Afro-Latino activists and development workers had long harbored high hopes that the UN World Conference on Racism, held late last summer in Durban, South Africa, would prove to be a watershed in the struggle for racial justice in the Americas. As it turned out, the process of “getting to Durban” was as important as the actual eight-day conference on the African continent. It was within the lengthy series of pre-Durban preparatory meetings and conferences that initial efforts to create regional solidarity between Afro-Latinos and American indigenous groups were undertaken, as were the more successful attempts to forge Pan-African solidarity among African and African-descendant organizations. The “road to Durban” also involved lengthy and at times delicate negotiations with national governments to fashion programs and policies designed to address historic problems of racial discrimination and persistent educational, social and economic marginalization.
The road to Durban had a geographical axis running from Montevideo, Uruguay to Salvador, Brazil as well as from Nicaragua’s Atlantic Coast to the Pacific coast of the Chocó in Colombia. It was a process that generated communication between Honduran Garífunas from La Ceiba and their Garífuna relatives in the South Bronx; it involved political alliances negotiated between black Venezuelan and Peruvian political representatives and advisors to the Andean regional parliament. For many Afro-Latino organizations, the road to Durban became the main event; and in the current post-Durban era, the consequences of the World Conference continue to confront all those who attended it.
In evaluating and assessing the lengthy runup to the Durban Conference and its aftermath, a major—if ultimately temporary—advance for members of African diasporic communities was the official final statement of a December 2000 Americas preparatory meeting in Santiago, Chile. Signatory governments recognized the fact that the institution and practice of enslavement in the Americas represented a crime against humanity. The Santiago Declaration accepted the historical fact that the imposition of the institution of slavery had been a direct cause of the widespread poverty and marginalization for the peoples of African descent located throughout the Western Hemisphere, from Canada to Patagonia.
Importantly, the Americas preparatory meeting also saw the terminology “Afro-Latino” accepted officially into the written documentation concerning the UN Conference. Official acceptance of the term should be understood more for its political implications than for narrow academic appropriateness or accuracy. Characteristically, black-white relations in Latin America and the Caribbean have been marked by societally accepted differences between such shades of blackness as mulato, pardo, trigueño, metis, cafuso, café con leche, branco da terra, and negro. The historic effect of multiple categories of race, ethnicity and social class among Latin Americans of African—as well as indigenous—descent has been a continuing domination of Latino societies by groups of Iberian origin.[1]
Whether as a majority or minority presence, Euro-Latinos have maintained themselves in power and prominence by promoting ethnic and social divisions among workers and peasants. The held-out promise has been elusive social advancement or betterment for those deemed by society to be physically closer to a European ethnic ideal and aesthetic. This process, traditionally known as “whitening” in Latin America and the Caribbean, has efficiently separated mixed-race workers from indigenous laborers or black sharecroppers whose economic plight was so similar. Dominant groups have utilized these racial differences as forces of social division, masking the commonality of their plight as impoverished and disenfranchised workers.
Skin color, differences in physical features and ethnic difference among African-origin Latinos have, in reality, only served the interests of those in political power. To break away from the commonly accepted racial terms, to reject the mixed-race category and declare oneself Afro-Latino was a courageous political act, as it represented a defiance of the historic ethnic status quo that defined hemispheric race relations.[2]
While the road to Durban produced a great deal of Afro-Latino unity, it was less successful in producing a working alliance between Afro-Latinos and indigenous Americans. Early Afro-Latino euphoria at the prospect of such an alliance proved difficult to sustain. In an indigenous-Afro summit meeting held in Quito in February 2001, schisms within the indigenous peoples’ alliances as well as substantive differences between the indigenous and Afro-Latino agendas complicated the attempts on both sides to develop an effective Afro-indigenous pact.[3] The alliance is very much still on the table, however, and remains an important challenge for the Afro-Latino movement.
Although there are national scenarios in which Afro-Latino and indigenous development challenges are very similar or imperiled by similar forces—the U.S.-financed Plan Colombia, for example, has resulted in negative consequences both for indigenous Colombians and Afro-Colombians—effective alliances between the two communities remain elusive. It became apparent at both the June 2001 Geneva preparatory meeting and in Durban itself that for Afro-Latinos the most effective international alliance would be with the African and African Descendants Caucus, and with the Latin American and Caribbean Caucus.
To further these alliances, the Global Afro-Latino and Caribbean Initiative (GALCI) was founded in November 1999 at the Caribbean Cultural Center in New York City. GALCI has helped foster cross-border Afro-Latino initiatives and has played an important behind the scenes role in helping to facilitate and conceptualize contacts between the emerging Afro-Latino movement and the world of multilateral agencies and progressive private foundations. In particular, GALCI has helped create pre-Durban and post-Durban settings to debate scenarios of greater inclusion for Afro-Latino social welfare and development organizations.
In the end, the Durban Conference probably proved more significant for the institutional development of Latin American groups and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) than for their U.S. counterparts. Many progressive North American organizations attended the conference with a two-pronged agenda: first, to elicit an official acknowledgement from the U.S. Government that slavery in the United States had been a crime against humanity; and second, to initiate a series of dialogues leading to the provision of monetary and symbolic reparations for the historical fact and continuing consequences of slavery. From the beginning of the preparatory meeting process, the official U.S. refusal to admit serious and reasoned discussion of either issue effectively doomed the effectiveness of the progressive North American NGOs. Washington’s opposition to any such discussions was clearly expressed in December, 2000 at the Americas preparatory meeting held in Chile. The Clinton-appointed Inter-Agency Task Force for the Durban Conference refused to admit discussion of either of these two issues. The incoming Bush administration, in deciding to retain the key personnel of the Inter-Agency Task Force, signaled to U.S. human rights and civil rights NGOs that all upcoming preparatory meetings would see the maintaining of that same official refusal.
In contrast to the U.S. intransigence, the attitudes of many Latin American governments were beginning to undergo positive modifications; many traditionally militant Afro-Latino spokespersons had been asked to join their national delegations. Significantly, Brazil, the largest country in which Latinos of African heritage constitute a sizeable percentage of the population, witnessed a major shift in the national dialogue on race relations. The Brazilian government admitted publicly for the first time at the UN Conference that racial prejudice and discrimination were significant problems and challenges for Brazil to overcome. The road to Durban for Brazilians involved historic negotiations between the government and Brazilian civil society. These negotiations saw Afro-Brazilian militants being invited to join the official government delegation and work in combination with the Brazilian Foreign Ministry and Ministry of Justice to bring to Durban a more forthright and honest Brazilian statement seeking to address that country’s racial inequalities.
Importantly, both within their countries and in the headquarters of multilateral and bilateral donor agencies, Afro-Latinos finally were being invited to state their own development priorities and needs. Afro-Latino groups were beginning to set a development agenda corresponding to the real perceived needs of their own communities. Critics, of course, wondered whether these initiatives could move beyond tokenism to begin changing traditional institutional development paradigms. Legitimate questions were posed concerning the sincerity of the development agencies in making substantive changes in their programs that traditionally ignored black populations throughout the hemisphere. The Afro-Latino advocacy program demanded at the June 2000 first Inter-Agency Dialogue that the development agencies design new initiatives and redress systemic problems in ongoing development programs in education, health and community development. The degree to which these historic programs come under full institutional review and outside scrutiny, however, remains a crucial open question.
For members of the advocacy network it became clear that consistent intervention, commentary and critique would prove important, not only in moving these initiatives forward, but also in providing outside “community” support to the small cohort of young Afro-Latino professionals hired to spearhead the new programs. At the first Inter-Agency Consultation, GALCI made a formal recommendation that a “racial report card” be created for all Inter-American Development Bank and World Bank loans to directly assess the potential—and past—impact of the development activity on Afro-Latino communities. Particular emphasis in the report card would be placed on gender equity and program benefit for children.
For the Afro-Latinos, the preparatory work to the Durban Conference—and, of course, the conference itself—provided invaluable international experience in negotiating and building alliances with other advocacy groups and networks. In their relations with U.S. civil rights and human rights groups, that process was at times surprising, as well as useful. Given the historic relations between the United States and the rest of the hemisphere, black Latin American protest movements have a sometimes complex and questioning relationship with “Black North America.” They are often exasperated by African-American ignorance of the history of black populations south of the Rio Grande. The long struggle of Afro-Latinos has too often passed unnoticed and misunderstood by African-American political militants, academics and community development specialists.
For many Afro-Latino activists, it was important to make African-Americans aware that while the history of black Americans has been inspirational to many Afro-Latinos, there has also been a lengthy and tenacious history of anti-racist struggle in Latin America. Many Afro-Latino activists felt that North Americans needed to educate themselves about the struggles of the seventeenth century Palmares Quilombo in northeastern Brazil and the resistance represented by the Palenque de San Basilio on Colombia’s Atlantic coast, a community that has managed to retain its distinctive culture and forms of resistance. Malcolm X and the Black Panthers can and do inspire Afro-Latino activists, but they should not be portrayed by North American black activists as being the sole examples of struggle against racial domination in the Americas.[4]
One major benefit of the creation of the African and African Descendants Caucus during the June 2001 Geneva preparatory meeting was the opportunity it provided for the formal and informal exchange of information and perspectives of the different members and associating groups. The specific needs of the Afro-Latino community, often different from those of the African-American community, required the atmosphere of an African and African Descendants Caucus for explanation and better comprehension.[5] Afro-Latino NGOs led by politicized and progressive activists from Uruguay, Costa Rica, Honduras, Colombia, Brazil and Panama were able to educate and sensitize fellow delegates who knew little about Afro-Latino history or contemporary challenges. It was important to relate the challenges of marginalization confronting minority Afro-populations in Argentina, Paraguay, Costa Rica or Uruguay to delegates coming from Africa.
For Africans and African-Americans, it was politically important to understand the difficult challenges faced by Latinos in the United States who also identify as black. The disapproval experienced by Afro-Latinos within the U.S. Latino community was a fact that needed to be communicated to the Caucus. Too often, from the Afro-Latino perspective, thinking “black” in the United States rarely included an Afro-Latino perspective or sufficient numbers of Afro-Latino groups and organizations. When African-American groups attempt to mobilize around “black” issues such as reparations for slavery or even local community control of schools, their strategies rarely include alliances with U.S. Afro-Latino organizations that share so much of the same history and systemic problems. Ironically, within the traditional U.S. Latino or Hispanic context, Afro-Latinos face charges of exclusivity. To the extent Afro-Latinos attempt to self-identify as black or Afro-Latino, the U.S. Latino community labels them divisive and potentially racist for refusing to identify themselves solely as Hispanics or Latinos.
Traditionally, African heritage has received only minimal value historically within Latin America. For many persons identifying as Latino or Hispanic, someone self-identifying as Afro-Latino remains something of a mystery, or a curiosity. Afro-Latinos often wonder where within the societal spectrum they should position themselves and where exactly they fit within current racial categories being used in the United States. Where should Afro-Latinos seek advocacy to both affirm and reclaim rights as Latinos of African heritage?
The increasing international advocacy role played by Afro-Latino activists continues to mark the post-Durban period. The strong desire of Afro-Latino social activists to be present at all key meetings and conferences on human rights, racism and sustainable development characterizes this emerging group awareness as well as a consciousness of the impact of globalization on their home communities. The emerging role of Afro-Latinos as community activists and practitioners of “radical” community defense against military and other authoritarian governments has served to increase their commitment to participate actively in any policy-making bodies open to them. The upcoming United Nations Sustainable Development Summit, scheduled to take place in Johannesburg in August 2002, represents such a forum. A “collective” Afro-Latino institutional voice could, in fact, make a difference when challenging multilateral development agencies or international private sector interests attempting to impose potentially destructive development and tourist scenarios on these often physically isolated communities.
This March, there was crucial Afro-Latino participation in the special hearings of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH), a fact-finding endeavor organized at the Washington, D.C. headquarters of the Organization of American States. In preparation for the Durban Conference, CIDH had held a series of hearings in Costa Rica on the precarious human rights situation of Afro-Latinos, and debated remedies to offer greater protection to these communities in defense of their human rights. Afro-Latino activists have attempted to motivate the CIDH to demand more forcefully from member governments the inclusion of racial data in the national census process. The continuing refusal of governments within the hemisphere to include race on the national census works to the detriment of Afro-Latino communities. Without reliable statistical data, Afro-Latinos cannot specify the actual size of their communities. They are unable to provide justification for their communities to demand increased government services, educational facilities and the other social benefits rightfully due the citizens of their countries.
Another continuing complaint concerns the Afro-Latino access to land rights that often derive from communities founded in the past by runaway and fugitive enslaved Afro-Latinos. The land claims of communities descended from quilombos in Brazil, palenques in Colombia and Venezuela, maroon communities in Surinam and Jamaica, are at the mercy of global development models, land speculation and, in the case of Colombia, violent national conflict. At international conferences, attention is given to the precarious landholding situation of the majority of Afro-Latino communities. From Uruguay to the Chocó on the Pacific Coast of Colombia, traditional Afro-Latino land holdings are under threat of destruction. Only by bringing international attention to their situation have Afro-Latinos been able to force institutions such as the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank to focus on the problem of land titling and land tenure.[6]
The public profile of Afro-Latinos has become more visible with each international event. For the initial advocacy network supporting the Afro-Latino community activists, watching this extraordinary institutional development has been both immensely gratifying and somewhat confounding. Less than three years ago, the collective complaint of Afro-Latino NGOs was their inability to get an interview or a substantive meeting with representatives of multilateral development agencies or private development foundations. One of the first meetings of GALCI, for example, was held at New York City’s Caribbean Cultural Center in 1999 simply to introduce a handful of representatives from the multilateral agencies and the world of private foundations to a number of social activists; hopefully, it was felt, the agency and foundation people might at least listen to their problems and note their communities’ development needs and frustrations.
Happily bemused in 2002, the original New York-based advocates for the Afro-Latinos activists continue to learn—usually, after the fact—that their Afro-Latino colleagues are now busily negotiating multi-million dollar development loans with international financial institutions, and critiquing ongoing IDB educational and primary health programs for Afro-Latinos. GALCI founding members currently are making operational or programmatic suggestions to the Kellogg, Rockefeller and Ford foundations for new Afro-Latino program initiatives. Indeed, it is a symbol of the success of the advocacy program that Afro-Latinos in such a short time have moved from being completely outside the development arena, to becoming a small group of leaders and activists at the center of a new and rapidly changing development paradigm. It is a paradigm advocating “inclusion” for groups traditionally marginalized from traditional development initiatives throughout the Western Hemisphere.[7]
Troubling questions, however, persist. Are the initiatives promoting social inclusion simply the current international-development flavor of the month? If the current executive staff in the Latin American divisions of the multilateral agencies and private foundations were to leave office tomorrow, would these worthy initiatives continue? Are current Afro-Latino activists nurturing new and younger community development leaders who will become the leaders for the hemisphere’s next generation? How can one ensure true sustainability for this important effort, particularly in a world in which development priorities and official assistance for development remain so dependent upon issues having little to do with the real needs of Latin America and the Caribbean? If massive financial resources are required for development priorities in other geographical regions of the world, can one hope to sustain institutional interest in Afro-Latino affairs and issues?
For the medium and long term, the questions of advocacy and community support for the inclusion of marginalized groups are in the forefront of the Afro-Latino agenda. Lobbying, monitoring ongoing programs, demanding consistency from institutions with a history of neglect for historically excluded populations, all remain major roles for the Afro-Latino advocates and activists. It falls to those advocates and activists to ensure that this initiative remains a significant institutional commitment for many decades to come in the current century. There is an enormous social debt owed those marginalized Afro-Latino communities. It is up to the activists and advocates to see that the debt is honored and paid in full.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
J. Michael Turner is professor of history and director of the Caribbean and Latin American Studies program at Hunter College of the City University of New York. He is a member of NACLA’s Board of Directors.
NOTES
1. See Melissa Nobles, “History Counts: A Comparative Analysis of Racial/Color Categorization in U.S. and Brazilian Census,”in American Journal of Public Health November 2000.
2. See George Reid Andrews, The Afro-Argentines of Buenos Aires 1800-1900 (Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1980); Sheila S.
Walker, ed, African Roots/American Cultures: Africa in the Creation of the Americas (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001).
3. Author’s interview with Romero Rodríguez at Geneva PREPCOM, June 2001.
4. This discussion is based on conversations among GALCI and the Black Radical Congress in Durban, and discussions during post-Durban meetings with representatives of various U.S. progressive and mili-
tant activist organizations on role for Afro-Latinos in ongoing discussions concerning reparations and follow up actions.
5. Based on GALCI discussions with African and African Descendants Caucus at June 2001 Geneva PREP COM and at the Durban Conference; also the author’s discussions with GALCI members Marta Moreno Vega and Humberto Brown on the need for better understanding by African-American civil rights and cultural nationalist groups of the Afro-Latino reality in the United States.
6. Enrique Sánchez Gutiérrez and Roque Roldán Ortega, Titulación de los territorios comunales afro-colombianos e indígenas en la Costa Pacífica de Colombia (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2002). Information concerning the content of the Afro-Latino petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights was provided in a fax dated March 6, 2002 from Humberto Brown, a member of GALCI and the Black Radical Congress, who attended the CIDH hearings and presented the petition.
7. Three of the founding Afro-Latino members ofGALCI have been recently elected or appointed to important national and regional political institutions. A GALCI Afro-Brazilian Associate currently serves as Administrative Secretary of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Nations (CPLP), the Portuguese equivalent to the British Commonwealth.
