The Peruvian Rebellion

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By Ollantay Itzamna*

Those who plotted and carried out the overthrow of President Pedro Castillo in Peru never imagined the popular insubordination

At some point, it will be understood which factors activate this massive, simultaneous and sustained collective action, unprecedented in the history of the country. Regularly, even the historical accumulation of social force is activated and coalesces around some core leader or leader. In this case, there is no such “caudillo” either.

Apparently, one of the unifying elements of popular insubordination is the indignation with the pain caused by the massacres and the growing popular agenda that gains space in the national political narrative: Resignation of all, new elections, new Constituent, Castillo released.

The undemocratic resignation of Pedro Castillo was the last straw that broke the patience of the rural popular sectors that were already uncomfortable with the abusive actions of the business agents of the neoliberal system in different territories in the interior of the country, irritated even with the colonizing and abusive presence of the same State - Peruvian nation.

 

Lima: intellectuality overcome by reality

With honorable exceptions, the intelligentsia in Lima has always been loyal to the interests of the bicentennial “project of internal colonialism” established by the Peruvian Republic. Not only did he try to install the fiction of the Peruvian nation project in the minds of the middle class and popular sectors from the hegemonic academic institutions, but he also expressly intellectualized the congenital racism of the bicentennial Estado Crioulo, expelling the presence of the peoples of “all bloods” as citizens or sociopolitical subjects.

Now that popular insubordination has erupted, with their own stories, which Lima's intelligentsia has chosen to discredit and "terrect"[I] even the Quechuas and Aymaras mobilized in the streets. And, not being able to delegitimize them as authentic sociopolitical subjects in the twilight country, now, just watch from the audience.

The vast majority of the regional intelligentsia is also confused by this tragic and overloaded situation, between loyalty to the State, to the companies that pay their salaries and sensitivity to the pain of their blood brothers in mourning for the criminal State.

 

repudiated corporate press

The corporate press based in Lima was practically stripped of its constitutive racism by actors mobilized on the streets, who, cell phones in hand, showed live everything that the Lima press was hiding or trying to hide.

If popular rejection of the corporate press was already growing before the massacre of the 50 Peruvian men and women mobilized, now this growing rejection has turned into popular rejection. Going so far as to expel mainstream media reporters from acts of social protest, even physically attacking their facilities or infrastructure in some cases.

 

Army and National Police without authority

Peru's political and economic elites, when they lost control of the behavior of the impoverished population (through the management of fears and desires), through their means of communication, began to exercise their "last weapon" of historical colonial control: to punish and punish the insubordinates of the population by the military hand. In less than two months, the usurping president has already decreed two or three states of emergency, including a curfew. But the mobilized population, far from being frightened by the massacres, even during the curfew, continued to defend itself, blocking roads, occupying public and private spaces and buildings.

The mobilized population lost its fear of state weapons, and the state lost authority even with the use of the monopoly on violence. Currently the country's main highways, several departments, provinces and districts are in a state of emergency, but rivers of people of all bloods continue to arrive in Lima to carry out the national strike.

The Peruvian oligarchy, by not building authority/State throughout the territory of Peru, subsisted for two centuries of republic between the fear of the “brutality of the Indians who came down from the hills” and the exercise of its violent authoritarianism (punishing and punishing the rebellious Indians ).

At the moment, they have already punished and punished the cities and popular sectors mobilized in the streets, even with 50 murdered by state ammunition, but the insubordinate “plebs”, far from being scared or moaning, roared with more force and advanced directly, from different paths. of the country, to the very political and economic heart of the Peruvian oligarchy: the city of Lima.

 

The president doesn't really rule, she just waits for the fall

In this somber and tense situation, the usurper Dina Boluarte, who no longer makes decisions in the Executive, awaits only the fatal moment of her downfall and her immediate arrest on account of the dozens of murdered and wounded.

Those who make political and military decisions in the country are the two former soldiers strategically placed in power by the Peruvian oligarchy: the president of the Council of Ministers and the president of the Congress of the Republic.

There is no hypothetical short-term scenario for Peru in mourning between state weapons and the streets. The only thing that is certain is that this criminal state conjuncture revealed what for centuries the State and the official Peruvian identity tried to hide: racism and authoritarianism as constitutive elements of the State and of the bicentennial Peruvian identity.

*Ollantay Itzamna He is a defender of the Rights of Mother Earth and the Human Rights of Abya Yala.

Translation: Ricardo Kobayaski.

Originally published on the author's blog [https://ollantayitzamna.com/2023/01/17/peru-indomito/].

Translator's note


[I] O earthling it is a negative and often racist campaign method of spreading fear that is often used in Peru by right-wing parties, especially among the fujimoristas. (Source: Wikipedia)

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