{"id":4312,"date":"2009-03-19T08:52:07","date_gmt":"2009-03-19T14:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-367309-1145705.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=4312"},"modified":"2009-03-19T08:52:07","modified_gmt":"2009-03-19T14:52:07","slug":"they-killed-sister-dorothy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/they-killed-sister-dorothy\/","title":{"rendered":"They Killed Sister Dorothy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Sister<\/a><\/p>\n

Next\u00a0Wednesday night, March 25th, tune into HBO2\u2019s premiere of the documentary They Killed Sister Dorothy<\/a> at 8 pm if you want to begin to understand the violence and injustice that surrounds the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. If you aren’t going to be home, then set your Tivo.<\/h3>\n

I was fortunate enough to see Daniel Junge\u2019s film last month at the City of the Angels Film Festival in Los Angeles. The documentary follows the aftermath of the murder of 73 year-old Sister Dorothy Stang, known as the Angel of the Amazon, a Catholic nun and rainforest activist shot in the back while trying to empower local communities to set up sustainable farms while fighting illegal logging and land grabs.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Junge read about the murder in the New York Times just after it happened in February 2005. He did some quick research and discovered that Dorothy\u2019s brother David Stang lived in Junge\u2019s hometown of Denver. He contacted Stang and after talking, Stang asked the filmmaker to come with him to Brazil 3 days later. When they arrived, it was just 10 days after Sister Dorothy\u2019s murder.<\/p>\n

Sister Dorothy first went to Brazil in 1967 and became an advocate of the poor and eventually, a naturalized citizen. Living in the lawless state of Para, she saw first hand the destruction, both to the rainforest and the people, of logging, ranching and misuse of land. She helped the poor communities organize around the Brazilian Sustainable Development Project, known as the PDS, to become stewards of the rainforest in return for land that they could farm. She worked with 600 families to manage 100 square miles of rainforest in a community they called Esperanza – hope.<\/p>\n

[youtube=http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/sVaqqPURp1U&hl=en&fs=1]<\/p>\n


\n<\/a><\/p>\n

Along the way, Sister Dorothy became a symbol of obstruction and frustration to loggers and ranchers who were claiming a portion of the PDS land for themselves. She was called a devil and an agent of North America by those who hated her and an angel by those who loved her. Dorothy wasn\u2019t a liberation theologist or a left-wing liberal, however. As her brother Tom Stang explained at the screening, \u201cDorothy was a true daughter of the Catholic Church. She gave herself to save planet earth and the people she loved.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the film talks about the destruction of the rainforest – 20 square miles a day being lost to logging and ranching – the real power of the film lays in the unfettered access that Junge and his camera crew had to the court room and the lawyers for the defendants. From the arrogant defense lawyers to the earnest government agents, the documentary captures the colorful characters and tragic lack of justice in a world where rich and poor live and die with the rainforest. Sister Dorothy was murdered for a $50 payment and over a 10 square mile tract of land known as Lot 55. But as the very flippant defense lawyer, Americo Leal, says \u201cit\u2019s very hard to survive when you irritate people in that region.\u201d<\/p>\n

What the film doesn\u2019t talk about is the connection between these loggers, ranchers and farmers and the west\u2019s appetite for virgin paper products and cheap meat in the form of fast food, as Gavin Hudson wrote about at EcoWorldly<\/a> last year. If we continue to consume products without fully understanding their genesis, then we are complicit in the problem. If you consume soy products, find out where the beans are sourced. If you consume fast food, find out where the cattle are raised and where their feed is grown. Stop buying virgin paper products.<\/p>\n

Up until Dorothy\u2019s murder, in Para, there had been more than 800 murders over land disputes in 30 years. Of those, only one person had ever gone to prison. So as the film follows the three ring circus that is the Brazilian legal system and as the state prosecutors try to go after the rancher that paid for the murder, we see first hand the complicity between the systemic failures on every level and the destruction of the Amazon for commercial purposes.<\/p>\n

While the environment, namely the protection of the Amazon, is at the center of They Killed Sister Dorothy, it is really a film about social justice and a horribly broken legal system. It underscores the incredible obstacles to protecting the Amazon and addressing poverty in Brazil, but it also highlights the number of people that want to do the right things. \u201cDorothy lived her faith,\u201d says Daniel Junge, \u201cshe was faith in action.\u201d Dorothy\u2019s legacy lives on in Esperanza and the Sisters of Notre Dame who took over her work after she was killed.<\/p>\n

The film is illuminating in ways that have the power to create change. It was shown to the Brazilian Congress, at the Economic Social Forum and won an award in Brasilia. Dorothy\u2019s brother Tom Stang said he hoped the film would \u201cbear good fruit.\u201d The fruit it bears will be up to those that watch it and feel inspired to take action because of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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