Writing in Bolivian Dictatorship

I never been interested in politics, neither being active in it. Being Bolivian, I’m surrounded by latin-american literature influenced mostly by our turbulent political history. This is social literature that is marked mostly by conflicts and our disastrous governments. I didn’t understand well the impact of these events in literature until the last 3 weeks in my country. Social and political environment can definitely influence your writing soul.

To be honest, I didn’t write/edit a single word in these weeks. For those who haven’t heard it, we were living under dictator Evo Morales’ regime. He has changed the constitution to perpetuate into power. A couple of years ago, he did a referendum to ask Bolivians if we wanted him to run again for presidency, we voted “NO”. We’d had enough of this government that sympathized too much with Venezuelan and Cuban counterparts. However, the tyrant didn’t accept the referendum results and he searched his illegal way to run for presidency for a fourth time.

A bit more than three weeks ago, he blatantly committed fraud to forge his win in these elections. The people felt insulted and angered. We protested and took the streets, not knowing how else to protest. We suffered 3 weeks of attacks from delinquent groups that supported his regime of terror. These groups invaded our cities, burned whatever they saw, including houses. People were beaten to death with bats, sticks and stones. The police had instructions to not go out, leaving us to our own fate. They were complying with “orders” from above.

Finally, after weeks, the police couldn’t take anymore our suffering and pleas for help and riots started to happen into their own units. When the OAS’s audits revealed the fraud, the tyrant called for “new elections”. But we were no dumb. That wasn’t enough. He was a criminal. He had to go. When the army didn’t support him, he finally resigned and ran away.

Just when there was a brief air or relief, Morales’ groups attacked with more force. The police was now on our side but it wasn’t enough. People organized themselves to help defend neighborhoods. But we could still hear the dynamite explosions, people crying for help. The day following Evo Morales resignation was the darkest one of these weeks. I will never forget the days with warnings to turn the lights off, sirens with alarms to let you know that the hordes of delinquents were close to your home. Morales had ensured to feed these people with hate and anger all these years. They just wanted to destroy everything on their way, burn houses, business, and beat to hell whoever they found. When the police was surpassed by these hordes, we begged the army to step in. It wasn’t until they decided to step in that we had some relief.

It still hurts to think that this man tried to take advantage of the poorest segment of the population, the indigenous, that because of their lack of access to information were brainwashed with ideas of racism and division. A corrupt network of leaders ensured the poorest ones joined these delinquents groups, threatening them to take away their lands and resources if they didn’t comply.

When I see Tweets from people abroad, the international community, claiming this was a Coup, I get angered. Only Bolivians know what we went through. Through this week, we heard the tyrant’s speeches mocking us, telling us he would siege cities to see if we could withstand it, mocking from our protests and blockades, calling “his people” to defend him.

Days are showing a bit better now. We still have a long way to fight and hordes will keep coming in protest for the tyrant’s exile. They will never accept that we, the people, won. The dictator is gone. And even though he threatens to come back, we’ve learned a lot. We learned that unity is strength. Our patriotism and faith has grown. We love our country more than ever and we embrace our multiculturality, our diversity across all races, colors, and beliefs.

When I think why I didn’t write in this time, I just couldn’t. I couldn’t find the head to do it. I admire those writers that were able to write in moments of political convulsion where your own human rights are at risk.

I started to write today. It felt weird to go back to my science fiction novel when my feelings are still boiling inside. But I have to go back. I won’t let this tyrant absorb more days of my life. And for the first time ever, I definitely understand the impulse to write social literature. The writer I was weeks ago will always be marked by this experience.