In New York, Amigos de Bolivia members have been gearing up for events later in the year to promote their favourite Andean state. It has been a topic of discussion also at New York University, where CLACS, the Center for Latin American and Carribbean Studies has been sponsoring lectures by visiting professors, presented by Sinclair Thomson and Carmen Medeiros of NYU.
But wait a minute, is this not the alma mater of one Jose Brechner, that ex-politician whose shrill rants against the
mestizos (the indigenous population) and the
collas in particular (the Aymara and Quechua) make him sound like the Fuhrer on a bad day? Most people outside of Bolivia have never heard of this clown, though he writes for a number of large dailies including
Ha'aretz (maybe they need token nazi). His reputation, however, is not much bigger even in his own backyard, no matter how much he pisses in it with his rants. At the latest events, neither Marisol de le Cadena nor Bret Gustafson had heard of him. Brechner's stomping ground is the right wing Santa Cruz, which also happens to be Gustafon's residence these days.
But, moving on from the likes of Herr Brechner, of whom Melvyn Kohn writes more on the
Jewish Chronicle site, let me throw a more positive light on the work of de la Cadena and Gustafson; the former is based in Davis, where she teaches at University of California, and the latter in St. Louis (when not in Santa Cruz) - where he teaches at the University of Washington. The UC instructor gave a talk on 29 March titled "Indigenous Politics: Beyond politics as usual", in which she held forth on the ontological pluralisation of politics in regards to the conjuring of non-human beings, i.e. mountains, water, soil, etc., as beings to be regarded in the making of laws, mostly in regards to mining. She being a Peruvian, this had more to do with Peru than Bolivia, but touched on both. Gustafon's speech, titled "Epistemic Rupture, Affirmative Action or 'Reverse Racism'?: Decolonizing Knowledge in Evo's Bolivia", was almost entirely limited to Bolivia, with a focus on the province of Santa Cruz, the large and wealthy southeast departamento. He is the author of
New Languages of the State: Indigenous Resurgence and the Politics of Knowledge in Bolivia (Duke, 2009) and is presently working with Niki Fabricant on
Remapping Bolivia: Territory and Resources in a Plurinational State.
His talk included much of his own memories of education in Bolivia, starting with the policies of the mid-'90s, the heyday of neo-liberalism under Losada; these for some reason were backed by the World Bank, and some say it was with the intention of weakening the teachers' union. The more recent talks about education reform entail what Gustafson calls a "distinct shift from the neo-liberal period", adding that the "neo-liberalism of the '90s saw indigenous language as a problem to be addressed." The present movement has attracted "violent right-wing opposition", he notes, to the surprise of no one familiar with the situation. Some of the proposed changes in education include the teaching not only of indigenous languages, but of local rituals as well - such as the uta chana - a ceremony for homebuilding/starting a new family.
Education ministers have tended to move at a speed reminiscent of the Blair government in the UK - MAS is onto its fourth. The first was Felix Patzi, who was virulently anti-ecclesiastical, and is now doing jail time, or penance if you will, for drunk driving - a crime Morales has cracked down to the protests of drunk drivers. However ridiculous that sounds, that is exactly what happened - there were road blocks and other forms of protests against the new laws designed to improve road safety - and needless to say the protestors were not in favour; MADD would certainly have loved MAS that day. Most of Bolivia certainly did and told the drunks to shut up and get out of the way.
Patzi's successor was from the teachers' union, who in turn was succeeded by one of the leading Catholics, who in turn was succeeded by a criollo who some call an elitist, Roberto Aguilar; so not only have the faces changed in this ministry, but so have the outlooks and backgrounds of the head educators. The Catholic Church is not the only religious entity in Bolivia to have some influence on education, there has been a steady flow of Protestant missionaries, and these founded the Summer Institute of Linguistics back in the '50s or '60s. Many chefs in the kitchen, much simmering debate, and some real hotheads screaming that Morales is making a "pact between the devil and Fidel Castro to take over Bolivian children." Western journalists, often lacking insight into the minutae (how many of them bother to travel to the country?), labeled the whole thing as affirmative action, and indeed when Morales opened three new schools for the indigenous in their municipalities, many expected them to be lefty campuses full of Trotskyites and hippies; no such luck, they were all technical schools featuring nuts and bolts courses on veterinary medicine, improved crop yields and gas drilling.
Gustafson pointed out that Morales is not acting as a left wing extremist at all, but even looks a bit conservative at times; we hear more recycled factoids by journalists who cut and paste from the fax machine, as
Guardian journalists Nick Davies explained in his 2009 book
Flat Earth News; click
here for a review and excerpts. So this is not a country turning into a radical revolutionary experiment; nor are there murderous Indians running around extracting vengeance on the
criollos. Brechner take note - there is evidence of a peaceful change, and not a lot of separatism as was expected. Out of 315 municipal areas where a referendum for autonomy was put forward or could have been, only 10 voted for it; two of them in Santa Cruz. Gustafson remarked: "We don't see emerging radical ethno-territoriality of the state...what we see are fragmented differences."Of the problems in Santa Cruz it was noted in the round table discussion that the violence that we are heaing about is not necessarily new there, it is just being brought into the public discourse at this time. Included in any discourse on violence in that departamento would be the plot to assassinate Morales, which Gustafson, perhaps in deference to certain copies of an AP report which cast doubt on the government story, noted as "alleged." Conspiracy theories abounded but were soon debunked, as the plotters had gone so far as to make a video tape of themselves discussing such activities - but rather than enter at large upon this here,
Melvyn Kohn's essay on Harry's Place will give the inquisitive some facts; and I might add that there is yet more to the story that Kohn is holding back at this time.
Physical assassins were followed by character assassins; the twain often meet up, especially where there is a prize to steal, and I am referring to resources - Merrill Lynch called Bolivia the "Saudi Arabia of Lithium", and that metal is not the only one under the surface of Bolivia's soil; gold, silver, uranium, zinc, tin, iron, and many others. External conflict related to it all is to be expected, but there are internal conflicts as well, as opposition to mining exists in some of the very indigenous groups that put MAS in office. Morales is holding up well with this, balancing environmentalism and local spirituality with the reality of having to feed some 10 million people. The president at one point drew the line and told some that they could not stand in the way of the good of the nation. This week Bolivia is hosting an international summit on the environment to be held on Earth Day, and Gustafson notes that James Cameron is already in Cochabamba. Forgive me for a note of cynicism here, but I expect lots of grandstanding from rich movie star types and not sure they will make any lasting contribution. That has to come from the Bolivians and their committed allies; lots of limelight grabbers will hug trees, but their hypocrisy is easily seen when they admit they can't be bothered to wear one thread of hemp. They wear cotton and write on tree pulp paper - destroying entire forests to get their names into magazines and newspapers for this or that, and going green is the latest way to get attention. Hopefully their time spent in Bolivia will humble them and they will take away some reality to bring back to the world of virtual non-reality we call the West.
So we shall see. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk greatly improved Turkey in the 1920s with his education reform - so much so that a friend of mine spent one year in school there and was put three years ahead in a New York school - and the same seems to be happening in Bolivia, which, it might be recalled, is noted for having already produced 'America's best teacher', the late Jaime Escalante. There is a lot to learn here and I expect it to be good.
Ramphastos Toucans are the largest of the toucan family, related to the Asian/African hornbills, along with woodpeckers, barbets, jacamars and kingfishers.
