Bolivia's Budding Cult of Evo

The Republic of Bolivia boasts a new national monument: the childhood home of Evo Morales, the country's new president.

In July, reports the Bolivian newspaper La Razon, Morales issued presidential decree No. 28807, declaring his hometown of Orinoca a "National Historical Heritage" site and turning the house where he was born into a "Historic Monument."

The decree, approved by the president and his cabinet without input by the national legislature, directs the Ministry of Culture to allocate government funds toward maintenance of the home, and to build an "interactive museum" chronicling Morales's life up until his election victory last December.

Then in August the Bolivian postal service issued not just one, but three postage stamps bearing the president's image. According to the daily El Deber, one stamp shows Morales wearing the ceremonial presidential sash, a common symbol of authority in Latin American countries.

Another stamp shows Morales, an Aymara Indian, attired in traditional native dress and holding the baston de mando (staff of command), another customary emblem of power south of the border. In the third stamp, Evo is seen smiling and waving to his people.

As the country's first president of Indian heritage, Morales is a significant figure in Bolivian history. But will he prove to be a great statesman, one worthy of museums? Popular politicians sometimes have a way of disgracing themselves. It's way too soon to start building monuments.

Morales asserts, in ostensible modesty, that the measures are intended simply to render tribute to Bolivia's ascendant indigenous movement. One wonders, however, why then Evo's birthplace and Evo's image, in particular, were chosen. Surely there are other places and other events in Native Bolivian history or culture that are worth memorializing. There may be more at work here than Indian pride.

Evo Morales
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales

Juan Evo Morales Ayma (born October 26, 1959 in Orinoca, Oruro), popularly known as Evo, is the President of Bolivia, and has claimed to be the country's first indigenous head of state since the Spanish Conquest over 470 years ago.

Morales is the leader of Bolivia's cocalero movement Â¨C a loose federation of coca leaf-growing campesinos who are resisting the efforts of the United States government to eradicate coca in the province of Chapare in southeastern Bolivia. Morales is also leader of the Movement for Socialism political party (Movimiento al Socialismo, with the Spanish acronym MAS, meaning "more"), which was involved in the recent Gas Wars, along with many other groups, commonly referred to as 'social movements'.

In the 2002 presidential election, Morales came in second place, a surprising upset for Bolivia's traditional parties. This made the indigenous activist an instant celebrity throughout the continent. Morales credited his near victory in part to inflammatory comments made against him by then U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia Manuel Rocha, saying they helped to "awaken the conscience of the people". Morales was finally elected president during the 2005 election, after several crises due to the gas industry issues over all the known corrupt professional politicians.

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Morales declared, "MAS is ready to rule Bolivia", having "consolidated its position as the [prime] political force in the country". He also said, "the problem is not winning the elections anymore but knowing how to rule the country."[1]

Preliminary polls placed Morales and the Movement Toward Socialism in an uncomfortable three-way tie with center and right wing forces and urban majority leaders Jorge Quiroga, from the party Social and Democratic Power (PODEMOS), and Samuel Doria Medina, with only a few points' difference. By August 21, Morales had chosen his running mate for the presidential elections, left-wing ideologist, sociologist, mathematician, and political analyst Alvaro GarcÂ¨Âªa Linera, who fought alongside of Felipe Quispe as part of the Tupac Katari Guerrilla Army (EGTK).

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Morales has articulated the driving force behind MAS in the following terms:

"The worst enemy of humanity is U.S. capitalism. That is what provokes uprisings like our own, a rebellion against a system, against a neoliberal model, which is the representation of a savage capitalism. If the entire world doesn't acknowledge this reality, that the national states are not providing even minimally for health, education and nourishment, then each day the most fundamental human rights are being violated."
He has also stated:

"Â¡Â the ideological principles of the organization, anti-imperialist and contrary to neoliberalism, are clear and firm but its members have yet to turn them into a programmatic reality."[1]
Morales has argued for the establishment of a constituent assembly to transform the country. He also proposes the creation of a new hydrocarbon law to guarantee at least 50 percent of revenue to Bolivia, although MAS has also shown interest in complete nationalization of the gas and oil industries. Morales has taken a middle ground: supporting the nationalization of natural gas companies, but supporting foreign cooperation in the industry.

Morales has referred to the U.S.-driven Free Trade Area of the Americas as "an agreement to legalize the colonization of the Americas", and has supported the stated desire of Venezuelan President Hugo ChÂ¨Â¢vez to form an "Axis of Good" between Bolivia, Cuba and Venezuela, in contrast to the "Axis of Evil" comprising Washington and its allies.[2]

Morales has also expressed his admiration for Guatemalan indigenous activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta MenchÂ¨Â².
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The moonbats have a new hero.

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