Lesson 19
Question SA-9. Here is the text reference (p. 184/2 & 186/3):
All the theses regarding the Indian problem, which avoid or do not address
it as a socio-economic problem, are just more sterile theoretical exercises
(and sometimes only verbal ones at that), condemned to be absolutely discredited.
Not even their good faith can save some of them. They have pretty much served
only to hide or disfigure the reality of the problem. On the other hand,
the socialist critique discovers and clarifies the problem, because it seeks
its causes in the country's economy and not in its administrative, juridical
or ecclesiastical mechanism, nor in the duality of plurality of races, nor
in its cultural or moral situation. The Indigenous problem begins in our
economy. It has its roots in the land ownership regime. Any attempt to resolve
it with administrative or police measures, with educational methods, or
road-building, will be a superficial or secondary project, as long as the
feudalism of the "gamonales" continues.
...
Those of us who from the socialist viewpoint study and define the problem
of the Indian, begin by stating that the humanitarian and philanthropic
viewpoints are obsolete in that, as a prolongation of the apostolic battle
of Father Las Casas, they are based on an ancient pro-Indian campaign. Our
first effort attempts to establish the basically economic nature of the
problem. We rebel, basically, against the instinctive (and defensive) tendency
of the criollo to reduce it to an exclusively administrative, pedagogical,
ethnic or moral problem, in order to avoid at all costs the plane of economics.
For this reason, the most absolutely incorrect of the reproaches which can
be leveled against us is that of lyricism or literaturism. By placing the
socio-economic issues in center-stage, we assume an attitude that is as
far removed from lyricism and literaturism as possible. We are not content
with restoring the Indians' right to education, culture, progress, love
and heaven. We begin by restoring, categorically, the Indians' right to
land. This restoration is a totally materialistic one, and should be enough
to keep anyone from confusing us with the inheritors or imitators of the
evangelistical preaching of the great Spanish priest who, for our part,
we greatly and fervorously admire despite our materialism.