The news is sadly familiar. Indigenous people from the amazonian areas of Peru who objected to president Alan Garcia's nine decrees since April, essentially giving their lands to oil transnationals, were massacred over the course of the weekend. In all, more than twenty were killed, bringing back the spectre of genocide to this part of the world.
What is more depressing is the official reaction of Peru, headed by an inflamatory speech by the president himself. Apologies? There were none. Regrets? They were sadly missing. Instead, Alan Garcia launched on a diatribe against 'the forces of anti-development' - presumably those who are unimpressed by his macroeconomic policies - and against 'foreign intervention', a thinly veiled attempt to blame Bolivia for the massacre.
Not only is his position disgraceful and his accusations untrue. Alan Garcia has a knack for reminding Bolivians of the worst racist excesses in living memory that took place last September in Pando. And unfortunately he defends those excesses by condescendingly referring to Peru's 'natives' - a term that denotes not only contempt for indigenous peoples, but that denies them of all citizenship rights. Sounds familiar? The viscerous Bolivian extreme right speaks in exactly the same way and has shown to be prepared to act accordingly too.
Let's be clear. In wanting to make Peru's natural resources available to capital at any price, Alan Garcia, a populist demagogue, has shown to be prepared to criminalise any peaceful and democratic form of protest from civil society and, if necessary, to resort to murder, blaming Bolivia along the way.
But, being the leader of a country that has recently condemned former president Fujimori to 25 years imprisonment, Alan Garcia should be careful. And, Peru being situated next to a country that shows the world the example of a healthy political change with powerful social movements of which the indigenous movement is the spinal column, there is more than enough reasons to be concerned about the contagion effect of progressive politics.
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Alan Garcia, you should be worried.
Showing posts with label Indigenous. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Indigenous. Show all posts
Tuesday, 9 June 2009
Friday, 14 November 2008
Obama versus Morales (Part I)
Quite a few people have been asking me about the significance of an Obama victory for future US-Bolivian relations. Rather than in the ideas professed by both countries, this is a question that seems inspired by the significance of two such unlikely presidents who seem charismatic, intelligent and honest (not characteristics apparent in George W. Bush, unfortunately).
The symbolic significance of a first black president of the US is difficult to miss. Obama was, after all, born before the Civil Rights Movement that brought to the world the image of a divided America that didn’t afford constitutional rights to its black population. Nobody could possibly have dreamed then that a generation later they would have one of their own as president.
Even Evo Morales has commented on the significance of a member of the ‘oppressed black population’ (his words) becoming president of the most powerful nation on earth. But I still think that his own rise to the presidency of Bolivia is much more significant for being so much more unlikely.
Significantly, Obama never campaigned on a black-issues ticket. Instead, he emphasised his credentials as representative of the American people and the American dream. He has, however, made much of his being an outsider of the Washington-style cronyism and built a campaign on the need for change and hope.
And yet, it is difficult to see him as an outsider when, after all, he belongs to an educational elite, having studied at Harvard school of law. Donors to the presidential campaign also know when to back a winning horse and made him the highest spender ever in a presidential campaign. In this regard he represents a black middle class with the intelligence, skills, determination (and the means) to aspire and reach the highest office. But this, he has done from within the system and in any case, we already have the cases on Colin Powell or Condoleeza Rice as examples of black political achievement.
No, the rise of Evo Morales to the presidency of Bolivia is much more significant because he truly represents the abandoned majority of the country. He is one of them, someone whose family survived the economic penuries of the 1980s; he is someone who had to work from a very early age – like hundreds of thousands of children do in Bolivia – to contribute to the household’s economy; and he is someone who, in spite of never having reached university, was able to lead a political coalition of social movements that did away with the old ‘partidocracy’ – a corrupt and self-serving political system – to create something truly new in Bolivia’s political history by bringing new forms of citizen participation and engagement to politics.
For these reasons, I think Evo Morales is the true outsider both socially and politically.
The symbolic significance of a first black president of the US is difficult to miss. Obama was, after all, born before the Civil Rights Movement that brought to the world the image of a divided America that didn’t afford constitutional rights to its black population. Nobody could possibly have dreamed then that a generation later they would have one of their own as president.
Even Evo Morales has commented on the significance of a member of the ‘oppressed black population’ (his words) becoming president of the most powerful nation on earth. But I still think that his own rise to the presidency of Bolivia is much more significant for being so much more unlikely.
Significantly, Obama never campaigned on a black-issues ticket. Instead, he emphasised his credentials as representative of the American people and the American dream. He has, however, made much of his being an outsider of the Washington-style cronyism and built a campaign on the need for change and hope.
And yet, it is difficult to see him as an outsider when, after all, he belongs to an educational elite, having studied at Harvard school of law. Donors to the presidential campaign also know when to back a winning horse and made him the highest spender ever in a presidential campaign. In this regard he represents a black middle class with the intelligence, skills, determination (and the means) to aspire and reach the highest office. But this, he has done from within the system and in any case, we already have the cases on Colin Powell or Condoleeza Rice as examples of black political achievement.
No, the rise of Evo Morales to the presidency of Bolivia is much more significant because he truly represents the abandoned majority of the country. He is one of them, someone whose family survived the economic penuries of the 1980s; he is someone who had to work from a very early age – like hundreds of thousands of children do in Bolivia – to contribute to the household’s economy; and he is someone who, in spite of never having reached university, was able to lead a political coalition of social movements that did away with the old ‘partidocracy’ – a corrupt and self-serving political system – to create something truly new in Bolivia’s political history by bringing new forms of citizen participation and engagement to politics.
For these reasons, I think Evo Morales is the true outsider both socially and politically.
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