Katarism ( es, Katarismo) is a political movement in
Bolivia
, image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg
, flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center
, flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...
, named after the 18th-century indigenous leader
Túpac Katari.
Origins
The katarist movement began in the early 1970s, recovering a political identity of the
Aymara
Aymara may refer to:
Languages and people
* Aymaran languages, the second most widespread Andean language
** Aymara language, the main language within that family
** Central Aymara, the other surviving branch of the Aymara(n) family, which today ...
people. The movement was centered on two key understandings, that the colonial legacy continued in the Latin American republics after independence and that the indigenous population constituted the demographic (and thus essentially, the political) majority in Bolivia.
Katarism stresses that the
indigenous peoples of Bolivia suffer both from class oppression (in the Marxist, economic sense) and ethnic oppression.
The agrarian reform of 1953 had enabled a group of Aymara youth to begin university studies in
La Paz
La Paz (), officially known as Nuestra Señora de La Paz (Spanish pronunciation: ), is the seat of government of the Plurinational State of Bolivia. With an estimated 816,044 residents as of 2020, La Paz is the third-most populous city in Bol ...
in the 1960s. In the city, this group faced prejudices, and katarist thoughts began to emerge among the students. The movement was inspired by the rhetoric of the national revolution as well as by
Fausto Reinaga, writer and founder of the Indian Party of Bolivia. The group formed the Julian Apansa University Movement (MUJA), which organized around cultural demands, including bilingual education. Its most prominent leader was
Jenaro Flores Santos (who in 1965 returned to the countryside to lead peasants). Another prominent figure was Raimundo Tambo.
Emergence
At the 1971 Sixth National Peasant Congress, the congress of the National Peasants Confederation, the katarists emerged as a major faction against the pro-government forces. The 1973 Tolata massacre (in which at least 13
Quechua
Quechua may refer to:
*Quechua people, several indigenous ethnic groups in South America, especially in Peru
*Quechuan languages, a Native South American language family spoken primarily in the Andes, derived from a common ancestral language
**So ...
peasants were killed) radicalized the katarist movement. Following the massacre, the katarists issued the 1973 Tiwanaku Manifesto, which viewed Quechua people as economically exploited and culturally and politically oppressed. In this vision, peasant class consciousness and Aymara and Quechua ethnic consciousness were complementary because capitalism and colonialism were the root of exploitation.
Political recognition
Katarism made its political breakthrough in the late 1970s through the leading role katarists played in
CSUTCB. The katarists pushed the CSUTCB to become more indigenized. Eventually, the katarists split into two groups. The first, a more reformist strain, was led by Victor Hugo Cardenas, who later served as vice president under Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, heading efforts to institutionalize a neoliberal, state-led multiculturalism. A second strain articulated a path of Aymara nationalism. A political wing of the movement, the
Tupaj Katari Revolutionary Movement (MRTK) was launched.
[Sanjinés, pp. 14-15] This radical stream of katarism has been represented by
Felipe Quispe (aka El Mallku), who took part in founding the
Tupac Katari Guerrilla Army in the 1980s. This group later became the MIP (Indigenous Movement Pachakuti), which became outspoken critics of the neoliberal Washington Consensus and which coalesced around ethnic-based solidarity. Quispe advocated the creation of a new sovereign country, the Republic of Quillasuyo, named after one of the four regions of the old empire where the Incas conquered the Aymaras. Current Vice President of Bolivia Alvaro Garcia Linera was a member of this group.
Decline
Katarist organizations were weakened during the 1980s. In this context
NGO
A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active i ...
s began to appropriate katarist symbols. Populist parties, such as
CONDEPA, also began to integrate katarist symbols in their discourse. After the
Revolutionary Nationalist Movement
The Revolutionary Nationalist Movement ( es, Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario , MNR) is a centre-right conservative political party in Bolivia and was the leading force behind the Bolivian National Revolution from 1952 to 1964. It influen ...
(MNR) had incorporated katarist themes in its 1993 election campaign, other mainstream parties followed suit (most notably the
Revolutionary Left Movement).
[Van Cott, p. 85]
See also
* LAVAUD, Jean-Pierre
Le courant Tupac Katari en Bolivie Document de Travail n° 24 1982.
Centre national de la recherche scientifique
The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe.
In 2016, it employed 31,637 ...
.
References
Works cited
*Sanjinés C., Javier.
Mestizaje Upside-Down: Aesthetic Politics in Modern Bolivia'. Illuminations. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004.
*Schelling, Vivian.
Through the Kaleidoscope: The Experience of Modernity in Latin America'. Critical studies in Latin American and Iberian cultures. London
.a. Verso, 2001.
*Stern, Steve J.
Resistance, Rebellion, and Consciousness in the Andean Peasant World, 18th to 20th Centuries'. Madison, Wis: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987.
*Van Cott, Donna Lee.
From Movements to Parties in Latin America: The Evolution of Ethnic Politics'. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
External links
Cultura wiphala quechua aymaraComunidad Amáutica
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Eponymous political ideologies
Political movements in Bolivia
Political theories
Politics of Bolivia