Statement of international solidarity with people who suffer various forms of physical and symbolic violence at the hands of their states

The members of CLACSO Working Group on Participatory Processes and Methodologies We call for international solidarity with the people, organizations, communities, and entities that have been suffering various forms of physical and symbolic violence at the hands of their states. The popular reaction, led by student, Indigenous, peasant, Afro-descendant, feminist, and women's organizations, unions, cultural organizations, and social and neighborhood movements, has demonstrated a deep weariness with injustice. Our comrades in Nicaragua, Honduras, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Chile have awakened to the abuses of power, the widespread increase in the prices of basic services, the lack of equitable and quality transportation and communication services, the lack of access to decent education and healthcare, the loss of wages and labor rights, the cuts and privatization of social security, the dispossession of territories and global commons, gender-based violence, and the food and environmental crisis.

Ultimately, it leads to the violation and systematic curtailment of the political, economic, social and cultural rights that took us so many struggles to win.

From multiple and diverse perspectives within the social sciences and humanities, we agree on the importance of social participation as both a need and a right for individuals, communities, and territories. This social participation has been undervalued when governments make decisions that affect them, denying them the opportunity to live a dignified life.

We endorse the statement issued by the CLACSO Steering Committee. We denounce the responsibility and leading role of governments in implementing neoliberal policies and promoting nationalist and fundamentalist ideologies that violate human rights. We condemn state repression of social protests. We reject policies of economic austerity, environmental devastation, and social and gender discrimination. We call on the international community to demand justice, respect, and truth from each of the governments responsible for these acts of violence.

Fear is not the way, state violence is not the way, homophobia and racism are not the way, criminalizing protests is not the way.