also really looking forward to hanging out with the CDS canteen ladies and learning about how their cooperative works tomorrow afternoon.

S: So, if Bush and his people stay in power do you think I can move back here?

E: Bush and his people will not stay in power. I hereby create that reality.

E: Okay Seems, what stands out to you about our first week?

S: Ahhh, my therapy sessions with you, that were free. Can’t get better than that!

E: LOL. What else?

S: Let me get serious. It’s great to have someone with me who has been in other tropical environments that have similar issues, to break down and analyze the dense situations. I mean, we talk about all aspects, don’t we? All dimensions.

E: Okay, people are gonna think I’m making this up…

S: LOL. True. I feel like it’s been a transition week, adjusting and getting ready to embark on the work we’re doing now. Yeah, sure, sometimes we have a mismatch in energy. And I think it’s just adjusting to each other’s styles. I think this is the most time I’ve ever spent with you. I think the longest we’ve spent together straight is like 3 or 4 days. But that was still different. Now we’re spending a lot of time together in uncomfortable conditions.

E: You mean, avoiding the ills of the mosquito population, flowing with constant power outages, sloshing our way down muddy monsoon streets, co-habitating with an un-pertubable rat, avoiding beach hustlers and ayurvedic massage drama, jostling in harrowing auto-rickshaw rides through rush hour traffic, and slam dunking our first interview?

S: It hasn’t been boring, let’s say that. It’s been intense. Our week has been filled with characters, kinda like a mini-soap opera with some really weird curve-balls. You have to admit it’s been a new experience being treated like a superstar. It’s like you’re a celebrity, it’s gotten so bad you have to wear your sunglasses around, even in the rain.

E: Yeah, but that’s just because I’m so light skinned, right?

S: And’ve got T and A…

E: Alright, alright…

S: You know I like Dave Chappelle, so…

E: And the rough stuff?

S: I guess it’s interesting to see how we have issues so similar but diametrically opposite – like people constantly grilling us on how come you’re so light and how come I’m so dark. Just stupid stuff…

S: So how have you been handling the overwhelming sensory experience? From the noises of the constant horns honking to the colors to the smells to the downpours of rain?

E: Well, surprisingly I’m not feeling maxed-out or overwhelmed. I mean, I’m tired at the end of the day, but I just feel that we’re getting along with each other so well that it’s making the entire experience fun. I mean, we’re talking through the little and big glitches that come up and just being really responsible and considerate of one another. So, it’s great.

E: So Seems, what do you need for the next week to feel like a success?

S: Making the needed contacts to get whatever information, whatever articles, forming relationships so you could call or email the people we meet to continue asking questions. Because there are some things you won’t know to ask for a while. Right now it’s getting the context, the big picture. Also, for the next week to be a success you need to give me that Osho book about women, so I can read it before you take off with it.

E: I’ll think on it.

S: Thanks Chechie. (That means older sister, or wise one in Malayalam – Seema pretty much has to call me that when she refers to me wherever we go). [sarcasm noted]

Preface: Another thing Seema and I realized this week is that even as people of color, we’ve been so institutionalized by “formal” education that we automatically start our endeavors with the analytical instead of the intuitive. This week we remembered that this is our work, and that we don’t report to anyone but ourselves. Our goal this trip is to develop rapport and heart-level connections with like-minded people who are committed to cooperative ventures, and to learn from their achievements and challenges for the benefit of our CEC endeavor. Below is an interview questionnaire I made up last week, but with Seema’s consensus I’ve decided to return to the ethnographic fieldwork style of my anthropological roots. The questions below indicate themes which are important to us, but instead of using the survey in our meetings we will simply keep these topics in mind as we improvise our way through free-flow conversations. Will be typing up field notes immediately after interactions but will document with film and audio recording devices only when we are certain that they will not be intrusive or interfere with the quality of our interactions.

INDIA 2007 CO-OP QUESTIONNAIRE

INTRO: We are starting a workers cooperative in Brazil and are looking for best-practice models. We have were told about your cooperative because it is considered important and successful. We are still making basic decisions about our cooperative, and would like to ask you some questions so we can learn from your experiences.

PEOPLE:
1. Who started the cooperative?
2. How did the co-op find its other members?
3. Can new people still join the co-op?
4. What are the requirements for membership?
5. How long can members stay in the co-op?
6. How did you all come to agree on a place or product to make?
7. Do former members have a role in your organization?
a) If so, when and how do they participate?

ORGANIZATION AND GOVERNANCE
1. How are decisions made in the cooperative about:
a) New members?
b) How money is spent?
c) Leadership selection?
d) Disciplining member misbehavior?
e) Operations (products, place, etc.)?
2. Are decisions made by majority of votes counted or by consensus?
3. Does any one person have the ability to overturn or veto group decisions? Is there a formal leader?
4. Is there a training or mentorship program for new members?
a) If so, who participates?
5. How are members supervised? Do they supervise one another?
6. Do members help each other’s work?
a) Do workers team or form smaller groups and partnerships for certain projects?
b) What work is done individually and what work is done alone?
c) If a member is having problems doing their share, how do they get/seek help?
7. Is there a management hierarchy or system of seniority?
a) If so, how do members move up/ advance through this hierarchy?
8. How is member satisfaction monitored?
a) Is there a procedure for members to discuss grievances or process complaints?
b) If so, how are solutions to these grievances arrived upon?
9. How are conflicts between members resolved?
10. How are innovations and new ideas generated?
11. How often do you all have parties or do fun things together?
12. Are you happier or more satisfied doing this than you would be working for a company?

CLOSING:
1. Why do you all think your cooperative is successful?
2. What are three things you all like most about your cooperative?
3. What keeps you motivated to stay here? What motivated you to come to this cooperative as opposed to another?
4. What are three things you all would like to improve or change about your cooperative?
5. Do you have any advice for us about how to keep the members in our cooperative confident and happy?

CEC founder, Egypt Brown worked to help organize the Healing and Spiritual Practice Space at the recent U.S. Social Forum in Atlanta (https://www.ussf2007.org/), taking responsibility for the conceptualization, design, and construction of the five indoor and outdoor altars. She also served as a primary shrinekeeper during the Forum’s five-day proceedings.

Altars are found in almost all faith traditions, and provide a means of achieving concentration and energetic connection to the non-manifest world. Altars mounted by the Healing and Spiritual Practice Space (sponsored by the Health, Healing and Environmental Justice Group) at the U.S. Social Forum offered attendees a variety of opportunities to focus their energy during the Forum proceedings. The altars established and held sacred space at the Forum, with a primarily functional rather than devotional intent, and served as a place of contact and encounter for both personal and ceremonial observance. The intention was to provide opportunities for participants to ground themselves and recall the larger purpose of their work amidst the frenetic energy of the Forum’s events.

Memorial Altar
Location: Renaissance Park, Circle Formation encompassing Stone Wall
Purpose: To pay homage to beloved deceased who inform and inspire our work.
Form: Half circular stone formation, containing black bamboo Spirit Sticks adorned with cloth bearing the names of those to be remembered with honor

Ancestor Altar
Location: Renaissance Park, Circle Formation encompassing Stone Wall
Purpose: To commemorate attendee relations with ancestral past, and their place within a grander cosmic order.
Form: Half circular stone formation, encompassing two trees linked by an arc of raffia

Abundance Altar
Location: Task Force for the Homeless Artistic Exhibition Space, 477 Peachtree Street
Purpose: To celebrate and express gratitude for the abundance among us, to encourage continued and expanded abundance for the good of ourselves and all those touched by us.
Form: Small stepped altar structure surrounded by symbols of water, crowned overhead by a money mobile

Healing Altar
Location: 139 Ralph McGill Blvd NE, near southwest kitty corner of Civic Center, at Piedmont Ave NE and Ralph McGill Blvd
Purpose: To celebrate and express gratitude for our experiences of healing, to encourage continued and expanded healing for the good of ourselves and all those touched by us.
Form: Elevated wooden structure on adorned table

Release Altar
Location: 139 Ralph McGill Blvd NE, near southwest kitty corner of Civic Center, at Piedmont Ave NE and Ralph McGill Blvd
Purpose: To encourage those entering Space to pause, center themselves, and release the internal barriers to establishing contact with their higher selves. Also, to encourage participants before exiting the Space to further release based on the insight gained that session.
Form: The consecrated space of the release altars will be the actual building entrance, corridor, and doorway threshold of the Space. In this case, the ritualized experience of entry and exit transition will hold the symbolic significance of an altar.

The U.S. Social Forum hosted an estimated total of 15,000 participants in its five days, hundreds of which utilized the altar spaces. The process of organizing and creating the altars as part of the Forum’s Healing and Spiritual Practice Space was an incredible learning experience and great success in that it forged the beginnings of meaningful relationships between the Creative Empowerment Cooperative and like-minded organizations such as: Stone Circles, Deeper Waters, Buddhist Peace Fellowship, Center for Law and Social Justice, Spirit in Motion, Into Afrika, and others.

View pictures of the altars and those involved.

CEC fieldwork began in August 2006 in Bahia, Brazil. Egypt travelled all over the state of Bahia evaluating site possibilities. Besides her first choice of the beloved Ilha de Maré, off the coast of Salvador, she travelled inland to the Chapada Diamantina towns of Mucujê, Valle do Capão, and Andaraí. She also travelled southward down the Bahian coast to check out Itacaré and Ilhéus.

From December 2006 to early March 2007 Egypt travelled in the Pacific, visiting the islands of Tahiti, New Zealand, and Fiji.

In March 2007, Egypt and Eduardo travelled together in Venezuela to check out possibilities on Margarita Island, and in the coastal towns of Choroni and Ocumare.

Upcoming 2007 fieldwork includes travel with Seema in Kerala, India, viability survey travel with San Diego’s renowned World Beat Center founder Makeda Dread in Jamaica – especially Portland Parish, and site evaluation in the Alta Paraiso region of Brazil’s Goias state.