“Our model is not communist, but community based”

By Michelle Amaral da Silva — last modified 2009-07-13 14:15

Fernando Huanacuni, one of the most important Aymara intellectual references in Bolivia, defends that the foundation for the process of change in the country is structured around the return to their original culture.

13/07/2009

Vinicius Mansur

Correspondent in La Paz (Bolivia)

 

The current Bolivian political process has undoubtedly attracted the attention of the Brazilian left. The high level of protagonism from popular movements in national politics and the fact that the country elected an indigenous President, the fierce confrontations with a racist elite – which renders a state coup a plausible possibility – their international struggles to assure sovereignty over their natural resources, the strong presence  of the ethnic component as the motto for mobilizations, the changes in the Constitution of a country that now defines itself  as a Plurinational State, among other elements, attract attention to Bolivia, giving it credentials  as the main political  laboratory now.

 

The originality of the process however makes it difficult to understand, from classical analysis. If it is difficult to systematize the diversity of organizations facing large capitalists in the country, imagine the task of understanding the project behind each and every one of them. If we focus on the indigenous movement alone, leaving aside other popular movements, trade unionism and party organizations, we will see a massive plural organization, composed by cultures born at least five thousand years before western thought. (Bolivian plurinationalism recognizes 36 original peoples). The interview with the Aymara intellectual Fernando Huanacuni, is a sample of the Bolivian political mosaic.