As an indigenous leader from Bolivia, I know what exclusion looks like. Before 1952, my people were not allowed to even enter the main squares of Bolivia’s cities, and there were almost no indigenous politicians in government until the late 1990s. Evo Morales Read Quote
Natural disasters in Bolivia have been getting worse with the passage of time. It’s brought about by a system: the capitalist system, the unbridled industrialization of the resources of the Planet Earth. Evo Morales Read Quote
The new republic should be based on diversity, respect and equal rights for all. Evo Morales Read Quote
We can not have equilibrium in this world with the current inequality and destruction of Mother Earth. Capitalism is what is causing this problem and it needs to end. Evo Morales Read Quote
Bolivia’s majority Indian population was always excluded, politically oppressed and culturally alienated. Our national wealth, our raw materials, was plundered. Indios were once treated like animals here. In the 1930s and 40s, they were sprayed with DDT to kill the vermin on their skin and in their hair whenever they came into the city. Evo Morales Read Quote
For me, being leftist means fighting against injustice and inequality but, most of all, we want to live well. Evo Morales Read Quote
In 2006, I entered the presidential palace in the main square of La Paz as the first indigenous president of Bolivia. Our government, under the slogan ‘Bolivia Changes,’ is committed to ending the colonialism, racism and exclusion that many of our people lived under for many centuries. Evo Morales Read Quote
Globalization and the neoliberal economic model have already been rejected in Latin America; it simply hasn’t been a solution for our people. At the same time, Latin countries like Venezuela and Argentina are anti-imperialist and anti-globalization, and yet their economies are growing again. Evo Morales Read Quote