El Deber De Memoria En Bolivia (Eng)

In August 2005, a Bolivian ensemble was returning home from a one-week performance tour of Colombia. The Bolivian consulate in Colombia organized the tour, covering the travel expensesof seventeen musicians, but not extending their largesse to include remuneration for the musicians’ work. This arrangement is not unusual for folklore musicians who have remainedoutside a general process of commercialization. On the connecting flight from Lima to La Paz, Evo Morales happened to be on the same flight. At the time, Morales was a candidate for theBolivian presidency with MAS (Movimiento al Socialismo, Movement Towards Socialism). Running with a campaign against neoliberalism, against US-imposed coca eradication policies, for aconstituent assembly, and for reclaiming Bolivian control over hydrocarbon resources, Morales went on to win the presidency in December 2005, bringing in a record 54% of the vote. On theAugust plane trip, members of the ensemble quietly joked: “Now we have a new trumpet player” –in reference to Morales’ purported skills on this instrument. Morales used to play in a bandin Oruro. As we were waiting in the aisles to deplane, the joking banter continued with “¡Qué no bloquea!”(Don’t let him block!), a side reference to road blocks that are standard farein popular Bolivian politics, and that become a concern for musicians who might have performance contracts in the interior of the country when a road block is in place. Among members ofthis ensemble, I have always sensed ambivalence about Bolivian electoral politics, a general frustration with the endless promises that have resulted in no changes in the struggles oftheir everyday lives. Their playful jibes were not necessarily against “Evo,” as Bolivians call him, but against one jet-setting politician among others. [...]

MICHELLE BIGENHO