Archive for January, 2010

Irene Monroe: Will Faith-Based Agencies Help Haiti’s Gay Community?

Since the world community has descended on Haiti with relief aid in response to the January 12th earthquake, I am wondering how Haiti’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) communities are being helped.

As one of Haiti’s most marginal groups, the question arises in response to how some American LGBTQ New Orleans residents were treated during the Hurricane Katrina relief effort in 2005.

During Hurricane Katrina, former President George W. Bush’s conservative faith-based organizations – like the Salvation Army, Catholic Charities, and all other organizations in Bush’s “armies of compassion” – highlighted how after the storm homophobia blew in.

While seemingly invisible in the disaster, many LGBTQ evacuees of Katrina and their families faced discrimination at the hands of those conservative faith-based relief organizations because of their sexual orientation, gender identity, and HIV status.

“Tragedy does not discriminate and neither should relief agencies,” stated Kevin Cathcart, executive director of Lambda Legal, in a news release in 2005. “In our experience during the aftermath of September 11, LGBT people face compounded difficulties because on top of the disaster, they face discrimination when it comes to recognizing their relationships, leading to even more hardship at the worst moment imaginable.”

My concern is, will many of these same conservative faith-based relief agencies that are now in Haiti transfer their homophobic attitudes onto Haiti’s LGBTQ citizens?

Ironically, homosexuality has been legal in Haiti since 1986. But few protections and provisions come with it. For example, same-sex marriage and civil unions are not recognized. It’s unclear whether LGBTQ couples can adopt children or have custody of their own children. LGBTQ Haitians don’t openly serve in the military. They don’t have an anti-hate crime bill that specifically addresses discrimination and harassment LGBTQ Haitians face on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Minimally, LGBTQ Haitians are protected under its Constitution as stated in Article 35-2 that prohibits discrimination in the workplace based on, “sex, beliefs, opinions and marital status.” And the United Nation’s International Bill of Human Rights mainly protects LGBTQ Haitians. With no queer enclaves in Port-au-Prince and other big cities throughout Haiti, many LGBTQ Haitians are left puzzled by what it means that homosexuality is legal in their country.

However, as in all repressively homophobic cultures, LGBTQ people have always found ways to express and to live out their true authentic lives. In Haiti, how openly queer you are depends not only on your class, profession, and skin complexion, but also your religious affiliation.

In a country that is predominately Roman Catholic, homosexuality is condemned. But among Haiti’s LGBTQ middle and professional classes, they find ways to socialize out of the public “gaydar” and with impunity.

For example, Petionville, an upscale suburb of Port-au-Prince of mostly American and European whites and multiracial Haitians, is where many LGBTQ people will informally gather for dinner parties, at restaurants and beaches. The well-known 4-star tourist hotel, the Hotel Montana, in the hills of Petionville that was recently destroyed by the quake, is one of the hot spots. And these queers hold positions as government officials, business people, and NGO and UN aid workers.

For the poorer classes of LGBTQ Haitians who live, work, and socialize in the densely populated and improvised capitol city of Port-au-Prince, discrimination on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender expressions is commonplace. The 2002 documentary, “Des Hommes et Dieux (Of Men and Gods),” by anthropologist Anne Lescot, exposed the daily struggles of Haitian transwomen. Blondine in the film said, “When people insult me because I wear a dress I am not ashamed of how I am. Masisis (gay males) can’t walk down the street in a wig and dress.”

But poorer classes of LGBTQ Haitians do have at least two ways to openly express and celebrate who they are – in Vodou and in Rara festivals.

Although the universal perception of Vodou is the Hollywood stereotype of an orgiastic ceremony ritualizing the malevolent powers of black magic and engaging in cannibalism, Hai tian Vodou is an ancestral folk religion that expresses an acceptance of all people of all sexual orientations and gender expressions.

With the belief that behavior is guided by a spirit (loa), gay males in Haitian Vodou are under the divine protection of Erzulie Freda, the spirit of love. And as a feminine sprit, gay males are allowed to imitate and worship her. And lesbians (madivins) are considered to be under the patronage of Erzulie Dantor, a fierce protector of women and children experiencing domestic violence. Erzulie Dantor is bisexual, but she prefers the company of women.

Rara Festivals, a yearly festival that begins following Carnival, belongs to the peasant and urban poor of Haiti. The Rara bands come out of Vodou societies that have gay congregations where gay men are permitted to cross-dress with impunity.

It is my hope that the many conservative faith-based groups and organizations that are now part of Haiti’s earthquake relief effort will not discriminate against Haiti’s LGBTQ community as many of them did toward New Orleans’s queer communities during Katrina.

And it is my hope they remember that engaging acts of goodwill are needed in the face of this natural disaster and they must be inclusive of all God’s people.

More on Haiti Earthquake

Daphne Oz: Soho House New York Wellness Week, Day 4: That’s All, Folks!

Soho House New York Wellness Week

Day 4: FINAL COUNTDOWN

And so, on this penultimate day of January, Soho House New York’s Wellness Week comes to an end, as all good things must. But who’s to say we can’t have wellness week every week? If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my happy meeting of all the excellent holistic teachers featured in these posts–I didn’t even get to talk about Dr. Alejandro Junger’s candid chat on Tuesday night, not that he needs any more press from me, or about the awesome vibrating guys from Station fitness, though I hope to feature them in the coming weeks–it’s that lasting wellness is not something you can achieve with sporadic spurts of dedication. It’s a gradual process that requires daily engagement. In the case of health, slow and steady wins the race, and this is anathema to the general human preference for immediate gratification.

Self-care seemed to be the pervasive theme, whether it manifested as administering your own belly rubs, or simply being in-tune enough to know when you need to reach out for a professional’s help. The most important thing to realize is that each of the therapies I experienced–as is true for most of holistic medicine–are not miracle cures; they simply work to fortify your body’s own functioning. But this improved state of being is only lasting insofar as you manage to keep away from doing things that actively harm your body’s ability to perform, as so many of us are wont to do when we’re in the thick of it, only to come searching for some magic pill to make the aches and pains and allergies and sickness go away. Unfortunately, none exists. And where would be the fun in life if actions had no reactions and a simple pill could make it all better? Feel free to quote me the next time I ask you for an Advil.

When I queried SHNY’s Guy Chetwynd why he and his staff chose the end of January for their first ever Wellness Week, he offered these savvy insights into our collective psychosis.

“Everyone comes off their New Year’s Eve champagne hangover with a laundry list of uncompromising resolutions: ‘Never drink champagne again.’ ‘Never eat chocolate again.’ ‘Be asleep by 7:30pm with kids.’ ‘Two hours of cardio…a day.’ And three weeks later, we’ve all slid back to our old routines, and we’re as unhealthy as ever. Wellness Week was designed to give everyone a chance to revisit the resolutions they’d made and jumpstart their health routine with a variety of healing treatments. By gaining a bit of distance, and harnessing the holistic view of the alternative therapies on tap this week, the hope is to make reincorporating some of the more manageable resolutions a bit easier.”

It’s true, the American version of resolution making seems to be an exercise in futility, if only because we are a bit over-eager to improve ourselves and end up setting unattainable goals. And so, this idea of giving everyone a second chance to do it right–of bringing everyone back to square one, just as we were beginning to let it all slide–is quite an interesting one. Out of the gate, we’re all gung ho about punishing ourselves with stringent rules for 2010 to compensate for all our indulgences in 2009. But the confines are too rigid, and it’s only a matter of time before we revert to old habits, searching again for the illusory cure-all that can absolve us of all responsibility for taking care of ourselves. Isn’t it time we inject some sanity into this crazy ritual?

The real goal should be to make small changes that can truly promote wellness because they are lasting. SHNY trail blazed a path for us this week. But to continue the healing process, we’ll need to remind each other and ourselves to come back to center as needed, to recalibrate and find where a happy medium lies, and to make ours a daily commitment as we strive to gain permanent health.

More on Wellness

Marco Trbovich: Obama Skirts the Real Jobs Issue: Industrial Employment

A Miller Lite TV commercial currently airing features a young fellow unable to disgorge the word “love” to his adoring female companion. President Obama appeared plagued by a similar inability to say the word “manufacturing” in his State of the Union address, ostensibly designed to exhibit a renewed focus on jobs.

Instead of a call for revitalizing manufacturing, we heard of the need for more “production” in pursuit of exports. Coupled with the speech’s unmistakable endorsement of the status quo on trade policy – specific references to South Korea and Colombia that were impossible to miss as affronts to the industrial unions who oppose those deals — the president’s aversion to addressing manufacturing left little doubt that deference to the financialization of the economy continues to trump any hope of reinvigorating industrial employment.

The problem of failing to address manufacturing’s decline, let alone forge a national strategy to compete with China for manufacturing preeminence, is that it cheapens the president’s talk about jobs in light of the evidence:

• Manufacturing employment has fallen by 2.1 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

• Manufacturing employment dropped to 11.7 million in October of last year, a loss of 5.5 million (32 percent of all manufacturing jobs) since October 2000.

• In October 2009, more people were officially unemployed (15.7million) than were working in manufacturing.

• Currently, 20 percent of manufacturing and construction workers are unemployed – double the national unemployment rate.

The beauty of addressing this issue rather than avoiding it is that it is a problem, like most others, that Obama inherited, as well as being one for which both parties are responsible. The president could as well urge both parties to unite in addressing the future of U.S. manufacturing as condemn their past errors.

The other virtue of taking up the manufacturing challenge is that it enjoys great favor with the voting public. In a recent USA Today/Gallup poll, Americans were asked what should be done to create more jobs in the U.S. The number one response was “keep manufacturing jobs in the U.S.”

So, why the president’s obvious reticence?

There is, first of all, the unmistakable indifference of both parties’ operatives to the lives of people in places like Gary, Indiana, Detroit, Michigan, Youngstown, Ohio and the southern corridor of metropolitan L.A. For Republicans, this is standard operating procedure. For Democrats, allegedly the party of working people, it’s elitism that slouches toward hypocrisy.

This is especially true of the current White House, where any blood knowledge of the human damage being done to the citizens of industrial America is unlikely among the Harvard Boy’s Club peopling the inner circle. Indeed, they have been among the bipartisan consensus in Washington that has championed the current trade regime that is hollowing out U.S. manufacturing.

Their unstinting allegiance to globalization as currently practiced has been the stalking horse for Wall Street adventurism in foreign markets, where labor is cheap and profit margins are irresistible, a policy front that has led to the financialization of a U.S. economy in which manufacturing’s share of GDP has been cut in half while financial services’ share has doubled.

The administration’s only nod to this reversal of fortunes has been to acknowledge the problem exists by issuing a “Framework for Revitalizing American Manufacturing,” largely a potpourri of diverse policy initiatives launched since taking office that was released late in the week shortly before Christmas, timing that suggested greater interest in its obscurity than its recommendations.

The administration’s preferred approach is to focus on the emerging clean energy sector, laudable in its own right, but unlikely to overtake the jump start already enjoyed by China and Germany, unless a commitment is made to protect the development of renewable component manufacturing as these countries have.

As Northeastern University professor Joan Fitzgerald avers in her soon-to-be published book, Emerald Cities: Urban Sustainability and Economic Development:

“Absent industrial policies to develop these new industries, the desire to attract green businesses is just the latest variant on a familiar zero-sum game of smokestack chasing … If the United States wants to get serious about capturing or recapturing clean energy production such as wind and solar…we have to get over our aversion to industrial policy.”

Getting over that aversion would begin with abandoning the weak insistence that our foreign trading partners start “playing by the rules,” as the President did his speech, and practicing instead the Golden Rule of Global Competition: do unto others as they are doing unto us.

Right now China, for one, is implementing a full-blown industrial strategy that secures both their emerging clean energy industry and its markets. The faux populism toward the banks that the President displayed in his speech is no substitute for the United States pursuing policies that nurture U.S. markets and restore employment in manufacturing the products of the desired clean energy economy.

More on State of the Union

Marco Trbovich: Obama Skirts the Real Jobs Issue: Industrial Employment

A Miller Lite TV commercial currently airing features a young fellow unable to disgorge the word “love” to his adoring female companion. President Obama appeared plagued by a similar inability to say the word “manufacturing” in his State of the Union address, ostensibly designed to exhibit a renewed focus on jobs.

Instead of a call for revitalizing manufacturing, we heard of the need for more “production” in pursuit of exports. Coupled with the speech’s unmistakable endorsement of the status quo on trade policy – specific references to South Korea and Colombia that were impossible to miss as affronts to the industrial unions who oppose those deals — the president’s aversion to addressing manufacturing left little doubt that deference to the financialization of the economy continues to trump any hope of reinvigorating industrial employment.

The problem of failing to address manufacturing’s decline, let alone forge a national strategy to compete with China for manufacturing preeminence, is that it cheapens the president’s talk about jobs in light of the evidence:

• Manufacturing employment has fallen by 2.1 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

• Manufacturing employment dropped to 11.7 million in October of last year, a loss of 5.5 million (32 percent of all manufacturing jobs) since October 2000.

• In October 2009, more people were officially unemployed (15.7million) than were working in manufacturing.

• Currently, 20 percent of manufacturing and construction workers are unemployed – double the national unemployment rate.

The beauty of addressing this issue rather than avoiding it is that it is a problem, like most others, that Obama inherited, as well as being one for which both parties are responsible. The president could as well urge both parties to unite in addressing the future of U.S. manufacturing as condemn their past errors.

The other virtue of taking up the manufacturing challenge is that it enjoys great favor with the voting public. In a recent USA Today/Gallup poll, Americans were asked what should be done to create more jobs in the U.S. The number one response was “keep manufacturing jobs in the U.S.”

So, why the president’s obvious reticence?

There is, first of all, the unmistakable indifference of both parties’ operatives to the lives of people in places like Gary, Indiana, Detroit, Michigan, Youngstown, Ohio and the southern corridor of metropolitan L.A. For Republicans, this is standard operating procedure. For Democrats, allegedly the party of working people, it’s elitism that slouches toward hypocrisy.

This is especially true of the current White House, where any blood knowledge of the human damage being done to the citizens of industrial America is unlikely among the Harvard Boy’s Club peopling the inner circle. Indeed, they have been among the bipartisan consensus in Washington that has championed the current trade regime that is hollowing out U.S. manufacturing.

Their unstinting allegiance to globalization as currently practiced has been the stalking horse for Wall Street adventurism in foreign markets, where labor is cheap and profit margins are irresistible, a policy front that has led to the financialization of a U.S. economy in which manufacturing’s share of GDP has been cut in half while financial services’ share has doubled.

The administration’s only nod to this reversal of fortunes has been to acknowledge the problem exists by issuing a “Framework for Revitalizing American Manufacturing,” largely a potpourri of diverse policy initiatives launched since taking office that was released late in the week shortly before Christmas, timing that suggested greater interest in its obscurity than its recommendations.

The administration’s preferred approach is to focus on the emerging clean energy sector, laudable in its own right, but unlikely to overtake the jump start already enjoyed by China and Germany, unless a commitment is made to protect the development of renewable component manufacturing as these countries have.

As Northeastern University professor Joan Fitzgerald avers in her soon-to-be published book, Emerald Cities: Urban Sustainability and Economic Development:

“Absent industrial policies to develop these new industries, the desire to attract green businesses is just the latest variant on a familiar zero-sum game of smokestack chasing … If the United States wants to get serious about capturing or recapturing clean energy production such as wind and solar…we have to get over our aversion to industrial policy.”

Getting over that aversion would begin with abandoning the weak insistence that our foreign trading partners start “playing by the rules,” as the President did his speech, and practicing instead the Golden Rule of Global Competition: do unto others as they are doing unto us.

Right now China, for one, is implementing a full-blown industrial strategy that secures both their emerging clean energy industry and its markets. The faux populism toward the banks that the President displayed in his speech is no substitute for the United States pursuing policies that nurture U.S. markets and restore employment in manufacturing the products of the desired clean energy economy.

More on State of the Union

Marco Trbovich: Obama Skirts the Real Jobs Issue: Industrial Employment

A Miller Lite TV commercial currently airing features a young fellow unable to disgorge the word “love” to his adoring female companion. President Obama appeared plagued by a similar inability to say the word “manufacturing” in his State of the Union address, ostensibly designed to exhibit a renewed focus on jobs.

Instead of a call for revitalizing manufacturing, we heard of the need for more “production” in pursuit of exports. Coupled with the speech’s unmistakable endorsement of the status quo on trade policy – specific references to South Korea and Colombia that were impossible to miss as affronts to the industrial unions who oppose those deals — the president’s aversion to addressing manufacturing left little doubt that deference to the financialization of the economy continues to trump any hope of reinvigorating industrial employment.

The problem of failing to address manufacturing’s decline, let alone forge a national strategy to compete with China for manufacturing preeminence, is that it cheapens the president’s talk about jobs in light of the evidence:

• Manufacturing employment has fallen by 2.1 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

• Manufacturing employment dropped to 11.7 million in October of last year, a loss of 5.5 million (32 percent of all manufacturing jobs) since October 2000.

• In October 2009, more people were officially unemployed (15.7million) than were working in manufacturing.

• Currently, 20 percent of manufacturing and construction workers are unemployed – double the national unemployment rate.

The beauty of addressing this issue rather than avoiding it is that it is a problem, like most others, that Obama inherited, as well as being one for which both parties are responsible. The president could as well urge both parties to unite in addressing the future of U.S. manufacturing as condemn their past errors.

The other virtue of taking up the manufacturing challenge is that it enjoys great favor with the voting public. In a recent USA Today/Gallup poll, Americans were asked what should be done to create more jobs in the U.S. The number one response was “keep manufacturing jobs in the U.S.”

So, why the president’s obvious reticence?

There is, first of all, the unmistakable indifference of both parties’ operatives to the lives of people in places like Gary, Indiana, Detroit, Michigan, Youngstown, Ohio and the southern corridor of metropolitan L.A. For Republicans, this is standard operating procedure. For Democrats, allegedly the party of working people, it’s elitism that slouches toward hypocrisy.

This is especially true of the current White House, where any blood knowledge of the human damage being done to the citizens of industrial America is unlikely among the Harvard Boy’s Club peopling the inner circle. Indeed, they have been among the bipartisan consensus in Washington that has championed the current trade regime that is hollowing out U.S. manufacturing.

Their unstinting allegiance to globalization as currently practiced has been the stalking horse for Wall Street adventurism in foreign markets, where labor is cheap and profit margins are irresistible, a policy front that has led to the financialization of a U.S. economy in which manufacturing’s share of GDP has been cut in half while financial services’ share has doubled.

The administration’s only nod to this reversal of fortunes has been to acknowledge the problem exists by issuing a “Framework for Revitalizing American Manufacturing,” largely a potpourri of diverse policy initiatives launched since taking office that was released late in the week shortly before Christmas, timing that suggested greater interest in its obscurity than its recommendations.

The administration’s preferred approach is to focus on the emerging clean energy sector, laudable in its own right, but unlikely to overtake the jump start already enjoyed by China and Germany, unless a commitment is made to protect the development of renewable component manufacturing as these countries have.

As Northeastern University professor Joan Fitzgerald avers in her soon-to-be published book, Emerald Cities: Urban Sustainability and Economic Development:

“Absent industrial policies to develop these new industries, the desire to attract green businesses is just the latest variant on a familiar zero-sum game of smokestack chasing … If the United States wants to get serious about capturing or recapturing clean energy production such as wind and solar…we have to get over our aversion to industrial policy.”

Getting over that aversion would begin with abandoning the weak insistence that our foreign trading partners start “playing by the rules,” as the President did his speech, and practicing instead the Golden Rule of Global Competition: do unto others as they are doing unto us.

Right now China, for one, is implementing a full-blown industrial strategy that secures both their emerging clean energy industry and its markets. The faux populism toward the banks that the President displayed in his speech is no substitute for the United States pursuing policies that nurture U.S. markets and restore employment in manufacturing the products of the desired clean energy economy.

More on State of the Union

Laura Flanders: The F Word: Define Security, Mr. President

A three-year freeze on public spending on everything except entitlements, veterans benefits and security?

Two years into a major recession — a devastating depression in many place — just how is this administration defining that convenient little word “secure?”

Democrats and Republicans both like to genuflect before the altar of providing “security”– from terrorism, for example. The truth is, most of us are safe. Reason magazine calculated in 2006 that even if terrorists managed to crash one of this country’s 18,000 commercial flights every week, the average person’s chance of being on that flight would still be one in 135,000. Deficit or no deficit, Washington keeps on spending on weapons and contractors — even when that’s the spending that’s racked up the bill — and billions of dollars are unaccounted for.

Turn to hunger and American’s are not so secure. A recent study by Washington University in St. Louis found that half of all of us receive food stamps before we turn twenty. More than 38 million Americans — one in eight — now receive food stamps, a record high. Nearly one in five told pollsters for Gallup recently that they had lacked the money to buy the food they needed at least once in the last year.

If it’s political security Obama’s worried about, he’d better look take a closer look. While his critics in the beltway talk deficits and terror, we spoke to J.D. Meadows, a member of the Council of Conservative Citizens who joined that group, not for fear, of bombers but becuase where he lives in Mississippi, the economy has crashed.

Said J.D.’s recruiter at the Council, the biggest issues growing members are the economy, jobs, and illegal immigration. And illegal immigration isn’t even a close third. “It’s more or less all about the economy” he said. “That’s what’s driving the growth right now.” His words.

If the president is truly concerned with Americans, not to mention his own, real security and not just Republicans’ and Blue Dogs’ rhetoric, perhaps he should listen not only to his base, but also to people like J.D.

The F Word is a regular commentary by Laura Flanders, the host of GRITtv which broadcasts weekdays on satellite TV (Dish Network Ch. 9415 Free Speech TV) on cable, and online at GRITtv.org and TheNation.com. Follow GRITtv or GRITlaura on Twitter.com.

More on Barack Obama

Nathaniel Loewentheil: President Once and Future: The Spirited Inauguration of Evo Morales

Last Friday, Evo Morales was inaugurated in to his second term as Bolivia’s President. The day before, he held a ceremony in ruins close to La Paz to celebrate his newly minted role as Bolivia’s Spiritual Guide.

The shimmer-red helicopter bearing Evo Morales towards the Temple of Kalasasaya last Thursday was a strangely modern twist to the morning’s ritualistic proceedings, but the theatrical entrance still earned great applause from the thousands of supporters who had gathered in the altiplano town of Tiwanaku, 70 kilometers outside of La Paz. The crowd was congregated to celebrate Evo’s imminent inauguration as Bolivia’s chief executive, a post he won for the second time this past December as part of a wider electoral victory by his party, Movimiento a Socialismo (MAS). That morning, however, the president was being vested with a brand-new title, one equally important for the people assembled: Apu Mallku, spiritual leader of the Andean indigenous peoples.

The setting was appropriate. Kalasasaya lies at the center of the remains of the most important city of the Tiahuanaco civilization, a pre-Incan empire that controlled large swaths of the Andes from the 7th to 12th century C.E. The ancient complex is one of only a few testaments that remain to speak of the peoples that flourished in the Bolivian highlands before the Spanish invasion; as a result, the social movements that seek to link themselves to the region’s pre-colonial history have adopted the ruins as a spiritual home. The site has particular resonance for the Aymara, Bolivia’s largest indigenous group and the one to which Morales himself belongs; as the traditional people of the altiplano, they consider themselves directly connected to the Tiahuanaco.

Driving west from La Paz early Thursday morning, I could see why the region had served as a spiritual center for over a thousand years. The remains of the timeworn city still stand proudly above the plateau, echoing the sharp-crowned mountains that surround the sun-battered, wind-fused plains. The land has a tundra beauty of bright flatness and green mountain air, of open horizons crowded by distant-clear peaks.

By the time I arrived at 8:30 am, thousands of elaborately dressed campesinos and campesinas were already drifting slowly from the highway towards the ruins, stopping along the way to buy fresh fruit, fresh coca and refreshing MAS paraphernalia. Decked out in my own brand-new bright-blue MAS headband and Evo scarf, I joined the crowd’s mile-long trek. Circling round a long police arc, we made our way into an open field facing the Temple.

The official ordination, scheduled for the following day (Friday, January 22) in La Paz at the Presidential Palace, was designed primarily for journalists, political elite and foreign dignitaries; there would be a long speech to the new Congress, a formal military parade and the ceremonial oath of office. But Thursday’s investiture was a celebration of and for Evo’s political base. And the base was keen to take advantage. From 9 to 11 am, the crowd grew from perhaps five to thirty thousand, as troupes representing various indigenous groups, unions and political parties arrived not only from all regions of Bolivia but from Argentina, Peru, Chile and other Latin American countries. Crews of cholitas (campesina women) wearing traditional skirts of bright red and dark umber sat in large circles sharing rice and corn. Musical troupes in luminescent green and orange danced to folk songs springing from Andean flutes and drums. Hundreds of banners large and small proudly displayed associations and affiliations, while a giant fifty-foot Evo balloon-doll graced the sky. The gathering was part political rally, part religious pilgrimage and part music festival; I couldn’t decide whether to shout slogans, meditate or crack a beer and join in the dancing.

The day was designed not only to celebrate Evo’s victory but to demonstrate the right of his indigenous supporters to mark that celebration with their own customs. It was an opportunity fully embraced. At 11 am, as the helicopter cruised to the ground behind the temple walls, Evo was met by the community’s amautas aymaras – somewhere between wisemen and priests – who ritually cleansed him with holy water and herbs before dressing him in a specially woven llama-wool robe – unku, in Aymara. The wool itself represented communication, while the Andean symbols decorating it imbued prosperity, wisdom and success. On his head, los amautas placed a ch’uku, a hat with four corners representing the four cardinal points.

Properly attired, the politician turned priest-king ascended la pirámide de Akapana, a small nearby hill with the remains of a Tiahuanacoan altar, where he received the blessings from the South, North, East and West, respectively representing economic stability, the union of the country’s Orient and Occident, health for all Bolivians and wisdom for the leader himself.

Benedictions received, Morales and his entourage threaded their way back down to the Temple, escorted by an Aymara anciana (elderly woman) of more than 100 years of age and borne along by the galloping applause of the assembled crowd. Framed by a large archway in the Temple wall, the coronation began in earnest. Morales received two bastones de mando indígenas – which I will poorly translate as “scepters of indigenous authority” – from a pair of children in llama white. Representatives of important constituencies, including labor syndicates, women’s collectives and community coalitions, paraded by in formation and were duly recognized in turn. Finally, leaders of indigenous social movements from across the Americas – from Peru, Ecuador, the US, and Canada, among others – climbed the stairs one at a time to present the Chief with laurels, robes and other symbolic gifts.

Fully adorned, Evo turned to address the crowd, now forty thousand strong, in both Quechua and Aymara, before launching into a longer discourse in Spanish. He touched on themes familiar to those who have followed his presidency: on the power of social movements, the transition from a colonial to a plurinational state, and the need for ongoing political reform. He leveled his standard attacks on Capitalism, a term that stands in for all things American, Western, Imperialist, Colonialist and Generally Wrong.

Cheers, however, were reserved for his discussion of the historical purpose of the Bolivian people. In a world endangered by capitalism, a “new light of hope emerges from the people that never forget…a form of life lived in complementariness and solidarity…with Mother Earth … [in which] we know how to distribute wealth among all and live in harmony with all.” The Bolivians are descendents of people who have long waged a battle against capitalism, “always standing and never kneeling in the confrontation.”

Throughout the speech, repeated references to native predecessors, complemented by pledges to fight for future generations, reinforced a blunt political effort to fit the Morales administration – and the movements that brought it into power – into a historical social narrative; the morning as a whole sought to reach both back and forward in time, stretching across three millennia from the Andean nobility of the Tiahuanaco people to the recently purchased Chinese helicopter fleet. Evo was not only taking on the spiritual mantle of a centuries-old struggle for the rights and dignity of the indigenous peoples of America but proudly leading Bolivia forward in to the 21st century.

Yet while the morning’s narrative captured the imagination (at least of this partial observer), it also perfectly encapsulated the tensions latent in Evo’s reign. The ritual consciously invoked kingship while investing Morales with a heavy spiritual and political charge, thereby casting the president as a leader apart, the luminary of the world’s indigenous movements. And yet by defining the struggle in broad historical terms and situating his worldview firmly in the traditions of Bolivia’s peoples, Evo simultaneously presented himself as no more than an expression of movements that have long driven Bolivia forward.

These tensions manifest themselves in the relationship between Evo and his supporters, as that morning’s festivities well demonstrated. While supporters had made the trek from wide and far to bear witness to the ceremony, there seemed to be at least equal enthusiasm directed towards fellow political travelers. Attention would shift to the ceremony or the speech at moments of particular valence, but remained largely focused on the festivities themselves – the dancing, the hearty congratulations, the reunions of veterans of battles won and lost. I had the feeling that while Evo felt he had won the battle, la gente knew they had won the war: a victory of, by and for the people. The question is one of power and its balance. In America, when the elections end, the vast majority of people return to their apolitical lives. But Bolivia’s social movements, empowered by victories over the last decade, retain a keen sense of agency; Evo did not create them, and does not control them.

Or, at least, so believe the movement actors with whom I’ve spoken. What Evo believes – whether he sees himself as the indispensable spiritual guide or the humble movement cipher – is harder to determine. Though he rose to elected office through his work as a union-leader and organizer, it can be difficult to retain one’s grassroots orientation when in power, especially amidst such pomp and ceremony. As long as Evo’s political decisions remain aligned with the will of Bolivia’s social movements, the tensions between the two roles will remain dormant. But if paths diverge – if Evo finds himself a leader with no followers – the social movements may begin to view him as an obstacle in the way of reform, and then neither North nor South nor East nor West will be able to save him.

At the moment, this possibility seems remote – Evo won an election with 64% of the vote only a few short weeks ago. But in the months and years ahead, Evo must confront a series of critical policy questions that will pit the interests of his base against other national constituencies and needs. He has promised communities control over their natural resources, while also pledging to expand natural gas production; already, the state-run gas company YPFB has expressed concern about tensions with indigenous groups. His rhetoric around Pacha Mama and pledges to protect the environment come into clear conflict not only with these proposed exploitations of natural gas but with his ideas for lithium, timber and hydro-power use. He campaigned partially on regional and municipal autonomy, and yet has a government filled with Marxists keen on central state power. While advocating a move towards socialism, he has made few moves to challenge private property. With a five-year term ahead of him, it will be near impossible to avoid making political decisions that alienate his allies.

Morales is aware of these challenges. His speech touched on the importance of plurinational consensus and on the challenges of building a unified state. But the assemblage seemed relatively uninterested in these details of governance; by the time the formal remarks concluded, they were more than ready to return to the celebration. The crowd shouldered towards the open fields beyond the temple grounds, where hundreds of vendors stood ready with cold Paceñas and hot plates. They were joyful, united by a collective embrace of indigenous power embodied in the person of their president. That joy carried over in to a two-day long party that continued long after Evo had returned to La Paz to face the more mundane and complex tasks of governance. In that effort, he may very well succeed in balancing the interests of his traditional base and the exigencies of the country as a whole. But if he fails, he may discover that luminary though he is, and spiritual guide though he may be, he is at the same time only one actor in a struggle greater than himself.

More on Obama's Inauguration

Nathaniel Loewentheil: President Once and Future: The Spirited Inauguration of Evo Morales

Last Friday, Evo Morales was inaugurated in to his second term as Bolivia’s President. The day before, he held a ceremony in ruins close to La Paz to celebrate his newly minted role as Bolivia’s Spiritual Guide.

The shimmer-red helicopter bearing Evo Morales towards the Temple of Kalasasaya last Thursday was a strangely modern twist to the morning’s ritualistic proceedings, but the theatrical entrance still earned great applause from the thousands of supporters who had gathered in the altiplano town of Tiwanaku, 70 kilometers outside of La Paz. The crowd was congregated to celebrate Evo’s imminent inauguration as Bolivia’s chief executive, a post he won for the second time this past December as part of a wider electoral victory by his party, Movimiento a Socialismo (MAS). That morning, however, the president was being vested with a brand-new title, one equally important for the people assembled: Apu Mallku, spiritual leader of the Andean indigenous peoples.

The setting was appropriate. Kalasasaya lies at the center of the remains of the most important city of the Tiahuanaco civilization, a pre-Incan empire that controlled large swaths of the Andes from the 7th to 12th century C.E. The ancient complex is one of only a few testaments that remain to speak of the peoples that flourished in the Bolivian highlands before the Spanish invasion; as a result, the social movements that seek to link themselves to the region’s pre-colonial history have adopted the ruins as a spiritual home. The site has particular resonance for the Aymara, Bolivia’s largest indigenous group and the one to which Morales himself belongs; as the traditional people of the altiplano, they consider themselves directly connected to the Tiahuanaco.

Driving west from La Paz early Thursday morning, I could see why the region had served as a spiritual center for over a thousand years. The remains of the timeworn city still stand proudly above the plateau, echoing the sharp-crowned mountains that surround the sun-battered, wind-fused plains. The land has a tundra beauty of bright flatness and green mountain air, of open horizons crowded by distant-clear peaks.

By the time I arrived at 8:30 am, thousands of elaborately dressed campesinos and campesinas were already drifting slowly from the highway towards the ruins, stopping along the way to buy fresh fruit, fresh coca and refreshing MAS paraphernalia. Decked out in my own brand-new bright-blue MAS headband and Evo scarf, I joined the crowd’s mile-long trek. Circling round a long police arc, we made our way into an open field facing the Temple.

The official ordination, scheduled for the following day (Friday, January 22) in La Paz at the Presidential Palace, was designed primarily for journalists, political elite and foreign dignitaries; there would be a long speech to the new Congress, a formal military parade and the ceremonial oath of office. But Thursday’s investiture was a celebration of and for Evo’s political base. And the base was keen to take advantage. From 9 to 11 am, the crowd grew from perhaps five to thirty thousand, as troupes representing various indigenous groups, unions and political parties arrived not only from all regions of Bolivia but from Argentina, Peru, Chile and other Latin American countries. Crews of cholitas (campesina women) wearing traditional skirts of bright red and dark umber sat in large circles sharing rice and corn. Musical troupes in luminescent green and orange danced to folk songs springing from Andean flutes and drums. Hundreds of banners large and small proudly displayed associations and affiliations, while a giant fifty-foot Evo balloon-doll graced the sky. The gathering was part political rally, part religious pilgrimage and part music festival; I couldn’t decide whether to shout slogans, meditate or crack a beer and join in the dancing.

The day was designed not only to celebrate Evo’s victory but to demonstrate the right of his indigenous supporters to mark that celebration with their own customs. It was an opportunity fully embraced. At 11 am, as the helicopter cruised to the ground behind the temple walls, Evo was met by the community’s amautas aymaras – somewhere between wisemen and priests – who ritually cleansed him with holy water and herbs before dressing him in a specially woven llama-wool robe – unku, in Aymara. The wool itself represented communication, while the Andean symbols decorating it imbued prosperity, wisdom and success. On his head, los amautas placed a ch’uku, a hat with four corners representing the four cardinal points.

Properly attired, the politician turned priest-king ascended la pirámide de Akapana, a small nearby hill with the remains of a Tiahuanacoan altar, where he received the blessings from the South, North, East and West, respectively representing economic stability, the union of the country’s Orient and Occident, health for all Bolivians and wisdom for the leader himself.

Benedictions received, Morales and his entourage threaded their way back down to the Temple, escorted by an Aymara anciana (elderly woman) of more than 100 years of age and borne along by the galloping applause of the assembled crowd. Framed by a large archway in the Temple wall, the coronation began in earnest. Morales received two bastones de mando indígenas – which I will poorly translate as “scepters of indigenous authority” – from a pair of children in llama white. Representatives of important constituencies, including labor syndicates, women’s collectives and community coalitions, paraded by in formation and were duly recognized in turn. Finally, leaders of indigenous social movements from across the Americas – from Peru, Ecuador, the US, and Canada, among others – climbed the stairs one at a time to present the Chief with laurels, robes and other symbolic gifts.

Fully adorned, Evo turned to address the crowd, now forty thousand strong, in both Quechua and Aymara, before launching into a longer discourse in Spanish. He touched on themes familiar to those who have followed his presidency: on the power of social movements, the transition from a colonial to a plurinational state, and the need for ongoing political reform. He leveled his standard attacks on Capitalism, a term that stands in for all things American, Western, Imperialist, Colonialist and Generally Wrong.

Cheers, however, were reserved for his discussion of the historical purpose of the Bolivian people. In a world endangered by capitalism, a “new light of hope emerges from the people that never forget…a form of life lived in complementariness and solidarity…with Mother Earth … [in which] we know how to distribute wealth among all and live in harmony with all.” The Bolivians are descendents of people who have long waged a battle against capitalism, “always standing and never kneeling in the confrontation.”

Throughout the speech, repeated references to native predecessors, complemented by pledges to fight for future generations, reinforced a blunt political effort to fit the Morales administration – and the movements that brought it into power – into a historical social narrative; the morning as a whole sought to reach both back and forward in time, stretching across three millennia from the Andean nobility of the Tiahuanaco people to the recently purchased Chinese helicopter fleet. Evo was not only taking on the spiritual mantle of a centuries-old struggle for the rights and dignity of the indigenous peoples of America but proudly leading Bolivia forward in to the 21st century.

Yet while the morning’s narrative captured the imagination (at least of this partial observer), it also perfectly encapsulated the tensions latent in Evo’s reign. The ritual consciously invoked kingship while investing Morales with a heavy spiritual and political charge, thereby casting the president as a leader apart, the luminary of the world’s indigenous movements. And yet by defining the struggle in broad historical terms and situating his worldview firmly in the traditions of Bolivia’s peoples, Evo simultaneously presented himself as no more than an expression of movements that have long driven Bolivia forward.

These tensions manifest themselves in the relationship between Evo and his supporters, as that morning’s festivities well demonstrated. While supporters had made the trek from wide and far to bear witness to the ceremony, there seemed to be at least equal enthusiasm directed towards fellow political travelers. Attention would shift to the ceremony or the speech at moments of particular valence, but remained largely focused on the festivities themselves – the dancing, the hearty congratulations, the reunions of veterans of battles won and lost. I had the feeling that while Evo felt he had won the battle, la gente knew they had won the war: a victory of, by and for the people. The question is one of power and its balance. In America, when the elections end, the vast majority of people return to their apolitical lives. But Bolivia’s social movements, empowered by victories over the last decade, retain a keen sense of agency; Evo did not create them, and does not control them.

Or, at least, so believe the movement actors with whom I’ve spoken. What Evo believes – whether he sees himself as the indispensable spiritual guide or the humble movement cipher – is harder to determine. Though he rose to elected office through his work as a union-leader and organizer, it can be difficult to retain one’s grassroots orientation when in power, especially amidst such pomp and ceremony. As long as Evo’s political decisions remain aligned with the will of Bolivia’s social movements, the tensions between the two roles will remain dormant. But if paths diverge – if Evo finds himself a leader with no followers – the social movements may begin to view him as an obstacle in the way of reform, and then neither North nor South nor East nor West will be able to save him.

At the moment, this possibility seems remote – Evo won an election with 64% of the vote only a few short weeks ago. But in the months and years ahead, Evo must confront a series of critical policy questions that will pit the interests of his base against other national constituencies and needs. He has promised communities control over their natural resources, while also pledging to expand natural gas production; already, the state-run gas company YPFB has expressed concern about tensions with indigenous groups. His rhetoric around Pacha Mama and pledges to protect the environment come into clear conflict not only with these proposed exploitations of natural gas but with his ideas for lithium, timber and hydro-power use. He campaigned partially on regional and municipal autonomy, and yet has a government filled with Marxists keen on central state power. While advocating a move towards socialism, he has made few moves to challenge private property. With a five-year term ahead of him, it will be near impossible to avoid making political decisions that alienate his allies.

Morales is aware of these challenges. His speech touched on the importance of plurinational consensus and on the challenges of building a unified state. But the assemblage seemed relatively uninterested in these details of governance; by the time the formal remarks concluded, they were more than ready to return to the celebration. The crowd shouldered towards the open fields beyond the temple grounds, where hundreds of vendors stood ready with cold Paceñas and hot plates. They were joyful, united by a collective embrace of indigenous power embodied in the person of their president. That joy carried over in to a two-day long party that continued long after Evo had returned to La Paz to face the more mundane and complex tasks of governance. In that effort, he may very well succeed in balancing the interests of his traditional base and the exigencies of the country as a whole. But if he fails, he may discover that luminary though he is, and spiritual guide though he may be, he is at the same time only one actor in a struggle greater than himself.

More on Obama's Inauguration

Nathaniel Loewentheil: President Once and Future: The Spirited Inauguration of Evo Morales

Last Friday, Evo Morales was inaugurated in to his second term as Bolivia’s President. The day before, he held a ceremony in ruins close to La Paz to celebrate his newly minted role as Bolivia’s Spiritual Guide.

The shimmer-red helicopter bearing Evo Morales towards the Temple of Kalasasaya last Thursday was a strangely modern twist to the morning’s ritualistic proceedings, but the theatrical entrance still earned great applause from the thousands of supporters who had gathered in the altiplano town of Tiwanaku, 70 kilometers outside of La Paz. The crowd was congregated to celebrate Evo’s imminent inauguration as Bolivia’s chief executive, a post he won for the second time this past December as part of a wider electoral victory by his party, Movimiento a Socialismo (MAS). That morning, however, the president was being vested with a brand-new title, one equally important for the people assembled: Apu Mallku, spiritual leader of the Andean indigenous peoples.

The setting was appropriate. Kalasasaya lies at the center of the remains of the most important city of the Tiahuanaco civilization, a pre-Incan empire that controlled large swaths of the Andes from the 7th to 12th century C.E. The ancient complex is one of only a few testaments that remain to speak of the peoples that flourished in the Bolivian highlands before the Spanish invasion; as a result, the social movements that seek to link themselves to the region’s pre-colonial history have adopted the ruins as a spiritual home. The site has particular resonance for the Aymara, Bolivia’s largest indigenous group and the one to which Morales himself belongs; as the traditional people of the altiplano, they consider themselves directly connected to the Tiahuanaco.

Driving west from La Paz early Thursday morning, I could see why the region had served as a spiritual center for over a thousand years. The remains of the timeworn city still stand proudly above the plateau, echoing the sharp-crowned mountains that surround the sun-battered, wind-fused plains. The land has a tundra beauty of bright flatness and green mountain air, of open horizons crowded by distant-clear peaks.

By the time I arrived at 8:30 am, thousands of elaborately dressed campesinos and campesinas were already drifting slowly from the highway towards the ruins, stopping along the way to buy fresh fruit, fresh coca and refreshing MAS paraphernalia. Decked out in my own brand-new bright-blue MAS headband and Evo scarf, I joined the crowd’s mile-long trek. Circling round a long police arc, we made our way into an open field facing the Temple.

The official ordination, scheduled for the following day (Friday, January 22) in La Paz at the Presidential Palace, was designed primarily for journalists, political elite and foreign dignitaries; there would be a long speech to the new Congress, a formal military parade and the ceremonial oath of office. But Thursday’s investiture was a celebration of and for Evo’s political base. And the base was keen to take advantage. From 9 to 11 am, the crowd grew from perhaps five to thirty thousand, as troupes representing various indigenous groups, unions and political parties arrived not only from all regions of Bolivia but from Argentina, Peru, Chile and other Latin American countries. Crews of cholitas (campesina women) wearing traditional skirts of bright red and dark umber sat in large circles sharing rice and corn. Musical troupes in luminescent green and orange danced to folk songs springing from Andean flutes and drums. Hundreds of banners large and small proudly displayed associations and affiliations, while a giant fifty-foot Evo balloon-doll graced the sky. The gathering was part political rally, part religious pilgrimage and part music festival; I couldn’t decide whether to shout slogans, meditate or crack a beer and join in the dancing.

The day was designed not only to celebrate Evo’s victory but to demonstrate the right of his indigenous supporters to mark that celebration with their own customs. It was an opportunity fully embraced. At 11 am, as the helicopter cruised to the ground behind the temple walls, Evo was met by the community’s amautas aymaras – somewhere between wisemen and priests – who ritually cleansed him with holy water and herbs before dressing him in a specially woven llama-wool robe – unku, in Aymara. The wool itself represented communication, while the Andean symbols decorating it imbued prosperity, wisdom and success. On his head, los amautas placed a ch’uku, a hat with four corners representing the four cardinal points.

Properly attired, the politician turned priest-king ascended la pirámide de Akapana, a small nearby hill with the remains of a Tiahuanacoan altar, where he received the blessings from the South, North, East and West, respectively representing economic stability, the union of the country’s Orient and Occident, health for all Bolivians and wisdom for the leader himself.

Benedictions received, Morales and his entourage threaded their way back down to the Temple, escorted by an Aymara anciana (elderly woman) of more than 100 years of age and borne along by the galloping applause of the assembled crowd. Framed by a large archway in the Temple wall, the coronation began in earnest. Morales received two bastones de mando indígenas – which I will poorly translate as “scepters of indigenous authority” – from a pair of children in llama white. Representatives of important constituencies, including labor syndicates, women’s collectives and community coalitions, paraded by in formation and were duly recognized in turn. Finally, leaders of indigenous social movements from across the Americas – from Peru, Ecuador, the US, and Canada, among others – climbed the stairs one at a time to present the Chief with laurels, robes and other symbolic gifts.

Fully adorned, Evo turned to address the crowd, now forty thousand strong, in both Quechua and Aymara, before launching into a longer discourse in Spanish. He touched on themes familiar to those who have followed his presidency: on the power of social movements, the transition from a colonial to a plurinational state, and the need for ongoing political reform. He leveled his standard attacks on Capitalism, a term that stands in for all things American, Western, Imperialist, Colonialist and Generally Wrong.

Cheers, however, were reserved for his discussion of the historical purpose of the Bolivian people. In a world endangered by capitalism, a “new light of hope emerges from the people that never forget…a form of life lived in complementariness and solidarity…with Mother Earth … [in which] we know how to distribute wealth among all and live in harmony with all.” The Bolivians are descendents of people who have long waged a battle against capitalism, “always standing and never kneeling in the confrontation.”

Throughout the speech, repeated references to native predecessors, complemented by pledges to fight for future generations, reinforced a blunt political effort to fit the Morales administration – and the movements that brought it into power – into a historical social narrative; the morning as a whole sought to reach both back and forward in time, stretching across three millennia from the Andean nobility of the Tiahuanaco people to the recently purchased Chinese helicopter fleet. Evo was not only taking on the spiritual mantle of a centuries-old struggle for the rights and dignity of the indigenous peoples of America but proudly leading Bolivia forward in to the 21st century.

Yet while the morning’s narrative captured the imagination (at least of this partial observer), it also perfectly encapsulated the tensions latent in Evo’s reign. The ritual consciously invoked kingship while investing Morales with a heavy spiritual and political charge, thereby casting the president as a leader apart, the luminary of the world’s indigenous movements. And yet by defining the struggle in broad historical terms and situating his worldview firmly in the traditions of Bolivia’s peoples, Evo simultaneously presented himself as no more than an expression of movements that have long driven Bolivia forward.

These tensions manifest themselves in the relationship between Evo and his supporters, as that morning’s festivities well demonstrated. While supporters had made the trek from wide and far to bear witness to the ceremony, there seemed to be at least equal enthusiasm directed towards fellow political travelers. Attention would shift to the ceremony or the speech at moments of particular valence, but remained largely focused on the festivities themselves – the dancing, the hearty congratulations, the reunions of veterans of battles won and lost. I had the feeling that while Evo felt he had won the battle, la gente knew they had won the war: a victory of, by and for the people. The question is one of power and its balance. In America, when the elections end, the vast majority of people return to their apolitical lives. But Bolivia’s social movements, empowered by victories over the last decade, retain a keen sense of agency; Evo did not create them, and does not control them.

Or, at least, so believe the movement actors with whom I’ve spoken. What Evo believes – whether he sees himself as the indispensable spiritual guide or the humble movement cipher – is harder to determine. Though he rose to elected office through his work as a union-leader and organizer, it can be difficult to retain one’s grassroots orientation when in power, especially amidst such pomp and ceremony. As long as Evo’s political decisions remain aligned with the will of Bolivia’s social movements, the tensions between the two roles will remain dormant. But if paths diverge – if Evo finds himself a leader with no followers – the social movements may begin to view him as an obstacle in the way of reform, and then neither North nor South nor East nor West will be able to save him.

At the moment, this possibility seems remote – Evo won an election with 64% of the vote only a few short weeks ago. But in the months and years ahead, Evo must confront a series of critical policy questions that will pit the interests of his base against other national constituencies and needs. He has promised communities control over their natural resources, while also pledging to expand natural gas production; already, the state-run gas company YPFB has expressed concern about tensions with indigenous groups. His rhetoric around Pacha Mama and pledges to protect the environment come into clear conflict not only with these proposed exploitations of natural gas but with his ideas for lithium, timber and hydro-power use. He campaigned partially on regional and municipal autonomy, and yet has a government filled with Marxists keen on central state power. While advocating a move towards socialism, he has made few moves to challenge private property. With a five-year term ahead of him, it will be near impossible to avoid making political decisions that alienate his allies.

Morales is aware of these challenges. His speech touched on the importance of plurinational consensus and on the challenges of building a unified state. But the assemblage seemed relatively uninterested in these details of governance; by the time the formal remarks concluded, they were more than ready to return to the celebration. The crowd shouldered towards the open fields beyond the temple grounds, where hundreds of vendors stood ready with cold Paceñas and hot plates. They were joyful, united by a collective embrace of indigenous power embodied in the person of their president. That joy carried over in to a two-day long party that continued long after Evo had returned to La Paz to face the more mundane and complex tasks of governance. In that effort, he may very well succeed in balancing the interests of his traditional base and the exigencies of the country as a whole. But if he fails, he may discover that luminary though he is, and spiritual guide though he may be, he is at the same time only one actor in a struggle greater than himself.

More on Obama's Inauguration

Yoani Sanchez: Everything Can Be "Resolved"… Through the Black Market

Domestic life imposes unpleasant obligations. The faucet leaks, the lamp refuses to light the room, the lock on the door sticks, and one evil day, horrors!, the refrigerator breaks down. Terrified we discover that the freezer is dripping and the appliance’s typical humming sound is no more. My neighbor Jose Antonio lived through a tragedy of this magnitude last week.

Early in the morning he called the nearest Domestic Repair Unit, but either they didn’t answer or he got a busy signal. He decided to go there and was met by a girl who was meticulously polishing her fingernails. Distressed, he told her the story of his appliance and described its symptoms. He was about to venture a diagnosis but at that moment she interrupted him to say that surely it was the timer and that they didn’t have the spare part. She explained that the workshop had a waiting list that stretched a couple of months. Like an intelligent man with some real life experience, the needy client formulated the correct question in a suitable tone, “And is there no other way to resolve this?” The woman paused in her manicure and shouted to a mechanic.

After agreeing on a price, everyone was satisfied. By midday the refrigerator was working again and the repairman went home with the equivalent of nearly two month’s wages. That night, my neighbor, who is a barman at a five star hotel, took to work several bottles of rum purchased on the black market. With these, he dispatched the first of the mojitos and tasty pina coladas that the tourists drink. They did not suspect they were helping to fill the gap left by the refrigerator repair, an enormous hole in Jose Antonio’s budget.

Yoani’s blog, Generation Y, can be read here in English translation.

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