Having ended Friday's
meeting with the promise of a two week mesa de trabajo come Monday, a
letter appeared at the college from regional level INTI calling for a
meeting on Saturday afternoon. I’m not quite sure what the meeting
was about and know only that students were told they shouldn’t
worry. Very reassuring then!
No-one was quite sure
what was supposed to happen come Monday or where the ‘mesa de
trabajo' was going to take place. The mesa de trabajo, in case
you've forgotten, is to discuss and analyse the situation and based
on this an analysis will be made and presented in a report to el
Comandante Chavez. Eventually around 11.15am they started arriving
in the college. The Mayor, INTI, various national, regional and local
reps, the campesinos, the staff, the student reps, etc. Plenty of red shirts again. It took some 45 minutes or more just to write
up all groups/affiliations present, 15 in all were identified. Wow! While all this
was going on various questions were put to the red shirt side. Why
couldn’t students return to school one of the student reps asked,
they’ve already missed some 6 weeks of term? The Ministry of
Education rep stood up and shook a piece of paper and said something
about analysing it. I’ve lost count of the number of times ‘we’re
analysing it’ is the reply to a question - any question.! There was a bit of an argument about
where the ‘mesas’ should take place. The campesions wanted the
college land they are occupying to be the place because then everyone
would ‘see their situation’. I'm not quite sure how it was resolved.
In the end 4 ‘mesas’
were established; co-operatives, social 'studies', education and
international (for the international students and volunteers) and
representatives assigned to each. It was now 1pm. The first 3 mesas
were to meet at 2pm to discuss how they are going to proceed with the
international mesa meeting the following day morning at 8am. INTI
will be shown around the college finca, soil samples will be take.
Two days later and the international mesa has not yet met – that's
how important international students and volunteers are here! I had
understood the full forum would be resumed before now to report back
on how each mesa will proceed with their data collection. If the 3
mesas that have met so far have done that I am not aware of it. In
fact, I've no idea what's next in the process, and I wonder if anyone
really does.
But continuing
murmurings indicate the decision as to what will happen has already
been taken. It’s just that no-one is sure what that decision is!
It could be that half the college land is given over to the
co-operatives and an affiliation between the college administrators
(an NGO) and a public university (or ministry of education) is
established. Over the medium term, say between 1 and 3 years, they
will slowly take over and the administering NGO will be eased out.
It is recognised that Chavez tends to maintain already existing
treaties or signed agreements. Since there is one signed between the
college authorities and the NGO administering the college, this will
not be just torn up and thrown away. There will be some kind of
educational establishment here but it will be administered jointly
with government. Similarly, the agreement regarding the affiliation
with the international group of schools will be maintained. Whether
or not the international group will want to continue could, I
suppose, go either way. For them to pull out may look like
disrespecting a legitimate national government but on the other hand
if the nature of the college changes, the curriculum offered and the
mission are also likely to change, so there will be that to
considered too.
Whatever happens, the
only certainty, as I’ve said before, is that nothing will stay the
same. Still, interesting days ahead. More on the processes of 21st
century socialism as it unfolds.
Hasta luego.
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