Speaker 1: Also media.
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to akab and Here. I am Andrew Sage.
Speaker 2: I run andrewsam Ova on YouTube. I'm joined by the one.
Speaker 1: And only Garrison Davis. Hello.
Speaker 3: Hello, Hello. You don't sound securely festive.
Speaker 4: You know, it's a it's been a long week. This
Speaker 4: is the last workday of election week when we're recording this.
Speaker 4: I just returned from my cabin in the woods, which
Speaker 4: I which I got to kind of watch the election unfold.
Speaker 4: So now I am back in the real world, not
Speaker 4: just hiding up in the mountains of Georgia. So it
Speaker 4: feels slightly worse, but we we carry on.
Speaker 2: M As you mentioned, a cabin in the woods, it
Speaker 2: actually reminds me of this movie that came out to
Speaker 2: Netflix a little while ago.
Speaker 3: If you've seen it, Leave the World Behind.
Speaker 1: Yes, I have seen that.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's it's pretty aftitu in a cabin and all
Speaker 2: this is going on.
Speaker 4: Yes, Yes, we actually talked about that movie earlier on
Speaker 4: this on this show and some conspiracy theories around it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Oh, the Obama connection.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right. You understand you're already receiving the messages.
Speaker 1: You already know.
Speaker 2: Exactly, but we're not focused on the US for this episode,
Speaker 2: thank goodness. Instead, we're going to be going back into
Speaker 2: the past and the present as well, because the struggle
Speaker 2: really doesn't end, and taking a look at the struggle
Speaker 2: of the Mapuche in Chile and Argentina. I'd actually mentioned
Speaker 2: them in my exploration of Latin American anarchisms that you
Speaker 2: know they would need their own episode. So here we
Speaker 2: are taking a look at everything that they've been up to.
Speaker 2: And it's really thanks to the work of fellow anarchists
Speaker 2: m good Hawk and John sev Reno and their research
Speaker 2: I've been able to put together this illucidation of indigenous
Speaker 2: anarchist history. So the lands that now bear the titles
Speaker 2: of Chile and Argentina have long held the Mapuche people,
Speaker 2: long before borders were drawn, long before the world learned
Speaker 2: to cage the wild. The land itself is considered while mapoo,
Speaker 2: and it's deeply entwined with the identity of the Mapuche people.
Speaker 2: While mapoo is of course not just a geographical term,
Speaker 2: is also a spiritual one. It's a tapestry of their
Speaker 2: histories and their dreams and also their view of the
Speaker 2: will through a lens of reciprocity because the Mapuche do
Speaker 2: acknowledge their kinship with the land, the rivers, the mountains,
Speaker 2: and that worldview that they hold and have traditionally held.
Speaker 2: Rather champions balance and harmony and respect for all forms
Speaker 2: of life, which is what has been fuel in their
Speaker 2: ongoing fight against occupation. So in a sense, the Mapuche
Speaker 2: struggle echoes an anarchist e those of autonomy and mutual aid.
Speaker 2: But I wouldn't cau as far as to call them anarchists,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean they have a very specific cultural
Speaker 2: and historical and spiritual context. It is distinct from anarchists thought.
Speaker 2: Despite these similarities and overlaps in there so s they
Speaker 2: will be exploring the history, people, and struggles of all
Speaker 2: Mapou that have shaped the Mapuche experience.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: Ancient archaeological finds from tools to pottery have suggested that
Speaker 2: the Mapuche may have settled in present day southern Chile
Speaker 2: and Argentina as far back twenty five hundred to three
Speaker 2: thousand years ago. Genetic and linguistic research connects the Mapuche
Speaker 2: lineage to other indigenous groups across the Andes, meaning that
Speaker 2: their ancestors may have migrated down the western spin of
Speaker 2: South America in waves, adapting to the rainforests, coastlines and
Speaker 2: valleys of.
Speaker 3: What's now one Mapu.
Speaker 2: Historically and currently, the mapuch have spoken Mapudungun, and the
Speaker 2: language itself carries aspects of their cultural identity.
Speaker 3: Other is to be expected.
Speaker 2: Mapudung Gun is a polysynthetic language, meaning its words can
Speaker 2: be formed by combining smaller parts to reflect complex ideas.
Speaker 2: Mapuche itself combines Mapu meaning land and Cha meaning people.
Speaker 2: Shapouche lived on the border of the Incan Empire, meaning
Speaker 2: that they were in contact with centralized state organizations and
Speaker 2: hierarchical societies. I would have chosen to differentiate themselves and
Speaker 2: the societies from these datus peoples, So how do they
Speaker 2: do so exactly? The Puchi way of life would have
Speaker 2: revolved around, as I said, a deep respective for kinship,
Speaker 2: communal responsibility, and spiritual stewardship of the land. The society
Speaker 2: itself was based around the loaf or family based communal unit,
Speaker 2: each love holding shared responsibility over a specific territory, ensuring
Speaker 2: the one's personal wealth doesn't override the interest and well
Speaker 2: being of the environment in the community. The love wasn't
Speaker 2: just limited to the people of that family based community unit.
Speaker 3: It also incorporated the ecosystem. That unit.
Speaker 2: Incombust and occupied nature was in a sense part of
Speaker 2: the family. Rivers, mountains, forests, and other animals were treated
Speaker 2: as living relatives with the spirit and agency that disiled respect.
Speaker 2: In the Mapuche will view all beings and elements possess nuen,
Speaker 2: the life force, and so they have to be respected.
Speaker 2: And that police system also leads the mapootated practice the
Speaker 2: sustainable use of resources and intergenerational land care. And it
Speaker 2: also compels there as I said, resistance to colonial resource extraction, deforestation,
Speaker 2: and industrial expansion. In Mapuche's spirituality, guenu Mapu, or the
Speaker 2: land of the ancestors, refers to the spiritual realm connected
Speaker 2: to the physical world. They've traditionally believed that the spirits
Speaker 2: of past generations inhabit this realm, offering guidance and protection.
Speaker 2: The machies or spiritual leaders so as the bridges.
Speaker 3: Between these worlds. So they're supposed to.
Speaker 2: Do things that conduct ceremonies, heal the sick, and connect
Speaker 2: with the ancestral spirits. They've sailed as the custodians in
Speaker 2: a sense of spiritual knowledge and medicine, and that makes
Speaker 2: them an essential component in each love. The socio political
Speaker 2: structure of the Mapuche has been a confederation of love
Speaker 2: groups known as the Alaraway system, where the different loves
Speaker 2: would come together to make communal decisions and joint actions,
Speaker 2: particularly in times of conflict or threat. Each love will
Speaker 2: be represented in these confederations by alonco who would be
Speaker 2: bringing their communities voice and perspective to regional councils without
Speaker 2: necessarily exercise and centralized authority. The decisions and these councils
Speaker 2: are based on consensus traditionally and cooperation, compromise, honoring the
Speaker 2: collective will as much as possible rather than imposing will
Speaker 2: from above, and contrary to popular belief, this lack of
Speaker 2: centralization has actually made them more resilient, not more fragile.
Speaker 2: Rather than beckering and fighting at split in and splintering constantly,
Speaker 2: the mpouch have historically united and together resisted multiple attempts
Speaker 2: at subjugation, so they centralized alliances have empowered them to
Speaker 2: respond flexibly and quickly to the ever changing landscape of
Speaker 2: the threats that they're facing, and this resistance can use
Speaker 2: to this day, but let me not skip ahead. Spanish
Speaker 2: first made their way to Mapouche territory in the mid
Speaker 2: fifteen hundreds, initially confident that they could conquer the area
Speaker 2: with the same ease they had subdued the InCor Empire
Speaker 2: to the north. But the Mapuche were not easily intimidated.
Speaker 2: Early encounters quickly tour into conflict, and the Spanish found
Speaker 2: themselves up against a serious resistance movement. From the start,
Speaker 2: the Spanish had underestimated the Impuche's ability to adapt when
Speaker 2: the conquistadors introduced horses and new weaponry. The Apuche observed
Speaker 2: and leaned quickly, incorporating captured horses and arms into their
Speaker 2: own defense strategies. Rather than a simple series of skirmishes,
Speaker 2: this struggle would become a prolonged confrontation, one of the
Speaker 2: longest and most determined resistances to colonization throughout the Americas.
Speaker 3: This was Lagira Tiraco or the Araco.
Speaker 2: War, known for over one hundred years of protracted, brutal
Speaker 2: conflicts maintained by guerrilla warfare, and there would be no
Speaker 2: definitive battle or grand conclusion to this war. The Lapuce
Speaker 2: recognized that they were facing vast resources. They knew they
Speaker 2: had to find ways to level that playing field, and so,
Speaker 2: using their familiarity with the forests, rivers and mountains of Albapo,
Speaker 2: they ambushed, evaded, and outflanked Spanish troops, cut off supply lines,
Speaker 2: and employed tactics that frustrated and exhausted their lost and
Speaker 2: equipped opponents. Depuch were fighting on two fronts, defending their
Speaker 2: territories from physical invasion and preserving their cultural practices from
Speaker 2: Spanish influence. Those Mupuche are traditionally egalitarian. They did elect
Speaker 2: toki or war years during times of conflict. These figures
Speaker 2: were limited to their role in coordinating forces during these
Speaker 2: conflicts and had no other political power to wield above others.
Speaker 2: One of the more notable of these toki was a
Speaker 2: man named Lautaro. He was a young Mapuche who had
Speaker 2: been captured by the Spanish as a teenager and had
Speaker 2: worked for some time as a stable boy for Chief
Speaker 2: Conquistado and governor of Gilet Pedro de Valdivia. While working
Speaker 2: as a stable boy, Lautaro managed to secretly observe many
Speaker 2: of the tactics the Spanish employed. He gained intimate knowledge
Speaker 2: of what made them tick in a sense, and he
Speaker 2: eventually escaped captivity and brought this knowledge back to his people,
Speaker 2: transforming a Putui resistance by effectively using captured horses and
Speaker 2: new formations to confront the Spanish on ivan ground. Lautaro
Speaker 2: was a pro military strategists and by all accounts a
Speaker 2: charismatic young man that inspired his people through several major victories,
Speaker 2: including defeating a large Spanish force at the Battle of
Speaker 2: Tucapel in fifteen fifty three, which is a confrontation that
Speaker 2: killed his former master and a good bit of Spanish morale. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: the outbreak of a typhus plague, a drought, and a
Speaker 2: famine slowed the Mapouchier advance to expel the Spanish, as
Speaker 2: they had to spend some time recovering. But Lautero did
Speaker 2: try to push a band of Apoucha as far north
Speaker 2: as Santiago, Chile to liberate the country from Spanish rule. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: before he could even turn thirty, he was killed in
Speaker 2: an ambush, and well his spirit continues to live on
Speaker 2: as a symbol of Ampuche resilience. As the war evolved,
Speaker 2: they had cycles of conflict interspersed with uneasy pieces Spanish
Speaker 2: settlements the Mapucher frontier became isolated, vulnerable outposts subject to
Speaker 2: sudden raids, So in an attempt to hold the territory,
Speaker 2: the Spanish had to divert large amount of their resources
Speaker 2: to maintain a military presence, which was a very costly
Speaker 2: strategy that didn't end up being sustainable long term. So finally,
Speaker 2: after decades of failed attempts to subdue the Mapucha by force,
Speaker 2: the Spanish had to adopt a different approach. Resulted in
Speaker 2: a series of peace treaties which will be unheard of
Speaker 2: in the rest of Clonal Latin America. Among these was
Speaker 2: the Parliament of Killin in sixteen forty one, which established
Speaker 2: a formal boundary between Spanish controlled Chile and the autonomous
Speaker 2: Mapuche territories, granted the Mapuche legal recognition as an independent people.
Speaker 3: With territorial rights.
Speaker 2: This is ritually unheard of across the rest of the Americas,
Speaker 2: and that's to tell you how powerful their resistance was
Speaker 2: at the time. The Spanish crown recognized Mapuche control over
Speaker 2: lands south of the Bobio River and agreed to regular negotiations.
Speaker 2: And although this agreement was tenuous.
Speaker 3: And at times violated.
Speaker 2: It did also mark an era of semi autonnamy for
Speaker 2: the Mapuche, allowing them to maintain their land, language and
Speaker 2: traditions in the face of surrounding clunal expansion. The fact
Speaker 2: that they could even secure legal recognition of their autonomy
Speaker 2: from a state power as stubborn as a Spanish in
Speaker 2: a time like the seventeenth century, it's just remarkable. But unfortunately,
Speaker 2: as you could probably predict that recognition of the autonomy
Speaker 2: would not last. In the eighteen hundreds, Chile and Argentina
Speaker 2: emerged as independent republics following Spanish cluinal rule, each driven
Speaker 2: by an appetite for territorial expansion and a nationalist vision.
Speaker 2: The excluded indigenous autonomy with new ambitions to civilize and
Speaker 2: consolidate the nations. Chilean and Argentine leaders saw the Mapuche
Speaker 2: held lands as resources to be exploited. Both governments justified
Speaker 2: their encroachment on Marpucha land under the guise of national progress.
Speaker 2: To them, these indigenous lands were free real estate to
Speaker 2: be conquered and improved, not sovereign regions held by an
Speaker 2: indigenous population. They such way of life as a barrier
Speaker 2: as the economic development to your place with European style
Speaker 2: land holdings, set the colonies and extractive industries under new management.
Speaker 2: They would not respect the sixteen forty one Parliament kill
Speaker 2: in as far as they were concerned. They didn't sign
Speaker 2: that agreement, and they would never sign an agreement with savages.
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, we also saw that sort of thing
Speaker 4: throughout the Americas, where you would have these like alleged
Speaker 4: triaties that then either under future rule or even sometimes
Speaker 4: under the exact.
Speaker 1: Same rule, would later just be completely disregarded.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you didn't sign it with me, you know.
Speaker 1: It's like a common colonial tactic to buy time.
Speaker 2: As well exactly established and sure upper resources for a
Speaker 2: later attack. Yeah, and I could just say, well, I
Speaker 2: didn't sign that, you know, somebody else signed it, so
Speaker 2: I don't have to be behold onto it, pretty much.
Speaker 3: And so Chileo.
Speaker 2: Launched their campaign to annexed Mapuche land, known as the
Speaker 2: Pacification of Arakanya, initiated in the eighteen sixties. Some have
Speaker 2: argued that this attempted annexation was triggered by the events
Speaker 2: surrounding the wreck of Hoven Daniel at the coast of
Speaker 2: Hrakania in eighteen forty nine, where erecked Chilean navy vessel
Speaker 2: was allegedly looted and its survivors allegedly attacked on Apoucha
Speaker 2: territory by members of Apouche society, despite the Mapuche arguing
Speaker 2: there had been no survivors, and despite them handing over
Speaker 2: some of the accused of Lutin to be tried by
Speaker 2: Chilean authorities, even retiling in so of what was allegedly looted.
Speaker 2: The perception of the incident as a brutal loot and
Speaker 2: rape by the Mapuche fueled anti Mapouche sentiment within Chilean society.
Speaker 2: Although President Manuel Pulnaez of Chile dismissed the opposition's calls
Speaker 2: for a punitive expedition at the time, the conquest would
Speaker 2: eventually counter past be getting in eighteen sixty one. If
Speaker 2: you dig into this story, by the way, you come
Speaker 2: to find out that a lot of the Lootenant and
Speaker 2: Mapouche were accused of was actually members of Chilean society
Speaker 2: and bazilin the resources from the wreck and then play
Speaker 2: into office.
Speaker 3: If the Mapuche were wholly responsible for the loss of
Speaker 3: the resources, some of the.
Speaker 2: Same people who were accusing the Wa Pouchier looters of
Speaker 2: stealing all the all the loot from the ship. Many
Speaker 2: of them had received some of that loot from the
Speaker 2: Mahuche themselves. Thempuche were trying to return the loot, and
Speaker 2: they decided to keep it for themselves instead of you know,
Speaker 2: retaining It's a Chilean government, so it's like the whole
Speaker 2: trial was bunked. There was a whole bunch of corruption,
Speaker 2: and it was a real master And although the president
Speaker 2: did you know, dismiss the attempts to attack at the time,
Speaker 2: like I said, it would come to pass. The campaign
Speaker 2: was justified as every government does by necessity.
Speaker 3: You know. The reality, however, was a.
Speaker 2: Brutal invasion aimed up up roots Mapuche communities, displacing thousands,
Speaker 2: absorbing their lands into the Chilean state.
Speaker 4: This whole strategy also just reflects this just general dehumanization.
Speaker 4: I mean, even the stuff with like the treaties and
Speaker 4: just like the going back on the treaties, denial of
Speaker 4: the legitimacy of treaties, that tactic would not be used
Speaker 4: the same way against like other colonial nations. And then
Speaker 4: every subsequent development and every subsequent incursion onto land. All
Speaker 4: of it is just based on this underlying level of
Speaker 4: dehumanization that just sees land as resources and the people
Speaker 4: there as like acceptable casualties or just fierce obstacles to
Speaker 4: overcome in conquest of those lands.
Speaker 2: Exactly, and obstacles they will, because Chile knew where they
Speaker 2: wanted to reach in terms of what they saw as
Speaker 2: their at full borders and will literally a wedge an
Speaker 2: obstacle between them and region where they wanted to reach.
Speaker 2: At the type of South America. It was almost like
Speaker 2: a race between Argentina and Chile to see who could
Speaker 2: reach the edge and claim it first, and Theuch will
Speaker 2: something that was keeping them from doing that. And additionally,
Speaker 2: Tapouch would not have been granted the same legitimacy of
Speaker 2: a claim as Argentina. You know, Chile and Argentina would
Speaker 2: eventually comes in agreement about where their border would lie.
Speaker 3: And their respected that agreement.
Speaker 2: Same couldn't be said for the Mapuch And of course
Speaker 2: there were a lot of border disagreements of course in
Speaker 2: South America following the you know, evacuation of the Spanish,
Speaker 2: but of course those are treated on equal foot. In
Speaker 2: the natives are different matter, so Chilean forces would corner
Speaker 2: advance into Aracania forcibly, removed thousands of families from the
Speaker 2: ancestral territories and subject those that remain into the authority
Speaker 2: the Chilean government.
Speaker 3: The traditional queen of land.
Speaker 2: Holdings that remained were fragmented and redistributed off into Chilean settlers,
Speaker 2: and the government's imposed European style laws, education and religion.
Speaker 2: To attempt to assimilate the Mapuche and suppress the identity,
Speaker 2: military outposts and settlements was established in the newly annexed land,
Speaker 2: facily facing the region under martial law and making it
Speaker 2: difficult from Puccia communities to resist. Openly replace the words
Speaker 2: Chilean government with Israeli government and Mapuche with Palestinian. And
Speaker 2: that's just to tell you how antiquated the current tactics
Speaker 2: of colonization are.
Speaker 3: You know, very little has changed.
Speaker 1: No, that's exactly what I've been thinking about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, a lot of the former major conal
Speaker 2: powers have found more subtle means of continuing their exploitation
Speaker 2: and subjugation of people around the world. So it's very
Speaker 2: rare to see something so open and flagrant, you know,
Speaker 2: It's something that you expect to see in historical accounts
Speaker 2: such as this of landhole ends being chopped up and
Speaker 2: give unto settlers, and laws and education and being imposed
Speaker 2: and to a native population to suppress and to similate
Speaker 2: their dentity. You know, military outpost being established on New
Speaker 2: Leanix Land, Marcia law being established for the native inhabitants,
Speaker 2: all those things. Hear about it, pushing of the American frontier,
Speaker 2: and you hear about it and throughout South America and
Speaker 2: Africa's cool o history. You don't really tend to think
Speaker 2: about that here now, and it's happening in four k.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 4: Like that's exactly what I was thinking about as you've
Speaker 4: been going through all this, like how it just sounds
Speaker 4: exactly the same as what Israel is currently doing. And
Speaker 4: I think why people latch on to like Israel specifically
Speaker 4: so much is because of how like out of time
Speaker 4: their tactics of colonial expansion feel and like similarly, like
Speaker 4: it's just built on this base level of dehumanization exactly
Speaker 4: that a whole bit of other like imperial powers kind
Speaker 4: of try to like hide or like mask a little bit,
Speaker 4: and with Israel, it's just so mask off so I.
Speaker 2: Think about all that time, they were like a century
Speaker 2: late pretty much. Yeah, if they had starts and this
Speaker 2: process like a sentry ilia, they would have actually probably
Speaker 2: have gotten away with it.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, well and they still might get away with it
Speaker 1: now to some degree. And that's like that is true.
Speaker 4: That's that's kind of the super that's the super frightening
Speaker 4: thought is that even though it is this outdated like style,
Speaker 4: what if it like still works and if and if
Speaker 4: it's proven to still work in Palestine, where like where
Speaker 4: else can this be used? Like will we just see
Speaker 4: more countries feel like they can get away with it
Speaker 4: because Israel did? And like that's kind of part of
Speaker 4: looking into the next four years and looking into just
Speaker 4: just how how the world is going in this general
Speaker 4: kind of far right power grab happening all like all
Speaker 4: over the globe. Will more and more countries be kind
Speaker 4: of willing to utilize these types of colonial tactics And
Speaker 4: it's scary and bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean when you think about how the severity
Speaker 2: of the clumb situation, it's just going to worsen, and
Speaker 2: you think about the pressures had places on the most
Speaker 2: exploitive regions of the globe, How that might pressure, you know, migration,
Speaker 2: and how that might pressure sort of efforts to resist
Speaker 2: the sort of tightening of the hold of expectation. Up
Speaker 2: until the call that was reading this called warned People's
Speaker 2: history of fashion, just thinking about the whole textile trade
Speaker 2: as a whole and how it impacts different parts of
Speaker 2: the globe and whatever, and it's talking about this now.
Speaker 2: I'm just thinking, like, if workers in those countries were
Speaker 2: to stand up, well, in all this time, you know,
Speaker 2: some of the most deadly struggles have taking place in
Speaker 2: these regions, in these saturns. But if they were to
Speaker 2: stand up and resist now, I mean it might e
Speaker 2: get even more open and then blatant with the suppression
Speaker 2: of those people and those whites, and as they attempt
Speaker 2: to try and make their way out of those hot spots,
Speaker 2: those hot regions of instability and violence and climate catastrophe,
Speaker 2: you know, we have all this migrant raetoric to yes,
Speaker 2: make the struggle even worse.
Speaker 4: That's like the fucoas boomerang idea of all of these
Speaker 4: colonial tactics also can eventually turned inward. And right now
Speaker 4: you see the same level of dehumanization being levied against,
Speaker 4: like millions of immigrants who are here both legally as
Speaker 4: refugees and are also here undocumented. But it's the same
Speaker 4: like rhetorical tactics that make people okay with this is
Speaker 4: that level of dehumanization. And you also see that, of
Speaker 4: course levied against like trans people. You still see that
Speaker 4: livid against indigenous people. And it's just like a growing
Speaker 4: list of people that are no longer seen as like
Speaker 4: real humans.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for some reason you're saying that, my mind fixates
Speaker 2: it on the fact that you said undocumented, and it's
Speaker 2: reminded me of the absurdity of all of this. The
Speaker 2: difference is literally some pieces of people. The difference is
Speaker 2: literally a rule of the dice spawn point from one
Speaker 2: side of the water or another. I do we allow
Speaker 2: this to like totally dominate our lives.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like a it's like a deep spiritual evil.
Speaker 4: So many people don't even like realize the absurdity of
Speaker 4: it and how just like it takes away so much
Speaker 4: of like thought and empathy and people people just don't
Speaker 4: even know, like they don't even like process that that's
Speaker 4: what they've done to themselves by like constructing this system
Speaker 4: that they believe is like divine or like enshrined by God.
Speaker 3: The right to exist defense.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like it's it is. So much of it is
Speaker 4: a dice roll. So much of it is situations beyond
Speaker 4: anyone's conscious control.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And to sort of pull us a bit back
Speaker 2: on to the track, you can also see the mirrors
Speaker 2: between the current past city and struggle and beyond Kurdmapuch
Speaker 2: struggle and even going back to this time that I
Speaker 2: have even discussing the Puschi struggle of the past, because
Speaker 2: despite all of this conal expansion, the Upuci resisted, not
Speaker 2: only militarily but culturally. They held on to their language,
Speaker 2: they held on to their customs, they held on to
Speaker 2: their spiritual practices, they held on to their identity in
Speaker 2: defiance of assimilations policies and across the Andes. Meanwhile, Argentina
Speaker 2: was pursuing a similarly aggressive campaign just known as the
Speaker 2: Conquest of the Desert.
Speaker 3: This was led by.
Speaker 2: General Julio Argentino Rocca in the eighteen seventies and eighteen eighties,
Speaker 2: and this really sort of eradicate and displace all the
Speaker 2: indigenous groups through in the area, including the Mapuch who
Speaker 2: had lived on the fertile Pampus and Patagonian regions to
Speaker 2: secure valuable land for wait for it, cattle ranching, agriculture
Speaker 2: and European settled expansion. Cattle ranching as in Younoch, the.
Speaker 3: Whole meat trade.
Speaker 1: The are more important than the people.
Speaker 2: Exactly, and the demand for the cows is more important
Speaker 2: than people. They see this violence of agricultural and expansion
Speaker 2: other places as well, as I said, I was reading
Speaker 2: one and one of the things she notes is that
Speaker 2: part of what pushed the American westward expansion was that
Speaker 2: they were growing cotton. And cotton is extremely intensive, and
Speaker 2: historically cotton was grown in a polyculture, was grown with
Speaker 2: other plants. Right with these cotton monocultures, it really quickly
Speaker 2: strips the soil of its nutrients. And so they were
Speaker 2: pushing westward because they kept on having to find new
Speaker 2: land to grow the cotton on. And of course who
Speaker 2: was working that cotton, and who's working with plantations, just
Speaker 2: explotation all the way down and all that just to
Speaker 2: feed this rapacious appetite of expansion. You know, we had
Speaker 2: thousands of years of sustainable growth and sustainable cyclical economies,
Speaker 2: but things that did that would last, and just in
Speaker 2: these last few centuries we've just completely lost that because
Speaker 2: above all the line has to go up well.
Speaker 4: And like also part of that quest for agricultural domination
Speaker 4: in order to make that possible, there's the invention of
Speaker 4: the international slave trade, which is similarly built on this
Speaker 4: level of just base decumanization and the desire for agricultural
Speaker 4: production being way more important than the humanity of like
Speaker 4: everybody involved in that process.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: And then it's also tied to the petrochemical trade because
Speaker 2: to maintaining these soils and this unnatural form, you have
Speaker 2: to the basically pump the land with these artificial fertilizers
Speaker 2: which are typically derived from Patrick Amick.
Speaker 4: Goals, and like that process of the soil basically becoming
Speaker 4: dead like started even as early as like the late
Speaker 4: eighteen hundreds. Like this this isn't even just like a
Speaker 4: modern problem in like the past, like fifty hundred years
Speaker 4: all of that land was like over you starting to
Speaker 4: get destroyed almost like two hundred years ago, but specifically
Speaker 4: like the late eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is what we're looking at here, and
Speaker 2: this this particular historical narrative we're just watching. The fall
Speaker 2: of wild Mapoo of course, was looking at a more
Speaker 2: grandize sense, the fall of the remaining communities that actually
Speaker 2: were maintaining that connection land. They're being, in this process
Speaker 2: subjugated so that there is no resistance and no present
Speaker 2: alternative to the extractive model that was at least part.
Speaker 3: Of the goal of this expansion.
Speaker 2: As we see in Argentina, the few Mapuche who survived
Speaker 2: this massacre because they employed all sorts of tactics, rangers
Speaker 2: from scorch student policies to force relocations to like outright
Speaker 2: just you know, the few that survive were relocated to reservations,
Speaker 2: trip to their land, and reduced to liverers within this
Speaker 2: modern of rapidly modernized in Argentina and General Rocker's campaign
Speaker 2: was celebrated by the Argentine elite as a triumph of
Speaker 2: civilization over barbarism.
Speaker 3: Where have I heard that before?
Speaker 2: So in both Chile's passification of Aracanya and Argentina's conquest
Speaker 2: of the desert, he had this large scale dispossession of
Speaker 2: Apucha land. And while Ma Poo now being fully split
Speaker 2: by the border of Argentina and Chile, the vast majority
Speaker 2: of Pucha now live in Chile. There are only a
Speaker 2: few times one thousands left in Argentina to this day. Initially,
Speaker 2: Mapucha leaders and communities launched uprisings and gorilla attacks against
Speaker 2: the Chilean and Argentine military forces, fighting to defend their territories,
Speaker 2: but as military suppression intensified, resistance also had to adapt.
Speaker 2: Puccia communities had to adopt more food forms of opposition,
Speaker 2: maintaining cultural practices, stories, and languages as an active resistance.
Speaker 2: Some Puccer leaders petitioned for land rights and autonomy through
Speaker 2: legal channels, seeking to challenge dispossession through the courts.
Speaker 3: Others continue to resist.
Speaker 2: Through armed confrontation, often leading isolated uprisings when government forces
Speaker 2: overstepped or attempted to cease more land.
Speaker 3: The future resistance that.
Speaker 2: Follows this period is basically rooted in the traumas of
Speaker 2: this period, as the people were forcibly integrated into Chilean
Speaker 2: and Argentine societies, yet never fully accepted. As we move
Speaker 2: into the early twentieth century, the Pusche communities continue to
Speaker 2: be hit hard by policies that aim to dissolve the
Speaker 2: traditional ways of life. The Chilean and Argentine governments squeeze
Speaker 2: Onucha onto reservations, but surrounding lands were given to power
Speaker 2: for landowners and settlers. Land's guesty was a significant issue,
Speaker 2: as from Puchet families often had thoughts too small to
Speaker 2: sustain their traditional agricultural practices, and the dispossession led to
Speaker 2: economic hardship and wide tread pop further marginalized them from
Speaker 2: national economies. The assimilation attempts to frame rendition as community
Speaker 2: identity as something to be erased in favor of European norms,
Speaker 2: pushed out the Mapundun language and cultural ties and aimed
Speaker 2: to impose Spanish as the primary language. Thankfully today Mapundum
Speaker 2: still survives as the language and the Jucha people. At
Speaker 2: the time, Mapuchi were also forced into the wage labor
Speaker 2: on settler farms experienced and of course very harsh conditions
Speaker 2: are very little protection.
Speaker 3: Many of them.
Speaker 2: Mapuchi ended up migrating from rural areas to cities as
Speaker 2: the arable land twindled, and then found themselves in places
Speaker 2: like Santiago and Temuco beginning the nineteen thirty years and Animo.
Speaker 2: Puchier families ended up working as laborers and urban centers
Speaker 2: where their these new forms of discrimination. A lot of
Speaker 2: Mpuche women ended up going to work as servants within
Speaker 2: the houses of the Chilean elite, and during this period
Speaker 2: of hardship, Ili Mapoucha political movements began.
Speaker 3: To take shape.
Speaker 2: In the nineteen tens, Wabuchi leaders organized groups like Society
Speaker 2: dad Kapu Likan Defense Soa de la Arakanya, which advocated
Speaker 2: for land rights and civil protections aban to reclaim the
Speaker 2: dispossessed land and fight against the abuse of indigenous laborers.
Speaker 2: These early organizations marked a significant shift in Mapuche strategy
Speaker 2: represented a movement towards formal political approaches to resistance. The
Speaker 2: assaulntionment of political alliances that sympathetic groups also strengthened the
Speaker 2: Mapuche cause. In the nineteen twenties nineteen thirties, indigious organizations
Speaker 2: began working with Literilean communists and socialist parties, focusing on
Speaker 2: indigenous labor issues and broader anti landlord campaigns. However, these
Speaker 2: alliances often prioritized national labor and Aukrainian reform over specific
Speaker 2: indition's rights, leaving Themapouche to continue to fight largely on
Speaker 2: their own terms. But in spite of this limited political power,
Speaker 2: these iarly effort helped lay the groundwork for later land
Speaker 2: rights activism. From the mid twentieth century onward, rapid and gustrialization,
Speaker 2: extractive forestry operations and monoculture plantations began to dominate Mapucha land,
Speaker 2: and pollution increased. Rivers were contaminated. Forest part of diversity
Speaker 2: was replaced by non active species like pine and eucalyptus plantations,
Speaker 2: and all of this leads, of course, soiled depletion. The
Speaker 2: remaining Mapuchia agriculture and local ecosystems were naturally threatened, which
Speaker 2: fully compel their resistance. At the same time, they were still,
Speaker 2: of course working to preserve their language, their cultural practices,
Speaker 2: their music, their arts, the spiritual ceremonies. For a small moment,
Speaker 2: there was some hope as the government of Salvador Allende
Speaker 2: you know this is going passed an indigenous a law
Speaker 2: that recognized their distinctive culture and history and began to
Speaker 2: restore Mapuche commune lands.
Speaker 3: But I think we all remember how that turned out.
Speaker 2: Bam, you have a who are coop sponsored by the
Speaker 2: US and Pinochet is in Pola in power. Pinochet calls
Speaker 2: for the division of the reserves and the liquidation of
Speaker 2: the Indian communities. He initially sounds like a cartoon villain
Speaker 2: of everything I've read and learned about him, I mean,
Speaker 2: who speaks of the liquidation of a people?
Speaker 4: Pinochet is extremely cartoon villain coded, except it was a
Speaker 4: real person. So I also have this tendency to not
Speaker 4: dismiss super evil people as like unhuman monsters, because I
Speaker 4: think that actually limits our understanding of how evil humans
Speaker 4: can be. Sure, and this isn't even just a pure principle,
Speaker 4: Like I don't like dehumanization in general, it's that I
Speaker 4: think it actually makes these people harder to beat if
Speaker 4: you view them as like some monstrous force instead of
Speaker 4: something that's actually deeply human. And yeah, he is a
Speaker 4: cartoon villain, he's also like a person, and like that's
Speaker 4: actually kind of more scary than just viewing him as
Speaker 4: some monster. Very true, And I don't know, it's it's
Speaker 4: a frame of thought I've come back on specifically, and
Speaker 4: like thinking about like anti fascism.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's something I always think about when
Speaker 2: I think of a lot of the most brutal world leaders.
Speaker 3: Across human history.
Speaker 2: I often think, you know, this person did not spawn
Speaker 2: out of the air. There was a time when this
Speaker 2: person was a newborn, when they were babbling, learning to speak,
Speaker 2: learning to walk, became a toddler, small child, pre teen, teenager,
Speaker 2: young adults.
Speaker 3: So much.
Speaker 2: Nature and nurture would have gone into the Polson they became,
Speaker 2: but they had the same spawn point as everybody else.
Speaker 2: They all started as a baby, and Pinochet was unfortunately
Speaker 2: no exception. After the pass and his Decree twenty five
Speaker 2: sixty eight to nineteen seventy nine, the number of additionous
Speaker 2: creaties was reduced by twenty five percent and several Mapuchia
Speaker 2: leaders were murdered, threatened with imprisonment or excerpt. After the
Speaker 2: fall of Pinochet and returned to democracy, the Apuche had
Speaker 2: a resurgience and identity and political activism for the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 2: This revival gained homentum after the passage of Chile's Indigenous
Speaker 2: Law in nineteen ninety three, which acknowledged the Puche land
Speaker 2: right to advocate it for bilingual education, opening new paths
Speaker 2: for cultural Reclamationia. That same year, Mapuchi representatives at the
Speaker 2: UN pushed for Chile to adopted Iolo Convention one sixty nine,
Speaker 2: a key indigious rights treaty, but Chile didn't actually ratify
Speaker 2: the Convention until two thousand and eight. Despite the established
Speaker 2: run to the National Cooperation of Indigenous Development or KANNADI
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety three to facilitate indigenous inclusion in policy making,
Speaker 2: Mapucha involvement in such state institutions has not guaranteed geruine representation.
Speaker 2: Several canadi leaders who openly advocated from Mapuche autonomy or
Speaker 2: pushed against corporate interests have been removed from their piss.
Speaker 2: In twenty fifteen, Governor Francisco Juanchomia, a Promapuchi advocate in Aracanya,
Speaker 2: was removed from his position due to his support for
Speaker 2: legal reforms recognizing Mapucha rights. He can'tgo and change the system.
Speaker 2: System changes you will gets you out of the way.
Speaker 2: With the intensification of extractive industries encroach lands, a wave
Speaker 2: of activism emerged, specifically aimed the protecting secret territories and
Speaker 2: the environment. Mapuchi activists frequently have set up against forestry companies,
Speaker 2: hydroelectric projects, and multinational corporations that have aimed to exploit
Speaker 2: their resources, e engaging land occupations and protests for land
Speaker 2: restitution and environmental protection. The Chilean stage reaction to Maputi
Speaker 2: activism is entirely.
Speaker 3: Predictable harsh repression.
Speaker 2: Under anti terrorism legislation, Mapoochi activists face heightened police surveillance, imprisonment,
Speaker 2: and accusations of terrorism, a tactic which is universally used
Speaker 2: to delegitimize resistance to injustice and violence, exportation, and destructure.
Speaker 1: It is kind of one of those magic words that
Speaker 1: has been increasingly invoked in the past twenty years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, terrorist is a magic wood. Illegal, isn't it a
Speaker 2: magic wood?
Speaker 4: Yeah, they're all just like the humanization terms, right, Like
Speaker 4: you are not a person, you are not an ex
Speaker 4: you are not well whatever. You are a terrorist, and
Speaker 4: terrorists do not have the same rights as humans. It's
Speaker 4: not a war crime if you do it against a terrorist.
Speaker 3: Luke Skywalker was not a terrorist. You are a terrorist,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 4: But no, like like whether you're like finding in like
Speaker 4: an actual resistance movement or you're just attending like a
Speaker 4: protest in a in an American city, both of those
Speaker 4: can now become quote unquote terrorists or.
Speaker 2: Or some like the level clerk who just happens to
Speaker 2: be within has abu lah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, or you're a daughter of a low level clerk
Speaker 4: who is picking up a pager and oops, I guess
Speaker 4: your dad shouldn't have been a terrorist and like Jesus Christ.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: And then, of course the media has a big part
Speaker 2: to play in all this. You know, terrorist as a
Speaker 2: term is associated with certain stereotypes about various groups of people.
Speaker 2: In the past few years, it's been the you know,
Speaker 2: machete and aka waven Islamist fightal but in other time
Speaker 2: periods it was another prominent stereotype, you know, the Black
Speaker 2: seventies revolutionary or vikong. And in the Chilean situation, media
Speaker 2: portrayals have also reinforced stereotypes of Mapuche violence, which of
Speaker 2: course serves the role of obscure in the reality of
Speaker 2: their fight for justice and environmental stewardship. It hasn't all
Speaker 2: been for not the mapuch struggle, that is, have had
Speaker 2: a few legal triumphs rulans where the Inter American Court
Speaker 2: of Human Rights has held Chile accountable in air quotes
Speaker 2: as much as any state is actually held accountable for
Speaker 2: viouating Mapuche rights. Grassroots groups and artist collectors with white
Speaker 2: have also supported Mapuche efforts.
Speaker 3: But curly, these.
Speaker 2: Small victories and triumps are really not much. They're not
Speaker 2: enough within the broader apuch movement, you do have the
Speaker 2: reformists and the simulationists, and you have groups like Quording
Speaker 2: their Daughter, Arauko Mayeko or Camp and they're splinter group,
Speaker 2: which is why chan Alca Mapu. And they've adopted separatist
Speaker 2: stances advocating for direct actions such as land occupations and
Speaker 2: resistance against state forces because they view autonomy and territorial
Speaker 2: reclamation as essential to Mapuchia sovereignty and they have no
Speaker 2: interest in compromise with the extractive industries and government they're
Speaker 2: responsible for their suffering. Traditionally, these groups are focused on
Speaker 2: acts of economic sabotage against companies that are infringing on
Speaker 2: their lands and their stewardship. Within wider Chilean society, there's
Speaker 2: still some prejudice against some Mapuche, particularly, but not exclusively
Speaker 2: from the right way, but she lays twenty nineteen uprising
Speaker 2: against inequality and government abuses found strong supports and ally
Speaker 2: ship between wider Chilean society and Upuche communities who had
Speaker 2: seen echoes of their own grievances and national protests. The
Speaker 2: protests were initially sparked by a metro affair hike, but
Speaker 2: They quickly became a national movement, demanding systemic reform in
Speaker 2: both urban and rural spaces. Mapuche communities joined or supported protesters,
Speaker 2: were resistant continued to government policies that marginalized their communities
Speaker 2: and undermined their cultural rights. Mapoocher symbols and flags emerged,
Speaker 2: prominently aligning aditional struggles with these word amounts of justice,
Speaker 2: and the government response can you predict was swift and severe.
Speaker 2: Military and police forces were deployed to use excessive violence.
Speaker 2: Apuch ben knew about this, but some of the Chileans
Speaker 2: their experience in this for the first time, and this
Speaker 2: mutual experience of repression reinforced alliances between the Mapuche and
Speaker 2: the Chilean activists, as both faced the stature of enviolence,
Speaker 2: of propaganda that portrayed them as radicals and terrorists and extremists. So,
Speaker 2: despite the crackdown, the uprising saw unprecedented support for the
Speaker 2: Mapuche cause, amplifying calls for restitution of indigious lands, formal
Speaker 2: recognition of Appouoche rights in a reformed constitution, and a
Speaker 2: declinal approach to governments the.
Speaker 3: Respects indigenous autonomy.
Speaker 2: The twenty nineteen protests laid the groundwork for a national
Speaker 2: constitutional reform was significant Mapucha involvement to public support the
Speaker 2: draft interview constitutions was the twenty one raised the potential
Speaker 2: for insurance indigenous rights from PUCCI representatives actively dissipate in
Speaker 2: the process and creating renewed optimism for meaningful legal reprotections
Speaker 2: the respecting Puja culture, territory and autonomy. That somewhat progressive
Speaker 2: attempt at a constitution reform, which also included gender equality measures,
Speaker 2: was rejected. Said there was another attempt just last year,
Speaker 2: entered to twenty three, but it was a very conservative
Speaker 2: attempt shaped by the far right Republican Party, which trickter
Speaker 2: provisions and immigration, a ban and abortion and a free
Speaker 2: market focus that did not resonate with the majority of voters.
Speaker 2: Fifty five point eight percent voted against the twenty twenty
Speaker 2: three draft and forty four point two percent in fever.
Speaker 2: Chile In President Gabriel Borek, whose administration had supported constitutional change,
Speaker 2: acknowledged that further attempts that constitutional reform were unlikely, So
Speaker 2: for now, Chile continues to be governed by the constitution
Speaker 2: that dates back to the ditatorship of Pinochet. While its
Speaker 2: leaders looking at alternative PABs address and social, economic and
Speaker 2: environments of this suites in line with Chilean public opinion.
Speaker 2: If you know anything about me and my positions, you
Speaker 2: know that I'm not confident in the ability of states
Speaker 2: to meaningfully respect people's agency and autonomy. Have all but
Speaker 2: I wish them Pucha all the best we have of
Speaker 2: their struggle goals, and I've personally found their story very impactful.
Speaker 2: It's one of resilience, adaptability and vase of centuries or avolicity.
Speaker 3: They've had an unyielding.
Speaker 2: Desire to maintain their connection to the land and cultural identity,
Speaker 2: and they aren't going fright. Is really just a testament
Speaker 2: to the power of solidarity, and that's it for me.
Speaker 2: This has been it could happen There, all power to
Speaker 2: all the.
Speaker 3: People it could happen. Here is a production of cool
Speaker 3: Zone Media.
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Speaker 3: Thanks for listening.