 Southern Rambling |
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Bolivia
It seems like ages ago, though in reality is was no more than four years ago that I was sitting in a hot spring on an obscure island in southern Haida Gwaii - in discussion with a man who had at that point a tremendous amount of insight to offer me about the reality of living life versus the unreality of the fiscal game we all play..
Here in South America, everywhere one looks is an example of true life.. I have been given a first hand look at what it must have meant to be alive hundreds of years ago. I remember walking through the Colca Canyon village of Corporaque - wandering down that dirt road, passing the local people in the fields.. Everyone was out working the land - not because they were getting paid by the hour so as to amass an amount of money, but because the entire community must do it in order to live and feed their hunger come the harvest season. Much the way a squirrel will work all summer gathering food for the winter. Survival does not require the squirrel to do anything more and the squirrel does not consider his task a burden - it is simply life. ...Life.... Work is done because it is what must be done - men, women and even young children till the fields without tractor, by hand - the rest of their time is spent with family and community. It is a harsh contrast and cannot help but stand out with vivid clarity next to the capitalistic technology-based world I was reared in.
Yet here in La Paz can be experienced somewhat of a harmonious blend of the two worlds... The rich and poor (without much in between) co-exist in a dynamic dance of city meets country. Men in suit and tie have their shoes shined by masked indivudals (masked out of shame for their profession) and walk street after street of market stands with indigenous folk selling their produce, their livestock, and the wares their meager earnings have allowed them to purchase, so as to try their hand at the small scale capitalistic game.
North Americans often take what we have for granted.. Little things like being able to drink the tap water; the ability to flush toilet paper (because our septic system is able to dispose of it), instead of in the trash basket beside the toilet... Little things and big things alike.. We simply live in another world.. I am here in this world at a time when I can witness both the old way of life and the process of an old world struggling to adopt new world ways... Everyone is poor, and yet everyone seems to own a cell phone. Latino MTV; Sky Scrapers towering over the humble vendor-stands and artisan displays on the streets; Big city bustle and small town shops owned by local people.
The fiscal game here is transparent. Transparency with the process of supply and demand. Transparency in that you can literally watch the step by step process of the engine -from start to finish: The farmers who till the land, raise the crops and harvest them - the donkey or truck that brings the harvested crops to the city from the countryside - the small shops and grocery store owners buying the crops from the locals - and finally the locals who then buy the crops. Or marketplaces, old women baking bread and selling it to you fresh.. Fresh cheese, fresh produce. Every transaction has a face behind it.. a feel behind it. Every interaction and association is linked to a personal connection.
In North America, our transactions are faceless and without connection. We walk into Safeway or Walmart or Canadian Tire or Extra Foods and we buy our prepackaged food or the product we seek. We enter with a preconcieved notion of what it is we want, and how much it will cost, and that is as far as our interaction goes.. We are in and and we are out.. Cash or Credit? Paper or Plasic?
One cannot help but feel a sort of emptiness in regard to the later way versus the former.
...Neither way of life is any more or less valid, I am simply observing the contrasts...
I have a lot of respect for many aspects of Socialist philosophy while maintaining a socio-economic platform that encompasses all of the good points of True Capitalism - a sort of altered perspective of Randian Objectivism - and what is interesting to me is that here in South America I am given to see, in the strange aforementioned dynamic, the process of socialist ideal meets capitalist society. While at the same time given a first hand glimpse of exploitation. Incan decendants who cannot hike the Inca Trail to their ancestral Macchu Picchu because government has restricted it to lisenced (often multinational) guide companies only, with, comparitively speaking, outrageous fees - the local indigenous ancestors cannot profit from their heritage by offering to guide foreigners to their own monument; Entire train transport systems owned by European and Chilean companies - charging far too much for local people to afford, yet just enough for tourists to enjoy.
The whole problem of coexistence among peoples boils down to the wrongful appropriation of other peoples' wealth. End the philosophy of plunder and the philosophy of war will be ended as well. (Ernesto Guevara)
Dr. Ernesto "Che" Guevara is likely turning in his grave. I say that not because I believe that the Marxist Communist Manifesto he fought so hard to introduce to a unified Latin America, nor the revolution away from neo-colonialism, was the right road to forge - but because any road with intent to move away from the exploitation of hard working men and women is a better road - and in the least, was a whole-hearted attempt to take action, something the world seems to lack in this age.. To be sure, that is not to say that Socialist practice does not exploit, it has in every case to date - it is human nature to be selfish and unaltruistic- but it is the ideal that the people fought and died for.
It was here in Bolivia that Che Guevara was captured and executed by the Bolivian Army, in conjunction with the US Army Special Forces Advisors and CIA, after having successfully fought and won the Cuban Revolutionary War - and fought and lost the revolution in the Congo of Africa just as he ultimately fought and lost the Bolivian Revolution.
Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision. (Ayn Rand) While in Huaraz - Peru, I read an article in Harperīs Magazine about Basic Enlightenment Principles with regard to social reform, and in it found a sort of afirmation in regard to my own train of thought regarding the issue.
The problem goes like this: If we are to change the direction we are heading, and work to correct the exploitation and lop-sided playing field many countries are forced to deal with, we as people need to stop working so hard toward our politically correct diversity agendas and focus our energy on universal social agendas. Why, you ask? Because so much well intentioned energy is funnelled into areas that have a way of digging deeper the lines that divide the world. Diversity agendas (often focusing on guilt-based historical remunerations and afirmative action) seem to have become the omnipotent yardstick for socially-conscious people - a sort of trendy activism that gives way to naught but self-righteous vindication. A validation of oneself as a socially conscious individual. But in the end, very little is accomplished because the constraints of diversity agenda create an attitude of political correctness - which to breach such an attitude makes possible to offend one group or another, and so to be called ignorant, or arrogant. Diversity Agendaīs political correctness has created a generation afraid to draw a line in the sand and declare - I understand you believe this - but you are wrong, and this is why. And this is what needs to be done about it. With logic being sole arbiter, there can only be one right.
When we move past this fear of confrontation as a populace can we begin to take the proper steps in the right direction as a global community, and the huge social world issues of capital through exploitation can be addressed.
All that being said, I know not what those proper steps in the right direction might be, I donīt consider myself a political analyst nor philosopher, but I do understand that what we can each do is simply be aware of what is going on around us and seek to pass on this awareness to whomever we may, while reamaining open to having our opinions challenged - keeping reason as sole arbiter.
Follow not the footsteps of great men - seek what they sought. Joseph N Sieben
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