Bolivia has always been a segregated society. The mestizo descendants of the conquistadors that raped the land and destroyed the civilization and culture of the indigenous people have controlled the fruits of agriculture, industry and commerce in the country, for half a millennium. The native Aymara have been denied the right to petition the courts for justice, the right to own land, the vote and access to public education or health care. They are used as slave labor in the fields, mines, forests, fisheries and factories, then paid in raw grain alcohol, instead of the meager wages owed them, with which they might feed their families. Great life.
During all this time, the Catholic priests stood idly by, ministering to the souls of the mestizos and spending leisurely sabbaticals in Spain and Italy.
Now that the Aymara are taking possession of what was rightfully theirs these last 500 years, the Church cautions them to civility and seeks to send them back into slavery with lame parables about how the last shall be first.
1 comment:
Many countries are looking at resource nationalism ala Venezuela.
Bolivia is one of those countries.
Mongolia was going to tax the crap out of mining companies who found a huge deposit of copper and gold when they realized that the mine wouldn't be worked without some big mining co. owning part of the mine.
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