Morales tells of Bolivian boyhood
Juliana Friend
Issue date: 4/23/08 Section: Campus News
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In lilting Spanish, the President of Bolivia did not begin his address with a crowd-pleasing joke or a political cry.
Instead, after apologizing for having to cancel his first scheduled visit to Brown in February, Morales began by describing the highland town of Orinoca, Bolivia, where he grew up with his illiterate mother and semi-illiterate father. The president told the audience in his intimate yet subdued tone that he himself had dropped out of school in sixth grade after his father declared, "That boy of mine is no good at studying, so now go to work."
He has been working since, but politics was not his initial occupation. "Never in my life did I think of being a leader, much less a president," Morales said of his early years.
However, in his speech that intertwined his past with his country's future, Morales said with evident pride that after his inauguration as president in 2005, Bolivia has seen increasing economic prosperity and political equality.
While it is impossible to make reparations for 500 years of oppression, "for the first time the government is reaching places it's never reached before," he said.
Morales' tone intensified as he said that after his administration nationalized oil resources, revenues jumped from $300 million to $1.93 billion.
He said this money has been used to offer benefits to those who have never before received assistance from the state. "I'm not paying anything," he said. "I'm just returning the money of the people to the people."
Still, Morales did not dwell on listing his accomplishments as he delivered the Stephen A. Ogden Jr. '60 Memorial Lecture on International Affairs. He spent most of his nearly hour-and-a-half lecture speaking of the time before he had nationalized Bolivia's oil, before he had redistributed agricultural land and before he had received international attention as Bolivia's first indigenous president.