Julia
Steiner, a volunteer who sustains the version of our blog in French
(http://redbibliotecasfrances.blogspot.com/), has just published an
article in a newspaper of the central massif -located to the
center-south of France. "Fields of the whole world, let's
unite!", is its title and in it addresses "The Network of
Rural Libraries of Cajamarca: culture to liberate."
"More
than a simple network of libraries - there are more than 500 that
have flourished in the homes of the communities – it is a popular
education project, based on the cultural traditions of the Andean
communities. A way to bring reading and books to the rural areas
forgotten by governments, and most of all the freedom to think, the
tools to defend themselves, to know their rights. To rescue the
Andean culture and the peasant world, its knowledge, its stories, its
language, that could disappear as the peasant world has disappeared
in France.
Here,
the libraries are in the homes of the villagers. And the villagers
are librarians, volunteers, that come to renew their libraries in the
headquarters of the Network, in Cajamarca, walking many kilometers.
The
operation of the association is horizontal, there are general
assemblies, which allows everyone to meet and decide together which
books they are going to write.
Culture
is a factor of social bonds, of economic development, a means of
opening up in the world. And it is also, then, a peaceful tool of
struggle and freedom. These projects - and there are a lot more that
exist - demonstrate the importance or necessity of culture in the
countryside, but also that rurality is still invented today and will
be invented tomorrow.
In
these times of political changes, which are more and more distant to
the citizens of the centers of power and decision, rural dwellers of
the whole world: let us unite to bring the voice of culture, because
a future is built in the countryside".
