Bolivia: a Friendly Model for the 21st century

In very recent years Bolivia, largely due to the leadership of Evo Morales, has accomplished a social and political revolution. The old parties that ruled the nation through the past century are now defunct. They were dominated by elite of European extraction, by neoliberal entrepreneurs, and by the military. The new political parties are dominated by indigenous peoples who were marginalized and oppressed for five centuries. 75 percent of Bolivian citizens are indigenous people. They have not only won two national elections and two important referendums, but they have also enacted a new constitution, nationalized mineral resources, strengthened trade relations with neighboring countries, transitioned from being a debtor to a creditor nation, balanced the budget, increased the GDP, raised educational standards, begun the arduous process of land reform, adopted a progressive environmental policy, and instituted a monthly bonus to older people. That’s quite an impressive panoply of achievements!

These developments have not pleased US authorities, who publicly warned in 2002 that the election of Evo Morales would create difficulties in US-Bolivian relations. The US worked with the old conservative political forces, coddled the neoliberal business elements, and nurtured military connections at the School of the Americas. Following the election of Evo Morales in 2005 the US persisted in trying to thwart him. As a result, Bolivia expelled the US ambassador as well as the Peace Corps and agents of the DEA. With neither side backing down or apologizing, relations between the US and Bolivia remained antagonistic for years, dramatized by Evo Morales flaunting a coca leaf during his UN speech in 2010. In the middle of 2011 there was finally an agreement to resume the exchange of ambassadors.

The Bolivian revolution fits better with Quaker ideals than with US policy. It does so in two ways. On one hand, the achievements accord with our ideals of freedom, equality, and relieving misery. On the other hand, the process has depended on an avoidance of violence, little or no dependence on armed force, emphasis on service rather than greed, and increasing focus on education.

Evo Morales Ayma came from a peasant family high in the Andes, the first fully indigenous person to become President of any nation in South America. He is Aymara, like most of the Quakers in Bolivia. The hardship of the family can be quickly portrayed by noting the four of his siblings died before the age of two. His persistence and his relentless toil seem motivated by justice rather than greed. On his first day in office in January 2006, President Morales issued an Austerity Decree which cut his own salary by 45%, and this act alone makes him singular among politicians and worthy of a closer look by Quakers. He also came to power through support of unions and a peasant movement, with no dependence at all upon the armed forces.

Lumping Bolivia with Cuba and Venezuela in the US press has created a deplorable distortion, since both Chavez and Castro depended from the beginning on armed forces. We propose to bring the ideas and tactics of Evo Morales and the achievements of Bolivia to the attention of Friends. We will trace the events leading to Morales’s election in 2005, his response to various attempts to unseat him, the adoption of the new constitution in 2010, and the present situation. At various points along the way we will break into small groups to consider the tactics and strategy of his response to provocations, and to consider how they compare with Quaker policies and principles.

At the same time as Morales brought social and economic progress to his nation, the Quakers, and the Quaker schools in particular, came under increased pressure. Whereas there were about three dozen Quaker schools in 1991, there are only three left by 2011. It is not that Evo Morales is closing the Quaker schools. The truth is that he asks that private schools offer a better education to the students (good teachers, good infrastructure, good administration). The current situation of Quaker schools is that, unfortunately, they do not have the money to improve, or even to maintain, their schools.

On the other hand, there are far more young Friends attending university or professional institutes, so that the educational level of Friends has been vastly improved, despite the closing of many of the Quaker schools. And such a distinctly Quaker program as AVP (the Alternatives to Violence Project) is flourishing among Bolivian Friends. On the final day of the workshop we will look in more detail at how the revolution affects Friends.

The plan for the workshop over five days is as follows:
-Monday: Evo Morales’s rise to power, 2002-2006.
-Tuesday: Morales’s policies: Nationalization of mineral resources, enacting a new constitution, helping the poor to live well, strengthening education and health care, and i-mproving the economy.
Wednesday: Attempts to thwart or unseat Morales, 2006-2010.
-Thursday: Bolivia’s, economic, international and environmental policies.
-Friday: Bolivian Quakers and Bolivian Quaker education. The Quaker missionaries in residence in Bolivia from 1919 to 2002 were mostly from the US and all had European ancestry, whereas the Bolivian Quakers themselves (30,000 strong) are indigenous, mostly Aymara, and are among those oppressed and enslaved by the European elite for five centuries. How can we best bridge these differences?
Each day we will begin with worship. We will then hand out a sheet with the facts pertinent to the topic of the day. We will continue with a presentation by one or both of the facilitators, after which we will break into small groups for discussion. Following a break, we will gather for a general discussion and wrap-up.

Recommended Reading:
-Herbert S. Klein, A Concise History of Bolivia, Cambridge University Press, 2003. Klein is reliable and apolitical. The final two chapters are the most important ones for understanding the events we discuss in the workshop.
-Evo Morales, The Earth Does Not Belong to Us, We Belong to the Earth, Ministry of Exterior Relations (La Paz), 2011. This collection of messages, delivered by Morales between 2006 and 2010, deals mainly with environmental policy, trade policy, and relations with the US.
-Margaret Joan Anstee, Gate of the Sun, Longman, 1970. Anstee spent the first six or seven years of her distinguished UN career in Bolivia, and the book is a memoir of her love of the country. It sets broad background for our workshop, but predates the recent events. Anstee’s later books are also worth reading, although (except the latest) they focus less on Bolivia.
-William Powers, Whispering in the Giant’s Ear, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2006. The work defies classification, but it is well worth reading. You will learn a good deal about Amazon timber harvesting, but also about a strong leader in the Paragua community in eastern Bolivia, who in the end opt for eco-tourism rather than timber sales.
-Newton Garver, Limits To Power, Center Working Papers (SUNY/Buffalo), 2007. Ten of the papers deal with Bolivia since 2003. Some of Garver’s later reports can be found at BuffaloReport.com or at his website, newtongarver.com. The URL for the one on the elections of 2010 is: http://newtongarver.com/?q=node/20.
-Jim Schultz and Melissa Crane Draper, Dignity and Defiance, University of California Press, 2008. Jim Schultz is well-known for publicizing the “Water Wars” of 2000 in Cochabamba. The stories are marginal to our workshop but provide background on another corner of Bolivia and another way of thinking.

Who we are:
-Emma Condori-Mamani was the last of 12 children in a Quaker family in the town of Batallas, on the shores of Lake Titicaca. Her mother tongue is Aymara. She completed her primary and secondary education at the Quaker school in Batallas (now closed), and her degree in linguistics at the national university, Universidad Mayor de San Andres. She has participated in different national and international Quaker Youth projects. She is now just finishing a Masters of Divinity at ESR, the first Bolivian Quaker to do so. She is also the first Bolivian Quaker to co-lead a Gathering workshop.
-Newton Garver retired a dozen years ago from a middling academic career in philosophy, mostly at the State University of New York at Buffalo, where he was born. Besides his academic work, he has been a relatively active Quaker, beginning with his draft refusal in 1948. Since 2002 he has been President of the Bolivian Quaker Education Fund. Besides publishing two Pendle Hill pamphlets, he directed a Gathering workshop in 2007. More information is on his website, www.newtongarver.com.