Political Participation, Bolivian Style

Missing Super Tuesday and the Washington State Caucuses made me a little sad. Instead, I've been participating in Bolivian politics, which is almost better. Besides, Barack didn't need my vote.

Political participation here borders on pathological. Everyone, from taxistas to campesinos, priests to professors, is endlessly discussing Evo, the constituent assembly and the Santa Cruz autonomy movement. While Bolivians love to talk politics, but they're even more disposed to participate, as the 2000 Water War , the 2003 Gas War and the current conflict aptly illustrate. While the protests are striking, they're actually less impressive than the local popular participation.

Bolivians are very well organized, out of necessity. Historically, indigenous communities were organized into kinship-based ayllus, and all land was held and labored communally. After the republican revolution labor unions played an important roles providing for families and protesting for change. The 1994 Ley de Participation Popular formally decentralized planning power, transferring 20% of the government budget to over 15,000 Organizaciones Teritoriales de Base. Still, in the outlying urban and rural regions, if you want something done, you need to do it yourself. Neighborhood groups dig ditches for pipe, put up light posts and pave their own streets.

Attendance at the weekly block meetings is mandatory. Absentees are fined about $1.50, a day or half-day’s pay for poorer people. Most meetings start at 7am on Sunday mornings. In many communities they're held in the street, rain or shine. There are also emergency meetings, summoned with gunshots. We don't have to go to our block meetings because we rent. Instead, I go to the block meetings in our informant barrios. At the meetings, they organize community events and work projects. When they have more pressing issues they appeal to the president in personal letters. If that fails they plan protests, often storming the municipal buildings a thousand strong.

The meetings can become somewhat militant. In one of our communities there’s been a clash over leadership. They had a vote of no-confidence and kicked out their dirigente, but they’ve been unable to elect a new one. They’ve been discussing it for weeks now. Most meetings degenerate into arguments in Quechua and one evening fistfights even broke out between rival factions. Ironically, the factions are almost idegoligically identical. Most everyone in our barrios are MASistas, or Morales supporters. Some of them also identify themselves as Trotskyites or Anarcho-Syndicalists. They refer to me as Compañera Allison, the equivalent of Comrade Allison, which amuses me to no end.

This mural was painted by the Marxist Front of Universidad Mayor San Simon, a lovely reminder that we are living in a revolution.