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Transgressions and Racism: The Struggle over a New Constitution in Bolivia
- Duke University Press
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Transgressions and Racism: The Struggle over a New Constitution in Bolivia andrés calla and khantuta muruchi Bolivia’s Constituent Assembly was inaugurated on August 6, 2006, following a protracted process of social mobilization and the election of Evo Morales, the nation’s first indigenous president.∞ In the city of Sucre, 255 delegates came together to draft the nation’s new constitution. The delegates had been selected in a special election held just one month before, in July 2006. The composition of the delegates was extremely diverse in social, cultural, political , and geographic terms. Of the 255 total representatives, 88 (35 percent) were women; 119 (47 percent) spoke a native language (in addition to Spanish ); 142 (55 percent) self-identified with an indigenous group; and 20 percent were local political leaders. The ruling party, the Movimiento al Socialismo (known as the Movement Toward Socialism, or mas), gained 53.7 percent of the seats, while podemos (Poder Democrático y Social), the principal opposition party, acquired 28 percent; the remaining seats were divided among small political groups.≤ The diverse composition of the delegates gave the constitutional process great significance. The social organizations represented by the mas delegation—both peasant and urban-popular—had displaced the traditional political actors who previously controlled the government , making it possible to begin to construct a new institutional structure for the state. Once the assembly was initiated, the delegates engaged in two types of work. First, they took part in plenary sessions, which were held in the Gran Mariscal Theatre. All of the delegates participated there with voice and vote to define the internal regulations that would govern the organization and 300 andrés calla and khantuta muruchi operation of the Assembly. Second, the delegates were divided into twentyone commissions to work in depth on the specific articles of the constitution .≥ These sessions were held in the Colegio Junín. On August 17, 2007, following various phases of consensus and disagreement —and a decision to extend the time frame of the Assembly by four months—the Assembly’s work was blocked by opposition groups’ e√orts to introduce into the agenda a debate on the return of the full capital to Sucre.∂ In a context of increasing conflict, plenary sessions were suspended and the struggle over the constitution moved to the streets. Students from the Universidad San Francisco Xavier de Chuquisaca and members of other institutions of Sucre initiated a series of mobilizations in defense of the capitalía plena (return of the full capital to Sucre), mobilizations that became laced with violence and racism. ‘‘Leap or you’re a llama! Leap or you’re a llama!’’ Students chanted this refrain in their marches and rallies, to add their voice to the Constituent Assembly’s discussion of the demand that the Bolivian capital be shifted from La Paz to Sucre. Why a llama? The llama is the emblematic animal of Bolivia’s Altiplano region and is thus associated with the indigenous people of the Andes. ‘‘Llama’’ is used as an insult referring to peasants or indigenous people. After Bolivia inaugurated the Constituent Assembly in Sucre on August 6, 2006, other manifestations of racism surfaced in the city’s central plaza. Why has overt racism emerged more frequently since the Constituent Assembly was convened? How did it advance from insults to blows? What is the significance of the settings—the sessions of the Constituent Assembly and the central plaza of Sucre—for these increasingly common expressions of overt racism? Inposingthesequestions,weassumethatBoliviansocietyhasbeenmarked historically by a silent racism of a structural and quotidian nature that has involved discrimination against indigenous people and peasants. We call this discrimination silent racism because until recently the everyday exclusion of indigenous people and peasants has been naturalized by Bolivian society, and because silent racism, in its structural form, can be hidden.∑ During the last five years or so, racism has become openly visible and been accompanied by physical violence. The political conjuncture following the inauguration of the Constituent Assembly has been marked by the shift from a silent racism with structural characteristics to forms of open and violent racism. These open forms of [3.238.84.213] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 10:42 GMT) Transgressions and Racism 301 racism are the product of a series of symbolic transgressions associated with the Constituent Assembly. In fact, the Assembly itself constituted a transgression of symbolic spaces and positions of power because the elaboration of a new constitution, demanded...