Continued irrationality
09.29.2003Protests against the government gas policy (which isn't even defined yet!) continues. They key slogan is "no gas through Chile," which is nothing but the tired old nationalism of spiting Chile for having won a war in 1878. To be fair, that left Bolivia landlocked, which makes development in the third world quite difficult. To be truthful, the territory "taken" by Chile was never fully defined as Bolivian or Chilean, it was disputed territory. In my opinion, the dispute ended at least a century ago; no turning back the clock now, for better or worse.
Today a crowd of market sellers joined the COB (Central Obrera Boliviana) in a strike and march around downtown, mainly the Prado. Rather than dialoguing w/ the government, the tradition in Bolivia has now become to just go straight to the barricades, block traffic for an hour, and march around yelling nationalist slogans.
The funny thing: no one really seems to care. Sure, some business close their doors for fear of potential looting. But while the protesters march along the street, regular folk (of all social classes) go about along the sidewalk. And if we have to cross the street, well, we just go right ahead and cross through the marchers themselves. After all, some of us have work to do.
Now, I can empathize w/ some of the demands or causes the marchers espouse. Almost. But not fully. They want to prevent the sale of gas through Chile for nationalist reasons, even though it'd be cheaper (and hence, more income for the country) to do that rather than try to go through Peru or someplace else. Some even demand that we don't sell gas at all. Why? Because it's ours. Oh, great. Let's play that game. How many things do we want from the world that we don't have? And Bolivia produces more gas than it consumes. Why not sell the excess and generate income (which also means jobs).
Then there's the argument that the gas should be "industrialized" in country. Most protesters have no idea what this means. But it primarily could mean things like increasing the infrastructure of domestic gas lines so that people don't have to keep buying gas in containers for their homes. A fair demand, to be sure. But where the hell is the country going to get the money to do this? Keep in mind that so few Bolivians pay taxes. The February protests over the "impuestazo" were primarily over efforts of the goverment to get more than 20% (mostly only middle class and above pay taxes) of the population to actually pay taxes they're already supposed to pay. Most of the government's ministries and other bureaucracies are almost entirely funded by donations from the US & Canada, Europe, and Japan. So where's the government going to get the money to industrialize gas? Oh, how about by selling some and generating money.
And who leads these social movements? Well, it's a tug of war to win political capital among three groups/persons. The COB, a Trotskyite syndicalist movement (that refuses to recognize any trade unions that don't pledge allegiance to its directorate) that nearly bankrupted the country in the early 1980s. If you don't know, Bolivia suffered the highest hyperinflation in world record (far surpassing the interwar German hyperinflation). The COB's been on its last legs for a while, it can only mobilize protests but can't get any of its parties any votes for years. Essentially, they probably make up a total of perhaps 2-5% of the population (at most, in the last three elections they polled less than 1%) but can put those hundreds on the streets due to strong clientelist networks.
The other groups is the movement led by Felipe Quispe, known as "Mallku" (Aymara semi-equivalent of "Godfather"). Also having at most a support of 5% of the population (about what he won in the last election), he represents a powerful clientelist base of Aymara "caciques" (tribal chiefs) and can, essentially, force people out to blockade. Mallku's spoken of going to guerrilla war at times, and has been stubbornly unwilling to negotiate or compromise on any terms w/ any government. Essentially, he's an authoritarian sectarian leader w/ no pretensions to support a democratic process (his caciques use whips and threats of kerosene against those who don't march). Presently, campesinos in the Altiplano are fighting among themselves because most would rather not go on strike; they lose days (or months!) of wages of they can't deliver their crops to the only market they have, the cities (principally, La Paz). While the mostly lower to upper middle class citizens of La Paz can (somewhat) easily absorb the cost of a food shortage for at least several weeks. Prices for most products, remain stable.
The third, is Evo Morales, leader of MAS (Movement Toward Socialism), which is a movement, but not socialist. There's almost no ideological content to his party. Essentially, it represents the coca growers of the Chapare, whore emmeshed in the drug trade. While he portrays himself as a "man of the people" (and gets much love and recognition from international anti-globalization types), he drives a Mercedes, and has several nice houses, one just for his girlfriend in the Zona Sur. He also recently (in the midst of the crisis) flew to Lybia, supposedly to a conference on indigenous movements (a conference no one's heard of). Asked about the whereabouts of their leader, MAS deputies answered that he was in the Chapare giving some lectures. Until the government said, "interesting, because here we have the notice that he flew to Lybia two days ago." He paid $2,000 for his ticket (my aunt works at the travel agency he used, this was reported in all the newspapers), although he was quite put out that there was no first class ticket (costing $5,000), since he's used to traveling only first class. So much for a man of the people, eh?
So that's the reality of protest movements in the country. A small minority (certainly not the majority) protest when ordered out by their syndicalist leaders. They often don't really know why they're protesting, they only know that they must. Their leaders, their caciques told them to.
Posted by Miguel at 01:04 PM
Comments
One of my new roommates is a big "anti-WTO" protester. We talked a lot about it last night. He was pretty good at makinghis points, but it made me miss you and Bay.
Posted by: josh at September 30, 2003 08:37 AM
See, the irony of the anti-WTO, anti-globalization types is that they oppose the internationalization of capital, technology, ideas. But to fight it, they themselves join international groups that share capital, technology, and ideas. So they're just as much a part of the world's globalization as anyone else. The real opposite of globalization is nationalism (or perhaps, better, fascism).
Posted by: miguel at September 30, 2003 11:41 AM
that's amusing.
I heard similar cases abt protest movements in Indonesia. That many protestors are instigated and bribed to march by supporters of certain parties.
After those crazy riots during the asian financial crash some years ago, the protests are relatively tame. Shops are still open.
"So what when there're protests? Life goes on."
"These protestors go home after their 'job' is done."
"These fellows don't really know why they're marching" ...
That's the general attitude of most people in the capital.
Posted by: Steph at September 30, 2003 01:21 PM
It's the same here. They march frantically around for an hour or so, then rush to see who's handing out the vouchers they need to prove they marched. I wish people in the West were more aware of just how utterly unprincipled these protest marches are. The COB actually demanded a full workers strike nation-wide, including transit. No one listened to them. Sure, a thousand or so marched around noon. But outside the center of town (maybe an eight block radius), all the public transit still worked. Everyone went to work. There were about as many people marching as there were people on the sidewalks going to and fro their business and other dayly events. And that was just in the center of town! Business outside the Prado area just went about as normal, normal traffic, normal volume of business. No one gives a shit about the strikes except the COB directorate and their paid marchers.
Posted by: miguel at September 30, 2003 06:11 PM