Globalizing The Local

Peace is dynamic _ Oren Lyons fire keeper of the Onondaga nation.
Human Rights and the Tree of Life
As what Vandana Shiva has called the “reductionist masculinist” globalizing worldview[i] defies and tries to uproot traditional ways of life, who determines and defines human rights and how they are to be addressed, becomes a central point of divergence between both positions. This paper explorestwo specific instances of creative resistance to globalization within the context of contemporary Latin America in which the question of human rights is inextricably tied to nature and to the recuperation of traditional knowledge – knowledge that has been passed down over centuries, but left behind or forgotten in varying degrees precisely because of the process of a globalization determined bythe flow of capital and its corresponding ideology of domination. As we shall see, in the Americas, as elsewhere around the globe, the struggle for survival with dignity and community against forces of alienation and usurpation is being forged with great promise and hope - even within the most violent milieu. To illustrate how this is happening, I begin with the concept of the Tree of Life (Árbolde la Vida in Spanish, Yutu Tata in Mixtec)- and analyze how it is articulated in the artistic production of Oaxacan singer and songwriter Lila Downs. We then will see how this same nature symbol is central to the Plan de Vida or “Plan of Life” being realized by the Movimiento Campesino de Cajibío (the Small Farmers Movement of Cajibio, Colombia). Both seemingly separate social articulationsshare a central goal of cultural recuperation against a totalizing globalization-- a goal made realizable by a profound connection to and communion with the land and to spirituality which in turn gives grounding to an astute political and strategic stance. That intense and paradoxically mystical relationship to nature is a cornerstone of the power of non-violent action and resistance. It iswhat gives both different sociocultural manifestations discussed here- one artistic in the case of Lila Downs, one more largely organizational in the case of Cajibío - the sustainable force with which to forge a distinct social and spiritual vision. Likewise, the elaboration and maintenance of sociocultural transformation in both cases also rely on a deep commitment to the arts, which in dialecticalfashion are created to help illustrate and foster an alternative (cosmo)vision, while at the same time that very creativity is being nurtured by the values underlying the quest to imagine and realize a much more peaceful and sustainable reality.

The Tree of Life is a crucial metaphoric and actual starting point for describing viable and authentic alternatives to global hegemony andhomogenization. Part of the creation stories of many cultures, the Tree of Life has a scientific grounding and essential importance for humanity and all creation. The forest provides the means by which water is filtered, cleansed and kept plentiful. In the cycle of life, trees draw rain and are in turn sustained by the rains. Cutting down the forest means cultural, spiritual and physical death. Trees arenot only the conduits and holders of life giving water preventing desertification and drought, while protecting living beings from the ravages of storms and floods, but also in a healthy ecosystem, they provide food, shelter and fuel to millions of human beings. From the Chipko ecofeminist movement of the 1970s in northern India (which had its own roots in women’s struggles to defend land andlivelihood three hundred years before, as well as in the work of Ghandian disciples Mira Behn and Sarala Behn in the 1940s and 1950s[ii]), to Julia Butterfly’s symbolic and real mission to save Luna and the last remaining old growth forests of Northwestern U.S.A., to Wangari Mathai’s Nobel Prize winning efforts to reclaim the forest, women have long recognized the connection between trees and the...