Solidaridad Colombia

Profiles of Dignity: Grassroots Non-violent Resistance to Free Trade

In November through December of 2003, Jim Harney spent six weeks travelling throughout Argentina. The Argentinians he met share not only what "free trade" looks like from their perspective, but also how they are adapting to the collapse of the official economy by creating communal gardens & kitchens, popular assemblies, and worker-run factories.
 
US citizens in particular bear a responsibility to hear the testimony of the Madres (Mothers) of those "disappeared" by the US School of the Americas (SOA) graduates and to understand that someone else pays the difference for our "bargains" at the mall.

Jim's incisive commentary and haunting images create an immediate sense of the reality being described and his skills as a facilitator enlarge conversation. Piercingly political, heartfully beautiful, profoundly awakening, Jim’s presentations take us to people we begin to feel we know.

To schedule a presentation, contact Kate Harris (413) 586-5516, kate@earthlovers.org

Biography

Jim Harney, works as an Artist in Residence for Posibilidad, a Bangor, Maine-based nonprofit that prioritizes engaging people in conversation around the excluded of society. He gives presentations on corporate globalization and its impact on the poor.
 
During the '80's Jim lived with the poor in El Salvador. He ran with peasants dodging machine-gun fire and hiding in tunnels when A-37 jets dropped bombs. He witnessed gunfire and killings at the funeral of Archbishop Romero. He shared his experiences in Central America throughout the US and Canada. He lived with the Communities of Population in Resistance in the hills of Guatemala.
 
After each journey into Central America, Jim returned and gave presentations that opened up possibility for profound discussion. His photography, engaging storytelling and group facilitation skills quicken discussion that allows people to speak from the heart; in ways that often surprise them.
 
Jim stresses the importance of dealing with corporate globalization and its exclusion of the poor. The power of his stories revolves around people engaged in redefining power in their own lives.
 
In 1998, he traveled twice to Acteal, Chiapas, Mexico where he interviewed survivors of a December 22, 1997 massacre that took the lives of forty-five people, mostly women and children. In December 1999, he photographed protestors in Seattle opposed to the World Trade Organization and traveled around New England giving presentations on "globalization from the bottom up".
 
In March 2001, Jim traveled to Colombia with a Witness for Peace delegation of 100 US citizens and stayed on by himself for another two-and-a-half months, visiting 4 areas where intense violence occurs. His photos from that journey are extraordinary and have travelled across the US to be exhibited on college campuses, in public libraries, places of worship, community centers, etc.

In early 2003 Jim visited Iraq and he then finished the year in Argentina, adding these stories & images to his deepening analysis and witness of global resistance to corporate globalization.
 
His photos and narratives unmask economic violence and open discussion about the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Multilateral Agreement on
Investment (MAI), the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).