[NYTr] Indigenous Anarchism in Bolivia

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

World War 4 Report - Oct, 2007
http://ww4report.com/node/4501

INDIGENOUS ANARCHISM IN BOLIVIA

An Interview with Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui

by Andalusia Knoll, Rustbelt Radio, Pittsburgh

The South American nation of Bolivia has filled the headlines of the
global press with its fight against water privatization, struggle for
nationalization of gas, non-compliance with free trade policies, and
the 2005 election of the continent’s first indigenous president, Evo
Morales. These struggles are rooted in the long history of indigenous
resistance to colonialism and imperialism in Bolivia. In an interview
conducted during her recent stay in Pittsburgh. subaltern theorist
Aymara sociologist and historian Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui discussed
Bolivian anarchism, the health benefits of the coca plant and the
cocaleros' (coca growers) fight for sovereignty. Rivera Cusicanqu is a
founder of the Taller de Historia Oral Andina (Workshop on Andean Oral
History) and author of Oppressed But Not Defeated: Peasant Struggles
Among the Aymara and Quechua in Bolivia, 1910-1980 (United Nations
Research Institute for Social Development, 1987). She was born in 1949
in La Paz.

Andalusia Knoll: Could you talk about some of the things that you have
uncovered in your research about anarchism in Bolivia as related to the
struggles of the Aymara and Quecha people?

Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui: We started as an Aymara collective that
basically wanted to uncover the Aymara and Quechua struggles and we
discovered that there were many links with urban Aymara communities
that had organizations linked both to the indigenous communities and to
the union movement, which in the 20’s was basically anarchist.

What happened in Bolivia is that there have been two official
histories: the official history written by the [Revolutionary]
Nationalist Party—MNR—that basically denies all the agency of both
workers and peasants and indigenous peoples; and the official history
of the left that forgets about anything that was not Marxist, thus
eclipsing or distorting the autonomous history of anarchist unions,

It's the links between the anarchists and the indigenous people that
gave them another nuance, because their communities are self-sustained
entities and they basically are places where anti-authoritarian type of
organization can take roots. They don’t need this leadership that is
like permanent leadership. The communities have leaders, but as a
rotational thing that is a service to the community. It’s kind of a
burden to be a leader for a community, you know? It’s something you do
once in a lifetime and you do because you ought to do, and that the
community says its your turn or the turn of your family. So, that
creates a totally different relationship with power structures and, in
a way, it decolonizes power and to a certain extent gives it back to
the people.

That is what fascinated us most about the communities and, on the other
hand, it led us to discover that communities were not only rural but
also urban and worked with [1920s anarchist] Luis Cusicanqui and other
anarchist leaders because they had such an affinity between the way
they saw struggle, autonomy, domination, and oppression.

AK: Anarchism in general, I think, is perceived as a European tradition
that has been brought to the United States and places like Argentina
and people don't generally associate anarchism with places like Bolivia
or places in Africa, et cetera. Could you talk about how anarchism was
in line with many of the beliefs of the Aymara and Quechua people and
the way their communities were governed.

SRC: A general point of departure of Bolivian history with the rest of
Latin America is that many—especially anarchists—have had to go through
the filter of their own traditions of struggle that are basically
anti-colonial. So, what happened is that there was like a mutual
breeding, a mutual fertilization of thought and an ability to interpret
universal doctrine that is basically a European doctrine in Bolivian,
Chola and Aymara terms.

That’s why Bolivian anarchism is so important, because it has roots in
the grassroots urban unions. Because most urban workers were also
Indian in Bolivia and still are. 62 percent of the population in
Bolivia self-identify as indigenous, as Aymara, Quechua, Guarani and as
many other indigenous peoples.

So we have a majority, even in urban settings, and therefore have a
particular brand of anarchism. I would say it is Anarcho-Indianism. And
also it is Anarcho-Indianism-Feminism because the chola figure, the
women, the female fighter, the female organizer, is part of Bolivian
daily life. If you have been there you know what the market looks like,
how strong these women are, how in solidarity they are when there is a
march coming from the cocaleros, when there are these marches that last
ten, twenty days without much to eat. These women prepare these huge
pots of soup they give away to the poorest people. They have such a
tradition of union associations that self-organize. And they
self-organize basically in the administration of space,. The market is
a space and it’s very symbolic that they take over this space and just
grab it from the municipality or from the central state.

So, you have a very specific chola brand of anarchism that explains why
it was so attractive for so, so many people. And it explains why one of
the most salient things in Bolivian anarchist history is that their
leaders made their speeches in Aymara. And just thinking that another
non-Western language, non-European language is filtering the thoughts
of anarchists and helping to phrase, to express the rage, the
proposals, the ideas—it gives such richness, you know? In Aymara you
can say, "us" in four different ways.

AK: How do these struggles of indigenous people in the '20s and '30s
relate to struggles against neoliberalism today?

SRC: Liberalism made its big reforms in the late 19th century, which
were anti-Indian reforms. They killed the market for indigenous crafts
and goods. They took Indian lands. They jailed all the leaders of the
communities. They wanted them to become servants of the haciendas and
have a quiet and domesticated, low-paid labor force in the mines and in
the factories.

You have a second liberalism here now that wants basically the same
thing, except for the issue of haciendas. Haciendas are out of date in
Bolivia because of agrarian reform. Yet there is still a need for
agrarian reform because the big land ownership has moved, it has been
displaced to the lowlands and still it's doing the same thing. It's
usurping indigenous lands.

So you have basically the same set of problems and aggressions, but you
obviously have cultural differences, a cultural gap. Because in those
times, you didn't have much of a literate working class, or literate
leadership in the communities. The communities had many problems just
trying to understand the language of the documents that decreed their
extinction, or decreed the laws against them. So they created a
movement in favor of schools. That was another link with the workers,
because the workers, especially the anarchists, had their own
self-organized schools. The indigenous communities came in search for
support for their schools and found a very fertile terrain in the
anarchist unions.

AK: Could you talk more about the struggles of the cocaleros? Here in
the United States there’s very little dialogue about their struggle and
people don't even realize that there is a difference between coca and
cocaine.

SRC: Well, let me tell you, I have been researching, and every time I
come to the US I go to the libraries with one question: Why is coca so
underground, so unknown, so mistreated, so stigmatized? Why do people
believe all these lies? Why can you get any drug but not coca? It's
because if coca was a drug you could get it.

And I'm finding a big conspiracy against coca in the late 19th century
by the pharmaceutical industry. And it is a conspiracy against people's
health in general. But the conspiracy against coca was particularly
mean and ill because it was a conspiracy against a people. The Indians
had been in touch with coca for millennia and have been able to use it
in a variety of ways; as a mild stimulant for work, as a ritual item,
as a recreational commodity that you chew at parties, at wakes, at
weddings, or even as a symbol of identity and of struggle.

So, coca leaves are almost pervasively present in the Bolivian context
but there is like this press blindness, blindness of the media.
Blindness of the media that in many senses is dictated by the US
embassy, you know? It’s the US embassy that dictates the policy on coca
and blackmails the government so that if we don’t do as they say, the
funds for development or, I don’t know, the funds they give to the
Bolivian government will be cut. I always said to the leaders, "Let
them cut! We won’t die! And we can’t live forever on somebody else’s
alimony."

It's hard because really there is a problem of poverty; but poverty in
Bolivia is constructed, it’s a result of bad policies! And it’s a
result of being robbed of our resources. And so I think the coca issue
is very, very enlightening in terms of what the power of interests of
corporations can do to truth... Just veil the truth to such an extent
that...common sense has been overcome by this absurd idea that coca is
cocaine. I have chewed coca since I was 16 years old. When I came to
the states, of course you miss everything you don’t have, but I’m not
in a [withdrawal] syndrome. I have a [withdrawal] syndrome of coffee!
When I quit coffee I had symptoms of being addicted to coffee, but the
coca leaves are not addictive. I just chew them and enjoy them everyday
and if I don’t have them I don’t chew them and that’s it. And I’m very
healthy and I think so many people would be rid of osteoporosis and
calcium deficits and gastric disorders and obesity and cardio-vascular
problems and diabetes [if coca were available].

And that's why it is an enemy of the pharmaceuticals; because we
wouldn't need all their shit! All their pills, all their venoms that
make us believe that they are good and then they have side effects and
then you go back, and they give you another thing, and you keep on
going back and then you end up with having a full pharmacy in your
drawer and then you feel miserable and you have lost control of your
life. That’s what they want and that’s what we’re against and coca is
our big, big shield against companies taking over our bodies.

AK: Earlier you had mentioned one of the marches of the cocaleros.
Could you talk about some of the actions that people have taken to
defend their rights to grow coca and their sovereignty?

SRC: Yes. Well, I like to talk about things I really know first and
there have been many, many marches. One of the most impressive ones was
in 1994 and it is really very incredible to be a part of one of these
events. And in 1998, when things were getting really bad because of
forced eradication and assassinations of cocaleros, and army raids
where they into the coca fields and destroyed everything was a daily
occurrence... there was this big march that I joined... And I was able
to get into the rank-and-file cocaleros within the march and see how
there is this Gandhian ethic of self-sacrifice accompanied with coca.
It’s also a Gandhian ethic of not eating too much, because...[i]t is
the force of the spirit and the force of the belief that goes and
carries your body. And so your body has to be light. And that’s why you
learn a lot about ethics when you do this type of struggle... [Y]ou're
doing a sacrifice for a cause that is for the good of many people and
it really feeds your spirit. It is very important to have something
beyond your own belly... [A]nd also to go for a cause that is for the
whole of the Bolivian people, because sovereignty is the missed task.
No revolution of whatever kind—liberal revolution, nationalist
revolution, leftist—has really been freed from imperialism, freed from
colonial domination.

So, that task requires all the strength and these marches, vigils and
hunger strikes have been, always, a typical characteristic of the
Bolivian people. A peaceful type of non-violent actions—but so massive!
so massive!--where people are ready to die. And that generosity...is
very, very heart-lifting, you know? And so, it gives people a strength
to overcome many obstacles, to overthrow governments, and to even take
governments. And so, I think that’s a result of our strength; our
collective strength.


[This interview originally appeared on Rustbelt Radio, Pittsburgh
Indymedia's weekly review of news from the grassroots. To hear the
complete interview, go to
http://pittsburgh.indymedia.org/news/2007/03/26831.php

It also ran July 25 in The Defenstrator, Philadelphia, PA
http://www.defenestrator.org/silvia_rivera_cusicanqui ]