A Bug's Life in a Gang-Controlled Favela

One of Helena Iara's favorite films is A Bug’s Life, where the crickets make a living by stealing half of the ants’ harvest; they say that the seeds and leaves pay for the protection that the crickets provide for the colony, but in reality, its nothing more than a bribe. For the crickets, it’s fundamental that the ants remain ignorant about the power dynamics, because ignorance is their most powerful weapon, as we see when the crickets go to a fancy cantina to spend their dirty money.   They have so much fun that the gang members go to the boss and ask if they really have to return to the ant colony.  Life is already good, they say.  Why do we have to have to go through the trouble of blackmailing the ants just to get a handful of seeds?  The boss responds with a naked expression of power:

"If you let one ant question us, then you let all of them question us.  There are 10 little ants for each one of us, and if they figure this out, then our game is up!  This isn’t about food.  Its about control.  And that’s why we go back to the colony."

The crickets, like mafias all over the world, charge a “vaccine” or protection money, saying that they will protect the community from outside threats, when in reality, the gang is the greatest threat that the neighbhorhood faces.  The gang is only legimate as long as people perceive them as the only solution to their problems, but when people perceive their own power, they no longer need the gang.  The crickets manipulate fear and ideology so that the ants don’t become aware of their own pwer, of their capacity to be actors on the world’s stage.  As long as they are seen as weak and incapable, they will never become a threat to the powerful.

Helena with her cousin, Gabriela.

Almost the exact same story has happened in Medellín, Colombia.   In the context of chaotic violence, where anyone can die at any moment, the local gangs organized with two motives: to defend the public and to make money.  The problem was that when street crime stopped, the gang still wanted to make money, so they kept charging “the vaccine” – protection  money-from the people in their neighborhoods.   People complained but they still paid because they didn’t see any alternative and because they feared  the power of the gangs.

The strategy of resistance in Medellín, like in A Bug’s Life, begins with conscience.    First, as it well known in popular education, the oppressed has to become aware of the oppression, but later on has to be aware of his/her  own power and ability to do what the gang does.  In Medellín, the violence had fragmented the marginalized communities to the point where neighbors were afraid to talk to one another.   When there was conflict between them – land ownership, water that  left one family’s house and entered another’s-they would look to the gangs to resolve the conflicts.  And each time they would seek out the gangsters, they would recognize them as a legitimate power in the neighborhood, thereby justifying the exploitation.

The gang took advantage of its legitmacy, but didn’t really want to resolve conflicts since it was far from their fundamental mission: making money.   Therefore, when a group of youth from the neighborhood proposed that they be in charge of mediating conflicts, the gang passed on this responsibility with a sense of relief.   Nonetheless, when people realized that they could resolve conflicts on their own, the gang lost its legitimacy and disappeared within six months.       In A Bug’s Life, when the ants become aware of the fact that they can not only defend themselves from the dangers of the world,  but also frm the crickets that protect them—the gang also has to go.

But that's a story for tomorrow.