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VIRGEN DE LOS DESEOS (BOLIVIA)... We are (only) an agitation to facilitate the work stoppage
Saturday 14 April 2007 by Florentina Alegre , Mujeres Creando - Virgen de los Deseos
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Every time there are work stoppages or roadblocks, it is difficult for women with few economic resources to subsist in our homes, where we are the primary economic providers.
Through anguish and despair, both urban and rural women, [we have shown] our capacity to resist in silence three weeks, paralyzed because of the roadblocks and marches forced by some neighborhood leaders and indigenous bosses from various sectors.
Sister, you are marching with your colleagues, along with your brothers, as a way to highlight and draw attention to your presence, your struggle for the cause and for justice. But the leaders and the bosses do not take our participation into account. For them, we do not have our own voice. They pretend we are not there, do not recognize our presence, we just provide a bit of agitation to facilitate the work stoppage or roadblock.
Our struggle is more definitive because of our courageous resistance as women, and we believe they should consider our wisdom, but our leaders are excited by blood. They are fascinated with confrontations — the more crises the better. They do not care about their sons and daughters, their families, their people. We women have to march at the same time we are supporting our home. If we come from our own communities, despite being tired, we have to perform as cooks and provide food for all the men.
If you leaders and bosses would take your female companions and sisters into account, roadblocks and stoppages would be different, planned more creatively, and we would not suffer from such hunger. The protests and marches would achieve the desired outcomes, as we women dream. We would set out to recover our natural resources, and organize a meeting to present our proposals to the CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY.
Now, with your machismo, authoritarian like the almighty police, violent like the army, racist like the elites of Santa Cruz and the rest of the country, we obtain nothing, not even unity. But we do find hatred, bitterness, more divisiveness, class clashes. We have fortified fascism and have also strengthened the traditional political parties. Impunity towards the assassins and poverty will continue.
Florentina Alegre, 2005
Social Movement of Women
WOMEN CREATING
Virgen de los Deseos
Translation from Spanish: Trisha Novak
