Bolivia: A Country That Dared to Exist

Bolivia: A Country That Dared to Exist
Written by Benjamin Dangl Published: 17 March 2015



In 1870, Bolivian dictator Mariano Melgarejo offered an English diplomat a glass of chicha – a corn-based beer consumed for centuries in the Andes. The diplomat refused the drink, asking for chocolate instead. A short-tempered Melgarejo responded by forcing the Englishman to drink a vast quantity of chocolate, and then made him ride a mule, backwards, through La Paz.

At least, this is how the story is related by Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano, who writes, “When Queen Victoria, in London, heard of the incident, she had a map brought to her and pronounced ‘Bolivia doesn’t exist,’ crossing out the country with a chalk ‘X.’” While the story is unlikely true, Galeano suggests it can be read as a metaphor for Bolivia’s tortured history as a victim of colonialism and imperialism.

In the interview below, Bolivia’s current Vice Minister of Decolonization, Félix Cárdenas Aguilar, makes a similar point, that “Bolivia is a failed country” because, from the time of its independence in 1825, its modernization was based on the exploitation of indigenous people. The challenge now, Cárdenas explains, is for Bolivia, under the presidency of Evo Morales, to decolonize itself, to reconstruct its past and identity, and to build a “plurinational” country where many indigenous nations can thrive. By resisting subjugation, Bolivia is daring to exist on its own terms.

This movement toward decolonization in the Andes is as old as colonialism itself, but the process has taken a novel turn with the administration of Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president. Morales, a former coca farmer, union organizer, and leftist congressman, was elected president in 2005, representing a major break from the country’s neoliberal past.

More:
http://www.towardfreedom.com/31-archives/americas/3845-bolivia-a-country-that-dared-to-exist