By Atilio Boron on October 17, 2019
This coming Sunday the people of Bolivia will have to make a momentous decision that exceeds the meaning of a presidential election. Without detracting from its value, what is at stake is a historic option, a challenge for the nations that constitute the Plurinational State: to consolidate the formidable advances made during the presidency of Evo Morales, who turned the once backward and stagnant Bolivian economy into the most dynamic in Latin America, or to choose a melancholic return to the past.
Arnold Toynbee was right when he said that the evolution of societies (and civilizations, as the case may be) depended on the response they were able to give to the great challenges that confront them. And the question facing the nations of Bolivia today, gathered in the Plurinational State, is whether they have the wisdom and the courage to continue along the path that turned that country into the most luminous example of integral progress in society, not only in the sphere of economic life, but also in the political and cultural spheres; or if, responding to ancestral prejudices or atavistic fears, they are cowed by the dimension of the profound transformations that took place in the country and retreat, seeking refuge in a shrouded past that is remembered and idealized by the media oligarchy. And not only that: they are also responsible for hiding the true social and economic holocaust that the return of their former governors and their worn-out policies would produce in Bolivia. It is enough to take a look at the Argentine or Ecuadorian tragedy to persuade the population that the return to the neoliberal hegemony that Bolivia suffered for decades would be a catastrophe of immeasurable proportions, beyond an unforgivable error.
The media, the spearhead of the empire, are concealing reality because in that “prehistory” of Bolivia there was the chronic poverty of the enormous majority of the population, the contempt and mistreatment of the original peoples and the poor in general, the absolute weakness of a State incapable of even paying its civil servants, the powerlessness of the people against the rapacity of the local oligarchies and imperialism, the plundering of their common goods, the forced migration of millions in search of a better life and the ferocity with which the governments of the day repressed those who fought for a dignified life.
This evil exercise of fomenting forgetfulness, of sweetening and minimizing the sufferings of the past, is a tactic aimed at numbing consciences and fomenting the mistrust or fear produced by the positive evolution experienced by Bolivia from 2006 onwards. It was a transformation that modified archaic social relations, put an end to the subjugation and humiliation of native nations, eliminated illiteracy, lifted millions of people out of poverty, significantly redistributed wealth, expanded education and public health, and recovered natural wealth for its people. And it put an end to the seemingly incurable curse of political instability with its aftermath of repressive violence and economic stagnation. These positive mutations were even recognized by people and institutions not particularly predisposed to community socialism, such as the Financial Times, for example. This British newspaper published in its October 27, 2015 edition a voluminous Bolivia”, which said, among other things, that given the exceptional importance of lithium in new information and communication technologies this country could well be the Saudi Arabia of the 21st century.supplement dedicated to “The New” Bolivia”, which said, among other things, that given the exceptional importance of lithium in new information and communication technologies this country could well be the Saudi Arabia of the 21st century.
It goes without saying that changes of this magnitude modify sclerotized relations of force and that is why the opposition to Evo, in a desperate effort, appeals to any recourse in order to return to the past. They have enormous resources for this: money, banks, companies, the support of “the embassy”, media with which they can defame and lie with total impunity. But have the Bolivian people forgotten the massacres that took place under the government of Sánchez de Lozada, or those that fell during the heroic “gas wars” and “water wars”? I don’t think so. It is difficult to cover the sun with a finger. A few days ago I was able to see the lively and vibrant character of civil society in Bolivia. I am sure that in the face of Toynbee’s challenge they will choose to continue advancing along the path charted by Evo and the social movements instead of falling into the illusion of believing that the formula that failed so many times in the past (those used by Sánchez de Lozada, Banzer, Quiroga, Mesa) would be successful if it were applied again.
Source: Alba, translation, International 360