Judi Lynn
Judi Lynn's JournalPainting in the Americas before European colonization
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Tepantitla at Teotihuacan. The Mountain of Abundance mural, also known as the “Paradise of Tlaloc”. Circa 450-600 AD, original fresco.
Painting in the Americas before European colonization is the Precolumbian painting traditions of the Americas. Painting was a relatively widespread, popular and diverse means of communication and expression for both religious and utilitarian purpose throughout the regions of the Western Hemisphere. During the period before and after European exploration and settlement of the Americas; including North America, Central America, South America and the islands of the Caribbean, the Bahamas, the West Indies, the Antilles, the Lesser Antilles and other island groups, indigenous native cultures produced a wide variety of visual arts, including painting on textiles, hides, rock and cave surfaces, bodies especially faces, ceramics, architectural features including interior murals, wood panels, and other available surfaces. Many of the perishable surfaces, such as woven textiles, typically have not been preserved, but Precolumbian painting on ceramics, walls, and rocks have survived more frequently.
The oldest known paintings in the South America are the cave paintings of Caverna da Pedra Pintada, in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest that date back 11,200 years.[1] The earliest known painting in North America is the Cooper Bison Skull found near Fort Supply, Oklahoma, dated to 10,200 BCE.[2]
Painting in the Americas before colonization
Main articles: Native American art, Maya art, Pre-Columbian art, and Indigenous peoples of the Americas
Each continent of the Americas hosted societies that were unique and individually developed cultures; that produced totems, works of religious symbolism, and decorative and expressive painted works. African influence was especially strong in the art of the Caribbean and South America. The arts of the indigenous people of the Americas had an enormous impact and influence on European art and vice versa during and after the Age of Exploration. Spain, Portugal, France, The Netherlands and England were all powerful and influential colonial powers in the Americas during and after the 15th century. By the 19th century cultural influence began to flow both ways across the Atlantic.
Mesoamerica
See also: Mesoamerican writing systems, Oasisamerica, Aridoamerica, and Aztec calendar stone
The murals of Teotihuacan that adorn the archaeological site (and others, like the Wagner Murals, found in private collections) and from hieroglyphic inscriptions made by the Maya describing their encounters with Teotihuacano conquerors are the source of most of what is understood about that ancient civilization. The painting of the murals, perhaps thousands of them, reached its zenith between 450 and 650 CE. The painters' artistry was unrivalled in Mesoamerica and has been compared with that of Florence, Italy.[3]
More:
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Painting_in_the_Americas_before_European_colonization
Also posted in Anthropology:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/12295125
Bolivia coup led by Christian fascist paramilitary leader and millionaire - with foreign support
November 11, 2019
Bolivia coup led by Christian fascist paramilitary leader and millionaire – with foreign support
Bolivian coup leader Luis Fernando Camacho is a far-right multi-millionaire who arose from fascist movements in the Santa Cruz region, where the US has encouraged separatism. He has courted support from Colombia, Brazil, and the Venezuelan opposition.
By Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton
When Luis Fernando Camacho stormed into Bolivia’s abandoned presidential palace in the hours after President Evo Morales’s sudden November 10 resignation, he revealed to the world a side of the country that stood at stark odds with the plurinational spirit its deposed socialist and Indigenous leader had put forward.
With a Bible in one hand and a national flag in the other, Camacho bowed his head in prayer above the presidential seal, fulfilling his vow to purge his country’s Native heritage from government and “return God to the burned palace.”
“Pachamama will never return to the palace,” declared the pastor to his side, referring to the Andean Mother Earth spirit. “Bolivia belongs to Christ.”
. . .
Virtually unknown outside his country, where he had never won a democratic election, Camacho stepped into the void. He is a powerful multi-millionaire named in the Panama Papers, and an ultra-conservative Christian fundamentalist groomed by a fascist paramilitary notorious for its racist violence, with a base in Bolivia’s wealthy separatist region of Santa Cruz.
More:
https://thegrayzone.com/2019/11/11/bolivia-coup-fascist-foreign-support-fernando-camacho/
This article offers a ton of information in one place which would take you a long time, and many articles to discover for yourself, researching. It's well worth the time it takes to read it.
Bolivian Police Gas Funeral March in Latest Crack-Down
NOVEMBER 27, 2019
by OLIVIA ARIGHO-STILES
La Paz, Bolivia
Last Thursday thousands of people descended into La Paz from El Alto carrying the caskets of eight people shot dead by police earlier that week. Emotions were running high and protestors had tears streaming down their faces. They had assembled peacefully to demand justice.
“Áñez, murderer. We want your resignation”, they shouted. “Justicia!”. It was not a march in support of a political party; it was a march of grief and fury.
Around thirty minutes later, the police dropped cans of tear gas over the marchers, forcing the families to abandon the coffins on the ground under the hot sun. As the tear gas floated across Plaza San Francisco, people implored “calma, calma” to prevent a crush as the crowd fled.
The dead had been among those blockading the natural gas plant at Senkata, El Alto in protest at the new interim government of Bolivia. In total, nine were shot by state forces on Tuesday in a military operation to unblock the plant, which supplies most of La Paz’s gas.
. . .
Meanwhile, the government, headed by religious conservative Jeanine Áñez, continues its McCarthy-esque purge of officials appointed under the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS), issuing highly politicized and seemingly arbitrary arrest warrants. It should be remembered that Áñez’s party only received 4% of the popular vote in the election.
More:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/11/27/bolivian-police-gas-funeral-march-in-latest-crack-down/
Behind The Racist Coup In Bolivia - OpEd
November 26, 2019 COHA
By COHA
By Danny Shaw*
On Sunday, November the 10th, at approximately 4pm (eastern standard time) the democratically elected president and vice president of Bolivia, Evo Morales and Álvaro García respectively, were forced to resign from power. This was no voluntary resignation as CNN, the New York Times and the rest of the corporate media is reporting, nor has it been accepted by the Legislative Assembly as required by the Constitution of Bolivia.[1] This was a coup that employed threats and brutality against Morales, García, members of the cabinet, congressional representatives, and their families. Both the commander in chief of the military and head of the Bolivian Police requested, in no uncertain terms, the resignation of Morales.[2] The coup forces, led by Pro-Santa Cruz Committee president Luis Fernando Camacho, continues to target Movement for Socialism (MAS) activists, progressive social movements, and Indigenous peoples of Bolivia.
Behind the Misleading Headlines
The corporate press has predictably given one-sided coverage of the unfolding situation in the Plurinational State of Bolivia, a resource-rich Andean nation of 11.5 million, of which approximately 50% are Indigenous[3]. While the mainstream media act as cheerleaders for the unrest in Hong Kong and magnify any sign of discontent in Venezuela or any other country perceived by the US government as “enemy”, it has largely ignored the popular uprisings in Haiti, Chile, Ecuador and beyond. Now, in the case of Bolivia, conservative circles in the Americas are celebrating an opportunity to take power back from a president, administration and people who have been a regional driving force for the advancement of Indigenous, environmental, women’s and workers’ rights. Bolivia has enjoyed one of the most stable economic growth rates in the Americas, between 4% and 5% in the last years, and decreased poverty among millions of Bolivians, from 59% to 39%, according to official data from the World Bank.[4]
A Call for Solidarity
On Thursday, October 24th, Bolivia’s election panel declared Morales the winner with 47.07% of the votes and Carlos Mesa the runner up with 36.5% of the votes.[5] According to a Center for Economic and Policy Research, Morales had a sufficient margin of victory to be declared the victor in the elections.[6] The Organization of American States presented findings that the election had irregularities and that the “auditing team could not validate the electoral results and were thus, recommending another election.”[7] The opposition contested the election, led by extreme right wing leader of the Santa Cruz Committee, Luis Fernando Camacho. Camacho is involved in the continental corruption case known as “The Panama Papers”[8]. He also has links with terrorist and separatist Branko Marinkovic, who enjoys safe harbor in Brazil, which is governed by the right-wing presidency of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil[9]. In response to charges that the election was not valid, Morales invited the United Nations and the Organization of American States (OAS) to conduct an audit.[10] The opposition rejected these calls, reiterating their demands for Morales to step down.[11] Morales responded to the OAS audit, which claimed there were irregularities, by calling for new elections and a reconstitution of the electoral commission but the coup leaders rejected all of these concessions.[12]
. . .
In the town of Vinto, protestors brutally attacked, cut off the hair and marched MAS mayor Patricia Arce through the streets to humiliate her. Anti-government forces have picked up arms and burned down the homes of MAS activists and family members. In response, Morales said: “Burn my house. Not those of my family. Seek vengeance with me and Alvaro. Not with our families.”[13]
More:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/26112019-behind-the-racist-coup-in-bolivia-oped/
Brazil: Halt illegal cattle farms fuelling Amazon rainforest destruction - new report
26 Nov 2019, 03:01am
. . .
Cattle farming is the main driver of illegal land seizures on Reserves and Indigenous territories in Brazil’s Amazon, fuelling deforestation and trampling on the rights of Indigenous and traditional people living there, Amnesty International said in a new report today [26 November].
The 29-page report - Fence off and bring cattle: Illegal cattle farming in Brazil’s Amazon - was released as Amnesty, alongside Indigenous leaders from the Amazon, presented a petition with more than 162,000 signatures to Brazilian authorities calling on them to stop illegal seizures of protected land in the Amazon.
Richard Pearshouse, Amnesty International’s Head of Crisis and Environment, said:
“Illegal cattle ranching is the main driver of Amazon deforestation. It poses a very real threat, not only to the human rights of Indigenous and traditional peoples who live there, but also to the entire planet’s ecosystem.
“While the Bolsonaro administration slashes environmental protections at the Federal level, some state authorities are effectively enabling the illegal cattle farming which destroys protected areas of the rainforest.
More:
https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/brazil-halt-illegal-cattle-farms-fuelling-amazon-rainforest-destruction-new-report
Looking back to the future in Bolivia
November 23, 2019
Over the years, Bolivians dreamed of and struggled for a better world alongside, against, and beyond Evo Morales. But it was not supposed to end like this.
AUTHOR
Ben Dangl
It was not supposed to end this way.
A white supremacist president and her right-wing allies were not supposed to replace Evo Morales in a coup earlier this month. A de facto regime was not supposed to absolve military and police of their crimes as they shot peaceful protesters. The wiphala flag, a symbol of Bolivia’s many indigenous nations, was not supposed to be burned and torn down by racists seizing power. The new minister of communication was not supposed to threaten to round up “seditious” journalists. And the blood from the more than 25 dead and hundreds wounded from military and police bullets was not supposed to flow in the streets.
The days of Bolivian right-wing dictatorships were supposed to be over.
I remember the dream before this nightmare. I remember the street barricades against neoliberal tyrants in the early 2000s, when people fought for and envisioned a Bolivia free of corporate looting, free of the military violence of the drug war, and free of racist presidents ruling over an impoverished majority. I remember the euphoria of Evo’s impossible rise to the presidency, when an Indigenous union leader arrived at the presidential palace to “govern by obeying” the people.
I remember the street fights to defend the new constitution against the violence of the right, the long meetings and marches against feminicides, environmental disasters, and government corruption. I remember talking with Morales supporters who cried when casting their votes for a president who finally, they said, cared about the poor and indigenous people, a leader who made concrete advances in empowering marginalized sectors of society.
More:
https://roarmag.org/essays/looking-back-to-the-future-in-bolivia/
Found a couple of videos showing the Aymara Hip Hop artist and friend mentioned in the article, Abraham Abraham Bojorquez, with his band:
New Bolivian interior minister vows to jail Evo Morales for rest of his life
Rightwing government claims former president is guilty of terrorism and sedition
Tom Phillips in La Paz
Sun 24 Nov 2019 07.56 EST
The interior minister of Bolivia’s rightwing interim government has vowed to jail the former president Evo Morales for the rest of his life, accusing the exiled leftist of inciting anti-government protests that he claimed amounted to terrorism.
In an interview with the Guardian, Arturo Murillo claimed Morales had been orchestrating efforts to “strangle” Bolivian cities by ordering followers to erect roadblocks that would starve its residents of fuel and food.
Murillo claimed that an audio recording – which supposedly shows Morales giving such instructions – was definitive proof of the alleged crime and said he was “200%” certain it was genuine.
. . .
With Morales thousands of miles away, Bolivia’s new governors have launched a propaganda campaign aimed at annihilating the leftist’s reputation and legacy. Adverts on Bolivian television depict the country’s first indigenous leader as a chaos-sowing provocateur who has brought turmoil to its streets.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/24/bolivia-evo-morales-vow-jail-rest-life-arturo-murillo
Also posted in LBN:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142399995
Colombia's Deadly Golden Triangle Is Awash in Blood and Drugs
A monster strain of hybrid marijuana and cocaine’s white gold have made this Latin America’s heart of darkness. Ideological war may end, but narco war goes on.
Jeremy Kryt
Published Nov. 24, 2019 5:01AM ET
TORIBÍO, Colombia—When they kill one of your friends, something within you dies, too.
Jesús Mestizo, known to those close to him as Chucho, was murdered earlier this month by cartel gunmen in the so-called “Golden Triangle” of southwest Colombia, one more victim in a series of massacres and targeted assassinations that have claimed scores of lives in the Triangle this year.
Only this time the victim was my friend.
I first met him in late 2015. As the leader of a human rights group, Chucho was able to arrange for me to meet with farmers growing illicit coca and marijuana plants. Because such sites often are hidden away in remote corners of the sierra, Chucho came along to act as liaison. Some of the farmers were understandably unnerved seeing a hapless gringo stumbling around in their black-market gardens. But Chucho, in his early forties, was a wise guide. He always defused the tension with a swift joke, often at my expense.
Once, for example, when a jittery farmer asked how he could be sure I wasn’t a DEA agent from the States, Chucho said: “Because no agent would be stupid enough to come out here alone.”
More:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-colombias-deadly-golden-triangle-where-guerrilla-dissidents-now-rule
Repressive violence is sweeping Bolivia. The Anez regime must be held to account
Repressive violence is sweeping Bolivia. The Áñez regime must be held to account
We call upon the international community to stop supporting this government, which is committing alarming human rights abuses
Angela Davis, Noam Chomsky , Molly Crabapple, John Pilger and others
Sun 24 Nov 2019 03.04 EST
Evo Morales – President of Bolivia from the MAS party (Movimiento al Socialismo, Movement Towards Socialism) – was forced to resign on November 10, in what many observers view as a coup. In the wake of Morales’ resignation, there has been mounting chaos and violence. What is happening in Bolivia is highly undemocratic and we are witnessing some of the worst human rights violations at the hands of the military and the police since the transition to civilian government in the early 1980s. We condemn the violence in the strongest terms, and call on the US and other foreign governments to immediately cease to recognize and provide any support to this regime. We urge the media to do more to document the mounting human rights abuses being committed by the Bolivian state.
. . .
The circumstances surrounding the rapid-fire resignations makes Áñez’s assumption of power highly questionable. There are serious doubts about the constitutional legitimacy of her succession. Without the forced resignations by MAS officials, Áñez would not have had even a minimally plausible constitutional path to the presidency, as she was serving as Vice-President of the Senate, a position that is not in the line of presidential succession within the constitution. Additionally, Áñez, whose party received only 4% of the vote in the most recent October 20 election, declared herself President in a Senate session lacking quorum, with MAS senators who make up the legislature’s majority boycotting partly due to fears for their physical safety.
Áñez represents the radical-right sector of the Bolivian opposition, which has taken advantage of the power vacuum created by Morales’ ouster to consolidate control over the state. Áñez appears to have full support of Bolivia’s military and police. Over the course of the last week the military and police have engaged in significant and increasing repression against protests, which have been largely, though not entirely, peaceful. By the night of November 13, La Paz and Cochabamba city center streets were empty of anyone but the police, military, and self-appointed neighborhood militias. There has been ongoing looting, burning of buildings, and violence on the streets and protesters have been met with much repression. In a highly disturbing move, Áñez issued an executive order on November 15 exempting the military from criminal responsibilities related to the use of force. Áñez has said Morales will face prosecution if he returns to Bolivia. And she has also floated the idea of banning the MAS party – which is undoubtedly still Bolivia’s largest and most popular political force – from participation in future elections.
Equally disturbing has been a resurgence of public anti-Indigenous racism over the course of the last week. Shortly after Áñez was declared President, she thrust a massive Bible into the air and proclaimed “The Bible has returned to the palace!” Three days earlier on the day of Morales’ ouster, Luis Fernando Camacho, a far-right Santa Cruz businessman and ally of Áñez, went to the presidential palace and knelt before a Bible placed on top of the Bolivian flag. A pastor accompanying him announced to the press, “The Pachamama will never return to the palace.” Opposition activists burned the wiphala flag (an important symbol of Indigenous identity) on various occasions. These are extremist views that threaten to reverse decades of gains in ethnic and cultural inclusion in Bolivia.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/24/bolivia-anez-regime-violence
US lawmakers call for US opposition to Bolivia ouster
'Unconstitutional removal of an elected president is unacceptable,' say House reps co-signing letter to Secretary of State
Zehra Nur Duz |
24.11.2019
ANKARA
Fourteen U.S. House members sent a letter to the secretary of state calling on the administration of President Donald Trump to oppose a recent ouster of the former Bolivian president, who was recently forcibly removed from office.
"Rather than supporting a military coup, our government should make it clear that the unconstitutional removal of an elected president is unacceptable, as is the persecution of individuals based on their race or political affiliations," Congressman Hank Johnson said in the letter co-signed by 13 others to Mike Pompeo
"This Administration is once again showing that it has nothing but disdain for democracy and human rights, when they get in the way of President Trump's agenda," it added, urging support for "democracy and human rights in Bolivia".
It encouraged the Trump Administration to reverse course and push for restoration of constitutional rule in the Latin American country, including the holding of new free and fair elections.
More:
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/us-lawmakers-call-for-us-opposition-to-bolivia-ouster/1653856
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https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016243011
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