Book review: Rodríguez Seláez, Suseth (2022). So close from hell, so far from God. Women and victims of the 2019 coup d'état in Bolivia. Tejiendo Nuestra Historia.

Abstract

The rise of Evo Morales to power in Bolivia, at the head of the Movement Towards Socialism (hereinafter, MAS) and representing the indigenous and national-popular bloc, meant for the traditional political elites their reduction to the status of minorities. This was also the result of the overthrow of the political order that these elites had managed to establish in the 2000-2005 conflict cycle, which involved the updating of the historical disagreement between an Indian Bolivia and a white Bolivia, as it was framed in the thesis of the two Bolivias. In fact, according to the sense of this thesis, Morales came to power with the imperative of promoting the structural transformation of the country, which encountered obstacles when the elites, representing the middle and upper sectors and self-identified as mestizos, retained power spaces and defended another national project. Thus, with the polarization resulting from these events, the context of the Constituent Assembly (2006-2009) became extremely tense as it detonated in acts of racial hatred and violence, tendencies towards secessionism and calls for civil war.