In Bolivia, Speaking Up For Native Languages (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

In Bolivia, Speaking Up For Native Languages
Government Push Is Plagued by Controversy

By Monte Reel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, January 30, 2007; A10
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/29/AR2007012901665.html

LA PAZ, Bolivia -- Andrea Mamani stood in front of her students the
other day and started the afternoon lesson by pointing to her head.

The 22 students, aspiring public heath-care professionals in white lab
coats, responded in ragged unison: "P'iqi."

She pointed to her arm. "Ampara," they answered.

Mamani was teaching them Aymara, an indigenous language spoken mainly in
the rural highlands of Bolivia and Peru. The students in her class, most
of them urbanites, had scant previous knowledge of the language. But
they are pioneers in a training program that President Evo Morales --
the country's first indigenous president -- hopes will become standard
for all government employees.

The Bolivian government estimates that 37 percent of the population
speaks a native language that predates the arrival of Spanish colonists
in the 16th century. Officials hope that language-training programs in
public schools and government offices will raise that percentage -- but
not just for the sake of scholarship. In the words of an Education
Ministry informational pamphlet distributed in La Paz this month,
promoting those languages is part of a broad effort "to decolonize the
mindset and the Bolivian state."

For Morales, the attempt to elevate languages such as Aymara and Quechua
is emblematic of his government's indigenous-based social agenda: It is
enormously ambitious, plagued by conflict and difficult to implement.

After announcing last year that all government employees would have to
undergo indigenous language training, Morales's administration sought
to require it of public school children as well, no matter where they
lived. The proposal riled many in the parts of Bolivia that have little
connection to indigenous communities, areas such as the eastern
lowlands, where words spoken in Quechua and Aymara are often heard as
threats to a way of life.

"Evo wants to make Quechua and Aymara the official languages of Bolivia,
instead of Spanish," said Fernando Suarez, 43, a taxi driver in Santa
Cruz, echoing a common fear in a region that seeks greater independence
from Morales's government. "That might be fine for the highlands where
they actually speak those languages, but not here."

Government officials say they are not trying to replace Spanish. But
they argue that promoting Quechua, Aymara, Guaraní and other native
languages should be a priority for a country where more than half of
the people identified themselves as indigenous in the most recent
census.

"These languages used to be studied only in rural contexts, but now they
are being introduced to urban contexts as well, throughout the entire
educational system, from primary schools to the universities," said
Juan José Quiroz, an Education Ministry official who oversees
indigenous language programs.

The government's promotion of that agenda has been, at times, abrasive.
Félix Patzi, a former minister of education and culture, last year
labeled Bolivians who did not speak an indigenous language "an
embarrassment." He sent letters telling school administrators that the
government would not recognize their institutions unless they
guaranteed indigenous language instruction this academic year. He also
proposed replacing Roman Catholic instruction in public schools with a
controversial "history of religions" class that would place more focus
on traditional indigenous beliefs.

After initially supporting Patzi, Morales backed down on the new
religion course. He also has appeared to relax his insistence on the
indigenous language requirement; officials said last week that the
training would not be obligatory for students this year.

Also last week, Morales fired several members of his cabinet, including
Patzi, associated with the controversy over the government's agenda.

Meanwhile, the president's approval rating has slid from nearly 80
percent shortly after he was inaugurated a year ago to about 59
percent, according to a poll in La Razon, a La Paz newspaper. In the
past month, street protests have raged and demands for autonomy in
various districts have grown louder as a constituent assembly, elected
to rewrite the constitution, remains deadlocked.

"The initial crack in his popularity" was "all about the education
proposals," said Jim Shultz, a political analyst in Cochabamba,
referring to Morales. "They resonated with this symbolic fear that
non-indigenous people have in this country, which questions whether Evo
really understands their needs and perspectives."

Though Morales's tone might be softening for the moment, he has not
abandoned indigenous-friendly reforms. Universities report that
enrollment in indigenous language programs is up since he took power,
and the Education Ministry continues to open new centers where the
languages are taught.

Last year, a student at San Pablo Catholic University in Bolivia wrote
his graduate thesis in Aymara -- a first for the country. His
professors conducted their oral questioning of the thesis in Aymara
during a public ceremony on the shores of Lake Titicaca.

Education officials say the reemergence of Bolivia's indigenous
languages is part of a regional trend. Interest in indigenous
communities and traditions has grown in the past 20 years throughout
South America.

"In the 1980s, people here didn't want to speak Quechua or Aymara," said
Adrián Montalvo, who helps set education policy for native language
programs. "Those languages were limited only to the community and
family spheres, and it was considered shameful to speak them elsewhere.
But now people speak them much more freely."

Donato Gómez Bacarreza, an expert in Andean languages and head of the
language program at La Paz's San Andrés University, said his
instructors have recently begun giving classes, at the government's
request, to members of the national Congress. He also said people in
the business community, including local bankers and Japanese auto
executives, have signed up for Aymara and Quechua classes to better
connect to Bolivia's native people. He and other linguists have been
struggling for decades to resuscitate the languages, and he said he now
sees a clear payoff.

"What we are fighting for is our cultural identity," he said.