[-empyre-] forward from Raul re crossings

[Christina McPhee <christina112@earthlink.net>]

dear -empyre-, this post from Raul bounced for some reason so I am  
forwarding it to you.

cm



Dear Ana and Empyre;

I have been reading the post and wondering how I can bring some of my  
inquiries into the list. Crossing the borders is always a difficult  
task and the idea of The Crusades has echoes on a recent encounter I  
had with a woman media artist from Chile. She is now working on a  
documentary that expose how a Canadian Gold Mining Transitional has  
created ecological damage in Pascua Lama, in the north of Chile.

Although the location from where we work is Las America, we are  
always confronting the issue of invasion, transgression, and border  
crossing.

Las Americas has an ancient history of population movement that still  
energizing today’s migration.

The acts of the transnational corporation are never seen as crossing  
the border or transgression because of the capital they employ to  
cover up their neocolonial practices in our territories, the same  
practices that deteriorate our national economies forcing the people  
to migrate in order to finds ways to survive.

Now days the Biotech corporations are buying our lands, figuring out  
ways to copy right the ADN of our native plants (a US company has  
been successful and now owns the AND of Mexican corn), destroying our  
ecological system for the global market economy.

The case of Pascua Lama alerts us in front the new waves of  
neocolonial practice. The region poses one of the most healthy  
environment and natural water coming out natural glaciers in the  
mountain.

I want to bring attention to this type of border crossing, that even  
though is illegal, is rising in Las Americas and comes from power  
structures, corporations and government outside our region.

Raul


Ana Valdes <agora158@gmail.com> escribió:
I wanted to thank Loretta for her article about Crusading and Jihad.
My approach to the topic Crusades is very much related to the fact of
"crossing", crossing borders, crossing lines, transgressing, making
new networks. The Crusades were the historical framework of a colonial
enterprise but they were as well the encounter with "the Other". It
was the Muslim world "otherness" who has been a beacon for
intellectuals and artists for many hundreds of years.
But for me as a writer and a activist the encounter doesn't to be a
clash but a recognizing of the similarities, the likeness more than
the differences.
I spent a few days now in Karosta, Lettland, together with Jan-Erik
Lundström and people from the Spanish groups of Hackitectura,
http://www.hackitectura.net, Straddle, http://www.straddle3.net and
OVNI, http://www.desorg.org/intro_arxius.php
Another guest was the filmmaker Paul Jenkins, who did a serie of films
about Al Qaida supported by the BBC.
What is the link between Al Qaida, Crusading, the refugees from Africa
living in inhuman conditions in the woods of Marocco, trying to go
into Europe to get a job and the Indians from Argentina and Chile
fighting Benettons multinational?
For me it's a kind of red thread going all these extremes groups and
actions where many of today's artists (writers and visual artists)
find new arenas and patterns.
I am curious about -empyre-'s own reflexions about these topics.
Ana

--
"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth
with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you
will always long to return.
— Leonardo da Vinci
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