abolitionmediaBolivia. The Popular Indigenous Rebellion: The Only School of Politicization
For 47 days, we all knew what was happening in Bolivia: that there is an economic, political, and social crisis, expressed in a popular indigenous rebellion, and that the oligarchic government of Paz wanted to resolve it through the use of force and repression or attrition. We know that this democracy is perverted because the representatives, ignoring the mandate of the popular vote, want to denationalize the economy and favor private investment; they want to reform the constitution in the image and likeness of the ruling class; that the external debt, which amounts to $14,418,000, and drug trafficking, now legalized, are the means of enriching the wealthy classes; etc., etc. We all knew this, but nothing seemed to happen among the urban middle classes, and this illegitimate government continued to operate, protected by the numbing of sensibilities and the neutralization of action by these middle sectors. Spinoza already stated that all subjective movement is mediated by desire; therefore, rebellion, revolution, must be fueled by desire, as Deleuze and Guattari remind us: “Revolutionaries often forget, or don’t like to acknowledge, that revolution is desired and made out of desire, not obligation.”
Perhaps an explanation for understanding this indifference of the urban middle classes lies in their incomprehension of the ethical truths emerging from the popular indigenous rebellion. Ethical truths are not descriptions of the world, nor objective and external truths, but rather sensory truths: what we feel in the face of something, rather than what we think. These are truths that connect us to others who perceive the same things. Thus, the insults, the grievances, the perceptions held about this oligarchic and subservient government were not the same in the Indigenous world as in the urban middle class. While Indigenous and working-class communities did not remain indifferent, but rather participated in blockades and marches, thereby exposing these truths to their innermost selves, fear, hopelessness, insecurity, and disorientation prevailed among the urban middle classes.
It is within this context that we can understand the words of two intellectuals of Indigenous thought: García Linera and Quya Reina. The former vice president states that “the movement has already reached a peak in its sustained expansion of peasant mobilization, which, for now, prevents it from winning. For the government to resign, the mobilized support of new sectors in the city of El Alto and some working-class neighborhoods in the city of La Paz would be needed… And it is precisely in this indigenous-peasant nature of the mobilization that the underlying structural cause of all social unrest lies, a cause that any political project, left or right, can no longer ignore. In Bolivia, it is no longer possible to govern without the indigenous peoples. In other words, the urban middle classes must continue to watch the political struggle between the poor and the rich from the sidelines; besides predicting that the indigenous-peasant movement will co-govern with the left or right, even if the right wing is called Reyes Villa, Tuto, Doria Medina, or Marinkovic, the problem is under what conditions and who leads those governments. Quya Reina, at the time, pointed out that “are Mario Argollo, Vicente Salazar, or Nilton Condori leaders?” Perhaps so, but they lack solidity and intelligence… There is no strategy, no vision, and no structure within them […] But if that force is not channeled intelligently, we are just an overflowing river, powerful, yes, but overflowing […] Let Rodrigo Paz’s government continue, let him govern with the businessmen, with the right-wing political elite… There is a struggle today and a struggle yet to come. “We have four years to organize ourselves, to build real leadership, to adopt new discourses, to hold power accountable, to focus on the next opponent, who will not be Rodrigo Paz.”
During critical moments of the popular indigenous rebellion, Reina proposed giving up because the Argollo family and their associates weren’t intelligent, that there was no strategy or structure, and that Paz should stay for four years, time in which to build real leadership to oppose the new ruler, whoever he may be. In other words, what Reina was proposing was to surrender and not fight Paz anymore, without answering who would build that “real leadership.”
The women and men of the urban middle classes who were 18 years old in 2006 are now 38. They are perhaps among the three million middle-class citizens produced by the MAS government, but they never experienced processes of political awakening—paths where people, like the brothers and sisters of Pando, asked radical questions about Law 1720, which allowed the concentration of land in the hands of the Marinkovic family. After several meetings, they decided to march for 48 days and achieve the repeal of that law through collective action. The urban middle classes never had the opportunity to go through this process of political awakening, and this is why they are now the great losers. The popular indigenous rebellion offers us valuable lessons for working toward our own emancipation.
This article aims to shed light on why the middle classes suffered this defeat and what lessons we can learn from those hundreds of thousands of brothers and sisters who continue the struggle.
THE URBAN MIDDLE CLASSES: FROM DEPOLITICIZATION TO THE RANKS OF REACTION?
The social, historical, and material conditions where power relations or structures of inequality exist affect us and shape our way of being; thus, subjectivity, that inner world with which we engage in dialogue, becomes functional to certain living conditions. This subjectivity can give us clues as to how we learn to struggle and inhabit contingencies, and how our discontents, anger, and disappointments can be politicized, either to open emancipatory horizons or to be captured and redirected along reactionary lines.
The country is experiencing a popular indigenous rebellion, a social and material reality expressed in blockades, mobilizations, town hall meetings, and assemblies, which conditions the lives of 12 million inhabitants, where each one has the capacity to influence and transform these material and social conditions, some to give new meaning to these structures of inequality and power relations, and others to reinforce established inequalities and powers.
The fact that this experience, such as rebellion, is real does not mean that it is enough for everyone to explain the country; only those who have suffered pain, grievance, humiliation, and fear, and who are now fighting on the roads and highways, can make a political analysis, as hundreds of thousands of men and women from Indigenous nations and popular sectors have done, and arrive at the conclusion of demanding Paz Pereira’s resignation.
The undeniable question is: why haven’t the urban middle classes joined the struggle?
G. Colque, from the Tierra Foundation, argues that the country is no longer a middle-income country, but a poor country, because per capita income has decreased from $4,500 with an exchange rate of 6.96 to $2,800 with an exchange rate of 10; therefore, if before the middle class earned 2,610 bolivianos per month, now they will earn 2,333 bolivianos.
The discontent, anger, and disappointment stem from broken promises, the repeal of taxes on the wealthy, the suspension of the gasoline subsidy that has driven up the cost of living, the green light given to drug trafficking, the oligarchy and nepotism within the government, and so on. Added to this is the insult and denigration suffered by the rebellion. This has led to a situation where the ideas and values of the men and women participating in the blockades, marches, and town hall meetings diverge from, or clash with, the values set by the government and the oligarchy that holds state power. This is evident.
But what about the values, interests, or emotions of the urban middle class, who know that the past will not return? First, because their purchasing power has already diminished after the gasoline price hike, and second, because, according to international organizations, Bolivia’s GDP growth will be the worst in South America, with even harsher economic blows to the family budget looming? So what happened?
The bodies of the urban middle classes, in which they experience the effects of inequality, injustice, or discrimination, are not interpreting it as a personal affront, much less as the product of an oligarchic and liberal government that promotes and will promote more radical systems of oppression and exploitation, shared with the indigenous world and popular sectors. Thus, these urban middle classes, instead of articulating their lives around social conflicts (class, ideology, opposing political projects, political economy), individualize their grievances, anger, and unease, expressing them in the form of sad feelings and passions, such as resentment and fear.
Hannah Arendt wrote, “What prepares men for totalitarian domination in a non-totalitarian world is the fact that loneliness, which was once a limiting experience, suffered in marginal social conditions, such as old age, has become an everyday experience for the ever-increasing masses of our century.” There is no doubt that it is easier for affects such as fear, insecurity, or powerlessness to spread in highly divided agglomerations like the urban middle classes than in communities that enjoy strong bonds, such as the indigenous world. For this reason, the uncertainty, the sense of threat, and the loneliness of these middle classes have been factors in their cries of “martial law,” “kill the Indians,” “savages,” “narco-terrorists,” and so on.
Moreover, by granting significant power to the Santa Cruz oligarchy in structural decision-making, the government itself fosters the rise of totalitarianism by relegating the middle class to a passive role. Following Hannah Arendt, the phenomenon of totalitarianism arises when “the human has been produced in a superfluous manner.” And what did she mean by making a human being superfluous? It means depriving them of a place in the world, not only an identity, but also rendering their opinions insignificant and their actions ineffective.
Now, the social atomization and personal isolation of the urban middle class clearly indicate that their discontent and anger are being channeled into reactionary political positions. History has shown us that situations marked by fear and uncertainty are fertile ground for the emergence of reactive stances, reflected in demands for a strong leader who imposes “order,” even if this entails repression, massacres, and bloodshed.
This popular indigenous rebellion, which has opened a possibility of emancipation, also reflects the defeat of the urban middle class, because it manifests an uncertainty in its political actions regarding the future, which can materialize in two possible paths: the reactionary one, which looks back nostalgically to a past moment in which, apparently, their lives were ordered and their future was promising; and the emancipatory one, which involves channeling their anger and discontent into a transformative element, the political base for inventing a different future.
THE POPULAR INDIGENOUS REBELLION: A TRUTH THAT POTENTIALLY ADDRESSES THE NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS
Every rebellion, like the one in Bolivia, from its beginnings, has not been concerned with reactionary opinions: “there is no balance of power,” “it is not well organized,” “everything is chaos,” etc.; and then overlook the immoral criticisms of those who claimed that this rebellion lacked strategy, direction, a minimal program, expert leaders, an indefinite general strike, etc.
These reactionary positions and arrogant criticisms arose from ideologically driven leftists who forgot that, by lacking a party, leadership, program, etc., the popular indigenous rebellion expressed the purest form of communism, as exemplified by the Paris Commune—that is, movement communism: the joint creation of collective destiny. Thus, it also revealed a political truth, which is not a matter of “I am right and the other is wrong.” A truth is something that does not exist prior to political processes; therefore, it is not a question of verifying or refuting it. Rather, a political truth is the collective expression of the disadvantaged, the humiliated, the exploited, which transcends their group interests and establishes itself so that justice and equality may exist.
This joint creation of collective destiny, as a political truth, was neither understood nor militantly supported by the urban middle classes, who displayed a growing neoliberal individualism that ultimately poses a threat to democracy. This is because they cease to be collective agents and become atomized actors, drastically reducing their capacity for political action in the face of inequality and injustice. Thus, by ceasing to debate and fight publicly, they jeopardize the collective capacity to discuss, negotiate, and build solutions to common problems. They are content to act as moral guardians, pointing out to others—in this case, the thousands of men and women of the rebellion—how they should “solve their deficiencies,” demonstrating that they have long distanced themselves from the Indigenous and popular sectors, who continue to shape politics around the conflict.
This popular indigenous rebellion has yielded several conclusions. First, the Tupac Katari departmental federation is the political entity that has opened the possibility of constructing a historical subject based on its own political practices and moving toward a process of emancipation. Second, its political action recalls Marx’s conclusion: “class is not something given, but rather something constructed in the process of struggle.” Therefore, those who engage in the struggle against the oligarchy and its anti-national project belong to the historical subject under construction. Third, it is not a matter of determining which struggle encompasses the others, which identity is broader and more deserving of uniting the rest; it is a matter of understanding that beyond specific struggles, it is a duty and a responsibility to converge on a shared collective project. Fourth, politics “is not a matter of ideas,” but rather a matter of producing ideas that have an impact—that is, experiences or practices of struggle that subsequently generate new ideas, new ways of thinking.
In conclusion, the popular indigenous rebellion demonstrated that the cultural battle is not merely a matter of ideas, theories, seductive narratives, or messages to be conveyed, but rather one of practices, experiences, and life-altering upheavals capable, according to materialist tradition, of generating new worldviews.
Jhonny Justino Peralta Espinoza
former member of the Zárate Willka Armed Forces of Liberation
Resumen Latinoamericano, June 18, 2026.
https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=34139 #bolivia #indigenous #southAmerica #uprising
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