Since I had an extra day in Lima, my host, Gonzalo, took me to to old colonial Lima. We visited some churches, had a private tour of monastary (complete with a saint's grave), and went to the National Musuem of Art. It seemed to me that there is a strong narrative in Peru of lack of unity as a traumatic problem, as the barrier to success, as the central explanation for failure (in contrast with, say, a narrative the appears very strong in the Czech Republic--one that involves the failure of others to keep a promise, typically, a promise of assistance or foreign aid; oddly, this is accompanied by the repetition of defenestration (throwing people through windows) in national history). Anyway, it seems that a failure of unity was part of Peru's experience in the anti-colonial struggle (Peruvians on both the royalist and the anti-royalist side) and in the lost war against Chile in the 1870s. This combines with a myth of racial unity, a becoming white and becoming modern, as well as a unity among difference as symbolized in a national story of Saint Martin, who miraculously has a mouse, a cat, and a dog eat together from the same dish.
And, so what are responses to myths of unity, particularly in the face of weak states that compensate via authoritarianism and corruption? Cynicism is one response, a selling out to the market, a self-commodification and turning of every aspect of society into a commodity, something to be sold. Even authenticity can be sold, commodified.
What's worse: really believing or cynicism? the prophet, the visionary or the seller of snake oil?
Any exposure to, reflection upon, etc., the Incas while there in Peru?
Posted by: old | August 27, 2007 at 02:24 AM