comments please! (because i´m still working on this)

Democracy and Social Change in Bolivia

If you explore the streets of Sucre, you may come across some surprisingly well-made political propaganda. Videos about recent political events in Sucre, valorizing the protests against the government, themed around the glorious fight for democracy in this righteous city. Nicely embroidered jackets and professionally printed shirts with slogans about the movement to make Sucre the capital city. Backpacks for schoolchildren bearing the same. I walk behind them on the way to work, wondering if twenty years from now those kids will be proud or ashamed to have sported those backpacks.

The fact is, everyone in Sucre supports the capital movement and opposes Evo Morales and MAS. But this isn't true of all of Bolivia. There's a lot of support for the government, but it's coming from other places: the poor, the indigenous, the campesinos, to name a few. Basically, most groups which have been historically oppressed or disempowered support Morales. As for the opposition, look to the former sources of power; the people whose monopolies on power are presently being threatened: the upper classes, the business elite, the pro-capitalists and the resource-rich western departments. [1]

Of course, the divisions aren't really that clean. Sucre isn't exactly in the west, more like the middle, and not everyone here is rich, and yet there is an overwhelming opposition to the government.

I was discussing this with another volunteer here, and he wanted to know how I'd explain this.

"Do you really think everyone in Sucre’s being duped?" he asked me.

Maybe duped is a strong word? And to look at it another way, is there any country, anywhere, where the marketing campaigns of the various political forces don't have any effect on their target audiences? If so, i'd like to know about it.

So, what is the Sucre Capital Plena movement? If it's a genuine reflection of the desires of the everyday, average people of Sucre, then where is all the money coming from? Are cab drivers, waiters, shoe shiners paying for the fancy embroidered jackets and t-shirts? If the movement has grown naturally out of the situation here, why is all the logic behind the movement so strange? The other day a man told me the capital should be moved from La Paz (800,000) to Sucre (one third the size) because La Paz doesn't produce anything. I wish I'd asked him where he learned that.

I'm regularly told that various actions of the government are illegal, but from what i understand none of them are. The tactics taken by the opposition, however, are very dangerous in the sense that they're seriously undermining the democratic process in Bolivia. Rather than engaging in parliamentary debate, opposition members refuse to participate in the political process at all. Opposition mobs surround government buildings to threaten and attack government members as they try to enter. Opposition members publicly deliver racist and sexist insults to MAS members. According to a MAS member, opposition party PODEMOS leader Jorge "Tuto" Quiroga, "had asked people to not recognize the law."[2] Strange things to hear from a group that accuses the government of acting illegally.

Many analysts understand the Sucre Capital Plena movement as the latest in a long string of underhanded and undemocratic attempts by the opposition to undermine the acting abilities of the present government.[3] Morales himself has said that the issue of the capital is an attempt to destroy the assembly.[4] Admittedly, the capital movement has existed for a long time, more or less since the capital left Sucre a hundred years ago, but it mysteriously got a lot stronger last summer, when other attempts to disrupt government action had failed or proved insufficient.

On the other hand, maybe residents of Sucre were growing dissatisfied with government actions and genuinely started to believe that moving the capital to Sucre would give them more say over policy. I'm not sure how realistic this is, logically, but the point is that maybe it is at least partly a genuine popular reaction.

Either way, it seems like in Sucre the location of the capital has eclipsed a lot of other issues. In the name of moving the government back here, Sucreans seem to be willing to sacrifice recent government initiatives like increased health care and education, and a much needed old age pension. Say what you will about some of Morales' other policies; these things are necessary. Weighing these issues against the capital movement, I consider my friend's question once more. I guess I'd rather believe people have been duped than believe they want to deny the basic needs of their fellow citizens over an issue like this.

As a Canadian, the way politics plays out in Bolivia surprises me. Everyone has an opinion about politics. Everyone is involved. Many social groups are mobilizing very actively and very visibly for their rights. There are frequent protests with firecrackers and even dynamite. There are roadblocks. Sometimes whole cities shuts down. People get injured and sometimes killed. In November of last year the rioting in Sucre got so intense that the government and police fled the city. The citizens broke into government offices and destroyed everything they could find. Coming from a political society that´s lukewarm at best and generally responds to a problem by writing letters, I’m pleased to finally see people taking direct action to improve their quality of life. But I’m hesitant to say that such extremes are a positive thing. Perhaps the intensity, the enthusiasm, is a product of novelty: democracy is a newer game in Bolivia than in Canada. Maybe people are so involved because they’ve wanted a say in their governance for a long time and are ecstatic to finally get it. Maybe this also explains the way some people have gotten behind causes that actually aren’t so good; it takes time to learn to think critically about the movements and issues presented to you, and maybe not all of Bolivia is there yet. Maybe this is why everyone is so dissatisfied with Morales when he’s offering more positive change than I would even dream of asking of any Canadian Prime Minister. Maybe Bolivians are still hopeful enough about the effectiveness of democracy as it exists that they genuinely think they can get everything to work exactly the way they want it to.

There are a few lessons I´ll take home from this experience. Seeing the way politics work in Bolivia has reminded me that public participation in politics through protesting and public organizing is an important part of the political process. Likewise, the ability to form alliances between interest groups is crucial to creating a strong presence. The strength of Morales’ support base lies in the solidarity of the groups he represents. The strength of the opposition is in their own solidarity. I’ve also been reminded of the political stagnation caused by firmly established parties in electoral politics. I believe that the constant change of parties, of the groups that constitute those parties, of the platforms of those parties, increases the chances that people will actually consider the issues being presented in an election rather than voting mechanically for the usual colour, and that the relative infancy of the parties and democratic system means a wider range of issues could be addressed by the system. The diversity of political interests here is partly due to the fact that a routine has not yet been established. We need only look to American politics for the opposite example, the upcoming election notwithstanding.

Finally, I feel that having strongly opposed forces at play in politics is healthy for the political process, as a wider range of interests are being represented. In Bolivia, we see the business elite, the white, the rich, and the powerful on one hand, and the poor, the indigenous, the workers and farmers on the other. In Canada, we have the business elite, the white, the rich and the powerful on one hand versus the slightly less conservative business elite, white, rich and powerful on the other, and frankly if I had to say one of these two countries was representing the needs and desires of its population in parliament, I wouldn’t give that award to Canada. While it´s true that Canada’s government has “accomplished” a lot more than Bolivia´s in the last four or five months, I think the question needs to be asked whether any of the things the government of Canada has accomplished are in fact in the best interests of the majority of Canadians.

In the end, when I start to understand another culture I realize we have a lot to learn from each other. In this case, I think Canadians have more to learn about genuine political participation and representation than they might realize. Bolivians, I hope, will learn to think more critically about the movements they support, and in an ideal world both will learn to expand their political actions beyond their own personal interests and have some consideration for the needs of the people around them.

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[1] http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/14659

[2] http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/14619

[3] http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/14659

http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/14621

http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/14620

[4] http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/14619