A Country Without Memory: The Case of Bolivia
Start Date
12-1-2012 3:30 PM
End Date
12-1-2012 5:00 PM
Description
Bolivia has gone down in history as the country that had more revolutions than years of independence. One could argue that it has demonstrated a home-grown style of democracy that has allowed all sorts of people to run the country at one time or another — whether they were capable to govern or not. Political leaders — presidents as well as de facto leaders — have been removed from power by the same people who put them in power. And once removed from power by a successor, all traces — programs, projects, initiatives — of a preceding government have been methodically removed from the public sector. At the same time, especially since the 1940s, the electorate has frequently changed party affiliation in order to simply align themselves with whoever was in power at the time. There is thus no collective memory in Bolivia because, in most cases, people don’t want to — or cannot — remember.
People who grew up in Bolivia between 1940 and 1990 have experienced profound political and social changes. Bolivia’s revolution of 1952 ushered in years of nationalist rule but also marked the beginning of a long period of political instability characterized by frequent regime changes, both civilian and military rule, with each new government trying to bring order to the country while undoing whatever their predecessor had tried to achieve. There was a great intellectual exodus during and after the 1952 revolution, and those Bolivians who left the country lived abroad for years with the hope of returning one day. It took 26 years for Bolivia to begin to forget why people had left and they eventually began to be accepted as if nothing had happened.
In any country, memories of the ‘old country’ and ‘the way we were’ eventually fade out and the ‘new’ begins to dominate the collective memory. Yet there is an important aspect to remember, something that ties memories and identity together: One cannot keep his/her national identity without actively preserving memories (both good and bad). Memories of all kinds contribute to our self-understanding and help us to remember who we are as a group, as a nation, as a political community; memories remind of us of our past, our origins and our development as a nation. Without memories, we are nothing. And, by extension, a country without memory (like Bolivia), not only cannot profit from the lessons of the past, but can easily undergo sudden changes and short-sighted reforms that could ultimately lead the country to oblivion.
(There will be case studies provided and references to books on National Identity and Collective Memory.)
A Country Without Memory: The Case of Bolivia
Bolivia has gone down in history as the country that had more revolutions than years of independence. One could argue that it has demonstrated a home-grown style of democracy that has allowed all sorts of people to run the country at one time or another — whether they were capable to govern or not. Political leaders — presidents as well as de facto leaders — have been removed from power by the same people who put them in power. And once removed from power by a successor, all traces — programs, projects, initiatives — of a preceding government have been methodically removed from the public sector. At the same time, especially since the 1940s, the electorate has frequently changed party affiliation in order to simply align themselves with whoever was in power at the time. There is thus no collective memory in Bolivia because, in most cases, people don’t want to — or cannot — remember.
People who grew up in Bolivia between 1940 and 1990 have experienced profound political and social changes. Bolivia’s revolution of 1952 ushered in years of nationalist rule but also marked the beginning of a long period of political instability characterized by frequent regime changes, both civilian and military rule, with each new government trying to bring order to the country while undoing whatever their predecessor had tried to achieve. There was a great intellectual exodus during and after the 1952 revolution, and those Bolivians who left the country lived abroad for years with the hope of returning one day. It took 26 years for Bolivia to begin to forget why people had left and they eventually began to be accepted as if nothing had happened.
In any country, memories of the ‘old country’ and ‘the way we were’ eventually fade out and the ‘new’ begins to dominate the collective memory. Yet there is an important aspect to remember, something that ties memories and identity together: One cannot keep his/her national identity without actively preserving memories (both good and bad). Memories of all kinds contribute to our self-understanding and help us to remember who we are as a group, as a nation, as a political community; memories remind of us of our past, our origins and our development as a nation. Without memories, we are nothing. And, by extension, a country without memory (like Bolivia), not only cannot profit from the lessons of the past, but can easily undergo sudden changes and short-sighted reforms that could ultimately lead the country to oblivion.
(There will be case studies provided and references to books on National Identity and Collective Memory.)