I have posted 3 more chapters from José Carlos Mariátegui’s “Seven
Interpretative Essays on Peruvian Reality” to the Introduction to
Marxism mailing list. This makes 5 out of 7 from arguably his most
important work that is both out of print and not represented on the
Internet until now. Thank god for the scanner. Let’s hope that the
University of Texas Press has no objection to their intellectual
property rights being violated. They, after all, allowed this seminal
Marxist text to languish.
Chapter 2 is titled “The Problem of the Indian” and serves as a kind of
introduction to the much longer chapter 3 on “The Problem of Land”.
Suffice it to say that for Mariátegui the 2 “problems” are interrelated
as demonstrated by the very first sentence: “Any treatment of the
problem of the Indian–written or verbal–that fails or refuses to
recognize it as a socio-economic problem is but a sterile, theoretical
exercise destined to be completely discredited.” He goes further and
identifies describes the “socio-economic problem” as revolving around
land: “A fresh approach to the problem of the Indian, therefore, ought
to be much more concerned with the consequences of the land tenure
system than with drawing up protective legislation.” To understand how
the oppression of the Indian is related to land tenure, I direct your
attention to chapter 3.
Chapter 5 deals with “The Religious Factor” and deserves to be required
reading for anybody who is trying to understand the issues being posed
by political Islam, “liberation theology” in Latin America, etc. Using
the Incan religion as a point of departure, Mariátegui has some very
interesting things to say about Catholicism, Protestantism and the rise
of capitalism...
Finally, chapter 6 on “Regionalism and Centralism”, although written
about Peru, applies equally to Bolivia today. In the 1920s, Peru faced
the same geographical-political divide facing Evo Morales today. Lima,
the capital, was home to wealthy white descendants of Spanish colonizers
just as is the 3 secessionist regions in Bolivia and was situated on the
lowlands facing the Pacific. In both Peru and Bolivia, the indigenous
peoples lived in the highlands. And in both instances, class politics
tended to be reflected in debates over regionalism versus centralism.
full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2008/08/13/more-mariategui/
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