Complex peace and ancestral knowledge in the colombian amazon

Abstract

When one speaks of peace in the Colombian Amazon, acts of violence, death and subjugation of centuries come back to life; from the rubber bonanzas to those experienced today with coca, oil and mining that destroy Mother Earth, displace and sow, in their wake, desolation and death.

In ancestral peoples, their daily struggles to survive motivate resistance and in their cultural knowledge; ignored, denied and made invisible by the hegemonic power, they sustain their identity; which millenary treasures amassed in the traditional experience of communicating and sharing in the chagra, the tulpa, the maloca, in the mambeo; in artisan weaving or the carnival of forgiveness (Big Day); where thoughts for the good life are mingan. The heroic ability to resist and rise from the ashes is admirable; their voice is not silenced to bravely demand their rights to the territory, respect for their dignity and to live in peace.

It is noteworthy that representatives of Complex Thinking denounce the historical epistemicide of alternative knowledge of cultures and raise awareness of the importance of making them visible, recognizing their ancestral wisdom, worth teaching, in a globalized society that has lost the compass of its walk by reducing its aspirations to economic ends and irrational consumption inevitably rushing to self-destruction.

The task from the educational processes is to build bridges of encounter between the scientific knowledge and the cultural knowledge of the invisible, stigmatized peoples; in order to recognize differences, in cooperation and solidarity to weave peace.