Review of "Dissident Peace: Autonomous Struggles and the State in Colombia" by Anthony Dest
An important text that paints a vivid, complex picture not from the bird’s eye view of power or media headlines, but from the trenches of struggle centered around the voices, experiences, and cosmovisions of Black and Indigenous communities in what is called Colombia.
Rigorous but accessible, Dest helps the reader make sense of everything from the 2016 Peace Accords to the 2021 Cali uprising to the 2022 election of Gustavo Petro. Broken down into four chapters, he brings to the fore those often left out of the conversation by problematizing the vanguardism of the FARC-EP, the connections between coca cultivation and settler colonialism, the living legacy of white supremacy, and the successes and setbacks of urban rebellion.
Based on relationships built over decades and a deep commitment and unapologetic analysis and reflexivity, Dest translates – literally and figuratively – the terrain of struggle for those committed to liberation and autonomy on terms distinct from either the FARC-EP or the State. The book impressively captures the dynamics at play at the intersection of capitalism, settler colonialism, whiteness, patriarchy, drug trafficking, guerrilla movements, and state repression.
It centers those excluded by power’s vision for Colombia, and demonstrates how out of, or despite, that exclusion, Black and Indigenous peoples continue to organize, propose alternatives, strengthen autonomy, and work for a dissident peace.
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