Solstice and Silliness.

So its Aymara Summer Solstice time. So Jim is in Prague, and has commissioned one of his acolytes to write the latest update.

Check out the following nuggets of wisdom, combining silly leftism and superstition. Kids, it doesn't get any better than this:

Update from Cochabamba
Marcela Olivera

With the winter solstice, a new year has begun in the indigenous world of Bolivia. The ceremonies performed in El Alto with the first rays of the morning sun predicted the union of the social movements and the continuation of the struggles in the coming year.

I can see eager young NGO staffers just swooning over the concluding paragraph:

The elders of the indigenous people are looking toward a new future in their solstice rituals and ceremonies. Let’s hope that their offerings and predictions will bring new proposals about solving the real problems ahead of us. And, when they announce the “struggles ahead”, this does not only mean struggle in the streets but also describes the struggles in the halls of government for new solutions that bring economic justice to all Bolivians.

I couldn't avoid remarking about this:


Everything in the Third World Groupie playbook is included:

1. A call for some vague 'populist true democracy' - some sort of huge council consisting of all the poorest of the country will magically cure all ills of society.

2. Achieving True freedom by taking the resources held by the mean foreign corporation.


My true favorite --


3. The hidden wisdom of the ethnically-correct, natives. Said'noble' people's, of course, are totally in tune with nature, showing it in their religious ceremonies. Oh, how un-Euro-centric.


LOL, this silliness is really funny.

Since when does worshipping the Sun God or Gaia, give you any great insight into politics?? The poor Aymara's follow this nonsense, since village witch doctors come up with every explanation in the book to tell them why their life is so fucked up. Geez, the reality for these folks has been that they have unquestionably obeyed what the witch doctors (as well as rural priests) want, and that has only made some of these folks richer. Alcides Arguedas has described this masterfully in Raza De Bronce.


While I normally don't care what people worship, it makes me laugh seeing lefties going gaga over "correct" forms of worship.
What is even more ironic, is that the Aymara's religion is extremely fatalistic in its worldview, nicely complementing some of Spanish Catholicism's own fatalism ("Its God's Will"). Compounding this situation, is the fact the Church did not attempt to really convert the Indians, because that would have also involved educating them.

In the end, the Aymara's believe they are at the mercy of supernatural forces, and they have no control over their destiny. So they do nothing for 50 years until they get so fed up and go on rampages.

Superstition is superstition, and I could give a hoot about being un-P.C. about it when it truly affects your life negatively. Somewhere out there is an interesting scholarly study about the assertiveness and relative prosperity of Aymara's converted to Jehova's Witnesses in the countryside. I will find it and post it, because it is an interesting read.