Shoestrings & Grace delivered in January by minicaravan
various small-technology and other supplies requested and badly
needed by a network of Christian base communities and
cooperatives in the Tulancingo, Hgo. area.
Included aboard the renovated schoolbus used by S&G for this
journey were irrigation equipment, a second generator to provide
community lighting, bicycles, tools, medical and clinic supplies,
school supplies, clothing, and other items which were delivered
to Desarrollo Rural de Hidalgo (DERHGO) and the Centro Derechos
Humanos Sergio Me'ndez Arceo.
Seven volunteers were part of the second minicaravan to
Tulancingo, the third visit in all to DERHGO since March 1994.
Two other S&G volunteers, who had taken part in the first Radical
Philosophy Association meeting with various Mexican activists and
academics throughout Me'xico, D.F., had followed up the
minicaravan visit to help coordinate future solidarity efforts.
Desarrollo Rural de Hidalgo is part of SENEC, a network of
six empowerment projects throughout Me'xico which works to help
coordinate integrally developed and self-sustaining cooperatives
of mostly indigenous people under themes and practices of
liberation theology and the pedagogy of the oppressed. DERHGO's
companion organization, Centro Derechos Humanos Sergio Me'ndez
Arceo, is part of the Mexican human rights network.
Formalized during this visit were relations between DERHGO,
SENEC and Shoestrings & Grace.
For its part, the Radical Philosophy Association week-long
January visit included meetings with the following persons:
Rosario Ibarra de Piedra, activista y diputada
Carlos Cortez, movimiento campesinos y indigenas, UAM-X
David Barkin, economist, UAM-X
Cristina Laurell, UAM-X, editor of Coyuntura
Graciela Hierro, de PUEG a UNAM, feminista
Griselda Gutie'rrez, UNAM, feminista
Mary Goldsmith, UAM, feminista
Gabriel Vargas Lozano, UNAM-Puebla, editor, professor
Horacio Cerutti y alumnos, filo'sofo de liberacio'n
Enrique Dussel y alumnos, filo'sofo de liberacio'n
Mariclair Acosta, Mexican Commitee for Defense and Promotion
of Human Rights
Samuel del Villar, Collegio de Me'xico y PRD
Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, diputado
Hector de la Cueva, Centro de Investigacio'n Laboral y
Asesori'a Sindical
Bertha Lujan, FAT (Frente Autentico de Trabajo)
Jose' Arias Chavez, sobre condiciones ecologi'a y poli'tica
Carmen Prueba, feminista
Mauricio Schojiet, UAM, environmentalist
Joseph Ferraro, filo'sofo
Alejandro Villa Mar, Mexican Action Network on Free Trade
Dan La Botz, author
Other representatives of FAT
(Please forgive whatever oversights may have occurred here.)
The purpose of the various meetings was to open spaces and
networks for dialogue and solidarity and to plan future
encounters and meetings.
One intriguing moment among those who were engaged in some
of the dialogues was an apparent division between those who
wanted to proceed solely on a theoretical level and those who
argued for a combination of praxis, activism and theoretical
reflection.
The scholars who sought solely theoretical encounters argued
that activists tend to demand action and to break up meetings
with calls for immediate acts of solidarity in response to
current activity of oppression. This disturbs the flow of
theoretical and reflective thought as well as deliberations on
directions for intellectual thought to take, they argued.
Activists who are also theoreticians contended that such a
division between theory and practice is schizophrenic for them,
that the circularity of action and reflection must always be in
touch with the base, with activists acting in solidarity as well
as reflecting in solidarity, and with activist strategy a
critical part of the process of reflection.
The RPA delegation was made up of scholars, activists,
writers and health-care workers from throughout the U.S.
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SPAN/ Alternative Networks
Shoestrings & Grace
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Wes Rehberg, Ph.D., coordinator
415 Grove Street, #B
Elmira, NY 14905
+607-734-4833, phone & fax
e-mail: wrehberg@igc.apc.org