On things not being what they seem, and then not again.
My three weeks in Bolivia ended up being a formative exercise in deconstructing the official news media, or what realpolitik might mean, or how to write (and not write) killing in a way that mourns every death; knowing how some murders are valued, contested, registered more than others, that mourning is intertwined with justice.
When I arrived in La Paz, The News told me that there was fighting in the streets of Sucre where the constitutional assembly was meeting. The government moved the assembly to the military base out of town, and then three people were killed, apparently by the police at the direction of the government. Being, as I am bound, to consider the authoritarian aspects of a socialist government represented by first world activists as an egalitarian utopia, I resignedly assumed that MAS was taking that familiar road of reform through violence. When I got to Cochabamba I was provided with some alternative news sources and I realized - apart from the silliness of thinking I could know a situation from a few days and a few dailies - just how much I had failed to consider the complicated picture that I was being presented with as though it was simple, and the reality that is bred by the fact that MAS, and any state goverment wanting to run itself against the neoliberal capitalist model, against a 500+ year legacy of colonization, against crippling oligarchies and stupendous social inequalities, faces a campaign begun from well below the underdog’s position. And when that position not only gains credence but real administrative power, those who have benefited from this previous set-up will use all of their ample means to prevent it from being taken away. So they can rightly say that ‘Evo Assesino’ killed three innocent members of el pueblo who were just fighting against authoritarianism. These terrible deaths (not the result of bullets fired by state police, but of crossfires much more confusing and insidious) became the collateral for those being threatened with the loss of their power to say there is no democracy in Bolivia, to say that pro-democracy protesters are being murdered by the state, that democratically elected local governments are being destroyed and that is why the international referees of democracy should step in before a socialist dictatorship is established in Bolivia. I got the shivers watching the news the night before I left Santa Cruz, seeing the prefects roll into Washington seeking US support. More than one activist in Cochabamba noted a few similarities between this moment in Bolivia and that before the 1973 coup in Chile.
Power will do what it can to maintain itself, including making itself appear vulnerable and threatened. And all the while knuckles are cracking in Santa Cruz mansions (pictured) as strategy is discussed, the shiny 4 wheel drives line up outside the plaza where their ‘oppressed’ drivers are ‘on strike’, and kids crowd around me with feisty, famished eyes and ask me to buy them lunch.
have you thought about writing this up for new matilda? you SHOULD!
Comment by charlie — 12/13/2007 @ 3:12 pm
Thanks C-dude. But really…? Isn’t it a bit un-Matilda in content?
Comment by ana — 12/13/2007 @ 10:33 pm
No I don’t think so– it’s all about how you frame the story with them. They publish me and Alecia…write to Rachel Hills. I just think it’s a crucial story to get out more, and they’ll like the fact that you were there!
Comment by charlie — 12/14/2007 @ 2:53 am
Yes, I see what you mean …
But I have 3 issues.
(1) is that I am wary of being yet another foreign writer/activist who accrues cultural capital from ‘eyewitness’ stories of conflict and poverty ‘In The Third World’
(2) I might not be so wary of this if I could write with some detailed knowledge of the situation in Bolivia (such as Luiz Gonzalez or Nick Buxton, referenced above), and,
(3) I like the stuff that New Matilda publishes (like yours and Alecia’s of course) but I’m not sure I agree with their mission … the idea of coming up with a ‘different tune’ about, er, ‘Matilda’ is so tied up in the settler mythology of the Australian nation, and I’m not sure that talk of a different/better *nation* is going to address the things that need to be different/better in Australia - in this ere land it seems to me that ‘the nation’ has always, only, been a way of destroying indigenous sovereignties and indigenous peoples for a start.
Or maybe I should write something about that ;-)
Comment by ana — 12/14/2007 @ 7:07 am
Actually I have another Issue, come to think of it.
Which is that this blog is not a training ground for more officially sanctioned forms of publication ;-)
Comment by ana — 12/14/2007 @ 7:09 am
agree with all three points.
BUT
1/ national journalism sites do reproduce an us them thing. ultimately, though, i’m neutral about medium if you have an important message which you think can be framed in a certain way so as to both make your point and motivate an audience. maybe that’s the machievellian in me ;)
no i think the observer position is important here. also because i think that your own insertion into the story really makes it interesting. how do we understand others struggles? is bolivia plebicitory populism– as some allege– or social struggle.
i think your article gets across dilemmas of the anti-authoritarian left well, in approaching this issue. i often feel torn when talking to orthodox socialist chavistas, on the one hand, and formal liberal democrats on the other. how do i encapsulate what i feel about this region? your take is really nuanced; i appreciated it.
i think in this case, the language barrier to most people reading about the story. you could even represent translate testimonios in the form of a broader narrative. your knowledge is better than most msm parachutist journalists. obviously not as good as bolivia watchers, but most australians won’t go to their sites, because they don’t even know about the story at all.
hence: if we can, we have to educate our nation-state/ language enclosed publics. that’s the organic intellectual moment.
3/ sure, which is one of the implicit subtexts of alecia’s article in nm today. on the iconography of the site, i agree completely. radical nationalism aka russell ward/ mungo mccallum. urgh. doesn’t stop me writing for them, because i write what i want (plus the whole essay thing is fun, and a diversion from academic writing).
4/ yes i agree. ‘the new york times is just a fancy blog’ as gawker says. now if your blog had the readership of gawker (or, i dunno, z-net) i’d go, hooray!
urgh, back to hegel!
Comment by charlie — 12/14/2007 @ 2:14 pm
Oh Charlie, but I’m so not interested in ‘educating’ or in any kind of vanguard intellectual model! Though I agree it’s important that people in our immediate world get alternative versions of events - particularly because news about the Latin American Left ™ in said world is usually so distorted*. But, where and how that might take place is a very open question for me at the moment.
I am really glad you liked the post and thanks for the feedback! I’m about to put up another one about Brazilian goings-on as it happens…
*On that note, you might like the analysis of the referendum in Venezuela on Long Sunday if you haven’t seen it?
Comment by ana — 12/15/2007 @ 3:29 am
If you’re not interested in Educating, what are in you in “Higher Education” for? No seriously, I think if we are not to be technicians (c.f. ‘Creative Futures’ or whatever Terry Flew and the majority of CS people are into) OR all-purpose propagandists for our own culture (c.f. the Lionel Trilling, neo-con tradition of the intellectual), we have to be at least a lil’ bit organic intellectual.
Secondly, I think the organic intellectual moment undercuts a lot of what Habermasarians call the ‘complexity’ of modernity, which they use to justify the use of Strategic Instumental Reason in certain areas (inc. say the economy; also international relations etc). The way I read ‘O-I’, and its been a while since I’ve read the Gramsci, says: ‘non-legitimate knowledges across different areas of specialty can develop and talk to each other’. i read the long sunday article and i will continue to read this blog. but i don’t have time to research this area. and i do want to be informed (or evaluate a claim adequately, if not rationally, if we are to be quasi-Habermasarian for a minute), before I speak about something.
Urgh, too much Crit Theory.
Comment by charlie — 12/15/2007 @ 5:21 am
I think it is me that is meant to be being Educated in my Higher Education Institution, isn’t it?! Though I do accept their money to Educate my underlings from time to time.
And well, perhaps any organic intellectual pedagogicalness that I may put out can just stop here at this blog. If people want to know about things that I can pass some comment on, what’s to stop them from coming here - Matilda readers have both you and google at their fingertips!
And come now, there’s no such thing as too much Crit Theory, surely ;-)
Comment by ana — 12/16/2007 @ 6:56 am
There is too much Critical Theory– Axel Honneth AND later Habermas ;)
Comment by charlie — 12/22/2007 @ 3:09 am
Actually mostly all Habermas.
Comment by charlie — 12/22/2007 @ 3:10 am