Hat (Thueringer Allgemeine of 01/29/2011)
By Paul-Joseph Rough
socialism, state organized, have a chance? Twenty years ago no one thought of a resurrection of the organized communism. But in South America, the wind shifts. In democratic elections, governments come to power, which borrow their ideals of Karl Marx.
The President is wearing a hat when he enters the conference room, received in the former colonial masters their subjects. He wears a black hat that protects from the heat, a sombrero, the hat of the English colonizers. Wear the hat today the poor people in the highlands of Bolivia.
The President is without socks, put his feet in sandals, in which he went as a farmer of the village street is. He has attracted a colorful coarse cotton shirt, as it carries a poor farmer. The president is Esteban Urquizu Cuellar, he has visited only five years of school, he says. Today he is chief in the capital of Bolivia, in Sucre, a proud city with beautiful homes, has not it surprising that the most powerful people have chosen La Paz, the seat of government. Esteban is governor of Chuquisaca, the Prime Minister of the poorest province in the poorest country in South America. On a sofa in his anteroom farmers sit in the high country, the sooner the palace could possibly see from a distance. Esteban listened to it, he will help them, it is in his power, he says. He is one of them, it shows he has the power, absolute power. His party has the two-thirds majority in the provincial parliament that his party represents the majority of the 25 mayors who - like him - were union leaders.
It shows the pride. For the first time in Bolivian history, the Indians and peasants have taken the local power in the regional and national power. In our new Constitution is clear: Every politician and every official to speak must be two of our languages. I speak Quechua and English.
36 official languages, ie languages of the natives know, the Constitution, must speak at least one of them, who will be selected. The bilingualism of the powerful, the mastery of the ancient languages, the language of the oppressed should be a sign that times have changed. The Indians, who were oppressed for centuries, have the shots, literally. This is the Bolivian brand of socialism, which includes two quotas: The Indians use the levers of power - and half the women of the Indians.
everywhere being female in the parliaments and governments must be half the power. But this is hardly achieve by decree in a society that is male like no other in which a man is a macho, so educated, so self-conscious. Remains mostly the male majority, because the parliaments in the Villages have five seats. Esteban, the provincial president, is 29 years young, and he is proud to be young. The older ones have only the experience, how to steal. He has never learned a trade, never studied. We had no money in our family, he says, I'm intelligent, but I never thought I could be president.
The leader of his party, the president of Bolivia, has he not have expected. With you we do not win here, with you, we never win this province, he called out to him at the last minute and accepts that he may run.
Esteban won with 53 percent and followed a woman who is the sister of his mother, but in other political camps. Now Esteban orders for seven months, the police officers who had been looking for him once, farmers and trade unionists, and persecuted. He leads an administration of which he has no idea. I am a farmer, he says, but it is not impossible. We need to make up five hundred years. But we Indians are the reserves, we still have power and vision. We want to rule, to steal without.
have stolen the powers from him, so he sees it - and not only stolen, but also humiliated and insulted. That's the documentary of a famous Argentinian, who was shot two years ago in Sucre. It is a film that teaches the fear. Campesinos, the poorest of the Poor, beaten by the townspeople of Sucre and threatened with death. The people from the countryside are forced to fall on their knees and kiss the flag of the master-dominant. The white citizens look to the military withdraws, like the police. There lynching of wealthy citizens, including professors of the university.
conspiracy theories quickly circulated. Ordered gangs of thugs are said to have instigated the riot. Bolivia is a country that calls more conspiracies than truths. The citizens, who raced two years ago, the poorest of the city are now the opposition. They have little to say. The few governors and mayors from the opposition, who were elected, gradually lose their office and replaced by pro-government followers. Possible makes it a law by which emit an elected office must have, if the prosecutor is investigating him - long before a judge decides. The prosecutor is under control of the government.
The Indians are all the rules of democratic culture came to power, without manipulation, in the second national election even with a two-thirds majority with which they can change everything - and want to change.
The president is elected by the people of Sucre. With much fear he had taken office, he says, cracking his joints his finger. It was like a test, before you ask: And if I remain seated? He also did not know what to start with all the money he had distributed. He was up late last year from just three quarters of the funding.
But even if he exhausts his budget, he will hardly be able to invest. The vast country is miserably poor, wealthy, only the capital, where he resides and live in as many inhabitants as in Erfurt, a pretty city, World Heritage Site for its well-preserved colonial buildings with the former Jesuit University and its cloisters and the octagonal fountain or cedar altar in the baroque cathedral.
The citizens of Sucre, the merchants and officials have him, not the farmers from the highlands, was elected. So he wants to remember especially those who had not for centuries in the series. He wants the little people, farmers and mini-dealers, insurance companies pay, he is putting into the minds of young people, improve education and send more doctors and medicines to the villages. The doctors are from Cuba. Above all, he
would send water because the rain stays off, dry up the fields. Climate change is against us, "he says.
His first act, he has cut his salary. The presidents before him were given 20 000 Bolivianos a month, it takes only 12,000, which works out at around 1200 €. This is but 15 times of what has, on average, a Bolivian to life.
lies next to him a Blackberry, the hallmark of a modern manager, with whom he can constantly check their email and carry their calendar. Esteban does not read. His secretary handed him a slip of paper, he nods. A delegation of the coca farmers, waiting for him.
The trip organized by the Federal Agency for Civic Education, which currently focuses its work on South America, on the occasion of America Latina 200, the memory of the liberation from colonial rule 200 years ago.
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