Indigenous peoples in the nineteenth century
Introduction
The Barbarie civilization conception has been a rector to understand the positions about the original peoples. Understanding the right as a vector of political, symbolic, social, cultural and historical struggles I will try to establish a position from national thinking towards the appointed communities assuming a critical position against the narrative construction that has dominated in our history.
Developing
The Argentine intellectuals of the nineteenth century installed a speech that would take strength with the May generation, whose main referents Domingo Faustino Sarmiento and Juan Bautista Alberdi will impose two fundamental concepts that will be used to characterize the time and that will endure in time. The first of the concepts "civilization" will be used to reference everything from the city, claiming the foreign, the second "barbarism", will be used to name/qualify everything related to the original peoples that will be considered internal enemies,horrifying all that from the Americas.
In the same sense, little validity or the weak of American culture will highlight when they colonized these lands, not recognizing them as a uniform culture but as isolated peoples without unifying elements. Being understood as peoples lacking cultural. These era ideas embodied great admiration for European culture, synonym for prosperity, civilization and intelligence.
An intelligence, obviously elitist, rational and liberal that opposed irrationality with which they characterized the internal enemy they called the unworthiness. Characteristic used to justify the genocide of the different tribes that inhabited the Pampas and Patagonian region of the country, in what was called "Conquest of the Desert".
These peoples were subjected, stolen from their culture, their customs, their way of living and their lands. This physical and symbolic violence found justification in the sole idea of expanding what is understood as civilization for which the internal enemy had to be destroyed. Argentina in the last decades of the nineteenth century had been incorporated into the international market as an exporter of raw materials. The incorporation of new lands became inevitable.
Julio Argentino Roca, then president, undertook the violent conquest knowing that the indigenous communities were weakened and did not represent a threat to the “civilized” territory. The reason and/or reason for the progress on the territory of the original peoples will reside in wealth, in the value of the appropriate lands. It was the civilized Argentine state that will sell millions of hectares at a low price concentrating the property in a small group of landowners, many of whom had financed the conquest.
Deconstruct the historical, hegemonic narrative "civilization/ barbarie" would imply reviewing the entire official history. Recognize the native peoples of our country as part of our people. The Argentine State must claim, rectifying and recognizing the overwhelming of its culture. Argentine philosopher and anthropologist Rodolfo Kusch states:
“Being an indigenist in the twentieth century and in Argentina is stupid. There are no indigenists anywhere in America. The dangerous is, however, those who are afraid of indigenism. Won’t it be a way of getting disconnected as the middle class of the town’s problem?”The author understood that it was essential to humanize all human relations, within which relations with the original peoples are located.
It proposes us to think that in a globalized world, with a consolidated national state, being fundamentalist of the cause of the native peoples can enter into contradiction with national interest. However, immediately, it indicates the dangerous of those who fear these peoples, and invites us to think that they fear these, it is a way of getting disconnected from their cause.
I find it interesting to reflect on the importance of respect for the culture of native peoples in the construction of national identity. While criticizes an indigenista fundamentalist position, we propose to think about the links that are established so as not to contradicted the national interest of which the original peoples are part. They are Argentine people.
We move away from the civilizational idea of Sarmiento and Alberti. The Argentine State must promote a reconciliation of our people with the original peoples, recognizing the historical debt that has with them enriching the construction of a new narrative that has been developing in respect for cultural diversity and respect for the rights of these peoples.
Argentine law will reflect in its enunciation a first advance of national thinking and the recognition of the rights of the original peoples. In the reform of the Argentine National Constitutional of the year 1994, a first step was taken with the modification of article N.º 67 subsection 15 that stated: "It corresponds to Congress … conserve the peaceful treatment with the Indians, and promote their conversion to Catholicism". The current article N.º 75 subsection 17 establishes that:
“Corresponds to Congress: recognize the ethnic and cultural preexistence of the Argentine indigenous peoples. Guarantee respect for your identity and the right to bilingual and intercultural education. Recognize the legal status of their communities and the community possession and property of the lands that traditionally occupy. Regulate the delivery of other suitable and sufficient for human development. None of them will be alienable, transmissible or susceptible to encumbrances or embargoes ”.
conclusion
While it was a first step, it is of vital importance that Argentine society makes a strong criticism of the civilization-barrie conception. I believe that the progress of legislation that breaks with the hegemonic narrative constructions imposed by the dominant elite that contemplates the rights of the original peoples is necessary.
Understanding the right as an articulator of power relations is the critical school that may provide us with the necessary tools. Claim the American, the same, build identity. Consolidate that identity and transform it into a national interest recognizing the importance of the inclusion of the original culture in the construction of national identity.
Bibliography
- Kusch, r. (1976). "Geoculture of the American man" Chapter 1. The fear of being ourselves.
- Kusch, r. (1953). "The seduction of barbarism: heretical analysis of a mestizo continent"
- Sarmiento, d. (1845). "Facundo or civilization and barbarism in the Argentine Pampas"
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