we say no

I may have written about this book before, or at least referred to it, but I think it's worth another look. As I was looking for a profound quote to end my paper on Latin America-U.S. relations I kept coming back to Galeano's We Say No. I found it not only relevant for my term paper, but also for us Indigneous folks in these parts of the Americas (occupied British Columbia). Specifically, because of the current BC Treaty Process, and the most common criticism levelled at dissenters: "It's not enough to just say 'no.' You have to come with solutions." Well, to a group of under-resourced people this is a tall order, but I and Galeano agree that sometimes it is more than enough to just say no, especially when the consequences are so significant and far-reaching. Here are some excerpts from his talk, We Say No (originally given at a gathering of rebellious intellectuals in Chile in July, 1988) from the book of the same name:

(translated by Cedric Belfrage)

We have come from different countries, and we are here - reunited under the generous shade of Pablo Neruda - to join the people of Chile, who say no.

We also say no.

We say no to the praise of money and of death. We say no to a system that assigns prices to people...We say no to a system that neither feeds its people nor loves them, that condemns many to hunger for food and many more to a hunger for the embrace...

We say no to the lie...

The colonial inheritance obliges the so-called Third World (and Fourth World!) - populated by third-class people - to accept as its own the memory of the victors who conquered it and to take on its lies of others and use them as its own reality. They reward our obedience, punish our intelligence, and discourage our creative energy.

We say no to fear. No to fear of speaking, of doing, of being...

As it happens, we are saying no, and by saying no we are saying yes... By saying no to the devastating empire of greed, whose centre lies in North America, we are saying yes to another possible America, which will be born of the most ancient of American traditions, the communitarian tradition that the Chilean Indians have defended, deperately, defeat after defeat, during the last five centuries.

In saying no to peace without dignity, we are saying yes to the sacred right of rebellion against injustice and its long history as long as the history of popular resitance on the long map of Chile.

By saying no to the freedom of money, we are saying yes to the freedom of people: a mistreated and wounded freedom, a thousand times defeated as in Chile and, as in Chile, a thousand times arisen.