Why did this historic challenge, the world’s first expression of a mass anti-capitalist ecological movement, come from Bolivia, a small and desperately poor country, remote from the world’s power centres, and weighed down with a historically fragile, dependent, and crisis-prone economy? Imperialist powers are not accustomed to be defied in this way by a small Third-World country. The outcome in Cancun was a serious setback for ecological forces, but Bolivia, undeterred, is helping to spearhead organizing toward the next world climate change conference in Durban, South Africa, next December. There, Bolivia ended up standing alone in flatly rejecting an imperialist-imposed deal that again failed to act on climate change.
The conference also creatively applied an Indigenous perspective to the most urgent crisis facing humankind through its call for a “universal declaration of the rights of Mother Earth,” which has won significant international support.īolivia led an alliance of Global South countries in taking the Cochabamba resolutions to the world climate change conference in Cancun, Mexico, last December. Let us add that the conference, with more than 30,000 participants, provided a model of how social movements can establish an agenda for action by sympathetic governments. Webber himself praises one recent Bolivian initiative of world import: the Morales government’s hosting of “a major anti-capitalist gathering in Cochabamba last year.” This was “a genuine step forward for the construction of international, eco-socialist networks,” he says. If we instead consider its real achievements, the gains it has made against formidable odds, we must conclude that our priority lies in support of Bolivia’s positive moves towards national sovereignty, social progress, and effective action on global warming.Ĭochabamba Initiative for Climate Justice In my view, Webber and others who agree with him are measuring the Bolivian government against an impossible standard, against the ideal program of a hypothetical mass socialist movement. Internationally, the Bolivian government has joined ALBA, the progressive alliance founded by Cuba and Venezuela, and has taken other positive steps, including breaking diplomatic relations with Israel. embassy in La Paz has participated actively in attempts to overthrow the government. The reforms that Webber derides as “superficial” have been violently opposed by the Bolivian oligarchy, who don’t seem to agree that Morales is strengthening capitalism. His argument rests on his view – in my opinion correct – that Bolivia remains capitalist, and that a socialist transformation is not under way.īut surely that is only part of the story. Jeffery Webber has won international recognition for his writings on the social struggles in Bolivia, so his analysis deserves respectful consideration. (Except as indicated, all quotations are from the March 15 interview in Bullet.)įar from moving towards socialism, Webber says, the Morales government has served to close off a “possibility of a fundamental, transformative overhaul of social, economic, and political structures” and to consolidate a “reconstituted neoliberalism.” Despite Morales’s “nominal inclusion of revolutionary slogans,” his actions involve only “relatively superficial policy initiatives,” Webber says. While Webber says that activists in the North should defend Bolivia against “imperialist meddling,” his primary concern is to disabuse First World socialists of illusions in the country’s government. The second view is argued by Canadian socialist Jeffery Webber in a new book and a variety of recent articles, including an interview published March 15 in Bullet.
Or has the Morales presidency served to limit popular movements and block the possibility of significant change?.Have the Bolivian masses been able to score significant gains under the government of President Evo Morales, first elected in December 2005?.Six years after Bolivians elected their first Indigenous-led government, their ongoing struggle for national and social liberation remains a subject of debate and disagreement among socialists around the world.
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