[Marxism] The Battle over Bolivia's Constituent Assembly: Class, race and nation in Bolivia

["Fred Fuentes" <fred.fuentes@xxxxxxxxx>]

For version with hyperlinks see
http://leftclickblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/on-march-8-in-reply-to-article-i-posted.html

On March 8 in reply to an article I posted on the Marxmail list
written by Pablo Stefanoni <snip>and entitled "New tendency in the
government: Evo moves away from Chavista style in order to attract the
middle 
classes"<http://boliviarising.blogspot.com/2007/03/new-tendency-in-government-evo-moves.html>,
David Walters wrote:

I think this essay deserves some consideration. If the essayist is
correct, what Evo has done, and, for essayists, what he hasn't done,
represents a broad-based retreat from the days of his election and May
of last year. What do people think, what do people know of this since
Bolivia has been out of news of late? <snip>

I responded by writing :

<snip>why is it a "retreat" to want to consolidate forces, particular
amongst an important sector of society who have begun to be won away
in part to the project of capital, in order to gather strength before
the next big battle? <snip>

Walters never replied.

Now, 3 months later it is clear what these moves - or "retreats" -
particularly the agreement reached in the constituent assembly over
the method of voting (two-thirds vs simple majority), has enabled the
Morales government to.

As I explain in an article i have submitted to Green Left Weekly

<snip>The breaking of a six-month deadlock in Bolivia's constituent
assembly, has paved the way for the opening of an intense debate and
discussion on the future of this highly polarised country, nestled in
the heart of South America.......having finally agreed on rules for
debate and procedure for the Constituent Assembly, delegates have
began to discuss and draft proposals for Bolivia's future
constitution. The right-wing opposition, having hoped to both weaken
the powers and credibility of the body and enforce a minority veto on
any radical measures, had been pushing vigorous for a two-third
majority voting system, stalling the process from moving ahead.

A comprise agreement was reached on February 14, which sets out a plan
to attempt to reach two-thirds consensus, whilst leaving it open for
controversy issues to go directly to a vote in the referendum.Since
then delegates have spent 6 weeks back in their electorate, discussion
with the communities there proposals for the new constitution, along
with forming 21 commissions to draft up proposals to present to the
assembly.<snip>

So this tactical retreat, as opposed to a political retreat, has
shifted the public debate away from petty regulations of debate to
discussion over differing visions of Bolivia's future, and once again
allowed popular forces to go on the offensive. This has scared the
pants of the opposition.

Stratfor 
<http://boliviarising.blogspot.com/2007/06/bolivia-oppositions-dwindling-options.html>
explains it like this:

<snip>Bolivia's ruling Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) appears to have
gathered enough third-party votes to push a reconfiguration of
Bolivia's political structure through committee in the South American
country's Constitutional Assembly.......

A series of maneuvers by Bolivia's ruling Movement Toward Socialism
(MAS) over the past few days could lead opposition party Podemos to
conclude it has been disenfranchised from a vital component of the
Constitutional Assembly process......

The committee in charge of drafting an article on the political
division of powers in Bolivia is expected to vote on proposals June
13. MAS' main proposal is almost certain to gain a majority of votes,
creating autonomous regions based on traditional indigenous
territories, with many of these situated in lowland areas ruled by the
primarily ethnic European opposition. The proposal breaks a compromise
MAS announced just last week, which would have incorporated the
indigenous districts only within the existing departmental and
municipal framework.

Even more alarming for the opposition, it now appears MAS has secured
enough votes from third-party delegates to co-opt the dissenting
minority proposal as well. It had been assumed that Podemos' proposal,
which expressed the Media Luna lowland region's preference for
regional autonomy without new indigenous zones, would gain the
second-highest number of votes and hence move on for consideration as
the minority proposal.

However, a third proposal, also by MAS, was submitted unexpectedly
June 11 as a second minority position. Assuming MAS can get enough
votes to force the committee to approve both of its proposals before
the June 21 deadline (it currently needs only two more votes to do
so), Podemos will lose all its power in this committee. The strategy
is a bold move by MAS, but by abandoning its earlier compromise
consensus, the party risks forcing the opposition to move to derail
the assembly altogether. <snip>

Stratfor now even has no shame in complaining that:

<snip>Bolivia's ruling Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) appears to have
gathered enough third-party votes to push a reconfiguration of
Bolivia's political structure through committee in the South American
country's Constitutional Assembly. <snip>

Funny that, only a few months ago the opposition was mobilising under
the banner of "democracy" to defend two-thirds. Now that MAS might
have two-thirds, the opposition is no longer concerned about this
issue.

Instead now according to Stratfor (and the opposition themselves),

<snip>the region could be left with no option other than street
protests and quitting the assembly. <snip>

So what can we take in from all this. The MAS forces, inside and
outside the Constitent Assembly by taking a step sideway, have paved
the way towards an opening of discussion on more favourable turf, over
the politicis of what the new Bolivia should look like. This is
exactly where the opposition is weakest because they lack any
alternative project in the face of the growing national hegemony of
the indigenous-popular bloc headed by MAS.

In a fascinating report "The state of the state in Bolivia" (only
available in Spanish), the authors argue that a new emerging common
sense <http://boliviarising.blogspot.com/2007/06/emerging-common-sense.html>,
or hegemony, is emerging in Bolivia. For them it is based on five
simple premises:

<snip>"Despite the conflicts, we are optimists, we want change and
Bolivia is changing"
"Democracy is all of us: this implies conflicts and conciliation,
participation and control"
"We support the nationalisation of gas: natural resources belong to
all of us and should be the basis of our development"
"We are Aymaras, mestizos, cambas and collas: we are diverse but
before everything else we are Bolivians and we make up one
pluri-nation"
"The Constituent Assembly is citizens participation and social
justice, it is the scenario for a new social pact" <snip>

Instead the opposition is once again forced to raise fears of
instability through street confrontations and the spectre of Bolivia's
disintegration, two issues that play heavily on the minds of the
middle class and the military. Politically they know they cannot win
the argument, this helps explain why they have attempted to cloak
themselves in a nationalist guise. For the majority of Bolivia society
the days of neoliberal plundering are over, and anyone who dares try
to raise a return to the past will be dealt with accordingly.


In this context, the position of maintaining unity amongst the
differing indigenous groups and organisations and social movement,
strengthening the alliance with the middle classes which has wavered
in its approach to the first indigenous government and early this year
had begun to shift to the opposition, promoting the nationalist
sentiments within the military to try build support for his project
there, and pushing forward with MASs project for a new Bolivia - at a
pace that keeps all this, and the international and national balance
of class forces, in mind - seems a much more sensible policy that
"socialist revolution now".

One question though that i would like to raise to get peoples'
thoughts on (Im working on an article for the following issue of Green
Left Weekly which will touch on this, so help would be appreciated) is
one that Fred Feldman raised  a while ago on the Marxmail list.
Responding to an article "Evo's Errors"by ex-minister of hydrocarbons,
Andres Soliz Rada,"Evo's Errors"
<http://boliviarising.blogspot.com/2007/04/evos-errors.html> where he
wrote

<snip>It is incompatible to defend the Great Bolivarian Homeland
whilst holding some of the positions that MAS has inside the
Constituent Assembly which attempt to splinter the republic, such as
the reconstruction of 39 indigenous nations and the
reterritorialisation of Bolivia within a new pluri-national state.
This is heavenly music for the agents of eastern separatism, who last
September founded in Guayaquil – with delegates from this Ecuadorian
region and the Venezuelan state of Zulia – the "International
Confederation for Freedom and Regional Autonomy" of Latin America,
financed by petroleum companies who yearn to control important gas and
petroleum fields in Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia.   <snip>

Fred Feldman replied

<snip>There may be contradictions in the concrete circumstances, but a
"Great Bolivarian Homeland" in Bolivia must be built in part on a
distinction between the nationalism of the oppressed and that of the
oppressor, and that must include a radically different attitude even
toward the separatism of the oppresse and the separatism of the
oppressor. If the Bolivian project does not yet have the political
strength to make this distinction and base policy on it, THAT IS A
PROBLEM.

The various indigenous projects, some of which may be positive and
some not, have to be distinguished from the Eastern elite operation on
this basis and dealt with on the basis of this distinction. If the
Bolivian regime cannot operate on the basis of this fundamental
democratic distinction, rather than getting tangled in
bourgeois-democratic abstractions that place the drive for autonomy
among the land and oil barons in the East and the long-suppressed
aspirations of the indigenous people on the same level of rights, THAT
IS A PROBLEM.<snip>

In this case, I agree wholeheartly with Feldman: the two issues are
fundamentally different and need to treated as such (I imagine Soliz
Rada would agree too). But this doesn't full answer the question of
what position socialists should take to in regards to some calls for
the reconstitution of pre-colonial indigenous "nations", or the
argument against the call for a plurinational state which says that by
establishing a plurinational state, as opposed to a pluricultural
state, you are opening the door to the break up of Bolivia, as the
acceptance of nations also means the acceptance of their rights to
form their own nation-state (one which Soliz Rada agrees with) .

It seems to me the position that MAS advocates – indigenous autonomy,
within the framework of the unity of Bolivia – is the correct one. It
is also true that this is the majority sentiment amongst Bolivians
(both indigenous and non-indigenous) who want to see the various
national and ethnic groups inserted into the international community
through a diverse but united Bolivia, and who above all else identify
as Bolivians. There are some trends who maintain a firmer indigenist
vision of the return to Qullasuyu and the reconstitution of the
original indigenous territoriess (which have been expressed in
difference within MAS over certain positions such as whether land and
natural resources should be under state or indigenous control) but
they are a minority. Anyways, I would appreciate any comments on this.

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