Friday 14, 7pm at 16beaver: WATER - COMMONS - BOLIVIAN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS. A conversation with Oscar Olivera: BOLIVIAN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND ASSEMBLIES: FROM WHERE TO WHERE. **The conversation will be in English and Spanish.** Join. JOIN, SHARE, SPREAD.... INFO:Cochabamba, Bolivia is known for its victory against the privatization of its water, for kicking out the transnational Bechtel, and giving “birth” to Bolivia’s Left Turn and Evo Morales. But this victory did not spring from nothing and the form it took we find repeated in the takings of squares from Tahir to Zucotti to Taksim. Much of the organization and action in the Water Wars emerged from the Plaza Principal. This central square provided space for interaction and popular education. Also located in the square were the offices of the Fabriles, and this helped spur the formation of the Coordinadora de Defensa del Agua y de la Vida (Coalition in Defense of Water and Life). 1. Some questions to be discussed How did this happen? What was the history of popular action in Bolivia that enabled this? How did assemblies of 50,000 people function? How did the rejection of the privatization of water become a demand for a Constituent Assembly? How did the call for a Constituent Assembly end up as a vote on a new constitution and what has this meant for social movements? How are issues of autonomy indigenous movements being addressed in the TIPNIS and elsewhere? What is the current relationship between the state and social movements? 2. About Oscar Olivera “We discovered in the Coordinadora that meetings, assemblies, and barricades were the main instruments for struggle and liberation. Through these activities and events, we learned not only that we could reclaim our dignity and recover our voices, but also that the impoverished conditions of our existence resulted from, among other things, the huge shameless theft known as privatization. Thus the Coordinadora became a place where humble and simple people—ordinary working people—proved that by organizing, and by creating solidarity and mutual trust, people can lose their sense of fear and give a real content to democracy. Only in this way could we regain what was ours. Only in this way could we seek to transform our own situation, our own reality.” (Oscar Olivera, Cochabamba, p.29 (South End Press, 2004))
Posted on: Mon, 10 Jun 2013 14:36:46 +0000