Bolivian doctors fighting for socialism (9)

At El Alto International Airport a young doctor had picked me up, my driver. He was just finishing his degree and driving a cab was one way to stay afloat.

“It is good you saw it”, he said. “Westerners: most of them want this government to fall. They want to grab our natural resources again, to enslave us. They don’t want Bolivia to be able to govern itself, to show an example to the world. This is one of the richest countries on earth, which was made to be one of the poorest. I want to be a doctor, yes. But not for the status – I want to become one so I would be able to cure, and also because I want to serve my people.”

I recalled a poster in Santiago de Chile, several years ago, with the photo of a student and a few simple words: “I am studying to be a doctor, so I could take away the pain from which my country is suffering.”

Everything was changing in South America. This is what its people wanted for decades and centuries; this is what they struggled for. Their will was broken, literally raped by outside forces. Now the new era of solidarity, of a powerful and determined drive towards building compassionate and social states was sweeping colonial and post-colonial mentality and elements aside. The continent was taking off in an elegant, confident, and majestic fashion.

It was a very dangerous takeoff, but it was already in the process. It was now or never, after more than 500 years of humiliation, theft and plunder.