week6—Land or Death! What Mariategui wanted to say… but did(n’t)?—
reading blog #10 – Hugo Blanco’s We the Indians
Reading Hugo Blanco’s We the Indians was like reading a less pretentious version of Garcilaso de la Vega’s Royal Commentaries of the Inca. Though both have their biases and influences, of course, but Blanco’s writing isn’t used as a (shaky, yet) foundational knowledge of the Incas or Peruvian campesinos. To be honest, I’m not sure I understood everything that Blanco wrote about, I was mostly going along with the story. This guy got deported so many times.
I liked Blanco’s writing on land, communities, and ayllus. I felt it helped me piece together more aspects of the puzzle that is Peru and Peruvian history. If Mariategui was the theoretical, critical, more classically literary, and (somewhat) academic approach to the issue of land, community, and Indigeneity, then Blanco’s writing is an action-oriented and experiential approach. Blanco’s combat cry: “land or death!” is a pretty apt summary of his approach. At times, “land or death!” seems like what Mariategui wanted to say.
It wasn’t said directly, but I think Blanco asserts what he thinks about the current state of Indigeneity through a few certain sentences in this passage:
“Quechua was stronger than the murderers; they could not kill it.” (105)
“We, the children of Túpac Amaru, shook with rage and continued our long silent history of rebellions, struggling against the régime of estates.” (106)
“…the ayllu is stronger than its enemies; it is in our blood.” (106)
Perhaps, it is not everything, but these are the words that stood out to me.
I’m not one for politics, or even knows an extensive amount about it, but I thought it was interesting the Blanco asserts that “democracy is a cultural inheritance of ours; the community has governed itself for millennia…” and “…that the essence of the ayllu is democracy” (108). The tension is fascinating, because Blanco also slanders the inventors of democracy, the Greeks—of which I agree with him, but the conflict still stands.
The re-shaping and changing of the ayllus was also interesting. It seems to me that the form and enactment of ayllus is much like that of Indigeneity, subject to change throughout time yet the core of it still somehow remains original and true to the source. (This is perhaps a broad statement to make, but here we are…)
This changing of how ayllus operate and function in light of the ‘legalizing’ of it, or institutionalizing of it was interesting. I think this is true of many things. It kind of reminded me of how harm reduction facilities were something put on by grassroots organizations, despite the (un)helpfulness of the governing body at the time. But now, the discourse and methods have been institutionalized and eaten by government entities and bureaucracy. Perhaps, in these different ayllus, there is also a kind of tension between mediating tradition and government.
How did you read the role of ayllus in the un/making of Indigeneity?
These are all my thoughts right now. Thanks.
2 replies on “week6—Land or Death! What Mariategui wanted to say… but did(n’t)?—”
Hi Jasmine,
Thank you for an incredible blog post as always! Your post echoed a lot of the sentiments I’ve had while reading Hugo Blanco. He really did get deported so many times! Good for him! I personally feel like that’s quite an achievement. I really enjoyed Blanco’s on-the-ground, experiential perspective, not just because it was perhaps easier to read for me. Blanco and Mariátegui are two of the texts that I understood the most throughout this course, on a deeper level than most of the other texts. I feel that otherwise, a lot of what we’re speaking and reading about has been highly conceptual and intellectual and theoretical. While I see the value in theory, I get restless when I don’t see how it enacts tangible, positive change on the ground. Sorry I didn’t actually answer your blog post question.
Land or death,
Cissy
Heyyyy real nice post here, grassy ass!
Hmmm
many thoughts about the role of ayllus, because the dynamic is just so totally opposite to the professional pathways and social/familial organisation of the west (that is: the violent format introduced by the Spaniards.) The mutual responsibility and decision making of ayllus and of democracy really provides a security of diverse perspectives and approaches, so long as it is valued in the AYNI exchange.
And its amazing to imagine this as a real thing! What seems utopia, though actually shiz got done, families maintained, pueblos fed.
The sociological description of ayllus as a democracy and as an interpersonal form of Indigeneity is really fascinating as an approach that provided agency to our making of such through behaviour and organisations of life… I think a piece of the argument is that dislike the struggle against the regime of estate, Quechua/blood/ a way of being is conducted at will and therefore prevails.