Ailton Krenak and Davi Kopenawa Share Indigenous Views on Pandemic, Environmental Crisis, and Political Resistance

In a text from 2019, which resurfaced during the COVID-19 pandemic, Indigenous leader Ailton Krenak suggests the creation of "colorful parachutes" as an imaginative solution to both physical and ideological confinement. He criticizes Enlightenment humanism and instrumental reason for their roles in environmental devastation and the "end of the world." Krenak’s insights are rooted in over 500 years of Indigenous resistance in Brazil, home to around 250 ethnic groups and more than 150 languages. Anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss noted the "monstrous genocide" of 5 to 9 million Indigenous individuals post-European colonization. Davi Kopenawa, a Yanomami shaman, connects mining and deforestation to epidemic diseases in his 2015 work with Bruce Albert. Márcio Seligmann-Silva's April 2020 article links these Indigenous perspectives to Brazil's political climate under President Jair Bolsonaro, whose administration faces criticism for its genocidal policies and environmental neglect. Krenak's 2020 pamphlet, "O amanhã não está à venda," warns against reverting to the pre-pandemic "normal" that precipitated the crisis. The piece also references Walter Benjamin's notion of pulling the "emergency brake" on harmful progress and Paul Celan's poem "Corona," reflecting on time and human connection.