It will be sufficient to read Eduardo Galeano’s “Open Veins of Latin America” to understand why Bolivia’s state President Eva Morales resigned. Like Hugo Chavez, he too had taken steps aimed at changing his country’s fate. He strove for 14 years in office as president with all his might to increase the level of welfare in Bolivia and achieved great successes. However, as is the case everywhere, there too the subject of injustice was brought up on the agenda, and Morales had no choice but to leave Bolivia and flee to Mexico. It is said that his making the country’s resources available to American imperialism is the most important reason behind Morales’s fall from power.
As in the Venezuela example, there will be a great deal of negative comments made about Morales as well. There will be efforts to veil the U.S. and CIA’s intervention. American imperialism and its representatives do not seek any excuse to invade countries, destabilize them and seize their resources. The U.S. does not want former colonies to recover and become self-sufficient countries. It demonstrates this over and over again in every step it takes. As is known, Morales supported Nicolas Maduro last year.
We mentioned earlier that it would enough to read Eduardo Galeano’s “Open Veins of Latin America” to understand Bolivia and Latin America. Reading, in particular, all that is written about Bolivia’s mining city Potosi, is critical in understanding the U.S.’s justifications for intervening in Bolivia. The process of Potosi’s silver mines being stolen by Spain is beyond intolerable. The stories of the colonial era on the mountains of Bolivia, which has served as the cradle of civilization for the Incas, are truly impressive. The majority of these stories, based on European invaders (Hispanics and Portuguese), taking place between Bolivia and other Latin American natives and Africans, ended in death in mines and vast lands. We are talking about a story that has been ongoing for five centuries. Thus, it is not a process that has come to end.
The fact that Morales is Bolivia’s first local president is significant. Now, following Bolivia’s silver mines, its lithium mine seems to be next in line. Also, the information that more than half of all known lithium reserves are in Bolivia should be considered important. However, clearly, all this information is insignificant for quite a few people. For the children of a country that has lived under the oppression of liberalism for almost three decades, Bolivia’s first local president being forced to resign for a lithium mine will not be very meaningful – he has been involved in corruption after all.
The world struggles to produce solutions in the face of the U.S. and Europe’s propaganda. We are in a new age of imperialism. We are at the start of an era which all that has happened a century ago is being restaged. During this time-frame, Western imperialism invaded countries and continents by force or through the alliance of local powers. Knowledge of the history of colonialism is thus, extremely critical. The gates of no return in the history of slave trade need to be known. Hereby, I would like to call out to National Education Minister Mr. Ziya Selçuk: the history of colonialism needs to be studied in high schools. New generations need to be taught about the results of Western hegemony on earth. Knowledge on the history of colonialism is necessary. Knowledge of Potosi is required. The history of how gold and silver mines were moved to Europe must be known. Yet, knowing all this alone is not enough; having knowledge of Orientalism is also necessary. The process of how the West mentally enslaved the world must also be known. Louis Massignon had said, “they cannot think anything anymore.”
If these are not taught, new generations are going to wage war against their own countries on behalf of the U.S. People in Bolivia acted together with the U.S. against their own country. A simple look into history is enough to understand that the CIA won in Bolivia. Knowing is important; it changes one. It is clear that we are not going to have the history of colonialism taught in aims of producing enemies against Europeans, Americans and Israelis. It needs to be known. As much as Europe’s history of science, the history of philosophy, history of politics, and the history of colonialism must also be taught. We have to accept that admiration towards the West is still very intense. Knowledge of Spain, Portugal, the U.K., France, Belgium, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands’s history of colonialism is invaluable in terms of understanding the present and building the future. Because, it should be known that everything happening today is very systematic.
