Phil Gunson in Panama
IF Balbina Dennis (right) had a computer she could visit a web site belonging to an organisation called Peoplink and see her picture on the screen.
She lives, on a tiny island off the Panamanian coast called Kuna Yala, from where the inhabitants staged a decisive rebellion against the government 72 years ago. They were acting in defence of their culture, including the women’s right to wear the dazzling, stitched, traditional blouses known as molas.
Today, the mola is almost as much a symbol of Panama as it is of the Kunas, and the women who make them are using the Internet to sell their wares and maintain their economic independence.
Peoplink’s site (http:// www. peoplink. org) features crafts made in half a dozen Latin American countries, from Haiti to Bolivia.
Money aside, consumer education is also important to the Kunas. Visitors to the web site can learn everything from how the product is made to the history of the co-op that makes it.
Painted on a wall in Ustupo is a phrase attributed to the leader of the 1925 rebellion, Nele Kantule. “The people that knows its history,” it reads, “is a people that will know how to defend it.”