Incas Si, Indios No: Notes on Peruvian Creole Nationalism and Its Contemporary Crisis

This commentary article focuses on a crucial moment in the formation of Peruvian Creole nationalism: the I 8j6-9 Peruvian-Bolivian Confederation. Nationalist sentiments expressed through the anti-confederationist press, satiric poetry and pamphlets, glorified the Inca past while spurning the Indian present. During this period, a nationalist, essentially racist, rhetoric whose roots can be traced to the late eighteenth century, took shape. This rhetoric would provide the foundations of an ideology which has prevailed in Peruvian history. This rhetoric reached its peak in the twentieth century, while evolving into a historiographical discourse instrumental to the exercise of power and which is now in crisis. 'Si alguien que me escucha se viera retratado, sepase que se hace con ese destino ' (Silvio Rodriguez). 'I1 faut croire pour comprendre' (Paul Ricoeur). This article is rooted in the present the present in which it was writ ten and the present in which i t is t o be read. I t was conceived and writ ten in Peru, between 1991 and 1992, under t he very special circumstances of rejoining m y country and discovering friends. Many * The acknowledgements I made to friends and colleagues in the Spanish edition of this article (IncasSi,Indios N o , Apuntespara el Estudio def Nacionalismo Criollo en el Peru, Lima, 1993) remain the same. I also appreciate the comments of Brett Troyan, the JLAS readers, and the patience of Renzo Llorente, whose persistence and talent made the final translation as close to the spirit of its original as it could have been. The research conducted for this work was possible thanks to grants provided by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research and the Social Science Research Council of New York. This version is dedicated to my friend and colleague Juan Carlos Estenssoro, whose enthusiasm for his own endeavours and unfettered passion for iife and history made my own grow at many points, to the extent of giving birth to collective projects that I hope -together with many other friends back in Peru will one day achieve concreteness. Cecilia hfendez G. is a doctoral student at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. J . Lai. .4rner. .Yiud.28, 197-rr) Copyright