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What has changed is that the Indigenous majority (65%) has achieved rightful political power and is no longer forced to 'disappear' in the public arena (couldn't even walk on the sidewalks through the mid-1960s), act obsequious or get beaten up (or even killed) and settle for extremely low paying servant jobs (maids, gardeners) or outright slavery to the rich, white, racist minority.
Bolivia elected its first Indigenous president, Evo Morales, in 2006, an historic event comparable to the end of Apartheid in South Africa, and then re-elected Morales and passed a new Constitution, which establishes Indigenous equality and land rights, and, among other things, grants rights to Mother Nature ("Pachamama") to exist and prosper apart from human needs and desires. This amazing series of events--due almost entirely to the intelligence, courage, organization and persistence of Indigenous peoples--was accomplished entirely peacefully, except for the Bush Junta-backed white separatists, who rioted, trashed government and NGO buildings, sabotaged a gas pipeline and murdered Indigenous farmers, in late 2008, at which point South American unity kicked in and the new continent-wide organization, UNASUR, formalized only a few months before, fully backed up Morales in throwing the U.S. ambassador out of Bolivia, quelling the rioters and proceeding with an orderly and fair vote in that presidential and constitutional election.
It may be that the Native American dancers visiting Bolivia were perceiving, not just that the majority in Bolivia look like them but also that the Indigenous majority in Bolivia were standing forth as the final creators of Bolivian democracy--a country that suffered from military juntas as recently as the 1980s--giving the Indigenous a presence and an aura that might not have been perceivable in previous times.
I don't want to put words in Doreen Duncan's mouth, but that's what her statement ("everyone here looks like me") immediately brought to mind: That the Bolivian Indigenous have achieved a revolution in self- and social perception. Indigenous are not only now running the country, they are doing extremely well, as to Bolivia's economy, and are pioneers on the world stage as environmental advocates. They have also held the country together--prevented a white separatist split-up of Bolivia--by peaceful means. Evo Morales is a Gandhian on methods of change. He was so reluctant to use force during the white separatist insurrection that it was almost a fault--in fact, it was a fault, because the white separatists then started murdering people. State force was required to be used, to stop this. But it was minimal and rightful force, when he finally acted, after strenuous efforts were made to talk through the Indigenous vs white differences. The Bush Junta, of course, wanted a civil war. Morales and the Indigenous denied it to them and are creating a prosperous, unified, just society, with due deference to reasonable opinion and compromise on matters such as national vs provincial governance.
It must be a high like no other to be among people who have restored their dignity in the public arena. And I imagine that, on the high spiritual plane of religious dance, the Native Americans from the U.S. were feeling far more kinship than mere physical appearance. The two peoples share a 500 year history of struggle against often vicious and genocidal white English and Spanish/Portuguese conquerors, with racism still being used by wealthy whites as a means of maintaining and extending their godawful wealth and power, by dividing the poor white and non-white victims. A virulent campaign against the native brown-skinned people of the south is raging in the U.S. even as we speak. I don't think it's real in the hearts of most north Americans--but it is made to seem real by the controlled media--a very, very dangerous and immensely irresponsible campaign of manipulation such as Hitler waged against Jews and others, and with horrible atrocities in recent memory, such as the TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND Mayan villagers slaughtered in Guatemala during the Reagan Horrors in Latin America, and tens of thousands of poor people--many Indigenous, peasant farmers and trade unionists--slaughtered in Colombia, in the last decade, under the guise of the U.S. "war on drugs" and with the complicity of the Bush Junta.
Native Americans were direct victims of English/European violence and land theft, and suffer immensely to this day from past atrocities and loss of land. Bolivia's Indigenous are today righting some of the wrongs done to them--so similar to the wrongs suffered by Native Americans of the north. It has been a long, long and difficult struggle, throughout the Americas, but the two cultures--native and English/European--are at last coalescing, as evidenced by the Indigenous adoption of democratic government, national borders and sovereignty, mixed capitalist/socialist economies and international law and trade--in short, English/European political organization systems--while adapting those systems to new (or rather very ancient) values, such as reverence for Mother Earth. The rich continue to use racism to divide the poor but "the time's, they are changing," for sure, most especially in Latin America, and particularly in South America in the Andes region.
These two peoples--U.S. Indigenous and Bolivian Indigenous--have so much more in common than mere looks that I wonder if the U.S. native dancers felt constrained in what they said. They were, after all, sponsored by the U.S. embassy which, only three years ago, was funding/organizing the violent white separatists. U.S. policy against Bolivia may not be as overtly racist, brutal and anti-democracy now, as it was with the Bush Junta, but it continues to be anti-Morales, anti-social justice and pro corporate looters and war profiteers.
As Brazil's president, Lula da Silva, said, in his final speech in office, early this year, "The U.S. has not changed." (Brazilians had just chosen his chief of staff, Dilma Rousseff, to succeed him.) He was probably mainly referring to the rightwing/military coup in Honduras--of probable Bushwhack design but which the Obama administration has tried to legitimize--but I'm sure he had the broader realities in mind as well, because he has faced them time and again--that the U.S. government, whether run by Bushwhacks or Democrats, seeks to re-conquer--or, for starters, to "divide and conquer"--a newly independent and unified South America. Lula has been a strong supporter of Hugo Chavez in those particular "divide and conquer" efforts, of Morales on the U.S. failed coup attempt in Bolivia, of Rafael Correa on the U.S./Colombia assault on Ecuador in early 2008--and of Mel Zelaya, on the successful U.S. coup in Honduras in mid-2009.
South America's independence movement has involved strong rejection of U.S. corporate and bankster looting, Wall Street's evil advice of "austerity" and deregulation and expansions of U.S. military power in the region. These U.S. goals have not changed with the new administration, which initially promised "peace, respect and cooperation" from the U.S. in Latin America, and quickly fell prey to far rightwing/Bushwhack plotting and blackmail on Honduras, was soon fixing elections in Haiti, has tried to punish Bolivia for surviving the Bushwhack coup, and had the nerve and disrespect to announce the bombing of Libya on a visit to the newly elected president of Brazil this year!
I would think that Native Americans from the U.S. would be quite torn about all this--about being used as a sort of cultural front for hidden corporate/war profiteer agendas, i.e., being ambassadors for what? --for re-conquest? The U.S. State Department still seethes with hostility toward Morales and other leftist leaders, and will do--and is doing--whatever it can, in the new atmosphere of unity and independence, to undermine Indigenous equality, democracy and social justice, and to topple--or prepare the way for Bush Junta II to topple--democratic governments. USAID, Pentagon and other Obama budgets contain, all told, billions of dollars for these purposes.
Is this why these visiting Native American dancers said so little about the dramatic political /social transformation in Bolivia? They didn't feel free to? Maybe it was just politeness and wise reticence. I can understand that. But I think it's notable, and it certainly struck me, reading this--that this is all they see in Bolivia--that the people look like themselves?
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