July 6, 2006

A Dash of Mysticism: Governing Bolivia The Aymara Way

LA PAZ, Bolivia -- When Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca discusses matters of state with visiting dignitaries in Bolivia's faded foreign-ministry building, by his own admission, he's not altogether there.

"We have always been without being," says Mr. Choquehuanca, a 45-year-old Aymara Indian intellectual. The concept of being there while not being there, says Mr. Choquehuanca, is part of a mystical code in which a person can be present physically but in a different place spiritually. It's one of many Aymara concepts taught by his forefathers -- in part, to cope with the brutality of life under the conquistadors. Mr. Choquehuanca is trying to incorporate Aymara concepts into the way the new Bolivian government does business.

Since he was elected Bolivia's first indigenous president by a landslide vote in December, Evo Morales, a former leader of the coca growers' union, has assembled a governing team of ex-guerrillas, former street activists and Bolivian intellectuals. Casimira Rodriguez, a former maid who founded a national maid's union, is the justice minister, although she has never studied law. Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera was part of the Tupak Katari Guerrilla Army, a group that operated in Bolivia during the 1990s. The group blew up electric power towers and launched attacks in which some policemen were killed. But prosecutors couldn't prove that Mr. Garcia Linera had directly participated in those acts. He spent five years in prison, but was not found guilty.

Since Mr. Morales assumed power in January, he has pledged to redistribute the country's wealth among Bolivia's poor Indians, and exert greater state control over the country's economy and natural resources. He has forged a close alliance with Venezuela's fiery anti-American president Hugo Chávez, and has organized a constitutional convention, to reform the way the country is organized.

The Marxists would be happy to take the country back to the revolutionary 1960s and are exultant that Mr. Morales has already renationalized the country's natural-gas industry. Mr. Choquehuanca and other Aymara ministers would like to go back even farther -- to 1491, before Columbus sailed for the New World.

That's because the conquest of Bolivia in the early 16th century led to centuries of exclusion and oppression for its Indian inhabitants, a condition that improved little with independence in 1825. Today, 65% of Bolivians live on an income of less than $2 a day.

Many Aymara intellectuals say they want to re-create in the 21st century the values of the communal Eden they believe existed before the conquest, a place without poverty or oppression.

According to a new study by Rafael Núñez, a cognitive scientist at the University of California at San Diego, the Aymara is the only studied culture for which the past is linguistically and conceptually in front of them while the future lies behind them.

To speak of the future, Dr. Núñez found, elderly Aymara thumbed or waved back over their shoulder, while to speak of the past they made forward sweeping motions with their hands and arms. The main word for eye, front and sight in Aymara means the past, while the basic word for back or behind also means the future. "The past is never 'left behind,' for them, it's in front," said Dr. Núñez. "It's very odd for people coming in from the outside."

Another important Aymara intellectual, Education Minister Felix Patzi, 39 years old, says the new government should use procreation to reverse the pernicious effects of colonization. Family planning was a failed elitist conspiracy to keep the indigenous population down, he told a literacy conference attended mainly by government officials in La Paz recently. Indian women need to understand that and continue to have five to eight children each, he said, so the country's white minority, with their European ideas, would become inconsequential. Mr. Patzi headed the sociology department at Bolivia's leading public university before joining the Morales government.

Incorporating indigenous principles into government policy will be much discussed when a constitutional convention meets in October to draw up the structure for a new Bolivian state. At this point, no one knows what kind of government will emerge when Bolivia's re-founding fathers meet. But the most fundamental issues are up for grabs.

"What kind of society do we want? Pre-capitalist or communal? That's the decision we face," says Mr. Patzi. One thing the new Bolivia won't need is competition, he believes. "Competitiveness? I ask myself why. Why study business in a country with no businesses?"

For Mr. Choquehuanca, short and of serious mien, who didn't learn to speak Spanish until he was 7 years old, the job of foreign minister is a world away from his youth in the thin air of an Aymara community on the shores of Lake Titicaca, which straddles Bolivia's border with Peru. His early education was in rural schools, although in 1985, he won a scholarship to study in Cuba's Niceto Perez National School for Cadre Formation. He also studied philosophy, history, anthropology and Indian rights in Bolivian universities.

Upon taking office, he recommended that knowledge of Quechua, Aymara, or Guarani, the languages spoken by about 60% of Bolivia's people, should be a prerequisite for a diplomatic posting. Last month, the Bolivian government went him one better by requiring knowledge of an Indian language for any civil-service job. Present job holders have two years to learn a language.

Looking for new uses for the country's coca -- chewed by Indians for millennia, brewed in a medicinal tea enjoyed by many Bolivians and, also, the basis for cocaine -- Mr. Choquehuanca suggested to congress that coca leaf is rich in calcium and could be substituted for milk in the country's schools. Pediatricians were outraged, and Mr. Choquehuanca beat a quick retreat.

Mr. Choquehuanca says he doesn't turn to Western books for advice -- indeed, he boasts of not having read a book of any kind in years because he doesn't want to cloud his mind with European concepts. "We have been in the hands of people who have read books, and look what a mess the Earth is in," he says. Far better to tap into the knowledge of Aymara elders. "When I say we have to read the wrinkles in our grandfathers' brows, it's to recover the wisdom that our grandfathers still have," he says.

President Morales is close to Mr. Choquehuanca and shares many of the foreign minister's ideas. Last month, the two were guests at a gathering of Quechua Indian chiefs in Quito, Ecuador. After lighting a sacrificial fire on the stage of an auditorium, and purifying the Baton of Command in the sacred smoke, local chiefs passed it on to Mr. Morales, who vowed to reject Western concepts imported "in English," and recover the wisdom of the elders. "We fight to defend the Pachamama," said Mr. Morales, using an Aymara term for Mother Earth.

Diplomats at La Paz trade stories about what they call "Choquehuancadas" or "Choquehuanca Moments." A recent one: During a reception at the Cuban embassy, the foreign minister asked guests to participate in an Aymara blessing by thrusting their arms toward the sky, palms extended.

But some diplomats say they find Mr. Choquehuanca to be a breath of fresh air. "He's a very wise man," says Francisco Carrión, Ecuador's foreign minister. He says he was impressed when Mr. Choquehuanca talked about the difference between the Aymara concept of "living well," and the Western concept of "living better," which implies competition and the subjugation of nature.

He is also jealous that Mr. Choquehuanca shows up for work in an open jacket and shirt-sleeves instead of the diplomat's suit and tie. "If I could help it, I wouldn't wear a tie, either," Mr. Carrión says.

Write to David Luhnow at david.luhnow@wsj.com¹