I slept through the revolution

Last night a group of poor farmers stormed into the town of Chiclayo. I ate a chicken and drank beer in Chiclayo, and then I went to sleep very close to the downtown. They came into Chiclayo at about 2:00am, and by 4:00am the police were responding with riot gear and tear gas. At one point some dummy threw a Molotov cocktail through the old municipal building. It burned to the ground. At 5:00pm, the fire was still burning inside the remains of the edifice. This all went on 3 blocs away from my hotel. Thanks to jet-lag and private security guards, who aren’t afraid to shoot you dead, I slept like a lamb.

It is too bad that this event will never be broadcast far beyond Chiclayo. It is just another day when a band of poor people got a little crazy. But this is Latin America, and you’re up against this every day. Some days, thanks either to too much booze or too much political tension, the poor actually come together and let their voices be heard in a way that makes authorities listen. Often people get hurt and things get burned down when the authorities finally listen. In fact Latin America’s poor speak volumes every day, but thanks to centuries of social inequality, coupled by the culture of individualism, most decision-makers, even those claiming to speak on behalf of the poor, are quite deaf to their needs.

Interestingly enough, I visited Sipan today. This was the center of a vast and powerful pre-Colombian kingdom, until the Incas decided to invade and set things straight. Part of the Machu custom (the people who made up Sipan), was for the king to buried with his wife, his concubines, his guards, and anyone else he thought important. Apparently, it was supposed to be a great honour to be sacrificed when the king died, because you would accompany him to the next life. Too bad if you were a slave during this time, as you’d be buried in a hole somewhere, and your chances of making it to the next life were not good at all.

This crazy archaic society that separates the powerful from the powerless was supposedly transformed under the Inca rule. And then it was transformed again when the Spaniards had a go at governance. Later on, in the same place but in a different time, democracy was supposed to make all equal. The responsibility of citizenship gives us all the rights of equality, so it says. Yet, in this very town, that at one time sacrificed the selected to be buried with the king while the poor were damned to damnation, a group of poor people burned down the municipal building. I’m not sure that democracy brings a great societal difference from the age of Sipan under these circumstances. Looking at the skeleton of that ancient King, buried in the desert, I can’t help but wonder how many unmarked graves have long since been forgotten. Maybe those in the unmarked graves burned down a building or two in their day. We’ll never know if, and if if, we’ll never know why.

Will anthropologists and archaeologists eight hundred years from now pay attention to every citizen that this society buries? Will they know why the Municipal building in Chiclayo burned down last Thursday? Or will they look for the grandeur, forget about the rest, and say that in their age there really is a better sense of equality?