Today Bolivia inauguerates its first indigenous president, Evo Morales, who is Aymara. The Aymara make up less than half of the indigenous majority in Bolivia; the Quechua are more numerous.
Yesterday I watched on TV as he was installed by the Aymara first, before the official government installation today. A crowd of tens of thousands of the Aymara people gathered at Tiahuonaka, an Inca holy site just south of La Paz. They believe that Tiahuonaka is a portal of the sun. They vested him with poncho and staff, and he wore a four-cornered hat to signify the four corners of the Inca empire. Such an installation has not happened in more than 500 years, since the Spanish occupation.
The family I live with is middle class with Spanish ancestors, but Lupe, the head of the household, supported Morales. Lupe explained to me that Bolivia has had 5 presidents in four years, and it seems that Morales was able to win over some of the middle class because they believe that something needs to change. Her family suffered at the hands of left-wing guerrillas, and so originally supported the right-wing dictatorship of a man whose name I cannot remember right now. She had a conversion after she left her husband and read about all the abuses of the government.
In speaking with others, it sounds like many in the middle class share her views. They are wary of Morales and his socialist ideas, but anything is better than what they have been enduring. In the last 5 years there have been several major uprisings over gas and water rights. However, I have noticed that the middle class seem to spend a lot of time worrying about how Morales dresses! They want him to wear suits and not sweaters.
In my little household live Lupe, divorced and in her fifties, her daughter, Gringa (more about that below), her daughter's two sons, Francisco (4) and Leonardo (7), Elena, the housekeeper, who is indigenous, but I don't know if she is Aymara or Quechua, and Rodrigo (13), Elena's grandson who is chief babysitter to the two boys. Elena's daughter, Elizabeth, and Elizabeth's two younger sons are also often at the house.
So what we have here are five grown women, including me, and five boys. Half of us have European ancestors and the other half are indigenous. None of the boys have a father in their lives. It seems that most middle class household retain servants who are indigenous. In most cases the servants go home at night and maintain a distance from the family. They do not eat at the same table, for example. In our case Elena and Rodrigo live with us and we all eat together and the boys all play together. However, in no way are Elena and Rodrigo equal to Lupe and her family. There is a hierarchy, and they are at the bottom.
Last Sunday I went to the cemetary with Lupe and her brother to visit their parents. They do this ritual every Sunday. At the gate to the cemetary stands a group of 20 or more indigenous people waiting for someone to buy flowers from them or hire them to clean up the gravesite. Lupe and her brother did both. They paid a girl a single Boliviano, about 15 cents, to sweep around the grave and pick up leaves by hand.
I was thinking that these are the same people who are desperately trying to get in to the U.S., but when they get there, they end up doing the same kinds of jobs. I think the difference must be that they get paid more in the U.S., and there is much more hope for the future of their children. Morales brings some hope that Bolivia's poorest, all indigenous, can find a sustainable future in Bolivia, because he promises to pursue policies that are in their interests.
I understand that the average salary in Cochabamba is around $200 per month, but that is for people who are working. Unemployment is high and jobs are scarce. There is a lot of begging, mostly women and children, and I have also seen many men passed out on the street from alcohol. They are just left there. There is also a problem with addiction to glue-sniffing, because there is a shoe factory and it is easy to get. This leads to a problem with homeless children, because their parents succomb to addiction.
Gringa, Lupe's daughter, sells overpriced and overrated vitamins to rich people and seems to do well. Lupe told me that the job requires long hours and travel, but that jobs are scarce, even for people with European ancestors, so she had to take what she could get. Gringa's real name is Luz Maria. They nicknamed her Gringa at birth because she has blue eyes, reddish hair, and fair skin. Gringa loves the name and will go by no other. In short, Gringa loves being white and chooses to advertise it as best she can. Her kids are also white. She is very right wing and wants nothing to do with Morales. Somehow, it seems to go with the whiteness!
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Sunday, January 8, 2006
Olive Trees, Russian Soldiers, and a Bulldozer
I went back to Palestine on Wednesday, and after the usual hours-long ordeal at the border while they checked and rechecked me, I got in. I spent Wednesday and Thursday in Hebron and went down to Tuwani on Friday. It seems that I cannot be in Tuwani without something happening. Or maybe it is just that something is always happening in Tuwani.
The service van--public transportation in Palestine--dropped us at the bottom of the hill coming down from Yatta. From there we had to cross the bypass road (route 317--open only to Jewish settlers) and walk up the hill to Tuwani. When we got out of the van we noticed a group of people crowded around an olive grove off to the left, before crossing the bypass road and across from the Maon settlement. When we got there we saw that all of the trees had been destroyed. The branches were cut off, leaving only the stumps. They were 102 olive trees planted in 1974. Israeli soldiers were already there when we arrived. CPTers called the police and the media, as well as other human rights groups.
One of my CPT colleagues told me that as she was approaching the devastation early that morning, she saw a group of settlers on the hill overlooking the grove, singing "Happy Days are Here Again." Palestinians told us that the night before the settlers were celebrating the demise of Sharon, and as part of the celebration they destroyed the trees. We learned from another human rights group that the police had found footprints leading from the destroyed grove into Ma'on settlement.
Palestinians tell us that the trees will produce again, but it will take five years, minimum. The trees provide a livelihood for an entire family of Palestinians.
Later that day children ran into our yard in Tuwani, saying that the army was there and they had a bulldozer. I didn't know the word for bulldozer but I understood the rest! In my last email about Tuwani I wrote about new roadblocks due to the murder of a settler in the area. When I returned this time Palestinians had opened all the roadblocks with tractors and shovels. You still have to drive over a big dirt bump, but the rocks were removed. This is important, because people from Tuwani and surrounding villages have to get to Yatta for work, school, food, and medical traetment. Some of them have cars that were bulldozed in by the closures. My admiration for the Palestinians grows as they persevere in this form of nonviolent resistence to clear violations of international human rights law.
Anyway, when we got to the bypass road, we saw Israeli soldiers bulldozing closed the openings that Palestinians had made. These openings enabled them to cross the bypass road and get to Yatta by vehicle (as opposed to donkey). Kristy and I filmed it and then started talking to the soldiers. All but one of them were Russians, so I had a long conversation in Russian with several of them. Really, Russian Jews ought to know about what it feels like to be oppressed. They also know what it means to be occupied, and what it means to be subject to massive human rights violations. But it didn't seem to bother these guys. They said they were only following orders and we should take it up with their commanders. I didn't say, because I was afraid of their very large machine guns, that soldiers serving under Nazi Germany said the same thing in the Nuremburg trials.
We explained that blocking the road prevented movement to work, hospitals, etc. They said that everyone from Yatta is a terrorist and they have to prevent them from killing Jewish civilians. We said that the Palestinians are civilians and that these actions of the Israeli army are creating more terrorism. They said that the lives of Jewish civilians are more important than disrupting the lives of Palestinians. They said they also wanted peace. I said that they don't treat Palestinians the same as they treat Jews, and that they will have peace when they treat Palestinians as their brothers and sisters. They laughed at me; they said that Palestinians are not their brothers and sisters. Only Jews are.
Then we pointed to the destroyed olive grove and asked why the soldiers had not been on patrol the night before, as they typically are. They said they knew nothing about it. We asked why, since the settlers had committed a crime, the army did not bulldoze closed the road into the settlement and destroy all their houses, as they do with Palestinian villages when one person is suspected of a crime. Suspected, not convicted. They replied that the olive trees are not important---the Palestinians don't need those trees because they all have 2 Mercedes. This in a village where most families struggle to put food on the table. In fact, most Palestinians struggle to put food on the table. But the soldiers claimed they know more about it than me.
It went on like that. They wanted us to take their pictures and put them on our website. They all knew who we were and the address of our website. They say they look at the pictures all the time and like to find themselves there. Later we checked out our website and sure enough, the albums with soldiers in them all have more than a thousand hits, whereas the others have only a few hundred.
I learned later that the army is planning to build a concrete wall along the bypass road, permanently separating the Tuwani side of the road from Yatta. It would destroy the communities on that side of the road, which is, I'm sure, what they want. The Ma'on settlement would then get the land by default. The Palestinians are fighting it in court.
I returned to Hebron yesterday morning. Getting back was an ordeal. Israeli soldiers had occupied a house in Kirmil, a village between Yatta and Tuwani, and were doing flying checkpoints on the road to Yatta. Also, a large checkpoint between Yatta and Hebron which is usually closed had been opened. So it took forever. It is the ordeal that Palestinians endure daily, just to survive.
The service van--public transportation in Palestine--dropped us at the bottom of the hill coming down from Yatta. From there we had to cross the bypass road (route 317--open only to Jewish settlers) and walk up the hill to Tuwani. When we got out of the van we noticed a group of people crowded around an olive grove off to the left, before crossing the bypass road and across from the Maon settlement. When we got there we saw that all of the trees had been destroyed. The branches were cut off, leaving only the stumps. They were 102 olive trees planted in 1974. Israeli soldiers were already there when we arrived. CPTers called the police and the media, as well as other human rights groups.
One of my CPT colleagues told me that as she was approaching the devastation early that morning, she saw a group of settlers on the hill overlooking the grove, singing "Happy Days are Here Again." Palestinians told us that the night before the settlers were celebrating the demise of Sharon, and as part of the celebration they destroyed the trees. We learned from another human rights group that the police had found footprints leading from the destroyed grove into Ma'on settlement.
Palestinians tell us that the trees will produce again, but it will take five years, minimum. The trees provide a livelihood for an entire family of Palestinians.
Later that day children ran into our yard in Tuwani, saying that the army was there and they had a bulldozer. I didn't know the word for bulldozer but I understood the rest! In my last email about Tuwani I wrote about new roadblocks due to the murder of a settler in the area. When I returned this time Palestinians had opened all the roadblocks with tractors and shovels. You still have to drive over a big dirt bump, but the rocks were removed. This is important, because people from Tuwani and surrounding villages have to get to Yatta for work, school, food, and medical traetment. Some of them have cars that were bulldozed in by the closures. My admiration for the Palestinians grows as they persevere in this form of nonviolent resistence to clear violations of international human rights law.
Anyway, when we got to the bypass road, we saw Israeli soldiers bulldozing closed the openings that Palestinians had made. These openings enabled them to cross the bypass road and get to Yatta by vehicle (as opposed to donkey). Kristy and I filmed it and then started talking to the soldiers. All but one of them were Russians, so I had a long conversation in Russian with several of them. Really, Russian Jews ought to know about what it feels like to be oppressed. They also know what it means to be occupied, and what it means to be subject to massive human rights violations. But it didn't seem to bother these guys. They said they were only following orders and we should take it up with their commanders. I didn't say, because I was afraid of their very large machine guns, that soldiers serving under Nazi Germany said the same thing in the Nuremburg trials.
We explained that blocking the road prevented movement to work, hospitals, etc. They said that everyone from Yatta is a terrorist and they have to prevent them from killing Jewish civilians. We said that the Palestinians are civilians and that these actions of the Israeli army are creating more terrorism. They said that the lives of Jewish civilians are more important than disrupting the lives of Palestinians. They said they also wanted peace. I said that they don't treat Palestinians the same as they treat Jews, and that they will have peace when they treat Palestinians as their brothers and sisters. They laughed at me; they said that Palestinians are not their brothers and sisters. Only Jews are.
Then we pointed to the destroyed olive grove and asked why the soldiers had not been on patrol the night before, as they typically are. They said they knew nothing about it. We asked why, since the settlers had committed a crime, the army did not bulldoze closed the road into the settlement and destroy all their houses, as they do with Palestinian villages when one person is suspected of a crime. Suspected, not convicted. They replied that the olive trees are not important---the Palestinians don't need those trees because they all have 2 Mercedes. This in a village where most families struggle to put food on the table. In fact, most Palestinians struggle to put food on the table. But the soldiers claimed they know more about it than me.
It went on like that. They wanted us to take their pictures and put them on our website. They all knew who we were and the address of our website. They say they look at the pictures all the time and like to find themselves there. Later we checked out our website and sure enough, the albums with soldiers in them all have more than a thousand hits, whereas the others have only a few hundred.
I learned later that the army is planning to build a concrete wall along the bypass road, permanently separating the Tuwani side of the road from Yatta. It would destroy the communities on that side of the road, which is, I'm sure, what they want. The Ma'on settlement would then get the land by default. The Palestinians are fighting it in court.
I returned to Hebron yesterday morning. Getting back was an ordeal. Israeli soldiers had occupied a house in Kirmil, a village between Yatta and Tuwani, and were doing flying checkpoints on the road to Yatta. Also, a large checkpoint between Yatta and Hebron which is usually closed had been opened. So it took forever. It is the ordeal that Palestinians endure daily, just to survive.
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