Tierra Sublevada by Pino Solanas

Today (September 28, 2009) I went to watch Pino Solanas’ last documentary Tierra Sublevada [something like Raising Land]. Two things struck me apart from the general message about the neo-colonial practices that the mining business implies, and they are how the Argentinean environmental movement relates to nationalism, and the role that Pino Solanas plays in outlining the discourse for this same movement or rather, what the relationship is between him and the movement. Through the documentary I heard the same slogans as I have during the two UAC I have participated in: water is worth more than gold, life is worth more than everything else, and no one touches the glaciers. The practices, or the looting, that the multinational corporations are supposed to be involved in were central in the story. Solanas describes how the multinational corporations that extract the minerals only pays 1-1,5% in royalty since they can deduce costs for extraction and transportation, and how this is only the case for 3 out of all the dozens of minerals that are extracted. This is further information that is possible to find at his official website as well (www.pinosolanas.com). The documentary has obviously been filmed and concluded during the last months, because events which I have been able to observe in my study were present like the charge against the activists who blocked the road to Famatina. Solanas described how the protests have been criminalized, how politicians are selling the common goods, and how politicians in the major mining provinces are corrupt and favoured by impunity by the juridical systemHe also highlights how the mining company Alumbrera Ltd pays 50 million pesos for the education at the University in Tucuman, an issue which has been heavily debated within the environmental movement since April or May, which have even led some departments to reject the funds.

To continue the reflection I initiated above on the relationship between nationalism and the Argentinean environmental movement, I find it captivating (or perhaps scary is a better term) to think about the privatization of the common goods that is possible to observe. It is difficult not to agree on the relevance of the question that Solanas poses: how can there be so much poverty in a country which is so rich? Like a banner at the demonstration in San Lorenzo on the 12th of September said: “At this port the wealth is shipped out, and we are left with poverty, contamination, explosions and ill health”. So the interest in nationalism is both relevant in the light of globalization concerning what it is that moves over national borders, as well as internally concerning who benefits from and who can participate in the decisions for how to use common goods.