As is true with all people, I understand the world as a combination of what I have been taught by others in my country of schooling, as well as through my own beliefs and morals which have also been influenced by outside sources. As I was schooled primarily in the United States, this week’s chapter was exceedingly interesting as a reflection on the discrepancies between propagandistic teaching, limited experience / understanding, and reality. Peru was a specific case study that I found helpful in reflection. Democracy is the ultimate savior of any country if we are looking through the lens of the United States. Even when a Western country does not take the U.S.’s dogmatic and extreme approach towards democracy, most still see it as a positive form of government, or at least a good start to be built upon. Thus, given my personal background, it was startling to read in this chapter that many left wing citizens and indigenous citizens of Peru were against its first democratic election. Upon further analysis, the reasons behind this became clear; up to this point, there had been neither a single administration nor a single time period in which Indigenous people had been included in political workings. Even stranger for my foreign and naive eyes was to read that the ultra left group were serious terrorists, and the far left University students were the ones to catalyze and lead this almost-revolution. It was, in fact, the right wing governments who were praised by all peoples for capturing the leader of the Senderos, and even stranger still the chapter seemed to imply that the military army was the kindest and most helpful to the Indigenous peoples.
It was a eye opening and simultaneously bizarre narrative for me to have read, and still leaves me with questions about how Latin America’s instability was an effect of the colonizers, and slavery, and if so to what extent, and what specific actions led to this lack of coordination and development. Of course, Africa as a region to this day has still not fully recovered from the dark shadow of imperialism that looms above, and so I wonder if the two regions could be comparable in answering the questions we as a class are asking. Furthermore, I would be interested to hear the extent to which this class believes that present day Latin America has recovered; was the Terror the last we saw of these problems? How is each country doing today?
Angela
November 23, 2016 — 6:58 am
Hey Ariana! I really liked that you mentioned the dogmatic approach of democracy — it was a unique characteristic to bring up. I agree with you on how democracy is heralded as the saviour of so many countries, when it almost always excludes the poor and the indigenous groups. It’s really crazy to me that groups most vulnerable to democracies are always abused or ignored by them. But I’m curious to what you think, even with the fanatical ways democracy is preached, do you find any redeeming qualities in them? Or perhaps do you find other forms of government more effective? Regardless, I really liked your blog!
Angela
Nicole Gross
November 30, 2016 — 6:37 pm
I have many of the same opinions as you about this week’s readings! This class seems to have done this to me a lot – taken something I always perceived to be true and shown me how relative that truth is. Democracy has always been idolized in my education, so realizing how relative politics is was a shock. At first, the authoritarian government of Peru seemed to be the bad guy (since it isn’t a democracy), so I assumed that the leftists who were against the government would be people I could sympathize with. But, like you pointed out, these people didn’t necessarily support a democracy either, and their actions actually had worse consequences for Peru (at least, statistically). Clearly, neither side is good anymore, and I do not support either of them. This makes it difficult for me to analyze because one side has to win, and to me, this is a lose-lose situation – no matter which side wins, there’ll be bad consequences. Perhaps this is why I found this week’s readings so difficult: because I could not envision a bright side to any of the narratives, or even see a light at the end of the tunnel.