Le reveil des indiens

In: Politique internationale: pi, Heft 111, S. 27-47

Abstract

The traditional image of South American Indians in loincloths & glittering feather headdresses, or in ponchos playing the panflute, seems definitively out of date. Indians no longer live lives of isolation on their reservations. These days, the continent's 44 million strong indigenous population has organized into a significant social & political force. The election last December of Evo Morales in Bolivia, the good turnout for Ollanta Humala in Peru & the unseating of three presidents under pressure from popular uprisings in Ecuador all show that indigenous movements have reached maturity. Everywhere they are fighting against expropriation of natural resources, against an ultra-liberal economic model which undermines their ancestral values of sharing & solidarity, in order to end their exclusion & subservience. Their aim is to take their destiny into their own hands & impose their vision of the world. But will their powerful North American neighbor eventually weigh in against them? Let us hope not. Adapted from the source document.