THIS PAST Sunday, Evo Morales was inaugurated as the first indigenous president in Bolivian history. Sixty percent of Bolivians are indigenous, mostly of Aymaran or Quechuan descent. His election represents a possible transition from a merely formal democracy in Bolivia to a functional democracy. This transition would not have been possible if tens of thousands of Bolivian citizens had not blockaded nearly every major road in the country this past summer. The Bolivian majority imposed its will through force, and only then was able to express itself peacefully through free elections. When the working people's interests are not represented in so-called democracies, it is incumbent upon the working people to impose our will on the elite and create a government that is truly representative.
In an interview, Government and Foriegn Affairs assistant prof. Luis Fernando Medina, said that, due to the "way the Cold War was fought in Latin America," by the 1990's "all the sectors capable of mass mobilization had been destroyed," allowing neo-liberal regimes to institute "free" trade, privatization policies that were formerly politically untenable. Yet the paramilitary terror and subsequent neo-liberal revolution was not the beginning of a formal, unrepresentative democracy in Bolivia. Dependency and the plantation economy, in Bolivia acted out in Andean tin mines, have maintained extremely high rates of poverty while concentrating income in the hands of a few capitalists, most of whom were descended from the Spanish invaders.
Medina noted that in the neo-liberal era, the former agricultural and industrial elite has been replaced by a financial and service-sector elite. What have not changed substantially are the conditions of daily life in Bolivia.
At the turn of the last century, Carl Sandburg wrote about the apparently inexhaustible patience of the poor. This is the view of a sympathetic, delusional rich man. In reality, the "patience" of the poor represents the conscious and consistent repression of any news about working-class activism and the repression that usually follows. This is as true for the coal miners of West Virginia as for the silver miners of Sucre. In 2003 Bolivians' "patience" ran out, or, more accurately, enough citizens mobilized in nation-wide barricades to force then-President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada to resign, though not before he had ordered the slaughter of dozens of Aymarans and Quechuans. Vice President Carlos Mesa took his place and, to his credit, abstained from murdering unarmed and peaceful protesters with machine guns. Mesa failed, however, to reform the political system in which multinational firms like Exxon-Mobil and Repsol extract vast quantities of natural gas while only paying a pittance in taxes. More broadly, Mesa failed to reverse the neo-liberal "reforms," like privatization of municipal water systems, which necessarily kept the majority of the populace in poverty.
Last summer, for the second time, Bolivians' "patience" ran out. They blockaded every major highway in the country. La Paz and Cochabamba ran out of food. After weeks of impasse, Mesa resigned, as did the next two politicians in line for the presidency. A temporary president, former Supreme Court Justice Eduardo Rodriguez, took the oath and promised to hold elections in December. He did, and the indigenous organizations used their networks to turn out unprecedented support for Evo Morales of the Movement to Socialism Party.
Today Morales faces the challenge of working within the parameters of Friedman's "golden straitjacket," or more accurately the "golden noose," to expand social welfare programs in Bolivia. In the long run, nationalization of the natural gas industry will be necessary.
Few if any American politicians face a similar dilemma. Nobody blocked Houston's innumerable interstates when Enron executives stole the savings of thousands of Americans. Workers failed to shut down airports when United Airlines reneged on part of its thirteen billion dollar pension commitment. Minimum wage service workers have not gone on a general strike to raise their wages.
Regardless of his eventual success or failure, Morales' presidential victory demonstrates one model by which working citizens can reclaim their government without using violence. As working people work more hours in the U.S. for lower pay and corporate profits set yearly records, we can learn more from Bolivians than how to dance the saya.
Zack Fields' column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at zfields@cavalierdaily.com.
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