Bolivia Arrives. Just a brief entry today, to compensate for a long (but important) entry yesterday.
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Bolivia's first Indian president, Evo Morales, was sworn into office today. He vowed to:

convoke a constitutional assembly later this year to answer Indian demands for a greater share in power at all levels of society.

Bolivia is 55% pure-blooded Indian ("indio" in Spanish), 30% mestizo (part-Indian), and only 15% pure-blood white. Yet there has never, in almost 400 years, been an Indian at the head of government.

[Morales] said his government would rule "with all and for all" and would not seek revenge for the past. He also reiterated promises to respect and protect private property.

It is the phrase "with all and for all" that prompted me to comment on anything at all today. I like it, and hope he means it.
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Every now and then, someone from a theretofore oppressed group rises to power and does not wreak vengeance. In South Africa, it was Nelson Mandela, who embarked upon national reconciliation that has taken the worst out of the will to make up for an unfair past — tho there have been many murders of white farmers since the black majority took power peacefully, but that might just be because there has been a huge jump in murder generally in that sad country (which I'd like to see join the United States). Bolivia's new president indeed compared the treatment of his people, the Indians, to apartheid in South Africa of old, and:

promis[ed that] his government would move to squelch discrimination dating to the Spanish conquest in 1520.

Note that, please: 1520. Latin Americans are very keen on blaming the United States for everything that is wrong in their countries, but there has never been anything like justice in that part of the world. Ever. Neither the United States nor any of its predecessor colonies existed in 1520. During the Spanish and Portuguese era the people of Latin America blamed Europe for their problems. Then came independence — and things didn't change. Unfair dictation by Europeans was replaced by unfair dictation by locals. No improvement. Rather than look into their own culture and root out the ugliness, they cast about for some outsider to blame, and landed on the United States, even tho the U.S. had nothing to do with any of it and had either to work with what was in place, hold itself aloof, or intervene.
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If we worked with the people in power and cultural institutions long in place, we were accused of co-conspiring in oppression. If we held ourselves aloof, we were accused of turning a blind eye to injustice. If we intervened, we were accused of imperialism.
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Never, the world is to believe, were Latin Americans ever responsible for their own mess. It was always somebody else's fault. Let's hope that changes. Bolivia is as good a place as any to start.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 2,225.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 5:55 PM