How Flat is Indigenous Land?

Thomas Friedman has famously written that thanks to globalization the earth is now flat. To which it must quickly be added that it is flatter for some than for others. While Friedman cites remarkable (and real) advances in places as far flung as Hyderabad, India to make his case, there are still many in the world – billions – who don’t really get a piece of the pie, a place at the table, a level playing field. If anything, for many the earth is becoming more treacherous. But his argument is not entirely without merit, because globalization really isn’t leaving any corner of the globe untouched.

Case in point: Sipacapa, Guatemala. Many of my childhood memories revolve around Sipacapa, where we lived in an adobe house with a tin roof and a bare concrete floor. Behind our house was the community soccer field, and on a clear day we could look out past the eucalyptus trees and see Mexico, several mountain ridges away. There was no electricity or running water in the area in those days, so we’d hike down to a spring in the valley and fill jugs with water which would then be used for cooking, or heated on the wood stove and used for bathing in the pulley-operated shower we built on the front porch.

The village now benefits from electricity and running water. They’re even paving the roads, and many community residents have cell phones. The ways in which this unprecedented connectivity improves people’s lives are many. But globalization is a two-edged sword. The same force that has brought these modern advances has also brought, for one thing, the mining industry – not just to Sipacapa but to many remote villages throughout Latin America and around the world. Mining companies promise economic and community development but seldom keep their word because those with power to hold them accountable, quite frankly, don’t bother. Indigenous peoples, meanwhile - whose interests are officially protected under international agreements - are for all intents and purposes powerless when push actually comes to shove. See the No Dirty Gold campaign for more on these life-and-death issues.

Because I grew up in what is now a mining-affected area and because I am a Christian who is concerned about how abuses of power affect the poor, I returned to Sipacapa this spring to learn more about the mine and to do interviews with people in the area. While showing me around, an old family friend pointed out the local radio station, sitting up on a hill with a tall antenna. The station had been instrumental a few years prior when Sipacapa residents organized an official referendum in which the people voted nearly unanimously against mining in their community. The radio station enabled voting at thirteen different locations to occur simultaneously, and allowed for transparency in the process. Ultimately, though, it wasn’t enough, and the mining operation continues.

Early next year in Guatemala, congress will consider a telecommunications reform bill that will determine the fate of 170 of these community radio stations throughout the country that provide news and information to indigenous people in their own languages. The aim of the bill is to set aside a wave band specifically for such stations and to reduce the cost and red tape involved in obtaining licenses. In areas with high illiteracy, community radio is essential for the dissemination of important information like storm warnings and provides a forum for public debate on important issues.

It will be interesting to see whose interests prevail in congress, in a land with a government modeled after our own. And it will be a poignant snapshot of the pros and cons of globalization. From my standpoint, connectivity is good, generally speaking, as long as it’s a two-way street. I think most residents of Sipacapa would agree. But who really gets to call the shots? In the case of community radio in Guatemala we will see whether globalization will be a force for good or ill in the lives of the poor, for whom the world has been anything but flat.

For more on the situation in the Sipacapa area and elsewhere, check out COPAE. Among other things, they are working towards an alternative development plan for the region that will align more closely with the needs of the local people rather than the wishes of a Canadian board of directors. In other words, they are helping the indigenous people to work for flatness on their own terms.