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The analysis of quilombos in Brazil allows to give visibility to the impact of European colonization, its dimension and extent upon, in this particular case, the peoples of Africa and the Americas. By Ana Laura Bergel, April 2006.
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The political relevance and the necessity to elaborate an agenda which prioritizes the demands of African descendants in defense of their territorial and cultural rights is becoming more evident every day.
The African descent population in the Americas today numbers over 140 million, one third of the continent’s 450 million people. Slavery in the Americas saw 15 million slaves violently uprooted from their lands in Africa. Approximately 40% of all African slaves went to Brazil, to serve as a labour force in the colonial period.
In the African language Iorubá, “quilombos” means “housing”. The Brazilian concept of Quilombos has come to mean the communities that were constituted out of the struggle of rebel slaves during the centuries of slavery, as territories of housing, resistance and social organization. The majority of the Quilombos’ lands were occupied and managed collectively, based on a familiar structure of cultivation and exploitation of natural resources. Because of this, land rights are fundamental for the continuing survival of these peoples even more so as they do not hold land titles for the lands they have traditionally occupied.
Such communities live under the constant threat of farmers, land invaders, mining companies, hydroelectric power plants, dams and other mega-projects seeking possession of their land and its natural wealth. Even when such a conflict involving Quilombos communities has been resolved there remains the problem of structuring and maintaining their settlements.
National borders do not impede the spread of different forms of racial discrimination in the Americas.
See full text of "Quilombol@ Bulletin", July 2005, pdf format. This Bulletin is part of the National Campaign for Regularization of Quilombo Land in Brazil that is being carried out by COHRE – Center on Housing Rights and Evictions, CONAQ – National Coordination of Quilombo Communities and ACONERUQ – Association of Rural Afro-Descent Communities in the State of Maranhão.
They promote and protect the right to housing for everyone, everywhere. To achieve this, COHRE has developed a varied work programme, guided by international human rights law, and designed to reach as many people as possible.
From the report of the Special Rapporteur (Miloon Kothari) on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living. March 2005.
"The placing of the housing and discrimination aspects within the context of the indivisibility and universality of human rights is critical. The realization of the right to housing in an environment free from racial discrimination will have a direct bearing on the realization of congruent human rights" (pdf format).
Report of the World Conference against Racism, where HIC members highlighted issues of discrimination in the sphere of
housing and land use in different countries and societies. Word format.
Quilombos communities represented a major issue from the early African pockets of resistance to colonial slavery, re-emerging in times of the Brazilian Republic with the Brazilian Negro Front (1930/1940) and returning to the political scene at the end of the 1970s, during the country’s redemocratization process. By Ana Laura Bergel, April 2006.
Racism and racial discrimination are deep-rooted, though not institutionalized, in Guatemala. They are reflected in the pervasiveness of the centuries-old prejudices that have marked Guatemalan history, culture and mentalities and that have been amplified by the tragic events of the country’s recent past, culminating in a genocide of indigenous peoples. Guatemala’s economic and social situation is characterized by the non-egalitarian development of the so-called Ladino population and of indigenous peoples and people of African descent, illustrating the structural and systemic nature of discrimination. Report by Mr. Doudou Diène, Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. March 2005, pdf format.
The development of slavery in Brazil is fundamental to understanding the Quilombos concept. It was the slaves’ struggle for freedom that conferred a character of resistance to these communities. The campaign is being carried out by COHRE – Center on Housing Rights and Evictions, CONAQ – National Coordination of Quilombo Communities and ACONERUQ – Association of Rural Afro-Descent Communities in the State of Maranhão.
Interview with Joseline Brandâo, leader of the National Coordination of Quilombos Communities (CONAQ), who participated in the workshop on the right to land and housing of Afro-descendant communities in Brazil. World Social Forum, January 2005.
