Listen to the Amazon Indians Not Liberation Theologians!
I am very proud to represent the native Amazon peoples at this conference organized by the Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira Institute. I appreciate your invitation to speak in the eternal Rome of antiquity and the Popes. It is a symbolic podium for the world.
Urî Jonas Marcolino, macusi, Brazilian, Maikan Pisi Wei Tî´pî po, tîko´mansen urî.
I am Jonas Marcolino, a Macuxi Brazilian, and live in the indigenous land called Raposa Serra do Sol. Congratulations to the Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira Institute for giving a voice and opportunity to speak to native Brazilians from the Amazon.
Our Story
Our leadership and struggle started a long time ago. In 2008, we Indians participated in the seminar titled “Threatened Sovereignty over the Amazon: Farce or Reality,” held in São Paulo at the request of an assembly of more than one hundred groups.
During that seminar, I attended as a Macuxi indigenous leader and a director of the United Indigenous of North Roraima’s Defense Society (SODIU-RR). I told the assembly that until the age of eighteen, I had a hard time making ends meet since I hunted and fished for a living. Although my parents were illiterate, I became a math teacher and completed my law degree. I and the peoples I represented, were totally opposed to the demarcation of our Reservation.
We are the majority in the region. Nonetheless, the socialist government of the Workers Party (PT) and the Supreme Court would not listen to us. When asked by the press, I clearly outlined the situation of the Macuxis living in the reservation area. I told them that we oppose the demarcation of the borders of the reservation that would expel the whites living in the area. We represent 70% of the roughly 12,000 Macuxis living in Raposa Serra do Sol area.
We Indians are integrated into society. We use electricity, cars, and buses. We have productive villages. We want to have access to these modern tools so that we can progress. The problem is that some people think we must live in the Stone Age. They believe we must survive by hunting and fishing. The FUNAI (National Indian Foundation) policy prohibits access to development. This policy condemns us to backwardness.
The Case for Integration From a Native Viewpoint
Indigenous peoples were in the Americas long before the Portuguese and any other Old World nations arrived. They lived, got along and fought one another. Some went extinct, while others moved to other parts.
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