Bogotá, Colombia – Under the blazing Andean sun, Walter Queragama traveled several kilometers late last month from Ciudad Bolivar, a poor community in the south of the Colombian capital, to Bogotá National Park.
There, he and a bunch of Embera Indians, displaced from their homes amid a coronavirus-related economic crisis and forced to leave their classic lands due to ongoing violence, planned to camp for housing and work.
As government subsidies filed from a COVID-19 relief program run out, families, many of whom had babies in their arms, said they had nowhere to go.
“Today we are going to rest,” sang Queragama, a 21-year-old rapper from Alto Andagueda, in northwestern Colombia, in his local language Ebera Bedea, as the crowd headed to the downtown park on Sept. 29, with beads of sweat. forming on his face. ” Today we are going to discuss [with the government] because we are too tired. “
Queragama and her brother Gonzalo, 23, co-creators of the rap organization Embera Warra, or “Sons of the People,” said the displacement and resistance of the other Embera serve as inspiration for their art, and rap is the way to go. they chose to tell the stories of their community.
“We have a lot of stories, of history, of culture, of displacement,” Walter recently told Al Jazeera at the makeshift camp where many other people set up tents and cooked outdoors in campfires. stories and send a message. “
A 2016 peace agreement between rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – FARC) and the Colombian government promised to end 52 years of conflict, yet many indigenous communities, adding to the Embera, have yet to revel in peace.
The other Embera peoples, divided between Colombia and Panama, live in remote communities along rivers and mountains along the Pacific coast and jungles of northwestern Colombia. Approximately another 50,000 people belonging to the Embera tribe, which consists of the Chami, Katio, Dobida and Eperara Siapidara, are endangered, according to a 2009 High Court decision.
Thousands of people have been uprooted due to ongoing violence between the state, paramilitary teams and fighters and have been forced to live in cities where it is difficult to find food, shelter and employment. The government said more than 2,500 people have been resettled in Bogota since 2012.
But as the standoff persists and Colombia has experienced one of its most violent years in recent reminiscence in 2020, many more are expected to arrive.
“Displacement has wreaked havoc on the non-secular and cultural lives of our youth,” said Higinio Obispo, leader of other people from Eperara Siapidara, who are part of the Embera tribe. “These other young people need to prove what is not being said. “They have publicly discovered that they can do it through music.
One of the first to use the rap Linaje Originarios, a duo of brothers Brayan and Dairon Tascón from an indigenous network in Valparaíso, released their first single in 2016. Cóndor Pasa has become a wonderful success, receiving tens of thousands of perspectives on YouTube and propelling them to fame.
It also set a precedent in the country, demonstrating that music about Embera teachings and performed in the local dialect of the community can also be commercially popular.
The Queragama brothers followed in their footsteps, while pushing the barriers of rap storytelling in Embera. His music delves into facets of his culture, but focuses mainly on his reporting as other young people displaced by the armed conflict.
Last year they released the song Displaced While They Slept in Tents in Downtown Bogota. Approximately three hundred families slept outdoors for 4 months waiting for help from the government. in quarantine, and without income, entire families were evicted from their homes.
Although some have returned to their ancestral lands, many, including Walter and Gonzalo, said clashes between the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional – ELN), Colombia’s largest armed organization, and the army continued to put them at risk.
The government of President Iván Duque has deployed more security forces this year to high-displacement sites and has presented security promises to members of the Embera network to return to their classic lands. housing assistance for displaced Embera.
But many Embera said they were afraid to return to their communities and, in the meantime, Bogota’s mayor’s office is providing transitional housing and food assistance to those who remain in the city.
“The government does not care about us, the indigenous peoples, as long as we are in our territory,” said the Queragama Displaced brothers. “This is one of the reasons for our trip. “
These realities have been underestimated, Gonzalo added, which can prove frustrating for young Embera who seek representation in the media and help from their compatriots. “We are rapping so that Colombians, our country, know our experiences, how we live, so they can help us and help us improve our conditions,” Gonzalo said.
Meanwhile, Embera has rarely been heard in rap songs, but that’s slowly changing.
Gloria Patricia Ahise, a 23-year-old rapper known as Wera Fono, signed this year with Selva Records after releasing the song Michi, which campaigns against gender-based violence in Embera communities and society at large.
“I need other people to know that abuse is not acceptable,” Ahise told Al Jazeera in an interview at an unfinished brick construction site in Bogota, where she rents a room with her husband and three-year-old daughter.
Ahise, displaced at 3 months of age, when armed teams murdered her grandfather in the province of Risaralda, west of the capital, where she was born, since then she lives in the so-called “pagadiarios”, spaces of coexistence on the outskirts of towns where citizens pay their salary daily.
“You see a lot of abuse there,” said Ahise. Embera couples come to Bogota to earn a living and flee violence in their territory, but the most sensible thing is that the husband also mistreats his wife.
As the first woman to rap at Embera, Ahise, who combines her colorful pearl necklaces and classic attire with Nike Air Force 1 shoes, didn’t have a female role-playing style to lean on, but despite the challenge she created, she practiced her fluidity. hoping to inspire others.
“It’s a bit difficult to rap. It takes a lot of patience to mix the music with the lyrics and sing quickly,” he said. “But most of all, other Embera saw me and thought, ‘I can do that too. ‘”. “”
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