El Duderino and BoRev on the Atlantic on Morales

In my last post I critiqued Barclay’s article in the Atlantic.  I was mainly interested in the way that racial conflict was being invoked, and honestly, it was an off-the-cuff post.  I linked to two bloggers who write regularly about Bolivia.  Miguel suggested that instead of critiquing Barclay I should critique them instead.  Miguel has issued the challenge, and I accepted.  Here we go (with some trepidation, since the Bolivia ex-pat community is small, and I don’t know who either of them are.)

From El Duderino:

Barclay tells us all about how Evo is stirring up racial divisions (by being brown), inciting violence (by being brown), destroying the economy (by being brown), and acting like a petty-thug dictator like Mugabe (by being brown) except for some reason the vast majority of Bolivians keep supporting him and keep voting for him. Wonder why? Well Barclay doesn’t have one word from a single Evo supporter who make up a pathetic 60+ percent of the population.

I have to agree with Duderino here that  Barclay does not interview any Morales’ supporters.  And if her intent was for this to be a balanced piece, it would need to include that perspective.  However, I don’t think Barclay herself is being racist, as el Duderino accuses.  It is important to distinguish between the reporter and what is being reported.  I (like all anthropologists and journalists, I imagine) have conducted interviews where I completely disagree with the interviewee, and felt that nevertheless I needed to include that information in my work.  Of course we have choices about what to include and highlight from what people tell us, but I don’t think Barclay is writing about something that is marginal to Bolivian politics.  In short, I think el Duderino shoots the messenger.

Then el Duderino posts the last paragraph of Barclay’s article with his response:

“Although the lowlands have prospered from farming and natural gas, the highland regions remain stuck in a poverty trap that Morales has shown little flair for unlocking. When he expelled the U.S. ambassador and the Drug Enforcement Administration in late 2008, he killed a trade agreement with the United States that was one of the few lifelines for Bolivia’s exports. Depressed oil and gas prices have since meant less revenue for Bolivia, and less support from Morales’s chief mentor and benefactor, Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez. The only growth industry, in fact, appears to be coca.” (Barclay)

Very insightful, I learned a lot in this paragraph. Apparently, based on nothing, we learn that Evo in fact has not governed over a period of economic growth. That in addition to being the President of Bolivia (able to expell US diplomats and the DEA), Evo is also the President of the United States who retaliatorly cancelled (against Congress’ wishes) Bolivia’s trade preferences. (Barcley’s cause-effect scheme here is extra retarted because she previously wrote a story on the US cancelling of Bolivia’s trade preferences). Also, Evo apparently has the power to lower global commodity prices… by expelling the DEA (huh?), and while she is at it, just tack on the totally unqualified and false statement that coca is Bolivia only growth industry.

Of course Evo has the right to expel US diplomats.  But surely he was fully aware of what the consequences of that might be — likely, that it would affect trade relations with the U.S.  To imply that Evo didn’t know that — as el Duderino implies when he sarcastically suggests that Barclay thinks Evo is the President of the US — is insulting to Evo.  And while Evo is not responsible for the global market, those economic forces do affect politics in that country and the way that Evo is constrained as President (and everyone works under constraints of some kind).  In short, it matters.

As for coca — I agree with Barclay here.  Coca is one of the few truly successful commodities produced in Bolivia, and has been for a long time.  I believe we should end the War on Drugs because I don’t think that fight is either ethical or effective (even by the standards of its supporters), and I think the negatives of the Drug War far outweigh any positives.  But one cannot claim that coca is not profitable or a growth industry.

On to BoRev:

[Barclay] asks the big questions: Why do the brown people hate us when we only want best for them? Is the Bolivian economy struggling because of the global economic crisis, or there something more Indigenous afoot? And why do they insist on calling it ‘Bolivia’ when God already gave it a beautiful name, ‘Rhodesia’?

These questions are not the ones that frame Barclay’s article, obviously.  She is considering Evo’s opposition, much of which is organized along racial and geographical lines and express their differences in those terms.  Again, shooting the messenger.

BoRev also fails to notice that the photojournalistic piece accompanying Barclay’s article was specifically put there to be a different perspective.  He suggests instead that it might be the work of Aymara hackers.  I kind of wish it were — we would love to write about them here!

So, to keep up the grading metaphor, if Barclay gets a B+, I’ll give el Duderino a B- and BoRev a C-.  I don’t fail students who show up, and clearly both el Duderino and BoRev are obviously deeply engaged with Bolivian politics.  And while I may not agree with them, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be listening — albeit critically.