In my contributions to the latest issues of Sicilia libertaria I was
interested in the possibility of existence of legal norms, formal orinformal, produced by minority social groups within nations constitutedinto states in the 19th century, with a formalized legal system valid ina general way within their geographical borders and with ideological andrepressive apparatuses to put it into practice. The examples I havetaken into consideration concern Latin America, where a good part of thestates register the presence of indigenous populations, who survived asmicro-societies the disaster of the Spanish conquest and, subsequently,that produced by the liberal and bourgeois states, born from the wars ofindependence. In general, these peoples are considered "minorities",from which derives both the imposition of the dominant culture andlanguage, as well as the denial or contempt for their traditional legalnorms. The definition of minority certainly does not imply fullrecognition. But what happens when this definition is specious or evenhypocritical?Let's take the case of Bolivia, a country considered fundamentallymestizo, with economic power in the hands of the white minority whodenied rights to the indigenous people (pueblos origines, they aredefined) and repressed their political organizations throughout thetwentieth century. If we look at the real data, there are currently 33indigenous peoples in Bolivia, settled in the Andean plateau and in thetropical lowlands, with a strong presence in the cities, particularlyQuechua and Aymara. Bolivia has around 12 million inhabitants, of whichmore than half are indigenous, 55% according to the anthropologistFrancisco Lizcano, while the rest would be made up of 28% mestizos, 15%whites and 2% mulattoes. These calculations have sparked controversy, aswas predictable, and so we see the behavior of the population accordingto self-definition in the last two censuses: in the 2001 census, 62%declared themselves indigenous, while in the 2012 census only 40.6%.Since the difference cannot be explained by migration or death, it isreasonable to conclude that, due to social and cultural factors, i.e.homogenizing pressure, 10% concluded that the mixed-race identity wasworth more than the indigenous one in the context dominated by white andmixed-race. In fact, these alleged mestizos may also be biologically so,but culturally they continue to use the language of origin and practicetheir culture. The proof lies in the fact that only 40% of thepopulation is monolingual in Spanish.In October 2006, Evo Morales, an Aymara trade unionist and former memberof parliament since 1997, burst into this ethnic-social panorama,winning the presidency of the country electorally supported by thecocalero trade union movement and the Socialism Movement. In 2006, aconstituent assembly was convened to draw up a new constitution,ratified with a referendum in January 2009 with 61.4% votes in favor and38.9% against. Article 1 defines the program of the country's indigenousgovernment: "Bolivia replaces itself as a unitary social state ofplurinational community law, free, independent, sovereign, democratic,intercultural, decentralized and with local autonomies. Bolivia is basedon political, economic, legal, cultural and linguistic pluralism andpluralism, as part of the country's integration process." From theinsistence on plurinationality and interculturality comes therecognition and respect of cultural differences, including the legalaspect of the social life of different ethnic groups, starting with theattribution of legal personality to all indigenous and peasantcommunities and the recognition of traditional authorities as justiceworkers elected by the communities themselves: "Article 171 - III. Thenatural authorities of indigenous and peasant communities will be ableto exercise administrative functions and apply their own rules as analternative solution to conflicts, according to their customs andprocedures, as long as they are not contrary to this Constitution andthe laws. The Law will make these functions compatible with theattributions of State powers".It is evident that an important change occurred in relation to theprevious constitution, where the indigenous people were littleconsidered, except to indicate their compulsive integration into thestate dominated by non-indigenous people. In any case, it must be notedthat the first version of the constitution drawn up by the constituentassembly endowed the communities with greater legal autonomy than whatappears in the final version approved in the referendum. Evidently, thetraditional denial and opposition to the indigenous world has alsoinfiltrated the constituent assembly. Thus, while on the one hand werecognize the existence of justice systems characteristic of each of theindigenous peoples, on the other we end up limiting their completeimplementation, with the same formula that we had already recorded inthe case of the Venezuelan Constitution. In fact, the compatibilitybetween the national legal system and the various indigenous systems isentrusted to the Supreme Court and it was foreseeable that, in the eventof a conflict, the indigenous systems would give way; although thepresence of indigenous lawyers in the Supreme Court itself should not beunderestimated, but belonging only to the Quechua and Aymaracommunities, numerically preponderant groups in the local indigenouspanorama, with a strong urban presence and access to university education.The last observation has a much broader value than the legal field. Onseveral occasions I discussed respect for the constitution regardingindigenous political autonomy in their territories and also in the legalfield, with homogeneous answers when it came to Quechua and Aymarainterlocutors, Andean indigenous people with a majority presence both inthe government and in parliament, somewhat ' less in the case of theindigenous people of the lowlands, with a greater number of peoples butnumerically minority. It would thus seem that an old story is beingrepeated, sometimes in a dramatic way, beyond the principles expressedin their own constitution: the largest and strongest group, once itcomes to power, ends up occupying a privileged place, beyond of his ownideology. This different access to power of the Amazonian indigenouspeoples could influence future electoral alliances, resulting in themending up in alliance with their traditional enemies, white and, inpart, mestizo.Emanuele Amodiohttps://www.sicilialibertaria.it/_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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