THURSDAY 10th October
University of Geneva, UNI-MAIL, SALLE MR070 (Boulevard du Pont d’Arve, 40, Tramway 15, Stop UNI-MAIL)
Opening evening of the Week of Peoples mobilisation
Let’s decolonise (2nd edition)
This is our response to the celebrations of the conquest of the Abya Yala continent on October 12, 1492 that takes place in Spain and in some countries in America, which challenges us to deconstruct the historical, political, mental and social structures inherited by colonization.
This colonial expansion involved 3 continents – Europe, America and Africa – and resulted in one of the worst genocides in history, estimated at 56 million Indigenous deaths. It also gave rise to the triangular trade that created the black slave trade and a large-scale slavery system with an estimated 27 million African people captured and deported. This violent, bloody and usurping capitalist logic continues today under a new form: government-backed multinationals occupy, destroy, pollute, plunder land and its natural resources, produce wage slavery around the world and criminalize socio-environmental defenders and activists.
Yesterday against the Western colonizers, today against capitalist globalization, women occupied and occupy a central place in the Indigenous resistance: captains, army chiefs, warriors, trade unionists, activists, despite the patriarchal and racist colonial heritage, they have waged a relentless struggle while assuming the fundamental role of cultural, social and political transmission.
On October 10, African-Indigenous women will be honoured. Marginalized in official history, invisible in the current struggles for their survival, they will be with us and we will celebrate their courage, strength and perseverance for a better world.
On the agenda:
From 4pm,
1st cultural part in partnership with “Festinhumour”
Exhibition “Femmes Afro-Indigènes et décolonisation” will take place at the Hall with a contemporary art exhibition by Alessandro Biagini (Italy): “Un élan pour aller loin”
From 5 pm , Gladys Corredor “La Chiky” will tell us about the Indigenous Women’s Resistance (Switzerland-Colombia) followed by Maria Andrea Pérez Berrío who will make a poetic decolonial reading of ancient myths and legends (Asociación Urabà Global Suiza-Colombia)
6.30 pm
Part 2, after a brief introduction of the lectures, we will have the pleasure of listening:
-Marie-Andrée Ciprut, who will highlight the contribution of women in the struggle led by Aimé Césaire (1913-2008), poet and emblematic figure of decolonization and of the political-literary movement of Martinique’s negritude.
Followed by the presentation of “4 femmes, 4 luttes » presented by the Bloc Solidarité Amérique Unie:
– Maria Remedios del Valle, late 20th century Afro-Argentine captain by Miriam/Argentina para la Victoria
– Margarida Maria Alves, trade union leader from Brazil during the military dictatorship of the 70s and 80s by Adriana Barros Foggiato/Commité Lula Libre Genève
– Berta Cáceres, Lenca activist against the dam project, Agua Zarca of the Honduran national company, Desarrollos Energéticos SA (DESA) by Ynes Gerardo
– Macarena Valdés, Mapuche activist against the Austrian multinational RP Global in Chile by Wara R./Red Mapuche Suiza
An aperitif will conclude this evening.
Contact of the Bloc Solidarité Amérique Unie: america_unida_ge@framalistes.org
