Protests in the Unknown Continent (Central America and Caribbean Included)
Although La Paz and Bolivia in general seems to have the most, I have seen protests in Mexico, Ecuador, Peru and Argentina and I am sure they happen regularly in every Latin American country except Cuba. I like the protests… as long as they don’t throw rocks or get violent in any other way. Most of them are very peaceful and I think the police usually agree with the protesters even if they have to act tough on the sidelines. The only protests that I have seen police take action is Oaxaca and Quito (protesters “stormed” the presidential building).
Today’s protest in Cusco was a perfect model. It involved thousands of citizens from dignitaries in suits and dresses to public workers in uniforms to children in school outifts. The president of Peru has decided that Machupicchu and the other national monuments should be privatized. I can’t think of any reason why they would do that other than to maybe line some pockets with corruption money. It would be like the US turning over all the national parks to a private company. Fire all of the park rangers. I wonder if even Bush has come up with this idea yet? So everyone here is against it and I do mean that it is probably close to 100% because it affects Cusco area so much and it is just a stupid idea. There was a nice parade around town with many different groups holding banners (many of which were in English, I suppose for all of us gringos to understand what is going on) and they all lined up around the Plaza de Armas. The police remained to the side in the obligatory riot gear, but they knew this was not a riot situation. In fact, a group of police followed the parade and they even looked like they were part of it. I’m sure in their hearts they were. This was the best demonstration I have seen because it was so diverse and so united.
There is a long history of protest in Latin America and it is usually for good human reasons such as poverty, corruption, poor treatment, human rights, etc. The history also has a lot of violence. I am reading a trilogy of books called Memory of Fire by Eduardo Galeano. I am horrified by what I am reading about what was done in Latin America by the colonizers and the Catholic Church. The brutality, greed and other criminal/unjust activity is agonizing. While the Europeans are guilty early on, I am sure there will be damning stories about the US when I get into the second and third books. I highly recommend that you add these books to your list because I think we are all suffering from lack of information about Latin American history.
I’ve been calling it the Unknown Continent the more I learn about this part of the world and the more I try to understand why so much of it is not taught in our Euro-North American concentric lessons. This place is certainly a lot more interesting than North American history and culture and I have told European travelers that it is more interesting than their history and cultures starting in 1492. They give me funny looks. They are just ignorant… same as me. In fact, there is really very little history in Europe between 1492 and the early 1800s that is not tied directly to Latin America. All the money Europe accumulated basically came from the rape of Latin America and slave trade to support that rape. Oh, doesn’t that hurt! Let’s see, Europe and the Church raped Latin America repeatedly for centuries and then America came along and installed thugs to control the people and keep communism out. I’m sorry if this Church business offends you, but read the first book of the Memory of Fire trilogy and then we can discuss if you still disagree. And I bet the second book (1700 – 1900) only gets worse…
I have to ask why we are taught almost nothing about Latin America and I am quite clear about the answer after working on it since Mexico. First, NA/Europe is embarrassed by this history. Second, just pure racism. We (that’s a collective WE) think we are better and Latin America is lowly. Indigenous folks are stupid and everyone else is just a hot-headed half-breed although they are damn good at playing football. No reason to learn anything about them and certainly no reason to see our history as something based on the big rape. Not too different with the story on Africa. We really are quite ignorant and arrogant! I have not looked into how much Latin America learns about North American and European history, but I hope it isn’t just through their rape history. They seem to like us so they must see more than that or they can live and forgive or forget like Africans. I probably should have asked about this.
Tags: peru, south america, Travel
vagabondrick
Leave a Reply