October 1, 2024, 7:20 AM
October 1, 2024, 7:20 AM
The Census states that we reach 11 million 300 thousand inhabitants. The social alarm was immediate: “we are 12 million.” I cannot deny that I am in favor of that complaint. However, that is not what I care to emphasize. What I am interested in highlighting is the pitiful growth of Bolivia since independence, putting the following thesis on the table: no one wants to live in this country.
Nobody? Some of us do, those of us who are here, but it is not exactly a multitudinous feeling. Why do I say it? The data reveals our gradual isolation. Bolivia was born in 1825 with approximately 1,000,096 thousand inhabitants. And our neighbors? Let’s look at some examples: Peru. It had just over 1 million citizens at birth, that is, barring some minor flaws in the figures, we had exactly the same number of inhabitants. How many Peruvians live in your territory today? 35 million, which gives a balance of three times and a little more than the Bolivian population. Impressive, but understandable: they have the sea and are connected to that Pacific world.
And on the other side, that of the Atlantic? Brazil, that gigantic country with 215 million inhabitants, had at that time, back in 1820, a number of 8 and a half million inhabitants. What does that figure mean for today? The obvious: they were 8 and a little times more populated than us and today they are approximately 20 times more. In other words, Brazil grew two and a half times more per person than we did. 2.5 people were born or migrated there, in our country only one did. But back to the Pacific.
Argentina? Less than a million inhabitants lived in the United Provinces of La Plata and today there are almost 50 million inhabitants. Chili? It was born with almost the same population as us back in 1830 and today it has double the case. Let us keep in mind that Chile did not have much of a north – Arica and Tacna belonged to Peru – nor much of a south, inhabited by Mapuche indigenous people. By enlarging, the country allowed itself to grow more intensely than Bolivia. And Colombia? It almost reached two million inhabitants at that time and today it exceeds 50 million inhabitants, that is, if it had been, at most, twice that of Bolivia, today it has 5 times the population.
And Venezuela? It had approximately 2 million in 1871 (we have 2 million 400 thousand inhabitants in the 1854 census and only 1 million 200 thousand in the 1884 census!) and today it has 25 million. It should have had 32 to 33 million inhabitants, but Chavismo/Madurismo made almost 8 million Venezuelans flee. Even so, these Latin Americans are twice and a half as many as Bolivia, having started from the same goal. Dramatic.
I can give more examples, but I think that’s enough. It remains to say that if we grew like Peru we would have more or less 30 million; If we grew like Brazil we would be, in the same way, 30 million; If we did it like Argentina, we would have close to 55 million inhabitants; If we followed Chile’s indicators we would be around 20 million; If we grew like Colombia we would be at the same 30 million and if we followed the Venezuelan path we would be around 25 million, or a little more. Isn’t it impressive?
I am not talking about the million stolen in the last census of 2022, I am referring to millions of inhabitants who would not depend on the political “goodness” of the government in power. They would simply be there diversifying their possibilities.
It remains to return to the larger issue: why do people escape from this territory? I dare to believe that the main factor is our mental Mediterranean nature that has cloistered us in this strip of one million square kilometers. We talk about “nationalisms” filling ourselves with pride for our great, miserably endogamous revolutions. We have generated a territorial islet development that segregates us. Does it segregate us? Yes, but not because of the perversity of the Chileans, the gringo mischief, the invasion of the transnationals. No, actually we have self-segregated. We love to profit from the poverty that gives votes and stay locked in our Bolivia, increasingly dwarfed, watching how our brothers grow, moving further and further away from this prison of mono-extractivism.
