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"In front of a party member, the people fall silent, like lambs, and praise the government and the leader. But on the street, at night, far from the people, in a café or by the river, you can hear the bitter disappointment of the people, their despair, but also their suppressed anger."”

Frantz Fanon, The Misfortune of Colonial Consciousness.

On January 9th of this early 2025, in Puelwillimapu, Patagonia under Argentine administration, currently the province of Chubut, on Lake Futalafken, known as Los Alerces National Park, we witnessed an unprecedented and exaggerated deployment of repressive forces of the Argentine state, with Unimok, amphibians, trucks, buses, vans, gendarmerie, federal police, and army. It gave the impression that war had been declared on a foreign force or that this whole setup was part of a reality show . However, the absurd and sad truth is that such a move was made to evict three Mapuche families, who make up the Lof Pailako.

Hundreds of troops arrived at the scene, armed and on alert, perhaps eager to demonstrate their warlike capabilities. But on their imaginary war frontier, they found themselves alone: ​​a rooster and a hen were waiting for them. I don't know if those birds were victims of military frustration. I hope they weren't used as targets to test the weapons purchased from the genocidal state of Israel, which will surely bring the country into massive debt.

A few days earlier, on December 31st, I left my hometown to accompany the Lof Pailako. New Year's celebrations are foreign to me, as are the city customs of confusing merriment with fireworks, overeating, falsehood, and other Christmas trappings. A lamngen (sister) decided to accompany me.

The purpose of inhabiting the territory

We arrived at the lof pailako territory, there in the ruka (house), where the pihikeches, children, played. We gathered to chat while the mates were circulated. I had been there on several occasions, but that day I deepened my observation of everything: the rukas , the gardens, the plants, the small and humble comforts made by hand and sweat. For the first time, everything took on a sentimental dimension, connecting me not only to my lamngen of the lof Pailako but also to my village, and with it to the memory of my family, a former victim of other evictions.

The effort put into those friendly walls, into every detail of the small rukas , held dialogues, laughter, songs, and the aromas of their inhabitants. One of the lamngen of the Lof asks me, without waiting for an answer: What is the purpose of inhabiting the land? She remains silent and continues: “Here we teach the pichikeches (children) to be guardians of the mapu, of nature, to respect, to speak with the Pu Ngen, the forces of the earth.” While she speaks to me, her puñeñ zomo, a little girl of only five years old, interrupts her ñuke (mother) to tell me about her adventures on this mapu she recognizes as her home. Listening to her, I think that the true conflict with the State lies in the purpose of inhabiting the land. For the Mapuche people, it is about reproducing the Mapuche world there, absolutely antagonistic to the materialistic, individualistic, and necrotic values ​​of wingka capitalism.

The interests behind the eviction

The intention of the eviction is rooted in the privatization process of Los Alerces National Park. This was made very clear in the statement made by Security Minister Patricia Bullrich. At the end of the day of destruction and territorial dispossession, she said: "Private property is an important value." The contradictory aspect of this statement is that Cristian Larsen, current president of National Parks, speaks of park territory as a space of sovereignty for all Argentines, but it seems that this will not be for all Argentines, but for those who can pay the large sums with which the land value will be assessed.

Behind the absurd accusation that the Mapuche people are usurping their territory  lies the sole interest that drives the corrupt politicians who have always governed the country: profit. Even though they disguise themselves as libertarians and seek to present themselves as vigilantes, they carry out their extractivist policies without hesitation. An example of this is their commitment to the mega-mining industry, which urgently requires the modification of the legal territory.  Some people linked to the anti-mining struggle suspect that the new route of Route 40, which would cross Los Alerces National Park and is planned to pass through the territory claimed by the Pailako Lof, is a subtle response to the popular decision that no mining projects should exist west of Route 40, a situation that would be resolved by renewing the route . Although it is presented as a tourism initiative, the government must be monitored to ensure that it does not betray the popular will to prohibit mega-mining.

The military deployment came at a high cost, a figure unknown to us since it has been hidden from the public, and one that we will undoubtedly all pay for. The live broadcast of this calamitous spectacle, which we will also pay for, aims to impress upon the fragile memory of Argentines the idea that a highly repressive and bloodthirsty power is necessary to uphold the principles of a nationalist business oligarchy that protects the masses from insurgents who oppose the conservative, white, boss-led country

In this way, those simple-minded rulers foster the idea that this racist dictatorship is supported by history and divine will . As Frantz Fanon says, it symbolizes the bourgeois caste's decision to rule the underdeveloped country first with the support of the people, but then against them.

A historic delay in terms of rights

The Europeanizing colonial regime that has always constituted Argentina's nationalist character, upon entering democracy after long dictatorships, had to acknowledge its historical backwardness in terms of rights, belatedly recognizing, but ultimately recognizing, that Indigenous peoples preexisted the creation of the nation-state. That is, before Argentina was born as a country, we were already inhabitants of these territories. The denial of the plurinational nature of the rights that should be guaranteed imposes an unjust, asymmetrical, and oppressive institutional order, with laws that benefit the heirs of the genocidaires of yesterday, today, and always .

Beneath the oppressive boots of that structure lies a cosmic order, an ancestral wisdom, an empirical knowledge that allows us to develop life in constant movement. Transhumance has been part of our way of inhabiting the world, as one of the lamngen of Pailloako said, "We will not stop being Mapuche because of an eviction." That is why on January 9th, two opposing tactics were adopted by the oppressor and the oppressed, with a multi-million-dollar budget—a policy typical of a terrorist state, as a heavily armed invading force. This is not something new, as the governor of Chubut boasts; it is the repeated history of all Argentine governments against Indigenous peoples. Alberto Fernández's government did the same.

That's why, learning from previous experiences, the Lof Pailako, with dignity, protected what truly matters: life. That day, a comment on social media asked: What will become of the war business without war? The Lof's decision to resist was clear and forceful: TO LIVE. When the genocidaire desires your death, the most effective way to resist and re-exist is to survive with all the will you can.

A few months earlier, a document prepared by psychologist Ruth Vargas on how the eviction would affect the community's children was presented to the judge involved in the case. In this important report, the specialist concludes: "The eviction action violates international law regarding Indigenous Peoples, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), the United Nations Convention Against Torture (1984), the Convention of Belém do Pará (1994), the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication of Violence against Women, among others." The Argentine justice system ignored her recommendations.

Between bulldozers and chainsaws

A tyrannical model of governance needs its symbolic counterpart. Like in horror movies, where the evil character lurks in the darkness with his chainsaw to murder innocent people, Milei, with her chainsaw, destroys the small achievements of organized people that the cowardice and mediocrity of previous governments failed to solidify. Bullrich's bulldozer represents the hatred of the epistemology of life. Patricia Bullrich, whom no one voted for, yet governs, seemed content standing next to the bulldozer.

I wonder if that indolent woman has ever been a mother. And if so, what kind of motherhood did she exercise? I remembered my conversation with the Pu lamngen of the lof, that early spring afternoon, around the fire, when we reflected on mothering from the perspective of identity. What kind of values ​​do we want to bequeath to our children?

These young Mapuche mothers are clear that wingkalandia never had anything to offer us, and we will continue to build spaces of identity strengthening for the generational renewal. The territory is our school, the kuifikechem, ancestors, our memory, and the entire walljampu our educator . The interesting thing is that on this path we are not alone as a people; people from all over the world are awakening, seeking to build a just and better world, in which no bulldozer has the destructive power to annihilate the new paradigm woven among the telluric peoples. Paul Preciado says in his book I am the monster that speaks to you . “ In the face of the epistemic crisis, processes of cognitive reform and kidnapping, political renaturalization, and discursive regression are activated from the most conservative spheres. A terminal strategy to shore up the old patriarchal-colonial paradigm . ”

Argentina is today a laboratory for these fascist, racist, and hateful sectors. Governor Ignacio Torres, known as a Dasneves boy, a dedicated disciple of mafia politics, accuses a sector of the Mapuche people of being misfits . We might think that the fascism he represents is those who are misfits to the great movement for collective rights, the rights of nature, and fundamental rights of peoples, but it is also true that we, the Mapuche, are incapable of adapting to policies of death, of continuous aggression against all forms of life. In other words, we will never adapt to Terricidio, and they, the terricidals, will suffer our rebellion again and again. Until when? Until we restore the sacred bond with all life.

There was no eviction; only the Mapu decide who inhabits it and who must leave. How long will the mentors of death continue in their terricidal attempt? Governments pass, the land and its children live on.