El reportaje de BTV sobre Somonte, el documental

April in flowering spring, the morning light is already leaning, there are determined steps on the sidewalls,

light as a flying dove. Somonte is a land that belongs to the people, a land that some want to undersell and give

it away, but the labourer people out of work went determined to take it.

In March 2012 five hundred laborers from the Andalusia Workers Union occupied Somonte’s farm in Cordoba,

which the Andalusia Government wanted to privatize.

What situation pushed them to perform this action?

Obviously, there's a bit of everything, but for sure we will not find any landowner occupying these lands. We will

find day laborers who have been migrating for many years to other places, like to France to do the harvest,

always to work for a boss and distressed, first of all to find a job. Andalusia is one of the regions, territories,

with more unemployment across Europe; if you have difficulties of working, you have difficulties of

paying -as we know- a home, food and therefore they had to cover their basic needs. We are also

talking about ideological occupation for this social function; with so many public lands there are,

how could it be abandoned when Andalusia is full of day laborers?

Now you are asking for help to accomplish the documentary about the experience of this group of

people that has collectivized 400 hectares of idle land, in what has it been transformed?

They have turned these 400 hectares of land, land that had been abandoned, in a land of hope. Initially not

even the birds sang, as they like to say, and now is a land full of life, they have planted dryland crops such as

sunflower and wheat, also they have planted olive and oak trees, they have a kitchen garden with peas, beans.

And they have been fortunate to count with the social market called La Tejedora, in Cordoba, who has

purchased their vegetables for a long time.

Damià, how is the new day to day of this community? Beyond the strictly labor matters, what human and social

impact has had this action?

They say that everyone comes from his father and his mother, and of course the fact of living in a community,

that is one thing that not everyone is used to. In a community, whether in a family, whether in a

self-managed social center, or whatever it is, there is always some friction, but they are able to

overcome them, considering the project they are working on and that they have the everyday vision that with each

other they are able to cope with it, to do things they could not individually. Many times we feel that we have

very individual problems and that we seek very individual solutions and what they have done is to

collectivize these difficulties to collectivize also solutions.

You who have known about other initiatives such as the Landless Movement in Brazil and that now have lived

with all these people in Somonte, what is it that has caught more your attention from their testimonies?

In Somonte we find people with great strength because they have dared to disregard, lets say, the rules,

the system; and why? Because they consider it illegitimate. First, the strength of people, who are not

young people. Just a month and a half after the occupation they were evicted, but the same night, the

same 26th of April, they returned. Many claimed that from this land they will be taken out only in a wooden

box. And also they claimed that they were tired of this daily oppression, of this economic and job insecurity,

and that they have chosen this human adventure of collective work and everyday learning. Somonte is not

an isolated case in the world; there are many experiences on Earth where land is also occupied. For

example, I was living in Brazil, with the Landless Movement, movements that together are part of La Via

Campesina, a movement that brings together more than 200 organizations around the world, and that are all

capable to visualize that the collective force is possible.

At home, in Catalonia, we also have examples, like Can Masdeu, an example of cooperative coexistence

between generations that somehow escapes from the dictatorship of the market. In what ways can this model

be expanded?

First, with great courage, and knowing that there are not legal and administrative facilities. Although this has

been an abandoned space, it is now a self-managed space, self-managed by the townspeople. Nowadays

there are many people who are left homeless and so they self-manage themselves; this can also be done with

the land, as we mentioned, and it can also be done with bankrupt companies where the workers themselves say

they can refocus the company and pull it forward. It is possible, not always we have to beg for a job that we do

not know until when we will have it and also that makes our lives precarious. With the Somonte documentary we

want to visualize that popular empowerment experiences are real, that are possible, and that each

and everyone can also be protagonist of these films, we need to believe that we are powerful enough to make

this world a more possible world.