There were moments in my first months here when I would be jealous of
other internationals who would arrive in the community and the special
treatment they would receive. Since their visits are rare, it’s more likely
they get given food, paid more attention, and presented a rosier picture of the
Peace Community than the one I have come to see. They can avoid the messy lines
we are constantly confronted with. They don’t have to face the moral dilemmas
which come with the intimate knowledge of a rural community’s internal problems
in the face of war.
Privilege is key to the success of international accompaniment since we
carry the implicit weight of international political pressure. This privilege
doesn’t have to be middle-class white privilege, but international status in
the Colombian conflict carries privilege nonetheless. Thus a problematic question
international accompaniers ask themselves is: are we actually reinforcing those
very structures we simultaneously seek to undermine?
What FOR began in Colombia was unique. We took the accompaniment model
other organizations had used before and applied it to an entire community,
granting them a permanent presence. Previously organizations had been
accompanying Colombian organizations and activists who would in turn accompany
communities like this one. We cut out the middle man and decided to directly
accompany the campesinos who were so threatened and forced to displace. Is
FOR’s project naïve in this respect? Are we naïve to believe that an entire
community can remain neutral, dedicated to non-violence and strong enough in
their convictions to reject the multiple pressures of the different armed
groups? I believe this project’s strength comes from the intimacy with those
who most have to resist, those who most have to confront the messy issues and
blurry lines of the conflict, and also the fact that we accompany the entire
community and not just its leaders.
The strength of a permanent accompaniment also draws into question the
reinforcement of that privilege. What happens when accompaniers come and live
with their “accompanied”? When we share the hard moments, complex questions and
the daily grind of campesino life, as well as the rosy moments presented to
other internationals? The other day a community leader described a massacre
which took place in the centre of our village in 2001. She was asked how people
deal with their trauma here, what therapies or counseling they have had. Her
response was accompaniers. In part we are how they deal with their trauma; the
solidarity and support we provide are some of the tools they need to overcome
trauma, to push on and to continue resisting. The encouragement factor which
comes from the relationships forged between accompaniers and accompanied should
not be underestimated.
I’m no longer jealous of those other internationals. I don’t feel my connections
with people here are marked by hierarchy, or by a need for them to portray
themselves in a more favourable and optimistic light; they are not based on and
don’t reinforce privilege. They are based on mutual solidarity which runs deep
through the last ten years of our presence here. While privilege evidently
plays a role in the broader dynamic of accompaniment, what marks our
interactions with the community is solidarity, reciprocal protection, communal
strengthening and mutual admiration and respect.