Belgium, (Brussels Morning Newspaper) In a post-pandemic war context, where old conflicts endure, climate problems have already become an alarming crisis and global rates of depression and anxiety are increasing, what perspectives do Indigenous People offer to help us face these problems? Is the political representativeness of these peoples relevant? Where are politics, mental health and indigenous representation in power related?
We are a few days away from federal and state elections in Brazil, and never before have so many indigenous representatives run for political office. They organized themselves within the Western thought matrix to have an active voice at the decision-making table. They came out of their oral traditions, out of their circular thought matrixes, and embued themselves with linear and scientific knowledge in order to have an active voice in the defence of their traditions and the preservation of the environment. And amazingly, they are not asking for the debt of colonisation to be paid, but for unity in the construction of a new humanity.
“Let’s village politics”, that is the main theme advocated by 178 self-declared indigenous candidates, of which 58 are for the House of Representatives. This number is the highest since 2014, when the racial self-declaration of candidacies began. That year, 84 Indigenous people registered as candidates.
“It is necessary that each state has indigenous candidacies willing to dispute and conquer in these elections the right to occupy positions in state parliaments and the National Congress. It is necessary to understand the new rules on electoral coefficient and build strategies to enable our leaders in this dispute, which continues to be unequal. Let’s join our forces in candidacies connected with our bases and struggles of the indigenous movement to give continuity to our ancestral resistance” – excerpt from the Let’s village politics Manifest designed by APIB, Articulation of the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil.
Check here the APIB website.
APIB articulates the candidacy of 30 indigenous people, of which five women stand out as candidates for Federal Deputies. They are executive representatives of the Call for the Earth Project, which supports the urgent need for representation of the native peoples in the 513 seats of the National Congress. One of them, Sonia Guajajara, candidate for the State of São Paulo, was elected one of the 100 most influential women in 2022 by Time Magazine.
Check here all indigenous candidacies inside the Call for the Earth Project.
The political proposals of the indigenous representatives aim at the protection of traditional cultures, demarcation of territories and preservation of the environment. “The fight for mother earth is the mother of all fights”, declaims Sonia Guajajara in her speeches. And it is very interesting to note that in the Brazilian electoral scenario, in fact, indigenous candidates are the ones most concerned about the climate and environmental crisis.
The first parameter of any living system is survival, the second autonomy. Not by chance, the indigenous peoples, who represent 5% of the world population and who are responsible for the preservation of more than 80% of the world’s biodiversity, according to the UN, are the most alarmed by the climate and environmental crisis. And the Brazilian electoral scenario is proof of this.
“Land and indigenous: one lives from the other. Mother and child, indivisible.”
– Excerpt from the poem “The Indians” by the Brazilian poet Antonio Miranda.
Let us be realistic, there is no planet to be saved. Planet Earth has already been modified countless times and has seen the birth and extinction of different species. It will continue, just the way it is. The choice is whether we as a species want to perpetuate ourselves or not, and how. This choice is intrinsically linked to our relationship with the environment and the urgent agenda of the climate crisis. Beyond safeguarding the conditions of physical survival, it is in this relationship where we also find a way out of the main mental health problems of today: anxiety, depression and the like.
Prof. Dr. Helena Marujo, Executive Coordinator of the UNESCO project Education for Sustainable Global Peace and President of APEIPP – Portuguese Association of Studies and Intervention in Positive Psychology stresses that “The science of wellbeing is clear: contact with nature impacts our physical, psychological and spiritual health. Nature is therapeutic, it is healing. We are genetically programmed to be close to nature. Without it there is unhappiness, loneliness, disruption. From this disconnection, some authors say, comes even immorality. Contact helps us to take deeper exploration of the truth about our own existence, because it leads to greater spirituality. Empirical data indicates that being connected with nature improves mental health, namely by improving mood, decreasing anxiety, lowering stress, bringing more capacity to focus, leaving us more fully attentive, more self and hetero-conscious, more resilient, more grateful, with more vitality and energy, this greater vitality being both emotional and physical. Our hope indicators increase. A frequent relationship with nature helps with more solution-oriented thinking, improves memory and cognition, and helps make us more sensitive to sensory stimulation. These gains happen at all ages. For example, children with attention deficit and hyperactivity diagnoses reduce their behaviours that are considered disruptive when they are in contact with nature. If being with nature is common in our lives, we become more carers of nature itself. On a physical level, recent studies show an impact on reducing obesity and asthma. Nature is a purifier. In contact with it we rejuvenate, as it speeds up our metabolism, toxins are reduced, even bringing greater longevity. There is also empirical evidence of correlations with greater productivity and even with a reduction in domestic violence. The ethics of caring takes root every time we dedicate time to this deep connection with Mother Earth. The dirtier the feet, the cleaner the soul. Or, as Mary Davies says, “Nature brings the soul back home”.
Therefore, what alternatives can we co-create in a socio-political scenario where indigenous peoples are not only considered and respected, but also have an active voice in decision-making? Certainly, those that, above all, create strategies of socio-environmental regenerability. And you would certainly consider this option if you lived in your daily routine the scarcity of water, infertile soils and air pollution above the bearable by the human body.
Well, water stress already occupies regions in all continents of the planet. The supplement industry in 2020 grew by 12.1% to mitigate the growing wave of chronic malnutrition due to the low nutritional value of food. Every year, 7 million people die prematurely from air pollution, and the World Health Organization (WHO) has already revealed that virtually the entire world population breathes air considered unfit.
These are issues explored today by ESG verticals that try to escape Greenwashing, but still find it difficult to create projects that go beyond brand visibility. This is because, in order to face socio-environmental issues and new governance practices, it is necessary to reduce consumption and re-signify the parameters of social welfare.
If the People-Planet-Business triad is just one sector of the economy led by the promise of ESG, the race for survival will have a shamefully unhappy ending like in Don’t Look Up, Adam McKay’s film. And through this lens, the relevance of the political representativeness of the peoples responsible for over 80% of the world’s biodiversity takes on another value.
This group of indigenous leaders, due to their symbiotic relationship with mother earth, are capable of reconciling radical and rigorous actions necessary to avoid the catastrophe predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 3 years. This research centre warns that this is the deadline for halting emissions of greenhouse pollutants and preventing irreversible consequences to our survival triggered by global warming.
They are examples of joy and peace, even in conditions of material precariousness. I had the opportunity to live with indigenous people from the Kariri Xocó Tribe in the state of Alagoas – Brazil. They live in financial situations just above the poverty line, but with a mental health illness rate of less than 5%. How can this be explained, if not by wellbeing practices that are not linked to consumption, but to healthy interaction with nature?
Indigenous leaders who seek dialogue with politicians and business makers, have learned to communicate and organise themselves in structures that are not their own. And today, despite the injustices they have experienced, they propose to us the union for a new humanity. They alert us that the mistakes made in the colonisation of the original peoples have brought consequences for all peoples. And that we no longer have time for conflict, we need to act now and in unity.
With faith and the tenacity necessary to save our species, only those who know nature in symbiosis with themselves have the real capacity to guide us.
The relevance of the political representativeness of the indigenous people is not only a question of equality at the power table. They don’t need us. We are those who need them.
