Morales and Stewart
Well, Jon Stewart’s interview of Evo Morales was interesting. It was, certainly, a softball interview; Stewart spoke about some of Morales’ campaign promises but didn’t mention his fierce opposition to U.S.-led coca eradication programs. That opposition, tied to the fact that some of Bolivia’s indigenous people have their own traditional uses for the coca leaf, played an important part in Morales’ rise to power according to what I’ve read and what I heard while I was in the country.
I’m not saying that Bolivia doesn’t have the right to make such decisions for itself; it does. But if you’re interviewing Morales for an American audience, and don’t ask him about coca, you’re softballing him. The conversation also made it seem like Morales’ connection to Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez was just a matter of occasional dialogue. I was in Bolivia as a missionary, so I didn’t talk much politics, but when the topic did come up I definitely got the impression that Morales was closely aligned with Chavez, with some real-world consequences in terms of various Venezuelan aid and assistance flowing into Bolivia.
Even so, it was interesting to actually see Morales answer questions in a setting like this. I kind of wish that they had edited the translator out of the interview, or dubbed the translations over Morales’ responses, as you sometimes see done; I think it would have flown a little more smoothly.
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Joel P. Ritz
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