‘In the Andean region, abides since time immemorial the Aymara Indian, aloof and savage like a beast from the forest, given to his gentile rituals and to farm that sterile land in which, without doubts, his race will soon disappear’[1] (Alcides Arguedas)
This is how in 1910, one of the most important figures of the Bolivian intellectual elite, decreed the end of the Aymara people, and of all the indigenous people of
Alcides Arguedas’ arrogance is reflected on and lives within many of today’s white and mestizo attitudes towards President Evo Morales, and the processes of political, social and cultural transformation that
Indigenous civilizations have not, as Arguedas predicted, disappeared. Their cultures have not become extinct. In fact, the opposite is occurring. Indigenous people are slowly gaining power, and step by step, they are reconstructing and postulating their ways of understanding, feeling and knowing reality. Soon, in a few years, we will see alternatives to western civilization, alternatives that have always existed, but have never been able to show us their identity, their perspective, their reality, in a word, their philosophy.
In 1973, a group of young indigenous leaders gathered at Ayo Ayo, a rural community in the highlands of
‘A nation that oppresses other nations, cannot be free… Us, the Aymara and Quechua peasants, and the other autochthonous cultures of the country, have agreed on something. We feel economically exploited, and culturally and politically oppressed. In
The changes we are seeing in
Today
The upper classes claim that the government neglects their demands for dialogue and negotiations. But they do not look at their own attitudes. They are the ones who refuse to negotiate. They refuse to give up their class privileges. They refuse to understand that
[1] Alcides Arguedas’ Pueblo Enfermo. La Paz: Ediciones Isla. [1909 1st ed., 1936 3rd ed.] 1979, pp. 39. Arguedas and Franz Tamayo, were the most important thinkers of the early 20th century. They both debated over the Indian issue at the beginning of the century, and their influence was to have long lasting effects. For Arguedas, the Indian race was destined to disappear because of its inferior nature, he believed that the country was a sick country because it was populated by a majority of Indians whose natural meaningless culture kept the country behind other Latin American countries in the march towards progress, it could be argued that he was a social Darwinist, in the 3rd edition of his essay Pueblo Enfermo (A Sick People), he even cites Hitler to justify his segregationist views. Tamayo on the other hand believes that Indian people could become civilized, in his most important essay Creación de la Pedagogía Nacional, he praises the Indian race for its strength and argues that its endurance in the course of history shows its racial superiority, ‘the Aymara race will become one of the prominent races of the world’, this also shows the social Darwinist influences of the period. Nonetheless even though Tamayo acknowledges the vitality, and energetic strength of the Indian, he argues that they lack the faculty to think like a westerner. It should be noted that Tamayo, a great poet and political thinker, had an Aymara mother and possibly an Aymara father, although he was adopted and raised by a very wealthy aristocrat. Tamayo, Franz. Creación de la Pedagogía Nacional. La Paz: Ministerio de Educación, [1910] 1944, pp. 110-123.
[2] Saenz, Mario. The Identity of Liberation in Latin American Thought.
[3] Manifiesto de Tiwanaku. 1973. There are probably no English translations of it, and it is very difficult to find one, even in Spanish. The author of this post, will try to translate the whole Manifesto, and post it here on a later date.
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