A few days ago, the country experienced one of the largest mass dissemination events in recent times. Yasunízate, which is actually a series of activities that have been taking place since November 15 and will continue, as in the case of the province of Santa Elena, until the 26th of this month; however, the largest one took place last Sunday in the city of Quito. Yasunízate included radio, TV, livestream, social networks, among other media in its pre-promotion and live broadcast.
Once the euphoria achieved with the great artistic-cultural display on Sunday begins to subside, we allow ourselves to present in correspondence with the exchange of information with readers and attendees, what would be THE GOOD, THE BAD and THE UGLY around Yasunízate 2011:
THE GOOD:
Without a doubt, the enormous participation at a national level of artists of all kinds who join a cause when they consider it is fair to support. We saw this corroborated months ago when they voluntarily participated in Chulluype, for a sea without oil stains (perhaps one of the first events of this kind in our country). Theater, circus, music, dance among other artistic displays were experienced by the attendees of some of the presentations that have been taking place at a national level under the name of Yasunízate during the last two weeks. Activities such as the case of the Cycle ride which will take place on November 26th from 7 in the morning in Santa Elena, demonstrate that the population wants better days in terms of the environment.
The figure raised, almost three million dollars so far (according to official sources), exceeds the projected two million.
BAD
The other side of the coin is definitely represented by the 11th round of oil block bidding, which has not yet been consulted. The Ecuadorian government started this round on October 31st, which will affect an area with SIMILAR ecological characteristics to the Yasuní ITT, and which is 2.5 times larger. Similarly, 5 ethnic groups live there, deep in the jungle (Sarayaku, one of the closest, is 8 hours by river from the nearest road), in virgin areas.
According to information exchanged with several of the Yasunízate artists, this small detail was never mentioned to them by either the organizers or the highest-level government representatives who were present.
This round of tenders is being carried out hand in hand with the construction projects for the mega Pacific Refinery and ITT Yasuni (the latter two with a broad media campaign). That is to say, on the one hand, the message sold in the Yasunízate advertising campaigns is one of “love for nature”, of the “revolution for life”, “caring for biodiversity” and, according to what the ANDES agency states in the proposal, “the protection of uninterrupted indigenous territories is also included, which reach an additional 19% of the national territory”. But on the other hand, reality is moving further and further away from the advertising.
THE UGLY
The desire to present that Yasunízate is a citizen campaign and that it comes from all Ecuadorians. If this were the case, surely the discourse in some of the forms that were handled for this mega-event would include the case of the Shuar, Achuar, Kichwa, Andoa, Sápara and Shiwiar peoples, ethnic groups threatened by the unconsulted oil round that the government is currently holding in parallel to the request for money to protect nature and the people who live in it. The truth is that the organizational structure is not born from the citizens.
Environmental activists from the Support Center for Amazonian Peoples in Resistance indicate that on several occasions they tried to maintain a dialogue within the Yasunizate group on the social network Facebook, where the question was: Why are these people not included in this celebration? … their comments were immediately deleted and the people blocked. Nearly 20 people report having had the same result. YOU CAN TRY IT TOO.
CONCLUSIONS:
Yasunízate is an excellent example of how a mega-advertising campaign can make citizens aware of a problem that concerns us all and, consequently, get involved and even want to collaborate. The problem arises when one party (company or government) uses it to project a benign image and hide something just as harmful as what it supposedly wants to protect.
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