My thoughts on the disruption in Peru

I recently had to travel across Peru, and was surprised to discover the roads blocked by an organised demonstration taking place across the country. This inconvenienced me personally (like having to spend 2 more nights on a bus, and missing a few meals), but I had to wonder: why were the farmers of Peru going to such trouble? Surely, my inconvenience must be nothing compared to theirs, if they were prepared to forgo work to protest against the government? Having had two nights on a bus to think about this :-), I've got some thoughts I'd like to share.

First, let me explain what the protest was about: in South America, governments have a habit of selling off natural, and often public, resources in order to raise finance. Companies from China, Europe and the US can make a killing on these, especially when they are something needed by the local populace. Now, what has happened in Peru is this: the government made some promises about limiting this trend, but DESPITE this have agreed to privatise the water system, selling it off to a Chinese company. Since the farmers of Peru rely on this water to irrigate their land - not just so that they can sell crops, but so that they can EAT - this is a big concern for them (bigger than a delayed journey, I should say!). You see, while the government charged for the water, the price was actually quite low. But the foreign company plans to charge three times as much!

Other than that the police were trying to dissipate the protest (through means of teargas and such), I know little of how the protest was handled, and whether any of the protesters demands have been met. I most certainly sympathise with them, though (as opposed to a government that cannot even look after the basic interests of its citizens), and hope and pray that this privatisation doesn't happen. I also see that this is part of a bigger picture, the selling up of the earth, and something that I doubt is preventable. It makes me so angry that a government should presume it has the authority at all, to sell something as public as a river, that God made for the benefit of all. How much better would the lives of the majority be if we would stop thinking of the earth as something to be exploited? We could have such full lives, and so many good things, if only we lived as God desired, and not as we do!

Thinking of this reminded my of a speech, made by Chief Seattle in 1854:
"How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them? ...
...He [the white man] treats his mother, the Earth, and his brother, the same, as things to be bought, plundered, sold like sheep or bright beads. His appetite will devour the Earth and leave behind only a desert."

I'll leave it there I think, but there's a lot more I'd like to say. Perhaps in another post :-)
Tim