“Indirect harm still causes pain”

After listening to Tamara’s lecture post about Quechua people, reading A. Argumedo and M. Pimbert’s article about Barter Markets and especially after watching “Hija de la laguna”  I started questioning the world we live in.                                                                                                                                             While watching the movie and hearing about the horrible stories I realize that my whole life I might have indirectly  been contributing  to them. This movie made me realize that as people we sometimes unknowingly cause harm – exactly like the jewelry designer from Amsterdam. While watching the movie, I could not stop myself but look at all the possessions I had on in that moment. My jacket, my jeans, my boots, my golden necklace and my golden earrings and within a moment I got so scared that me purchasing all of this could have caused so much harm to someone else. Was I indirectly part of the exploitative gold industry? Was I one of the consumers who blindly just bought the shiny golden necklace without seeing clearly its whole story? To be honest with you, I think I was. And as one saying states “Ignorantia non excusat” in English “ignorance excuses no one” I realize I was guilty of ignorance.

Nevertheless, thanks to the movie “Hija de la laguna” I decided that I don’t want to be causing harm indirectly anymore and that I want to be more responsible and try to do my best by looking for the companies that do not cause harm by exploiting others or destroying the nature. “I will put more effort and be better” were my words after I finished the movie. From now one, I will consciously choose the things I buy from food to any other object to the best abilities I can.

With all this in mind a question for you arises:

Are there any areas in your life where you could make wiser choices? If yes, just start with the one that appeals to you the most. For example, I decided to be more responsible for my jewelry purchases. Starting today I will always try to find out from where and how the gold was obtained. I might be in Canada and the gold might be getting mined in Peru. Two stories of completely different character, yet somehow they are  so deeply connected. One affecting the other no matter how far they are.

To the end I would love to leave you with a quote from “Hija de la laguna”

“ El mundo no te pertenece pero tú perteneces al mundo”

       “ The world doesn’t belong to you, but you belong to the world”

This sentence serves as a little reminder that we need our planet more than it needs us but as people we sometimes forget to realize that. Without the Earth taking care of us we wouldn’t be here. How lucky we are to live at such a beautiful place! Soooo let’s take care of it together…shall we? 🙂

This week’s unit made me think more about the reality we live in and how much we actually do not know about the process behind things. The article by Peter Benson called “Broccoli and Desire” showed me how we as people can be easily convinced and unaware of things happening around us. Up till this point I have never looked into how much effort, hard work, insecurity and how many wrongs can be behind the story of just one vegetable: in this case broccoli. This one vegetable tells us a story that people normally don’t see if they don’t decide to dig deeper. It tells us a story of the land being used, a story of the people who harvest the land, a story of the people who sell the crop and a story of how the whole system around that one crop in reality works: it shows the harsh truth.  As any other consumer I also walk in supermarkets and I have never wondered how did this vegetable get here in particular. Peter Benson helped me realize that the way I consume automatically affects the producers of that good or at least he reminded me of it. So sometimes by us forgetting that every good has its own story, we unknowingly may support a cause that we in reality disagree with but due to our unawareness we keep supporting it. As Benson affirms “American visits a supermarket about twice a week and spends half of his or her food budget there” (p.808). We can see how much power we as consumers have. As we change our shopping behaviours the market will respond. Thus, thanks to this article I realized that as responsible citizens we should start learning about the stories of at least some goods that we buy. In this case now we know at least one – “the story of broccoli”.  

This week’s readings and podcast lecture hit my own blind spot. Sometimes as people we actually forget how things and information get to us. We forget about all the processes that happen between the source and us, yet the whole process itself holds a very high value, it helps us understand and learn. As professor Amanda highlights  „So the reason, that you have access -you ,anyone listening to this podcast has had-the reason you have access to ayahuasca experiences today is because indigenous people were enslaved during the Amazonian rubber boom.“  This particular sentence stood out to me because it showed me the real truth behind not only ayahuasca but also other things present in my life. It hit my so called blind spot that all of us have (it’s the spot that we can’t see but we need others to show us where it is). Never before, would I think deeper into looking why and how certain „food“ came to us – what was its journey. As we can see ayahuasca’s  foodway has been touched by many and had a very horrific past connected with it but does many people despite Indigenous peoples and the exploiters now? I believe that the general public does not realize how ayahuasca came to them or what Indigenous peoples had to go through and still do. It is just a substance that helps them heal right?…no story behind it(consumerism can sometimes blind us). It fascinated me how one „food“ can have so much story. Every substance, thing, person or animal has a history, which brings me to point that Amanda in Tamara’s podcast indicates “Everything can be a person“ it is just the way we look at it. Sometimes we need to dive in to the other entity that is not us and try to see and get to know the life or processes that they have been through and that is when „perspectivism“(Amanda) enters our lives.

So from time to time ask yourself: What is the story behind the chair I am sitting on? Or the banana that I have just eaten in order to discover the real truth that can be so well hidden.

The reading that most stood out to me was the introduction from Tuhikawai Smith, Eve Tuck and Yang. I am from the Czech Republic and Indigenous people are a concept that is not very used in my culture the only time when I probably learned about Indigenous peoples was when I was learning how Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas. Hence this text provided me with a completely different perspective on scholar writing and Indigenous people in general. Yes, I was one of the people who focused on writing only from the Western perspective but I never considered there could be more then just what I know. It is now that I understand a bit clearer how blinded I was. This article opened my eyes. I never imagined there could be such a thing as decolonizing texts…why? But now I understand how valuable this can be for our future. Even as it is mentioned in the lecture: the world started getting inspired by Indigenous peoples and their holistic approach to nature. Why not be open to it all then?

One particular quote from the text got my attention „land and waters are polluted everywhere, and so to treat some waters as “pure” and sacred and others as impure is against Indigenous callings for defending the water”(Smith, Tuck, Yang 22). This quote can be amazingly applied to what is happening in our scholarly writing and in our society. From the Western perspective we treat Indigenous peoples as impure, yet we forget that all waters and lands are impure, which sets all people on the same ground. We can use this quote as a gentle reminder to help us see that it does not matter if the water is pure or impure it is still water.

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