Caracas, November 15, 2023.- During the 19th edition of the International Book Fair of Venezuela (Filven) 2023, the People’s Power Ministry for Communes and Social Movements presented the collective work entitled “Towards a Community of Life. Aportes de la Escuela Decolonial Comuna o Nada” (Towards a Community of Life. Contributions of the Decolonial School Commune or Nothingness) as a revolutionary theoretical contribution that seeks to enrich the vision of life in community and as a tool to open paths in the attempt to transform the way of thinking and living.
This book is a synthesis of the reflections of more than 500 community men and women, leaders of people’s power, and spokespersons from eight entities of western Venezuela who participated and debated in the first meeting of the Decolonial School “Commune or Nothing,” developed in Barquisimeto, Lara state.
During this activity, carried out in the Miguel Acosta Saignes hall in El Laguito del Military Circle of Caracas, the Vice Minister for the System of Communal Formation and Social Movements, Lidice Altuve, explained that this unpublished text emerged from the first meeting of the Decolonial School of Commune or Nothing, explained that this unpublished text arose from the initiative to propitiate spaces for reflection and debate for the production of knowledge about Venezuela’s communal experiences from a decolonial perspective and that it counted with the collaboration of Mexican philosopher Katya Colmenares and Puerto Rican sociologist Ramon Grosfoguel.
“The Decolonial School Commune or Nothing is a space for the encounter of communal practice and knowledge. It is a place of exchange and construction of knowledge where we manage to systematize these practices that allow us to nurture the daily work and lead the necessary transformations of our country through community life. In this paper, the Ministry of Communes is based on three theses. The first, the commune as an alternative to the planetary civilization crisis; the second, the commune as a necessity in the face of the world geopolitical crisis and, in the face of imperialist monroism and for the defense and security of the nation; and the last: the commune as a real hope for the future, as a way of life, of equality and justice”, explained Vice-Minister Altuve.
For her part, Mexican philosopher Katya Colmenares greeted the Bolivarian people and described the book Towards a Community of Life as a valuable and significant contribution to thinking about Venezuela’s communal project.
“More and more, humanity demands a new project, demands to think about these issues, demands a new paradigm. This book will open ways to think the new. The communal project is not only a political project but, above all, a way of life for humanity. We have to involve in this thinking a subject that has been forgotten in the last 500 years, which is Mother Nature. The communal project is not only about human communities but, it is about really thinking of ourselves inside the Pachamama, inside the planet Earth. We are in a critical moment generated by this civilizing project of death that is modernity. We have to take seriously that we are children of Mother Earth, and we must build a policy as brothers and sisters to reproduce life: a true decolonization project”, said Colmenares.
In his speech, the People’s Power Minister for Communes and Social Movements, Jorge Arreaza, highlighted that the Decolonial School Commune or Nothing is the result of the great work Venezuela has done with the communal project and the organization of the people’s power.
“With the communal project, we are on the right path. However, we are always willing to listen to the indications of our American brothers and sisters on what can be corrected to deconstruct processes, models, and paradigms. When our community members, in this decolonial school, listened to Katya Colmenares and Ramon Grosfoguel their expressions of surprise and reflection were fundamental to generating the necessary spark to purify and transform in the territories. In this book, there are extraordinary reflections of the communal people. They are the best! Venezuela’s communal proposal is practical, evaluable, and is there for everyone”, pointed out Arreaza.
Finally, the Vice Minister for Communal Economy, Hernan Vargas, commented that the work Towards a Community of Life is the result of the call made by President Nicolas Maduro that the communal must play a central role in the processes of national recovery.
“We have worked to live up to that commitment, to that task entrusted by President Maduro. This book is a sample of what should be this march to finish making the old die and give birth to the community. In this new stage of national rebirth, it is essential to retake the communitarian being to recover the communal spirit. The construction of Bolivarian socialism has been fundamentally a communal path. It is a communal base that has sustained us for 500 years. This communal logic nourished every struggle period in the history of mankind. This debate process with the Decolonial School “Comuna o Nada” (Commune or Nothing) seeks to pave the conditions to dispute, from the communal, the horizon of the country we are building and which Commander Chavez initiated,” emphasized Vargas. (Text: Karina Depablos).
