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Here's the WT title: "Inca justice system eyed by Morales may use whipping".
Can this be rightfully changed to: "Evo Morales wants to bring back public whippings"? (Is "eyed by Morales" the same as "Morales wants to"?)
Further, the WT article itself, in its title, distorts what is happening in Bolivia. Compare the WT title and opening paragraphs to the content of paragraphs 4-7 (see XX):
"Inca justice system eyed by Morales may use whipping"
"Bolivian President Evo Morales, on a state visit to the Netherlands, said he is searching for a new model of democracy that could include reviving the ancient tradition of whipping petty criminals as an alternative to jail.
"'When I was a kid I was punished several times, being whipped and lashed,' the leftist president said Monday in a speech to an audience of businessmen and government officials from both Bolivia and the Netherlands.
"'Whenever I did something wrong, I received punishment with a chicote , and always believed that the system our ancestors used was better than the system in the northern justice system. It's much more democratic,' he said.
(XX) "Meanwhile, some 5,000 Indians from across Bolivia converged on La Paz, the capital, yesterday to demand that opposition lawmakers approve a sweeping land reform bill proposed by Mr. Morales.
"Some demonstrators had walked as far as 300 miles in marches begun several weeks ago from the Andean mountains and plains of Bolivia, culminating in yesterday's rally in the capital.
"The demonstrators were seeking to put pressure on Mr. Morales' conservative opponents in the Senate who have blocked his proposal to redistribute millions of acres of unproductive land to the country's landless poor.
"Mr. Morales, elected with strong backing from his Andean nation's Indian community at the end of last year, promised during the campaign that he would look to traditional practices to make the justice system more equitable."
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Meanwhile...MEANWHILE!...people are WALKING THREE HUNDRED MILES to pressure the fascists in the Senate to give them some land to farm!
Meanwhile. Why isn't THAT the headline? Poverty-stricken indigenous Indians--whose forbears have been ignored, marginalized, brutalized, excluded, oppressed and killed by fascist death squads for 500 years--WALK THREE HUNDRED MILES to their capitol for a bit of justice.
Walk!
Does that tell you something about what's important in Bolivia right now? About the TOTAL lack of services in poor rural areas? About the CONDITION of the people who have to devise their own ad hoc justice system because NOBODY GIVES A !@#$ WHAT HAPPENS TO THEM?
Secondly, consider what Morales is SEEKING, in his own words: "...to make the justice system more equitable." "It's more democratic" (the rough justice of the Incan elders).
By dignifying the elders' justice system--recognizing it, formalizing it--he's trying to bring the GOOD aspects of Incan culture into the "mainstream." You only have to look at Evo Morales to know that he would not approve of cruel punishment, or excess/abuse, or lynching. What he's saying is that the village system has many things to recommend it--it WORKED--and, in view of Bolivia's BROKEN justice system (and it really is broken--the previous rightwing rulers created a totally corrupt disaster of the courts/jails)--it's BETTER than the mess they have. "...to make the justice system more equitable." "It's more democratic."
About his personal experience (he got a few flogs himself from the village elder ropes, and considered it fair--feels he needed that correction as a youth): I have a close friend who got whacked a couple of times by his Mom (at age 8-10)--and now considers it to have been FAIR. In his opinion, she wasn't cruel--she was JUST. He furthermore identified with her plight (she was supporting the family, at a time when that was especially hard for a woman--1930s-1940s). I knew her. And I would say that he's right--she was not a cruel person. I think there is a huge difference between what is perceived as fair/just, and what is perceived as unfair/cruel, in physical punishment. Physical punishment is not a good thing, in my opinion. It leaves scars. But the NATURE of those scars is very important. To put it rather absurdly: If you perceive such an assault as fair, you go on to become president of your country, or, in the case of my friend, a brilliant professor and poet. If you perceive it as cruel/unjust, you might build up rage and become a criminal--the sort of thing we often see in the backgrounds of violent criminals (cruel beatings, etc.). Of course, other factors come into play, too--many other factors. But just as a rough rule: what's happening to you, mentally, is the most important factor in your perception of physical punishment.
I think there is a touch of masochism in both of these men's justification of the physical punishments they received as youth (both Morales and my professor friend). The punishments obviously did no serious damage to them. It maybe drove them a bit inward--into introspection, and self-criticism (not unattractive qualities). But it certainly did not damage their self-confidence or their empathy. At worst, it makes them perhaps a bit myopic about the potential for abuse in physical punishment, and the capacity for cruelty in others. (Because it didn't hurt THEM, it must be okay?)
I'm a mother--kid all grown up now. And I was one of these very modern, peacenik Moms who abhorred the mild physical punishments I witnessed as a kid, and determined to raise my kid differently. I read a lot of books, and consulted my own deities, and completely re-thought the whole business of how we regard (and treat) children. It worked out beautifully, on the whole. But, one day, when I was walking down the sidewalk with my two-year-old, he bolted into the street (where cars frequently sped by). I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck with one hand, and whacked his behind with the other. It was PURE INSTINCT. He must not...he ABSOLUTELY MUST NOT go running into the street! If I had had time to think it out, I might have devised a non-violent way to teach the lesson. I had no time! And, anyway, he really could not understand the danger he was in. But I was totally amazed at my action. I had hit my kid!
Thus, I learned what NON-CRUEL physical punishment is all about. I never did it again--but I have absolutely no regret about that incident. I know in my heart that it was an instinctual, mammary, LOVING whack. I also should say that I was in privileged circumstances. I had the luxury and time to think most things out. I didn't have to WALK THREE HUNDRED MILES to my capitol city to beg for a bit of farmland to do hardscrabble labor on, to feed my family! (--nor was I a lowly, underpaid secretary in the 1940s, who had to endure bosses groping me up, to feed my kids!).
Imagine you live in an isolated village high in the Andes, haunted by hunger, frozen by cold, and all you know about the outside, white/European-run world is that, when you go there, you are, a) despised, hated, held in contempt; b) are subject to being beaten, raped, 'disappeared,' at the slightest excuse or no excuse; and c) if you commit the slightest wrong--steal bread, look at a policeman the wrong way--you could be stuck in a filthy jail for 20 years and subjected to the basest cruelties that the fascist state can inflict.
As the parents and elders of this village, you MUST teach the youth not to steal or misbehave. Their lives may depend on it. Further, NO ONE cares about you or your village. And what would seem like a relatively minor crime to urban dwellers--someone stealing someone else's goat, for instance--might mean life or death (or, in any case, serious hardship) to someone living off the land in the Andes. How do you stop this from happening? How do you create justice in these difficult circumstances? You have no courts, in any formal sense. You have no jails. Jails in the Andes would be absurd. You have no money for jails or police. Who would feed the jailbirds? Who would heat the jails and keep the prisoners from freezing to death? No one can afford it!
So, just using a little imagination, we can see how the elders' simple justice evolved, and WHY. The guy who stole the goat has to give the goat back, plus some wool. He refuses. The elders convene and go TAKE the goat from him, plus some wool, and give it back to the old woman he stole it from. Then he steals somebody else's goat. What do you do with him? No courts, no jails. You MUST stop him from doing this. You consider the circumstances. He is hungry. He is crazy. His wife just died. You know all about him. You know WHO he is. You determine that he's just mean and greedy, and needs to stop. You sentence him to ten flogs, and carry it out. Then the old woman comes forward, says she feels sorry for him, and promises to share goat milk with him, and give him her goat's next kid--she says she can do without it.
All of these people have to keep living with each other. To exile someone is not possible in the Andes--they will die. Things have to be worked out. And, consequently, people do NOT become lifetime criminals--or chained up, mistreated, abused, in cruel prisons, never to see the magnificent mountains or the goddess of springtime ever again.
It's rough justice, but not cruel justice. It includes the humanity of all individuals. It seeks wisdom, not punishment. "...to make the justice system more equitable." "It's more democratic."
I'm certainly aware that village justice can get out of hand--can become mob rule, lynchings. And physical punishment can get out of hand--easily. (That's one of the reasons I so disapprove of it--the inflicter of physical pain can so easily become a sadist; hurting someone else can become addictive, and extremely unjust.) I'm a woman, and know what women have suffered through the ages. I also know how "village justice" in our own southern states turned into barbaric oppression of black citizens. I think what Morales is saying is that, in his view, this has NOT happened with "village justice" in the Andes. It is not mob rule. It is more like well-intended, non-cruel parental correction. He sees wisdom in it. He wants to bring that sense of reality, of equity, of democracy INTO the disastrously unjust, unreal, undemocratic official justice system.
The BBC article has a photo/story of an event that apparently WAS mob rule (included in this news report on Morales' policies). So it CAN happen. But then....how many people in the U.S. have been executed for something they didn't do? How many have been imprisoned for 10 years, 20 years, after being unjustly convicted? No justice system is without error. Ours is one the worst in the so-called civilized world. How fair is it, of the BBC, to highlight this example of "village justice" gone wrong, in an URBAN area (the city of Cochabamba), where vast populations of extremely poor, displaced people are forced to live, due to massive U.S./World Bank/corporate destruction of Bolivia's economy? These urban dwellers are far from their villages. They are trying to maintain rural village ways and values in a cruel urban setting. It's literally all they have--their togetherness as a community, their communal ability to stop the "petty" crimes that make the lives of the poor miserable. Is it fair to judge the ancient Incan justice system by this measure? And is it fair to highlight these instances of mob rule out of context?
Both of these articles--WT and BBC--seem to jump at the chance to slander Evo Morales, to peg him and his new leftist government as cruel and primitive--when all he said was that he sees more equity and more democracy in the ancient "village justice" system that he knew as a youth, than in the BROKEN justice system run by the state, and he's looking for ways to IMPROVE the justice system. He did NOT say he APPROVES of flogging. He said it was better than going to jail!
"Whenever I did something wrong, I received punishment with a chicote , and always believed that the system our ancestors used was better than the system in the northern justice system. It's much more democratic," (Morales) said. (--the WT article).
The Incan justice system that he experienced is "better than" the state's justice system. "It's much more democratic."
This OP title--"Morales wants to bring back public whippings"--and the WT and BBC article titles and story focus really very seriously distort what he said and what he intends. The BBC title: "Bolivia goes back to the whip" is just plain wrong, and unfactual. "The whip" has always been there. It has been used for thousands of years as one sort of punishment for crime. Also, it's not a whip--it's a rope. (Big difference!) The WT title is a bit more fair: "Inca justice system eyed by Morales may use whipping." It's still a distortion, and sensationalist. He is recognizing INCAN JUSTICE, giving it proper attention in Bolivian culture and law. He did not say that it is always equitable and democratic--or right, or just. He said that it was MORE equitable and democratic, etc. "Much more." Also, this ancient system of justice was aimed at wisdom, fairness and community order--not at enriching the rich and oppressing and punishing the poor. It has many different ways to create justice and equity. And, since it forbids capital punishment, and never contemplated jails, one can presume that "the whip" (a rope) was/is a last resort, when all else fails. Morales says as much.
"'During the Inca empire,' Mr. Morales said with a broad smile, 'a community-based court system led by the village elders punished vandals and other criminals for their wrongdoings and determined how and when they would be punished. // It mostly ended in a few lashes, like the one I received when I was a kid. They did it for my own good. Look where I am today." (--the WT article)
I'm reminded, too, of the whip used in some schools of Buddhism, to keep students alert during meditation. I don't approve of it, personally--but it is not ill intended, as far as I know. It's not intentionally cruel, in other words. It's a reminder.
The BBC article (despite its wrongful title) is a bit better than the WT article, in quoting other Bolivian government figures concerning the problems in the justice system that they are struggling with. The notions of Incan justice, and trying to find the best justice system, and deal with the horrors of the state system, are on the minds of a number of people. It is something the government is working on. And those who are working on it are not unaware of these incidents of "mob rule" in urban Cochabamba. This is NOT some weird policy that Evo Morales invented--whipping people! That sounds so bizarre. Both articles in their titles try to personalize it as some strangeness of Morales'. But at least the BBC article makes clear that this is a government-wide effort to IMPROVE the justice system, not to create some new and cruel punishment.
As always, with the corporate news monopolies--and often with the BBC as well--you MUST ask what their motives are in their titling of stories, the focus of their stories, and their choice of stories. Slandering the South American leftist revolution is a favorite sport of northern/western news organizations. Billions and billions and billions of dollars are at stake--in Bolivian and South American oil, gas, minerals and other resources, including the vast resource of potential slave labor that the World Bank/IMF has created. The BBC may have some measure of independence--under assault, recently, by the way (by the corporatist Blairites)--but they know who's paying the bills, and British capitalists can be as predatory and as conscienceless as our own. This BBC article barely rises above the crap one reads in the WSJ, Washington Post and AP articles about Hugo Chavez. It does not speak well for the BBC. I'd say the Blairites have gotten to them. They are no longer the more or less objective source they once were.
The WT not only focuses on Morales, re: the "whipping" issue, rather than on Morales' government and the problems it is trying to deal with, it highlights the "whipping" issue, pushes the 5,000-person march for land into secondary position, and places the following item at the end of the article:
"Bolivian Energy Minister Carlos Villegas, in The Hague with Mr. Morales, declared that foreign investors are more than welcome in his country. // Asked by The Washington Times whether that applied to U.S. investors, Mr. Villegas said yes, 'as long as they play the game our way. That means a 15 percent profit for them and 85 percent for the state.' // The minister said his government was looking for heavy direct investment in the mining, construction and agriculture sectors."
85% for the people. 15% for the capitalists. Bolivia is open for business, as long as the terms are just. And if the terms HAD BEEN just, prior to the election of Evo Morales, Bolivia might have had some money to create a decent court and justice system.
But this point is never made, and barely rises to consciousness, as the reader's attention gets twisted into contortions by the matter of ancient Incan justice clashing with our modern sensibilities. You have to think hard to get it. And you also have to think hard and have some background in anthropology and a few other subjects to truly understand how these articles are playing you: Incan justice (no capital punishment, no jails) vs our modern sensibilities (which tolerate state murder--just or unjust, we don't seem to care--and truly horrendous modern jail conditions).
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