Alzheimer’s Disease

Music Therapy in Alzheimer and Dementia Care
Kevin Kirkland, PhD, MTA

What Can Music Therapy do for Those With Dementia?

The elderly population is one of the most common populations music therapists work with. When it comes to dementia, music therapy is one of the most successful interventions. In Canada an estimated 65% of music therapists work with the cognitively impaired elderly. In a review of special care units staff rated the effectiveness of different interventions and music therapy was viewed as the best interventions for this population (Gutman, p. 49). Music can serve a means of communication for those where the function of language has become very challenging or lost. Language appears to be a relatively new function of the brain in human history, whereas music is pre-verbal and is pancultural. Music is a pre-verbal and sometimes non-verbal brain function, predating the ability for language. Furthermore, music is processed by many different parts of the brain rather than just one center, as in language. The elements of music such as rhythm, pitch, and melody and are all processed differently. The emotions are also tied in with music, thus activating the limbic system. Oliver Sacks, an advocate of music therapy, says that we listen to music with our muscles. The arousal is in the brain stem and the dynamic registers in the basal ganglia. With music being received and processed at the brain stem level, it shows how basic and primeval sound is to humans. This is why, as Sacks says, deeply demented people respond to music (Frohnmayer, p. 27). Music therapist and author Alicia Ann Clair identifies four main benefits for those with late stage dementia:

  1. changes in facial expression and tension
  2. increased eye contact
  3. vocal activity
  4. physical movement (Clair, pp. 81-82)

In a small study by Norberg et al., 1986, music was the only stimulus that could elicit a response from those in the final stages of Alzheimer disease. They measured responses through heart rate, breathing, eye blinking and mouth movements (Dawson et al., p. 62). Aldridge also supports the evidence that music therapy is important to improve the quality of life of those with Alzheimer’s. The spiritual outcomes of a sense of belonging and acceptance by others can be gained through a musical milieu (Aldridge 1994, p. 275). Music also accesses different parts of the brain (especially the right hemisphere and limbic system) because of the many elements involved in music, such as rhythm, melody, pitch, timbre, accent, etc. Language is a function of the left hemisphere. Thus, the combination of language and music, as in song, offers a “…greater chance of activating intact neurological pathways than using language alone” (O’Callaghan, p. 53). There is research that supports the fact that Alzheimer’s patients are able to retain musical perception (Gerdner and Swanson, p. 285). I call the ability to remember music when so many other abilities and memories seem inaccessible ‘musical memory’. I see it when a patient remembers all the words to a song yet rarely speaks or can put a coherent sentence together. I see it when we have sung a song and then five minutes later the patient is still humming it. This is what makes music “…a powerful catalyst for reminiscence…” (Gerdner and Swanson, p. 285).

On September 18, 1992 the U.S. Senate passed the Music Therapy for Older Americans Act into law. They passed Bill S.1723: Special Committee on Aging: “Forever Young; Music and Aging.” Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office (Castle, p. 1). It included provisions for funding for music therapy with the elderly, recognizing the benefits music has. The Act called for “the use of musical or rhythmic interventions specifically selected by a music therapist to accomplish the restoration, maintenance or improvement of social or emotional functioning, mental processing, or physical health of an older individual (Castle, Brown University).” The Act resulted in funding, education, training and dissemination of information.

Agitation and confusion among those with dementia is one of the main areas of concern for health care practitioners and care givers. In a study on the effects of individualized music on this population, music had soothing benefits that were, in many cases, both immediate and observable one hour later. Results were deemed to be because of two key factors: degree of personal significance of the music, and timing of the intervention, i.e., before peak levels of agitation set in (Gerdner, p. 284-9). Similar results were obtained in using individualized music (personally meaningful music) during the bathing of Alzheimer’s patients. Behavioral problems and agitation decreased by an incredible 63.4% during the weeks music was used (Clark, pp. 10-17). In a small study comparing the effects of relaxing/classical music and favorite music on repetitive disruptive vocalizations of persons with dementia, both styles of music were found to be significantly effective in decreasing vocalizations (Casby & Holm, p. 883). A 1994 study on severe craniocerebral trauma used sound as a bridge to mute patients which may have transferability to those with dementia and are mostly or totally non-verbal. The writers observed that “…a pre-verbal, emotionally-focused tonal language almost invariably is capable of reaching the still healthy sections of the person” (Jochims, p. 8). Music therapy can facilitate contact seemingly non-responsive persons, allowing them to experience and communicate on emotional, social and cognitive levels.

For the Hindu the art of playing is akin to striving for perfection, perhaps in the sense that God is perfect, and thus musical perfection is a parallel. Khan says that chaos and confusion arise out of missed notes, stumbling rhythms, lack of focus, lack of humility and devotion. For him, “A musical mistake is also a spiritual mistake” (Berendt, p. 156). This philosophy is in stark contrast to the philosophy of music therapy. In music therapy, and perhaps particularly in dementia care and other challenged population groups, everyone is encouraged to participate in music and not worry about being perfect. The focus is often on the act of expression, of creativity, of fun and music-making, on participation. The only situations where this differs is where an element such as musical rhythm is being worked on for a purpose, such as a goal of increasing the attention span.

Music is often an enjoyable art for most people which makes it a medium of therapeutic value. It holds a unique place among the arts in its fun and entertainment, which is why I include fun as an area of spiritual need. From sound effects to witty lyrics, from cartoon music to childrens’ action songs, fun and humor play a major role in our perceived enjoyment of life. Almost everyone has associations with music and can recall when they once heard a certain piece of music in a certain situation and how they felt. In a study with severely regressed persons with Alzheimer-type dementia the researchers found that despite the severity of the dementia and the progressive decline of the participants over the fifteen month period, the subjects were able to sit through the duration of the half hour session and connect with others. They described the music therapy group as “…the only time in their week when they could successfully interact with others in some acceptable form” (Clair/Bernstein, p. 299). Physical restraints were not needed during the music therapy. Restraints were more commonly used then (1990) than in recent years.

I recall a client who was physically restrained because her pacing and lack of awareness would put other residents at risk for falling and she would not rest if left unrestrained. When restrained she would sit in a chair with a table cover on it that would allow one to have lunch off it, like a tray, what we call a “geri chair”. She was a fifty-three year old woman with Pick’s Disease, a rare form of severe dementia. She loved music and even when unrestrained would actually lie down on her bed to listen to me sing some of her favorite songs as I played the guitar, songs like You are my sunshine, Love me tender, etc. She would smile, stare intently, and could amazingly even fall asleep to the music. I was certain that in the depths of her mind she was aware of her situation. When restrained she loved the large bell tree, which I would lay on its side, hand her a wooden mallet, and she would play it from the bottom to the top, smile, look at me, then put the mallet down for a few seconds. Then she would repeat the pattern. Instead of fidgeting and sliding around in the chair, she was contentedly focused on the bell tree. She could be left alone with the instrument and remain content for an hour or two, enough time for her body to rest from the insistent pacing.

The playing of simple percussion instruments is frequently used with the elderly as a means of rhythmically engaging their attention and as a means of actively involving them in the therapeutic process (Aldridge 1996, p. 209).

It is important to summarize some of the evidence based findings on the success of music therapy with the elderly. This general findings are important towards developing music therapy interventions that foster spiritual fulfillment for those with dementia.

Summary of Findings
After examining all of the different studies and findings, some general conclusions can be reached when it comes to considering music meant to soothe and relax the elderly person with dementia.

Music that is familiar to the patient can evoke a more positive response than unfamiliar music. One might surmise that if the territory is familiar, something known, then it provides more comfort than something which is foreign and takes getting used to. Familiar music is predictable and thus reassuring, comforting, something that is known in an environment that probably appears unknown after living in the house they have always lived in for fifty years. Unfamiliar music may be less successful because it requires processing and analysis by the brain. When one listens to a new piece of music (especially a musician) the brain tends to be engaged in analyzing the instrumentation, judging the overall quality, searching for melody, interpreting the words, etc. These are skills the Alzheimer’s patient likely does not have.

Degree of liking is a second factor, similar to the first point. Research has shown that a person tends to breathe deeper listening to music he or she likes (Winter, p. 42). Of course, what one person finds relaxing or pleasurable the other person may not like at all. Musical taste is very individualistic. Despite all the best intentions of a music therapist to prescribe a particularly soothing tape that is a personal favorite of their own, the fact is the patient may prefer to listen and respond better to something completely foreign than that, such as country and western. Numerous studies seek the ultimate answer that would provide a given formula for curative music. While certain elements and factors can definitely contribute to this, the fact remains that other variables come into play. Paul Radin, writing about music and primitive peoples, asks “What we should like to know, of course, is the extent to which the actual music, the sounds which issued from drum and rattle and flute and from the human throat, were regarded by either the patient or the practitioner as aiding in recovery” (Radin, p. 4). So apart from how much the patient likes the music, there is also the factor of perceived benefit from it, the familiar placebo effect, though powerful enough in its own right. After all, belief systems are what support us through life.

While music may be familiar, it must also be determined what the patient’s history and associations are to that music. I have had experiences in working with the elderly where an unexpected song (for example, You are my sunshine or even Casey Jones) is a trigger for emotional upset. Of course, that kind of response can be dealt with on an individual basis. The woman who cried upon hearing Casey Jones remembered the song from childhood and had a tender spot for those kind of ballads that related the true story of an event that happened close to the period she was born. Even a few days ago a German woman began to cry at the bittersweet childhood memories elicited from an old German song I played and sang with her called Heidenröslein. For others it may be a reaction to a Mozart aria or a Bach chorale. In working with an agitated, confused 65-year-old man, Australian music therapist Judy Cooper made him a tape of two songs that repeated over and over. They were two of the most significant songs in his life. The response was relaxation along with focused attention and listening (Cooper, pp. 22-23). Such a tape may naturally include several songs.

Finally, how the musical elements go together and how they function must be determined. The desired response may be dependent upon harmony, tempo, rhythm, melody, timbre, instrumentation, etc. (Maranto, p. 157-158). Music with a slow, rhythmic tempo can be relaxing. Music with a pattern or that is sedative can also be found to be relaxing. Music that arouses feelings of love and tenderness can also produce similar effects known as parasympathetic arousal. Conversely, faster, more complex music can be arousing. The autonomic nervous system is sensitive to pitch. High pitch generally causes tension and a low pitch conversely is more resonant, relaxing. And yet some people love to listen to Zamfir on his pan flute as opposed to a double bass concerto by Dragonetti. Volume, whether too loud or too soft, can be bothersome. As mentioned before, the personality of the listener comes into play as a variable: age, intellect, ethnicity, environment, economy, religion, education, and other personality factors. If the music is familiar and pleasing, it will have a greater effect (Cook pp. 24-25). At another facility I filled in at I began a program where I played the piano quietly in the background while the special care residents had breakfast. I always began and ended with Oh what a beautiful morning as a kind of reality orientation and because the song sets a nice mood. The residents (and staff too!) were obviously brighter, smiled more. Some sang the song being played, many remained seated much longer than usual. The staff commented how it created a good atmosphere for everyone as the day was beginning. Such a program was due to results supported by the literature. In a Swedish study testing different kinds of music as the stimulus, soft, melodious, relaxing and romantic music, often stringed instruments and with consistent tempi and volume, was most successful in keeping them seating longer and eating better (Ragneskog 1996, pp. 265-268).

Music therapy is clearly a dynamic approach in the care of people with dementia.

With easy force it opens all the cells
Where Memory slept. Wherever I have heard
A kindred melody, the scene recurs,
And with it all its pleasures and its pains.
Such comprehensive views the spirit takes,
That in a few short moments I retrace
(As in a map the voyager his course)
The windings of my way through many years.

– excerpt from the poem Music and Recollection by William Cowper, p. 201.

Aldridge, David, ed. Music Therapy Research and Practice in Medicine. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 1996.

Berendt, Joachim-Ernst. The World is Sound: Nada Brahma. Trans. Helmut Bredigkeit. Rochester, Vermont: Destiny Books, 1983.

Casby, J.A., and M.B. Holm. “The Effect of Music on Repetitive Disruptive Vocalizations of Persons with Dementia.” American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 48.1 (Oct. 1994): 883-889.

Castle, Dennis. “Therapeutic music can reach residents with dementia.”The Brown University Long Term Care Quality Letter, 7.6 (27 Mar 1995): 1.

Clair, Alicia Ann. Therapeutic Uses of Music with Older Adults. Baltimore, MD: Health Professions Press, 1996.

Clark, Michael E. “Use of Music to Decrease Aggressive Behaviors in People with Dementia.”Journal of Gerontological Nursing (July 1998): 10-17.

Cook, Janet D. “Music as an intervention in the oncology setting.” Cancer Nursing, 9.1 (1986): 23-28.

Cooper, Judy. “Songs that Soothe.”New Zealand Nursing Journal, 84.3 (April 1991): 22-23.

Cowper, William. “Music and Recollection.”The Healing Arts: An Oxford Illustrated Anthology. Ed. R.S. Downie. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994: 201.

Dawson, Pam, Donna L., and Karen Kline. Enhancing the Abilities of Persons with Alzheimer’s and Related Dementias: A Nursing Perspective. New York: Springer Publishing Co., 1993.

Gerdner, Linda A., and Elizabeth A. Swanson. “Effects of Individualized Music on Confused and Agitated Elderly Patients,”Archives of Psychiatric Nursing, 7.5 (Oct. 1993): 284-291.

Gutman, Gloria M., and Judy Killam. Special Care Units for Dementia: Staff and Family Perceptions. The Gerontology Research Centre, Simon Fraser University, 1991.

Jochims, S. “Establishing Contact in the Early Stage of Severe Craniocerebral Trauma: Sound as the Bridge to Mute Patients.”Rehabilitation, 33.1 (Feb. 1994): 8-10.

Maranto, Cheryl D. “Applications of Music in Medicine.”Music Therapy in Health and Education. Ed. Margaret Heal and Tony Wigram. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers (1997): 153-165.

O’Callaghan, C.C. “Communicating with brain-impaired palliative care patients through music therapy.”Journal of Palliative Care, 9.4 (Winter 1993): 53-55.

Radin, Paul. “Music and Medicine among Primitive Peoples.”Music and Medicine. Ed. Dorothy M. Schullian and Max Schoen. New York: Henry Schuman, Inc., (1948): 3-24.

Ragneskog, Hans, et al., “Dinner Music for Demented Patients.”Clinical Nursing Research, 5.3 (Aug. 1996): 262-282.

Winter, Ruth. “How to use Music.”Glamour (March, 1980): 42-26.


This expansion of the nostrils, as well as the snorting, and the palpitations of the heart, are actions which have become firmly associated during a long series of generations with the emotion of terror; for terror has habitually led the horse to the most violent exertion in dashing away at full speed from the cause of danger.

_Ruminants_.--Cattle and sheep are remarkable from displaying in so slight a degree their emotions or sensations, excepting that of extreme pain. A bull when enraged exhibits his rage only by the manner in which be holds his lowered head, with distended nostrils, and by bellowing. He also often paws the ground; but this pawing seems quite different from that of an impatient horse, for when the soil is loose, he throws up clouds of dust. I believe that bulls act in this manner when irritated by flies, for the sake of driving them away. The wilder breeds of sheep and the chamois when startled stamp on the ground, and whistle through their noses; and this serves as a danger-signal to their comrades. The musk-ox of the Arctic regions, when encountered, likewise stamps on the ground.[9] How this stamping action arose I cannot conjecture; for from inquiries which I have made it does not appear that any of these animals fight with their fore-legs.

Some species of deer, when savage, display far more expression than do cattle, sheep, or goats, for, as has already been stated, they draw back their ears, grind their teeth, erect their hair, squeal, stamp on the ground, and brandish their horns. One day in the Zoological Gardens, the Formosan deer (_Cervus pseudaxis_) approached me in a curious attitude, with his muzzle raised high up, so that the horns were pressed back on his neck; the head being held rather obliquely. From the expression of his eye I felt sure that he was savage; he approached slowly, and as soon as he came close to the iron bars, he did not lower his head to butt at me, but suddenly bent it inwards, and struck his horns with great force against the railings. Mr. Bartlett informs me that some other species of deer place themselves in the same attitude when enraged.

_Monkeys_.--The various species and genera of monkeys express their feelings in many different ways; and this fact is interesting, as in some degree bearing on the question, whether the so-called races of man should be ranked as distinct species or varieties; for, as we shall see in the following chapters, the different races of man express their emotions and sensations with remarkable uniformity throughout the world. Some of the expressive actions of monkeys are interesting in another way, namely from being closely analogous to those of man. As I have had no opportunity of observing any one species of the group under all circumstances, my miscellaneous remarks will be best arranged under different states of the mind.

[9] `Land and Water,' 1869, p. 152.

_Pleasure, joy, affection_--It is not possible to distinguish in monkeys, at least without more experience than I have had, the expression of pleasure or joy from that of affection. Young chimpanzees make a kind of barking noise, when pleased by the return of any one to whom they are attached. When this noise, which the keepers call a laugh, is uttered, the lips are protruded; but so they are under various other emotions. Nevertheless I could perceive that when they were pleased the form of the lips differed a little from that assumed when they were angered. If a young chimpanzee be tickled-- and the armpits are particularly sensitive to tickling, as in the case of our children,--a more decided chuckling or laughing sound is uttered; though the laughter is sometimes noiseless. The corners of the mouth are then drawn backwards; and this sometimes causes the lower eyelids to be slightly wrinkled. But this wrinkling, which is so characteristic of our own laughter, is more plainly seen in some other monkeys. The teeth in the upper jaw in the chimpanzee are not exposed when they utter their laughing noise, in which respect they differ from us. But their eyes sparkle and grow brighter, as Mr.

Charles Darwin

All Pages of This Book


Jenyfer Romero

Explore Austin is a new experience Jenyfer is all about it! She loves traveling and being outdoors because it reminds her that no matter what curve ball life is throwing, life is a fun adventure and it's meant to be challenging - that’s how we become the best version of ourselves! She's a first generation Mexican-American who hopes to inspire the youth to embrace their background because being different is a beautiful thing.


This is from Wikipedia and Home of the Hero’s.
Thomas was the first soldier to receive the dual honor during the Civil War.
He was one of four soldiers or sailors to get the honor during the Civil War.

Thomas Ward Custer

He was born in New Rumley, Ohio, the third son of Emanuel and Maria Custer. He enlisted in the Union Army, in September 1861, at age 16, and served in the early campaigns of the Civil War as a private in the 21st Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He saw action at numerous battles, including Stones RiverMissionary Ridge and the Atlanta Campaign. He mustered out in October 1864 as a corporal. Commissioned a second lieutenant in Company B of the 6th Michigan Cavalry, he became his brother’s aide-de-camp and accompanied him throughout the last year of the war.
Tom Custer distinguished himself by winning successively the brevets of captainmajor, andlieutenant colonel, although he was barely 20 years of age when the Civil War ended. He was awarded two Medals of Honor. He was the first soldier to receive the dual honor, one of only four soldiers or sailors to receive the dual honor during the Civil War, and one of just 19 in history

Medals of Honor

Original Army Medal of HonorOriginal Army Medal of Honor
The President of the United States
in the name of
The Congress
takes pleasure in presenting the
Medal of Honor

Both actions that earned Custer the Medal of Honor involved capturing Confederate regimental flags (2nd North Carolina Cavalry flag at Namozine Church on April 3, 1865, and again at Sayler’s Creek on April 6, 1865). Such battle flags “denoted individual persons, or units, on the field of battle. The flag symbolized the honor of the regiment…In combat, with the field full of noise and smoke, the soldiers watched their regimental flag and if it advanced or retreated they followed. The names of the battles that the regiment participated in were sometimes stitched onto the flag. The loss of a regimental flag was a disgrace to the command.”[1]

First Award

[edit]Second Award

Similar actions in the Battle of Sayler’s Creek resulted in Custer being the first American soldier to receive two Medals of Honor. Riding alongside Colonel Charles E. Capehart when the command to charge was given, he raced his horse toward the enemy barricades through a line of rifle fire, then lept the barricade to be surrounded by the enemy. He discharged his pistol to both sides, scattering the enemy. He noticed Confederates attempting to make a new battleline and saw the color bearer they were rallying to.[1] Custer charged the bearer. Colonel Capehart reported the rest of the events in a letter to Libbie Custer:
— Colonel Capehart[1]

(Pictures taken shortly after the battle show a scar “with minor soft tissue damage to his lower jaw extending to a point just below the right ear”;[1] though the wound to Tom’s face was across blood rich tissue and covered him in his own blood, had the bullet gone through the mouth or the soft tissue of the neck it would have likely struck a major vessel and have caused him to bleed to death.)[1] Having captured the flag Custer held it aloft and rode back to the Union column. An officer of the Third New Jersey cavalry, seeing Custer ride back with the banner flapping, tried to warn him that he might be shot by his own side: “For God’s sake, Tom, furl that flag or they’ll fire on you!”[1] Custer ignored him and kept riding towards his brother Armstrong‘s personal battle flag and handed the captured flag to one of Armstrong’s aides while declaring, “Armstrong, the damned rebels shot me, but I’ve got my flag.”[1] Custer then turned his horse to rejoin the battle, but Armstrong (who had only seconds before seen another of his aides be shot in the face and fall from his horse dead) ordered Custer to report to the surgeon. Tom ignored the order and his brother placed him under arrest, ordering him to the rear under guard.[1]


Xuzhou Medical University Employment Plan for Jiangsu Distinguished Professors

Xuzhou Medical University
Xuzhou, Jiangsu (CN)
Salary Negotiable
March 16 2018
Position Type
Full Time
Organization Type

Xuzhou Medical University (XZMU) originated from Jiangsu Provincial Medical College established in 1934, and was renamed as Xuzhou Medical University approved by the Ministry of Education on March 2016. The university is located in Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province, and is a higher medical university with a long history and distinctive characteristics. It is now the center of medical education, medical service and medical research in Northern Jiangsu Province and in the whole Huaihai economic zone.

XZMU offers 27 undergraduate programs such as Clinical Medicine, Anesthesiology, Medical Imageology, Pharmacology, Stomatology, Nursing, Biomedical Engineering, Public Administration, etc.. XZMU has 2 first-level discipline doctoral programs in Clinical Medicine and Biology, 5 first-level discipline master’s programs in Clinical Medicine, Basic Medicine, Biology, Pharmacology, Public Health and Preventive Medicine, 2 professional master’s programs in Clinical Medicine and Pharmacology, and a post-doctoral research center.

The university always attaches importance on the building of the talents team, and attracts and retains a group of outstanding talents with scientific operating mechanism and vigorous development. We are committed to providing the opportunity and atmosphere to train and improve our faculty members and recruiting outstanding domestic and overseas talents from all over the world. We sincerely welcome advanced talents to engage in the development of Xuzhou Medical University.

I. Disciplines

1. Biology

2. Basic Medicine

3. Pharmacy

4. Clinical Medicine

5. Public Health and Preventive Medicine

6. Stomatology

II. Job Requirements

  1. Abide by the constitution and laws of the People's Republic of China, with high morals, strict academic attitude and be physically and mentally healthy.
  2. Overseas candidates should have doctoral degree and no more than 45 years old in principle.
  3. Candidates should have three years’ overseas research and work experiences after doctoral degree and work as assistant professor or a relevant position in a renowned overseas university or research institute.
  4. Candidates should have high academic achievements, have been in charge of key scientific research projects, published papers with higher impact factors in the key academic journals, mastered key technology, held important invention patents, or have achievements in the transformation of major scientific and technological achievements. The candidates’ research achievements should reach the international advanced level and have a great impact on the academic world. No intellectual property right disputes.

III. Job Responsibilities

Lead the research to advanced domestic level in its frontiers, in order to catch up with or keep in pace with international advanced level. Take charge of national and provincial key scientific research projects and attain remarkable achievements. Lead or participate in leading the construction of the disciplinary or teaching team construction Instruct the core course of the discipline and promote domestic and international academic exchanges.

IV. Employment period

Three years. The candidates with Chinese nationality should be formally transferred into our university in principle. And the candidates with foreign nationality should work full time during the employment period.

V. Recruitment Procedure

Open recruitment for candidates all over the world and the best ones will be admitted.

Anyone who meets the requirements and intends to apply should submit resume as an attachment, which is unreturnable, to the designated emailbox. Your application documents should cover the following aspects:

  1. Application form for distinguished professor of Jiangsu province
  2. Photocopies or scanned electronic files of the following documents:
    (1) Documents of academic degree and diploma, returned overseas candidates have to provide regulated certificate, identification card or passport, permanent residence permit and relevant qualification certificates.
    (2) Documents to certify the major scientific research projects undertaken, the prize rewarded and the patent gained.
    (3) 5 innovational papers in full text and the cover of the relevant journals. Covers, contents and the first page of other major publications.
    (4) Documents to certify the paper has been selected by SCI、EI、SSCI、CSSCI or other citation (Only search report of the paper selection and citation is necessary rather than detailed search results and lists.)
    (5) Documents to certify your  overseas position or important domestic position.
    (6) Documents to certify your position at international academic conference and invitation or notification to make a conference lecture or invited lecture or reports.
  3. University organizes the peer experts for evaluation.
  4. Jiangsu Education Department organizes experts for evaluation.
  5. Formal employment. University signs the employment contract and research assignment with Jiangsu distinguished professor.

VI、Supporting measures taken by the school authority

1.The duration of employment is three years. The Jiangsu Provincial Government will provide 1,000,000.00-2,000,000.00 RMB as research funding for Jiangsu distinguished professors. Xuzhou Medical University will provide research funding which will not be less than the Provincial standard.

Employed outstanding natural science talents will obtain 4,000,000.00 RMB for research during the three years. Jiangsu Finance Department will provide 2,000,000.00 RMB and university will also provide 2,000,000.00 RMB.

2. For the 3-year employment period, the Jiangsu Provincial Government will provide a bonus of 120,000.00 RMB (exempt from individual income tax) for each professor every year. University will provide salary, insurance, welfare and other treatments according to the relevant national regulations.

3. Desirable working and living conditions, housing, laboratory for scientific research and office will be provided for the distinguished professor.

4. Outstanding members in academic research will be selected for the distinguished professor if needed.

Department: Personnel Department, Xuzhou Medical University

Contact Person: Li Yuandong，Wang Linlin

Address: No. 209 Tongshan Road, Xuzhou, Jiangsu province

Phone: +86-516-83262042，+86-516-83262238

Email: szb@xzhmu.edu.cn   Website: rsc.xzhmu.edu.cn


Sociólogo - Escritor

"La Casa de la Magdalena" (1977), "Essays of Resistance" (1991), "El destino de Norte América", de José Carlos Mariátegui. En narrativa ha escrito la novela "Secreto de desamor", Rentería Editores, Lima 2007, "Mufida, La angolesa", Altazor Editores, Lima, 2011; "Mujeres malas Mujeres buenas", (2013) vicio perfecto vicio perpetuo, poesía. Algunos ensayos, notas periodísticas y cuentos del autor aparecen en diversos medios virtuales. Jorge Aliaga es peruano-escocés y vive entre el Perú y Escocia.

email address:

25 de octubre de 2011

"Peru: Nation-State and multicultural society."

Por José Marín **

If we imagine the history of Latin America seen through an European window, Europe could be recognized as a mirror in which we can identify the structure of an European state political model applied to most American countries with the same consequences in both continents: the lack of competence to respect and manage cultural and linguistic diversity of the multicultural societies, and the incapacity of this type of state model to cope with concrete historical realities, realities that leave the problems of this model uncovered in different contexts: Mexico, Guatemala, Bolivia, Ecuador or Spain—with the emergence of the Catalan nation or the demand for autonomy of the Basque country.

These facts allow us to understand to what extent political models such as the "nation state" imposed in this geographical space and on other continents, have finally caused these perverse effects: intolerance, racism, exclusion and the denial of most fundamental rights.

Beyond the characteristics of the historical actors of the European or American societies and their historical and social contexts, there is just one state model and one political determination that influence the integration, assimilation or exclusion processes.

In history, such influence acts as a mirror that reflects our image as historical actors who belong to a single group: The human gender. From this fact a common reflection necessarily emerges on the fundamental principles of respect for pluralism and cultural diversity, which form the core of every human society, as opposed to ethnocentrism that permeates the construction of identity in every culture.

* Doctor in Anthropology from the University of Soborne, and Diploma from the Institute of Altos Studies of Latin America (IHEAL), Paris. He holds a diploma from the University Institute of Development Studies and the International Academy of Ecology, Geneva. He participated in the International University net of the University of Geneva (RUIG) in the research project "Globalization, Migrations and Human Rights". He currently participates in institutions and publications of Europe and Latin America. He collaborated in Africa with the UNESCO.

In the European context during the beginning of the XIX century and during the XX century, the Nation-State political model has caused, and still causes, a denial of the cultural and linguistic diversity. The victims were the ethnic minorities (such as the gypsies in Eastern Europe) or people (such as Basque in Spain and France) or national minorities (e.g. the Hungarian in Romania and other countries of Eastern Europe) and immigrant colonies in general (Ferrer, 1998; Pérez, 1998; Salvi, 1973; Sanguin, 1993).

In the American continent, from Canada to Chile, the ancestral rights of the different indigenous peoples have been rejected, due to the application, against their will, of the authoritarian principles of the Nation State and the denial of citizenship. Such principles leave a trace of racism, exclusion and marginalization, based on biological, cultural and legal excuses stated by eurocentrism which has invaded the colonial and neo-colonial political power discourses. In this context, churches and schools became, with the processes of evangelization and alfabetization, the preferred means of forced assimilation, promoted by the policies of "national integration" (Walsh, 2009).

The church and the school will be the ones to prohibit the languages and destroy the indigenous cultures in the name of occidental and Christian civilization. These institutions promoted the myths of Progress and Development (Burga, 1988; Flores Galindo, 1987; Montoya, 1990,1998).

In the history of the American continent, the situation of the indigenous peoples and the communities that form the multicultural American society reminds us the reality of the minorities and the immigrants of contemporary Europe. The case of Peru is a historic and a very representative case of this shared history between Europe and America.

The Nation-State

The idea of nation emerges as a purely ideological concept and expresses the crystallization of a desire to consolidate a feeling of existence and acknowledgement as a collective identity. It is through an imaginary construction that the (national) consciousness creates the nation. In a historically given space, the repetition and diffusion of the funding myths promoted by a determined language finally allowed the creation of a state that represents a nation. The state uses the nation’s myth and discourse to reinforce its political determination of survival.

From the Middle Ages on, nations identified themselves with the languages. For example, the German nation has been formed by all the people who speak German. Later on, nations were defined by a language, a territory, an ethnic group, a religion and traditions. In Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania the idea of nation precedes the development of the state and motivates the emancipatory fights of the subjugated people to the Ottoman Empire.

The Nation-States are never limited by their geographic frontiers. Most of the times, the delimitation of a territory is carried out by the states, through an arbitrary manner which ended up fragmenting the original nations thus making the history of humanity a succession of dramas. In Africa, the rising states, using colonial delimitations, imposed unreal "nations" over different ethnic groups without shared languages. An extreme case is the one in which the idea of nation not only preceeds the formation of a state, but even the occupation of a territory, stimulating the first and then the second one, such as the case of the foundation of Israel in 1948. The case of Zionism is an example of the concretization of an identity, not only religious or enthic, but also national (Morin, 1991).

The Nation-State, as a political model, finds its origins in Europe during the second half of the XV century. The alliance between the kings of Castile and Aragon marks the beginning of the creation of the Spanish State based on the supremacy of a language (Spanish), a religious view (Catholic and roman christianism) and a connection with the Occidental world: under these conditions, the historical germ of Nation-State was born (Attali, 1991; Ferrero, 1994; Marín, 2007).

Historically, Spain was the place where the process of asserting a national identity, based on a political model of state, generated the ideological and legal instruments that led to reject the cultural and linguisitc diversity on the geographic territory that declared a new state. This principle of institutionalized rejection of distinctiveness and cultural and religious diversity is expressed by the expulsion of a considerable number of 250,000 Jews from Spain on March 31st, 1492. The same year, the Muslims were expulsed too, following their defeat in the battle of Granada, after seven centuries of occupation. The gypsies, who arrived from northern Africa some decades before the end of the XV century, were persecuted and excluded (Dominguez, 1988; Vilar, 1979).

Until the Middle Ages, the history counted on empires, cities, people and ethnic groups. The combination Nation-State, more widespread than the one of the cities, is more restricted and more unified than that of the empires, in spite of these being poly-ethnic (Morin, 1991).
The monarchical French state had developed the creation of the nation due to the slow imposition of the French language over the conquered ethnic groups. The Nation-State concept was formulated by the French romanticism against the monarchical absolutism. This revolution strengthened and prolonged with a cosmopolitan conception that goes beyond the identity based on the language (Delannoi, 1991). It is from the revolution, the nation legitimizes the state (Morin, 1991).
The Nation-State forms itself slowly, variously in France, England, Spain and Portugal, from or around the monarchial power which is transformed by itself in the formation of State-Nation.
In North America, after the emancipation of the settlers of the English colony, a federal model of Nation-State was created. Since then, based on French principles rather than American principles, the Nation-State composes an emancipating political model potentially universal. Given this fact, since the begining of the XIX century, the example of the United States encourages the uprise of white and mestizo populations, events that will cause the development of the new republics in Latin America.
In the XIX and XX centuries, the European political model of Nation-State becomes the model for the constitution of the republics born during the postcolonial period in Latin America, Asia, and Africa from the 1960’s.

But, beyond speeches, the political elite in power privileges and imposes, on behalf of Cosmopolitism, a vision of the world, a language and a dominant culture, to the detriment of the other ethnic groups, even when the group in power does not represent the majority. This is a constant fact in the history of Latin America.

The Nation-State political model conceived at the beginning of the XIX century, after the French Revolution, is based on the construction of the "Nation" as a unifying and homogenizing myth of a group of people with their different languages and cultures. These new states claim their sovereignty over the territories that they do not fully control. Despite the proclamation of the principles of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, this model turned to be an ideological and legal instrument that generated an authoritarian policy (Salvi, 1973).

These authoritarian records linked to the foundation of the States, are the origin of the contemporary conflicts. In Mexico, for example, current drama of the indigenous peoples from Chiapas still remains despite the 1910 revolution. This revolution had as its primary goal to build an egualitarian society of social justice. A self proclaimed policy of "national integration" intended to consolidate the creation of a Mexican "nation" through the alphabetization by means of the Spanish language; but in reality, this process degenerated into a process of forced assimilation.

Nowadays, given the differences between the state and the society, Colombia, a pluriethnic and multicultural country, gives us an example of a failed Nation-State. As a political model, it is not able to react to the deep social crisis and political violence that divide the society and makes it bleed over its land.
The consequences of establishing this type of political model in contexts where there is an important cultural, linguistic and religious diversity may cause real ethnocides and genocides, from Canada to present-day Chile. There are eloquent examples of these such as: the loss of territory and the misery of the indigenous peoples in the United States of America, Chiapas’ and Guerrero conflicts in Mexico, the recent genocide of 250,000 indigenous in Guatemala and the displacement and genocide of indigenous population caused by the political violence and by favoring the interests of mutinational companies in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and Chile, just to name a few. Of the almost 70,000 victims of political violence reported in the year 2004 by the Truth Comission in Peru, more than the 80% were from indigenous origin.

Despite the "Decade Declaration on Indigenous Peoples" () decreed by the United Nations in 1992, this contemporary drama of economic and social marginalization, racial discrimination and the systematic rejection of the multicultural character of the Latin American societies, constituted, at the beginning of this century, a challenge to be taken particularly in the American continent. (Deroche, 2008). The following terms are used in this text interchangeably: indigenous people, autochthonous or native communities, to refer to the same population, according to the context without considering or perceiving it as something negative.

"The Nation-State is both creation and creature of modern Europe"

Edgard Morin, 1991, p. 319

(author’s translation)
National Integration

"indio educado, demonio encarnado; indio instruido, demonio perdido"After closing the schools for the natives, the myth of education for the indigenous could be transcribed as "knowing how to read and write is living in the world of lights, not knowing them is like living in the world of shadows". This being a fact, schooling turns out to be a mandatory way to defend their rights in a society that prefers the written culture (Montoya, 1990, 1998).
The AIDESEP is also supported by several indigenous organizations and progressive political and intellectual sectors. Internationally, it is related to the Amazon Confederation of Indigenous Organizations (COICA) which represents all the indigenous peoples from the Amazon basin of South America. This organization is related to several institutions linked to the UN and other international institutions and foundations.
The consolidation of Amazon indigenous organizations such as the (Council of development of nationalities of the Peruvian Amazon) Consejo de Desarrollo de las Nacionalidades de la Amazonia Peruana (CONAP) and the (Interethnic Association of the Peruvian Jungle Development) Asociacion Interetnica del Desarrollo de la Selva Peruana (AIDESEP) created in 1980. Today, they lead the opposition to the neoliberal policy of the government and the defense of their territories—themes that accentuate the conflict between the state and the indigenous peoples.
assistentialist ideology.
According to the Office of People’s Advocate, this system is making difficult the access to education for the indigenous peoples and it does not consider the indigenous capabilities under in cultural or linguistic terms which are the basis for this training. Equally, there are not teachers specially trained to manage the languages and cultures of the children and teenagers of the almost 71 ethnic groups existing in the country.
On April 5th, 2010, the Cusco congressman, Victor Mayorga Miranda, presented in the Congress the bill 3494, which proposes to abolish the Supreme Decree 006-2007 ED

Since the year 2007, this decree has paralyzed many Superior Pedagogical Institutes, including FORMABIAP. Today, these Institutes are developing some training activities while they wait to recover their original statute. There is a national mobilization against this arbitrary measure since it was a demagogic decision to disarticulate many programs and institutions of pedagogic training which are not controlled by the government.

The development of educational programs that take into consideration their mother tongue and the visions of their own cultures and the world allowed these peoples to reinforce their identities and recover the cohesion of their organizations.
Even though the present organizations do not correspond to traditional organizations and caciquism and even though they were adapted to the rules imposed by the state, they are the only legal vehicle that makes possible the defense of their rights. The indigenous organizations in the Amazon have been created under the legal frame imposed by the Law of Native (autochthonous, indigenous) Communities enacted by the military government in 1974. Their leaders know how to read and write in Spanish.

Today, we witness the development of a new generation of indigenous professionals who are reinforcing their organizations and creating new programs and institutions adapted to the new socioeconomic conditions.

We could point certain characteristics of the current indigenous organizations, which were perceived by Richard Chase Smith as it follows: "They are alliances built by voluntary decision of the autonomous local communities. The leaders, who represent them, are elected and, in theory, must answer to the will of the members: an organization which associates the political functions of representation of the technical functions (projects), a federation that finds its unity through a particular cultural identity, and above all, a federation that seeks to maintain its autonomy in front of the state, the church and the political parties". (Chase Smith, 1982).
These are the three institutions that generated the triple authoritarian tradition which marked the history of the social, political and cultural relations in the Peruvian society. This secular authoritarism, with some shades, is valid until today.

The great challenge today, which is present in the indigenous organizations, is to accomplish an autonomous organization that represents the Amazon or Andean indigenous populations as a whole to avoid competition and fragmentation suffered by the peasant movements of the Andean and the coastal regions during Fujimori’s government (1990-2000). As well as the attacks they have suffered over the last years, these populations also had to bear the political violence, which caused 70 thousand victims from whom 80% were from indigenous populations according to the report of the Truth Commission.

Between 1990 and 1998, the beginning of Alberto Fujimori’s presidential period was marked by the implementation of a neoliberal political program that brought to discussion the ancestral property of the indigenous communities’ lands, particularly in the Amazon region, rich in natural resources such as gold, petroleum, gas, fine woods, which are valuable resources in which multinational companies are interested in. This economic policy still continues, and it has widened at present. (chirif, 2010; Montoya, 2010; Varese, 2009).

In the coastal and Andean regions, the privatization of the agro industrial complexes, which were part of the state in 1968, was produced. In this period, socially speaking, we witnessed the dismantling of the social, medical and educational services and the destruction of the labor market due to the economic restructuration imposed by the neoliberal programs.
This process was the cause of the explosion of the unemployment and precarization rates of the poor and middle sectors. The development of a neoliberal policy produces and emphasizes the authoritarian character of the Nation-State, which, as a political model, enters in this perspective. The reduction of a big amount of the democratic spaces is inherent and the criminalization by the central Government of the popular and indigenous opposition characterizes this process.

8. Nation-State and multiculturality: between rhetoric and reality

Between the years 2000 and 2001, during the transitional government of Valentin Paniagua, Supreme Decree 015 based on the dialogue between the state and the Amazon indigenous peoples was enacted; and at the beginning of the government of Toledo, Supreme Decree 111 which created the Discussion Board and the National Commission of Andean, Amazonian and Afro-Peruvian Peoples (CONAPA) was issued; this decree was presided by the president’s wife, the anthropologist Eliane Karp.
The subscription of the three last international statements carried out in Macchu Picchu, Santiago - Chile and during the Meeting of Rio Group in the year 2001, was added to the above mentioned decrees. We must add the Democratic Letter Signing in the framework of the Organization of American States (OAS) to those agreements,. We can highlight some of the commissions’ agreements from these different events:
To end the legalization of the indigenous territories
To examine the problem of the Amazonian reservation and the pacification in the central zone (conflictive area where some armed groups of Sendero Luminoso linked to drug dealers are still active).
To develop bilingual and intercultural education
To develop a plan for the Amazon
To institutionalize the state at a regional level considering the indigenous problems.

All these political statements and the symbolic use of indigenous issues at the service of political demagogy did not crystallize in the daily reality of the Peruvian society (Montoya, 2001a, 2001c).
The use of the ethnic factor by political parties in Peru is represented in several episodes. Since the first half of the XX century it was represented by the indigenism, developed by the erudite paternalists, in which natives are not present as historical subjects.
After the recovery of the indigenous issues by the state policies, as it was the case, during the government of Augusto B. Leguia and others, in the same period. Later, the APRA party got back some indigenous signs to use them as the emblem of their political discourse. Between 1990 and 2000, during the Fujimori’s government, we witnessed the demagogic usage of the ethnic factor for political purposes. In the year 2001, Possible Peru Party, which took Alejandro Toledo to the presidency, employed a considerable amount of indigenous symbols during the election campaign and also in the presidential investiture ceremony in Macchu Picchu on July 28th, 2001. The official investiture ceremony was transmitted internationally, and it was carried out in the framework of an indigenous religious ceremony, and during its course Apus were invoked (indigenous religion Gods). Also, offerings to the Pachamama (Mother Earth) were presented. These historical facts have been the basis upon which Toledo announced his intention to make his mandate a government of "all bloods". This metaphor, allusive to a government for all Peruvians without considering their origins, belongs to Jose Maria Arguedas, as the title of his novel "Todas las Sangres" ("All Bloods") published in 1964. He was a Peruvian writer and anthropologist and one of the first in questioning about the multicultural and plurilingual character of the Peruvian society (Arquedas, 1977; Marin, 2002, Montoya, 2001b, 2001c).

It was the same Arguedas, who, in the speech "I am not an acultured" pronounced during the ceremony of Inca Garcilaso de la Vega award, to which he was nominated in the year 1968, pointed out that some day in Peru it would be possible and necessary to express the different faces of the cultures and languages, without causing conflicts. He wished a country in which the different national and ethnic identities coexisted, to feel as a Peruvian citizen and, at the same time, to affirm to be a Quechua, Aymara or Amazon. (Marin, 2002)
In Arguedas’ reflection about Peru, the seed of interculturality was sown as the starting point of a future political project.

However, it is convenient to wonder about the current perspective of the indigenous peoples:
What are the real chances to cross the boundaries between the simple political discourse and the complex reality?
What are the real possibilities to create the political spaces in which the different peoples from Peru may express themselves?
Is it possible to imagine the respect for the autochthonous peoples in the modern political context?
Taking into consideration the multicultural character of the current Peruvian Society, What is the model of constitution needed by Peru to assume this reality?
What are real possibilities to respect the cultural diversity of the autochthonous peoples, taking into account the interests of the different political movements and the different economic sectors?

9. Recent history about the relations of the Nation-State and the multicultural society.

Considering the Andean region, the First special Congress of Quechua Peoples in Peru, with participants and guests from Argentina, Bolivia and Ecuador took place in Cuzco between November 5th and 9th, 2001.

Among the most important agreements there was a need to develop a constitutional reform that creates a multicultural and plurinational state. This proposal becomes true between the years 2008 and 2010, with a deep change in the political Constitution experienced by Bolivia and Ecuador in which the decolonization and the re-foundation of the state were suggested in order to give place to the foundation of a Plurinational State as a political, social and cultural space in which the multiculturality, that characterizes the societies, could live. (Montoya, 2001c; Suarez, 2008; Walsh, 2009).
In this meeting in Cuzco, the Quechua peoples demanded political and economical projects that apply to national interests without being subjected to foreign interests and to defend the interests of the country against international organizations as the World Trade Organization (WTO).
They also proposed the creation of a office considering the diversity of the different cultures that live in the Peruvian territory, an action that allows the development of a government of "all bloods" in relation to president Toledo’s statements who ruled from 2001 to 2006 (Marin, 2002).
On October 28th, 2007, Alan Garcia, president of Peru, publishes an article called "Orchard dog syndrome" where he points out that some native communities of Peru keep their lands without production, thus opposing to progress. This publication was considered as an attack to the Amazon peoples (Manrique, 2009).
In December 2007, The Congress gives powers to the Executive branch of the govermment to legislate on matters regarding the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States of America. Within the legislation for the FTA, the Executive issues decrees about the indigenous peoples of Peru.

In August, 2008, Alberto Pizango, President of AIDESEP supported the manifestations of Amazon indigenous groups against oil companies that invaded and contaminated their land. According to the director of NGO Survival International, Stephen Corry, "the indigenous Peruvians are being forced to adopt desperate measures to try to save their lands which during five centuries have been stolen."[aceedeed

( de la Selva en el Per%C3%BA09 [Accessed 06.2010]).
Protests ended when Alberto Pizango and the AIDESEP received the support from the Peruvian Congress.
On August 20th, 2008, the Peruvian Congress approves the request of the National Commission of Andean, Amazonian and Afro-Peruvian Peoples to abolish the legislative decrees 1015 and 1073. These decrees make easier the sale of indigenous territories to private companies and open the access of oil, mining and agro industrial companies to the Amazon.

In September 2008, the government did not enact the derogation of the decrees. When the deadline was due, the President of the Congress abolished them as stipulated in the Peruvian Constitution. On September 2nd, the laws 1015 and 1073 were revoked, re-establishing the articles 10 to 11 of the Law 26505, about the use of the land of native communities.

In March 2009, the Congress forms a commission to study the other decrees, particularly the points that come into conflict with the Constitution and has relation with the violation of the agreement 169 of the ILO.
On April 9th, since there was no answer, the Amazon strike began, demanding the abolition of other six decrees considered unconstitutional by the Constitutional Commission of the Peruvian Congress, which allowed 60% of the Amazon old-growth forests to be sold to transnational companies for exploitation of hydrocarbons or for growing bio fuels.
In May, since the new commission was not established in the congress, the manifestations extended to the entire Amazon and became more radical with the occupation of some oil facilities, the highway blockade and other actions.
The Peoples Advocacy acted as a mediator and the president of the UN Permanent Forum of Indigenous Issues (UNFPII) expressed his concern.
The Constitutional Commission of Congress declared unconstitutional the Law Decree 1090 (Forest and Wild Life Law) leaving for discussion at the plenary session of congress.
On May 20th, under a Supreme Decree, the
On May 31st, Alberto Pizango declares in the closing ceremony of the "IV Continental Summit of the Indigenous Peoples" in Puno that the measures will become more radical seeking to abolish the decrees "to defend the indigenous peoples" and decides not to participate in the Discussion Board anymore and demands an audience with the president Alan Garcia. Announcing also that he will ask the Constitutional Court to declare those decrees unconstitutional, and warns if his demands were not accepted, he would bring a lawsuit in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. On June 3rd, he called for a national strike. On June 4th, the Peoples Advocacy brought a lawsuit of unconstitutionality against the Law Decree 1064 in the Constitutional Court as it considered that this Decree violates the land property rights and the one of previous consultation to the native people.
On June 5th, the result of the intervention of security forces in Bagua, ordered by the government, resulted fatal. After a year from this tragedy, 23 dead policemen and 10 dead civilians have been identified. These numbers are corroborated by the Peoples Advocacy and some Catholic organizations.
On June 8th, Carmen Viloso Chirinos, leader of the Women and Social Development Ministry, resigned her position as a way to protest against a video that was transmitted by the Peruvian Government on the local television, in which native people are shown as responsible of the violence. A few days earlier, Alberto Pizango, AIDESEP president had been requested by the prosecutor to be investigated for crimes of murder and sedition, accusing him of being responsible for the death of the police officers. This situation forced him to ask for political asylum in Nicaragua Embassy. Country where he stayed until he went back to Peru in May, 2010.

On June 11th, a national protest was carried out, to demand the abolition of the legislative decrees 1090 and 1064. Several
On June 15th, the government proposes the derogation of only two of the seven legislative decrees questioned: the 1090 and the 1064. On June 18th, the Congress abolished the two mentioned decrees with a vote in opposition from the Christian Popular Party.

Multisectorial Commission was created to begin the negotiations between the government and the indigenous peoples. The President of the AIDESEP Alberto Pizango and Yehude Simon, the president of the Cabinet participated in it. This Commission had the task to analyze and achieve the search of consensus agreements between the state and the indigenous peoples. The government promised concessions, but in this program, the abolition of the Law 1090 which was demanded by the Amazon was not included. The last meeting was on May 30th.sindicalized organizations and Fronts of defence from different regions in Peru called on a national strike as a way to reject the political manipulation made by the government in the north-eastern Peru.( de la Selva en el Per%C3%BA09.[ Accessed 06.2010]).
On June 30th, after having questioned the president of the Cabinet, Yehude Simon, and the Secretary of Home Affairs, Mercedes Cabanillas, the Congress decided not to condemn them. Few weeks later, the Prime minister will resign his position and the Ministry of Home Affairs will be changed for another person.
At the end of the first semester of 2010 there haven’t been substantial changes so tension prevailed. The government is reluctant to fulfil the agreements to respect the ILO Convention 169.
We witness in modern Peru, a new chapter of the long history of internal colonization with the burden of racist discrimination and the repetition of the colonial tendency in perceiving the indigenous people as an obstacle for the progress and for the access of the Peruvian nation to the capitalist occidental modernity. (Chirif, Levano, 2010; 2009, 2010; Montoya; 2010, Varese, 2009).

When President Garcia makes reference to the metaphor "orchard dog", we remember the debate carried out at Colegio San Gregorio de Valladolid (1550.1551) in which the thesis of the Priest Dominico Bartolome de las Casas, who defends the humanity of the indigenous peoples, against the theologian Juan Gines de Sepulveda, who insists in referring to the indigenous peoples as animals to justify the exploitation and genocide suffered in the colonial society (Hanke & Giménes Fernandez, 1954).

Alan Garcia defines the indigenous peoples as second class citizens and describes them as an obstacle to the transnational privatization of the Amazon indigenous land.

The Peruvian government, by enacting against the Constitution, the 10 Law Decrees, within the framework of the FTA Peru-USA failed to fulfil the ILO Convention 169, to which it is obligated, for Peru being a signatory country. Likewise, these Decrees do not comply with the UN Declaration for the rights of Indigenous Peoples, particularly with the articles 26, 29 and 32 among others, and with the jurisprudence of Inter-American Court of Human Rights, about the land right of the indigenous peoples.
As an example, we could mention the Legislative Decree 1090, enacted by the Executive Power on behalf of the Congress, which deals with the provisions of the forest areas for timber purposes. The problem of this norm is that it violates the Peruvian Magna Carta which gives special protection to the Amazon for the preservation of all the natural resources, considering that any disposition about the exploitation and use of natural resources must be enacted by the Organic Law. Another constitutional precept indicates the desvinculation of the Executive Power is not possible; thus, the enactment through Legislative Decree is unconstitutional.

The ILO Convention 169, states that the native peoples must be consulted about the laws as far as they are concerned. The norms enacted by Alan Garcia’s Government go against the Public international Law. The ILO convention which refers to the indigenous and tribal communities orders the signatory States (Peru has signed an agreement) to listen and specify the opinions of the native peoples that could be affected by any law.

The article 6 stipulates:

In applying the provisions of the following Convention, the governments must:

a) Ask the interested peoples through appropriate procedures and in particular through their representative institutions whenever consideration is being given to legislative or administrative measures which might affect them directly.
b) The queries carried out in the application of this Convention must be made in good faith and in an appropriate way according to the circumstances, with the purpose of get to an agreement or achieve the consent about the proposed measures (ILO Convention 169, June 27, 1989).

At the end of the first half of 2010, the indigenous organizations formed mainly in CONAP and AIDESEP, continue their fight with the complete support of many sectors and are reinforcing their organizations. At the same time, they focus the protest against the governmental decrees enacted by the government of Alan Garcia in the framework of Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States. This agreement makes easy the privatization of large geographic areas and lets multinational companies exploit the natural resources, particularly the concessions, allowing them to make use of the petroleum, gas, wood and the agro-industrial exploitation.

10. What is the future of the multicultural society and its democratic integration?

The integration is the result of respect for plurality, it is the implementation of democracy from the moment when everybody is guaranteed equal conditions to coexist and participate in the decision making process that determine the fate of a society.

The current question is:
Are we able to open up ourselves to the multiplicity of perceptions and views considered valid and accepted by others? If we accept do we also expect to receive the same respect back?

How can we imagine the possibility in making alive the cultural diversity and the plurality?
Tolerance must be based on reciprocity—if we are tolerant with others, we expect to be tolerated the same way which implies certain acceptance and the opportunity to share with others. All these premises allow us to establish relationships with community members, which is the basis for the implementation of the relationship of the individuals with the reciprocity. The group of communities forms the civil society and allows us to imagine a political space that goes beyond the authoritarism and mutations and gaps among individuals and also between the state and society (Sartori, 1994; Touraine, 1997).

The integration implies a process that involves multiple dimensions and can be associated to a political model of State.
The state is intended to represent the society, which must create the conditions for the citizens to participate in the principal decisions.
The integration involves the freedom and respect for the rights of the individual and for all the involved groups.
In a multicultural and plurilingual society, as it is the type of societies existing in both Europe and in the American continent, the state would have to guarantee the respect for the cultural and linguistic diversity. From this point of view, the education—in a broad sense and in its different forms—is the privileged vehicle to carry out the transmission of world’s viewpoints, values, norms and references values and finally knowledge that support a feasible society project.
Managing the cultural diversity and the plurality seems to me, the most important challenge for the contemporary societies. The current political model of Nation-State shows itself as incapable of assuming this multicultural reality that characterizes our American and European societies.

From these premises, in the case of multicultural and plurilingual societies, could we imagine a type of state able to assume the formulation and application of an intercultural policy that satisfies the demands we showed up?

Would a model of confederated state—able to respect the cultural and linguistic diversity— be able of assuming the democratic administration of the multicultural Peruvian society?

Peru, in the current political context, is unable to offer the needed conditions for the socio-economic integration, and to respect the cultural diversity that permeates its society.
3.06.2010]) The development of initiatives and the development of a training program of bilingual and intercultural education for teachers (FORMABIAP).
The legal acknowledgement of its territories as material basis for the preservation of their cultures. Rights, currently discussed by the law decrees created by Alan Garcia’s government, that break national and international agreements.
. (An educated Indian is an incarnated devil and an instructed Indian is a lost devil)
From our historical perception, we can notice that integration is impregnated of multiple dimensions: political, economical, social and cultural. Our reflection perceives the integration as a real possibility in participating on equal conditions in all the decision of a determined community or society.
The political and economical participation in the society, school and everyday life are, among others, the spaces where integration must be carried out. The respect for plurarity is essential—all authoritarism or implicit or declared arbitrariness produces a subtle or forced assimilation. The democracy, as the principle of justice and equality, is only possible if it is capable of integrating all its members. The assimilation and segregation, in all their forms— constitute the contrary of integration and also the following such as otherness, difference and plurality are the opposite of integration.

The integration of the indigenous peoples of America after the colonial conquest until our days has been reduced to a policy statement called "national integration". This policy was intended to "integrate" the indigenous as "inferiors" under subjugated conditions. This ideological discourse wrongly hides a terrible assimilation.

Brief history of the Nation-State of the multicultural society and the political integration in Peru.

At the beginning of the XVI century, the Inca State was in control of a vast territory that covered the south of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, a large portion of Bolivia, one third of Chilean territory and the north of Argentina. The Inca power was based on the economic control, tax payment and the political control of the dominated populations—this systems, the Incas managed with the help of the elites’ of the different ethnic groups. Even though the Quechua was imposed as the official language, the State allowed the survival of a hundred of indigenous languages, respecting the cultural and religious practices of the dominated people (Rostworoski, 1988; Espinoza, 1986, 1990, 1997).

The colonial period from the XVI century to the XIX century was characterized by a forced assimilation policy, through the evangelization of the indigenous peoples. The Holy Inquisition took over the suppression of all the religious and cultural manifestations that differed from the official. (Duviols, 1986; Roth, 1989, Zapata, 1990). In the framework of the Princes’ School, the official education destined to the settlers opened a space for the sons of the indigenous leaders those who collaborated with the colonization. This official education, in Spanish, only promoted the dominant culture.
As an answer to this process of domination, a cultural opposition was organized against the colonization of the so called indigenous which was promoted by the oral culture that found support on the preservation of myths and traditions.

Between 1742 and 1781 important indigenous rebellions were developed such as Juan Santos Atahualpa, which started in Los Andes and finished in the Gran Pajonal in the Amazon without being suppressed, another example could be Tupac Amaru and Tupac Katari carried out in the Andes region.
At the end of the XVIII century, following the bloody repression of the indigenous rebellions, access to schools for the natives were forbidden due to the formation offered to the main indigenous leaders at the Princes’ Schools.
From this period there is a saying that goes:

In 1821, the Republic of Peru was founded over the political model of Nation-State and citizenship developed by the French Revolution. Between the years 1823 and 1825, this nation was built by a group of Creole elite descendants from the settlers who rejected their political dependence from Spain, but neither the exploitation of the territories, or the domination of the indigenous peoples who lived in the land declared as a new state. The natives will be the only ones to economically contribute to this new policy which, in the framework of an inner colonialism, will deny them all rights to political and social participation (Arguedas, 1977; Burga, 1988, Flores Galindo, 1987, Marín, 1985, Marín 1990).

In a republican state, being a citizen means: to know how to read, write and be an individual owner. These are essential conditions for the integration to the new republic. However, for the indigenous peoples, these conditions are unattainable. After the end of the rebellions of the XVIII century, the schools were almost unreachable and the indigenous territories were considered collective properties.

In the year 1856, the Republic established the abolition of the traffic of African slaves. The Peruvian population of African origin represents a minority group, in contrast to Brazil, Colombia, Cuba or the Caribbean (Freire, 1974; Guanche, 1983; Romero, 1987). After this prohibition, the traffic of people from southern Asia began. They were mainly Chinese people, who belonged to the Cantonese region, brought with the help of Portuguese traders established in Macao Island. In the year 1986, official immigration of Japanese workers began. (Morimoto, 1979, Rodriguez, 1989; Trazegnies, 1994).

After the foundation of the Republic and during most of the XX century, the natives were the only ones who paid taxes and worked for a state that excluded them.
During the 1920s, the creation of an intellectual movement for the defense of the indigenous peoples urged the government to create an Indigenous Affairs Office and the Patronage of the indigenous race chaired by the Archbishop of Lima which turned out to be the first space where the natives could express themselves. This century was characterized by the continuation of an assimilation, segregation and racial discrimination policy which impregnated all the institutions and everyday life of the Peruvian society (Marín, 1985; Portocarrero, 1993).

Evangelization, alphabetization and assimilation

In the mid XX century, the religious missions of the North American Protestant Fundamentalism arrived to Peru, under the academic support of the SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics) linked to some North American universities. Those universities were financed by several religious institutions, private companies and programs of the Department of State of the USA.

En 1952, by means of a government decree, the bilingual alphabetization of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon was entrusted to the SIL. The interest of the Peruvian State is to assimilate the indigenous peoples through the alphabetization programs in Spanish, using this language as the basis for the National Integration program. For the missionaries, this program was limited to the translation of their religious texts into indigenous languages (Marín, 1992; Marín & Dasen, 2007).

The military revolution in 1968 carried out by a military revolutionary government took the power of the state and ordered an Agrarian Reform, considered as the most radical reform in the history of Latin America. This law commanded the conversion of large industrial agricultural properties to rural cooperatives. This military government conceived the integration as the participation of all the Peruvian society sectors in the political and economic decisions and recognized the multicultural and multilingual character of the Peruvian society. The Quechua and other indigenous languages were recognized as official languages, and the government even proposed to include the study of Quechua in school and university programs.
An education reform that follows the previous approaches was trying to consolidate the aforementioned decisions.
Another decree law agreed the participation of the illiterate people in the political elections—very important disposition since a large group of the population was under this category.
These measures were taken in 1974 under the law decree 20653, known as the Law of Native Communities and the Agrarian Development of Jungle. This decree opened the possibilities to recognize the territorial rights of these communities. In 1975, the government wanted the expulsion of the SIL.

All these political measures that created a great expectation of openness and political will, to deeply change the structures of the Peruvian society were thwarted by a military coup led by General Morales Bermudez in 1975. This new power rejected all the economic, political, social and cultural measures that had been enacted, restoring the old neocolonial order.

Under this government and those who followed, the indigenous peoples continued to face constant assaults on their territories caused by the incursion of multinational companies of gas and petroleum and the lawless illegal chaotic exploitation extended to the entire Amazon mining area eroding and contaminating their ecosystems.

Peru experienced the emergence of a huge political violence between 1982 and 1997, which was an expression of an unresolved social conflict, caused by economic exploitation, racial discrimination and the marginalization of predominant sectors of the Peruvian society.

The insurrection of armed groups began in the poorest areas with a high density of indigenous population. According to the Truth Commission Report, the indigenous peoples represented the four fifths of the 70,000 victims of this conflict.

Integration is the result of respect for plurality, it is the implementation of democracy from the moment the equality of conditions is guaranteed for everybody to cohabit and participate in taking decisions that determine the destiny of a society.
The actual question is:
Are we able to open ourselves to the multiplicity of perceptions and points of view considered as valid and accepted by others?
If we accept, then we also hope to receive the same respect back from others.
How can we imagine the possibility of making the cultural diversity and plurality alive? Tolerance must be based on reciprocity. If we are tolerant to others, we expect to be tolerated at the same time. This implies certain level of acceptance in order to share with others properly. These premises allow us to establish relationship with the members of the community which is the basis for the functioning of the individuals’ relations and reciprocity. A group of communities’ forms the civil society which allows us to imagine a political space that goes beyond the authoritarianism, the mutations and the differences among the individuals and between the state and the society (Sartori, 1994).

The integration implies a process that involves multiple dimensions and can be associated to a State political model.
The state is supposed to represent the society creating the conditions for the citizens to participate in making the fundamental decisions.
The integration implies the freedom and the respect for the rights of the individuals of all the groups involved.
In a multicultural and plurilingual society, as the type of societies existing in both Europe and the American continent, the state would have to guarantee the respect for the cultural and linguistic diversity. From this point of view, the education—in a broad sense and in all its forms—is a privileged vehicle to carry out the transmission of the world viewpoints , the system of values, norms and references and finally, the knowledge that supports a feasible society project.

Administering the cultural diversity and the plurality, it seems to be from my perspective, the most important challenge for contemporary societies. The current political model of Nation-State shows itself as incapable of assuming this multicultural reality that characterizes our American societies.

From these premises, in the case of multicultural and plurilingual societies, could we imagine a type of state capable of assuming the formulation and application of an intercultural policy that could meet the requirements, that we have just provided in evidence?

Our main question is whether a model of confederated state capable of respecting the cultural and linguistic diversity would be able to assume the democratic management of the multicultural Peruvian society?

Multicultural society, integration, languages and cultures

One of the vital tasks, to make the democratic integration come true, must be assumed by the education, which has to promote the respect for cultural and linguistic plurality that characterizes Peru and some other countries in America (Marín, 2005, 2005a).

There are about 50 languages in Peru. The Castilian, wrongly called Spanish, is the official dominant language, followed in importance by Quechua and Aymara in the Andes region, with different dialect variations. In the Amazon region, which is more than half the territory of Peru, about 40 languages are spoken and they belong to 16 linguistic families such as: Arabela, Arahuaca, Bora, Cahuapana, Cantdoshi, Shapra, Harakmbut, Huitot, Jibaro, Pano, Yagua, Simaco, Takana, Ticuna, Tucano, Tupi-Guarani and Zaparo which are spoken in the region of Peruvian amazonic.
In Peru, the descendants from African origin, who came from the traffic of slaves, lost their languages and a considerable part of their cultures due to the hard living conditions. During last years, they have become more active, creating organizations that bring together Afro-Peruvians who participate in the National Commission of Andean, Amazon and Afro-Peruvian organizations (Cuche, 1981; Romero, 1987).

To this context of cultural diversity, it has to be added Japanese and Cantonese ,spoken by the Asian, Japanese and Chinese immigrants who live in Peru from the XVIII century. The Korean immigration is recent and it represents a minority. Other cultures and spoken languages also belong to this multicultural and plurilingual environment such as German, Spanish, Italian, English and others from European origin to which we could add small communities such as Slavonic, Jewish and Middle East (Bonfiglio, 2001; Morimoto, 1979, Rodriguez, 1989; Trasegnies, 1994).

Given the reality of this enormous cultural and linguistic diversity, how can we figure out the integration if the state, through the official schooling, admits and privileges Spanish in its official program, thus imposing a monocultural and occidental vision of the world arbitrarily?

Nation State and multicultural society: Amazon case.

Among the achievements obtained by the indigenous initiatives, facing a Nation State model incapable of managing a democratic government we could mention:
This program proposes a project of revalorization of the indigenous languages and cultures. The respect of those peoples to keep their own languages and cultures has been the starting point for the democratic and intercultural integration inside the multicultural Peruvian society.
At the same time, these features characterize several societies in Latin America (Lopes & Moya, 1989; Montoya, 1990).
The participation of the indigenous organizations in these programs has allowed the debate about the problem of the ownership of territories—without which it is impossible to conceive the development. Without territory, there is no way of preserving the culture and neither could one imagine the continuity of the societies.
According to the indigenous perception, there is no culture without a territory—culture is built from nature since it is not an abstract conception. The nature and culture axis cannot be divided. This philosophical approach has fed the ecologist way of thinking and its action over the occidental society. Nowadays, it is impossible to imagine an economic project that does not consider the ecology as the real basis of the statement sustainable development (Gasche, 1989, 1998; Narby, 1990, 1995, 2005).

The central question would be: What is the place of indigenous peoples in the present and future of the economic, social and cultural development of these countries?
This doubt remains as the most important question to answer in every project. This crucial question makes us understand the importance of the political dimension that impregnates education, which acts as the mediator between the society and the state in every integration project (Marin & Dasen, 2007; Walsh, 2009).

In 1988, the first training program of bilingual and intercultural education for teachers (FORMABIAP) was founded in Iquitos capital city of Loreto District in Amazon Peru by AIDESEP with the help of the Instituto Superior Pedagogico Loreto and the support of the International Cooperation and other private institutions (GASHE, 1989; Montoya, 1990; Marín, 2005).

The fundamental principles of the teacher training program of bilingual and intercultural education of Zungarocoha, a town near Iquitos, are the following:
Association between the traditional and occidental education.
Rejection to a single system of schooling.
Rejection to an opposition of the traditional education with the "modern" school (official school).
Rejection to an
Rejection to a mere conversion of the occidental culture in the framework of a bilingual education.
Approval of an intercultural bilingual education.
Approval of Spanish learning as a second language.
Approval of an education linked to ecology.
Approval of an education associated with the socioeconomic, political and cultural reality.

Today, this program is blocked by the Supreme Decree 006-2007 ED enacted by the government in the year 2007, through the Education Department. This Decree fixes the grade (14 over 20) of average as condition to allow applicants apply for the Superior Pedagogical Institutes. Among these we can find the different programs of bilingual and intercultural education, which reduces considerably the option of the young natives to begin a pedagogic training.

5. Multiculturalism and Integration

This global approach to history allows us to associate Europe and Latin America over the last two centuries, Latin America is considered to be a political laboratory of the colonial and post-colonial Europe.

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Whispering Trees

The Tree of Life

Sometime ago, my husband and I were sitting on the porch conversing and looking at our new surroundings. He said, “Trees are funny.” I asked, “How come?” He answered, “They go around each other and bend around to continue.”

I looked at the trees he was talking about and I was mesmerized by what I saw. Many branches giving way to other branches of other trees, twisting and bending just right so there was room for every tree to continue to grow and expand. Unlike ivy, climbers, and other plants and bushes that choke one another to overpower and survive. I said to my husband, “We humans should be more like trees.” He smiled.

In Between the Lines – The Paranormal

Paranormal – Beyond the range of normal experience or scientific explanationAmerican Heritage Dictionary.

Humanity seems to be fascinated with the paranormal. It is the juice of many Hollywood movies. We cannot get enough of it. Whether we approach the topic with curiosity, fear, passion, or skepticism, we are drawn to the unknown because we seek to make sense of it. The paranormal is another theme present in my novels, and a topic that I love to research.

We are complex beings who live in a material world and make sense of it through our brain and senses, but seem to entertain a spiritual side or at least try to make sense of spirit, whether we are religious or not. It has been since the beginning of our species. Whether we choose to blur or highlight the line between spirituality and science, the issue is more our curiosity to find out more, to study it, to learn. It is our curiosity to learn that makes us human, whether we set out to prove or disprove the paranormal or make sense of our physical/material world.

History is full of examples, some gruesome, of our species trying to make sense of our surroundings – cave paintings, rituals, altars, religious persecution, witch huntings, signs on the sky … All of if represents to some degree our interpretation of an event, paranormal or not, in our search/attempt for an explanation or for power.

To a person in medieval times, a hologram would have represented the paranormal or the work of spirits or the devil; to us, and in the context of today’s culture and technology, it is merely an image produced and meant for entertainment or artistic expression. Our mind and culture has evolved to create and make sense of it. We have an explanation for it. If today, we were to present a holographic image to a remote culture that is removed from technology, the people might interpret it as paranormal or of spiritual origin because they cannot explain it through their present technology, knowledge, and experience. Something to ponder. Is the paranormal the absence of knowledge?

The Kids and the Seagulls

Seagulls in Grand Marais

Seagulls in Grand Marais (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If you have followed this blog, by now you know that I am an observer of life.  Sometimes, this is not so good as I tend to ponder if there is redemption for the human species.  Some behavior I don’t understand at times.  Over the weekend, my husband and I drove to a spot at the shore where we like to sit and watch the water, seagulls … and sometimes, we drink our coffee there too.  That day, they were just a few people walking along the shoreline – a woman collecting driftwood, a couple walking, and just a few people conversing sitting on a bench nearby.  The boats were sliding beautifully throughout the waters, and tons of seagulls were resting on the sand close to the water.  It was peaceful.  It was a beautiful sight.

Suddenly, I hear the cheerful noise of three kids heading towards the beach.  They were about 9-11 years old, at the most, possibly younger.  They appeared innocently cute, and I was enjoying the sight of their young energy and friendship.  They walked to the beach, and stood a couple of feet away from the seagulls, watching.  It would have made for the composition of a beautiful painting.  Out of the sudden, their behavior changed, and they started running towards the seagulls, startling them, and one of them even throwing rocks or shells at the birds.  And this is the part when I become puzzled, and my heart, that wants to believe that we deserve to be part of this planet, aches because once more, I see that we are a selfish and undeserving species, one that cannot appreciate beauty, and finds entertainment and contentment in destruction.

The kids ran at a distance and headed to climb some rocks, until they disappeared from my horizon.  There were no seagulls, they flew away, scattered, some into the ocean, others landed at a safe distance.  The beauty of the moment was ruined by the future of humanity, and I was left with an aching heart.