Calling of the Spirits!
November 18, 2016
“The Calling of the Spirits”
Pluricosmovisionary Council of Activators for the Convocation of The First Ecosocialist International
(See pictures on our Facebook page here, and here!)
October 25-28, 2016
Guaja (Monte Carmelo), Lara,
Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Abya Yala (Our America)
(Abya Yala: name used by indigenous nations for the continents of the Americas, meaning “fertile ground”)
[More information: prefiguration@gmail.com (English) / llamadodelosduendes@gmail.com (Spanish)]
To the Daughters and Sons of the People,
Every year in a small village in the state of Lara in Venezuela, the Guardians of the Seeds converge. Last year this movement was able to lead the construction and approval of an anti-GMO and anti-patent Seed Law. This year, the hosts are offering a space, prior to their 11th annual Day of the Campesino Seed (October 29), for a “Calling of the Spirits”: From the 25th to the 28th of October, they invite you to form part of a pluricosmovisionary commission, which will begin the design of a collective process of preparation to arrive at the First Ecosocialist International.
From the everyday transformative actions of ecosocialist collectives, organizations and social movements, from spirited minds and from seeds planted in our hearts, the idea has emerged: To envision the Convocation of the First Ecosocialist International in Venezuela, Abya Yala. To specify and coordinate our anti-capitalist and anti-patriarchal practices, and from their encounter to think and feel a new revolutionary ethic.
The people of Venezuela have mobilized and voted twice for a government program called “The Plan of the Homeland”, which includes as its last historical objective to “preserve peace on the planet and save the human species,” and in order to achieve this, “to build an ecosocialist economic production model based on a harmonious relationship between humanity and nature… This fifth grand historical goal is an appeal to join efforts in support of a world movement to eradicate the causes and reverse the effects of climate change which occur as a consequence of the predatory capitalist model.” Perhaps it is because of the hope that Venezuela represents, that the powerful of the world see it as a threat and have unleashed on us one of the most cruel unconventional wars that any nation has seen.
At our first national preparatory meeting, we began to ask ourselves: “Ecosocialismo, duende estas?”(2) … And at that time one of our local and universal spirits(3) animated us with a few poetic and conceptual definitions, as some preliminary answers…
“Ecosocialism is the encounter, the kiss and the embrace of Mother Earth with her guardians, from the cosmos of love and the revolution of spirituality…
It is a cosmovision and a praxis in infinite coupling, dialectic and dialogue, with the university of life, the teachers of the people, the living books…
Ecosocialism symbolizes the insurgent and the loving, the formative and spiritual, the pluri-cultural, multi-ethnic, anti-imperialist and decolonial…
Ecosocialism is creative utopia, seed, birth, creation and a collective co-responsibility, from the logic of the people as teacher, historian, commander…
Ecosocialism is the collective and liberating spirituality of sun men and firefly women, from the decolonizing logic, the ancestral and cosmic sowing!”
At the time of this meeting, we put forward a few original lines in reference to the International: We don’t aspire to unite academics who are not tied to socioeconomic and political mobilizations, but rather the militants from ecosocialist organizations and movements. And we come together not to beg or to denounce, but to articulate our struggles in a Common Plan of Action, based on the concrete tasks of political, economic, social and ecological struggle in daily life.
We imagine the Convocation of the First Ecosocialist International as a productive and happy encounter of people, interrelating and affirming each other based on the conviviality of mutual aid and reciprocity. As members of popular organizations opposed to the domination which confronts us in competition and war, to reach agreements toward the conformation of a Planetary Network of Networks of Ecosocialist Movements; a grand social framework which fosters an exodus from capitalist modernity, a migration toward the ecosocialist horizon which we ourselves are, beyond the monotheism of the God of Money and beyond the infinite production of commodities.
However, these few criteria are not sufficient for such an important purpose. We don’t believe that we or anyone alone can define the fundamental questions that will prefigure the soul of the First Ecosocialist International. For this reason, we are inviting organizations and movements, who believe like us in this dream, and walk the path of the word to attain it: to decide upon and send a spokesperson to accompany us this year, from the 24th to the 28th of October; to establish the parameters, and then to spread the good news of the convocation around the world.
We respond to the calling that the Great Spirits, the Big Little Brothers of humanity, are always making, with the certainty that other ways of thinking and feeling exist, other intellectual and spiritual ways of relating with our Mother Earth (Pachamama), this planet we inhabit, which is a living super-organism, and which wants us all to unite in a point and a spiral which knows no borders. Let us do it with the heroic resistance of our peoples who still keep alive their ancient ways, their native forests, their springs of clean water; let us do it with the seeds of ancestral cosmovisions, without pesticides or patrons!
Methodological Organization:
The methodology that will be used in this Pluricosmovisionary Council of Activators is the reading and analysis of Reality; the reading of and apprenticeship to Nature. This involves an open search: to facilitate the collective construction of knowledge, and to make decisions that will help us come to consensus on all the pending details toward the convocation of the First Ecosocialist International, in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, with international guests in addition to the popular social movements of Venezuela. The facilitating team for the methodology of this year’s encounter will be the National Team of the Sociocultural Productive Calendar, coordinated by Livio Rangel, which will gather the generative questions and forms of systematization.
Gathering to define and specify, in Spirals of Dialog (Working Groups):
1. The Criteria of Participation — movements and/or social organizations invited by continent
2. Definition of the Program — to establish the Spirals of Dialog in the Convocation
3. Logistical Organization — logistical teams, hosts and activators
4. Methodology and Facilitation Team — spirit and sense of the convocation
5. Communications Strategies — national and international media teams
In plenary: The construction of a time-line, and the definition of a total program for the convocation of the First Ecosocialist International.
Communications Team:
The Communications team, coordinated by Pablo Mayayo, will be responsible for the Mandatory Previous Registration of the Participants, Organizations and Ecosocialist Movements, via the address: llamadodelosduendes@gmail.com (Pablo Mayayo) for countries who speak Spanish, and for countries who speak English, via the address: prefiguration@gmail.com (Quincy Saul).
This registration should include:
> a brief outline, of no more than one page, about the ecosocialist struggle or practice of the Collective, Organization or Social Movement which aspires to attend; including the amount of time they have been developing it, the places, the organizational form, etc,
> after an act of Assembly in which this collective/organization/social movement designates a spokesperson to attend, the specific mandates that this person brings to “The Calling of the Spirits”, specifically in relation to the Convocation of the First Ecosocialist International,
> the authorization that this organization may appear alongside the other convoking organizations,
the way in which the spokesperson prefers to arrive, whether this is through the collective contribution of members of the organization, their own funds, or governmental, institutional or private support without conditions, etc.
Facilitation Team for Food:
Coordinated by Delia Gonzalez, the food for “The Calling of the Spirits” will be an exchange of gastronomic knowledges. The theme of the kitchen throughout the encounter will be: “Peoples’ Strategies of Nutritional Resistance.”
The theme of “Peoples’ Strategies of Nutritional Resistance.” will in the first place allow the International participants to understand the strategies which the Venezuelan people are using to confront the ongoing economic war. For example, a breakfast with arepas and sandwiches based on Guaje, a historic nutritional strategy used by the armed resistance in the mountains of Lara in the times of the Fourth Republic.(4) Also, the participating countries could demonstrate the nutritional strategies of their peoples. For example, the Brazilians, Uruguayans, Chileans and Argentineans could bring Yerba Mate to share a drink which in times of war helped the Brazilian army to resist weeks of hunger when they lost their provisions; the drink that poor peoples use in times when there is not much food, etc. Peruvians, Bolivians, Ecuadorians and Colombians could put forward something similar in terms of the Coca leaf, whether it is chewed, in teas, used as a condiment, etc. Every participating country can show other examples of resistance among their peoples. Bring your recipes! In this way, the preparation and eating of meals at the gathering will be a trade of knowledges and a window into the heroic resistance of brave peoples.
We hope that you will join us!
If you are interested in attending, please write at:
prefiguration@gmail.com (english) / llamadodelosduendes@gmail.com (spanish)
We are already waiting!
Hasta la victoria siembren!(5)
National organizations:
*Semillero Socialista de Monte Carmelo
*Sistema de Trueke del Territorio Comunal “Argimiro Gabaldón”, Sanare, Lara,
*Consejo Comunal de Monte Carmelo,
*Comuna María Teresa Angulo,
*Asociación Civil Asopromoca (Asociación de Productores de Monte Carmelo),
*Cooperativa “La Alianza” de Las Lajitas,
*Asociación Civil MonCar,
*Cooperativa 8 de Marzo de Palo Verde,
*Feria de Consumo Familiar de Monte Carmelo,
*Colectivo Senderos del Saber de Monte Carmelo,
*Liceo Bolivariano Benita de Jesús García de Monte Carmelo,
*Liceo Bolivariano de Bojo,
*Emisora Comunitaria Sanareña 101.9 FM,
*Asociación de Productores Agroecológicos El Alto de Guarico, Lara,
*Colectivo de Investigación ¨El Maestro Café¨, Sanare, Lara,
*Comuna Socialista Sueño de Bolívar,
*Comuna Kiriwa,
*Comuna Caimán de Sanare,
*Comuna Asunción Piñero,
*Comuna Argimiro Gabaldon,
*Comuna Un Nuevo Amanecer del Guaical,
*Comuna Pingano,
*Comuna Jirajara,
*Comuna en construcción Santiago Hernández,
*Comuna Ezequiel Zamora,
*Comuna Las Quebraditas,
*Comuna Ciudad de Angostura,
*Comuna Albarical,
*Comuna Gran Sabana,
*Comuna en construcción Miraflores Unidos,
*Coordinación de Educación del Municipio Andrés Eloy Blanco con todas sus Escuelas y Liceos, *Misión Sucre, Misión Robinson, Misión Rivas de A.E.B.,
*Universidad Politécnica Territorial Andrés Eloy Blanco,
*Universidad Campesina de Venezuela Argimiro Gabaldon,
*Panadería La Campesina de Bojo,
*Baquianos del Conocimiento de Monte Carmelo,
*Consejo Popular de Resguardo de Semillas “Renato y El Caimán”,
*Calendario Productivo Socio Cultural,
*Escuela Popular de Semillas,
*Escuela Popular de Piscicultura,
*MST Venezuela (Movimientos Sociales por el Trueke, la Paz, la Vida y el Ecosocialismo),
*Sistema de Trueke Merideño de Mérida,
*Frente Revolucionario de Artesanas y Artesanos de Venezuela, Capitulo Mérida,
*and other collectives, organizations, and social movements in Venezuela who form part of the National Network of the Guardians of Seeds.
International Organizations
*Ecosocialist Horizons, USA
*CODEPANAL (Comité de Defensa del Patrimonio Nacional), Bolivia
Translator’s notes:
(1) Translated from the original Spanish by Quincy Saul, Ecosocialist Horizons.
(2) “Ecosocialismo, duende estas?” has a double meaning: “Ecosocialism, are you a spirit?” And, since ‘duende’ sounds like ‘donde,’ it also implies and asks, “Ecosocialism, where are you?”
(3) Juan José Escalona Betancourt, local farmer, educator, poet, revolutionary, spirit. He wrote this during the “Preparatory Reunion for the First Ecosocialist International, Monte Carmelo, Lara, Venezuela, October 31, 2015.
(4) The Fourth Republic refers to the system of government between 1958-1998, beginning with a power sharing pact between the two capitalist parties in 1958, which ended with the election of Hugo Chavez in 1998.
(5) A play on Che Guevara’s slogan “Hasta la victoria siempre” (Always toward victory), “Hasta la victoria siembren” can be translated “Sow towards victory!”
(Also see the separate document for english speakers; “Preparatory Curriculum for the Convocation of the First Ecosocialist International in Venzuela”, compiled by Ecosocialist Horizons, available upon request at prefiguration@gmail.com)
