Weirdness is going down in Bolivia this weekend. If you haven’t been paying attention, the rich white folk in the rich white state of Santa Cruz are holding a referendum on Sunday to declare “autonomy” from the majority redskins. And while the sponsors are a bunch of scary racists, they wrap their arguments up with declarations of economic efficiency and “states rights.” Sound familiar? Anyway today AP runs a story that barely bothers with the niceties. It begins:
The wealthy white governor stood beneath a giant statue of Jesus and promised freedom to the tens of thousands cheering him on — freedom from a llama herder-turned-president who reveres the Indian earth goddess Pachamama.Classy. And then the autonomy people say all kinds of funny crackery shit and then the reporter asks them about 500 years of state-sponsored oppression of the Indians and they reply:
"We in this region are positive about the conquest," said Luis Nunez, the group's vice president. "We do not in any way resent what that history meant for us. It reflects who we are now."Boy, does it. Freakily, IPS today writes about exactly what “who they are now,” means, reporting on “a phenomenon that had remained largely hidden and ignored until now” Namely…you saw this coming…slavery. Apparently hundreds of Indian families are held in states of “forced servitude” by prominent Santa Cruz landowners, which is what they are talking about when they say “autonomy” and “states rights” and I want to go lie down now and weep. Happy Friday!
