Francia Márquez: dignity becomes everyday life
Last Sunday, March 13th, legislative elections were held in Colombia for representatives to the lower house and the senate, along with primary elections for the presidential nominations from the various coalitions within the country's political landscape. The Historical Pact, a progressive alliance, won its primary with Gustavo Petro. He was followed by Francia Márquez, an Afro-Colombian leader, feminist, and environmentalist. She is known for her grassroots leadership and as a spokesperson for communities. Her status as the third-highest vote-getter demonstrates her qualifications to be part of the Historical Pact's ticket as the vice-presidential candidate.
El CLACSO Working Group: Civilizational Crisis, Reconfigurations of Racism, Afro-Latin American Social Movements It endorses the support given by the various popular platforms and especially the Regional Articulation of Afro-descendants of the Americas and the Caribbean.
Declaration of ARAAC – Regional Articulation of Afro-descendants of the Americas and the Caribbean
FRANCIA MÁRQUEZ: DIGNITY BECOMES EVERYDAY LIFE
In a Colombia rife with inequality and death, a state apparatus that violates fundamental human rights, a land of untold poverty. In that Colombia of daily wakes and burials of innocents, today the exterminated children of the people reappear in the courageous voices of the disobedient masses, confronting the ossified party systems, the bloody drug cartels, and the paramilitary actions that sowed fear and terror. In our sister Colombia, anyone who raises their head high is the target of a poorly paid bullet, or faces media assassination and is forced into exile. Where they imagined hope and dreams could not appear. The purveyors of hate were wrong. The Colombian people live on.
The triumph of the Historic Pact as a coalition and the support for its undisputed leader, Gustavo Petro, was proclaimed in his celebratory speech: “The time has come for Colombia, a beautiful time to live. An intense time. A time in history, in which we finally have, as a generation, a second chance. The time has come for us to be a world power of life.” Interwoven throughout his address were the terms peace, love, inclusion, non-violence, dialogue, and recognition. In short, a Colombia that acknowledges its open wounds and unites its hearts to heal them. Beside him, Francia Márquez Mina, overcoming with dignity the invisibility of the media and its allies, who focused solely on the triumph of the Historic Pact and overlooked the beautiful victory of the platform of struggle and dreams she leads: Soy Porque Somos (I Am Because We Are). The historical significance of a Black woman, a leader of grassroots movements, becoming the third most voted candidate in the country, emerges not only in Colombia but throughout the Americas and the Caribbean.
Francia Márquez gave her word; she doesn't expect personal reciprocation because she represents and embodies a collective project of liberation and dignity. Return that loyalty to the thousands of victims, stop the tears of the mothers and widows, give hope to the youth trapped by drug traffickers, and halt the farewells of family members going to war. Her word is with the Afro-Colombian, Palenquero, Raizal, and Indigenous people, feminists, children, and every Colombian citizen who used to walk with their eyes on the ground. Today, Francia Márquez leaves behind her will to live.
The promise must be kept; Francia Márquez Mina's evident leadership is a merit endorsed by the majority who want her as Vice President. In her words, "Let's go, Colombia: from resistance to power until dignity becomes the norm," a declaration from the new leader of that other Colombia that stopped dreaming and now fights.
March 15th 2022
CLACSO Working Group
Civilizational crisis, reconfigurations of racism, Afro-Latin American social movements
Regional Articulation of Afro-descendants of the Americas and the Caribbean – ARAAC
This statement expresses the position of the Working Group Civilizational crisis, reconfigurations of racism, Afro-Latin American social movements and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.
