What happened in Bolivia?

Recently Bolivia lived a historic moment, which, for its frenetic development and its
unexpected results, calls for a careful review. Especially, because the easy assumption of
a coup can’t explain the large civil movement –spontaneous and heterogeneous– that
protested against Evo Morales. Nonetheless, the coup interpretation –advocated
particularly by the most pro-indigenous and anti-colonialism foreign academics and
politicians– can be only compressible if, precisely, one assumes some highly “colonial”
simplifications. The most important one is that in Bolivia exist a clear and easy division
between indigenous and white/hispanic population (in fact, Evo Morales is the best
example of this oversimplification: he doesn’t speak any indigenous language and he has
a hispanic last name, however, he presents himself as indigenous). A second element is
to believe that under Evo Morales leadership Bolivia had a full democracy –where the
independence of powers is respected and a due process exist, where, in summary, it is
possible to apply, as many academics and politicians do, the traditional liberalism and
republican vocabulary–. But, principally because what happened in Bolivia, at least in the
main and first cycle, was characterized by a generally democratic, pacific and ethic aim
–in contrast to the direct, fast, and murderous violence that characterize a coup or mere
terrorism–.
What happened in Bolivia can be separated into two different cycles. The first one long
and massive –around 21 days of civil resistance in all nine departments of Bolivia– that
ended up with the resignation of Evo Morales. The second cycle, concentrated mainly in
four cities: La Paz, El Alto, Cochabamba and Yapacani, characterized by the open
violence, where a scaled of deaths and private and public destruction took place. Both
cycles, nevertheless, shared a constitutive mechanism: an organic process of information
and disinformation which was more powerful than the classic mass media reporting.
These last days of the “Proceso de Cambio” –the euphemism that the regimen of Evo
Morales names itself– are crowed, contrary to the interpretation that identify the large
civil movement with the “right-wing”, with different voices that, more than a political or
ideological program, have in common a clear idea: with the fourth term of Evo Morales
the pale Bolivian democracy would ultimately die.
The reconstruction of these days’ demands, at least, a new kind of vocabulary. Not only
for the reason that this unusual moment can be prey to the idea of a coup or –according
to most popular Bolivian ideology: NR (Revolutionary Nationalism)– as another
historical expression of the cosmic pendulous of revolution-contrarevolution: a simple
elites exchange. What happened in Bolivia was a kind of civil deed –that have a mirror
in Hong Kong protests– wherein exist essentially a generational transformation. Right
now, in Bolivia, the constitutional succession was respected and was approved by the
Constitutional Court and Congress. After many negotiations also the Congress –with a
majority of Evo Morales Party (MAS)– approved a new election law, which, guarantees
the transitory character of the new Añez government showing how the democratic
institutions are recovering from a long decade of strict control and manipulation of Evo
Morales.
II.
First cycle (The Deed of “Las Pititas”)

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Actually, the police mutiny and the army suggestion to Evo Morales “to resign” were institutional
resolutions for not using legal violence against the civil population.