EQUITY AND MATCHING OF DIFFERENCES: EXTENSION OF CITIZENSHIP TO THE INDIGENOUS AND AFRODESCENDANTS IN THE CONSTITUTIONS OF BOLIVIA AND ECUADOR IN PARALLEL TO THE BRAZILIAN CONSTITUTION

Abstract

Movement of New Democratic Constitutionalism Latin American, represented by recent Constitutions of Colombia (1991), Venezuela (1999), Ecuador (2008) and Bolivia (2009), fostered a range of developments mainly in the political, social, cultural and environmental, meeting popular expectations, and hence, achieving a high degree of legitimacy. There is, thus, a parallel to the Brazilian Constitution (1988), that, in its text, also legalizes rights related to these issues, a title destined exclusively to the Fundamental Rights and Guarantees and other to Social Order, for example. In relation to social rights, we highlight the right of everyone to education, which is configured as both a right and therefore guarantees other rights such as the freedom to learn and access to education of good quality, as implies duties. Among these, there is the referent to the search for public policies aimed at greater social, economic and cultural inclusion of indigenous peoples and Afro-descendants, historically marginalized ethnic groups, who, unfortunately, during the process of colonization of Latin American countries, suffered from exploitation by European peoples (who called themselves civilized and superior to justify the domination of the territory of these peoples and the almost total extermination of their cultures, and to disseminate the idea of ​​discrimination against these ethnic groups), and even after political independence of these nations, they remain marginalized in Latin American societies, especially where the inequality in the distribution of rights and income is more pronounced. In order to combat this unfortunate reality, there is the fight to ensure these rights for these groups (in the sense of realization of rights) and that the ethnic majority of a country establishes, not one a relationship of a mere tolerance towards these groups, but of otherness, respect and inclusion of these people, that is, recognition and, why not, admiration to plurinationality and multiculturalism. It is worth mentioning that the continents of Africa, which in the case, provided hand labor to Latin American colonization, and Asia also experienced this sad scenario of domination in a later phase of the colonial process, so also they are in the battle for restructuring of social values ​​and the cultural exchange, establishing, in this way, a bond with Latin America. In this thematic line, this dissertation, through the emphasis on constitutional and anthropological studies, is intended to show the innovations offered by Equatorian and Bolivian (whose societies are markedly heterogeneous) and Brazilian constitutions, and relative to the search for the consolidation of equity and harmonization of social differences, economic and cultural rights of these minorities in each nation. Moreover, it aims to highlight the existence and importance of cultural identity and richness of these minorities as well as the contribution of their cultures to the formation of any national culture so that respect for minority groups is not seen as a duty, but as a great and beautiful act of citizenship, which is a strong framework of democratic spring in which the countries of the New Constitutionalism come continually passing. To achieve this end, the specific objectives are: to study the aforementioned movement and the historical factors that contributed to the insufficiency of constitutional rights of indigenous and Afro-descendents in Latin America and to the consequent battle for these rights, passing through the evolution of the dimensions of rights fundamentals; once the need for constitutional enshrinement of rights for these peoples has been verified, to understand the link with the ideas of equity, harmonization of differences and citizenship; and to select innovations brought by the Constitutions of Bolivia, Ecuador and Brazil in relation to these groups. Regarding to the Methodology, it’s mainly used qualitative bibliographic; so that some basic indoctrinators were Afonso; Magalhães, Pastor; Dalmáu, e Wolkmer; Fagundes; and legislative research as well as exploratory, descriptive and pure. It was concluded that the Constitutions of Bolivia and Ecuador have made great strides towards promoting equity and the harmonization of differences between indigenous and afro-descendents, which is possibly even more than the Brazilian Constitution and that it is necessary to make these rights concrete through public policies that provide the extension of citizenship to all and through the awareness of the entire national community that national unity is made up of all ethnic groups.