Insurgent Legacy, Fausto Reinaga and the Indian Revolution
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1 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO Insurgent Legacy Fausto Reinaga and the Indian Revolution A thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts in Latin American Studies by Patrick Louis Williams Kearney Committee in charge: Professor Nancy Grey Postero, Chair Professor Christine Hunefeldt Professor Milos Kokotovic 2014 1 © Patrick Louis Williams Kearney All rights reserved. ii The Thesis of Patrick Louis Williams Kearney is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ Chair University of California, San Diego 2014 iii DEDICATION This work is dedicated to the four most influential mentors in my life. Just like the Andes and Rockies Mountains that they loved so much, these four individuals embibed from natural springs of social understanding, shared cascading rivers of knowledge from myriad tributaries, and dispensed snowcapped mountains of wisdom to all who would listen. Rodrigo Montoya Rojas Herbert Louis Wegert Mildred Levon Brewer Wegert & Juan de Dios Yapita iv EPIGRAPH v TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page .................................................................................................................... iii Dedication .......................................................................................................................... iv Epigraph .............................................................................................................................. v Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... vi Preface ............................................................................................................................... vii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ ix Abstract ............................................................................................................................. xiv Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter One -The Gales of Revolution ......................................................................... 7 Chapter Two -Murder, Theft, and Genocide ............................................................... 25 Chapter Three -Fausto Reinaga, The Indian and The Cholo ......................................... 52 Chapter Four -Citizen Mythos of the Western Horizon .............................................. 87 Chapter Five -Violence & the State of Exception .................................................... 132 Chapter Six -Pacha, Weaving Time through Space ............................................... 149 Chapter Seven -Faltering Faith at Red Square, Letters for the Revolution ................ 166 Chapter Eight -Katarismo and Indianismo, Deposing the Despots ........................... 191 Chapter Nine -Bolivian Judas, The Revolution of the Armed Forces ....................... 215 Chapter Ten -The Amautic Revolution, Countering the Transmutation .................. 237 Chapter Eleven -The Vice, Apparent and Integral Extraction ...................................... 259 Chapter Twelve -Epilogue ............................................................................................ 284 Bibliography .................................................................................................................... 286 vi PREFACE Less than one week before the official academic defense of this thesis, the famous author Eduardo Galeano made a repudiation of his magnum opus The Open Veins of Latin America. On the forty-third anniversary of the book, his self-critique was centered on not having been trained to write political economy, and on what he claimed to be his own changing views. Whatever shortcomings the book may have had, it is my opinion that, like many authors of his capacity, stature, and fame, he is being hyper critical of himself in retrospect. Another famous author, Isabell Allende, implies that Galeano's position has not actually changed as much as he claims ("Author Changes His Mind on '70s Manifesto"). While Galeano's self-critique should be taken seriously, we should also remember why it was that he wrote his view of political economy in novel format. Not since Karl Marx's The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte had a work of political economy been written in a language that was so readily available to the masses. It is my opinion that Galeano was even more adept at this than Marx. Due to the encoded, specialized, and hyper-complicated language of academia, the process of writing political economy, political philosophy, and other related subjects in available language is seemingly impossible. Yet, Galeano took that challenge very seriously and excelled at it. In Open Veins, he explained his drive to do so: I know I can be accused of sacrilege in writing about political economy in the style of a novel about love or pirates. But I confess I get a pain from reading valuable works by certain sociologists, political experts, economists, and historians who write in code. Hermetic language isn't the invariable and inevitable price of profundity. In some cases it can vii simply conceal incapacity for communication raised to the category of intellectual virtue. I suspect that boredom can thus often serve to sanctify the established order, confirming that knowledge is a privilege of the elite (Ibid.; Galeano 264). Galeano's sentiment puts into words my struggles in writing this thesis: trying to create a peer-reviewed work, in available language for a much broader audience, while at the same time taking seriously the theoretical implications across the following pages, was difficult and frustrating. Yet, I longed to write a work that neither tirelessly bores the reader, nor short-changes the important arguments and finer details of the subject matter. I would be a fool to say that I have accomplished anything close to the work of Galeano or Marx. I simply have not. However, I beg the reader to have patience with me over the following pages. I ask this because I wrote this thesis precisely for those readers who do not hold elite positions in the ivory tower of academia. I tried very hard to define elite words, concepts, and theories and to place them in a more enjoyable, available, and understandable format. While I do not feel like I have completely succeeded, I did try my best to remove the hermetic code of supposed intellectual virtue. The sentiments within this thesis, as the reader will see, completely reject any privleges for elites. I sincerely hope that my prose accomplishes the same, at least to a degree. viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work would not have been the same without the help, instruction, guidance, and assistance of countless individuals. There were many generous people who guided and helped me through this process. Inevitably there are those who should be acknowledged but are not been listed here. However, I would like to take this chance to express my sincerest gratitude to the following people. Clearly, I am indebted to the distinguished individuals listed in the dedication. If I had to describe the salient character of these four individuals in one word, I would choose 'wisdom'. The Wegerts, Herbert Louis and Mildred Levon, were known to many people as Millie and Loui. I knew them as Grandma and Grandpa. Millie and Loui never stopped sharing their eclectic knowledge of the world with me. They almost always did so by including a lesson or advisement about how to be socially responsible. Although my Grandfather died several years ago, his lessons and stories travel with me every day. My Grandmother will celebrate her ninetieth birthday a few months from now. Happy Birthday Grandma. The great Aymara linguist Juan de Dios Yapita of Bolivia, while careful to avoid polemics and politics, opened many doors for me: doors to new ways of understanding both language and life. He also provided invaluable guidance for the linguistic explanations in Chapter Six. The wise and brilliant Quechua scholar Rodrigo Montoya Rojas was instrumental in redirecting my ideas about Andean history while always demonstrating ix the importance and finer details of Social Anthropology. He was also the first and only professor at UCSD to lecture in an undergraduate class about the historical role of Fausto Reinaga. I could list myriad reasons why my committee members were so formative and helpful. However a few quick stories will suffice. While I have much to thank committee member Dr. Milos Kokotovic for, I would like to take this moment to thank him for one specific act of kindness. I gave a speech at the graduation ceremony for my B.A. I lost my speech notes, got nervous, and fumbled through the speech. Dr. Kokotovic, as master of ceremonies, was kind enough to reiterate what I was trying to say. He did so in a way that not only salvaged some of my dignity, but also expressed my sentiments better than I could have done during my best of performances. His advice, critiques and directions were spot-on. He is an asset to UCSD. During one of my first classes at UCSD, purely by chance, I had the pleasure of watching Dr. Nancy Grey Postero, the committee chair,