200 years on, a new revolution still needs to take place

25th May was the date when the call to revolution and independence from Spain was made in Sucre, unravelling a wave of independentist fervour throughout Latin America. In spite of starting it all, Bolivia would be the last country in South America to gain independence many years later.

To add insult to injury, the indigenous majority only managed to swap one set of masters, the Spanish crown, for another in the form of criollos, or Bolivians of Spanish descent, who now took their place at the top of the highly stratified society to continue to perpetuate racist practices that survive to this day, as the shameful events of 24th May last year in Sucre demonstrate.

In the meantime, two Bolivias and two speeds of development have imposed themselves in the country. One is modern and city-based, looking to join a single, globalised world. The other is indigenous, poor, and largely rural.

The 1952 revolution attempted to bring together these two worlds by denying the existence of the indigenous reality of Bolivia while perpetuating the discrimination against the majority of the population and maintaining the highest levels of inequality and discrimination in Latin America.

With the arrival to power of the first indigenous president in the history of the country in 2005, a new revolutionary period began. Through democratic means, Bolivia aims to reconcile these two worlds, uniting them in their difference. For this reason, the much-maligned new Bolivian constitution recognises for the first time the existence of 36 nations inside the country, with their cultures, languages and customs. In addition, it recognises different economic systems and forms of property – private, state, and collective property forms favoured by Andean communities. The new constitution also recognises different legal systems, including the also much maligned traditional forms.

At the heart of current divisions in the country lies precisely the unwillingness of the modern world to recognise equality in difference. Bolivia is, for the first time, bringing to the fore the worldviews of its traditional societies. It is telling the world, for example, that an alternative model of development based on a symbiotic relationship with ‘mother earth’ is possible and desirable; that the Andean concept of suma qamaña (literally ‘living well’) can help us achieve the wellbeing that a model based on conspicuous consumption and the accumulation of wealth is not giving us; and that participative forms of democratic practice can also improve our body politic.

Will the modern world listen? The new revolution that needs to take place will do so when dissonant voices at the margins of the world are finally listened to.