Messages from Teia das 5 curas
The Last Warning Campaign was launched by the Federation of the Huni Kui People of Acre, in partnership with the “Teia das 5 Curas” network of Indigenous communities, and the Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures Arts/Research Collective.
Messages from Chief Ninawa Huni Kui – hereditary chief and elected president of the Huni Kui Federation of Acre in the Amazon forest
- The fight against the climate crisis—which is also the fight against human extinction—depends on the protection of Indigenous peoples' rights. We are the front lines of protecting the Amazon forest and many other sensitive areas in Brazil and around the world. Now is the time to act for our human and other-than-human relations, and for our collective future.
- Our only chance in this fight is to raise the alarm and try to wake everyone up, in all generations, to work together to face our responsibilities to each other and the whole planet. We need everyone to do what they can to spread the word and halt the upcoming government efforts to cancel Indigenous rights, confiscate Indigenous lands, and remove protections for the Amazon forest. We are asking each of you to take part in this campaign, not just for our own sake, but for the sake of continued life on this planet.
- We need to do the work of protecting the Amazon collectively. We need help in protecting our territories, our knowledge, and our spiritual practices that can help us and all of humanity. We have to remember that we can exist in a different way on this planet.
- There is no way to move forward without dealing with what happened in our past. We need to wake up to the reality that our planet is sick, that we are part of the disease, and that it is our responsibility to seek healing in order to help ourselves and our own planet.
- Please amplify the message that the current Brazilian government is voting to destroy the Amazon forest and to exterminate Indigenous peoples, precisely because we are the Amazon's last line of defence. We have a landmark Supreme Court case being voted on 25 August that can strip away our land rights. My community and other Indigenous groups are organizing a large protest in Brazilia that will be intensified on 23, 24 and 25 August. Please help us show the Brazilian the world that you stand with us on those dates.
- The separation between humans and nature creates a collective trauma – a collective open wound. Our compulsion to consume everything is a symptom of a diseased metabolism: of our avoidance of facing the reality of what this trauma has done to ourselves and to the planet. We need a new compass to face together the storm of global challenges that are coming our way. We need to remember how to breathe and how to walk with sobriety, maturity, discernment and accountability. We will need to learn to face our collective pain and to heal together.
You can also use the transcript of Chief Ninawa’s presentation at the Bridge47 educational conference in May 2021 available here.
Messages from "Teia das 5 Curas" Indigenous network
https://blogs.ubc.ca/teiadas5curas/ (Portuguese)
- We address you today as part of our own family. It is only by realizing we are a larger family of human and non-human beings that we stand a chance of securing a future for those who will come after us. Imagine an unborn great-grandchild or other relative looking at you from the future and asking: if you knew what was happening, what did you do? We need to act as if all unborn great-grandchildren of all species are already here, asking us to act with maturity, discernment and responsibility, because, in fact, they are. They are already part of us and we are accountable to all of them. Our decisions need to take account of how we will impact those who will be alive seven generations from now.
- This is a crucial moment for everyone to join forces. No matter who you are, which organization or movement you are a part of, the future of the Amazon forest and the future of Indigenous peoples who are its guardians and custodians, depend on everyone’s involvement. This issue is too serious to be only a matter of concern of environmentalists or human rights advocates. If we want to keep this planet viable for future generations and prevent another genocide against Indigenous people in Brazil, we need to mobilize people from all over the world to put pressure on the Brazilian government to stop the passing of the harmful legislation that will eradicate the rights of Indigenous peoples and open the Amazon and other protected areas to unregulated deforestation and exploitation.
- Education has been the most powerful tool to colonize the imagination: the people with the most educational credentials are the ones who become most invested in the fantasy of separation and superiority that is destroying our planet. We need a kind of education that can help us face what we have done to each other, to other species, and to the planet. There is no way to move forward without dealing with what has happened in our past, and what continues to happen today. If we do not go through this difficult learning together, our hopes and solutions will only reproduce the same harmful fantasies that have brought us to the brink of extinction.
- No matter what profession you work in, there is an ethical responsibility to protect the future of the planet and of future generations, both human and non-human. If you understand the importance of the Amazon forest for the Earth's climate, and for all its beings, you already know that there is a serious threat. No ecosystem and no people can survive that much sustained abuse over such a long period of time. Whatever profession you are in, I ask you to sound the alarm and to join forces for the protection of the Amazon and of Indigenous rights in Brazil and everywhere.
- All societies change and evolve, including Indigenous societies. Colonialism happens when a vision and form of development is violently imposed by another culture. For many Indigenous peoples, ethical and sustainable development is tied to the health of human and non-human communities, of the land itself, of the planet, and of future generations. We need to realize that we are part of nature, and not above it. We need to think together about economic models that are not based on greed, over-consumption, the separation between humans and the environment, or the commodification of nature.
- We all have an important role in exposing injustices and holding powerful individuals, corporations, NGOs, and governments accountable. We have a responsibility to shine a light on the impacts of an integrated, global system that displaces Indigenous peoples, ravages the land, accelerates the climate crisis, and amplifies the fault lines of modernity. By telling the story of these realities in all their complexities and contradictions, we can collectively issue a last warning and learn from our collective past mistakes in order to make only new mistakes in the future.
- Remember that this campaign is about the fight for our collective survival, and the possibility of another way of being together on a shared, finite planet that we are all part of. We need a compass to walk together. We invite you to use a compass of maturity, discernment, and responsibility as you choose what is best for you to do on your own or in collaboration with others.
Click here to download the PDF of these messages.