Peru: Literacy for Social Change

A couple of common themes in leftish discussion is a seemingly never ending argument about workers Co-operatives, and the problem of education. How do we educate "the masses" how can we escape the problems of liberal academia and so on. I've recently stumbled upon a short documentary that concerns both and intertwined them.

There are some advocates of alternative means of education, a very popular and highly influential advocate was Paulo Freire. Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed is an effort to link education with political and social liberation. A key example of this is the issue of adult illiteracy and how to solve it. He and many educators inspired by his methods found that by making a custom study plan based on the lives and the challenges and obstacles of the students was a very effective way to teach reading and writing, and at the same time stimulate awareness of their issues and help them develop ways to organise and improve on them.

The documentary Peru: Literacy for Social Change, features a group of educators using Freire's methods on a Co-operative farm in rural Peru in the 1970s. While there the cameras document life on the farm, the effects of the land reform that established the co-operative, how things changed, what hasn't changed, what issues they face and what steps the members are taking to address them.

On the co-operative side its an interesting case study, they initially lived on the land owned by a large land owner, and paid their rent through their labour, if they had any issues or needs they had to rely on the "Don" to provide, if he felt like. But after a land reform law was passed the owner left and the labourers became members of a co-operative that shared the land and the work.

They have a number of accomplishments, the most brutal working practices under the old landowner no longer happen. They can work in groups and use the co-ops tools, and women in the fields no longer have to strap their babies to their backs while working. they get holidays, a short fall no longer means no payment. The co-op remains profitable, the work is not as heavy as before, they've expanded housing, run a canteen, a social security system and have sent some of their members away to be trained as educators, and they've now returned to teach the rest of the co-operative how to read and write.

Nevertheless challenges remain, they're still tied to the wider economy, they aren't profitable enough to meet all their needs, some housing has been built but overcrowding is still a problem, the division of labour isn't exactly egalitarian with women having to juggle or combine work in the fields with raising and teaching the children because the co-op hasn't been able to open a nursery like it's been promising. The head of the co-op complains that many members treat like the old landlord (they even still call him Don) and put most of the responsibility for running the co-op on him alone. And perhaps most importantly, the farm still relies on large numbers of migrant labourers during harvest time.

The migrants are paid far less, they have to work much longer to come close to the same rate of pay, and they receive none of the benefits that co-operative members receive. Though the migrants interviewed do say that they aren't driven as hard as before, their pay has gone up and they can now work in groups with friends and family members so the atmosphere has improved.

 In short the co-op has improved the members lives, and has achievements it can be proud of, but its still a small part of the capitalist economy. It has to remain profitable to fund its benefits and it has to rely on a two tier system.

However, many of the members are aware of these issues and aren't happy about it. Over the course of the film they're seen to be discussing the problems, especially the disparity between members and migrant workers. The education initiative was part of their attempt to overcome it, and they've started have more frequent meetings and discussion groups.

The film ends with the co-operative hosting a large meeting to discuss issues such as housing and the migrant problem. Some advocate the whole co-op working on building new homes together and expanding the co-op to include the migrants as full members.

It'd be very interesting if the film makers had returned to the co-op a few years later to see how they got on, but the film was released in 1978 and rural Peru was not a very pleasant or safe place in the 80s.

Ultimately though, I think the film demonstrates that co-operative economics can have a strong list of achievements, they're ultimately limited in what they can accomplish on their own, and can't really break free from the capitalist economy.



https://youtu.be/mSgBkbJbzRs
Adult educator Paulo Freire developed literacy programs in northeastern Brazil to combat part of the colonial legacy of illiteracy and promote social change. This film depicts adult educators putting Freire's methods to work on a Peruvian co-operative cotton farm, teaching peasants how to read and write. The promise of the literacy program is that the peasants will be able to use their newly found confidence to change the reality of their daily existence and collectively gain control of their own lives

From Crisis to Co-operatives

From FSRN

Over the last few years, Europe has experienced a severe financial crisis, with countries like Greece and Spain facing skyrocketing debt and unemployment. More than a decade ago, a similar situation was unfolding in Argentina. In 2001, the country suffered a debilitating economic crisis and, as a result, defaulted on its foreign debt and stopped pegging the Argentine peso to the U.S. dollar.  When the peso to dollar conversion jumped suddenly to three to one, many Argentines lost two-thirds of their savings overnight.

Banks closed.  Companies went out of business.  And fully one-quarter of the population was left without work.  Tens of thousands of those people, in desperation, started to make their living from garbage.  Working as “cartoneros,” which means “cardboard people” they sorted through trash to find recyclable materials to sell.  Thus was born Buenos Aires’ informal recycling system, which still exists today.

Eilís O’Neill has more on how the cartoneros, who originally struggled to exist on what they could make on their own, eventually organized into cooperatives in order to help each other and to demand that the government support their efforts.

This documentary was produced by Eilís O’Neill  in Buenos Aires. Documentary editor is Shannon Young. Technical production by Jeannine Etter. La Plataforma provided music for this documentary.

In 2001 Argentina suffered one of the worst economic depressions since the 1930's, surprisingly this traumatic period went unnoticed by most as 9/11 and the Invasion of Afghanistan diverted attention. I'm also certain that the fact this occurred in South America a region that at the time (late 80's through the 90's) was prone to economic collapse and street protests. Venezuela had food riots in Caracas, the old Dictatorships failures to secure living standards saw all of them chucked out the Presidential palaces etc.

Which as the above documentary demonstrates is quite shameful. Not only was it a case of ignoring a whole nation in severe difficulty, it also means that the rest of the world may have missed out on a very important example of the people power and the tenacity of ordinary people to Organise in the face of extreme adversity and societal collapse. 2001-02 saw ordinary shop floor staff occupying and reopening abandoned factories (for those who haven't already seen it I recommend The Take a documentary about factory occupations) and others still became Cartoneros "Cardboard people" they would and still do sort through rubbish for recyclable material to sell.

You may be wondering, isn't that what the homeless do all over the world? And the answer is sadly yes, but what makes the Cartoneros different is that they began to organise themselves into Cooperatives and establish routines and preferred buyers for certain materials, which enabled individual Cartoneros to work fewer hours, take days off and  improve their health and housing.

In fact several have become so large and well established that a number of them like El Ceibo now own their own sorting areas and factories.

They went from this

To this

But beyond the specific example of sorting recyclables the Cartoneros show the world the power of organisation, by hard work and solidarity the unemployed living on the very fringe of formal society have managed to improve their own conditions and become important institutions in Urban Centres.

In particular the Documentary makers think the Argentine experience will be of use to the Greeks (probably should of recorded it in Greek then) as not only do the two nations share similar triggers for their woes (the Argentine Peso was pegged to the US dollar for years) but the severity of both financial meltdowns means both nations faced a breakdown in formal society.

Saddam and the Iraq War, an Iraqi Communist Perspective

I find this interview with the oft forgotten Iraqi Communist Party, get enlightening. Iraq has been so dominated by first Saddam and now the Sunni vs Shia Sectarian rift with Kurds popping up for an occasional skirmish that the role of non sectarian left wing groups in Iraqi politics especially in opposition a curious oversight.Arguably this blackout extends even to the only recurring coverage Communism in Iraq gets is the brief blips the Kurdish Workers Party PKK gets when it carries out attacks on the Turkish military in response to the oppression of the Kurdish minority in Turkey. And even then there usually just name checked or called Kurdish extremists/terrorists.





For anyone interested in what actual Iraqi's have to say about there nation and its future is well worth a watch, well done to the Communist Party of Britain (CPB) for arranging the interview, though I suppose I should point out that for those who don't know the CPB is the group that runs the Morning Star, thats runs not owns mind, the People's Press Society a cooperative owns it.